Christianity
Baptism, a Coronation Ceremony
Abstract
© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Friday, July 30, 1999
Baptism
Christians are sensitive over any suggestion that the sacrament of baptism has its percursor or parallel in the mystery religions. Yet baptisms formed part of the ritual of most mysteries and indeed are frequent in all ceremonial religion. The difference is that it was not the actual rite of initiation itself! Ha! It was a preparatory rite preceding something, initiation perhaps or some other sacred religious act. Classical writers speak of voluntary death and regeneration but not, according to Christians, in the context of baptism, and as a metaphor rather than a technical term. Thus Appuleius says it is “in a sense born again” while Sallustius in the fourth century says “as though we were born again”. The Christian writer, Tertullian, makes the connexion but Christians want to believe he is wrong to do so! They tell us he does it merely to justify Justin Martyr’s thesis that the pagan rites so similar to those of the Christians had been copied in advance by the devil! Christians always like to win whatever way the coin falls.
Christians accept that renatus, being “born again”, was definitely associated with the taurobolium or the criobolium, the bathing in the blood of a sacrificed bull or ram, a “repulsive ceremony”. Many would think kneeling before an image of a man being tortured to death on a cross is repulsive too. The regeneration conveyed by the taurobolium from some inscriptions is eternal but from others is limited in years and Christians argue that the former is an adptation to compete with Christianity. The whole procedure used for individuals is late, the Emperor Elagabalus being the earliest recorded and the earliest inscription is 305 AD.
The ultimate argument is that Christianity did not borrow from the mystery religions because it was a mystery religion itself, according to one scholar. In this Christians can see “a modicum of truth”. Having left Palestine Christianity seemed to resemble the mystery cults in offering a spiritual brotherhood bonded in religion, having an initiatory rite of baptism and, in the eucharist, a divine drama in remembrance of the incarnation of the god in which only initiates could participate, and offering the prospect of life after death.
Despite this succinct summary of the identity of Christianity with the mysteries, Christians conclude that the differences were fundamental. And what were these fundamental differences? That Christianity was true because its god was a historical person, its roots were in monotheistic Judaism not pagan religions with their different gods with which the true god would hold no truck! And finally, it forgave people their sins. We are invited to believe that these are fundamental differences!
Baptism is an ancient rite and was often practised in the orient. It had many forms and used different elements. Water was the most common but fire and air, wind, spirit or ghost were also used and both the living and the dead were made its subjects. Baptism by water is an old rite practised by the Zoroastrians, the Romans, the Egyptians and the Hindus. The candidate was dipped three times in the water just as some Christian sects still do, while the hierophant said:
O Lord, this man is impure, like the mud of this stream! But do thou cleanse and deliver his soul from sin as the water cleanses his body.
They believed that water purified both soul and body—the latter from filth and the former from sin. The ancient Mexicans, Persians, Hindus and Jews baptised their infants soon after they were born, with “the water of regeneration” just as Paul (Titus 3:5) speaks of being “saved by the washing of regeneration”.
Anyone who touched these infants before they were baptised were impure and, as the mothers could not avoid this, they had to present themselves on the eighth day after accouchement to the priest in the temple to be purified, as in the cases of the mothers of Krishna and Christ. The Romans chose the eighth day for girls and the ninth for boys. The child was usually named at the time it was baptised just as Christians do. In India, the name, or God’s name, or some other mark was made on the forehead. This custom appears several times in the Christian bible, both in the old and in the New Testament (Ezek 9:4; Rev 14:9; 19:20). John speaks of a mark being made on the forehead (Rev 13:16). Also of the name of God being written on the forehead (Rev 3:12).
The Baptism of Jesus
Jesus arrives for baptism and is acknowledged by a spirit and a voice from heaven as the Son of God (Mk 1:9-1:11) but if, as Christians believe, Jesus was already a god, a perfect being, why should he need to undergo baptism for remission of sins? The true explanation—that Jesus was being crowned the Nasi as successor to John the Baptist—is much more coherent.
