by Gustav Wyneken, (p.52/53)
N.B.explanation by Trinity: when this book was published, nothing about the traditions of the Mandaeans was known to the outside world; since then, everybody can find out about them on the Internet. That is why we can now give the extra information, as placed between brackets "( )" that can now, at once clarify , what still puzzled the writer of this book then...
..."Let us return once again to those anecdotes of Acts 18:24-26; 19:1-7, that are unique in the New Testament as well as in all of known tradition. Twice, people who look upon themselves as Christians (i.e., in the language and expressions of then and there: who believed in the coming of the Messiah, the Teacher of Righteousness) but only did receive the "baptism of John" (i.e.: Mandaean) had a meeting with Paul. What did this baptismhey originally make them? Just by whom were they baptized? And in which community? We are not told, and the author of Acts seemingly does not know anything more precise (or rather, chooses not to...). Still there was this special remembrance or tradition that he used for his own particular end (and did not hide away!). This end we do know: the origination of the whole church from Jerusalem and the "Miracle of Pentecost". So it will only be logical then, to prove by an example, that even the belonging to the group of followers of John was not sufficient, but needed to be replaced by the christian baptism (of the church of Jerusalem).
And now we will return to our question: from where stemmed those communities, from where stemmed the church that Paul had already found, and that he subsequently clearly filled with a new spirit and belief? Would it not be probable to see in thhem late forms of the community of the Essenes who, together with all the rest of Judeïsm, had spread out all over the world and who, within the Jewish communinities were forming a smaller circle of those who, in severity and purity were, like latter day saints, preparing for the coming of the personal Messiah? There is now no way to prove this. But - the anecdotes in Acts (18, 19) about the christian followers of John have not yet been explained yet either... (n.b.: with our present knowledge of and about the Mandaeans this can be done!!!)...
...Is it possible that the church itself may have caused this obscurity regarding its own origin? Possibly, but then certainly not because of some religious feeling for style, but rather like in likewise instances: for reasons of church policy. (p.54) Except from the letters of Paul, dating from the first century A.D., we know practically nothing authentic about Christianity, its origins and the way it spread, and in particular not about its internal quarrels. And the thought is very obvious, that the chuch itself has carefully destroyed all proof with regard to this..."
