THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
John the Baptist by Pharaoh, and once since, by a certain Adam abu al-farash, both of whom were not of this world but came from the upper world. Women are admitted to the clergy. They enter the diaconate as virgins and become presbyters only after marriage with one of the higher orders. The official dress of the clergy is white throughout, consisting of breeches, tunic, girdle, stole, and turban, and on the little finger of the right hand the priest wears a gilt and the bishop a golden ring, on which is inscribed shum Yawar ziwar, " name of Yawar Ziwa," i.e., of Hibil Ziwa. In exercising their ministerial functions the clergy go barefooted. Man consists of three parts, the body, the animal soul, and the heavenly soul. On the approach of death a Mandeean is attended by a deacon and two or more nurses, is bathed with warm and then with cold water, and then clothed in the funeral robes consisting of seven pieces. The body is laid out with the head to the south so that 9. Last the eyes are directed to the polar star, Rites; the and the grave is dug so that the body Soul's Hap. maintains the same position, and prayers are offered at the interment. The soul of the dead passes out of the earth-region into the sphere of light, and according to some passages of the scriptures is accompanied by an Uthra, who comes for that purpose from the kingdom of light, finally passing a stream which constitutes the last hindrance to its approach to the " house of life." At the door of this house sits Abathur with his scales to weigh the deeds of the departed; after passing this ordeal, the soul is received and clothed in garments of light. Those whose deeds do not permit their reception are remitted to the lower regions, there to receive punishment of stripes without end. The end of the world is called " the day of the end " and " the second death," and is brought about by the serpent Leviathan which destroys all not belonging to the world of light and the earth itself. Mandseans are not willing to disclose their beliefs to strangers for fear of arousing the fanaticism of the Mohammedans. Part of the knowledge gained came through the son of a priest who became a convert to Roman Catholicism and communicated information to M. N. Siouffi, the French consul in Mosul 1874—75.
While in the seventeenth century the numbers of the Mandeeans were given at about 20,000 families, at present there is only a small remnant of about 1,500 persons, living south of Bagdad along the Tigris and Euphrates and in Khuzistan, plying the trades of goldsmiths, black- 10. Present smiths, builders, and carpenters. They Conditions; are not to be confused with the Mothe hammedan sect of Nosairiyah in Language. Lebanon. Externally the Mandseans do not distinguish themselves from, Mohammedans. Since the latter arrogate to them-^ selves white clothing, which the Ginza regards as holy, Mandaans usually wear brown raiment or brown with white stripes. Mandsans speak Arabic or Persian, but the language of their scriptures is an Aramaic dialect of great value for the student of language and is related lexically and grammatically to that of the Babylonian Talmud and to theNa-
batsean tongue. It was probably the native tongue of Mani, and the Ginza doubtless contains long passages from the Manichean writings (see Mani, Manicheans, § 13). Nevertheless, the pronunciation as at present employed by Mandaeans has not been correctly transmitted. The vocabulary is Aramaic in groundwork, with loan words from Jewish, Syrian-Christian, and especially Persian sources, while the later writings are mixed with Arabic. The alphabet, which probably arose in Babylonia and combines the early Aramaic and Palmyrene elements, has twenty-two letters.
The origins of Mandsean doctrine, it must firmly be maintained, are to be sought in the religion of Babylonia; and Babylonia itself was the place where it arose. A Jewish or Christian source in Palestine is out of the question. Mandseans are not the descendants of the disciples of John the Baptist, although he and the Jordan are so frequently mentioned in their writings. 11. Sources The tradition of the people themselves of Man- that they arose in Galilee, were persedaean cuted in Jerusalem and driven thence Doctrines, by the caliphs is historically worthless. They are to be compared with such sects as the Hemerobaptists of the Church Fathers (Eusebius, Hist, eccl., IV., xxii. 6; NPNF, 2 ser., i. 199; Epiphanius, Hcer. xvii.; " Clementine Recognitions," i. 54: " Some even of the disciples of John, who seem to be great ones, have separated themselves from the people and proclaimed their own master as the Christ "; ANF, viii. 92). The reputed founder and other Biblical characters and coloring have come into the religion through the syncretistic process. To connect them with these early sects is no more right than to associate them with the Nazaraioi of Epiphanius (Hcer. xviii.). The mistake arose in the misapprehension of missionaries of the seventeenth century, who mistook them for a kind of Christians on account of their practise of baptism and related them with the Baptist and with Galilee. It is true that during the second and third centuries the religion passed through a period of sympathetic feeling for Christianity and was influenced by its ritual. Thus Biblical reminiscences and nomenclature, from Adam to John and Jesus, including even the terminology of parts of the Jewish ritual, went to the building of the Mandsean scriptures and teaching. But the antichristian bias appears in making Moses a false prophet, Jesus the evil planet Mercury, and the Holy Ghost the most devilish evil spirit, as well as in the polemics against Christian monasticism and other Christian institutions. Still more observable is the antijudaic bias, especially in the utter abhorrence of circumcision. While the constant use of the name " Jordan " might seem to imply derivation of the sect from people who once dwelt on that river, the usage is to be compared with that in Hippolytus {Hcer. v. 2; ANF, y. 52), where the ■' great Jordan " is employed in the Naassene system to express the idea of the great sanctifying element of life in the world of light. Thus the name of the Biblical Jordan was employed in the earliest Gnostic systems, and notably in that of the Peratso (who were in the Euphrates region),