Pagan criticism of Manichaean Christianity: Alexander of Lyconpolis, "Against the Doctrines of Mani".

Appears 2023

Editor: B. Neuschäfer

Contributors: I. Gardiner, J. Opsomer, C. Schäublin

With his polemical treatise, preserved only in a single ancient textual witness, Alexander, a Platonist of the 4th century AD from the Upper Egyptian metropolis of Lykonpolis, intended to refute the message of the “Apostle of Light” that had been successfully spread by Manichaean Christians among the pagan educated people of his environment.

In doing so, he subjects Manichaean fundamental assumptions, such as the dualism of the two principles God and Hyle, the dominance of physical and moral evil in the world, and the salvation of humankind through world-denying asceticism, to subtle critique. For this, he draws not only on Platonic but also on Aristotelian-Peripatetic and Stoic arguments, as well as a broad repository of encyclopedic knowledge. However, he reveals little of his own philosophical convictions. This complicates his placement within the history of late antique Platonism.

Alexander's assessment of Manichaean Christianity as a sign of religious decline is accompanied by a comparatively positive, yet distanced, appreciation of early Christianity and the ecclesiastical Christianity of his time.