L’inno di P. Kell. Gr. 91: un testo letterario dimenticato di una comunità manichea ai margini dell’impero romano

The Greek hymns found in Kellis are the only important Manichaean literary texts in Greek that have remained (besides Mani's biography in the CMC): this allows us to make interesting considerations on the lexicon used, on Manichaean theology, and on the parallels with texts in other languages. The understanding and positioning of these texts is not simple: they are marginal texts from a historical- cultural point of view and which have not received the status of canonical text in the Manichaean literary tradition. The short hymn in P. Kell. Gr. 91 is an interesting example of how a text born in a marginal community (and then forgotten), read from a comparative perspective, is full of food for thought and parallels with better- known literary texts: in fact, it presents certainly Manichaean images (found in Coptic and Iranian texts), ambiguous images between Manichaeism and Christianity (in which there could also be an influence of the Aramaic Christian language and culture of Mani) and unclear images, demonstrating the multiplicity of influences that may have characterized the writing .