Section 24

1 The 'merchants' and 'fishers' in all probability mean the Seven, as in the 'Fisher of Souls' piece. 2 The MM. wear white robes. 3 Sc . of the temple; cp. the miraculous spiritual outpouring of the Last Days expected by John, based on O.T. prophecies, as set forth in the previous introductory study; also one of the Odes of Solomon , quoted in the Pistis Sophia (ch. 65, pag. 131, Mead p. 110): "A stream came forth and became a great wide flood. It tore away all to itself and turned itself against the temple," etc. The whole Ode is most instructive in this connection, and the Odes in general move in a very similar atmosphere to the John-lore. (See for Trans. from Syriac, Rendel Harris and Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon , Manchester, 1920). The 'fish' and 'birds' of the next sentences are the faithful. 1 Tibil; L. frequently retains this as a proper name— e.g. 'in the Tibil'—and alternates it with the common noun 'world.' Whether there is a distinction in the original I do not know, it seems to be simply the Heb. tebel ( = world, earth). Where L. has Tibil, I shall render it by 'this world.' 2 Cp. the Messianic Marriage Feast parable (Mt. 22:4) : "My oxen and my fatlings are killed . . .: come to the mariage-feast." 3 Kushṭā is the general term for the religious ideal of the MM.; it is elastic in meaning and cannot be translated by a single rigid concept. The original sense seems to have been 'Truth,' 'Righteousness' and perhaps 'Order' (cp. the Avestan Asha and the Vedic Ṛita). It thus means the true religion, loyalty, trust and faith (see J.B. xvii.f.). Kushtā is fem. It is to be noted that in Avestan literature Ashi (fem.) is the heavenly impersonation of rectitude, fortune, chastity, riches (cp. ūthrā's ), and Chisti (fem.) of religious wisdom (? = gnōsis)—see M. N. Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization . New York, 1922, pp. 45, 51f., 68, 77, 84. With the frequent recurrence of the letter-symbol in M. scripture, cp. the Syriac 'Hymn of the Soul,' or 'of the Pearl,' which belengs to the same main stream of the Gnosis (see my Hymn of the Robe of Glory , 'Echoes from the Gnosis' series, vol. x., London, 1908). 4 Presumably the heavenly messengers. 1 Sc . Life or perhaps rather the Man.