The first gospel written, Mark, does not tell us that John the Baptist recognizes Jesus as the messiah. Matthew introduces it (Mt 3:14) and it is strengthened in John. We can take it that John the Baptist did not recognize Jesus as a messiah, especially since later he has to send a message from prison (Mt 11:2-3) asking whether it is true, but when he baptized Jesus he did crown him a prince or a priest because a voice acknowledges him as a Son of God. The Baptism of Jesus by John is the original Jewish-Christian doctrine called Adoptionist, because it follows the traditional pattern of adoption into sonship of God.
I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men.2 Sam 7:14
The word used in the gospels “beloved” equates to “only begotten” in Old Testament usage. God says to Abraham:
Take your son, your only son, your beloved, even Isaac.Genesis 22:2
In Psalms, we have:
The Lord said unto me: Thou art my son; this day have I begotten thee,Psalms 2:7
the implied birth signifying an adoption. This formula is ancient. One of the inscriptions of Rameses the Great records the hidden god, Amun-Ra, addressing the Pharaoh with the same words, “I am thy father. I have begotten thee like a god”. The Pharaoh replies, “I am thy son. Thou hast given me the authority of a god”—unless he is an extremely precocious codling, he is being crowned not being born! The author of Psalms, Jews believed, was David the king and it is he who God is adopting.
That the poem (Ps 2:6-12) was part of the old coronation liturgy is clear when it is read in full. The king is expected to be a great warrior and conquerer of the enemies of the Jews:
I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will tell thee of the decree: The Lord said unto me, Thou art my son; This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I will give thee the nations for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
The Ebionites, the remnant of the Jerusalem Church which took to the desert after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, had their own gospel. It is now lost but Epiphanius regarded it as heretical and in his book, Against Heresies, he has preserved parts of it in his quotations. The Ebionites had both formulae in their gospel explicitly: “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased”, and: “This day I have begotten thee”. It is at this point that Luke, in his gospel, inserts the genealogy because the baptism was considered a rebirth.
In John 3:1-21 Jesus teaches the councillor, Nicodemus, and his speech ends in purely Essene phraseology:
Men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds be made manifest.
It shows John contains genuine tradition. At the beginning of the section, we find Jesus saying:
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.Jn 3:4
When Nicodemus asks how this can be, Jesus explains:
Except a man be born of the water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
The water is baptism and the spirit is sincere repentance—together they are a ritual rebirth into righteousness.
The baptism by John was his coronation of Jesus as the prince of Israel—the king of the Jews. He becomes a Son of God by adoption—the rebirth is ritual. In the messianic Psalms of Solomon, the nations are to be broken and dashed to pieces. This Son of God was not meant to suffer silently to bring salvation to the world. He was to initiate the Jewish conquest of the world.
In Isaiah 42:1-2, the word used instead of “only” is “chosen” which in the Greek is the same word as “elect”. The messiah was known also as the “chosen one” as he was in Enoch 45:3, a book favoured by the Essenes, and as Jesus is called in Luke 23:35. Since “chosen” means “elect” the messiah was also the “elect one” matching the name of the Essenes—the elect—and completing the link with Enoch. Much of the book called Second Isaiah where these expressions are found speaks of a suffering servant identified with Israel as a whole but possibly referring specifically to the Essene Righteous Teacher. Second Isaiah is a late addition to the original book and in these passages the chosen one is the servant. But the Greek for a servant (pais) can also be rendered “son”, so the identity of the various coronation formulae is complete.
Luke says Jesus was about 30 when his ministry began. This might be a prophetic harmony with king David who was about 30 when he started his career, or might signify that as an Essene he had reached the minimum age of responsibility. About 30 seems quite a good age for a fighting man, a revolutionary leader, but rather young for a sage. Even John might be taken to imply that Jesus was middle aged (Jn 8:57), a curious observation to make about a thirty year old, though one which tells us the Jews at the time associated wisdom with age. But it was really an observation that Jesus, as the Mebaqqer of all the Camps—the Master—had to be under 50.
