How does the one called respond to the call and to its content? The first effect of the call is of course the awakening from the deep slumber of the world. Then, however, the reaction of the one awakened to his situation as revealed in the call and to the demands made upon him can be of different kinds, and significant dialogues between the called and the caller may ensue. In the Manichaean cosmogony according to Theodore bar Konai, for instance, Adam’s first reaction to the wakening and the information he receives about himself is an outburst of acute terror at his situation:

Jesus the Luminous approached the innocent Adam. He awakened him from the sleep of death, so that he might be delivered from the many demons. And as a man who is just and finds a man possessed by a mighty demon and calms him by his power—so was Adam because that Friend found him sunk in deepest slumber, awakened him, made him stir, shook him awake, drove away from him the seducing Demon and removed the mighty Archon [here female] away from him into bonds. And Adam examined himself and discovered who he was. Jesus showed him the Fathers on high and his own Self 36 cast into all things, to the teeth of panthers and elephants, devoured by them that devour, consumed by them that consume, eaten by the dogs, mingled and bound in all that is, imprisoned in the stench of darkness. He raised him up and made him eat of the tree of life. Then Adam cried and lamented: terribly he raised his voice like a roaring lion, tore [his dress], smote his breast, and spoke: “Woe, woe unto the shaper of my body, unto those who fettered my soul, and unto the rebels that enslaved me!”

A similar though more muted tone of lamentation met us in the preceding section as first response to the call (in the Turfan fragment M 7 and in the Mandaean passage J 57).

More primitively human is Adam’s reaction in the Mandaean text G 430 f., whose beginning we quoted on p. 85. There, as we saw, the call of awakening coincides with the message of death, and the continuation shows the earthbound soul terrified at the prospect of having to depart and clinging desperately to the things of this world:

When Adam heard this, he lamented his fate and wept. [He argues his indispensability in the world:] “Father! If I come with thee, who will be guardian in this wide Tibil? . . . Who will harness the oxen to the plow, and who will guide the seed into the soil? . . . Who will clothe the naked, . . . who settle the strife in the village?” [The messenger of Life:] “Have no regret, Adam, for this place in which thou dwelledst, for this place is desolate. . . . The works shall be wholly abandoned and shall not come together again. . . .” [Then Adam begs that his wife Eve, his sons and his daughters may accompany him on the way. The messenger informs him that in the house of Life there is no body nor kinship. Then he instructs him about the way:] “The way that we have to go is long and endless. . . . Overseers are installed there, and watchmen and toll-collectors sit beside it. . . . The scales stand prepared, and of thousands they choose one soul that is good and enlightened.” Thereupon Adam departed from his body [he turns back once more and regrets his body], then he began his journey through the ether. [Even here the dialogue continues; again Adam laments his body, once more he asks for Eve—although he has known that he “would have to depart alone, to settle his strife alone.” Finally he is told:] “Calm thyself and be silent, Adam, and the peace of the good enfold thee. Thou goest and risest up to thy place, and thy wife Eve shall rise up after thee. Then all the generations shall come to an end and all creatures perish.”

Thus the call to the individual is connected with the general eschatology of the return of all souls.

To the different meanings of the lamentation with which the awakened soul first responds to the call we must add its complaint about, even its accusation of, the Great Life itself, which is called to account for the unnatural condition just revealed to the soul. Thus in the version of the call in G 387 f. (p. 84) we read:

As Adam heard this, he lamented and wept over himself. He spoke to the Uthra of Life: “If you know that this is so, why have you carried me away from my place into captivity and cast me into the stinking body . . .?” Thereupon he replied unto him: “Be silent, Adam, thou head of the whole tribe. The world which is to be we cannot suppress. Arise, arise, worship the Great [Life] and submit thyself, that the Life may be thy savior. The Life be thy savior, and do thou ascend and behold the place of light.”

