This volume in honour of Johannes van Oort, formerly University of Utrecht, presently Professor of Patristics and Gnosticism at the Universities of Nijmegen and Pretoria, and past-President of the International Association of Manichaean Studies (IAMS), brings together a rich variety of studies on Augustine, Manichaeism, and other Gnostic currents, thus reflecting the honorand's research interests. The unique collection is divided into four sections: I. Studies in Augustine: Confessions, Sermons, Letters & De Haeresibus; Augustine on Grace & Pluralism; Augustinian 'Gnosis'; II. Studies in Manichaeism: Origins & Myth; Doctrines & Cult; Diffusion & Art; III. Studies in Manichaeism and Augustine: Doctrines; Polemics & Debates with Manichaean Contemporaries; IV. Studies in 'Other Gnosticism': Gnosticism and 'Apocryphal' Texts; Sources of (Ps.) Hippolytus' Refutatio; the Gospel of Judas; Modern Yesidi Gnosticism. The 35 studies are preceded by an overview of Prof. van Oort's scholarly activities and publications

The Kephalaia of the Teacher is the most detailed account available to modern scholarship of the teachings of Mani, and of the universal religion that he founded as the final successor to Buddha, Zarathushtra and Jesus. This volume provides the first complete English translation of the Coptic text (c. 400 CE), together with introduction, commentaries and indices. Topics include the apostleship of Mani, the practices of the Manichaean community, accounts of the heavenly and demonic beings and worlds, as well as discussions of astrology and religious psychology. In Manichaeism many of the gnostic and dualistic themes of early Christianity achieved the status of a world religion, and the subject is the heir to contemporary interest in heterodoxy and the deconstruction of received histories (see the Nag Hammadi codices).