574 MANICHAEAN LITERATURE
Library of Paris. Only twenty-five damaged leaves and the slight remains of
four others are preserved from this codex, with each page originally carrying
two columns of Latin text. The extant text contains two sections: an apolo-
getic discussion on the relationship between the two major groups in the
Manichaean church, the elect and the auditors, with allusions to and quota-
tions of relevant canonical gospel texts; and a discussion in which the un-
known Manichaean author defends the "nonwork ethic" of the Manichaean
elect (who had their practical needs met by the auditors), apparently as an
apologetic response to Christian charges that the messenger Paul had clearly
condemned such dependent lifestyles in 2 Thessalonians 3:10b ("If anyone
will not work, let that person not eat"). The Manichaean apologist begins
with the Pauline text and then continues to defend the dependent lifestyles of
the Manichaean elect, quoting or alluding to nearly every letter in the Pauline
(and deutero-Pauline) canonical corpus.
Coptic TextsSeven papyrus codices with Manichaean texts in the Coptic language were
discovered by local workers digging through the ruins of an ancient house in
the Fayyum town of Medinet Madi probably sometime in 1929. These books
were all purchased in the next three years through a series of acquisitions by
Sir Chester Beatty, an American businessman and art collector residing in
England (two codices and parts of two others are now the property of the
Chester Beatty Library, Dublin), and by the noted German papyrologist Carl
Schmidt of Berlin (three codices and parts of two others are now the prop-
erty of the State Museums of Berlin). A few leaves are in the national collec-
tions of Vienna and Warsaw. The seven books include a book of Psalms; a
heavily damaged book of homiletical material (Greek, synaxeis), which may
reflect or even be identified as the lost Living Gospel of Mani; two books of
central principles (Greek, kephalaia); a book of Homilies; a book of Acts; and
a book of Letters. Some of these Manichaean texts have been published, some
still await publication, and some have been lost, owing to the confusion in
Europe after World War II.
Manichaean literary and documentary texts dating to the fourth century
have recently been discovered in the ancient town of Kellis in the Dakhleh
Oasis of Egypt's western desert. Texts include Manichaean liturgies, doctrinal
works, psalms, biblical texts, Syriac-Greek glossaries, and numerous private
letters providing rare insights into Manichaean personal lifestyles. The texts