Mandaic: Alphabet

This is the Mandaean alphabet, the
abagada, consisting of twenty-four letters and so named because of its
first four letters. One of them is not a real letter, for the U, the
relative particle “of,” is added on as the penultimate letter of the
alphabet The first letter, A, is repeated at the very end of the
abagada in order to make the auspicious number, twenty-four.’ The
abagada comes from the female, primordial Wellspring, the aina (often
paired with its corresponding male principal, the Datepalm). Created
prior to the universe and human beings, the letters are the
Wellspring’s children. One may say that no universe could have been
made prior to the letters, because neither speech nor writing were
possible until the abagada came into being.

Ayar (Ether), cosmic
breath, speaks in the abagada, but he himself did not emanate from it.
Imitating Ether, human beings utter the letters and, in combining them,
create their lives. But the Mandaeans accord a somewhat disturbing
autonomy to the abagada, and it is a question how much power human
beings have in their use of it. Who is in charge, the letters or the
people? To explore this, problem, this chapter will focus on errors,
subversive word games, jokes, double ertendres, and polemics; in short,
they are the kinds of language games that people play an the
alphabet—or that it plays on them. If we assume that Mandaeism sides
with the letters, and therefore in a sense against itself, the religion
is playing a joke on itself.

The Letters

According
1012, Book I, lI, the B emanates from the A, and the B then turns to
the A and praises it . The G, coming into existence next, turns to its
predecessor, B, and praises it, and so on through the alphabet.

“Each
king (malka) praised and worshipped him who was anterior to himself,
until a structure was built up, composed of twenty-four kings who held
themselves together so that their edifice might not be destroyed.”

Notice here the concern for the completeness of the alphabet, the emphasis on harmony and co-work.

Because
Mandaeism is, after all, a form of Gnosticism, we should already be
prepared for signs of disharmony, for things going awry. Indeed, the
abagada is threatened because “the construction became swollen with
pride and no consolidation took place within that Wellspring, and it
became deprived, fell, and was abortive.” This information recalls a
central creation myth in which the world creator Ptahil stands in the
primeval waters and speaks what he thinks are creative words (he is
imitating Yahweh in the Bible’s Old Testament). But no solidification
of the waters occurs, for Ptahil has not been sufficiently instructed
by his father/predecessor in how to create the world. He becomes
despondent and has to give up his attempt, at least for the time being.
Ptahil is not accused of pride—the sin of the letters in 1012—but
merely of being ignorant His father, Abatur, has failed to instruct his
son. Comparing this story with the myth about the letters, we see a
common theme: something is amiss in the relationship between the
actors. The lesson seems to be that incorrect use of language produces
no world, and, in Ptahil’s and Abatur’s case, the predecessor must
instruct the next creator.

According to 1012, no solidarity
could take place-between the letters when pride and individualism
entered the picture, sabotaging the collective. 1012 says that the L
marks the middle of the abagada, and that twelve letters now assemble
on the right, twelve on the left, the groups facing one another like
hostile armies. Abhorring this stalemate, the text tries to determine
exactly where in the succession of emanations things went awry. It
assumes that when they reached H, the letters expressed themselves
defectively, but they encouraged themselves, saying:

If we
separate ourselves and place ourselves at a distance from one another,
the building will not hold together. (But) if we approach one another
and merge together we shall construct the building soundly and lay it
in an orderly feshion ... ITt] we do not join with one another, the
Right will be useless, the Left ruined, and the mouth (mouthing?) of
every one of the mysteries will be spoiled.

That the H appearing
one-third into the abagada, marks the spot where defectiveness came
about is a significant piece of information. For the H links up with
the Mandaean anthropological theory regarding body, spirit, and soul.
The spirit as the trouble spot in the human being parallels the status
of the H, for Exalted Kingship, in it dissertation on the alphabet,
states that the if signifies the spirit, while the two other
non-letters, the (ayin) and the d, symbolize body and soul,
respectively. Therefore, in the layout of both the alphabet and the
human being, structure and cohesiveness are emphasized, but so are
difference and discord. No human being can exist without the
interaction of it three components.-body, spirit, and soul—just as no
language can arise from an alphabet of staunchly individualistic
letters.

In 1012, the letters encouraged themselves, calling for
cooperation. “The mouth of every one of the mysteries will be spoiled””
if discord continued. “Mysteries,” razas, among many other things, mean
“rituals” or “sacraments.”’ If no work can be done without collective
effort, creative words are of no account, and, worse than nonsense,
result in the ruin of language. To counter such threats, the letters
take each other’s hands. In what follows, 1012 shows a very
characteristic interest not only in the pragmatics of language building
but also in the pragmatic language of construction. Real construction
is intended- n this case, masonry. Along with other kinds of
construction and artisan work, masonry for centuries remained one of
the traditional occupations of Mandaeans.

At the spot where the
letters grasp one another’s hands, 1012 gives a simple drawing of a
rectangle. This is building material, a brick (libna). The stunningly
concrete image may seem strange in an utterly esoteric dissertation on
the alphabet, but it demonstrates very well the Mandaean love of
practical thinking and down-to-earth metaphors. The letters grab each
other’s hands at the corners of each brick. So, building language and
reality is like building a house, for the letters must join in the
correct relation to one another, corners to corners. Otherwise,
house/language/world will fall down.

The letter L gives the
first illustration, says 1012, for the ~ watches the L working and
asks, “This that thou makest, what is its name?” The L answers—as we
might expect—”libna,” L for libna! 1012 says that all buildings have
four corners, and all things are constructed out of four mysteries:
cosmic Father and Mother, soul and spirit Everything depends on these
four: all creations, all natural phenomena, and all Mandaean rituals
and prayers.“Anything which is not constructed of four mysteries will
not rise” [i.e., to the Lightworld], but will be spoilt and unworthy.”