The Gnostic John the Baptizer: Selections from the Mandaean John-Book

THE main materials contained in these pages will certainly be new for the vast majority of readers. Moreover the Mandzan narratives, legends and discourses are not only interesting because of their own distinctive matter and manner, but they are also arresting ; for they raise a number of problems, some of which are far-reaching and one is fraught with implications of immense importance. The definite solutions of these problems, however, lie in the future, and the most important of them will perhaps never be reached ; for, in the absence of straightforward historical information, general agreement on any subject that concerns Christian origins immediately or even indirectly is now well-nigh a psychological impossibility. The writer’s intention in publishing these selections is not to speculate about the problems, for we are not yet in a position to state them with sufficient accuracy, but the very modest undertaking of making accessible for English readers some specimens of narrative and doctrine from one collection only of the traditional gnostic material which the Mandan scribes have preserved to our own day through centuries of copying, and which hands on an early literature purporting at least in part to go back to times contemporaneous with Christian origins. For I think it will be of service for them, as a beginning, to read for themselves what the Mandzans have conserved from the past of the now legendary story of their great prophet, John the Baptizer, and some of the most characteristic notions and doctrines ascribed directly to him,—and that too in their full native setting and not in the form of brief summaries or isolated sentences, which is practically all they will meet with in the very few articles on the subject which have yet appeared in English,—and in articles only, for of books there are none.

Moreover it has been impossible to do even this previously ; for it is only quite recently that we have had put into our hands a reliable and complete version in German of two of the three main collections preserved to us; and we are still awaiting the translation of the most important deposit, without which it is impossible to survey the whole field thoroughly and so make really reliable inferences. All prior attempts at partial translation have been tentative at best and for the most part erroneous. But though we are still without a scientific version of the Treasury, it is nevertheless already possible to give almost a complete setting forth of one topic; for the selections from the John-Book here presented include practically all the matter that refers directly to the prophet, seeing that the Treasury makes only one brief reference immediately to him.

In this material a figure is depicted which in many ways differs greatly from the familiar picture sketched in the gospels and briefly referred to in the classical Josephus. The interest of the Gnosties has never been in external history, so that for the most part we are either in complete ignorance of, or lamentably uninformed about, the persons of their great teachers and writers. Their interest was rather in inner or psychic story and the imaginative history of ideas. Consequently the Mandean picture of John is the prophetical and intimate aspect it presented to those within the mystic atmosphere of the community and to the fond memory of an esoteric tradition. No external view is preserved. I have deliberately brought out this contrast as strongly as possible by setting the Mandzwan story in the midst between two studies of traditions which make much of John’s wild appearance and strange dress, a popular external element which would at first sight suggest an equally primitive quality of his thought and action. This has been done to enable the reader to realize as strongly as possible the difficulties surrounding the fundamental! problem of historicity, though the sharpness of the contrast is already somewhat modified by the doctrinal considerations brought out in the first study, which may theoretically help to bridge over to some extent the gap between the crudest features of the popular external tradition and what claims to be an internal tradition, no matter how it may have been sublimated in the form in which it has reached us. The second study, on the Slavonic Josephus’ account of the Baptist and Jesus, though throwing no, or scarcely any, light on doctrine,

is, in my opinion, of importance from the point of view of possible external popular tradition, and in any case will be a novelty for most readers. It is a remarkable and somewhat saddening reflection that now, when after long years of waiting we are at last obtaining adequate versions of these so faithfully preserved Mandan gnostic scriptures, their handers-on themselves are dying out, and those of them who remain do not seem to be sufficiently instructed or to possess the general education to throw light on the problems which their documents present to scholars. They do not seem to have any notion of the history of religion or the critical power in any way to analyze their own scriptures and compare them with parallel developments in the past. What I do not quite understand, however, is why, with regard to the philological side of the subject, no attempt, as far as I can ascertain, has been made by any European Semitic scholar scientifically to study Mandean with the Mandezans themselves, and so collaborate with them in translation. They all speak Arabic as well as their native tongue; and it is somewhat puzzling that neither Brandt nor Lidzbarski, who have, after the pioneer work of Noldeke on the language, busied themselves so sedulously with the documents, should not have visited them. They are accessible; and indeed do not seem in any way to be averse from giving information, as is seen from Siouffi’s informant in the eighties of last century and quite recently from the account of Miss E. 8S. Stephens (now Mrs. Drower). The latter has made great friends with the Amara community and gives an entertaining chapter about them, under the heading “A Peculiar People,’ in her brightly-written travel-book, By Tigris and Euphrates.’ It is the description of an intelligent and deeply interested observer, but of one unaquainted with the literature of the subject, and therefore not in a position to press for information on points of importance, if perchance it could be obtained. The account deals with externals, but it may be of interest to our readers to reproduce what Mrs. Drower was told about the shalmono and the masseqtd-ceremony, or rite of the making of a ‘ perfect’ in this connection.

“There is a way . . . in which a Subba may reach a state of holiness akin to that of the dweller in Mshuni-Koshto [the M. Abode of the Blessed], and this strange and unworldly people often resort to it. To achieve this state a man must renounce worldly desires and the delights of the flesh, but his path is harder than that of the Catholic monk in that he continues to live among men, a layman, and amongst his family without being able to partake of the joys of family life. In fact, after the ceremony of renunciation has taken place, the funeral service is read over him and he is, henceforth, no more than a living ghost.

“He may carry on his trade of farmer, boat-builder, or silversmith as before; but his personal life is one of renunciation, deprivation and self-mortification. He may not smoke, drink wine, coffee, tea, or any drug. He may not give an order, or express a desire. Should he need anything, he must procure it himself, or do without. His detachment from worldly things must be so complete that if a fire were to burn his house, destroy his goods and suffocate his wife and children he must show or feel no trace of emotion. . . . ‘A permanent gaiety must be shown in his face.’ “The ceremony which separates the ‘shalmono’ from the world of the living is called the “Massakhto.’ The applicant goes to the bishop, who questions him closely as to the seriousness of his intentions, and impresses upon him the irrevocable nature of the step he wishes to take. After seven days’ preparation with _ the bishop, if the applicant’s desire is unshaken, he spends seven days and seven nights in a church [?] or place apart.

“ Every day the bishop and priests come to him, and for food the postulant eats three tiny flat loaves of sacramental bread, -about as large as an Osborne biscuit, daily ; also part of the flesh of a dove. “ At the end of the week a feast is prepared to which the new ‘shalmono’ is invited, usually in the house of the bishop. At the end of the feast all the priests who have eaten arise, with a last mouthful of food in their hands. Solemnly, then, the Prayer for the Dead is recited for the ‘shalmono,’ and, just as for a dead: man, the last mouthful is eaten, the last mouthful which is supposed to stay the departed soul on its journey through purgatory.

“The life of a ‘shalmono’ is harder than that of a priest, for priests and priestesses may marry; indeed, marriage is obligatory.” The last sentence suggests that the shalmono is a celibate from the start, but Mrs. Drower has already spoken of his wife and children and quotes Siouffi to the same effect, and the documents lay it down expressly that celibacy in no case whatever was approved, not even in that of a prophet. It is evident that we have in this indication of a present-day class of * perfect’ separated out from the mass of the faithful, a subject for sympathetic enquiry, with the object of ascertaining whether among them there are any who enjoy mystic experience, and if so what is its nature, and whether it throws any light on the spiritual phases of the tradition. ;

Mrs. Drower is happy in choosing for the heading of her account ‘A Peculiar People’ and not ‘A Strange Sect’ or some such title. For one of the great points of interest is that the Mandzans show all the signs of being a race distinct from their neighbours. They make no converts and seem for many centuries to have kept themselves to themselves. They are not Arabs or Jews in type, but (?) ‘ Babylonians,’ ‘Chaldeans,’-—a problem for the ethnologist to decide.

A bDISsTINoT ray of light has been cast on the obscure background of Christian origins by Dr. Robert Hisler in a series of detailed studies on the movement and doctrines of John the Baptizer. These studies, with other cognate essays, appeared originally in the pages of The Quest (1909-14), and are now available in book-form in an arresting volume, called Orpheus—the Fisher: Comparative Studies in Orphic and Christian Cult Symbolism.* By way of introduction and as the most complete contrast to the Mandan tradition of the Gnostic John, I will set forth in my own way the chief points of these detailed and fully-documented essays in summary fashion. Hisler’s main point of view is that John based his doctrines and practices largely, if not entirely, on the Hebrew scriptures—the Law and the Prophets —of which, he contends, he was a profound knower. The John-movement is thus regarded as a characteristic Jewish prophetical reform founded on absolute faith in the present fulfilment of prior prophecy. Hereby is brought out in the strongest possible manner the Jewish conditioning of John’s preaching and teaching, and this stands in the sharpest contradiction to the

Mandean tradition which claims that John was a Gnostic and not a Torah-man, and declares that the Jews could by no means understand him, but on the contrary rejected his revelation and drove out his community. In Hisler we have a ripe scholar in whom the heredity of Rabbinical lore is so to say innate. He has almost an uncanny flair for biblical texts; it is not too much to say that his knowledge of the religious literature of his people is profound, his acquaintance with oriental sources very extensive and his linguistic accomplishments are enviable. Few are thus better able to enter with sympathy and understanding into the idiosyncrasies and depths of the Jewish mind in the various periods of its development, and thus for the time to live in the prophetical, apocalyptic and rabbinical thought-world of the days of the Baptist and share in its old-time beliefs and hopes and fears. Our exponent is thus an excellent advocate of the theme he sets forth. If his wide-flung net has not caught all the fish of the literary and archeological ocean, he has fished most carefully the stream of John the Baptist tradition, apart from the Mandan, landed a rich catch and shown others how most fruitfully to set about bringing to the surface things about John which have long been hidden in the depths of a buried past.

In all reason, apart from Christian testimony, John the Baptizer is a historic character, witnessed to by the Jewish historian Josephus, the courtly Flavian chronicler who flourished in the last quarter of the 1st century A.D. The famous passage in his Antiquities (XVIII. v. 2, ed. Niese, iv. 161, 162) referring to John is undoubtedly genuine, and has been assailed only by the very extreme doctrinaire non-historical school, who find it a very inconvenient thorn in their flesh. A Christian forger would have dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s with the pen of his tradition, or at any rate betrayed himself in some way by the prejudice of his thought; but this we do not find. The passage runs as follows as nearly as I can render it:

Some of the Jews thought that Herod’s army had been destroyed, and indeed by the very just vengeance of God, in return for [his putting to death of] John the Baptizer. For in fact Herod put the latter to death [though he was] a good man, nay even one who bade the Jews cultivate virtue and, by the practice of righteousness in their dealings with one another and of piety to God, gather together for baptism. For thus in sooth [John thought] the dipping (in water) would seem acceptable to him (God), not if they used it as a begging-off in respect to certain sins, but for purity of body, in as much as indeed the soul had already been purified by righteousness.

