The title of Jason David BeDuhn’s The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual is, the author admits, surprising: Manichaeanism was a intellectualistic gnostic movement that saw salvation as liberation from the body, right? The subtitle is also a surprise, since many scholars suggest that Manichaeanism was anti-ritual as well as anti-body.

BeDuhn thinks the standard accounts are wrong, not in details but in the conclusions it draws from them. Drawing on the pragmatist tradition, especially Mead and Foucault, BeDuhn answers the question “What did it mean to be a Manichaean?” by focusing on bodily disciplines and the daily ritual meal celebrated by the Elect.

Contrary to many accounts, the Auditors were as essential to the Manichaean community as the Elect. The Elect would have no rest, and would not play their essential role in the salvation of the universe, without the activities of the Auditors. “Auditors, too, became immortal,” and sometimes were able to become immortal after only a single lifetime, just like the Elect. The two groups played separate roles, with distinct disciplines and a different regimen, but different roles in a unified community.

Some scholars have suggested that the logic of Manichaeanism would lead to perpetual fasting and starvation. BeDuhn says that on the contrary the ritual meal was the culmination of everything in Manichaean life.

The discipline of fasting practiced by the Elect was not an end in itself, but part of the preparation for the ritual meal. Mani’s axiom was “Sinners cannot eat correctly; eaters must not sin.” By rigorous fasts, the Elect prepared themselves to be what one scholar has called “a machine for purifying the light,” that is, a machine for releasing the light-substance that is the essence of the world from the encrustations of darkness. In the daily meal, the Elect were (another scholar says) a “distillation apparatus” for redeeming the world. The alms of the Auditors were also directed toward fulfillment in the ritual meal.

BeDuhn writes, “By the alms-service, Auditors ‘collect’ and bring in the Living Self. By fasts, the Elect both prepares their bodies for the meal and, after the meal, process the ingested food toward salvation rather than redispersing it. Fasting produces ‘angels’ from the food, who ascend to heaven. Manichaean disciplines should be described not as morification, but as vivification. Manichaean fasting finds its raison d’etre in life, not death.” Again contrary to the interpretations of many scholars, BeDuhn argues that the Manichaeans believed their rituals had an “instrumental” power to achieve what they signified.