The Mandaic Book of John and Jesus' birth narratives

[farpinho]

Continuing my post on the Mandeans, that I started in my previous thread (thank you very much for everybody who replied).

Now, considering the Mandeans were a sect that rejected Jesus as the Messiah, instead considering John the Baptist as the messiah, they were indeed a community that was “hostile” to the Christianity.

One of the scripts that the Mandeans considered as a Holy Book included the Mandaic Book of John the Baptist.
The book dates from the Islamic era, although there is evidence that some of its contents are rooted in earlier traditions.

Quoting from The Mandaic Book of John’s Chapter 32:

John teaches in the nights and says,
“The spheres and the Merkabah shook,
Earth and the heavens wept,
and tears flowed from the clouds.”
He says, “My father was 99 years old,
and my mother was 88 years old.
I came from the Jordan basin;
They took me, and brought me,
and placed me in the womb of Elizabeth.
And he said, “Nine months I dwelt in her womb, like all infants”
And he said, “No wise woman assisted with my birth in Judah,
And my umbilical cord was not cut in Jerusalem
They made for me no deceptive image
and they did not hang up a bell for me in wickedness.
I came into being from Elizabeth in Jerusalem
The city of Jerusalem quaked
The city of the navel of priests was shaken
Eleazar, the great house, stood and his stature quaked

The Jews gathered and came to Old Father Zechariah
They said to him, “Oh Old Father Zechariah,
You must have a son.
Tell us, what name shall we give to him?
Shall we give him (the name) Joseph of wisdom,
so that he teaches the book in Jerusalem?
Shall we give him (the name) Zatan the pillar
so that the Jews find in him trustworthiness and not deception?”

When Elizabeth heard, she spoke up.
She cried out, saying,
“From all these names that that you mentioned
I do not desire to give him a single one
But I desire only to give him the name Yahia-Yuhana,
Which (the) Life (himself) gave to him.”

Quoting from chapter 18 now:

In the name of the Great Life. May transcendent Light be exalted!
A child was planted from on high,
a secret/mystery was revealed in Jerusalem.
The priests had dreams.
Murmuring falls into (the place of) Wickedness -
Murmuring falls into Jerusalem.
He went to the temple early in the morning
He opened his mouth and uttered heinous things,
and spoke lies with his lips.
“In my night vision, I saw in my vision.
When I lay down I did not sleep, and I did not lie down,
and sleep did not overtake me in the night – And I did not lie down.
Because a star came and stood over Elizabeth
fire burned upon Old Father Zechariah
three lamps appeared
the sun set and lamps appeared
the house of the people was set alight
smoke billowed in the temple
In the Merkabah (throne-chariot) there was groaning
so that the earth trembled from its place
a shooting star flew over Jerusalem
The sun appeared in the night
and the moon rose during the day.”

Is it me or these traditions seem to follow closely Christian narratives, but “adapted” to fit John’s? e.g. the dream of the priests on the shooting star announcing the birth of John, and also we have a second witness (this time one hostile to Christianity) on the birth of John, which agrees with Luke 1 (the name of John’s parents, and the fact they are indeed of old age and thus impossible to have kids) What are your thoughts on it?

 

[patrick457]

Continuing my post on the Mandeans, that I started in my previous thread (thank you very much for everybody who replied).

Now, considering the Mandeans were a sect that rejected Jesus as the Messiah, instead considering John the Baptist as the messiah, they were indeed a community that was “hostile” to the Christianity.

One of the scripts that the Mandeans considered as a Holy Book included the Mandaic Book of John the Baptist.
The book dates from the Islamic era, although there is evidence that some of its contents are rooted in earlier traditions.

Quoting from The Mandaic Book of John’s Chapter 32:

Quoting from chapter 18 now:

Is it me or these traditions seem to follow closely Christian narratives, but “adapted” to fit John’s? e.g. the dream of the priests on the shooting star announcing the birth of John, and also we have a second witness (this time one hostile to Christianity) on the birth of John, which agrees with Luke 1 (the name of John’s parents, and the fact they are indeed of old age and thus impossible to have kids) What are your thoughts on it?

Actually the Mandaeans consider John not as a messiah, but as a very special prophet and one of the greatest teachers of Mandaeism.

 

[Vouthon]

Mandaeans venerate a cross-like object. They call their priests the Nazoreans.