Now since the others' were gathering themselves together (or becoming organized),—for indeed they were delighted beyond measure at the hearing of his (John’s) ‘ sayings’ (logoi),—Herod, fearing that his extraordinary power of persuading men might lead to a revolt, for they seemed likely in all things to act according to his advice, judged it better, before anything of a revolutionary nature should eventuate from him, to arrest him first and make away with him, rather than when the change came, he should regret being faced with it. Accordingly, on Herod’s suspicion, he was sent in bonds to Macheerus, the above-mentioned fortress, and put to death there. The Jews, however, believed that destruction befell the army to avenge him, God willing to afflict Herod.

This statement of Flavius Josephus is sufficiently categorical. It states clearly that John the Baptizer was a very remarkable prophetical reformer of the day and that his following was very considerable. John’s ‘sayings,’ Josephus tells us, had an astonishingly persuasive power over the Jewish populace. Herod fears John’s influence and is convinced that he could do anything he pleases with the people. But what interests us most in this unfortunately too short statement is the reference to the nature of John’s practice and teaching. His proclamation to the Jews, like that of all the prophets before him, was a strenuous call to righteousness,—they were to practise righteous dealings with one another (love of neighbour) and piety to God (love of God). There was also an external rite of baptism; but it had to be preceded by a cleansing of the soul through the fulfilling of this duty to neighbour and to God. Josephus particularly points out that the public washing or dipping was by no means intended as a magical rite, which so many believed in those days capable of washing away sins. The baptism was not a daily practice, Josephus seems to imply, as among the Essenes and other sects, but a public corporate act; and therefore the historian is clearly in error in regarding it as simply for the purifying of the body. On the contrary, it distinctly conveys the impression of being designed as an outer testimony to some belief—an act of faith.

THE N.T. Account: THE DREss AND Foop oF REPENTANCE. And now let us pass to our New Testament information. Without laying stress on the details of the story of John’s infancy as given in the third gospel, reminiscent as they may be of the Old Testament birth-stories of the old-time national heroes Isaac, Samson and Samuel, not to mention the coincidence that the two heroines of the gospel birth-narratives bear the names of Miriam and Elisheba, the sister and wife respectively of Aaron, the first priest, we may very reasonably believe, as it is stated, that John was of priestly descent ; and therefore in every probability he was well versed, if not highly trained, in the scriptures. Vowed from his birth to God by his parents, his strange dress and peculiar ascetic mode of life are quite in keeping with prophetical traditions, and thus of the schools of the prophets and of the Nazirs. As the prophets of old, notably Elijah, he wore a skin robe. But in keeping with the spiritual significance of his whole teaching, which will be more fully brought out in the sequel, such an outer sign in high probability had an inner meaning for this great proclaimer of repentance, of the turning back of Israel in contrition unto God.

Now there were certain Palestinian pre-Christian allegorists or exponents of the scriptures on quasimystical lines called Dorshé Reshumoth. According to a Rabbinic legend, going back along this line of interpretation, the ancient myth of Gen. 32 was conceived more spiritually. After the fall, the first falling away from God, Yahveh-Elohim clothed Adam and Eve in coats of skin (‘67), not because of their nakedness, but in exchange for their lost paradisaical garments of light ('67). John lived at a time when such mystical interpretations, with a host of prophetical and apocalyptic notions, were in the air. It might very well then be that he himself in wearing a skin-robe intended something more than a simple copying of the fashion of the ancient prophets. In keeping with his ruling idea he may have thought it a most appropriate outer sign of repentance, a return to the first garments of fallen man, the proper robe of penitent sinners, and therefore especially of a leader who would show the people a whole-hearted example of turning again to God, thus retracing in a contrary direction the way of the fall.

So too with regard to food, there must be a return to the primitive law laid down for primal fallen man (Gen. 1): ‘Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat.” It was only after the Deluge that men were permitted to eat animal food, according to the Noahic covenant as it is called. Imbued with ideas of penitence and repentance, John would desire to return to the strictest food-regulations of the earliest days of the fall, in keeping with his symbolic manner of clothing. Not only so, but seemingly with a refinement of self-discipline as a means of contrition, John chose from out the many ‘fruits from a tree yielding seed’ that of the carob or locust-tree, which was considered by the Jewish allegorists the most appropriate food of repentance. For we have preserved from this line of tradition an ancient proverb: ‘ Israel needs carob-pods to make him repent,” said to be based on a prophecy in Isaiah (1a,) - which the Midrash (Wayikra Rabba, 35) quotes as: “ If | ye be willing and obedient, the good of the land shall ye eat; but if ye refuse and resist, carob-pods shall ye eat ’’—where the last clause differs considerably from the R.V., which reads: “ye shall be devoured by the

sword.” Perhaps the ‘husks’ eaten by the Prodigal in the gospel-parable may in the original Aramaic have been carob-pods (Lk. 151%). Much controversy has raged round the ‘locusts’ eaten by John, and early versions are various. As for drink,—in addition to water for general purposes, John is said to have in particular sipped the honey of the wild bees. Why is this brought into so great prominence? Again perhaps this custom was determined for John by the same circle of ideas. He probably bethought him of Deut. 321: ‘“‘He made him to suck honey out of the rock,” and also of Ps. 8lis: “ And with honey out of the rock shall I satisfy thee.” From such considerations it may plausibly be believed that John adopted an asceticism of repentance with regard to clothing and food as completely in accordance with the scriptures as possible, and this in addition to the customary discipline of a vowed Nazir, ‘consecrated ’ or ‘made holy’ as such from birth. The technical term for a Nazir is a Nazirite unto God, or holy unto God, as of Samson (LXX. Judges, 137, 16),—in brief God’s ‘ holy one.’

According to Josephus the great fear of Herod was that the reformatory movement of John would develop into a dangerous political Messianic revolt. The populace was on the tip-toe of expectation; many rumours were afloat as to the nature of the longexpected God’s Anointed. Some thought he was to be a Nazir who would free Israel from their present foes, even as in days of old the Nazir Samson had freed them from the yoke of the Philistines. Moreover the wellknown prophecy (Is. 111) about the ‘sprout’ from the root or stem of Jesse gave rise to much speculation, helped out by that word-play which exercised so powerful a fascination over the imaginative minds of the Jews of that day, and long before and after over other minds in many other lands. Now ‘ sprout’ in Hebrew is neser or nezer; and this neser was to be the longed-for ‘saviour’ (again neser)—sounding so well together with naziv. Indeed, as was thought, he must needs be a Nazarai-an (Heb. nosert, Gk. nazorat-os). Or again, as others expected, he was to be a carpenter (Aram. bar nasar), this being, according to a Samaritan Midrash, as we shall see in the sequel, in association with the expectation that the coming Redeemer was to be a second Noah, spiritually hewing and preparing the timber for a new ark of salvation.

All this was in the air and widespread; it is then quite believable, whether John himself made any such claims or no, that there were many rumours current of a Messianic purport concerning the strange appearance and powerful appeal of the renowned Baptizer. His Nazarite vow, his garb and diet of repentance, his confident proclamation of the very near approach of the catastrophic end of this seon or age or world,—all would conspire to make some, if not many, think that he himself was the great Nazir-Neser, the expected ‘ holy one’ of God. By others he was thought to be Elijah returned, as the prophet Malachi (the Book of the Angel or Messenger of Yahveh) had foretold (4s): “ Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible Day of the Lord come’’; or even, may be, some thought that that prophet of promise like unto Moses (Deut. 1815) had been raised upinJohn. John himself apparently made no claim to be any of these; he was a proclaimer of the near approach of the great and terrible Day and

a powerful exhorter to repentance. It is doubtful even whether he gave himself out to be simply ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (Mk. 1s); for such a knower of the scriptures would have been aware that the original of Isaiah 403 read : ‘ The voice of one crying : In the wilderness, etc.” But apparently John was not only an inspired prophet, he was also a wonder-worker, if certain echoes concerning him in the Synoptics ring true. For there we read that because of his healing wonders Jesus was thought by some to be John returned from the dead, and that the same accusation in this connection of being possessed by a demon brought against Jesus had also been brought against John.

However all this may be, John was utterly convinced, not only that the time of the End was close at hand, but also that the prophecies were beginning to be fulfilled. But what of his characteristic baptizing in the Jordan of all places? This is taken as a simple historic fact which requires no explanation by the vast majority ; but it presents a serious problem for those who are aware that in those days the brackish waters _ of the sluggish Jordan were deemed by theologians and ritualists as unfit for purificatory purposes. What then could have induced John to reject this priestly and purist tabi? The only feasible motive is to be found in supposing that John was convinced that a remarkable prophetical vision of Ezekiel (471s), where the prophet is addressed as Son of Man, was being fulfilled. In the longed-for time of the Messianic deliverance a mighty stream of holy water from the temple-hill of Zion was to flow down and heal the waters of the unclean Jordan-land, the Arabah or Desert.

Hisler has acutely conjectured that this idea of a fount of living and healing water for Israel goes back ultimately to Isaiah 28:6, not however as it stands at present in the R.V. wording, but in its extended form which was well known up to the 8rd centurya.pD. This reads as follows according to his rendering: ‘ Behold, I lay down in Zion a living stone, a stone of probation, a precious threshold-stone for a foundation. Out of its hollow shall flow forth rivers of living water; he that believeth on me shall not suffer from drought.” This was naturally taken by the allegorists of the time in a spiritual sense, even as they explained the water miraculously supplied to the Israelites in the Desert as a figure for the Torah or Law. The living water signified the Word of Yahveh, the outpouring of the spirit of God. Thus the Messianic Spring of living water could well be believed to typify an intensification or consummation of the Divine Law, heralding the manifestation of the Sovereignty of God in the Last Days. But spiritual reality and material happenings were never widely divorced in the mind of a pious Jew, and thus there was a literal meaning as well to be given to prophecy.

