572 MANICHAEAN LITERATURE
of Manichaeism as primarily a Christian heresy, rather than as an independ-
ent religion in its own right. This interpretation was proposed in the eigh-
teenth century by the Calvinist theologian Isaac de Beausobre, who argued
that Mani was a brilliant precursor of Luther and thus part of the history of
reformed Christianity. Although this position was ultimately rejected, the
great contribution of Beausobre's study was that it drew attention to the pre-
viously ignored eastern sources. About a hundred years later, Ferdinand
Christian Baur emphasized the significance of the Buddhist, Indo-Iranian,
and Zoroastrian elements in Manichaeism, thus bringing the study of
Manichaeism into its natural interpretive context: that of the history of East-
ern religions. Thereafter scholars began to recognize the significance of the
newly discovered and less biased Arab authors, such as the historian Ibn al-
Nadim, for a more objective understanding of Manichaeism. It was argued
that Mani's eclectic Eastern religion was primarily based on Zoroastrianism
and Mughtasilism, which Mani then creatively reinterpreted, using biblical
models. Another study pushed Manichaean origins even further back in time
to the pre-Zoroastrian beliefs of Babylonian religion. This study argued that
Mani was concerned with recovering the original sources of Zoroaster's beliefs
in an attempt to undercut his Magian opponents in the Sassanid court. To
these ancient Babylonian beliefs it was suggested that Mani added elements
from Buddhism, Christianity, and Mithraism.
During the twentieth century several great discoveries of Manichaean sa-
cred texts have revolutionized our knowledge of Manichaeism. Those texts
form three groups: Central Asian and Chinese sources, writings in Greek and
Latin, and Coptic scriptures.
Central Asian and Chinese Texts
Between 1904 and 1914, German archeological teams were engaged in four
expeditions of ruined Manichaean monasteries at Turfan and Qoco in
Sinkiang, China, north of Tibet. The teams recovered thousands of frag-
ments from heavily damaged Manichaean manuscripts. These Turfan frag-
ments (many of which could not be conserved) are the disintegrated remains
of what were once high-quality illuminated manuscripts that had suffered
mutilation under Muslim conquerors. The texts are written in several Cen-
tral Asian languages, and they are now conserved in the collection of the Ger-
man Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Sir Aurel Stein discovered the remains of
a large hoard of Buddhist and Manichaean manuscripts in the Temple of the