“In a remote period of antiquity Sabeanism was diffused over Asia by the science of the Chaldeans and the arms of the Assyrians. They adored the seven gods or angels who directed the course of the seven planets and shed their irresistible influence on the earth.... They prayed thrice each day, and the temple of the moon at Haran was the term of their pilgrimage.”—_Gibbon._ In the towns along the lower Euphrates and Tigris, especially at Amara, Suk es Shiukh, Busrah and Mohammerah, there dwell an interesting people, variously known as Sabeans, Nasorians, or St. John Christians. They call themselves Mandæans, and though numbering only four or five thousand, they are and have always been entirely distinct from the Jews, Moslems and Christians among whom they have dwelt for centuries. Their origin is lost in obscurity although the few scholars who have studied the subject trace their history through the maze of their religion to ancient Babylonia and Chaldea. In this remnant of a race and religion we seem to have an example of the oldest form of idolatry, Star-worship, and many of their mysterious customs may throw a side-light upon the cult of ancient Babylonia. Mandæism is not only of deep interest as “the only existing religion compounded of Christian, heathen and Jewish elements,”[104] but it affords another proof of the early spread of religious ideas in the East, and the Babylonian origin of much that is supposed to be Alexandrian Gnosticism in a semi-Christian, semi-pagan garb. In the English Bible the name _Sabeans_ is perplexing, and although used of three different tribes or peoples, none of these are any way related to the present Mandæans unless those mentioned in Job. Sabean is also the term used in the Koran, where it undoubtedly applies to the people and proves that when Islam arose their numbers and settlements were far from unimportant. The Koran recognizes them as distinct from idolaters, and places them with Jews and Christians as people of the book.[105] From this it is evident that the Sabeans could not have been, as some allege, a minor Christian sect or identical with the Hemero-Baptists. Although giving special honor to John the Baptist, _they can in no sense be called Christians_.