If all this is well conceived, it is not difficult to understand what Josephus tells us of John’s method, though the proper sense of John’s motive seems to have escaped the historian. Deeply stirred by the strenuous exhortations of the teacher and the extraordinary power of a proclaimer so utterly convinced of the near coming of the terrible Day, little wonder that the people, just as in evangelical revivals of our own day, were filled with an agony of penitence which would find relief only in a public confession of their sins. Thereafter they were plunged in the Jordan, signifying no external washing, but a very drowning as it were of the old body of sin in that now sacred stream to which faith ascribed hife-redeeming properties, a regeneration wrought by the saving spring of God’s outpouring flowing down from the sanctuary into the desert. If they repented, if they once unfeignedly turned again to God, then would the prophetical promise in Micah 71 be fulfilled: ‘He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us, he will subdue our iniquities. Yea, thou wilt wash away all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

But in practising this baptismal rite John was running counter to far more than the priestly purist taba which regarded the Jordan water as unfit for purification. He was baptizing Israelites, and in so doing putting the Chosen ones on a level with those gentiles who had to submit to a bath of purification before they could be admitted to the privileges of the sons of Abraham. A _ proselyte or a ‘new-comer’ (advena) who would join the church or ecclesia of Israel, had to submit to a baptismal rite, the preChristian origin of which is no longer disputed. It was a bath not only of purification but also of regeneration in the presence of legal witnesses. The candidate stood in the water and listened to a short discourse consisting of commandments from the Law. Thereon the gentile convert dipped completely under the water, signifying the drowning of his previous impious and idolatrous self. Thereafter he arose

reborn a true Israelite. And this new birth was taken in a very literal sense, for after the rite the neophyte, or ‘new-born babe,’ could no longer inherit from his former gentile relatives; not only so, but according to Rabbinic casuistry he could not even commit incest with one of them. This regenerative gentile baptism (tebilah gerim) was made by the theologians to depend from the promise in Ezekiel (8625-2): ‘I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” But this prophecy clearly applied to Israel only. It could never have been intended as the sanction of a customary rite for converted gentiles. It is thus very credible that a fervent eschatologist, filled with Messianic expectations, such as John, would conceive the promise as foreshadowing a unique miraculous event of the Last Days. Moreover John’s insistence on baptism for the Jews, at a time when their religious leaders thought it necessary to impose baptism on gentile converts as a purificatory regenerative rite making them fit to be associated religiously with the naturally born sons of Abraham, seems clearly to have been dictated by the deeper spiritual conviction that it was Israel itself who required regeneration. For John, from the standpoint of spiritual values, the Jews were no more a privileged people; they had forfeited their birthright; Israel itself was now no better than the heathen. Physical kinship with Abraham could no longer be considered a guarantee against the Wrath to come. To escape the trials and terrors of that Day the only way for them was to repent, and so become members of the new spiritual Israel by submitting to

Let us now turn to the first part of the short but powerful address of the Baptizer handed on by Mt. (3710) and Lk. (879), a most interesting example of those stirring utterances or ‘sayings’ of his referred to by Josephus. Ye out-births of vipers, who hath given you a glimpse of fleeing from the Wrath to come? Make fruit, therefore, worthy of (or sufficient for) your repentance. And think not (Lk. begin not) to say within (or among) yourselves: We have Abraham [for] father. For I say unto you that God is able of these stones (Aram. ’ab‘nayya) to raise (or wake) up children (Aram. b’nayya) for Abraham. But even now the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree, therefore, which beareth not good fruit, is hewn down and cast into the fire.

This graphic discourse, contained in Q, begins with the same terrible phrase ‘ generation’ or ‘ out-births of vipers’ which Jesus also uses on several occasions. It may possibly go back to Micah 177, where we read, referring to the heathen: “ They shall lick the dust like serpents, like those creeping on the earth.” And if ‘ licking the dust’ can be taken in the sense of the allegorists of the time, who interpret it as eating excrement, a fate allotted to the serpent-shaped souls of the damned in Shedl, it becomes all the more strikingly graphic. In vain do they think they will escape because they are of kinship with Abraham, or that God cannot repeat the wonder he once wrought, of raising up children out of the barren rock of their forefather. God is able to make a new Israel out of the very stones, just as he had of old hewn, like stones (Heb. ’abanim), a line of sons (Heb. baénim) from the once barren rock of Abraham, as Isaiah says (5112): ‘“ Took unto the rock whence ye were hewn . . . look unto Abraham your father.”

This for the ‘stones’; but what of the ‘trees’? There are other passages in the O.T. (e.g. Ps. li, Jer. 17s) which liken the man who delights in the Law and has faith in Yahveh to fruit-bearing trees; but the most arresting verse in this connection is to be found in the continuation of the same vision in Ezekiel (471-8) which so graphically depicted the Messianic Source. This reads (v. 12): “By the river upon the banks thereof, on this side and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade; they shall bring forth new fruit month after month, because their waters issue from the sanctuary: and the fruit thereof shall be for meat and the leaf thereof for medicine.”’

The mystical application of this prophetical utterance to the righteous of Israel as the fruitbearing trees of the longed-for days of the Messiah, would surely strike the imagination of so intuitive a mind as John’s; it is indeed all of a piece with his general conception and expectation and fits in most deftly.

But this does not exhaust the imagery of Eizekiel’s striking vision of the outpouring of God’s spirit in the days of the End, which made so deep an impression upon John. The prophet uses another graphic figure, which also greatly influenced early Christianity and was made much of later on in the symbolic interpretations of some of the Church Fathers. If only we had the mystical exegesis of this figure as conceived in the mind of the pre-Christian Palestinian Dorshé Rashumoth, who anticipated in some ways the Alexandrian Jewish allegorists of Philo’s day, we should probably find that they had already given spiritual significance to the following arresting verses (9 and 10) of the vision. These read in Hisler’s rendering:

En-Gedi and En-Eglaim were two oases with freshwater springs—the Gedi or Kid Spring and the Eglaim or (?) Calf Spring—on the shores of the Dead Sea or Salt Lake. The former was the chief centre of the Essenes. With such a striking figure before him it would be easy for John, the proclaimer of repentance and the turning again to God of a righteous remnant, to believe that in the Days of the End there were to be prophets who should be ‘ fishers of men.’ Now it is remarkable that we have a number of references to this fishing of souls bound up with echoes of legends of John the Baptizer, which blend into a at stream of Gnostic traditions which still exists to-day and goes back eventually to very early times.

The Mandezans, that is believers in the Manda or Gnosis, or Nazoraya as they call themselves, known to the Arabs as the Subba’s or Baptists, have much to tell us of the ‘Fisher of Souls’ and the evil ‘fishers of men,’ as we shall see later on. Their saga of the Fisher of Souls is a beautiful conception within the setting of eschatological and soteriological notions, and seems to be an integral element of the syncretic stream of the Manda which goes back far towards Gnostic beginnings. Now the Mandean traditions are hostile not only to Christianity but also to Judaism. Many of their notions can be closely paralleled with some of the doctrines of the religion of Mani, with some of the main elements underlying the scheme of the Coptic Gnostic Pistis Sophia and the two treatises of the Bruce Codex; points of contact may also be found in what we know of the doctrines of the Elchasaites, and in some parts of the Clementine romances which preserve early EKbionite traditions and legends of Simon the Magian, with whom John is brought into connection.

And here it may be noted that, if it is surprising to find the influence of John the Baptizer spreading as far east as Mesopotamia, it is not out of keeping with the fact that the baptism of John was also practised in the east Mediterranean area far outside Palestine among the Dispersion and indeed among some of the early Christian communities, as we learn from the Acts and Kipistles, witness especially the Apollos incident (Acts 182, I. Cor. 112). | Hant-Oannés-IOANnés. No little of mythic notions from old Babylonian, Chaldw#an and Iranian traditions is to be found immixed in the oldest deposits of this Mandawan stream; there is thus a pre-Christian background as well. Indeed the Fisher-figure cannot fail at once to remind students of the comparative science of religion of the ancient Babylonian fish-clad fisher-god HaniOannés—the archaic Ha, father of Marduk the saviourgod of Babylon who rose yearly from the dead. This primeval God of Wisdom was the culture-god who had taught early mankind all the arts of civilization. Berossus, the Chaldean priest who wrote for the Greeks a history of his people, tells us of no less than six manifestations of Oannés in successive periods; and this notion of revelation and saving in successive periods is fundamental with the Mandzans. Oannés rose from the sea—the waters presumably of the Persian Gulf, in the old story; but Marduk, his son, descended from heaven.

It is by no means improbable that the picturing of appropriate ancient myths which floated freely in the thought-atmosphere of Babylonia, may have determined some of the imagery of Ezekiel’s visions by the ‘river of Babylon,’ and indeed may otherwise have psychically influenced indirectly no little of Jewish apocalytic literature, as for instance when the Ezra Apocalypse (at the end of the 1st century A.D.) tells us that the Redeemer of the world, the Celestial Man, is expected to rise from the ‘heart of the ocean.’ If then, as fizra LV. permits us to conclude, certain apocalyptists and allegorists, who were probably Jews of. the Babylonian or Syrian Dispersion, could conceive of their pre-existent Messiah as in some way associated with the figure of the ancient Hani (Oannés, Iannés, Idannes), and expected the Redeemer of Israel to arise from the depths of the great waters, it is not

improbable that in those days, when the interplay of mystical associations was so prevalent and eagerly sought out, some of the most enthusiastic followers of John may have believed that this baptizing ‘ fisher of souls’ was the expected manifestation.

Similarity in the sounds of names fascinated men’s minds, and Hani-Oannés-John is not the only name-play we meet with in the Baptist’s story. Attempts have been made by scholars to show that ‘the sign of the prophet Jonah ’ (Q—Matth. 12:9. = Lk. 1121.) was perhaps originally connected with John, and that a testimony of Jesus to John has been converted already in Q, the early non-Markan source of matter common to Mt. and Lk., into a testimony of Jesus concerning himself. (On this point see Hisler, op. czt., pp. 156-162, where all is set out in detail.) It is further of interest to note that Jonah in Hebrew means Dove, and that among the Mandezans there was a class of the perfect called Doves. Compare also the Greek Physiologus (xli.): “The Dove . . . which is John the Baptist.” The names Jonah and John could easily be brought into close connection, and indeed Jonah is sometimes found as a shortened form of Johanan.

The Jonah-legend provided a very suitable setting wherein to depict the life of a prophet who caused his hearers to repent, and it may be that Jesus referred to John as ‘a greater Jonah’ (Mt. 12«.). The most striking image in the mythic story is the Great Fish. Now the belly of the Great Fish for the Jewish allegorists, and indeed it is plainly stated in the legend itself, was Sheol, the Underworld, the Pit. But another mythic Great Fish, or perhaps the same in another aspect, was the cosmic monster Leviathan. And symbolists, allegorists and mystics got busy with this mythic figure. Thus we find that Leviathan was the name given by the Ophites of Celsus, who are plainly of Syrian Babylonian origin, to the Seven,—that is to the cosmic animal psyché, the hierarchy of rulers and devourers of the animal souls of men as well as of animals proper, each of the Seven being symbolized by an animal figure, probably an animal-faced (lion, etc.) dragon or fish. In the Mandean tradition the Fisher of Souls takes the Seven in his net and destroys them, even as in the old Babylonian myth the Saviour-god Manduk catches Tiamat, their mother, the primeval dragon of the deep, in his net and destroys her. And strangely enough there is an old Rabbinical legend of Jonah preserved in the Midrash Yalqut Yona (§1), which relates that, when the prophet was in the belly of the Great Fish, he prayed that it should carry him quickly to the Leviathan, so that he might catch it with his fishing tackle. For Jonah desired, when once again safely ashore, to make of its flesh a feast for the righteous, —a distinct reference to the Messianic fish-banquet which is to take place in the days of the End.

