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VirginiaHuguenot · #2 (**permalink**) 02-02-2007, 03:59 PM

Here is an entry on them from McClintock & Strong's Cyclopedia:

Quote:

Sabians

(sometimes confounded with Saboeans), a very ancient sect, said to be named after Sabi, son of Enoch, reputed to have been the founder of their religion in its original and purest form. Their creed comprehended the worship of one God, the Governor and Creator of all things, who was to be addressed through a mediator, which office was to be performed by pure and invisible spirits. An admiration of the heavenly bodies, and an undue idea of their influence over earthly objects, soon produced an idolatrous worship of the heavenly luminaries, in which they conceived that the mediative intelligences resided. At first the Sabians worshipped towards the planets, as the residences of the mediating spirits between God and man; hence soon arose star worship. Then they made images to represent the stars, in which, after consecration, they imagined the intelligences came to reside; they named the images after the planets, and hence arose idolatry and its corruptions. They taught that the sun and moon were superior deities and the stars inferior ones; that the souls of the wicked were punished for nine thousand years, and then pardoned. They highly valued agriculture and cattle, and it was unlawful to kill the latter. The principal seats of Sabianism were Harran and “Ur of the Chaldees.” Maimonides says that Abraham was originally a Sabian, till he was converted and left Chaldaea. Maimonides also says that it was very prevalent in the time of Moses. It is to Sabianism that Job alludes (<183126>Job 31:26, 27), “If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed my hand” — i.e. in token of salutation. Also in different parts of the second book of Kings, and in <360105>Zephaniah 1:5; <241913>Jeremiah 9:13, the idolatrous worship of the host of heaven is mentioned. The Sabians of later times, when praying, turn towards the north pole; pray at sunrise, noon, and sunset; abstain from many kinds of vegetables; believe in the ultimate pardon of the wicked, after nine thousand years of suffering; keep three yearly fasts — one in February of seven days, one in March of thirty days, and one in December of nine days; offer many burned offerings, or holocausts; adore the stars; teach that mediators live in the seven planets, whom they call lords and gods, but the true God they call Lord of lords; each planet, they teach, has his distinct region, office, and objects of guardianship; they believe that an intercourse is kept up between the planetary intelligences and the earth, and that their influence is conveyed by talismanic mystic seals, made with spells and according to astrological rules. They go on pilgrimage to Harran, in Mesopotamia, respect the temple at Mecca, and venerate the pyramids in Egypt, which they believe to be the sepulchres of Seth, Enoch, and Sabi; and they offer there a c o c k and black calf, and burn incense (Sale, Koran). SEE TSABIANS.