MANDAEANS, also known as Subba ($abians), Nasoraeans, or St. John's Christians, are an ancient sect akin to the Gnostic Christians of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which still exists in lower Mesopotamia, in such places as Basra and Kut and Silk-esh Shuyilkh. They number now not more than about 2,000, and are said to be diminishing. Subba (sing. subbi) is the modern Arabic name, referring to their frequent baptisms (in Mandaean mas buta); Nasoraeans, like the Arabic Nasdra, is ultimately con nected with Ncq"copaioe (comp. Acts 24,5 and na)i), and is used by Mandaeans in the sense of "true believers"; St. John's Christians is the inappropriate name given to the Mandaeans by Christian missionaries from the 17th century onwards, who mistook their frequent immersions and the reverence paid by them to John the Baptist for signs that they were derived from the Baptist's disciples. This is not so, and their interest in the Baptist is grounded in their hostility to the Church as it was under the Sas sanian empire, i.e., the Nestorians. Mandaeans means 7vcoarttwi. (14-trutio, from Irwin, Syriac mad'a): the Gnosis of which they pro fess themselves adherents is a personification, the aeon and mediator "knowledge of life" (Manda d'hayye).
The present condition and practices of the Mandaeans may be gathered from Siouffi's book, published in 1880. A later account, including a detailed description of a Mandaean baptism, is to be found in the Quest for Oct. 1924 and Jan. 1925. (See BIBLIO GRAPHY.) The sacred books of the Mandaeans are: (I) the Ginza ("Treasure"), known also as Sidra rabba ("the Great Book") ; (2) the John-Book, a later collection; (3) Qolasta, a sort of hymn book, cf. the Syriac kundsa ("praise") and some minor works, partly astrological. The editions of the Ginza (1925) and the John-Book (1905–I 5) , both by Mark Lidzbarski, have now made the chief Mandaean writings generally accessible to scholars. Mandaean mss. are written in a peculiar Aramaic. As in the Babylonian (cuneiform) documents the characteristic Semitic gutturals have disappeared ; on the other hand the vowels are rep resented, a by R, e by a, while ' is used both for i and y, for w and and o. Initial u (or o) is represented by ly, initial i by T. No ms. older than the 16th century seems to have survived, but the texts show few variations of importance.
The Ginza is the oldest document. It begins at both ends, like many ms. note-books. The longer part is called the Right-hand Ginza (GR), the shorter (about a quarter of the whole) is the Left-hand Ginza (GL). It is usually cited by the pages of Peter
man's facsimile, given in the margin of Lidzbarski's edition. The last chapter of GR presents a kind of world-history, and as the dominion of the Arabs is placed at only 75 years it is evident that it must have been compiled very shortly before A.D. 700.
GR contains general cosmological, hortatory and doctrinal pieces. GL consists chiefly of hymns and doctrinal pieces about the fate of the soul after death. This part (GL) shows most clearly the essence of the Mandaean religion ; this is the o&i.1a oba ("the body, a tomb") philosophy, which Mandaism shares with almost all the religions which flourished in the early days of Christianity, except Judaism and Catholic Christianity itself.
For the world in itself, both visible heavens and this earth, to gether with the bodies of all men, there is no redemption, and the final end of everything on the earth, except for the souls of the righteous, is to be swallowed by Leviathan and so annihilated (GR 393). Our world had been a kind of mistake from the be ginning. There was a light-world, and a world of darkness in which the evil woman-demon lived, whom the Mandaeans call Ruha. That world seems to consist of the dark (or black) waters and things thereto allied, and in GR v. 134-172 we read the fan tastic tale of how Hibil the Bright (Hibil-Ziwa, lit. "Abel-Splen douro": Hibil is the Mandaean form, Hdbel the Syriac form of Abel), son not of Adam but of Manda d'Hayye, traversed all these dark lower regions, despoiling the principalities and powers and enchaining them. But somehow—the account itself is not clear (GR soff.)—Ruha, as the result of this visit, bore a monstrous son called Ur (possibly a corruption of An), and from Ur and his mother Ruha came broods of Seven and of Twelve, which are the planets and the zodiacal constellations. Meanwhile a lower being of the light-world called Abathur had looked below into the dark waters and seen his image, which thereupon took inde pendent shape and was called Ptahil. This Ptahil had in him there fore some of the substance or quality of the dark waters: he was told to form a solid world out of the dark waters, but failed to do so till he was helped by Hibil, who put some of his brightness into the mixture. Ruha also took some part, for she saw that this new world was partly formed out of her waters. This is our world, formed out of the dark substance, yet with a little of the light mingled with it.