RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Mandaeans Maude
who also employed " Egyptians " and " Red Sea " in just such a metaphorical sense as did the Mandaeans. Indeed, the question of the sources of Mandseism is just that of the sources of Ophitism and Gnosticism in general. These systems are not traceable to the teachings of the Persian Zarathustra, nor to Phenician heathenism, nor to the Greek mysteries, but simply to the Babylonian-Chaldean national religion, which was domiciled in the region where Ophites, Peratae, and Mandaeans lived, and where they were distinguished from Christians (cf. W. Anz, Zur Frage nach der Ursprung des Gnostizismus, pp. 59 sqq., Leipsic, 1897). While some fundamental conceptions are changed, as when the names of Babylonian deities become the names of the planets and are regarded as evil spirits, yet the derivation is so clear upon investigation that no doubt can be entertained upon this point.
The Mandaean baptism can not be derived from the Jewish baptism of proselytes, nor is it Christian baptism taken over and exaggerated; the Mandaean practise is diametrically opposed to both. Christian baptism implies metanoia, 12. Baby- ethical rebirth, and it marks the inlonian and auguration of an ethical renewing of Manichean the heart after the pattern of the Sa- Ideas vior; the Mandaean rite, so frequently Borrowed, repeated, is a theurgic-magical operation and aims at an ever-increasing insight into the secrets of the kingdom of light through the mediation of water, the element of the king of light. The Mandaean light-god Mana Rabba is to be identified with the Babylonian Ea (see Babylonia, VII., 2, § 3), and his emanation Manda de hayye or his son Hibil Ziwa with Ea's son Marduk (see Babylonia, VII., 2, § 10). Ea, the god of profound knowledge, father of the mediator Marduk, enthroned in the world-sea, whose holy element is water, is the Ea of the brilliant ocean of heaven, as comes out in the Ayar-yora and the heavenly Jordan of the Mandaeans. Similarly, as Marduk, the conqueror of Tiamat, appears in various incarnations like that of Gilgamesh, so do Hibil Ziwa and his successors. The parallels of Ishtar's descent into hell and that of Hibil Ziwa, the division of the planetary worlds into a system of seven, and the seat of Ea in the North with the Mandaean direction of worship to that quarter are sufficiently obvious. Similar relationship can be established with Manicheanism. Mani was in his youth an adherent of the Babylonian Mu'tasilah (" baptizers "), an early Babylonian sect. Palestinian Hemerobaptists, Elkesaites (q.v.), Nazarenes, and Ebionites (q.v.) were sects which propagated in the West under Jewish influence Babylonian ideas, especially those of a mediator and the closely connected rite of baptism; these sects took form in pre-Christian times and later were hostile to Christianity. John the Baptist gave to the rite of baptism, thus derived, a new ethical content by connecting with it the Old-Testament expectation of a Messiah. Similarly the second sacrament of the Mandaeans, the Eucharist, must be explained upon usage grounded in nature-religions, in honor paid to the pure elements of nature and its gifts, and not as a perversion of the Christian mystery. The original teach-
ing of Mani could not have been very different in this matter from the common Mandaean-Gnostic doctrine (see Mani, Manicheans). The conception of eons and of the ruh al-hayat, " spirit of life," are alike in the two systems (cf. the Valentinian Z5S). Similarly the work of the original man in combating the original devil is practically the same in Mandaeism and Manicheanism, though the former has made the development more complex by introducing a stratum of Aramaic thought in the names of angels and devils. While, then, the religious system of the Mandaeans has especial interest rather in connection with the universal history of religion than with the theology of Christianity, yet there is much in it which can shed light upon the history of doctrine. In particular, the form of the Mandaean sacraments affords ground for thought to the investigator of the history of the Christian sacrament of baptism. (K. Kessler.) Bibliography: The Ginza, called also the Sidra rabba, is best consulted in the ed. of H. Petermann, Thesaurus sive liber magnus, vulgo " Liber Adami," vol. i., Berlin, 1867, vol. ii., Leipsic, 1867 (based on a comparison of four MSS. of 16th and 17th centuries). A prior ed. was by M. Norberg, Codex Nasarosus, liber Adami appellatus, vols, i.-iv., Copenhagen, vol. v (onomasticon), Lund, 1817 (misleading, being a Syriac transcription, but has Latin transl.). A Germ, transl., with notes, has been issued by W. Brandt, Gottingen, 1893, and the same scholar gives the titles of the tracts or books of which the Ginza is composed in his very scholarly Mandaische Religion, pp. 207-209, Leipsic, 1889. Other Mandaean writings published are: Qolasta, by J. Euting, Stuttgart, 1867 (a liturgical work); parts of the Sidra de Yahya (" Book of John "), in Germ, transl. by G. W. Lorsbach, in Beitragen zur Philosophie und Geschichte, v (1799), 1-44. Mandaean inscriptions have been published: H. Pognon, Inscriptions mandaites des coupes de Khouabir, 2 vols., Paris, 1898-99 (cf. the review by M. Lidzbarski in TLZ, 1899); idem, Une incantation contre les genies malfaisants en Mandaite, Paris, 1892; M. Lidzbarski, in Ephemeris fur semitische Epigraphik, i. 1 (1900), 89-106; cf. J. H. Mordtmann and D. H. Miiller, Sabaische Denkmaler, Vienna, 1883.
For early reports concerning the Mandaeans consult: F. Ignatius a Jesu, Narratio originis, rituum et errorum Christianorum S. Joannis, Rome, 1652; Abraham Ecchellensis, Eutychius patriarcha Alexandrinus vindicatus, pp. 310-336, Rome, 1660; Jean Thevenot, Voyage au Levant, Paris, 1664; J. Chardin, Journal du voyage en Perse,
London, 1686; C. Niebuhr, Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien und andern . Landern, 3 vols., Hamburg, 1774-1837, Eng. transl., 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1792. The two important modern works, besides that of W. Brandt, ut sup., are by H. J. Petermann, Reisen im Orient, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1861; and M. N. Siouffi, Etudes sur la religion des Soubbas ou Sabeens, leurs dogmes, leurs mceurs, Paris, 1880. Not to be overlooked is W. Brandt, in JPT, xviii (1892), 405-438, 575-603. Consult further: J. Matter, Hist, du gnosticisme, ii. 394-422, Paris, 1828; L. E. Burckhardt, Let Nazoreens ou Mandai-Jahja {disciples de Jean), Strasburg, 1840 (based on Norberg); D. Chwolsohn, Die Ssabier, i. 100-138, St. Petersburg, 1856; J. M. Chevalier Lycklama, Voyages . dans la M esopotamie, vol. iii., book 3, chap, iv., Paris, 1868; Babelon, in Annales de philosophie chretienne, 1881; E. Bischoff, Im Reiche der Gnosis. Die mystischcn Lehren des jiidischen und christlichen Gnosticismus, Mandaismus und Manichaismus und ihr babylonisch-astraler Ursprung, Leipsic, 1906; an important body of magazine literature is indicated in Richardson, Encyclopaedia, pp. 674-675; Encyclopaedia Britannica, xv. 467. For the language: T. Noldeke, Mandaische Grammatik, Halle, 1875; idem, in Abhandlungen der Gbttinger Gesellschaft, 1862; H. Pognon, Inscriptions, ut. sup., pp. 257-308.
MANDE, man'de, HENDRIK: Dutch mystic of the Windesheim community; b. at Dort c. 1360; d. in the monastery of Sion, near Beverwijk, 1431.
Mande
Mani, Manicheans