E. S. Drower - Diwan Abatur. Progress Through The Purgatories



Ethel Stefana Drower née Stevens December 1879 – 27 January 1972) was a British cultural anthropologist who studied the Middle East and its cultures. She was considered the primary specialist on the Mandaeans, and the chief collector of Mandaean manuscripts.

She was a daughter of a clergyman. In 1906 she was working for Curtis Brown, a London literary agency when she signed Arthur Ransome to write Bohemia in London.

In 1911, she married Edwin Drower and after his knighthood became Lady Drower. As E. S. Stevens, she wrote a series of romantic novels for Mills & Boon and other publishers. In 1921, she accompanied her husband to Iraq where Sir Edwin Drower was adviser to the Justice Minister from 1921 to 1946. Her works include The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans (a translation of the Qolusta); The Secret Adam (Mandaeans); and The Peacock Angel (about the Yezidis). Among her grandchildren was the campaigning journalist Roly Drower.

PUBLISHED BY THE VATICAN PRESS 1960

PREFACE

In the year 1622 a Carmelite father, B. P. Ignatius, was dispatched by the Propaganda in Borne to the Nestorians of Mesopotamia, whilst in Basrah, he met with members of a sect who, as is their custom when’dealing with Christians, told him that their prophet was St. John the Baptist. Prom them he obtained a roll illustrated by curious drawings of beings which they described as angels or demons. On his return to Borne Ignatius published a treatise in Latin about this interesting group of heretics 1 whose ceremonies were at once like and unlike those of Oriental Christians, and whose creed was so strangely perverted and pagan. - The roll found its way into the Museo Borgiano in Borne where Julius Euting saw it in 1879 2 . Euting was deeply, interested and persuaded a friend, Dr. B. Pfdrtner, to photograph the manuscript. This photograph was published in Strasbourg in 1904, under the title “Mandaischer Diwan nach photographischer Aufnahme, von Dr. B. Pfoertner mitgeteilt yon Julius Euting It.was not translated. Early in my dealings with Mandaean priests in the marshes of Lower ‘Iraq I was shown a copy of the Diwan Abatur and after long negotiations, it was arranged that I should have the toll that I had seen after its owner had copied it for himself. The copy was.made with plrill and care and the original sent to me. Judging by the paper and other indications, my roll, D.C. 8,of my collection, is a]bout the same date as the manuscript taken to Borne by Ignatius. If either the Borgian manuscript nor mine is dated, although each has a long list of copyists, showing that the text was an ancient one. , A considerable part of the beginning is missing from the Boman roll, but I have been able to compare the remainder of the Borgian manuscript with my own. I discovered no other copy of the text in ‘Iraq, although, of course, other priests may have concealed possession of a copy since, in spite of the inferior and -childish quality of the com¬ position and mistakes due to constant recopying, it is looked upon as a precious and holy book. v The illustrations, archaic and suggestive of a Sub^st form of art, are identical in both manuscripts. The Subba are clever artists and craftsmen, but tradition dictates that, representation of celestial and infernal beings must follow a certain pattern. Drawings like these in the Diwan Abatur are found in the ritual rolls, so that we have here no childish inability to portray a subject, but deliberate convention of a very individual'order. A Subbi smith who drew naturalistic pictures for engraving on his silverwork, when asked by me to draw pictures of some celestial beings, produced similar 0(j^ geometrical-looking designs. ‘ In the following pages I have translated the word mafarta as purgatory ” instead of the literal “ place of detention ” or, as Lidzbarski translates “ Wachthaus ”. Since the mafarata are places where the sinful and impure are purged by punishment of sin and uncleanness, they are undoubtedly “ purgatories ”. The idea that the soul must pass through seven planetary spheres after death, shedding in its progress impure and earthly qualities connected astrologically with each of the seven planets, is familiar to the reader of Gnostic literature. In this Mandaean text, however, the rulers of the mafarata are not all planetary spirits. The planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Yenus, Moon and Sun have their mafarata, but so have V purely Mandaean beings such as Ptahil and his sons Bihram, Anufi, Hibil, Ginziel or Kanziel, Nbat, and Sitil; and the saviour-spirit, the personified Sunday. - - i The Puntanmcal nature of Mandaean religion, to which music, dancing, ornaments and coloured clothing are abhorrent, is evident throughout, and ancient tabus about women are reflected in heavy penalties for sexual impurity, witting or unwitting. Such rigid rules have helped, no doubt, to preserve the health and vigour of the race. Part of the text is one of many creation myths found in Mandaean literature. Through it, as in similar creation stories in the Ginza Rabba and DraSa d Yahia, runs a theme of discord amongst primeval spirits of creation; of jealousy, rebellion and pride eventually quenched and reconciled by divine wisdom. I gave a summary of D. 0. 8 in the first number of the Journal of the British School of Archaeology in ‘Iraq, but this is the first time that the complete text is published and translated. Finally, T have 'made little attempt to interpret what is seemingly unintelligible and probably corrupt, and I doubt whether this is possible. This applies particularly to the- descriptions of the’ drawings. A guess at any¬ thing but the literal translation would be an unwarrantable liberty.