Ultimately the soul calls the Great Life to account for the existence of the world as such and for its own exile there: that is, it asks the great “Why?” which, far from being appeased by the awakening and the reminder of its origin, is powerfully stirred up by them and becomes a main concern of the gnosis just initiated. This query is even called “the lawsuit concerning the world” which Adam is to present directly to the First Life itself.

“Do thou, Adam, ascend and present thy lawsuit to the Great First Life, thy lawsuit concerning the world in which thou dwellest. Say unto the Great Life: ‘Why hast thou created this world, why hast thou ordered the tribes there away out of thy midst, why hast thou cast strife into the Tibil? Why dost thou ask now for me and my whole tribe?’ ”

(G 437)

The answer to this type of question is the major object of the various gnostic speculations about the beginnings: some of its forms will be dealt with when we come to the treatment of the different systems.

For the most part, however, the response to the call is not of this problematical kind but one of joyous and grateful acceptance. “The Gospel   of Truth is joy for those who have received from the Father of Truth the grace of knowing Him” (opening words of the Gospel of Truth).

If a person has the Gnosis, he is a being from on high. If he is called, he hears, replies, and turns towards Him who calls him, in order to reascend to Him. And he knows what he is called. Having the Gnosis, he performs the will of Him who called him. He desires to do that which pleases Him, and he receives repose. [Each?] one’s name comes to him. He who thus possesses the Gnosis, knows whence he came and whither he goes.37

(GT 22:3-15)

Joy to the man who has rediscovered himself and awakened!

(GT 30:13 f.)

We often meet in this context the sequence of “hearing” and “believing” so familiar from the New Testament:

Adam heard and believed. . . . Adam received Truth. . . . Adam gazed upwards full of hope and ascended. . . .

(J 57)

Here we have the triad faith, knowledge, and hope as response to the hearing of the call. Elsewhere love is mentioned in the same context: “Adam felt love for the Alien Man whose speech is alien and estranged from the world” (G 244). “For each one loves Truth, since Truth is the Mouth of the Father; His Tongue is the Holy Ghost . . .” (Gosp. of Truth, p. 26. 33-36). The Christian reader is of course familiar with St. Paul’s triad of faith, hope, and charity (I Cor. 13:13), which, not without reason and perhaps with intent, omits knowledge and extols love as the greatest of them all.

Mandaean poetry gives wonderful expression to the gratefully believing acceptance of the message and the ensuing conversion of the heart and renewal of life. Some examples may conclude this account.

From the day when we beheld thee,

from the day when we heard thy word,

our hearts were filled with peace.

We believed in thee, Good One,

we beheld thy light and shall not forget thee.

All our days we shall not forget thee,

not one hour let thee from our hearts.

For our hearts shall not grow blind,

these souls shall not be held back.

(G 60)

From the place of light have I gone forth,

from thee, bright habitation . . .

An Uthra from the house of Life accompanied me.

The Uthra who accompanied me from the house of the Great Life

held a staff of living water in his hand.

The staff which he held in his hand

was full of leaves of excellent kind.

He offered me of its leaves,

and prayers and rituals sprang complete from it.

Again he offered me of them,

and my sick heart found healing

and my alien soul found relief.

A third time he offered me of them,

and he turned upwards the eyes in my head

so that I beheld my Father and knew him.

I beheld my Father and knew him,

and I addressed three requests to him.

I asked him for mildness in which there is no rebellion.

I asked him for a strong heart

to bear both great and small.

I asked him for smooth paths

to ascend and behold the place of light.

(G 377 f.)

From the day when I came to love the Life,

from the day when my heart came to love the Truth,

I no longer have trust in anything in the world.

In father and mother

I have no trust in the world.

In brothers and sisters

I have no trust in the world . . .

In what is made and created

I have no trust in the world.

In the whole world and its works

I have no trust in the world.

After my soul alone I go searching about,

which to me is worth generations and worlds.

I went and found my soul—

what are to me all the worlds? . . .

I went and found Truth

as she stands at the outer rim of the worlds . . .

(G 390 f.)