The Jewish folk of the Babylonian dispersion, who were surrounded with images of the fish-clad HaniOannés and of his priests, would easily think of them as representing a man swallowed by a fish, and as easily be reminded of the story of their great prophet Jonah, who was fabled to have made the proud King of Ashshur and all the Ninevites repent ; and the mystics subsequently would easily associate all this with Messianic notions.

It has recently been shewn by that acute scholar J. Scheftelowitz from hitherto neglected Rabbinical documents that ‘fish’ was quite a common symbol for the righteous man of Israel, who lived all his life in the waters of the Torah or Sacred Law. The evidence goes back as early as the times of Rabban Gamaliel the Elder, the teacher of Paul, who was therefore a contemporary of John and Jesus. Thus we read in the Midrash Tanhuma to Deut. 5:2: “ As a fish delights in water, even so a master of the scriptures dives into the streams of balm’’—the sweet smelling waters of the Law; compare the sweet savour and perfume of the gnosis and of the heavenly essences and per contra the stench of the evil fishers or teachers of false doctrine in the Mandan John-Book. Decisive in this connection is the following passage from the Aboth de R. Nathan (ch. 40):

“The pupils of Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder were divided into four kinds of fish: into clean and unclean [brackish water] fish from the Jordan and fish from the Ocean, according to their high and low descent and to the degree of their learning and quickness of their understanding.” Though they were not ‘fishers of men,’ they were fish of Yahveh swimming in the holy stream, the lifegiving waters of the Law. It was thus very natural for John, remembering the striking passage in Ezekiel. (47:2) about the fish who repented, to contrast with them the unrepentant as a ‘generation of vipers,’ (cp. the fish-scorpion contrast in Mt. 710). Nor could John have been ignorant of the prophecy in Jeremiah (161s) concerning the gathering together of dispersed Israel: ‘‘ Behold, I will send for many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them,” and have given it a spiritual significance. But of an even more arresting nature is the following from Beresith Rabba (ch. 97):

Now in Samaritan tradition, and it will be remembered that the Samaritans rejected all the Jewish scriptures save the Five Fifths of the Law, their future Redeemer was to be called Joshuah. This Deliverer they called the Ta‘eb, the Returner, and they believed he would be a reborn or returned Joshuah. The Ta‘eb is the Samaritan ‘ Messiah.’ In this connection a recently translated Samaritan Midrash (B.M. Samaritan MS. Or. 3393’) is especially instructive. It understands the title Ta‘eb as signifying ‘he who repents’ or even ‘he who makes to repent,’ not so much the Returner as the Turner-back of others. Itis brought into close connection also with Noham, meaning Repenting, and is thus by word-play associated with Noah. Our Samaritan Midrash accordingly brings Noah on to the scene of expected redemption, and becomes a spiritualized version of the Deluge-story, abounding in mystical word-plays. One or two speci-

mens of them may now be given, as the ideas behind them are reminiscent of the John-circle of ideas. Whereas in the old story Yahveh orders Noah: “ Make thee an ark (ébah),” the Midrash makes God say unto the Ta‘eb: “ Make thee a conversion ’’—or repentance (Aram. shuba, tubah). And so it continues in many details glossing the original parts of the ark by means of word-play, introducing notions of propitiation, expiation and atonement. A single passage from the original will make this clear, and in reading it we should remember that Samaria was a hot-bed of mystic and gnostic movements of all sorts. Behold I bring a [flood of] conversion [and] of divine favour upon the earth, to save Israel and gather it from everywhere under the sky. I shall perform my covenant, which I have set up with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And thou shalt enter into the conversion, thou and thy house and the whole house of Israel with thee; and take with thee all kind of . . . praying and fasting and purification, which thou performest, and take all unto thee, and it shall be for conversion for thee and for them. And the Ta‘eb did everything as God had commanded him.

The ark (¢bah) saved Noah from the flood of perdition, and the conversion (shubah, tubah) will save the Penitent One (Ta‘eb) and all the sons of Israel from the [flood of] perversion. The ‘flood of perversion’ is that of ‘the cursed eon. Among the many Messianic expectations of those days, therefore, was the belief that in the Last Days it would again be as in the times of Noah, as indeed we are expressly informed by Q (Mt. 24s72.= Lk. 17 z6tt.).

There are other points of interest in the fragmentary ‘sayings’ of John and other references preserved in the synoptic accounts, but of these we shall select only one as being of special interest. John’s expectation of the nature of the catastrophe of the times of the End was somewhat complex. Three phases of elemental destruction haunted his imagination. Similar disasters had already happened in the past at the culmination of certain successive critical periods in the history of mankind. There had been a destruction by water, another by a mighty wind and tempest which overwhelmed the great Tower (to which many a Rabbinic legend testifies), and a destruction by fire in the days of Lot. John’s baptism or water-purification may well have been intended as an outer sign of the inner attempt to avert from the righteous the dire results of the great forthcoming world ‘ trial’ by the water of God’s Wrath that would overwhelm the wicked. But there were two other ‘ baptisms’ or purifications which he expected a greater than himself to effect in similar fashion and for a similar purpose. There was to be a purification or baptism by fire; and, in Christian interpretation, the third and last and greatest was to be effected by means of the holy ‘spirit.’ This would not be out of keeping with the belief of John, for it was ever the spirit of God, as water, fire or wind, that would purify and save the righteous. But the graphic figure of the winnowing fan in John’s declaration shows clearly that the notion was connected in his mind with the necessary wind without which winnowing was impossible—the mighty wind or spirit of God. For the good this would result in a blessed harvesting, but for the evil it would be a scattering as of chaff.

Though all these notions may well have come to John within the ambit of the Jewish scriptures, many prophetical pronouncements in which graphically depict all these forms of Divine visitation, it is nevertheless not without significance that the rites of purification by water, fire and wind (ventilation) were an integral element of some of the Hellenistic mystery-institutions, and that the periodic catastrophic scheme is clearly to be paralleled in the later Babylonian astral religion, and especially in its blending with Iranian conceptions which centre round the swon-cult (Zervanism), and all those notions of the Great Year and world-periods, which later Stoicism took over and made familiar to Imperial times. This Great Year had three ‘ seasons’ —summer, winter, spring—each of which was assigned to one of the three most ancient elements: fire, water and wind. As the Great Year turned on itself the constellations returned at the end of the revolution to the same positions they had occupied in a former Great Year. There were thus critical moments in the xonic movement, and at these cosmic catastrophes occurred.

It is hardly to be supposed that John had any such ‘scientific’ notions in his mind: but it is undeniable that many had such conceptions in his day, and indeed among the learned and mystics we find blends of such ‘science’ with prophetical intuitions. But for the Jewish eschatologist it was a once for all event he expected, whereas for such men as the Stoic thinkers it was a perpetual recurrence.

And what is the outcome of this enquiry? It seems to me that a very important background of Christian origins is here indicated. It points toa widespread Jewish eschatological and therefore necessarily Messianic movement prior to Christianity, of which earliest Christianity was at first a culmination, what- ever modifications and completions were subsequently introduced. It is therefore to be regretted that our information concerning John the Baptizer and his doctrines is so meagre. It is quite natural that some of John’s adherents should have attached themselves to Jesus on his public appearance as a proclaimer before the martyrdom of their own imprisoned prophet. The suddenness with which Mk., our earliest narrative, introduces Jesus ‘calling’ the first four of his disciples and their instant leaving all and following him to become ‘fishers of men,’ is inexplicable without there having been some prior knowledge of the Way on the part of Simon and Andrew, Jamesand John. They may well have already been familiar with John’s teaching. Indeed the writer of the Fourth Gospel tells us categorically (Jn. 140) that Andrew, the brother of Simon-Peter-Kephas, had been a disciple of the Baptizer.

But if some of John’s actual ‘disciples’ followed Jesus before any question of Messiahship arose, it is probable that far more of his lay-adherents also did so. Indeed the earliest history of the expansion of Christianity, that is of the Jesus Messianic movement, preserves traces that in some places there was a considerable Johannine influence, notably the continued use of John’s baptism. On the contrary, most of John’s disciples to all seeming refused to recognize the Jesus Messianic claims, and the echoes of history preserved in the Mandan traditions declare that they most emphatically rejected them. In any case it may well be that some of the great figures, types and symbols used by Jesus in his exhortations and teaching were not original to him, but that he shared them, together with other mystic,

apocalyptic and prophetical notions, with circles that had been instructed by John. Jesus is made to distinguish John as the greatest prophet who had come before him, nay as more than a prophet; and yet the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is said to be greater than a John. ‘This can only mean in the Kingdom in its fulness; for surely most of the Christians fell far short of the high virtue of the Baptist. What is furthermore exceedingly probable, if not unquestionably evident, is that the whole of John’s mentality was flooded with what we can only call mystic notions and conceits, graphic figures, highly spiritualized, the mentality of a prophet and seer. If John is the forerunner of Jesus, many of the Baptizer’s eschatological and associated beliefs are probably the forerunners of earliest Christian general doctrine. And with all this in mind, it is difficult not to believe that Jesus not only knew more of John personally and what lay at the back of him, but used more of his ideas and symbolisms than the gospels would lead us to suppose.

The Mandzean tradition deserves most careful analysis from this point of view; but before presenting it we may add a few words on the estrangement of the Johnand Jesus-movements.

Though the Synoptics in some passages are at pains to let it appear as if John recognized the Messiah- — ship of Jesus, and the later and ‘correcting’ Fourth Gospel emphatically affirms that he did so from the baptism onwards, there was evidently very considerable doubt on the question in the earliest tradition. Q (Matth. 11s:.=Lk. 7w:) lets the reader see that John to the end had no conviction, much less prior spiritual apperception, on the subject. For it tells us that just before his end the imprisoned prophet sent messengers to Jesus asking him in complete uncertainty: “ Art thou he that should come, or look we for another ? ”’ To this unambiguous question no direct answer is given. John’s disciple-messengers are bidden simply to report to their master the wonderful healings of which they have been told or which they have witnessed. The proof of Messiahship is made here to rest solely on wonder-doings; any prior spiritual recognition by John of Jesus as the Expected One is unknown to this tradition, nor is it able to report that John accepted the wonders as proof of the fulfilment of his expectation. From this we may reasonably feel assured that, though some of John’s disciples followed Jesus when he began his public ministry after John had been put in prison, and continued the proclamation of the near Coming of the Kingdom, the majority refrained. They continued in their own way and discipline; nor did they subsequently recognize the Messiahship of Jesus, for above all they had no authority from their master to do so.

