408 MAND^EANS and Angelas a Sancto, began to labour among them at Basrah ; further information was gathered at a some what later date by Pietro della Valle l and Thevenot, 2 and in the following century by Kaempfer, Chardin, and Xiebuhr. In recent times they have been visited by Petennann 3 and Albert Socin, and last of all Liouffi 4 pub lished in 1880 a full and accurate account of the manners a - id customs of the sect, taken from the lips of a converted Mandsean himself. For our knowledge of their doctrinal system, however,"we must of course still depend chiefly upon the sacred books already mentioned, consisting of fragments of very various antiquity derived from an older literature. 5 Of these the largest and most important is the Sidrd rabbd or " Great Book," known also as Ginzd (treasure), consisting of two unequal parts, of which the larger is called "yamina" (to the righb hand) and the smaller "s inala-" (to the left hand), because of the manner in which they are bound together, In Petermann s edition the former occupies three hundred and ninety-five large quarto pages and the other only one hundred and thirty-eight. The former is intended for the living; the latter consists chiefly of prayers to be read at the burial of priests. As re gards doctrine, tha work is exhaustive; but it is characterized throughout by diffuseness, and often by extreme obscurity, besides being occasionally self-contradictory, as might be expected in a work which consists of a number of uncon nected paragraphs of various authorship and date. The last section of the " right-hand " part (the " Book of Kings ") is ono of the older portions, and from its allusion to "the Persian and Arabian kings" may be concluded to date from somewhere between 700 and 900 A.D. Many of the doctrinal portions may in substance well be still older, and date from the time of the Sassanids. None of the MSS., however, are older than the 16th century. 6 The following sketch represents, as far as can be gathered from these heterogeneous sources, the principal features of the Mandaean system. The ground and origin of all things is Pira, or more correctly Pdra rabba, <f the great abyss" (either Persian Pir, " old," or from IJJS, " to split," comp. the Gnostic /3u$os), associated with whom, and forming a triad with him, are the primal aeons Ayar ziva rabba, " the great shining aether," and Mana rabbd d ekara, " the great 1 Reisebeschreibung, part iv. , Geneva, 1674. 2 Voyage au Levant, Paris, 1689. 3 Reisen im Orient, ii. 447 sq.
- Liouffi, Etudes sur la Religion . . . des Souhbas, Paris, 1880.
5 Mandtean MSS. occur in the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, the Bibliotheque Nationale of France, and also in Rome, Weimar, and Berlin. 6 The first printed edition and translation of the Sidrd, rabbd, by Matth. Norberg (Codex Nazaraeiis, liber Adami appellatus, 3 vols. , Copenhagen, 1815-16, followed by a lexicon in 1816, and an onomas- ticon in 1817), is so defective as to be quite useless ; even the name Book of Adam is unknown to the Mandaeans. Petermann s The saurus s. Liber magnus, vulyo "Liber Adami" appellatus, opus MandsBorum summi ponderis (2 vols., Leipsic, 1867), is an excellent metallographic reproduction of the Paris MS. A critical edition still remains a desideratum. Next in importance to the Sidrd rabba, is the Sidrd, d Yahya, or " Book of John," otherwise known as the D rdschg d Malke, or "Discourses of the Kings," which has not as yet been printed as a whole, although portions have been published by Lorsbach and Tychsen (see Museum f. bibl. u. orient. Lit., 1807, and Stiiudlin a Beitr. z. Phil. u. Gesch. d. Relig u. Sittenlehre, 1796 sq. ). The Koldsta (Ar., Kholdsa, " Quintessence "), or, accord ing to its fuller title Eny&nS uderdsM d masb&thd umassekthd, ( Songs and Discourses of Baptism and the Ascent," viz., of the soul after death) has been admirably lithographed by Euting (Stuttgart, 1867). It is also known as Sidrd d neshmdtha, "Book of Souls," and besides hymns and doctrinal discourses contains prayers to be offered by the priests at sacrifice and at meals, as well as other litur gical matter. The Mandsean marriage service occurs both in Paris and in Oxford as an independent MS. The Dlwan, hitherto unpub lished, contains the ritual for atonement. The Asfar malwdshe, or " Book of the Zodiac," is astrological. Of smaller pieces many are magical and used as amulets. spirit of glory," usually called simply Mana rabba. The last-named, the most prominent of the three, is the king of light properly so called, from whom the development of all things begins. From him emanates YardSna rabba, " the great Jordan," which, as the higher world soul, permeates the whole aether, the domain of Ayar. Along side of Maua rabba frequent mention is made of D miltha, his " image," as a female power ; the name " image of the father " arises out of the same conception as that which gives rise to the names of criyrj and evvoia among the Greek Gnostics. Mdna rabba called into being the highest of the aeons properly so-called, Hayy6 Kadmriye", " Primal Life," and then withdrew into deepest secrecy, visible indeed to the highest but not to the lowest aeons (comp. 2<o$ia and ILooTrarwp), yet manifesting himself also to the souls of the more pious of the Mandseans after their separation from the body. Primal Life, who is properly speaking the Mandsean god, has the same predicates as the primal spirit, and every prayer, as well as every section of the sacred books, begins by invoking him. 7 The extremely fantastic delineation of the world of light by which Hayye Kadmaye" is surrounded (see for example the beginning of Sidrd ralbd) corresponds very closely with the Manichsean description of the abode of the " king of the paradise of light." The king of light " sits in the far north in might and glory." The Primal Light unfolds himself by five great branches, viz., " the highest purest light, the gentle wind, the harmony of sounds, the voice of all the aeons, and the beauty of their forms," all these being treated as abstrac tions and personified. Out of the further development and combination of these primary manifestations arise numerous aeons (Uthre, "splendours," from iny, "is rich"), of which, the number is often stated to be three hundred and sixty. They are divided into a number of classes (kings, hypostases, forms, &c.) ; the proper names by which they are invoked are many, and for the most part obscure, borrowed doubtless, to some extent, from the Parses angelology. From the First Life proceeds as a principal emanation the " Second Life," Hayye Tinyane", generally called Ytishamin. This last name is evidently meant to be Hebrew, "Jehovah of the heavens," the God of the Jews being of a secondary rank in the usual Gnostic style. The next emanation after Yvishamfn is " the messenger of life " (Manda d hayye, literally yvolcns T??S ^s), the most important figure in the entire system, the mediator and redeemer, the Aoyo9 and the Christ of the Manda3ans, from whom, as already stated, they take their name. He is occasionally also called the primal man, Gabra Kaclmaya, as in the Kabbala and by Mani. Yushamin desired to raise himself above the Primal Light, but failed in the attempt, and was punished by removal out of the pure aetherial world into that of inferior light. The one world is separated from the other by water channels (H fike Mayye). Manda on the other hand continues with the First Life and Mana rabba, and is called his " beloved son," the " first born, " high priest," and " word of life." Manda makes his appearance in the visible world in a series of incarnations beginning with the three brothers Hibil, Shithil, and Anush (late Judaeo-Babylonian transformations of the well-known names of the book of Genesis), and ending with John the Baptist. Of the first three the most highly honoured is Hibil, almost invariably referred to as " the brilliant Hibil"; he is the alter ego of Manda, his image in this present world, having the same predicates and the same activities, and is the Jesus Christ of the Mandseans. The Second Life, Yushamfn, has as the last of three sons Hayye" t litaye, the " Third Life," the most distinguished of 7 The use of the word " life " in a personal sense is usual in Gnos ticism; compare the Zuri of Valentin, and el-hayat el-muallama, "the
dark life," of Maiii in the Fihrist,