In ancient times Christian Jews were called the Nazoreans.

They practice baptism by immersion and the laying on of hands and they also venerate Adam, Abel, Seth, Noah, Shem, a certain Mary, Elizabeth, James the Just, who was the brother of Jesus, and someone named Benjamin. This Benjamin was probably also of the family of Jesus. According to Eusebius, one of the earliest Jewish bishops of Jerusalem was named Benjamin. Mandaeans currently have a good relationship with Christians and with the Catholic Church. In 1990 a delegation of Mandaean priests was received by the Vatican, with whom they currently enjoy cordial relations. There are currently around 50,000 Mandaeans. They have been heavily persecuted by Muslims, who nonetheless grant them protected status as “dhimmis” since they are assuimed to be the “Sabaens” referred to in the Qur’an, and they are followers of John the Baptist who is an Islamic prophet.

The Mandaens have very interesting traditions concerning a woman called “Miryai” whose story bares a striking resemblance to Mary Magdalene and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

I personally think that one can trace there origins to the Nassenes - the earliest Gnostic movement to grow out of the Johannine Community.

The Church Fathers knew of and referred to the ancestors the Nassanes and their claim to having been founded by a certain “Mariamne and James the Just”, the latter of course being Jesus’ brother. Lo and behold a “Miryai” and a “Jacob Just” occupy a central place in Mandaic writings.

Hippolytus writes that the Naassenes:

***"“But the fourth river is Euphrates.” This, they assert, is the mouth, through which are the passage outwards of prayer, and the passage inwards of nourishment. (The mouth) makes glad, and nurtures and fashions the Spiritual Perfect Man. This, he says, is "the water that is above the firmament“

(The Naassenes) “are spiritual, who, from the life-giving water of Euphrates, which flows through the midst of Babylon…”

“…Zeesar, that is, Jordan that flows upwards…” (76)***

In this passage not only is the Euphrates connected to prayers but also is referred to as the water above. The Mandaeans believe that there is a celestial Jordan also called the Frat-Ziwa, the Light Euphrates.

***"“I arise and open up the Light Euphrates”

“Behold the Euphrates and the celestial Euphrates are the basis of thine
existence.” ***

According to Hippolytus, the Nassenes believed that James handed down his teaching to “Mariamne” who then passed it along to the Naassenes.

"These are the heads of very numerous discourses which (the Naassene) asserts James the brother of the Lord handed down to Mariamne”

In the Second Apocalypse of James, we again see the same story but Mariamne has been changed to Mareim, which by the way is the same name as Mary. Except that in this story Mariamne is elevated to the status of priest or of the priests.

***"This is [the] discourse that James [the] Just spoke in Jerusalem, [which] Mareim, one of the priests, wrote.”

---

Hippolytus also describes Mariam as “the sought for one”.

“…which is begotten above, where, he says, is Mariam the sought-for one…”

In the Mandaen scriptures, Miryai is a female priest, a Nasurai, who is instructed in knowledge and is seal of approval by the uthras. She is “sought after” repeatedly by her fellow Jews. The similarities are sufficient to make a claim that the Nassene “Mariamne” of the late first century AD and the later Mandaen “Miryai” are one and the same person, and that the Mandaens have preserved many of the traditions of these early Nassene Gnostics who originally descended from the group of heretics that broke off from the Johannine Community with Cerinthus.

The Naassenes were a Christian Gnostic sect from around 100 AD known primarily through the writings of Hippolytus of Rome. They came into existence at the end of the first century AD when the Fourth Gospel Community split up into an Orthodox “wing” and a Gnostic wing which, given their strong similarities to Johannine thought, leads some to regard them as the very Gnostics that broke away from the Fourth Gospel Community.

The Naassenes claimed to have been taught their doctrines by Mariamne and James the Just. The retention of the Hebrew form shows that their beliefs may represent the earliest stages of Gnosticism, according to most scholars.

Hippolytus’ quotes from the Writings of this group show that they used the Gospel of John more than any other Gospel or other Christian text - once again demonstrating that they are the faction that split away from Johannine community, and over time morphed into the Mandaen faith (given that many of the Fourth Gospel Community’s followers were originally followers of John the Baptist and retained distinctive elements of this earlier movement).

(continued…)

 

[Vouthon]

This break-away set of heretics is referred to in the Johannine corpus of letters in the New Testament.

