Mani on Eating Bread and Being Attacked by an Angry Crowd

“Then I said to them, ‘In no way would I destroy the commandments of the Savior. But if you reproach me on account of wheat bread, because I have said, “It is necessary to eat of it,” this the savior has done; as it is written, that when he had blessed it and shared it with his students, “over bread he said a blessing and gave it to them.” Was not that bread from wheat? The scripture points out that he reclined to eat with tax collectors and idolaters. Likewise, he also reclined to eat in the house of Martha and Mary on the occasion when Martha said to him, “Lord, do you not care enough for me so as to tell my sister to help me?” and the savior said to her, “Mary has chosen the good portion, and it will not be taken away from her.” Consider, moreover, how even the students of the savior ate bread from women and idolaters and did not separate bread from bread, nor vegetable from vegetable; nor did they eat, while laboring in the toil and tilling of the land, as you do today. Likewise, when the savior sent his students out to preach in each place, neither mill nor oven did they carry with them, but made haste, taking one garment. . . ‘
“Then Mani said to them, “Consider these famous men of your law, those who saw these visions, who were moved by them and proclaimed them as good news to others. Likewise, I too practice everything I was taught by them.” “While I was speaking to them, reducing their words to nothing, suddenly they became angry and violent, and one of them even got up and hit me. They huddled around me and beat me. They grabbed my hair as though I were an enemy. They shouted at me in a loud voice that grew bitter and angry as at someone who was superstitious. Out of malice, they wanted to strangle me. Because Pattikios, the master of the house, begged them not to be impious toward people among them, they were ashamed and released me. After I went through this trial, I withdrew to one side and stood praying. I prayed for our lord to come to my aid.”
-On the Origins of His Body (a Manichian scripture)
Mani on Eating Bread
It is not clear who Mani was, though he calls himself a disciple of Jesus. He was the leader of a Gnostic group that we now refer to as Manichians. In the first part of the above quote, he is addressing someone who has apparently objected to Mani and his followers eating wheat bread and eating bread from “unclean” sources. He points out that Jesus and his apostles did the same. He notes, however, that Jesus blessed the bread before sharing it with the apostles. The implication is that his blessing removes all negative characteristics from it. We know today that most types of bread are not as healthy as people believed for centuries, but it isn’t the nutritional value that Mani is talking about.
Ate Bread from Women and Idolaters
Mani adds that the students of the savior ate bread that came “from women and idolaters”. It is not clear if he means bread that was made by such people, or simply served by them. Perhaps both. He adds that they even ate vegetables from such people. Why anyone should be concerned about eating bread or other foods from women is beyond me, but apparently there were people in the time of Mani who objected to doing so.
Mani adds that when the followers of Jesus traveled, they did not carry an oven with them. The implication is that they did not bake their own bread, but relied on the people they were visiting to supply them with food, no matter who those people were.
Such things sound silly to most people today, but we have those who avoid buying products from some companies because of their politics.
Reducing Their Words to Nothing
Mani changes the subject here and is now telling the story of a time he was attacked by a crowd of people he was speaking to for “reducing their words to nothing”. In other words, he was contradicting long-held beliefs of theirs and many people will turn on someone who does that rather than admit they were wrong. We still see a lot of this today. Many politicians take advantage of this fact to manipulate and control people. We see this in Cosolargy where we lose a number of students after six or seven months of study because they reach some teaching in the books that contradicts a belief they are not willing to change. They don’t see that if you can’t change, you can’t move forward.








