The book was written by the past Historian, Professor Xiong Deshan.

This volume in honour of Prof. Dr. Johannes van Oort offers a rich variety of in-depth studies on Augustine, Manichaeism, and other Gnostic currents, thus reflecting the rich variety of the honorand’s research interests.

This second edition of the Companion has been thoroughly revised and updated with eleven new chapters and a new bibliography.

The founder of Manichaeism, Mani (216-274/277 CE), not only wrote down his teachings to prevent their adulteration, but also created a set of paintings—the Book of Pictures—to be used in the context of oral instruction.

A volume in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion series.

--John Lagerwey has done extensive fieldwork on local society and its festivals. This book represents a first attempt to use this new research to integrate top-down and bottom-up views of Chinese society, culture, and history.

The novel was actually first published in 1804, several decades before opium became a factor in the China trade. It is not only by far the earliest novel to deal with that trade, but also one of the earliest accounts of it.