The Dove Descending at Baptism
Isaiah 11:2 has “The spirit of the Lord would settle on him”, the origin of the imagery at Jesus’s baptism. The scrolls have the same but expressed even more explicitly, “The holy spirit settled on His messiah”. Here the spirit of the Lord becomes the holy spirit and the recipient of it, His messiah, is explicit. God would decide whether the man appointed or elected Nasi would become the messiah. An element of ancient Middle Eastern coronation ceremonies is the descent of a bird, normally a hawk, but changed here into a spirit like a dove by Mark because he wanted to symbolize that Jesus signaled “a renewal” of the world (Genesis 8:11). The Community Rule refers to “a renewal” at the appointed end, confirming that the world was not destroyed but was renewed as it was after the flood. An interesting speculation is that the Essenes who had given up sacrifices in favour of prayer might on special occasions have retained as a symbolic sacrifice, the release of doves acknowledging the righteousness of Noah and the purification of the world in peace. Leviticus 12:6,8 prescribes the sacrifice of turtle-doves for purification of an unclean woman. As we shall see later the land of Israel was personified as an unclean woman and the doves might have been symbolic of the purging of the land of the pollution by the stranger. The dove mentioned in the gospels might have been so released. Only Jesus saw the heavens open and the spirit descend; no one else did. Mark admits that no one but the man he considered to be a God saw this miracle.
Several ancient religious orders had the legend of a dove or pigeon descending at baptism—a counterpart to the evangelical story of the Spirit of God descending in bodily shape like a dove on to the head of Jesus Christ while being baptized by John in Jordan (Luke 3:22). Note that the spirit of God descended in “bodily shape like a dove”. The tradition prevalent among Hindus, Mexicans, Greeks, Romans, Persians and Babylonians was that all souls or spirits could take the form of a dove. For Polycarp, Semiramis, Caesar and others at death their souls were seen to leave the body in “bodily shape like a dove” and ascend to heaven. The Divine Love or Eros was supposed by the orientals to descend as a dove to bless the person being baptised. These traditions will have been the source of the dove’s descent at Christ’s baptism—that is God in the shape of a dove, for that is the meaning of the text. Furthermore a dove stood for and represented, among oriental people, the third person of the Trinity, as it does in the gospel story of Christ—he being the second member of the Christian Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. It was the regenerator, or regenerating spirit, and persons being baptised were said to be “born again” into the spirit or the spirit into them.
Among all nations, from the very earliest period, water has been used as a species of religious sacrament. As it dripped from the skies, it revived parched land and regenerated vegetable life. It was therefore seen as an emblem of physical birth and spiritual regeneration. Water was the element by which everything was born again through the Eros, Dove, or Divine Love. So arose the ritual of immersing or baptising for regeneration into a new and more holy life by the remission of sin.
Some waters were supposed more effective for baptising than others. Nearly all religious nations had their Holy Rivers, Holy Water and Sacred Pools. The Hindus had the Holy Ganges, the Egyptians the Holy Nile, the Chaldeans and Persians the Holy Euphrates, the Greeks their Holy Lustral Water, the Italians the river Po and the Jews and Christians their holy river Jordan. If Jordan was not called holy, it was undoubtedly considered so, else why did Elisha order Naaman to wash seven times in that stream instead of Damascus which was much nearer and more accessible? And why was Christ baptised in the Jordan?
And all the land of Judaea, and they of Jerusalem, were baptized in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.Mt 3:6
Why, as several streams were handier to a large portion of the candidates, simply because Jordan was considered to be “more holy”. And Christians had their sacred pool of Bethesda, as the Hindus had their Sahar.
The rite of baptism was first practised in caves—as were other religious rites. As these caves were often difficult of access and their mouths, doors or gates narrow and difficult to enter, they fully exemplify Christ’s declaration,
Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life.Mt 7:14
Baptism by Sprinkling
Baptism by immersion requires a ready supply of water but in many Eastern countries such a supply was not at hand. So a new mode of baptism eventually sprung up, sprinkling, in which sometimes water and sometimes blood or wine was used. Virgil, Ovid and Cicero all speak of its prevalence amongst the ancient Romans or Latins. The Jews formerly practised it upon their women while in a state of nudity, the ceremony being administered by three priests, but the custom finally succumbed to prudishness. Blood, being considered the life of man, was deemed more efficacious than water and was often used instead. The Greeks kept a holy vessel for this purpose, known as the Facina. The Romans used a brush which may now be seen engraven upon some of their coins and sculptured on their temples. The Hindus and Persians used a branch of laurel or some other shrub for sprinkling the repentant candidate, whether water or blood was used.
