Mandaean Book of John — Prayer and Hymn Extracts

Mandaean Book of John — Prayer and Hymn Extracts

[Archive witness: a comparative late-antique text, preserved as historical evidence, not as doctrine or scripture.]

Extracts of prayer and hymn from the Mandaean Book of John, in which John, called Yahya, baptizes in the Jordan and teaches the way of light.

John proclaims in the nights, and says: in the name of the Great Life, light shines forth. Who told Jesus? Who told him, that he should go to the Jordan and be baptized? But the Jordan in which the souls are made pure is the living water from the world of light. [Text missing]

The Life is praised, and the Life is victorious;

the man who went to the Jordan is victorious.

He baptizes the soul in the living water

and seals it with the pure sign,

and sends it up to the place of light.

[Fragment breaks here. See also the witnesses to John the Baptist filed elsewhere.]