But it is by no means easy to say who liese io-disguised Harranians really were, and what, since it was neither Judaism, nor :Thristianity, nor Mohammedanism, nor their religion really consisted of. Zormer investigators mostly took them to have been a distinct race and people, and their religion to have been composed of Chaldaism, Par sism, Judaism, Christianity, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and cabbalistic speculations. This, however, is far from being the' fact. Broadly speaking, they might perhaps best be described as Syrians, who, partly descended from Greek colonists, had been subject so long to Syrian influences that they became in a manner Syrianized. Their religion was heathenism, the old heathenism of their Syrian fathers, which had, with incredible obstinacy, resisted not only Christianity, but rendered even Mohammedan harm less by stratagem. There can, however, be no doubt about certain foreign non-pagan elements having crept into it during the early Christian centuries. Eclecticism prevailed at that period, and it was not only Greeks and Romans that found the influence of for eign, chiefly eastern, metaphysical speculation irresistible. But apart from that peculiar syncretism, we find many other new additions to Harran idolatry in the shape of Zabism. There are, first of all, a certain number of legends about biblical personages from whom they pretend to be descendants—legends which, it may be presumed, they only, for the nonce, permitted to belong to their sacred traditions. There are further a number of laws of purity and impurity, and of sacrifices, which strongly remind of Judaism. Again, names of Greek and Roman gods, such as Helios, Ares, and Kronos, occur, a circumstance that perhaps may be explained from the prevailing tendency of the period of exchanging the names of native divinities for Greek and Besides these foreign elements, there are certain metaphysical and physical views incorporated in their creed which are distinctly traceable to Aristotle, and finally, the theurgico-Neoplatonie religious philosophy of heathenism, such as is found in Porphyry, Proclus, Iamblichus, and the rest. All these apparently incongruous elements, however, infused into it by the circumstances of the period, do not prevent Zabism from being in reality heathenism. Were further proof needed, we should find it in the words of a celebrated Zabian, Thabit ben KOrra, quoted by Barhebrinus, in the shape of a panegyric on the town of Harran and its heathenism, uttered, as Barhebrwus says, in his " purblind obstinacy." After speaking of Christianity—not to its advantage—for some time, Thabit rejoices over the blessings that still belong to his native place, Harran, through its having kept itself utterly unsullied by that faith. " We," he continues (the Zabians or Harranians), " are the heirs and progenitors of heathenism, which has once been gloriously spread over this globe. Blessed is he who bears his burden for heathenism's sake with firm hopes. Who has civilized the world and built its cities, but the nobles and the kings of heathenism? Who has constructed the harbors and has made the rivers navigable? Who has taught the hidden science? To whom else has the deity revealed itself, given oracles, and told the things of the future, but to the most celebrated men among the heathen? Heathens have clone all these things. They have brthight to light the healing of souls; they have taught their salvation; they have also made manifest the art of healing the body; they have filled the world with institutions of government and with wisdom, which is the highest good. Without heathenism, the world would be empty and poverty stricken, and swallowed up by great misery." Without entering into a detailed account of the many sources whence our informa tion is derived with regard to the creed itself, we shall briefly indicate that they are written in Arabic, in Hebrew, and in Greek. The former are the most copious; those in Hebrew are chiefly represented by MaimonideS; and the Greek are ascribed to various pseudonymous whom figure Aristotle and Hermes Trismegistus. From their various, and, to a great extent, contradictory statements, we owe the following indications regarding the principal points of this creed: The Creator, it teaches, is in his essence, primitivity, originality, eternity, One; but in his many manifestations in bodily figures, manifold. Ile is chiefly personified by the seven leading planets. and by the good, knowing, excellent, earthly bodies. But his unity is not thereby disturbed. Ii Ls, the Zabians say, "as if the seven planets were his seven limbs, and as if our seven limbs were his seven spheres, in he manifests himself, so that he speaks with our tongue, sees with our eyes, hears with our ears, touches with our hands, comes and goes with our feet, and acts through our members." Nothing, we are told, is more foreign to Zabism than—what holds good of the creed of the Sabmans only—rude star-worship. Zabism according to the authority of Sharastani, expresses the idea that God is too great and too sublime to occupy himself directly with the affairs of this world; that he there fore has handed over the ruling of it to the gods, and that he himself only takes the most important things under his special care; that, further, man is too weak to address him self directly to the Highest, that he therefore is obliged to direct prayers and sacrifices to the intermediate deities to whom the rule of this world is intrusted. Thus the ven eration shown to planets, and even the worshiping of idols, is nothing but a symbolical act, the consequence of that original idea. There are many gods and goddesses in Zabism of this intermediate stamp. It is not the planets themselves, but the spirits that direct and guide them and deliver them which are taken as deities of this kind—deities that stand to the spheres in the relation of soul to body. Apart from these, there are those gods who cause or represent every action in this world. Every universal natural deed or effect emanates from a universal deity, every partial one from a partial deity that pre sides over part of nature. Everything that appears in the air, which is formed near the sky or arises from the earth, always is the product of certain gods, that preside over these manifestations, in such a manner that the rain