The Mysteries of John the Baptist
Page 28
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. Here are some examples of a John long lost:
Yahya proclaims in the nights and says:
Through my Father’s discourses I give light and through the praise of the Man, my creator. I have freed my soul from the world and from the works that are hateful and wrong.
The Seven [rulers/planetary spirits] put the question to me, the Dead who have not seen Life, and they said unto me; “In whose strength dost thou stand there, and with whose praise dost thou make proclamation?” Thereupon gave to them answer: I stand in the strength of my Father and with the praise of the Man, my creator. I have built no house in Judea, I have set up no throne in Jerusalem. I have not loved the wreath of the roses, nor had commerce with lovely women. I have not loved the deficiency, nor loved the cup of the drunkards. I have loved no food of the body, and envy has found no place in me. I have not forgotten my night-prayer, not forgotten the wondrous Jordan. I have not forgotten my baptizing, nor forgotten my pure sign. I have not forgotten Sunday, and the Day’s evening has not condemned me. I have not forgotten Shilmai and Nidbai, who dwell in the House of the Mighty. They clear me and let me ascend; they know no fault, no defect in me.
When Yahya said this, Life rejoiced over him greatly. The Seven sent him their greeting and the Twelve made obeisance before him. They said to him: “Of all these words, which thou hast spoken, thou hast not said a single one falsely. Delightful and fair is thy voice, and none is equal to thee. Fair is thy discourse in thy mouth and precious is thy speech, which has been bestowed upon thee. The vesture, which First Life, did give unto Adam, the Man, the vesture, which First Life, did give unto Râm, the Man, the vesture, which First Life did give unto Shurbai, the Man, the vesture First Life did give unto Shum Bar Nû [Shem, son of Noah] has He given now unto thee. He hath given it thee, O Yahya, that thou mayest ascend, and with thee may those descend. . . . The house of the defect (thy body) will be left behind in the desert. Everyone who shall be found sinless, will ascend unto thee, in the Region of Light; he who is not found sinless, will be called to account in the guardhouses.”
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.
FOOTNOTES
*1. [Silver coins issued by various German states from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries —Ed.]
*2. In the standard English translation, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, translated and edited by Geza Vermes, (revised edition, Penguin, London, 2004), the initial digit of Qumran Scroll abbreviations refers to the number of the Cave in which the documents were found (11 caves yielded manuscripts). “Q” always means “Qumran.” 1Q means Qumran Cave 1. “S” refers to the Hebrew “Serekh”—meaning “Rule”; in this case the “Community Rule.” “1QS” means the Community Rule found in Qumran Cave 1.
“Sa” refers to appendix “a” of the Community Rule; appendix “a” has been called the “Messianic Rule.” So the Messianic Rule’s full abbreviation is “1QSa.” “Sb” refers to appendix “b” of the “Serekh” (Community Rule); that appendix is called “Blessings.” The full abbreviation of “Blessings” is then: 1QSb.
The “Temple Scroll” (“TS”) was found in Cave 11. So its abbreviation is: 11QTS.
Other abbreviations: a small “p” means a pesher, or Bible commentary. “Psa” means Psalms Scroll part “a.” Its full abbreviation then is: 11QPsa.
“H” refers to “Hymns.”
Where the text has a title included in the abbreviation, as in the cases above, Roman numerals appearing in abbreviations after the abbreviated name or manuscript number refer to column numbers, while Arabic numerals after Roman numerals refer to line numbers of words in Hebrew or Aramaic, on the original scroll or manuscript. So the reference abbreviation, 1QS V, 13-14, means: lines 13-14 of column 5 of the Community Rule, found in Qumran Cave 1. However, many texts are identified by manuscript number alone. In such cases, Arabic numerals in abbreviations refer to that manuscript number, viz: 4Q390 means: manuscript number 390 found in Cave 4. 4Q521, for example, is the abbreviation for a text known as ‘The Messiah of Heaven and Earth’ (manuscript no. 521), a name derived by scholars from text contents.
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ALSO BY TOBIAS CHURTON
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tobias Churton is a filmmaker and the founding editor of the magazine Freemasonry Today. He studied theology at Oxford University and created the award-winning documentary series and accompanying book The Gnostics, as well as several other films on Christian doctrine, mysticism, and magical folklore. He lives in England.
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Churton, Tobias, 1960–
The mysteries of John the Baptist : his legacy in gnosticism, paganism, and freemasonry / Tobias Churton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
print ISBN: 978-1-59477-474-4
ebook ISBN: 978-1-59477-505-5
1. John, the Baptist, Saint. I. Title.
BS2456.C48 2012
232.9'4—dc23
2012013498
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1: The Mystery of John the Baptist
JOHN AS DIVINE MERCURY
Chapter 2: St. John’s Men and the Passion of the Corn
ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST AS LORD OF THE FEAST
THE KNIGHTS HOSPITALLER
HERALD OF THE HARVEST
Chapter 3: John the Baptist in History and Tradition
JOSEPHUS
THE NATURE OF NEW TESTAMENT EVIDENCE
Chapter 4: John as Herald in Christian Scripture
MATTHEW’S GOSPEL
LUKE
THE ESSENES AND JOHN
Chapter 5: John and John
Chapter 6: Why Must John Die?
FROM JOHN’S EXECUTION TO JESUS’S CRUCIFIXION
THE REAL DATE OF JESUS’S CRUCIFIXION
Chapter 7: John and Jesus
JOHN AS SON OF MAN
THE REED, THE PROPHET, THE MAN IN FINE RAIMENT
JOHN AND JESUS
Chapter 8: The Great Prophecies
THE NAZARENES
THE FOUNT OF LIVING WATERS AND THE HIDDEN CORRUPTERS OF EARTH
STANDING THE TRIAL
Chapter 9: The Third Day
SECRET ISRAEL
Chapter 10: A Reed Shaken in the Wind
PROBLEM PAUL
THE PILLARS OF ENOCH
Chapter 11: St. John’s Men Today
BAPHOMET
THE MANDAEANS
Footnotes
Bibliography