Excerpt from: Tobias Churton, The mysteries of John the Baptist : his legacy in gnosticism, paganism, and freemasonry (Rochester,Vermont, 2012); ch. 'St.John's Men Today', pp 252-261
The claim of the Mandaeans that John the Baptist was their last prophet must be taken seriously. Other than the Kurdish Yezidis, whose doctrinal origins are more problematic for the historian and philosopher of religion, the Mandaeans are undoubtedly the last, attested sect to survive the first great Gnostic movement on Earth; their testimony is of inestimable value, as was recognized by the world�s greatest scholar of Gnosis, Hans Jonas (1903�1993).
Mandaeans do not claim their religion began with John the Baptist, but that what John believed, they share also. Primarily, that belief is in the efficacy of water baptism as the principle mode by which purification of the faithful is effected; baptism is vital for salvation. To the Mandaeans, John is a Mandaean. But �Mandaean� is not their original name, coming as it does from their word for knowledge: manda. Mandaean initiates are called �Nasuraiah� in Arabic, that is, Nasoraeans. They consider themselves �Guardians� (their term) of a primal revelation, an authentic, distinct, monotheist religion.
There is no a priori reason to doubt that Mandaeans were once historically linked in some manner to the �church� of John the Baptist. Kurt Rudolph (Gnosis, Harper & Row, 1985) is convinced their origins must originally have been Jewish but that the link with anything like normative Judaism has long been effectively severed. It would make sense then if the Mandaeans� forebears dwelt in Samaria and were Samaritans, with Samaria�s closeness to those parts of the Jordan where the fourth Gospel shows both John and Jesus baptizing. Samaritans were estranged from Jerusalem and its temple cultus. Readers may recall Pontius Pilate�s vicious suppression of Samaritan religious enthusiasts in 36 or 37 CE. The proto�Gnostic heretics� Simon (called �Magus,� fl. 50s CE) and his disciples Satornilos and Menander came from Samaria and taught in Syria and Syro-Phoenicia.
We read in the fictional �Pseudo-Clementine romance� (ca. third century), an anti-Pauline, Jewish-Christian polemic in the Jamesian tradition, the astonishing story that Simon Magus was not only an Alexandrian Jew (like Apollos) but also John the Baptist�s leading disciple, so gifted indeed that John would have chosen Simon to succeed him but for the fact Simon was in Egypt when John was executed. Instead, according to the romance, John�s disciple Dositheos, another noted heresiarch, took over John�s church until Simon returned to usurp the position. While the author of the anti-Pauline romance may have been deliberately confusing Simon with Apollos, there may be something in the Acts story of Simon trying to purchase the �gift� of passing on the Holy Spirit from the apostles, the act that gave us the word simony. That is to say, we may be seeing the conflict between the John water baptism and Paul�s spirit baptism in an alternative form. We are clearly witnessing the surviving propaganda of rival churches.
It is especially significant then that the Nag Hammadi Gnostic text, Concerning Our Great Power, thought by scholar of Gnosis Kurt Rudolph to derive from �Simonian� speculative sources, begins with the words, �He who would know our Great Power will become invisible. And fire will not be able to consume him. But it will purify and destroy all your possessions.� We may detect here an echo of Paul�s caveat about the fire in 1 Corinthians 3 noted in chapter 10, here reappearing in a suggestively Johannite setting.
The church father Hyppolitus (Refutatio VI, 9�18) records a remarkable self-designation of Simon as �he who (formerly) stood, stands and (again) will stand.� Other sources give Simon the honorific title �he who stands,� a remarkable instance of �pillar language� based on the Malachi prophecy that asks, �Who will stand?� when the Lord comes into his temple, as well, perhaps, as a nod in the direction of the Syrian pillars of Seth. Seth was himself claimed by Gnostics as a patriarch and redeemer figure whose �three steles,� that is pillars, give us the title of another Nag Hammadi Gnostic composition, The Three Steles of Seth.
Standing and facing the sun is a persistent motif of what we may call broadly the John tradition. Lucian of Samosata in the second century apparently observed descendants of north Syrian �Nazerini� formerly noted by Pliny in the early 70s CE. Lucian�s �Daily Bathers� in the north Syrian Euphrates prayed to the sun, conducted dawn baptisms and ate honey, milk, and wild fruit.
The sun is the visible god whose radiance, as it were, hides the invisible God of the Gnostic, the Gnostic being he who will �become invisible. And fire will not be able to consume him.� The spirit of the Gnostic is redeemed into the invisible image of the Primal Man after a succession of ascent-trials; this is the Mandaean-Nasorean redemption also.