in general, as well as every special drop of it, has a presiding numen. These spirits also mold and shape everything bodily from one form into the other, and gradually bring all created things to the state of their highest possible perfection, and communicate their powers to all substances, beings, and things. By the movement and guidance of these spiritual beings, the different elements and natural compositions are influenced in such a way that the tenderest plant may pierce the hardest cliff. He who guides this world is called the first spirit. These gods know our most secret thoughts, and all our future is open to them The female deities seem to have been conceived as the feeling or passive principle. These gods or intelligences emanate directly from God without his will, as rays do from the sun. They are, further, of abstract forms, free of all matter, and neither made of any substance nor material. They consist chiefly of a light in which there is no darkness, which the senses cannot conceive, by reason of its immense clearness, which the understanding cannot compre-• bend, by reason of its extreme delicacy, and which fancy and imagination cannot fathom. Their nature is free from all animal desires, and they themselves are created for love and harmony, and for friendship and unity. They are not subject to local or temporal changes, and they rule the heavenly bodies, without finding the motion of the most heavy heavy, or that of the lightest too light. Their existence is full of the highest bliss, through their 'being near to the Most High, whom day and night they praise, without ever feeling fatigue or lassitude, to whom they are never disobedient, but whoSe will they always fulfill with supreme delight. They have a free choice, and always incline to the good. "These spiritual beings, our lords and gods, are our intermediators and advocates, with the Lord of lords and God of gods." All substances and types of the bodily world emanate from the spiritual world, which is the one from which everything flows, and to which everything returns, and which is full of light, sublime and pure. These two worlds correspond to each other. and are to each other like light and shadow. The way to approach these gods, and, through them, the high est essence, is by purifying our souls from all passions, by keeping a strict guard over our words and deeds, by fasting, heartfelt prayer, invocations, sacrifices, fumigations, and incantations. By steadfastly persevering in these and similar acts of devotion, man may reach so high a step of perfection that he may communi cate even directly with the Supreme Power. The planets, as the principal representative
and intermediate gods, are to be carefully observed, especially as regards-1, the houses and stations of the planets; 2, their rising and setting; 3, their respective conjunctions and oppositions; 4, the knowledge of the special times and seasons, the hours and days of the ruling of special planets; 5, the division of the different figures, forms, climates, and countries, according to their dominant stars—the prevailing notion of the Zabians being, like that of the Chaldees and the sect of the so-called Mathematicians (according to Sex itus Empiricus), as well as of the Neoplatonists in general, that everything below heaven was subject, in a manner, to the influence of stars, or the spirits that inhabit and rule them. Every substance and every 'action, every country and every hour, has its special planetary deity. It is therefore well to study carefully the special conjunctions and figures, as well as the special mixtures of incense, which might cause the individual numen to be propitious. Thus, e.g., according to the Zabian belief, the first hour of Saturday stands under Saturnus, and it is therefore right and advisable to select at that time such prayers, seals, amulets, dresses, and fumigations as might be supposed to be particularly pleasing to that planetary god. • In order to address themselves to visible mediators, some of the Zabians are supposed to have directed their devotions to the stars themselves. But they soon found how futile a worship it was that addressed itself to things that appeared and disappeared in turn. They therefore manufactured permanent representatives of them in the shape of idols —idols wrought in as complete accordance as possible with the theurgical rules derived from the nature of the deity to be represented. They were of gold, to represent the sun; of silver, to indicate the moon. The very temple's in which they were placed were of as many corners as were supposed to .:correspond to the form (4 certain stars.
We know but little with regard to the cosmogonical notions of the Zabians. Shar astaui, one of our principal authorities, only quotes " Agathodamon" as his authority for their assuming five primeval principles, viz. : the creator, reason, the soul, space, the vacuum. Out of these, Viii things are composed. According to another source (Kathibi), however, the Zabians assumed two living and active principles—viz., God and the soul; further a passive one, matter; finally, two which are neither living nor passive— viz., time and space. Matter seems to have been held by them to be primeval and ever lasting, and to it alone the existence of evil is attributable. God created the spheres only, and the heavenly bodies therein. It is these spheres (fathers) which carry the types or ideas to the elementary substances (mothers), and out of the combination, con junction, and motion of these spheres and elements, the varying earthly things (children) are produced. Matter is, as we said, because of its defective nature, the source of evil, of ignorance, of folly; while the form is the source and fountain-head of the good, the right, the knowledge, and the understanding. Zabism further assumes a renewal of this world after each great " world-year,"—a space of 36,425 ordinary years. At the end of these periods, the plants, the animals, and the men that had existed within it, cease to propagate themselves, and a generation of each of them, different from all previous ones, springs into life. How far this theory is identical with the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Indian theories on the same subject, we cannot here investigate; suffice it to call attention to the striking likeness apparent in them all.