The Mandaen texts, which could thus in redacted (corrupted) form go back to traditions current in the Nassene community and later John the Baptist movement, could give us truly ancient information, despite there relatively late date of writing.

Given the prominence of Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of John, and Chrisian traditions that she helped John write his Gospel, I reckon that “Miryai” and “Mariamne” could both contain genuine traditions about her life.

I thus think that the Mandaens at an early stage were Johannine Christians, many of whom were previously followers of John the Baptist, who split away from Orthodox Christianity, evolved into the Nassenes and at a later date became mixed up with other Gnostic groups and due to persecution came to oppose the “Byzantine Christ” and Christianity and emphasis John the Baptist more over Jesus.

Eventually Jesus’ name was changed to “Anush Uthra” - the similarities between him and Jesus are just too uncanny not to be the same in origin. Anush Uthra came down from heaven, to Jerusalem, preached, healed the sick, gathered disciples, was crucified by the “Romans” and had a chief disciple called “Miryai” and a brother called Jacob the Just who succeded him. Ring any bells?

“I took a bodily form and appeared. I spoke with my voice and preached, and became a Healer for Miriai (Mary Magdalene?): a Healer for Miriai I became, and healed her from head to foot. I was called Healer of the Truth, who heals and takes no fee”

-Anush Uthra, Ginza Riba, Holy Book of Mandaeism

The author of the “Church and Gnosis” writes:

“The emphasis on the healing of Miriai, the faithful convert and disciple, is enough to show that this Mandaen figure has been developed out of Mary Magdalene, not out of Mary the mother of Jesus (as commonly thought)”

Here are some portions from the “Miryai” narratives:

“Miryai am I, of the Kings of Judaism, a daughter, a daughter of Jerusalem’s mighty rulers. They have given me birth: the priests brought me up. In the fold of their robe they carried me up into the dark house, into the temple. Adonai laid a charge on my hands and on my two arms. I must scour and cleanse the house that is without firmness for there is nothing therein for supporting the poor, nothing to revive the tormented souls. My father went to the synagogue, my mother went to the temple. My father went out and said to me, and my mother went out and charged me: Miryai, close thy inner doors and bolt the bar. See that thou goest not forth into the main streets and that the “Suns of my Lord” fall not upon thee. But I, Miryai, listened not to what my mother did tell me, and hearkened not with my ear to what my father did command me. I opened the inner doors and the outer let I stand open. Out went I into the main streets and the “Suns of my Lord” fell upon me”

• Miryai, in Mandaen Book of John, speaking of her conversion from the Saducee sect of Priestly Jews to the Nazarene Movement

“Her mother came upon Miryai and put question to her: Whence comest thou, my daughter, Miryai, whose face gathers roses?..Look on me, Miryai, my daughter! Look on me who am thy mother! My daughter art thou and the daughter of all of the priests. Rememberest thou not, Miryai, that the Torah-Law lay on thy lap? Thou didst open it, read therein and knewest what stands in it. All the priests and priests’ sons came and kissed thy hand. A thousand stand there and two thousand sit there. They submit themselves to thee, as a eunuch-made slave, and they give ear to thy word in Jerusalem. Why didst thou forget thy brothers and thy heart abandon the priests? Lo, the brides weep in Judæa, the women and men in Jerusalem…The Jews are saying: Thy daughter has fallen in love with a man. She has acquired hate against Jewry and love for Nazoreanity (Jewish Christianity?). Hate has she developed against the synagogue and love for the door of the Nazarenes. Hate has she gotten against the leather phylacteries and love for the wearing of wreaths of myrtle. Work does she on Sabbath, on Sunday she keeps her hands still. Miryai has completely cast aside the Mosaic Law that hath been laid upon us!..My daughter, arise, come back to thy dwelling-place the city Yerusalem. Come, light up thy lamps which have been put out from the day when thou withdrewest thyself. Have no longing after this man (Jesus?), who has captured thee and taken thee off. Leave the man, who is not of thy dwelling place, alone by himself in the world. Let him not say: I have gone and carried off Miryai from her place. Come, teach the children, so that they may learn. Lay the Torah in thy lap and let us hear thy voice as it used to be”