Unlike the Mandaeans, the Pseudo-Clementine romances take the Primal Adam (Man) to be Christ, though, following the Gnostic view, the Primal Adam is still the �great power above the creator,� an ideology associated with Dositheos, derived through Simon from his alleged master, John the Baptist. Paul was also aware of the �Primal Adam� theory. Paul held Jesus to be the �Second Adam,� a restoration of the primal or heavenly Adam whose link to humankind had been sundered by Adam�s �original� sin in the garden (paradeisos) of Eden, according to Paul. The Mandaeans found that the Primal Adam concept did not require a Jesus figure. The Man is the Man.
The Mandaeans� �Secret Adam� is identified with the third descendant of Adam, Enosh, son of Seth: �And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD� (Genesis 4:26). Enosh in Genesis restores the link between humankind and what the Mandaeans call the �Life.� �Enosh� is the Aramaic for �Man� and the Mandaean language is of an Aramaic type, though Mandaean employs its own distinct script, examples of which have been found on bowls from as long ago as the fifth century CE.
The Qu�ran accords respect to �Sabians� and while the precise origin and reference of the Qu�ranic term Sabian is debated, the fact that the Syriac root Sabu�a (�Washed Ones�) appears in Arabic as �the Subba� has ensured until recently that the �Sabaeans of the marshes� or Mandaeans have been protected by Muslim authorities in Mesopotamia and Persia, though accorded dhimmi or inferior status, like Jews and Christians under strict Islamic law.
To Mandaeans, John the Baptist is �Yahya Yuhana� or �Yahya asSabi� whose father was Abba Saba Zachariah. John�s teacher was Enosh, or �Man� (Hebrew: Adam), that is, the heavenly Man. This is consistent with my assessment of the term �Son of man� as denoting a person who has seen the divine image of Man in the Light of God.
Since the Allied invasion of Iraq in 2003, the largest Mandaean centers in Iraq, in Baghdad and Basra, whose priests have conducted their baptismal rites at the Shat al-Arab marshes where the Tigris and Euphrates join for well over fifteen hundred years, have suffered continual persecution and human-rights violation. Extremists have murdered and are murdering Mandaeans. Occasionally, the killings are opportunistic. The Mandaeans have long survived by organizing the gold and silver markets in Basra and Baghdad. Sectarian murders for ostensibly religious reasons are often inspired by a desire to rob shops and kidnap family members for money. The result is that a community estimated before the war at some fifty thousand souls has been reduced by exile to about five thousand. Mandaeans have found asylum in Jordan, Syria, Australia, Canada, the United States, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
In July 2004, Yuhana Nashmi, a �Tarmida� or first-stage Mandaean priest, gave a talk at the Liverpool Museum in England to highlight the plight of Mandaeans�problems, which I might add, that are also shared by the Yezidis in northern Iraq�and to give an insight into the Mandaean religion and the challenges to Mandaean survival in the modern world.
It had taken nearly two thousand years for a member of an authentic John tradition to speak about his religion in the West, for the Mandaeans do not proselytize. One wonders how many devotees they might find today if they did.
According to Yuhana Nashmi, Mandaeans believe in one God, Haii Rabi, meaning the Great Life, or the Great Living God. His universe has many mansions, of which life on Earth is only a part. Mandaeans understand that a conflict between good and bad characterizes our world. The good is the light (Nhora) and is represented in flowing, living water (Maia Haii); the bad is the dark (Hshokh) and represented as dead and salty water (Maia Tahmi). These principles achieve a balance on Earth, where there is a mixture to be found in all things.
After this life, the soul has the opportunity to enter the �world of light.� The soul (Neshemtha; the Hebrew Neschama) belongs to the Great Life and will return to it. On returning to God, the soul receives a body of light and life (Damotha). To reach the world of Light, it is necessary to render an account of one�s life on Earth.
Mandaeans believe in repeated baptism (Masbuta). Baptism cleanses the Mandaean faithful of their sins, preserving the soul from the negative effects of earthly life. In Iraq, little tributaries were traditionally taken off the Tigris for the purposes of baptism in flowing water. The tributaries, called �Jordans,� further testify to the ancient presence of the �nasuraiyī� (Nasoreans) or �elect of righteousness� ( bhirī zidqa; Hebrew zedek) in ancient Palestine. Mandaeans can still be seen on special occasions in their white robes and turbans immersing their fellows three times and crowning their heads with myrtle. This is probably a more accurate picture of the real John the Baptist than that provided by either Hollywood or Renaissance masters.
