Kephalaia
Sign in to saveAlso known as Kephalaia of the Teacher, Discourses, Discourses of the Teacher
Kephalaia (Koine Greek and ) is a genre of Manichaean literature represented mainly by two large papyrus codices containing Coptic translations from 5th-century Roman Egypt. The kephalaia are sometimes seen as the actual words or teachings of the prophet Mani, but are probably better viewed as later discourses and interpretations laid upon "an authoritative oral tradition" ostensibly going back to Mani and thus analogous to the Talmud in Judaism and the ḥadīth in Islam.
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- literary work
- Country
- Egypt
- Author
- Mani
Show 5 more facts
- language of work or name
- Coptic
- publication date
- 0400-00-00
- time of discovery or invention
- 1929-00-00
- discoverer or inventor
- Carl Schmidt
- location of discovery
- Medinet Maadi
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
3 sectionsContents
- References
- Bibliography
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Kephalaia (Koine Greek and ) is a genre of Manichaean literature represented mainly by two large papyrus codices containing Coptic translations from 5th-century Roman Egypt. The kephalaia are sometimes seen as the actual words or teachings of the prophet Mani, but are probably better viewed as later discourses and interpretations laid upon "an authoritative oral tradition" ostensibly going back to Mani and thus analogous to the Talmud in Judaism and the ḥadīth in Islam.
Although the Kephalaia likely originated, like hadiths, as accounts of the life and actions of Mani, the utility of the genre was such that it came to incorporate a wide variety of literary styles subjected artificially to the constraints of the format: instruction, exegesis, narrative, dialogue, parable, miracle-story, and even epic traditions.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Kephalaia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.