550 MANDAEAN LITERATURE
them from the living baptism in the Jordan of living waters, with which you,
Adam, were baptized.
Also in that generation a child was born, who was called by the name of
John,^37 the son of the venerable Zachariah, who was born to him in his old age
at the end of one hundred years. His mother, the woman Elizabeth, became
pregnant with him. She gave birth to him in her old age. When John grows up
in that generation of Jerusalem, faith will find a place in his heart and he will
receive the Jordan and carry out baptisms for forty-two years, before Nbu,
who is Hermes Christ, dresses in a body and enters the world. When John is in
Jerusalem, Jesus Christ arrives, moves about in humility, is baptized with the
baptism of John, and becomes wise through John's wisdom. Then Jesus pro-
ceeds to pervert the word of John and change the Jordan baptism, altering the
words of truth,^38 and summoning wickedness and lies into the world.
MANDA DHAYYE BRINGS TRIUMPH TO JOHN
On the day that John's measure is full, Hibil Manda dHayye^39 comes to him.
But I appear to John as a small boy, three years and a day old, and I converse
with him about baptism and I instruct his friends. Then I take him out of his
body and cause him to rise up in triumph to the world that is filled with radi-
ance, and I baptize him in the white Jordan of living and brilliant waters,^40
clothe him in garments of radiance, and cover him in turbans of light and
place praise in his pure heart from the praise of the angels of light.THE LIGHT BEING ANOSH UNMASKS JESUS
After John, the world will go on in lies and Christ the Roman^41 will split the
peoples; the twelve seducers^42 wander the world. For thirty years the Roman
appears in the world.... And when the great one chooses, the light being
Anosh comes. He will expose the lies of Jesus the liar, who makes himself equal
to the angels of light. He will accuse Christ the Roman, the liar, the son of a- John the baptizer.
- Truth is kushta, which is ritualized through a handshake.
- Hibil is heavenly Abel; Manda dHayye is knowledge of life as heavenly messenger.
- Heavenly baptism.
- A reference to the Roman or Byzantine context of the Christian church.
- The twelve messengers or apostles, linked to the twelve signs of the zodiac.