This is a negative inference; but the positive rejection of the Christian Messianic claim is brought out with sharp polemical emphasis in the Mandan tradition, which claims to derive from John and regards Jesus as the Deceiver-Messiah. The baptism of Jesus by John is acknowledged, but explained in polemic mystic fashion. There are however signs that, apart from the subsequent bitterness of outer theological controversy, there was originally an inner deeper gnostic ground of division, for Jesus is not represented as unknowing, but on the contrary, is made to answer certain test questions of John with profound moral insight. But the most surprising fact of Mandan tradition is that it preserves no indications of having entertained any belief in distinctive Jewish Messianism at all. Its soteriology is peculiar to itself and the tradition repudiates Jewish prophecy and apocalyptic and in fact the whole Torah, as emphatically as it does Christian doctrine. Nevertheless on its own showing, in the beginning the particular community of which John was so great a prophet, is depicted as settled in Judea, even in Jerusalem, and is claimed to have had a profound knowledge of the inner meaning of the Law. It is made to look back to a still more ancient tradition which is claimed to be purer and wiser than that of the Hebrews. Though the legendary ‘historical’ side of the question is exceedingly obscure, our best authorities are agreed that, as far as the mythic element is concerned, the Mandan tradition preserves many traces of the earliest forms of the pre-Christian Gnosis known to us. The problem is thus exceedingly complex.

WE will now proceed to see what the Gnostic Johnfolk have to say about the person of Yohana and concerning their early Palestinian community, and will conclude with some typical extracts from their JohnBook collection, of which the most characteristic and important will be what may be called the sagas of the Fisher of Souls and of the Good Shepherd; but first a word or two as to our sources of information.

The Mandzans (lit. Gnostics—mandd=gnosis) of the lower Euphrates are the only known surviving community of the ancient Gnosis. That they have survived to our own day’ is a remarkable testimony to the strength of their convictions and of loyalty to a tradition which they claim to go back to pre-Christian days. The documents call them Nazorwans.2 The Arabs generally refer to them as Subba’s or Baptists, while the first Portuguese Jesuit missionaries of the Inquisi- 1 In 1875 N. Siouffi, the French Vice-Consul at Mosul, estimated them at some 4,000 souls in all (Htudes sur la Religion des Soubbas ow Sabéens, Paris, 1880). ‘These were then to be found chiefly in the neighbourhood of Basra and Kut. Siouffi’s estimate, however, was certainly too low ; for Shaikh K. Dojaily, Lecturer in Arabic at the School of Oriental Studies, informs me that he quite recently obtained from the supreme head of all the communities at Naziriyah the precise statistics, and that they still number about 10,000 men, women and children.

* This is a very ancient general designation used by a number of early sects. It has nothing to do with Nazareth (Q. Nazara), which is quite unknown outside the gospel-narratives, not to speak of the philological impossibility of such a word-formation as Nazorzan from Nazareth. Lidzbarski rejects W. B. Smith’s (in Der vorchristliche Jesus, Giessen, 1906) derivation—Nazar-Ya (=Jehoshua—Jesus — Sotér—Saviour), and makes out a good case for origin in 4/NZR, with the meaning of ‘to observe’; hence ‘Observers ’—sc. of the laws or ordinances or may be of the holy life (Liturgies, pp. xvi.ff.). tion erroneously introduced them to Europe in the early part of the 17th century as the ‘Christians of St. John.’ But Christians they certainly are not; on the contrary they have ever been strenuously opposed to Christianity, though they may have sometimes so camouflaged themselves to avoid Moslim persecution in the first place and the Inquisitional methods of the missionaries in the second.

The Mandezan religious literature (for of secular literature there is none) supplies us with the richest direct sources of any phase of ancient Gnosticism which we possess; these documents are also all the more valuable because they are purely Oriental without any Hellenistic immixture. Indeed our only other considerable direct sources, that is sources not contaminated or rendered suspect by transmission through hostile hands, are the Trismegistic literature, the Coptic Gnostic documents and the recent Manichean finds in Turfan. The Mandan language is little used by the faithful except for religious purposes. The M. communities in general have for long used Arabic as their common speech, though one or more groups speak Persian. Mandean is a South Babylonian dialect of Aramezan, its nearest cognate being the Northern Babylonian as in the Babylonian Talmtd. Their graceful script is peculiar to the Mandzans ; the vowels are in full lettering and are not indicated by points or other diacritical marks.

-Their literature was once far more extensive; for what we possess is manifestly in the form of extracts collected from manifold more ancient sources, which are no longer extant. 1. The Sidra Rabbaé (Great Book) or Genza (Treasury), which is divided into Right and Left pages, for the living and the deceased respectively, it is said but I am told that in some copies the alternate pages are reversed and in some ceremonies read simultaneously by two readers facing each other. It consists of sixtyfour pieces or tractates,—theological, cosmological, mythological, ethical and historical. This collection is indubitably prior to the Mohammedan conquest (cir. 651 A.D.), and its sources are of course far more ancient. 2. The Sidra d’ Yahya (Book of John), also called Drdashé d’Malké (Discourses of the [Celestial] Kings). A considerable number of its pieces, which can be listed under thirty-seven headings, deal with the life and teachings of John the Baptizer. Yahya is the Arabic form of John, the Mandan Yohana, Heb. Yohanan; the two forms, Arabic and Mandan, alternate and show that the collection was made, or more probably redacted, after the Moslim conquest.

3. The Qolastad (Quintessence or Selection, called also the Book of Souls)—Liturgies for the Baptismal Ceremony, the Service for the Departed (called the ‘Ascent ’—Masseqtad) and for the Marriage Ritual. These hymns and prayers are lofty, though most of them are presumably not so ancient as those in the Genza. 4. The Divdn, containing the procedure for the expiation of certain ceremonial offences and sketches of the ‘regions’ through which the soul must pass in its ascent. 5. The Asfar Malwdshé (Book of the Zodiacal Constellations). 6. Certain inscriptions on earthen cups and also pre-Mohammedan lead tablets. It would not be difficult to prepare an annotated bibliography (as we have done elsewhere for the Coptic Gnostic Pistis Sophia document) tracing the history of the development of Mandzan study in the West from the 17th century onwards, but this is a sketch not a treatise. It is sufficient to say that, owing to the difficulty of the language, no one did any work of permanent value on the texts till the Dutch scholar A.J.H. Wilhelm Brandt published his arresting studies —Die Mandaische Religion (Leipzig, 1884) and Mandidische Schriften (Gottingen, 1893), the latter containing a version of selected pieces from the Genzd. Brandt was the real pioneer trarslator (basing himself on Néldeke’s indispensable Mandzean Grammar, 1875) ; his predecessors were either entirely ignorant of the language or indulged mainly in guess-work. Brandt’s art. ‘Mandeans’ in Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics (1915) is a valuable summary of his most matured views, and to it I would refer my readers as the best general Introduction available. Brandt’s philological equipment in so difficult and rare a dialect as Mandan, however, was not sufficient for the work of full translation. Moreover he does not seem to me to have sufficiently realized the great importance of the subject for the general history of pre-Christian and early Christian Gnosticism. This, however, was fully recognized by the late Prof. Wilhelm Bousset, who devoted

and his posthumous work Die Mandder: thre Religion und thre Geschichte (Trans. of Koninklijke Akadamie van Wetenshappen te Amsterdam, Nov., 1915) is practically a German edition of this article. Kessler’s art. ‘ Mandier ’ (Ledencyk. f. prot. Theolog., 3rd ed., Herzog-Hauck, Leipzig, 1903) is a helpful study ; it entirely supersedes his Hnc. Brit., 9th ed., art. K. avers that the M.literature preserves the oldest form of the Gnosis known to us. Art. ‘Mandeans,’ Hnc. Brit., 11th ed., 1911, is stated to be part K. and part G. W. Thatcher ; it is a poor production even as a summary of K.’s later art. It is short, contemptuous and superficial, and deprives the reader of much that is most valuable in K. in the shape of references and parallels. It would have been really better to have translated K. literally.

many pages of his admirable study Hauptprobleme der Gnosis (Géttingen, 1907) to showing the enormous light which the earliest deposits of the Genzd throw on preand non-Christian Gnostic notions. Indeed in this work Bousset gave a quite new historical perspective to Gnostic studies, and showed the great importance of the Mandan, Coptic Gnostic and Manichean documents, when critically treated, for tracing the genesis and development of the widespread Gnosis of antiquity, which had its proximate origin in the influence of Persian ideas on Babylonian religious traditions from the time of the Great Kings (6th century B.c.) onwards, with further Hellenistic immixture and modifications after the conquest of Alexander the Great (last third of 4th century B.c.). There is also a parallel blending and Hellenization of Egyptian mystery-Jore as seen most clearly in the Trismegistic tradition. More recently Prof. R. Reitzenstein, who has done such excellent work on the Trismegistic Gnosis and on the Hellenistic mystery-religions, has published a valuable contribution to M. research in his Das Manddische Buch des Herrn der Grosse (Heildelberg, 1919). Both these scholars are free from that apologetic tendency to which so few Christian scholars can rise superior in dealing with the Gnosis. But the savant to whom we owe most is Prof. Mark Lidzbarski, whose extraordinary knowledge of Aramean dialects and allied Semitic linguistics has at last placed in our hands reliable versions of two of the M. collections: Das Johannesbuch der Mandéder (Giessen, 1915) and Manddische Liturgicn (Berlin, 1920). L. has also made a translation of the Genzd, the publication of which is eagerly expected.’

Until this appears it is not possible to be reasonably sure of all one’s ground and so get an all-round perspective of it. Meantime, as no really adequate translation of any pieces have so far appeared in English,’ I think it will be of service to give a selection of renderings from the German of Lidzbarski’s JohnBook, so that readers of these pages may become acquainted with specimens of the material, and be in a better position in some measure to appreciate for themselves its nature, quality and importance; for it may eventually turn out to be one of the most valuable indications we possess for Background of Christian Origins research. These renderings will be as close to the German as possible, so that readers may have L.’s version practically before them, and the inevitable leakage of translation from translation be reduced to aminimum. Even so, I hope that what seems to me to be the beauty of the original, will not be entirely evaporated. The major part of the material of the Liturgies is indubitably in verse; but the John-Book as well, if not also mainly in verse, as a most competent Aramean scholar assures me, is clearly in rhythmic prose (Kunstprosa) and highly poetical. L., however, has not broken up the lines as in the Liturgies.

increased, that the arrangements for printing have fallen through, and this most indispensable basic source of information for students of the Mandan Gnosis is accordingly held up. 1 To be precise, in book-form ; for I have already published the following versions in The Quest in the last two years; they are but a third of the translations I have made in MS. from the John-Book and the Liturgies. Isay this, however, in no disparagement of Miss A. L. B. Hardcastle’s sympathetic and painstaking studies, containing some versions in which the © work of Brandt and his predecessors was fortified by her own praiseworthy efforts to grapple with a dictionary-less language. These studies were suggested, warmly encouraged and appreciated by myself, and were as follows: ‘ The Liberation of Johanna’ (Theosophical Rev., Sept. 1902) ; ‘ Fragments from the Mandan Traditions of J. the B.’ (Quest, Ap. 1910); ‘The Book of Souls: Fragments of a Mandzan Mystery Ritual’ (ib. Jan. 1912) ;

First let us begin with the pieces purporting to give information concerning the person of the prophet.

