[lepton]

Besides Zoroastrianism and Christianity, Manicheanism reflects the strong influence of Gnosticism.

Please help me out with the grammar here. Does this sentence mean that Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Manicheanism reflect strong influence from Gnosticism; or does it mean that Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Gnostism strongly affected Manicheanism?

[Fedora]

The latter.

[Cronos]

Article:Besides Zoroastrianism and Christianity, Manicheanism reflects the strong influence of Gnosticism.
Lepton: Please help me out with the grammar here. Does this sentence mean that Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Manicheanism reflect strong influence from Gnosticism; or does it mean that Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Gnostism strongly affected Manicheanism?

Zoroastrianism seems to have had a direct impact on Judaism -- evident with Judaic theology before and after the exile. The dualistic and messianic concepts seem to have been incorporated after that along with a clearer picture of the after-life.

Christ himself was visited by Magi -- Persian 'priests'.

The Roman Empire was the scene for two competing religions in the early years of our era -- Christianity and Mithraism (an offshoot of Zoroastrianism). Manichaenism seems to have drawn on this as well as Gnostic philosophy (while Gnostic philosophy itself is a synthesis of Christian and hindu/buddhist thought (the idea that the world is an illusion, of multiple worlds etc.))