Especially is this the case with regard to Mandaean tales about John the Baptist. Mandaeans use for Baptism a different word from that used by Catholic Christians, so that their conception of baptism may be more or less independent of Catholic Chris tianity, but the fact that they call all running water in which bap tism may be performed "Jordan" must ultimately be based on the biblical stories about John.
John plays very little part in the Ginza. Manda d'Hayye goes down to the place where he baptizes, but the Jordan draws back before him, and he takes John (Yuhana) away to heavenly re gions. In the John-Book, on the other hand, a long section is de voted to John, in which he is also called Yahia, the Arabic form of the name John. The tale, at least in its present form, is there fore later than the Arab conquests. In this, and also in GR 57, we read of John's aged parents, the priest Zacharia and his wife Enishbai (i.e., the Syriac name Elishbal corrupted) : it is difficult to believe that this is not derived from Luke i. Presently Eshu meshiha goes down and asks baptism from John, who is at first unwilling but finally complies on hearing a voice from heaven. It was, of course, a trump card for the Mandaean controversialist to be able to point out that the Jesus of the Catholics had had to be baptized by John, while the Mandaean Anush-Utra had not needed baptism. (Note that in GR v. 189-196 we have what Lidz barski calls "the baptism of Manda d'Hayye by John." But in this tale Manda d'Hayye is not baptized : Manda d'Hayye asks baptism from John, but at His approach Jordan is driven back, and when Manda d'Hayye at length "gives truth"; i.e., holds John by the right hand, John's soul is drawn out of his body and goes to Paradise.) But from the point of view of the modern investi gator of Christian origins, the Mandaean accounts of the Bap tist are both too fantastic and too near in some details to the Christian tale preserved in Luke to be regarded as in any sense independent tradition.
Baptism is called by Mandaeans masbuta, the corresponding form of which in Syriac would be masbocithii. The common Syriac term for baptism is ma'moditha, only used by Mandaeans in speaking of Catholic baptism, which they regard with con tempt as being administered in "cut off," i.e., not running water. It should be noted that the Christian Palestinian dialect uses the term masbotithd. The Jewish term is tibbillei. But the main difference between the Mandaean and the Christian rite is that the Mandaean masbuta is continually being repeated; it is a purifica tion, not an initiation. Everything defiles, but running water makes all things clean: that is the Mandaean idea.
The Mandaeans have a clergy : the assistant or deacon (shkan da), the priest (tarmida, lit. "disciple") and the bishop (ganzibra, lit. "treasurer"). The priestly garment is called rasta. A sort of eucharist is given, consisting of a dough-cake (pehta,? Syr. pittha "bit of bread") and a draught of water (Mambuha, lit. "foun tain") : there is some reason to think that the original rite con sisted of the mambuha alone. Their temples (mashkana) are small, being merely receptacles for objects used in the services, which are conducted in the courtyard outside. The congregations
assemble on Sundays.
History.—No Arab accounts of "Sabians" or "Mughtasila" are detailed or accurate enough to be useful. Portuguese mission aries came to lower Babylonia as a result of the Portuguese oc cupation of Basra at the end of the 16th century, and found the Mandaeans there, a flourishing community estimated at over 14,00o souls. They were regarded as Christians of John the Bap tist, and as such amenable to the Inquisition. The first account of them in Europe was in a letter from the Jesuit Pietro della Valle, dated June 1622, in which year the Portuguese lost their ascendancy in the Persian gulf. From about 1622-1651 the Jesuits were replaced by Carmelites under Ignatius a Jesu, who published in 1658 at Rome an account of the Mandaeans. A few years later some Mandaean mss. were bought for Robert Huntington, then in Aleppo, who left them to the Bodleian Library at Oxford. In 1854 the German orientalist, H. Petermann, spent three months at Suk esh-Shuytikh and learnt the language from the local priest Yahya; in 1875 the grandson of this Yahya, having become a Christian, expounded the Mandaean religion to N. Siouffi, then French Consul at Baghdad, who published a full account of the modern Mandaeans at Paris in 1880.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Ginza (I) Text: Thesaurus vulgo "Liber Adami" appellatus . . . (edit. H. Petermann, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1867) ; (2) German Translation: Ginza . . . trans. and explained by Mark Lidz barski (Quellen der Religionsgeschichte, No. 13) (Gottingen, 1925) ; Text and trans. (Das Joannesbuch) by Mark Lidzbarski (Giessen, text., 1905) ; trans. and commentary (1915) ; Qolasta: Text in facsimile by J. Euting (Stuttgart, 1867) ; text and trans. in Mandiiische Liturgien by M. Lidzbarski (Abhandlungen d. kgl. Gesellsch. d. Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, Phil. hist. Kl. N.F. xvii. I, Berlin, 1920).