INTRODUCTION

This collection consists of the Psalms to Jesus, the first group of the Psalms of Heracleides, and some miscellaneous psalms following these two groups. All are apparently intended, like the Parthian hymns, for use at the funerals of the Elect; and by far the greater number are cast in the same dramatic form, being spoken by the soul of the dead monk or nun. In them too, it is made plain that the soul has already left the body, “the abode of Darkness that is full of fear.” The “hour of going forth from the body” is almost invariably represented as one of terror and distress, the time “of the great trouble,” the “hour of need.” The soul, struggling to bear up “beneath the alarm of death,” seeks help desperately from the foes around it—a “merciless crowd like vultures.” The seven demons are spoken of repeatedly; and the soul appeals also against wild beasts, traps, and the powers of heaven and earth, which seek to submerge it. These appeals are never in vain. The Saviour comes, bringing comfort and protection. “The seven fearful demons” leave the soul, “their foul hands also empty of (its) blood”; it utters praises to its redeemer, and having received the symbols of victory, ascends to Paradise, there to become “divine again even as (it) was.”

The resemblance is striking between these psalms and those represented in M 4; and since the two groups of texts are the products of communities so geographically remote as the Parthian and Coptic Churches, it is safe to assume that they represent a common pattern of funeral hymn, originating in the earliest days of Manichaeism. This assumption is supported by the fact that there are marked similarities between these hymns and those of Mandaeism, a religion which appears to have developed in the same area as Manichaeism and to have shared with it some of the same formative influences.