Coping with Transgression: Almsgiving in Late Antique Christianity and Manichaeism (original) (raw)

Abstract

How did late antique religious movements like Christianity and Manichaeism deal with transgressions? This paper will introduce almsgiving as a fundamental strategy to cope with transgression in late antiquity. Almsgiving has redemptive qualities in both traditions but was only connected to moral misbehavior in a Christian context. The Manichaean narrative linked it to the escape from a world of conflict instead of the cleansing of (personal) sins. Meanwhile, some insiders and outsiders considered the practice of almsgiving for the daily ritual meal of the elect to contain a transgression of the fundamental Manichaean rules of conduct. Did this ritual contribute to the problem it tried to solve?

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