Fragments and Psalms from the Coptic Tradition
A gathering of short Manichaean texts — psalms, fragments, and devotional poetry — that stand outside the larger collections preserved elsewhere in this archive. These pieces are too brief or too isolated to warrant their own files, yet each carries the distinctive Manichaean voice: world-renouncing, garland-receiving, light-seeking. They are gathered here as a miscellany, a drawer of loose jewels.
The psalm "Joy Came Over Me" is from the Manichaean Psalm-Book, a fourth-century Coptic manuscript discovered at Medinet Madi in the Fayyum region of Egypt in 1929 and now held in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. It is a psalm of the Elect — the inner circle of Mani's church — and its refrain, "My brethren, I have received my garland," is the voice of a soul that has crossed over from matter into light. The garland is the crown of redemption, worn by those who have renounced the flesh and entered the Kingdom of Light. Translation from the Coptic by C. R. C. Allberry, A Manichaean Psalm-Book, Part II (Stuttgart, 1938).
Joy Came Over Me
. . . Joy came over me and no one will ever be able to tell of it.
My brethren, I have received my garland.
Take unto you the word of Truth, O men who love God!
The world is nothing. There is nothing to be gained in it.
My brethren, I have received my garland.
Men go on thinking that they are at rest and they know not that trouble is being prepared for them.
My brethren, I have received my garland.
They run and break forth till the hour catches up with them. They have been called and have not understood. They came empty and go empty.
My brethren, I have received my garland.
I have despised the world in order to give life to my soul. The things of the flesh I have forsaken, with the things of the Spirit I have made my peace.
My brethren, I have received my garland.
Since I have found my Savior I have walked in his steps. Nothing could keep me from receiving this garland.
My brethren, I have received my garland.
How great is the joy prepared for the perfect!
. . . all of you, my brethren, we inherit it.
My brethren, I have received my garland.
Colophon
This miscellany collects short Manichaean texts that do not belong to the larger psalm cycles (Bema Psalms, Psalms to Jesus, Parthian Hymns) preserved elsewhere in this archive. "Joy Came Over Me" is translated from the Coptic by C. R. C. Allberry, A Manichaean Psalm-Book, Part II (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1938), from the Chester Beatty Codex discovered at Medinet Madi, Egypt, in 1929. Digitised source preserved at the Gnostic Society Library (gnosis.org).
Additional texts may be added to this miscellany as the archive grows.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Hand-read, blockquote and colophon authored, and restored from staging by the Sub-Miko (Tulku Kaze, Session 35).
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