In some countries the rite was practised as a talisman against evil spirits. The Mexicans never approached their altars without sprinkling them with blood drawn from their own bodies, as the Jews sprinkled the walls and door posts of their temples with blood under the requisition of the Levitical code. This mode of fancied purification by sprinkling either with water or blood we find recognized and apparently sanctioned in the Christian bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. Ezekiel says,
I will sprinkle clean water on you.Ezek 36:25
Peter uses the phrase,
The sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.1 Peter 1:2
Paul uses the expression,
The blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel,Heb 12:24
apostolic approval of the senseless heathen idea of effecting spiritual purification by drops of blood.
Baptism by Fire
Baptism by fire was a form or mode of application which seems to have been introduced from the belief that it was productive of a higher degree of purification. There were several ways of using fire in the baptismal rite. In some cases the candidate for immortality ran through blazing streams of fire, a custom which was called “the baptism of fire”. It prevailed in India, Chaldea and Syria, and throughout eastern Asia. It was a form of sun worship, as the sun was believed to be made of fire. Christian writers represent the ancient Persians as has having been addicted to solar worship, but neither they nor probably any other nation ever worshiped the sun, but merely an imaginary god supposed to reside in the sun. Heathens have been charged with many things of which they were not guilty, as is shown by the treatment of the beliefs of the North American indians.
It is true that in the spirit of Christ’s exhortation,
Whosoever loseth his life for my sake shall find it,
some of the candidates for the fiery ordeal gave up their lives in the operation, believing that thereby they purified the soul and would ascend to heaven, the belief of fanatics who use their bodies as human bombs against innocent bystanders in modern “holy” wars. Some were taught that sins not expurgated by fire or some equivalent violent purification, would be punished by fire in the life to come. The Christian’s bible recognises this. Isaiah says:
When thou walkest through fire thou shalt not be burned.Isa 63:2
And the Baptist John recognizes the three modes of baptism:
I indeed baptize you with water, but he that cometh after me shall baptize you with fire and the Holy Ghost.Mt 3:11
And Paul teaches the necessity of being purified by fire (1 Cor 3:15). So it is both a heathen and a Christian idea.
Baptism by the Holy Ghost
This fanciful ceremony is both a Christian and a heathen rite of heathen origin. The priest imparted the Spirit of God by the process of breathing on to the catechumen. Breath, air, wind, spirit and ghost were synonymous terms. So this breathing literally imparted spiritual life just as the breath of God made Adam “a living soul” (Gen 2:7). The custom was common in oriental countries. It appears again in Ezekiel:
Thus saith the Lord God, Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.Ezek 37:9
Later Christ and his apostles incorporated into their ceremonies. Christ, when he met his disciples after his resurrection,
breathed on them and saith unto them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost.John 20:22
Baptism of or for the Dead
The Hindus among others postponed baptism till near the end of life so that the liberated soul would be free of all the sins of earthly living. The risk is that the repentant person might die before absolution. These poor souls could not be deprived of the chance of immortality through an unfortunate slip. The custom was therefore devised of baptizing the dead body, or more commonly some living person in its stead. St Chrysostom explains that the living person was placed under the bed on which the corpse was laid. When the dead person was asked if he would be baptized, the living man, responding for the dead, said: Yes. The corpse was then taken and dipped in a vessel prepared for the purpose.
This silly practice was popular among the early Christians as Paul indicates in one of his letters:
Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all.1 Cor 15:9
Paul takes the practice of baptizing the dead as proof of the doctrine of resurrection. All the various heathen modes of baptism have been practiced by Christians and are approved by their bible. It is said that the heretical and divergent sect of Christianity called the Mormons practice baptism of the dead still.