• Miryai mother, Mandaean Book of John

“When Miryai heard this from her mother, she laughed and rejoiced in her mind: It surely could not be the Jewish (priests), says she unto her, the infamous, worthless priests! It surely would not be the Jewish (priests) who stand there and bow down to a brick grave! They shall be buried in the darkness. Go, go, says she unto them, ye fools, ye abortions: ye who were not of the world. I am no woman who stripped down for lust, and it is not that I have fallen in love with a man. Stripped am I not for returning to you and for again seeing you, dome of blasphemy. Go, go hence from me, ye who have witnessed falsehood and lying against me. Against me ye witnessed lustfulness and thieving, and held me up as ye are yourselves. Blessed be the Man who freed me from my fetters and planted my feet here. No wantonness have I committed with him (Jesus?) and attempted no theft in the world”

• Miryai, Mandaen Book of John

“ALL the Jews gathered together, the teachers, the great and the little; they came [together] and spake of Miryai: “She ran away from the priests, fell in love with a man, and they took hold of each other’s hands. Hold of each other’s hands they took, went forth and settled at the mouth of the Frash river. We will slay them and make Miryai scorned in Jerusalem. A cross will we set up for the man who has ruined Miryai and led her away. There shall be no day in the world when a stranger enters Jerusalem. For they (Jesus and his followers?) split open their fellings and catch the doves in Jerusalem”. All the Jews gathered together and followed after Miryai”

• Miryai, Mandaen Book of John

The ancient Mandaen biography of Miryai has a tragic ending. The Jewish priests, horrified and shamed by one of their own daughters joining a “dangerous” religious sect conspire against Mary’s Lord. They are going to crucify him by using as justification his “freeing of the doves” from the cages of the money-changers in the Temple

 

[Vouthon]

There is also this delightful scene that I can just picture from the Mandean Book of John the Baptizer.

Miryai/Mary’s father was furious when he discovers that she has joined the movement of the “Nazarene”. He thinks, or rather assumes, that she is having some kind of affair with the man (he cannot understand any other reason why a woman would follow a man):

“…Then came my father and brought on me trouble such as I never had experienced before. He spake: Where hast thou come from, thou debauched slut, whom locks and bars cannot keep in? Where hast thou come from? Woe unto thee thou ***** in heat, who mindest not door bolts and locks! Where hast thou come from? Woe, woe unto thee thou piece of uncouth cloth that has been patched on my robe!. *: If I am a debauched slut, I will burst thy boltings and bars! If I am a ***** in heat, I will draw back the pins and the locks. If I am a bit of coarse stuff that has been patched on thy robe, then out of thy robe cut and rip me. Thereon he cried: Come all of you, look on Mary, who has left Jewry and gone to make love with her lord [Jesus?]. Came, look on Mary, who has left off colored raiment and gone to make love with her lord [Jesus?]. She forsook gold and silver and went to make love with her lord. She forsook the phylacteries and went to make love with the man with the head-band…”

- Miryai/Mary, Mandean Book of John*

PS The **** is a swear word in the actual sacred text which is a word starting with “B” and continuing on with “itch” which signifies a female dog

Miryai/Mary defens herself against charges of sexual misconduct.

 

[patrick457]

Here is the Wikipedia article about them. Personally, I think it’s more likely that the Mandaeans are a gnostic group which syncretized Christian influences into their belief system. Hey, that was common in the ancient world.

 

[Vouthon]

Here is the Wikipedia article about them. Personally, I think it’s more likely that the Mandaeans are a gnostic group which syncretized Christian influences into their belief system. Hey, that was common in the ancient world.

That is perfectly possible

Some scholars think though that they have some remote connection to John’s original disciples. There are points of similarity between Mandeanism and the Gospel of John, which as I say was used heavily by the Nassenes, who share common beliefs and traditions with the Mandeans.

The one that makes most sense to me is that the proto-Mandeans did have an original origin in Judea and were at some point a Christian Gnostic sect related to John the Baptist’s followers and the Johannine Community (ie the Nassenes). They were then relocated after the Jewish war and moved to the Euphrates/Iraq/Babylon area where they encountered Elchasites and became blended with them. This fits in with their own oral view of their history which mention the destruction of Jerusalem as punishment for the murder of “Jacob the Just” and Mandeans (allegedly), at which time they claim to have been booted out of the Palestine area and moved to the Iranian world (and they have much Zoroastrian-type astrology in their writings).

