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Foreign and insane: Labelling Manichaeism in the Roman Empire

The range of attacks on Manichaeism in Late Antiquity shows how great a danger it was thought to pose, in both government and Christian ecclesiastical circles. Of the usual labels employed in the Roman Empire against religious movements deemed undesirable, "foreign" and "insane" had special applications to Mani's religion, thanks to its origins and to a founder's name that invited polemical wordplay. This article will study these and related labels as they figured in anti-Manichaean discourse and consider their relationship to elements of the Manichaean discourse itself.