THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF THE HYMN-CYCLES

Considerable collections of Mandaean funeral texts have survived, some of which have already been considered by Reitzenstein in connection with the Parthian material. The texts are more varied in character than the surviving Manichaean ones, and their use is not always restricted to the celebration of death alone. Those which most closely resemble the Manichaean begin when the soul has already left the body and is waiting in loneliness and fear for a redeemer to lead it to Paradise. The majority share two important characteristics with the Manichaean hymns: they are dramatic in form, being attributed largely to the soul, and their dominant theme is the ascent of the soul to Paradise after it leaves the body.

The ascent of the soul after death held a place of paramount importance in the older Gnostic religions, in which it was enacted ritually both for the preparation of the living and the furtherance of the dead. From what has survived of their liturgical writings, it appears that in these religions the ascent was an ordeal to be surmounted only by the initiate dead; the seven malignant planets barred the soul’s upward path and could be rendered powerless only by a set form of words. If this trial by knowledge were surmounted, a test of virtue followed; but virtue without esoteric knowledge was useless. The ascent of the soul is similarly represented as an ordeal in a number of the Mandaean masqātā original: "masqātā" (ascents/funeral rites).