Out of this “blend” between Elchasites and Nassene Gnostics came both Manichaeism and Mandeanism (Mani having been influenced by Elchasites and perhaps raised as one). Later, the Byzantines persecuted the Mandeans, who became increasingly hostile to Christianity and had gradually grown to re-elevate John above Jesus until eventually their sacred texts were written down and denounced “the Roman Christ” propagated by the Byzantines.

Jesus became known to them as “Anush Uthra” and over time they forgot that they ever had Jewish Christian origins at all, and that Anus Utrhra/Manda d Hiya was ever Jesus at all, who became for them simply the false “Roman” Christ referred too in the Mandean scriptures.

I thus posit a very remote link to John the Baptist and Jewish Christian origins for the Mandeanst.

That’s my take but its only personal opinion

 

[farpinho]

This break-away set of heretics is referred to in the Johannine corpus of letters in the New Testament.

The Mandaen texts, which could thus in redacted (corrupted) form go back to traditions current in the Nassene community and later John the Baptist movement, could give us truly ancient information, despite there relatively late date of writing.

Given the prominence of Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of John, and Chrisian traditions that she helped John write his Gospel, I reckon that “Miryai” and “Mariamne” could both contain genuine traditions about her life.

I thus think that the Mandaens at an early stage were Johannine Christians, many of whom were previously followers of John the Baptist, who split away from Orthodox Christianity, evolved into the Nassenes and at a later date became mixed up with other Gnostic groups and due to persecution came to oppose the “Byzantine Christ” and Christianity and emphasis John the Baptist more over Jesus.

Eventually Jesus’ name was changed to “Anush Uthra” - the similarities between him and Jesus are just too uncanny not to be the same in origin. Anush Uthra came down from heaven, to Jerusalem, preached, healed the sick, gathered disciples, was crucified by the “Romans” and had a chief disciple called “Miryai” and a brother called Jacob the Just who succeded him. Ring any bells?

The History of Christianity is so messed up that it tilts my brain…

 

[farpinho]

Eventually Jesus’ name was changed to “Anush Uthra” - the similarities between him and Jesus are just too uncanny not to be the same in origin. Anush Uthra came down from heaven, to Jerusalem, preached, healed the sick, gathered disciples, was crucified by the “Romans” and had a chief disciple called “Miryai” and a brother called Jacob the Just who succeded him. Ring any bells?

Anush-Uthra and Jesus seem to be portrayed as different people in the Book of John, as if Anush-Uthra was the “Good One”, and Jesus being the false messiah.

This can be seen in Chapter 76:

Anush-Uthra and Christ

In the name of the Great Life
Transcendent Light be Exalted!

“I came in gemstone sandals
And upon my hands were select pearls
In my left (hand) a club is placed
and the great axe of exorcism is set before me
I destroy, and I build a destroyer.
I establish my palace.
These images which are upon the walls
Are torn all the way from left to right.
You have removed wreaths from my head.
I go to generations and worlds

• To generations and worlds I go -
  Until I reached the gate of Jerusalem.
  I set up a throne and sat upon it.
  In mysteries I spoke my wisdom concerning Jerusalem.
  At the sound of my voice and my declaration
  The bolts of the gate of Judah opened,
  And the bars and bolts were rolled back.
  Jerusalem shone in my radiance.
  All the perfumes were fragrant.
  Those whose smell was (previously) stinking,
  Their perfume gets its fragrance from my perfume
  I opened the eyes of the blind,
  And I cured those with skin diseases.
  I fixed the mouths of these stammerers and deaf people.
  This word raises up the lame upon their feet -
  I made them go.”

He raised his eyes. Where is Christ?
He changes his appearance,
He perverts his tongue when he speaks with me in various ways,
And says, “Who are you, from before Life,
That you set a wreath upon your head?
Going to generations and worlds

• Going to generations and worlds -
  Until you reached the gate of Jerusalem?
  You set up your throne and sat upon it,
  And spoke wisdom concerning Jerusalem in mysteries.
  The bolts and bars of the gate of Judah were pushed aside;
  At the sound of your voice and of your declaration
  The gate of Judah was opened,
  And the bars and gate of Judah were rolled back.
  Jerusalem shone in your radiance.
  All the perfumes were fragrant.
  Those whose smell was (previously) stinking,
  Their perfume gets its fragrance from your perfume.
  You opened the eyes of the blind,
  And you cured people with skin diseases.
  You fixed the mouths of these stammerers and deaf people.
  This word raises up the lame upon their feet -
  You made them go.”