Nan, the Zabians teach, is composed of contradictory elements, which make him the vacillating, struggling creature he is. Passions and desires rule him, and lower him to the level of brute creation, and he would utterly lose himself, were it not for such, religious rites as purifications, sacrifices, and other means of grace, by which he may be enabled to approach the great gods once more, and to attempt to become like unto them. There are different kinds of souls; or rather man's soul partakes partly of the nature of the animal soul and partly of that of the angelic soul. The soul never dies, and punish ments and rewards will affect only it, but not everlastingly. But rewards and punish ments will not be wrought in any other future world, but in this, only at different epochs ,,of existence. Thus, all our present joys are rewards for good deeds done by us in former epochs; and the sorrows and griefs we endure, spring in the same manner from evil actions we committed at former stages. As to -the nature of the general (world-) soul itself, they say that it is primitive, for if it were not so, it would be material,. as every newly created being partakes of the material nature. Yet a material soul would be an impossibility. " The soul, which is thus an immaterial thing," says Kathibi, "and exists from eternity, is the involuntary reason of the first types, as God is the first cause of the intelligences, The soul once beheld matter, and loved it. Glowing with the desire of assuming a bodily shape, it would not again separate itself from that mat ter of which means the world was created. Since that time, the soul forgot itself, its everlasting existence, its original abode, and knew nothing more of what it had }mown before. But God, who turns all things to the best, united it to matter, which it loved, and out of this union the-heavens, the elements, and other composite things arose. In order that the soul might not wholly perish within matter, he endowed it with intelli gence, whereby it conceived its high origin, the spiritual world, and itself. It further conceived through it that it was but a stranger in this world, that it was subject to many sufferings in it, and that even the joys of this world are but the sources of new suffer ings. As soon as the soul had perceived all this, it began to yearn again for its spiritual home, as a man who is away from his birthplace pines for his homestead. It then also learned that, in order to return to its primitive state, it had to free itself from the fet ters of sensuous desires, and from all materialistic tendencies. Free from them all, it would regain its heavenly sphere again, and enjoy the bliss of the spiritual world." From all this, it will be seen, as we stated at the outset—that the Zabians, about whom so much has been theorized and fabled, were simply heathens who had to a cer taM extent adopted and modified Neoplatonic ideas, such as floated in the mental atmosphere of the early Christian centuries. It would be needless to enter into a dis cussion about the semi-fabulous personages to whom they ascribe the foundation of their creed, such as Agathodtemon, Arani, Hermes, and the rest; or some of those men tioned by other writers, such as Zerdusht, Nawassib, Orpheus, and the rest.
The life of this sect was but short. After having first been on terms of great friend ship with the ruling powers of Mohammedanism as well as with Christians and Jews, and having filled many of the highest and most responsible posts at the courts of the caliphs, they were by degrees made the butt of fanaticism and rapacity. Mulcted, per secuted, banished at different periods, they disappear from history since the middle of the 11th century. Some obscure remnants of them seem to have survived in remote corners of Mesopotamia, but they, too, no'longer adhere to the original creed, but are mixed up with the MendaYtes, mentioned above, and the Sheinsijeh, or sun-worshipers. Thus obscurely ended a sect which, for 200 years, had produced a host of men pre-emi nent in every branch of learning and literature, in philosophy, astronomy, history, natural history, poetry, medicine, and the rest. Many of these men, whose name and fame reached Europe, were confounded with their Mohammedan contemporaries, chiefly because they lived in Bagdad, at that time the center of learning,, the seat of the caliphs and the high dignitaries of stale. The Mohammedans, however, had so high an. appreciation of Zabian learning, that it became proverbial amono.. them, and they could explain it only by tracing it to a supernatural source, notably to Hermes (Trismegistus), the father of the Zilbi, mentioned above.
We have in our sketch mainly followed Chwolson, who, aided by profound learning and acumen, has been the first to clear up the nature of Zabisin, this terrible stumbling block of many generations of investigators.—For detailed information on it and all the many-other points connected with it, we must refer our readers to the large work in which he has embodied the results of his investigations: Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus (2 vols. St. Petersburg, 1856). See also NEOPLATONISTS, GNOSTICS.