ABSTRACT
The Mandaeans (Mandâyê), who are also known as Ṣâbæns (i.e. worshippers of the host of heaven), and Mughtasils (i.e. “the washers,” because of the frequency of their ablutions), and “ Christians of St. John” (because of their tradition that they are descended from the disciples of St. John the Baptist), are a Semitic people who live in Lower Babylonia and on the banks of the Shaṭṭ al-‘Arab, and who speak a dialect similar to that found in the Talmudh Babhlî. Their ancestors before the Christian Era were pagans, and practised magic, and believed in a form of astrology which seems to have been of Babylonian origin. The Christian Mandaeans clung to the belief in the magic practices of their ancestors, and on it they welded many elements of belief which they derived from the Gnostics, the Jews, the Iranians or Persians, and Christians. They had no Sabbaths and did not practise circumcision. When they pray they do not turn towards Jerusalem, but towards the north, where are the great mountains from which flow the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The sources of these rivers is the world of light where the Supreme Life, i.e. God, lives and reigns. In the waters of these they bathe morning and evening, especially on Sundays and days of fasting. They also observe a bathing festival in which whole communities go to the river and bathe ceremonially under the direction of their priests, or according to their private rules. They believe that through these immersions in the “waters of light” they receive a renewal of life from the Great Life, the Master of the Universe, and all virtues. It would be impossible for them to practise their religion in a region where there were no rivers and streams, and it is due to this fact that they have always lived in the district round about Ḳurnah, where the Tigris and Euphrates unite to form the Shaṭṭ al-‘Arab. One of the names by which they are known, viz. “Mughtasilin” may be rendered “Baptists.” Their term for “baptism” is maṣbutâ, because with them the ceremony takes place in “living,” i.e. flowing water. They despise the Christian ceremony because they say that it is performed in “dead,” i.e. still water. Their God, “ Life,” is the King of Light, and dwells with His angels in a heaven which is high above the heavens or spheres of the stars and planets and Signs of the Zodiac. Below the starry spheres is our earth, which is formed of matter derived from some of the solidified water of the primeval World-Ocean. In some portion of this Black Water dwells a great she-devil called Rûhâ, and her husband ‘Ur, who is also her son, and great armies of evil spirits. ‘Ur is the god of Darkness, and is the great antagonist of the god of Light. Here we have a cosmogony derived from the ancient Sumerians, and Tiamat, Kingu and Marduk under other names, and we may regard the Mandaeans as the representatives of the ancient worshippers of Ea, the great Water-god of Eridu.