He raised his eyes and he saw me.
Christ changes his appearance
He perverts his tongue when he speaks with me in various ways
And says, “Who are you, from before Life,
And from those instructed (in) wisdom?
Your mighty deeds occur in Jerusalem.
I trampled on the Earth,
And the heavens trembled at his appearance and shook
I wrote a book about living water
My book was not despised
He played on fire as on an instrument
My sign is fire in myself.”

Anush-Uthra did not sin.
He raises his eyes and sees me.
Where is Christ? He changes his appearance
He perverts his tongue when he speaks with me in various ways
And says, “If you have come from before Life,
Bring a letter of truth!”

I read the start of the letter:
I read about Adam and his wife Eve.
I read about the summit of every generation,
Seth-El the son of Adam.
I read about Seth-El the good
Who gave birth to generations and worlds.
I read about Ram and Rum
Until they died by the sword and ascended.
I read about Shurbai and Sharhab-El
Until they ascended in fire and burning.
I read about Shem the son of Noah
Until he ascended in floods of water.
All of them listened to and believed me, Anush-Uthra.
A place is established for them, from the place of light.
Everyone who did not listen to me, Anush-Uthra,
His place turns aside from the place of light
His name will be blotted out from my scroll
He will be darkened by death and will not shine.

 

[farpinho]

Out of this “blend” between Elchasites and Nassene Gnostics came both Manichaeism and Mandeanism (Mani having been influenced by Elchasites and perhaps raised as one). Later, the Byzantines persecuted the Mandeans, who became increasingly hostile to Christianity and had gradually grown to re-elevate John above Jesus until eventually their sacred texts were written down and denounced “the Roman Christ” propagated by the Byzantines.

Jesus became known to them as “Anush Uthra” and over time they forgot that they ever had Jewish Christian origins at all, and that Anus Utrhra/Manda d Hiya was ever Jesus at all, who became for them simply the false “Roman” Christ referred too in the Mandean scriptures.

I thus posit a very remote link to John the Baptist and Jewish Christian origins for the Mandeanst.

That’s my take but its only personal opinion

That would explain so much hostility and hatred they had towards the figure of Christ. A very good example of this can be seen in the chapter of the Book of John’s account on the baptism of Jesus, and the long dialogue between Jesus and John :

John teaches in the nights
Splendor shines upon the worlds.
Who said to Jesus
To Jesus the son of Mariam?
Who said to Jesus
So that he came to the bank of the Jordan
And said to John:
“Baptize me with your baptism
By the name which you pronounce, pronounce over me
If I become your disciple
I will mention you in my written decree
If I do not become your disciple
Erase my name from your scroll”

John spoke to Jesus Christ in Jerusalem and said,
“You lied to the Jews
and you have deceived the men, the priests.
You cut the seed from men
and childbirth and pregnancy from women.
You loosed the Sabbath that Moses ordained.
In Jerusalem you lied to them with horns
and sounded tooting with a trumpet.”

Jesus Christ said to John in Jerusalem,
“If I lied to the Jews
Let flaming fire consume me.
If I deceived the men, the priests
May I die two deaths in one.
If I cut off the seed from men,
May I not pass to the great day of the end.
If I cut off childbirth and pregnancy from women,
May a judge be established in my presence.
If I loosed the Sabbath
Let flaming fire consume me.
If I lied to the Jews,
Let my path be through thistle and thorn.
If I sounded with a tooting trumpet,
Let my eyes not fall on Abatur.
You, baptize me with your baptism,
From the name that you pronounce, pronounce upon me.
If I become a disciple
I will mention myself in my written decree.
If I do not become a disciple,
Erase my name from your scroll.”

John spoke to Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, saying,
“A deaf man does not become a scribe
And a blind man does not write a letter
A desolate house is not fruitful
And a widow does not become a bride
Putrid waters are not pleasant
and a stone in oil does not get wet.”

Jesus Christ spoke to John in Jerusalem and said,
“A mute person becomes a scribe
And a deaf person writes a letter
A desolate house is fruitful
and a widow becomes a bride
Putrid waters are pleasant
and a stone in oil gets wet.”

