Revan: And by a Chinese legend I mean its an icon of Jesus painted by a Manichean sect in southern China, that was then brought to Japan and used as a Christian icon by Arima Harunobu, and now it’s in a Buddhist temple and venerated as an image of Ākāśagarbha

Did you ever hear of the Manichean Painting of the Buddha Jesus? I thought not. It’s not a story the Vatican would tell you. It’s a Chinese legend.

One of the greatest lost opportunities of globalization is that we’ll never get to see what wild and wonky syncretic versions of Christianity might have emerged from isolated Christian sects in Korea/Philippines/China etc

And by a Chinese legend I mean its an icon of Jesus painted by a Manichean sect in southern China, that was then brought to Japan and used as a Christian icon by Arima Harunobu, and now it’s in a Buddhist temple and venerated as an image of Ākāśagarbha

This is my favorite weird fact I learned on my wiki deep dive on Manicheanism

Are the manicheans Christian? They’re CLOSE

Are the Manichaeans a Christian heresy? The longest thread in the history of the Vatican forums at 12821 posts before the Spanish Inquisition executed everyone involved.

Heretics or infidels, the eternal struggle

Most archeological, anthropological, and comparative religious research says "no". They're one of the early religions Christianity was competing with, which did borrow elements from Christianity but only because they borrowed from everything on the Silk Road.

It incorporates ideas from Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity, and a half-dozen local pagan religions into a confusing melange that, by all historical testimony, seems to have collapsed under the weight of its own incoherence more than anything else.

When Augustine of Hippo can casually hit slam dunks on your dogma as a brief aside to his formation of proto-Christian teaching into Catholic doctrine your religion probably was doomed from the start.

I mean, kind of? But Mani was a member of the Elcesaites sect before founding his own religion

(Gnostic heresy)

Yes, and Buddha was some form of Hindu before becoming the Buddha, does that mean Buddhism is a form of Hinduism? Is Christianity a form of Judaism? Is *Islam* a form of Judaism? Is Manicheanism a form of Judaism, for that matter?

You can't really classify religions in a pure-genetic way like that.

I mean I do think Christianity *was* a form of Judaism in the beginning. even in the Bible you can see some stuff that's indicative of an evolution from "we are a weird type of Jewish" to "we are our own separate thing".

You probably could define Buddhism as a derivative of Hindu practice honestly, if only because so many core ideas are clearly in conversation with Hindu concepts

The real question is if the Arians were Christians, Christian heretics, or a separate religion that just got out-competed.

I already regret asking but was it a good deep dive into Manicheanism or an evil deep dive into Manicheanism?

Weird. They have a lot of weird sex stuff which I was not ready for.

Bonus!

My favorite religious fact is how the Buddha became a Roman Catholic Saint, by accident, sort of. theconversation.com/how-the-budd...

How the Buddha became a Christian sainttheconversation.com It was only in the 19th century the West became aware of Buddhism as a religion in its own right – but the Buddha had been a Christian saint for centuries.

It's not Manicheanism, but this one is also neat: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogao_C... Basically everyone agrees that it's probably Jesus or some other saint, but it's painted with poses & trappings that are normally associated with Buddhism.

Mogao Christian painting - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

What's funny is that Vajrapani - who eventually led to those big thundery guys with clubs you see at the entrance to Buddhist temples in Japan - was based on Hercules, pretty much 1:1. I like to think Herc converted and found peace.

Yo this is so cool! Thats the stuff im looking for

The less cool version of syncretism due to the amount of bloodshed involved is the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

I think it’s pretty much just behind the World Wars in terms of casualties.

Oh yeah the Taiping are substantially worse and less interesting than the Manichean sects

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