Codex Nazaraeus
The Ginza Rabba
The Holy Book
Of
The Mandeans
Aeternitas est in Gnosis
Archive Notes:
The texts below are taken from: E.S. Drower, Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans, Leiden: 1959. Drower writes in introduction to this wor
"The first Mandaean book which came into my hands was a small volume of 200 hundred and thirty-eight pages in a poor handwriting. It was presented to me by an old Mandaean silversmith a year or two after the first World War. This volume inspired me with curiosity, and later when I has read Nodeke's „Mandaische Grammatik‟, I found that it contained prayers for minor ablutions, the daily office (the 'nisania) and the masitqa prayers.
An early visit to 'Amarah resulted in the acquisition of a damaged and imperfect copy of the entire codex, I mean prayers considered canonical and still used by priests. A head priest (a ganzibra) copied into it some of the missing pages and to these I added others when I had had access to other MSS. Complete copies of the collection is hard to come by for
they
are
in
constant
use.
It was not until many years later in the spring of 1954 that I persuaded the owner of a prayerbook, himself a ganzibra, to give me his in exchange for a money gift for sacred manuscripts are never bought. This codex N. 53 of my collection is in a good hand and from it very little is missing.”
Sections of Ginza Rba:
The Book of Souls (Baptism Liturgy)
The Masiqta (The Raising Up)