In the Name of Great Life may hallowed Light be glorified. A CHILD was planted out of the height, a mystery revealed in Jerusalem. The priests saw dreams; chill seized on their children, chill seized on Jerusalem. Early in the morning he* went to the temple. He opened his mouth in blasphemy and his lips of lying. He opened his mouth in blasphemy and spake to all of the priests: “In my vision of the night I beheld, [I beheld] in my vision. When I lay there, I slept not and rested not, and sleep came not to me by night. I slept not and rested not, [and I beheld] that a star appeared and stood over Enishbai.’ Fire burned in Old Father (Aba Saba) Zakhria;° three heaven-lights appeared.’ The

1 Because YOhana is mentioned only once in the Genzd, Brandt supposes that the John-Book pieces must be later in date. But surely this is not a scientific conjecture. Itis rather to be supposed that the John-pieces were naturally gathered together from the general mass of material when the collection-process began. Though Yahya is the Arabic form of the name, Y6hana alternates with it; this shows a later redaction in the Mohammedan period, when the people vulgarly spoke Arabic, but says nothing as to the date of earlier writings from which the pieces were copied out. 4 The Elisabeth of Luke. The name may be some mystical echo of Elisheba, the wife of Aaron, the first priest, just as the Miriam of the Jesus birth-story reminds us of Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Moses, the first prophet. If the pre-Christian Palestinian Dorshé Reshumoth may be thought incapable of going so far, the Alexandrian Jewish allegorists, to whose school Philo belonged, would, and did, sublimate the sister or wife of a sage into a figure of his spiritual virtue or power. This will become clearer later on.

sun sank and the lights rose. Fire lit up the house of the people (synagogue), smoke rose over the temple. A quaking quaked in the Throne-chariot, so that Earth removed from her seat. A star flew down into Judea, a star flew down into Jerusalem. The sun appeared by night, and the moon rose by day.” When the priests heard this, they cast dust on their head. Yaqif the priest weeps and Beni-Amin’s tears flow.” Shilai and Shalbai® cast dust on their heads. Elizar* [the chief priest] opened his mouth and spake unto all of the priests: “ Yaqif interprets dreams, but as yet he has no understanding of these. Beni-Amin interprets dreams; is he not a man who discloses your

2 The narrative is largely in the familiar style of Danielic and Talmiidic chronological camouflage; the Daniel Book (c. 164 B.c.) throws back the religio-political conflict of the Jews with the kingdom and Hellenistic religion of Antiochus Epiphanes to the days of Nebuchadiezzar (c. 600 B.c.), and the Talmiid Jesus stories, for instance, throw back the setting to some 100 years B.c. or advance it to some 100 years a.p. See my Did Jesus Live 100 B.C. ?—An Enquiry into the Talmud-Jesus Stories, the Toldoth Jeshu and Some Curious Statements of Epuphanws—Being a Contribution to the Study of Christian Origyns (London, 1903). It is to be noted that the Talmitid knows nothing of John; it evidently regards the John-Jesus movement as one and the same kind of heresy. Y.and B. may perhaps be personified types of members of certain contemporary communities or mystical groups. In §54 Y. and B. are called the ‘Two Gold-sons.’ This reminds us of alchemical symbolism; see my tracing of ‘ psychical’ alchemy to Babylon in The Doctrine of the Subtle Body in Western Tradition (London, 1919), Proem, pp. 25ff. They may have belonged to the early ‘ Sons of the Sun’ tradition—the later Sampszeans of Epiphanius, still later in wider distribution known to the Moslim historians as Shemsiyel: (Shamish=the Sun). This hypothesis is strengthened by the apparently cryptic gloss BeniAmin, ‘Sons of (the) Amén’ (cp. Rev. ii. 14: ‘‘ These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God”’). I have no space here to follow up this conjecture; but L. seems to me to be, not only nodding, but fast asleep, when he assumes that the Mandzan writers were simply ignoramuses who mistook Ben-Yamin for Beni-Amin. The Heb. derivation of Benjamin is given very variously in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the O.T. LL. refers to Yaqif (clearly Jacob) as Joseph.

4 Can this be camouflage for Rabbi Elazer ben Hyrcanus, the founder of the famous Rabbinical school at Lud (Lydda) and teacher of Akiba? He flourished 70-100 a.v. RR. Eliazer was imprisoned for heresy; the Talmid account connects this accusation of heresy with an interview between him and a certain Jacob of Kephar Sechania, a city in lower Galilee, who is said to have been one of the disciples of Jeshu ha-Notzri, ¢.e. J. the Nazdreean (see D.J.L.100 B.C. ?—pp. 216ff. for reference and discussion). But Eliazeris a name of great distinction in Pharisaic priestly tradition, especially that of the Maccabeean proto-martyr priest, the teacher of the martyred Seven Sons and the Mother in IV. Maccabees. secrets ? Tab-YOmin' gives us no revelation, though you deem he can give information on all that is and [that] is not.

Earth groans out of season and is sent a-whirl through the heaven-spheres. Earth’ opens her mouth and’ speaks to Elizar: * Go to Lilyukh,” that he may interpret the dreams you have seen.” Thereon Elizar opened his mouth and spake unto all of the priests : “ Who goes to Lilyukh, that he may interpret the dreams you have seen?” Then wrote they a letter and put it in the hand of Tab-Y6min. ‘Tab-Ydmin took the letter and betook himself to Lilyukh. lLilyukh lay on his bed; sleep had not yet flown from him. A quaking came into his heart, shivered his heart and brought it down from its stay. Tab-Yomin drew near to Lilyukh. Tab-YOmin stepped up to Lilyukh, shook him out of his sleep and spake to him: “The priests saw dreams,

[the above paragraph is repeated verbally down to] . . . and the moon rose by day.” When Lilyukh heard this, he cast dust on his head. Naked, Lilyukh rose from his bed and fetched the dream-book. He opens it and reads in it and looks for what stands there written. He opens it and reads therein and interprets the dreams in silence without reading aloud. He writes them in a letter and expounds them on a leaf. In it he says to them: “ Woe unto you, all of you priests, for Enishbai shall beara child. Woe unto you, ye rabbis, for a child shall be born in Jerusalem. Woe unto you, ye teachers and pupils, for Enishbai shall bear a child. Woe unto you, Mistress Torah (the Law), for Yohana shall be born in Jerusalem.”

Lilyukh writes unto them in the letter and says to them: “The star, that came and stood over Enishbai: A child will be planted out of the height from above; he comes and will be given unto Enishbai. The fire, that burned in Old Father Zakhria: Yohana will be born in Jerusalem.” Tab-Yomin took the letter and in haste made off to Jerusalem. This is most probably Elijah (the Eliyahi of the O.T.); I owe this illuminating conjecture to Dr. M. Gaster. Is there here also a hidden reference to an existing ‘ School of the Prophets’ ? He came and found all the priests sitting in sorrow. He took the letter and laid it in the hand of Elizar. He (E.) opens it and reads it and finds in it wondrous discourses. He opens it and reads it and sees what stands therein written. He reads it in silence and gives them no decision about it. EHlizar then took it and laid itin the hand of Old Father Zakhria.. He (Z.) opens it and reads it and sees what stands therein written. He reads it in silence and gives no decision about it. Hlizar now opened his mouth and spake to Old Father Zakhria: “Old Father, get thee gone from Judea, lest thou stir up strife in Jerusalem.” Old Father then raised his right hand and smote on the head Hlizar : “ Blizar, thou great house, thou head of all the priests! If thou in thy inner [part] knewest thy mother, thou wouldst not dare come into our synagogue. If thou in thy inner [part] knewest, thou wouldst not dare read the Torah. For thy mother was a wanton. A wanton was she, who did not match with the house of her husband’s father. As thy father had not the hundred gold staters for writing her the bill of divorcement, he abandoned her straightway and enquired not for her. Is there a day when I come and look forth,’ and see not Misha bar Amra?’ Yea, is there a day when I come without praying in your synagogue, that you (pl.) should be false and dishonest and say a word which you have ne’er heard about me? Where is there a dead man who becomes living again, that Enishbai should bear a child? Where is there a blind man who becomes seeing, where is there a lame man for whom his feet [walk again], and where is there a mute who learns [to read in| a book, that EHnishbai should bear a child? It is two and twenty years to-day that Ihave seen no wife. Nay, neither through me nor through you will Enishbai bear a child.”

Then all of the priests arose and said to Old Father Zakhria, [they said] in reproach: “Be at rest and keep thy seat, Old Father, and let the calm of the Good (pl.) rest upon thee. Old is in keeping with Jewish figurative diction in which ‘fornication’ is the general term for all lapses from right religious beliefs and views. Father, if there were no dreams in Judea, then would all that Misha has said, be lying. Rather shall thy word and our word be made good, and the dreams we have seen. YoOhana will receive Jordan and be called prophet in Jerusalem.” Thereon Old Father removed himself from their midst, and Elizar followed him. Then were seen three lights (lit. lamps) which companied with him (Z.). They (the priests) ran up, caught Old Father by the hem of his robe and said to him: “Old Father, what is’t that goes before thee, and what is’t that follows thee?’ Then answered he them: “O Elizar, thou great house, thou head of all of the priests, I know not whom the lights guard which go before me. I know not with whom the fire goes which follows me. [But] neither through me nor through you will Enishbai bear a child.”

Then all the priests rose and said to Old Father Zakhria, [they said] in reproach: “Old Father Zakhria, be at peace, firm and decided, for the child will be planted from out of the most high height and be given to thee in thy old age. Y6hana will be born, YOhana will receive Jordan and be called prophet in Jerusalem. We will be baptized with his baptizing and with his pure sign [will we] be signed. We will take his bread and drink his drink and with him ascend to Light’s region.” All the priests arose and said to Old Father Zakhria, [they said] in reproach: “Old Father! We will enlighten thee as to thy race’ and thy fathers, from whom thou hast come forth.

[there follows a list of prophets and sages, beginning with Moses, which I omit, as it requires a lengthy commentary for which space here does not serve,—ending with]. . . Tab-Yomin and the school-teachers have come forth from thy race. The blessed princes, who are thy forbears, Old Father, all of them have taken no wife and begotten no sons.” Yet in their old age’ each of them had a son. They had sons, and they were prophets in Jerusalem. If now out of thee as well a prophet comes forth, thou dost then revive this race again. Yea, Yohana will be born and will be called prophet in Jerusalem.” Then Elizar opened his mouth and said to Old Father: “Old Father! If Yohana receives Jordan, then will I be his servant, be baptized with his baptizing and signed with his pure sign. We will take his bread and drink his drink and with him ascend to Light’s region.” Then Old Father opened his mouth and said unto all of the priests: “If the child comes out of the most high height, what then will yow do in Jerusalem ? ”

They’ have taken the child out of the basin of Jordan and laid him in the womb of Enishbai. Life is victorious and victorious is the Man® who has come hither.