John spoke to Jesus Christ in Jerusalem and said,
“If you can explain these things to me,
You are wise, Christ.”

Jesus Christ spoke to John in Jerusalem and said,
A mute person becomes a scribe:
the child that comes from a woman who gives birth
grows big and strong
he consecrates gifts and alms -
gifts and alms he consecrates -
and he ascends and comes to the place of light.

A deaf person writes a letter:
The son of the wicked became the son of the good
He forsook adultery and forsook theft
and believed in the Mighty Life.
A desolate house shined;
The son of might submitted,
he forsook treacheries and forsook beds
and the house was built in a day

• in a day, the house was built -
  and two doors were opened,
  so that if someone came down,
  he came and opened the door and welcomed him,
  and if someone came up,
  he came and opened the door and welcomed him.
  If he seeks to eat, a dish is set up in truth.
  If he seeks to drink, bowls of mixed wine.
  If he seeks to sleep, he spread a bed in truth.
  If he wishes to go, roads of truth he treads.
• he treads roads of truth and faith -
  and he rises up, he sees the place of light.

A widow who becomes a bride:
A woman who from her youth was a widow
grasped the shirt (of a man) and married the world,
which they nurtured, a son as he went yonder.
Her face will not be destroyed by her husband.

Putrid waters which are pleasant:
A prostitute who becomes a lady
goes up to town and goes down from town
and the crown is not removed from her face.

A stone gets wet in oil:
A Manichaean who was from the mountain
forsook sorceries and forsook witchcraft
and believed in the Mighty Life.
He found an orphan and an old man and an army full of widows.

You, John, baptize me with your baptism
In the name that you pronounce, pronounce upon me.
If I become a disciple,
I will mention myself in my written decree.
If I do not become a disciple,
Erase my name from your scroll.
You will be held responsible for your sin
And I will be held responsible for my sin.”

When Jesus Christ said these things,
A letter came to John from the House of Abatur:
“Baptize the deceiver in the Jordan.
Bring him down into the Jordan.
Baptize him, do not be grieved.”

He brought him back up to the shore.
Spirit took the form of a dove.
She made a cross in the Jordan
and she lifted up the waters in colors,
and said to the Jordan,
“You defile me and you defile my seven sons.”

The Jordan in which Christ the deceiver is praised
is turned into a gutter.
The communion bread which Christ the deceiver takes
is made infernal.
The communion wine which Christ the deceiver takes
is turned into a sacrifice.
The turban which Christ the deceiver takes
is made into Jewish priesthood.
The staff which Christ the deceiver takes
is made sickly.

Guard me, oh woe, guard my friend.
[The Romans are like unto a cross, which they affix to walls,
and they stand and worship a crucifix]
Guard me, my brother, from the god fashioned by a carpenter!

If a carpenter made a god,
then who made the carpenter ?

 

[farpinho]

Here is the Wikipedia article about them. Personally, I think it’s more likely that the Mandaeans are a gnostic group which syncretized Christian influences into their belief system. Hey, that was common in the ancient world.

Agreed. That syncretism seems to be very apparent when we compare the traditions. The birth narratives, a person being considered two or more different people, etc…
And also the usage of words out of their original context, e.g. “Christ” being used probably as part of Jesus’ name…

 

[Vouthon]

Brother/sister farphinho

Excellent quotations from the Mandaen writings!

They are scarce to come across. One can find a minute selection on the Gnostic Society library, in a few books and online with a recent scholar who is translating the scriptures and blogging about them.

Anush Uthra is portrayed as a different person from the Christian or more particularly Byzantine “Jesus” who for the Mandaen community symbolized everything that they hated about Orthodox, established Christianity.

There seems to be a good growing consensus (from the very small pool of Mandaen scholars I’ve read) positing the Christian origins of the Mandaen religion.

It can be difficult to believe that a community with such powerful rhetoric against Christ in its writings is Christian in origin, but the evidence suggests such.

Mandaenism is very confused in terms of its own understanding of its history and origins.

