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Updated: May 18, 2025
Since the Jews, by this time, through the medium of the pure Persian doctrine, recognized in their Jehovah, not simply the greatest of all national deities, but GOD; and since they could, the more readily find Him and indicate Him to others in their sacred writings, inasmuch as He was really in them; and since they manifested as great an aversion for sensuous representations, or at all events, were instructed in these Scriptures, to have an aversion to them as great as the Persians had always felt; what wonder that they found favor in the eyes of Cyrus, with a Divine Worship which he recognized as being, no doubt, far below pure Sabeism, but yet far above the rude idolatries which in its stead had taken possession of the forsaken land of the Jews.
The sects floating between Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabeism, which we find in the region beyond the Jordan during the first centuries of our era, present to criticism the most singular problem, in consequence of the confused accounts of them which have come down to us.
They had some traditionary idea of the unity and perfections of the Deity, but their creed embraced an immense number of subordinate divinities, represented by images of men and women, beasts and birds. The essential basis of their religion was Sabeism, or star-worship.
Sabeism was, as its etymology indicates, baptism that is to say, the religion of many baptisms the origin of the sect still existing called "Christians of St. John," or Mendaites, which the Arabs call el-Mogtasila, "the Baptists." It is difficult to unravel these vague analogies.
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