Yuhana gave an interesting account of the role of �manda,� knowledge, in the contemporary Mandaean scheme of life. Rather than speak of manda or gnosis as an initiated mode of spiritual salvation, or special esoteric knowledge, he spoke of knowledge in its conventional sense of education. Education and knowledge of the universe, along with a commitment to peace and nonviolence were ways to reach God. The Great Life, he said, is a �significant resource of knowledge.�
The first to realize Haii�s existence was Adam, the first prophet. His son Shetel (Seth) was the second prophet, followed by Sam (Shem) son of Noah, and finally the last prophet Yahya Yuhana, John the Baptist. John was the last Rabi, that is, the highest rank of Mandaean priest, to have lived on Earth. The second rank is the Reshama, or �Head of the Nation,� of whom there can be only one (and no one in the role at present). Below this rank is the Ganzbra (or �Treasurer,� for Mandaean knowledge is a treasure). The Ganzbra is someone of distinguished religious education and perception. Currently, four Ganzbras live worldwide. The Tarmida is the initial rank of priest. He can perform ceremonies such as weddings but is regarded still as a student of the Mandaean religion. In 2004 Yuhana Nashmi was one of about thirty Tarmidas alive in the world. Tarmidas are assisted by the Shkanda whose presence is needed for important rituals.
The Mandaeans possess a surprisingly extensive literature, of which the most important work is the Ginza, �Treasure� or �Great Book.� The �Right Ginza� contains much theology and mythology. The smaller �Left Ginza� contains hymns for the mass of the dead, devoted to the soul�s ascent through the �kings� (mel ki) or angels. I saw a video recently of a Mandaean priest in Sweden who was upset because he experienced great difficulty in carrying out the baptismal mass of a dead Mandaean on account of the corpse having been consigned to a Swedish state hospital morgue. Mandaean custom requires the swift washing of the body with proper rites and prompt burial; the priest was frustrated at not being able to take control of the dead person�s body due to state bureaucracy. Mandaeans in England have found it hard to find suitable places of flowing water appropriate for regular baptisms.
The Baptist par excellence is of course Yahya, or John. The Book of John is important to Mandaeans. It is also known as the Books of Kings. The �Kings� refers to �angels�; we seem to be in analogous mythological territory to that of Enoch and the Watchers. John himself is credited with a number of beautiful discourses. These are expressed purely in the language of Mandaean mythology and cannot be regarded as records of the utterances of the historical John, though there is clearly a conviction that the spirit of the discourses is inwardly authentic John appears significantly in another Mandaean text: the Diwan of the Great Revelation, Called �Inner Haran,� also known as the Haran Gawaita. From its confused text we can discern that the community of Nasoreans was persecuted in Jerusalem, for which the city was destroyed, presumably a reference to the conflagration of 70 CE. Interestingly, the account features John as �the envoy of the king of light� and he is presented as an adversary of Christ. We may speculate that we have here the distant echo of a conflict with Paul�s particular version of messianic Christocentricity. However, the text gives no ground for conviction on this score. The �Right Ginza� speaks of persecution and, not surprisingly, is full of invective against �Christ the Roman,� a reference to the Byzantine Orthodox Church that dominated the Near East following the early fourth century.
John is never presented as the community�s founder, only as a disciple of the Mandaean revelation and a �priest� of the religion. Rudolph has suggested that the Mandaeans may have taken their idea of John from other heretical Christian or Gnostic groups, though it is difficult to see why John should have risen in their estimation to �rabi� status on such a basis alone. Taking John and dismissing the Christian interpretation would have won them few friends by itself. The John texts exhibit more than ordinary respect or reverence. Rudolph is, however, convinced that the Mandaeans belong in the world of first-century baptismal sects close to the Jordan, while the Haran Guwaita refers to Nasoreans fleeing Jewish leaders in Palestine during the reign of Parthian King Ardban (Artabanus). If this was Artabanus II, then we should be talking about the conflict in which Lucius Vitellius, governor of Syria took part after 35 CE, and shortly before John�s and Jesus�s executions. According to the Mandaean text, Nasoreans made their way to the Median hill country or �inner Haran� between Harran and Nisibis in north Persian territory (Harran and Nisibis are now in Turkey). Harran was the home of the Harranian astro-magi, or �Sabians� as they would call themselves after Islamification. Mandaeans today regard these Mesopotamian �Chaldaeans� with their magic and their astrology and their Hermetic writings as their own ancestors, whose interest in learning they maintain.
After the first sojourn in �inner Haran,� [sic] Nasoreans established themselves in Baghdad and became governors and built temples. These were destroyed during the consolidation of the Zarathushtrian state under the Sassanid Shapur I (241�272 CE). The Mandaeans had contacts with Mani in the third century, but found themselves more and more forced to look inward, a process intensified after the Islamic conquest of Mesopotamia in the seventh century.
The Mandaeans now face a new struggle for survival, a struggle of adaption to the modern world. It has been mooted among Mandaeans that, contrary to years of custom, conversion to Mandaeism may yet be permitted. What if a Mandaean man or woman should want to marry outside of the faith while both parents agree they want their children raised as Mandaeans? Once conversion of spouses is permitted, what then? Might we see these spiritual descendants of John the Baptist standing by our flowing and hopefully not overpolluted rivers and once more issuing to a world gone mad a sacred call that the time has come for the world to clean up its act?
Then we might wonder whether John is not long dead after all, but liveth, on our own doorstep.