One scholar has this to say:

"…In GR ii 53 and GR i 29 we read that Anush-Utra 1 comes into the world in the days of Piliatus (or Paltus, ie Pilate) the king of the world ; he heals the sick, makes the blind to see, cleanses the lepers, raises the cripples so that so that they can walk, and makes the deaf and dumb to speak. With the power of the high King of Light he raises the dead. Those who believe in him among the Jews he teaches that there is Life and Death, Light and Darkness and burning Fire, Truth and Error. Three hundred and sixty Prophets go out of Jerusalem and preach in the name of the Lord of Glory 1 : then Anush-Utra ascends to the Mandaean Paradise and will not be seen again by mankind till the End comes. Before he ascended, we read in another place that Anush-uthra will unmask the Deceiver, the Byzantine Christ, who will confess that he is only one of the deceiving Seven Planets : he will be seized by the Jews and crucified (GR II.58).

That this tale of the preaching and of the miracles of Anush-uthra in Jerusalem is no isolated patch in the Mandaean construction appears from GR xiv 288 f., where true religion is represented as being the doctrine taught by Anush-Uthra and still more from GR xv, where Anush-uthra himself sings of his coming into the world. He calls himself the Stranger (nukraya, GR 328, last line) and says: ‘I took a bodily form and appeared in Jerusalem. I spoke with my voice and preached, and became a Healer for Miriai: a Healer for Miriai I became, and healed her from head to foot. I was called Healer of the Truth (kushtd), who heals and takes no fee’ (GR 331 f.). This is followed among other things by the mission of 365 disciples. Clearly we have here a parallel to what we read in GR 1 and 11; it is the same doctrine that is set forth.

The Mandaeans, then, rejected the Christ of the Catholic Church, born of a woman and crucified, but they accepted the Stranger who appeared in Jerusalem in the days of Pilate, who healed the sick and taught the true and life-giving doctrine, and who ascended in due course when his work was done to his own place in the world of Light. This Personage is called the Stranger, but he is no stranger to the modern student of Christian antiquity… In other words it is no new controversial figment of the Mandaeans…"

- F C Burkitt

Andrew David Missick writes:

***"…In southern Iraq and in Iran there is a group of Aramaic people called the Mandaeans…They are an Aramaic Baptist sect and venerate John the Baptist. They are not Christians, but they have vestiges of an ancient form of Jewish Christianity in their beliefs, practice and their writings. Their theology is Gnostic. Vestiges of their Christianity can be seen in that they worship on Sunday, as early Christians did (1 Corinthians 16:1)…While there are many unorthodox beliefs that are held by the Mandaeans, they also observe fossilized customs that originated from the earliest Christian Jews. The Mandaeans teach that due to persecution by the Jews of their forefathers, they were forced to migrate from the Holy Land and to re-settle in the region of Babylon. This seems to have happened in the first century near the time the Temple was destroyed (70 A.D.)…" ***

I concur and relate them specifically as an offshoot of the Nassenes who were in turn an offshoot of the Johannine Community centered around the Beloved Disciple (which underwent a division in the late first century between one group led by “John the Presbyter” who integrated the community with the rest of the Catholic Church and the other, led by Cerinthus, which had developed a Gnostic understanding of Christ).

I say this because of the stark parity between Nassene beliefs as recorded by Hippolytus and Mandaen beliefs; as well as scholarly studies which found ample overlap between Mandaen theology and the Gospel of John.

So you see, originally, the Mandaens attacked and rejected the “Catholic” Christ however over time - given persecution by the Byzantines - and due to there belief that they ultimately descended from disciples of John the Baptist - along with their very exalted view of the Baptist’s station as a pillar of their community - they came to completely remove all references in their teachings to a “Jesus” at all, retaining merely the faint outlines of his life and teachings (as they had them) under the twin figures of “Anush Uthra” and "Manda d Hiya ". Anush Uthra seems to be the same as Manda d Hiya since it was Anush Uthra who healed Miryai and was her teacher, and yet it is Manda d Hiya whom Miryai calls her teacher and who is crucified as a result of the dove incident in the Jewish Temple.

Underneath this confusing venear, however, we have the vestiges of the original disciples of John the Baptist, followers of the Beloved Disciple and the Nassene Gnostics.

Its very confusing but fascinatin at the same time (well I find it interesting ).

 

[farpinho]

Its very confusing but fascinatin at the same time (well I find it interesting ).

It’s very fascinating and interesting, indeed. But, I have to admit, at the same time, it worries me. It makes me wonder how much of what we believe today is true and how much got lost in the middle of the ancient times’ syncretism…