Abathur
Abatur (also Abāt (h) ur , Persian : the one with the scales ) is a mythical figure of the Mandaeans . It is first of all a creator and light being and is considered to be the personification of the so-called third life. He is the son of Joshamin and father of Ptahil .
When he commissioned Ptahil to create the world of Tibil , he fell out of favor with Mana rurbe and was now the judge of the dead. He therefore weighs the souls of the deceased and their deeds at the final judgment and decides whether the souls are allowed into the kingdom of light or have to go into the underworld, and is therefore presumably also to be equated with Abbadon .
Abatur will be released from this task at the end of the days of Hibil .
There is a separate Mandaean collection of poems entitled Diwan Abatur .
As the judge of the dead and guardian of the afterlife, he corresponds to the Zoroastrian god Rashnu and the Egyptian god Anubis and is also related to the Judeo-Christian archangel Michael .
In the Sidra Rabba (Codex Nazaraeus) the “old man of the days”, the Antiquus Altus , the father of the demiurge of the universe, is also called Abatur.
literature
- Gerhard J. Bellinger : Knaurs Lexikon der Mythologie. 3100 keywords on the myths of all peoples from the beginning to the present. Droemer Knaur Verlag, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-426-26376-9 .
- Ethel Stefana Drower: Diwan Abatur. ... or progress through the purgatories. Text with translation notes and appendices. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Città del Vaticano 1950 ( Studi e testi. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana 151, ZDB -ID 762276-4 ).