Yahya proclaims in the nights, Yohana on the Night’s evenings.” “Through my Father’s discourses I give light and through the praise of the Man, my creator. I have freed my soul from the world and from the works that are hateful and wrong. The Seven’ put question to me, the Dead who have not seen Life, and they say: ‘In whose strength dost thou stand there, and with whose praise dost thou make proclamation?”’ Thereon I gave to them answer: “I stand in the strength of my Father and with the praise of the Man, my creator. I have built no house in Judea, have set up no throne in Jerusalem. I have not loved the wreath of the roses, not commerce with lovely women. I have not loved the defective,’ not loved the cup of the drunkards. I have loved no food of the body, and envy has found no place in me. I have not forgotten my night-prayer, not forgotten wondrous Jordan. I have not forgotten my baptizing, not [forgotten] my pure sign. I have not forgotten Sun-day,’ and the Day’s evening has not condemned me. I have not forgotten Shilmai and Nibdai,’ who dwell in the House of the Mighty. They clear me and let me ascend; they know no fault, no defect is in me.”

When Yahya said this, Life rejoiced over him greatly. The Seven sent him their greeting and the Twelve’ made obeisance before him. They said to him: “Of all these words which thou hast spoken, thou hast not said a single one falsely. Delightful and fair is thy voice, and none is an equal to thee. Fair is thy discourse in thy mouth and precious thy speech, which has been bestowéd upon thee. The vesture which First Life did give unto Adam, the Man,’ the vesture which First Life did give unto Ram,’ 2 Brandt (Art. H.#.H.) apologetically conjectures that this observance of Sun-day (hab sabbi) was taken over from Syro-Christian usage. But reverence for Sun-day is fundamental with the MM., and it is one of their celestial personifications. 'The MM. loathed idolatry and sun-worship; they worshipped Life and Light, but may have venerated the light as the symbol of that Light. The same puzzle occurs with the prayer-custom of the Essenes, who turned to the rising sun in their morning orisons. The problem we have here to face is the existence of a pre-Christian Sun-day as rigidly observed as the Jews and others kept the Sabbath, and not a ‘ Pagan’ holy-day.

® Sc. the Celestial Man or Adam of Light. Ram the Great, coupled also with Bihram (presumably the Pahlavi or Later Persian form, also Bahram=Avestan Verethragna). the Man, the vesture which First Life did give unto Shurbai,' the Man, the vesture which First Life did give unto Shum bar Na, — has He given now unto thee. He hath given it thee, O Yahya, that thou mayest ascend, and with thee may those ascend x x x *& * * The house of defect’ will be left behind in the desert. Everyone who shall be found sinless, will ascend to thee to the Light’s region; he who is not found sinless, will be called to account in the guard-houses.’” Yahya proclaims in the nights, Yohana on the Night’s

YAHYA proclaims in the nights and says: “In the name of Him who is wondrous and all-surpassing! The Sun sat in his Court (? Corona), and the Moon sat in the Dragon. The Four 2 Shem, son of Noah. The first age or world-period was that of Adam ; the second, of Ram and Rid (fem.) ; the third, of Shurbai and Sharhab-él ; the fourth, that of the Flood. The second generation perished by the sword and pestilence, the third by fire (cp. § 25 below). The Indian yugas came from the same source. As to the prophetical vesture in this special connection, apart from the more general wide-spread notion of the garment of light or robe of glory, cp. the Rabbinical tradition in the medixzval Yaschar or Sepher Hai-yaschar (The Book of the Just, more commonly known as The Book of the Generations of Adam or The Book of the History of Man) which contains ancient material, translated into French by Chevalier P. L. B. Drach: “ After the death of Adam and Eve the coats [sc. of skin—see R. Hisler’s brilliant conjecture that J. the B. outwardly assumed his camel’s hair robe in memory of the first garments of the fallen protoplasts, as a sign of repentance, in the preceding study| were given to Enoch, son of Jared. Enoch, at the time of his being taken to God, gave them to his son Methusaleh. After the death of Methusaleh, Noah took them and hid them in the ark. Ham stole them, and hid them so successfully that his brethren were unable to find them. Ham gave them secretly to his eldest son, Chus, who made a mystery of it to his brothers and sons. When Nimrod {[=Zoroaster, see Bousset, op. cit., index| reached the age of 20 years, he (Chus) clothed him with this vesture, _ which gave him extraordinary strength” (Migne, Dic. des Apocryphes, ii. 1102, 1150; and see my World-Mystery (London, 2nd ed., 1907), § ‘ The SoulVestures,’ pp. 115ff.). It would not be difficult to penetrate under the camouflage of the Rabbinic tradition, but space does not serve.

Winds of the House get them gone on their wings and blow not.’” The Sun opened his mouth and spake unto Yahya :* “Thou hast three [head-] bands [and] a crown which equals in worth the whole world. Thou hasta ship of mashklil,’ which sails about here on the Jordan. Thou hast a great vessel which sails about here ’twixt the waters.’ If thou goest to the House of the Great [One], remember us in the Great’s presence.” Thereon Yahya opened his mouth and spake to the Sun in Jerusalem: “ Thou enquirest about the [head-] bands, may the Perfect (pl.) watch o’er thy crown. This mashklil-ship they have carpentered together’ with glorious splendour. On the vessel that sails ’twixt the waters, the seal of the King has been set. She® who in thy house’ plays the wanton, goes hence and approaches the dung-house;° she seeks to have children from her own proper spouse,’ and she does not find them. If she then” has fulfilled her vow, and she departs,” she is unworthy for the House of the Life and will not be allotted to the Light Dwelling.

> For the Carpenter-motive in connection with the John-Noah hewing of the timber for the salvation-ark-building see the previous study and especially the Samaritan Midrash concerning the S. Ta’eb (Deliverer or Messiah) and the mystic ark of conversion (pp. 8 and 21f.). ® A cryptic sentence referring to the ‘fornicators’ who are not true the True Religion of the MM. ; ‘she ’= the soul. Yahya proclaims in the nights, Yohana on the Night's evenings. YAHYA proclaims in the nights and speaks: “ Stand not I here alone? I go toand fro. Where is a prophet equal tome? Who makes proclamation equal to my proclamations, and who doth discourse with my wondrous voice ?”’ When Yahya thus spake, the two women weep. Miryai’ and Enishbai weep, and for both tears flow. They say: “ We will go hence, and do thou stay here; see that thou dost not bring us to stumble.—I (M.) will go hence, and do thou stay here; see that thou dost not bring me to stumble.—I (E.) will go hence, and do thou stay here; see that thou dost not fill me with sorrow.”

Then Yahya opened his mouth and spake to Enishbai in Jerusalem: “Is there any who could take my place in the height ? Is there any who could take my place in the height, so that thou mayest pay for me ransom? If thou canst pay for me ransom, then bring thy jewels and ransom me. If thou canst pay for me ransom, then bring thy pearls and ransom me. If thou canst pay for me ransom, then bring thy gold and ransom me.” ” Thereon Enishbai opened her mouth and spake to Yahya in Jerusalem: “ Who is thy equal in Judea, who is thy equal in Jerusalem, that I should look on him and forget thee ?’”—‘‘ Who is my equal, who is my equal, that thou shouldst look on him and forget me? Before my voice and the voice of my proclamations the Torah disappeared in Jerusalem. Before the voice of my discourse the readers read no more in Jerusalem. The wantons cease from their lewdness, and the women go not forthtothe.... Hither [to me] come the brides in their wreaths, and their tears flow down to the earth. The child in the womb of his mother heard my voice and did weep. The merchants trade not in Judea,

; y ‘Jewels,’ ‘pearls’ and ‘gold’ are presumably the figures of spiritual riches. and the fishers fish not in Jerusalem.' The women of Israel dress not in dresses of colour,’ the brides wear no gold and the ladies no jewels. Women and men look no more at their face in a mirror. Before my voice and the voice of my proclamations the water rose up to the pillars.. Because of my voice and the voice of my proclamations the fish brought to me their greetings. Before my voice and the voice of my proclamations the birds made obeisance and said: “‘ Well for thee, and again well for thee, Yahya, and well for the Man whom thou dost worship. Thou hast set thyself free and won thy release, O Yahya, and left the world empty. The women have not led thee away with their lewdness, and their words have not made thee distracted. Through sweet savours and scents thou hast not forgotten thy Lord from thy mind. Thou has not made thyself drunken with wine and hast done no deeds of impiety. No backsliding has seized on thee in Jerusalem. Thou hast set thyself free and won thy release and set up thy throne for thee in Life’s House.”

Yahya proclaims in the nights, Yohana on the Night’s evenings. YAHYA proclaims and speaks: “Ye nobles, who lie there, ye ladies, who will not awaken,—ye who lie there, what will you do on the Day of the Judgment? When the soul strips off the body, on Judgment-Day what will you do? O thou distracted, jumbledup world in ruin! Thy men die, and thy false scriptures are closed. Where is Adam, the First Man, who was here head of the ® Sc. of the temple; cp. the miraculous spiritual outpouring of the Last Days expected by John, based on O.T. prophecies, as set forth in the previous introductory study; also one of the Odes of Solomon, quoted in the Pistis Sophia (ch. 65, pag. 131, Mead p. 110): “A stream came forth and became a great wide flood. It tore away all to itself and turned itself against the temple,” etc. The whole Ode is most instructive in this connection, and the Odes in general move in a very similar atmosphere to the John-lore. (See for Trans. from Syriac, Rendel Harris and Mingana, The Odes and Psalins of Solomon, Manchester, 1920). The ‘fish’ and ‘birds’ of the next sentences are the faithful.

zon? Where is Hawwa (Eve), his wife, out of whom the world was awakened to life? Where is Shit-il (Seth), son of Adam, out of whom worlds and eons arose? Where is Ram and Riad, who belonged to the Age of the Sword? Where are Shurbai and Sharhab-él, who belonged to the Age of the Fire? Where is Shum bar Na (Shem, son of Noah), who belonged to the Age of the Flood ? All have departed and bave not returned and taken their seats as Guardians in this world.’ [The Last Day] is like a feast-day, for which the worlds and the eons are waiting. The Planets are [like] fatted oxen, who stand there for the Day of the Slaughter. The children of this world are [like] fat rams, who stand in the markets for sale. But as for my friends, who pay homage to Life, their sins and trangressions will be forgiven them.”

