INTRODUCTION

The first few lines and the last of this psalm suggest that it was composed for the death of one of the Elect. It follows the pattern of the other funerary texts, beginning with an appeal to the Saviour, and ending with the soul's ascent in triumph. But the body of the psalm is not devoted to the dead man's life and virtues: his little existence is merged instead into that of Light as a whole. Since the world began, the Light which makes up his soul has been exiled from its home, suffering amid matter; at its release through death, it rejoices. The treatment is impressive. The psalm does not evoke the human sympathies touched by some of the others; but by dissolving the bonds of personal existence, it awakes a sense of awe and humility before the greatness of the divine struggle.

This short work gives a key to the understanding of the extensive hymn-cycles, in which the treatment of the soul appears to be the same. This treatment involves necessarily the conception of "the saved Saviour." The god addresses the soul both as his redeemer and the one he has come to redeem.1 A few similar passages occur in the Coptic psalms.2

We know little as yet of Manichaean ritual, and to speculate about the liturgical use of the hymns is largely unprofitable. It is known from the Hymnscroll that the first canto of Huwīdagmān was sometimes detached from the rest of the cycle, and that its first verse was used in congregation as a response.3 This canto is complete in itself, however, and being unusually joyous must have lent itself to general and independent use. There is a possibility that the hymn-cycles, like the Mandaean masqātā (ascents/funeral rites), were used for other liturgical purposes as well as the celebration of death; but there is no evidence for this, or for Reitzenstein's attractive theory that they consisted of twelve cantos, one for each hour of the day of celebration. All that can be said with probability is that they were primarily intended for the funeral services of the Elect, whose deaths were thereby celebrated in a manner which was partly symbolic, so that they typified also the final redemption of Light.

The relationship between the hymn-cycle Angad Rōšnān and the angad rōšnānī hymns of M 4 remains regrettably obscure.

1. See, for example, A.R. VI 9, 21, 56 (the soul as redeemer); and ibid. 31-33, 43-45 (the god as redeemer). The alternation led both Reitzenstein and Lentz to suppose the words of the god a dialogue.
2. e.g., Ps. Bk. 75^5, 86^27, 87^18-24. (In the last passage, line 20, Prof. Polotsky emends the translation to "The Father, the King of the crowns—I left him, [I] being pure from . . .").
3. See BSOAS. xi, p. 209, vv. 351-2.