The Temptation
The earliest gospel disposes of the forty days in the wilderness, the wild animals, the temptation by the Devil and the ministrations by angels in one verse. John does not mention any of this. Yet Luke and Matthew give details of the fasting and the temptation with Jesus offered the world from the top of a mountain. By coincidence:
- Elijah fasted on Horeb in the wilderness for forty days
- Moses did the same on Sinai
- Zoroaster was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness
- Buddha was also
- Jupiter was led by Pan (the Devil) to the top of a mountain called the Pillar of Heaven whence he could see the countries of the world.
Forty is one of those mystical numbers that pop up in old religions: there were forty days of sacrifice in the Persian Salutation to Mithras; forty days of mourning in the mysteries of the goddess Persephone; the deluge lasted forty days, etc. The story is introduced to establish Jesus as a great leader, superior even to Moses. Furthermore the offer of the kingship of the world by the devil was intended by gentile Christians as a rebuttal of the idea that Jesus was a Messiah in the Jewish mould who would become a world ruler—that is what the Devil offered him and he refused it.
They retired from the world into some sequestered spot excluded from human observation. They were hermits or semi-hermits. Christ spent forty days in the wilderness fasting and being tempted by Satan, an imaginary figure invented to give some purpose to this forty days withdrawal.
The Aztecs had a forty days’ fast in honour of one of their Saviours, who was tempted forty days on a mountain. He is called The Morning Star. The Christian scholar who noted this remarked that these facts are very curious and mysterious.
Krishna imparted his doctrines and precepts in the silent depths of the forest. Osiris observed both fasting and penance. Pythagoras spent several years in meditation and retirement in a cave, and was much given to fasting, and urged his disciples to forsake the world and the things thereof. Both Confucius and the Divine Saviour Chang-ti of China, seeking a more perfect state of holiness, spent several years in retirement and divine meditation, the former in a wilderness, the latter on a mountain, and fasted. Their disciples after them also fasted in a very devout manner.
Zoroaster also spent several years in retirement and contemplation on true holiness, partly in a wilderness and partly on a holy mountain. Holy mountains were a favourite place of most holy Saviours. One of the most ancient Saviours, Tammuz, spent twelve years in devout and contemplative retirement from the busy world. According to the Christian bible, Moses, Elijah, and Christ, each fasted forty days, and a Mexican Saviour, Quexalcoatl, too.
Why should this widespread legend be?
The baptism and forty days’ fast imitated the passage of the sun through the constellation Aquarius, where John, Joannes, or Janus the baptiser had his domicile, and baptised the earth with his yearly rains. After Jesus was baptised in Jordan, he fasted forty days in the wilderness, in imitation of the passage of the sun from the constellation Aquarius through the Fishes to the Lamb or Ram of March. During the forty days when the sun is among the Fishes, in the constellation, Pisces, faithful Catholics, Episcopalians and Moslems abstain from meat and live upon the fishes during the season of Lent, as did the Jews and pagans, and did also Jesus, to fulfil all righteousness.
The story of the temptation in Mark 1:12-13 serves to establish Jesus as a great leader, superior even to Moses. And the offer of the kingship of the world by the devil in Luke and Matthew was intended by gentile Christians as a rebuttal of the idea that Jesus was a messiah in the Jewish mould who would become a world ruler—that is what the devil offered him and he refused it. But was it pure invention?
In Mark, these two terse and cryptic verses are all we get about the temptation of Jesus, eased by the ministrations of angels—surely the Essenes of Qumran who lived in the wilderness, considering themselves the foundation of heaven on earth and therefore akin to the angels. The Greek word translated as tempt has a wider scope of meaning centred on the idea of a test or a trial of strength. The writer is really saying that, in the trial of strength with Satan, Jesus had begun the battle for the kingdom.
What we have is an almost complete abridgement of the Essene belief that the kingdom of God is inaugurated by the cosmic battle with Satan. In the War Scroll we have a full account of this cosmic battle. The fortunes of the battle switch from one side to the other. Finally God brings down Satan and all his army in everlasting destruction. The War Scroll, like this pericope, begins with several references to the desert or the wilderness where the battle occurs. The gospel writer avoids a long distraction and simply hints at it, but the conjunction of a struggle between God’s agent and Satan, ministrations by angels and the period of forty days hint strongly at the original. Beasts always signify the gentile enemies of Israel in these allegories. The principal beast was Rome and the Revelation of St John the Divine uses the same imagery.