[The introductory formula and beginning of this piece are missing from the MSS.] [Yohana is apparently speaking. | I TAKE no delight in the eons, I take no delight i: in 1 all of the worlds; I take’ no delight'in the eons ~* 0% 0° *) 7°)" x * *« * by the Letter of Truth’ which has come hither. They’ took the Letter and put it in the hand of the Jews. * Kushta is the general term for the religious ideal of the MM.; it is elastic in meaning and cannot be translated by a single rigid concept. The original sense seems to have been ‘Truth,’ * Righteousness’ and perhaps ‘Order? (cp. the Avestan Asha and the Vedic Rita). It thus means the true religion, loyalty, trust and faith (see J.B. xvii.f.). Kushtais fem. It is tobe noted that in Avestan literature Ashi (fem.) is the heavenly impersonation of rectitude, fortune, chastity, riches (cp. wthrd’s), and Chisti (fem.) of religious wisdom (?=gndsis)—see M. N. Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization, New York, 1922, pp. 45, 51f., 68, 77, 84. With the frequent recurrence of the lettersymbol in M. scripture, cp. the’ Syriac ‘Hymn of the Soul,’ or ‘ of the Pearl,’ which belongs to the same main stream of the Gnosis (see my Hymn of the Liobe of Glory, ‘ Echoes from the Gnosis’ series, vol. x., London, 1908).

These open it, read in it and see that it does not contain what they would, that it does not contain what their soul wills. They took the letter and put it in the hand of Yohana. “ Take, Rab Yohana,” say they to him, “ Truth’s Letter, which has come here to thee from thy Father.’ Yohina& opened it and read it and saw in it a wondrous writing. He opened it and read in it and became full of life. ‘“‘ This is,” says he, “ what I would, and this does my soul will.” Yohana has left his body’; his brothers make proclamations, his brothers proclaim unto him on the Mount, on Mount Karmel.’ They’ took the Letter and brought it to the Mount, to Mount Karmel. They read out of the Letter to them’ and explain to them the writing,—to Yaqif and Beni-Amin and Shumél.’ They

[What follows is presumably the beginning of the Letter.] Gnosis of Life® who is far from the height [writes]: “TI have come unto thee, O Soul, whom Life has sent into this world. In-robes of the Hight? went I into the world. I went in the vesture of Life and came into the world. The vesture I brought of the Seven, I went as far as the Hight. The vesture of the Seven I took and took hold of the Hight with my hand. [I have * Sufis would at once conclude that this refers to the Divan, the nightly Meeting of the Perfect in spirit presided over by the Qutb (Pillar or Axis), the Head of the age. Mt. Karmel is identified with the story of Elijah and has always continued to be a sacred mount. Doubtless communities of ‘ Sons ot the Prophets’ and the rest had continuously there their retreats. Can it be that Tab YOmin went to Mt. Karmel to find Lilyukh (Eli-yahu)? Karmel= the Garden or Garden-land. It had been a sacred spot long before the days of Elijah, who hid there from his pursuers in its numerous grottos. The Arabs still call it Jebal Mar Elyas (Mount Lord Elijah). Yamblichus in his Life of the sage says that Pythagoras visited it.

° Sc. the heavenly messengers. 6 Sc. the brethren who had equally ‘ left the body.’ 7 Plainly Samuel. ° The higher Ogdoad ; I conjecture, therefore, that this is a more ancient piece. The John-gnosis had depressed the Hight and the Seven and Twelve to the infernals, yet retained memory of a Great Eight and the rest. taken them] and I take them, and I will take them and not let them go. I have taken them and hold them fast, and the wicked spirits shall change into good. Yahya proclaims in the nights, Yodhana on the Night’s evenings. YAHYA proclaims in the nights and speaks: “Is there any one greater than I? They measure my works; my wage is pres: and my crown, and my praise brings me on highin peace.” * *

Yaqif leaves the house of the people, Beni-Amin leaves the temple, EKlizar, the great house, leaves the dome of the priests. The priests spake unto Yahya in Jerusalem: ‘“ Yahya, go forth from our city! Before thy voice quaked the house of the people, at the sound of thy proclamations the temple did quake, at the sound of thy discourse quaked the priests’ dome.” Thereon Yahya answered the priests in Jerusalem: “Bring fire and burn me; bring sword and hew me in pieces.” But the priests in Jerusalem answered to Yahya: “Fire does not burn thee, O Yahya, for Life’s Name has been uttered o’er thee. A sword does not hew thee in pieces, O Yahya, for Life’s Son’ rests here upon thee.”

JOHN AND THE BAPTISM OF JESUS (§ 80). Yahya proclaims in the nights, Ydhana on the Night’s evenings. YAHYA proclaims in the nights.—Glory rises over the worlds. Who told Yeshu (Hshu)? Who told Yeshu Messiah, son of Miryam, who told Yeshu, so that he went to the shore of the Jordan and said [unto Yahya]: “ Yahya, baptize me with thy baptizing and utter o’er me also the Name thy wont isto utter. If I show myself as thy pupil, I will remember thee then in my writing; I attest not myself as thy pupil, then wipe out my name from thy page.” Thereon Yahya answered Yeshu Messiah in Jerusalem: “ Thou hast lied to the Jews and deceived the priests. Thou hast cut off their seed from the men and from the women bearing and being pregnant. The sabbath, which Moses made binding, hast thou relaxed’ in Jerusalem. Thou hast lied unto them with horns’ and spread abroad disgrace with the shofar.”

Thereon Yeshu Messiah answered Yahya in Jerusalem: “If I have lied to the Jews, may the blazing fire consume me. If I have deceived the priests, a double death will I die. If I have cut off their seed from the men, may I not cross o’er the End-Sea. If I have cut off from the women birth and being pregnant, then is in sooth a judge raised up before me. If I have relaxed the sabbath, may the blazing fire consume me. If I have lied to the Jews, I will tread on thorns and thistles. If I have spread disgrace abroad with horn-blowing, may my eyes then not light on Abathur.’ So baptize me then with thy baptizing, and utter o’er me the Name thy wont is to utter. If I show myself as thy pupil, I will remember thee then in my writing; if I attest not myself as thy pupil, then wipe out my name from thy page.”

Then spake Yahya to Yeshu Messiah in Jerusalem: ‘A stammerer becomes not a scholar, a blind man writes no letter. A desolate house’ mounts not to the height, and a widow becomes not a virgin. Foul water becomes not tasty, and a stone does not with oil soften.” Thereon Yeshu Messiah made answer to Yahya in Jerusalem: “A stammerer a scholar becomes, a blind man writes a letter. A desolate house mounts unto the height, and a widow becomes a virgin. Foul water becomes tasty, and a stone with oil softens.” thou giv’st me illustration for this, thou art [really] a wise Messiah.”’ Thereon Yeshu Messiah made answer to Yahya in Jerusalem : “A stammerer a scholar becomes: a child who comes from the bearer, blooms and grows big. Through wages and alms he comes on high; he comes on high through wages and alms, and ascends and beholds the Light’s region.

“A blind man who writes a letter: a villain who has become virtuous. He abandoned wantonness and abandoned theft and reached unto faith in almighty Life. “A desolate house who ascends again to the height: one of position who has become humble. He quitted his palaces and quitted his pride and built a house on the sea[-shore]. A house he built on the sea[-shore], and into it opened two doors, so that he might bring in unto him whoever lay down there in misery,—to him he opened the door and took him within to himself. If he would eat, he laid for him a table with Truth. If he would drink, he mixed for him [wine-]cups [with Truth]. If he would lie down, he spread a bed for him in Truth. If he would depart, he led him forth on the way of Truth. He led him forth on the way of Truth and of faith, and then he ascends and beholds the Light’s region.

“A widow who a virgin becomes: a woman who already in youth has been widowed. She kept her shame closed, and sat there till her children were grown. If she passes over, her face does not pale in her husband’s’ presence. “Foul water that is made tasty: a girl wanton who has got back her honour: she went up a hamlet and she went down a hamlet without taking her veil from her face. “A stone with oil softens: a heretic who has come down from the mountain.” He abandoned magic and sorcery and .made * L. thinks that by zandiq (heretic) is meant a Zoroastrian or Manichean who comes down from the mountains to join the Mandzans who live in the plains. This seems to me entirely mistaken. The Z.’s and M.’s lived as well on plains as on mountains. In every probability it means the Mount of Darkness on which the Seven assemble to plot against the righteous. The Seven are the lords of all the false religions. For the Mount of Hades, the Prison Mount of the Underworld in Bab. tradition, see my paper ‘ New-found Fragments of a Babylonian Mystery-play and the Passion-story,’ Quest, Jan. 1922, p. 173.

confession to almighty Life. He found a fatherless and filled him full and filled full the widow’s pockets. “Therefor baptize me, O Yahya, with thy baptizing and utter o’er me the Name thy wont is to utter. If I show myself as thy pupil, I will remember thee in my writing; if I attest not myself as thy pupil, then wipe out my name from thy page. Thou wilt for thy sins be haled to account, and I for my sins will be haled to account.” When Yeshu Messiah said this, there came a Letter out of the House of Abathur: “ Yahya, baptize the deceiver in Jordan. Lead him down into the Jordan and baptize him, and lead him up again to the shore, and there set him.”

Then Raha’ made herself like to a dove and pete a cross” over the Jordan. A cross she threw over the Jordan and made its water to change into various colours.” “O Jordan,” she says, “ thou sanctifiest me and thou sanctifiest my seven sons.”’ [Then follows what, from its animadversion on Christian institutions and especially on the use of the crucifix, is plainly a later addition. Riuha is apparently still speaking; she is the Mother of all heresies. ] “The Jordan in which Messiah Paulis’ was baptized, have I made into a ‘ trough.” The bread which Messiah Paulis receives, ® Sc. of light; cp. the great light that shone on Jordan at the baptizing of Jesus in ‘ The Gospel according to the Hebrews.’ Tatian’s Diatessaron (Syriac, 2nd half of 2nd cent.) also preserves this feature. Bar Salibi (+ 1171) glosses this as follows: ‘‘ And immediately, as the Gospel of the Diatessaron testifies, a mighty light flashed upon Jordan and the river was girdled with white clouds, and there appeared his many hosts that were uttering praise in the air; and Jordan stood still from its flowing, though its waters were not troubled, and a pleasant odour therefrom was wafted.”’ There is a strong Mandan flavour about this gloss, which doubtless rested on early tradition. See F. C. Burkitt, Evangelion da-Mepharreshe (Cambridge, 1904), ii. 115. This is the Christian and not the M. ‘cross,’ as e.g. used in the baptismal ceremony, which is made of a number of long sticks or wands, the ends of which are stuck in the ground and the tops crossed one over the other to represent rays of light.

®* The Jordan is white for the MM.; the various colours signify heresies. have I made into a ‘sacrament.’ The drink which Messiah Paulis receives, have I made into a ‘supper.’ The head-band ‘which Messiah Paulis receives, have I made into a ‘priest-hood.” The staff which Messiah Paulis receives, have I made into a‘ dung [-stick].’’” [ ? Gnosis of Life speaks (ep. § 29) :] “Det me warn you, my brothers, let me warn you, my belovéd! Let me warn you, my brothers, against the . . . who are like unto the cross. They lay it on the walls; then stand there and bow down to the block. Let me warn you, my brothers, of the god which the carpenter has joinered together. If the carpenter has joinered together the god, who then has joinered together the carpenter ? ” Praiséd be Life, and Life is victorious.