From: "Willi Braun" <wbraun@ubishops.ca>
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 21:03:07 -500
Subject: Re: Thomas & James & Carcasses

On 29 Oct 96 at 17:39, Stevan Davies wrote:

 
> There's an interesting coincidence between this and Manicheanism.
> Do not eat meat but live on living things (Thomas inferentially)
> Manicheans ate melons etc. because they contained the light (I have
> no idea where I got that idea, but I think it's correct). Might there
> have been a connection between the Jewish-Christian sect from which
> Mani came and dietary practice in pre-Manichean Syrian 
> Jewish-Christianity? That's a stretch, but it could be worth looking into.

The middle section of the Mani Codex contains what appear 
to be descriptions of the dietary and other body practices 
of the Elchasaites, presented in the form of a legal 
disputation between Mani and the leaders of this group. It 
certainly appears that the Elchasaites were vegetarian.
Another interesting coincidence is that just as James "took 
no baths" (Hegesippus) so Mani tries to show from the 
Elchasaites' own law that "it is not necessary to wash."  
I suppose the standard view still is that GThom 21 and 37 
reflect baptismal practice and, therefore, that GThom 
followed James' vegetarianism but not his no bath rule. 
Perhaps, though, the no bathing here is an ascetic practice 
that takes literally the once for all time washing of 
baptism.

WB