The battle in the War Scroll was to be 40 years long not forty days but the change is no problem, the Old Testament and Essene texts often referring to a week of years (seven years) in which a year is equated with a day. The forty arises because David the king reigned for forty years, seven years over Judah and 33 years over all Israel and Judah (2 Samuel 5:4-5). The same division of years appears in the War Scroll.
The temptation ceremony would not have lasted for forty days but it seems was followed by a forty day fast.
The coronation of a priest described in Zechariah 3 describes how the acting priest rebukes someone taking the role of the devil. The enrolment ceremonies of the Essenes involved long chanted cursing of the devil and his cohorts. It seems that a ritualized form of the defeat of Belial was part of much Essene ceremonial. Mark has used the ritual abusing of the devil as a reason for bringing in his couple of verses about the temptation. As we shall see the form of it arises again in the transfiguration where Jesus rebukes Peter in his role as Satan. In the description of the temptation in Matthew 4:10 and Luke 4:8, we get an identical rebuke confirming that it was associated with a coronation. Conceivably the mocking by the soldiers after Jesus’s trial could be a misplaced example of what happened here physically. The Nasi had been crowned a king but had to remain the humblest of all to retain his position and so had to suffer this mockery without complaint.
The details of the temptations in Matthew 4:3-11 and Luke 4:3-13 might be parts of the coronation ritual. What they seem to have in common is Jesus’s answers which are all from Deuteronomy where the preacher is reminding the children of Israel not to be carried away by the realization of God’s promise of the entry into Canaan. The Israelites had been wandering in the desert for forty years but were now to enter the promised land. The correspondence with the forty days temptation and the forty years of warfare preceding the entry into the kingdom of heaven is plain. The people had to keep the commandments if they were to inherit the land and, now that the goal was almost achieved, God could still humble them (Dt 8:1-2). So it seems that, in a ritual call and response litany, the Satan figure nominally offered the Nasi temptations to cancel entry into the kingdom. Of course, the Nasi knew his lines and gave the correct responses.
Luke 4:13 implies that the ceremony was repeated at different seasons. The Essenes were obsessed with times and calendars because they were sure that through them they could understand God’s mysteries. The scrolls show that they had hymns and rituals for different times of day and seasons, meaning monthly, quarterly and annually. The rules pertaining to the Master in the Community Rule makes it clear that he has duties to fulfil at these times and seasons. The word season is explicitly used repeatedly especially at the beginning of the Song of the Master. Possibly the temptation ritual had to be followed at the start of each major season—all a part of keeping the Master humble.
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs—thought to have been an early Christian work but of a form now known from the Dead Sea Scrolls and so likely originally to have been an Essene work of the intertestamental period—in the Testament of Napthali, gives a closely similar idea to Mark 1:12-13:
If you do good, my children, both men and angels shall bless you, and the devil shall flee from you and the wild beasts shall fear you and the Lord shall love you
Possibly Mark took his imagery from this source, though the Christianized version might be dependent on Mark.
It is significant—in the light of Josephus saying that the followers of Judas of Galilee held God to be their only ruler and Lord—that Jesus’s reply to the offer of the nations of the world, quoting from Deuteronomy 6:13 and 10:20 was, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve”. It is exactly what the Galilaeans of Judas believed. They refused to serve the Roman oppressors. The Galilaeans of Jesus seem to have been the same cult of zealous Essenes. Now if this is true, every reference to Galilee in Mark is called into question. The stories coming out of Palestine to the gentiles of Rome were stories of a band of Galilaeans and Galilaean bands were known as guerillas fighting against the Romans. The bishops had to find an excuse and fortunately it was easy—they said Jesus was a Galilaean because he came from Galilee not because he was a bandit. In their movements around Palestine the Nazarenes subsequently must have spent time in Galilee but it is unlikely that they were mostly natives of that province.
