¹ I am preparing a comprehensive facsimile and critical text edition of the wizard's hoard. I am indebted to several people for their help with this work. Since 1986, Ludwig Koenen has generously provided access to both the papyrus collection and the research library at the University of Michigan. The Near Eastern Studies Department at the University of Michigan assisted in the costs of photography. In July 1993, Dr. Thomas S. Pattie provided access to the British Museum archives in London; and in 1990, 1992, and 1993, the University of Kansas General Research Fund and the Kansas School of Religion (Lawrence) provided grants supporting my on-site research. I gratefully acknowledge that I have received helpful comments on issues related to this study from William M. Brashear (Berlin), Morton Smith (New York), and the Coptic Seminar of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, held in March 1989 (Claremont Graduate School).

² Stephen Emmel suggested a range of the fifth through seventh centuries for all hands (personal correspondence with the author, 1989). In a conversation in 1988, Professor Koenen dated one of the codex hands (scribe three) to the fourth century.

³ On magical workshops, see Wünsch, Richard, Antikes Zaubergerät aus Pergamum (Jahrbuch des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Ergänzungsheft 6; Berlin: Reimer, 1905)Google Scholar; Julian, C., “Au champ magique de Glozel,” Revue des études anciennes 29 (1927) 157CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 4; Agrell, S., Die pergamenische Zauberscheibe und das Tarockspiel (Lund: n.p. 1936)Google Scholar; Barb, Alphons A., “The Survival of the Magic Arts,” in Momigliano, Arnaldo, ed., The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) esp. 112–13Google Scholar; and Nock, Arthur Darby, “Greek Magical Papyri,” in Stewart, Zeph, ed., Arthur Darby Nock: Essays on Religion and the Ancient World (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 1. 176–94Google Scholar. Faraone, Christopher and Kotansky, Roy (“An Inscribed Gold Phylactery in Stamford, Connecticut,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 75 [1988] 257Google Scholar n. 2) describe a cache of nineteen silver phylacteries.

⁴ P. Mich. inv. 1294; on the Greek magical papyri, see PGM; Hopfner, Theodor, Griechischägyptischer Offenbarungszauber (1921–24; 2 vols.; reprinted Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1974–83)Google Scholar; Daniel, Robert W. and Maltomini, Franco, eds., Supplementum Magicum (2 vols.; Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990–92)Google Scholar; and Betz, Hans Dieter, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986)Google Scholar. On the Coptic magical papyri, see Kropp, Angelicus M., Ausgewählte koptische Zaubertexte (3 vols.; Brussels: Fondation Égyptologique Reine Elisabeth, 1930–31)Google Scholar; and Meyer, Marvin W. and Smith, Richard, eds., Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (San Francisco: Harper, 1994)Google Scholar.

⁵ P. Mich. inv. 600, 601.

⁶ Worrell, William H., “A Coptic Wizard's Hoard,” AJSL 46 (1930) 239–62Google Scholar.

⁷ P. Mich. inv. 1294; I am indebted to Professor Koenen for his patience and expert guidance during the restoration process.

⁸ In July 1993, I perused the British Museum's acquisition records for 1920 through 1932 and found no mention of the hoard. Thomas S. Pattie, in conversation with the current conservators, suggested that the hoard was sent privately to Lamacraft for restoration, and was never the property of the British Museum.

⁹ The collection contains as many as eight separate texts. I have not yet determined the literary relationships between the textual units on the various sections of the manuscripts.

¹⁰ P. Mich. inv. 593; scribe one wrote on pages 1–3, scribe two wrote on pages 4–12, scribe three wrote on pages 13–18, and then scribe one finished the codex by writing on pages 19–20.

¹¹ P. Mich. inv. 602.

¹² P. Mich. inv. 600.

¹³ P. Mich. inv. 601.

¹⁴ Worrell (“Wizard's Hoard,” 239–40) describes the hand as that of “a negligent paralytic or a very young child.” On “slow writers” and “rough, untutored hands” as a trademark of children, see the discussions in Turner, Eric G., Greek Papyri: An Introduction (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968) 88–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵ If scribe five was in fact an illiterate child or adult, his or her illiteracy may have been used as a guarantee to ensure the secrecy of the sacred traditions gathered together by one or more of the other scribes (observation by Morton Smith, personal conversation with the author, 1987). For discussions and bibliographies of current debates concerning ancient Greek literacy and the participation of illiterates in magic, see Christopher A. Faraone, “The Agonistic Context of Early Greek Binding Spells”; and Phillips, C. R. III, “Nullum Gimen sine Lege: Socioreligious Sanctions on Magic”; in Faraone, Christopher A. and Obbink, Dirk, eds., Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) 23Google Scholar n. 10, and 263, 272 n. 23, respectively.

¹⁶ P. Mich. inv. 594–99, 603, 1294.

¹⁷ On the difficulty of reconstructing historical and social contexts that produced specific manuscripts, see the guidelines and discussions in Turner, Greek Papyri, 74–96. See also Brown, Peter, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,” JRomS 61 (1971) 80–101Google Scholar; Erman, Adolf, “Ein koptischer Zauberer,” Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 33 (1895) 43–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Finley, Moses, Ancient History: Evidence and Models (New York: Viking, 1986) 35–36Google Scholar; and Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Temple and the Magician,” in idem, Map is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity 23; Leiden: Brill, 1978) 172–89. Worrell speaks of a “wizard's hoard” but gives no evidence that this is the collection of only one individual, nor does he discuss the ambiguous concept “hoard.” Papyrologists traditionally speak of an “archive” (Turner, Greek Papyri, 47–48, 77–78). Perhaps the less value-laden “collection,” or even the more positive “anthology” or “library” (Nock, “Greek Magical Papyri,” 1. 76–77) are more useful terms. Note Betz's positive evaluation (Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, xli–xlii) of the Anastasi magical papyri as “systematic collections… [by] a scholar, probably philosophically inclined… a bibliophile and archivist” living in ancient Thebes. See also the literature and comments on “wizard's libraries” in Crum, Walter E., “Magical Texts in Coptic—II,” JEA 20 (1934) 200Google Scholar. In his excellent study, Fritz Graf (“Prayer in Magic and Religious Ritual,” in Faraone and Obbink, Magika Hiera, 195) comments on the social isolation of such holy men (“the community is absent from the magical praxis… the magician is an isolated individual”), but does not take into account the evidence for magical workshops in which several individuals worked together to serve a community. Withdrawal from the community may be due to demands for ritual purity and secrecy.

¹⁸ Worrell, “Wizard's Hoard,” 241.

¹⁹ P. Mich. inv. 1294.

²⁰ P. Mich. inv. 602.

²¹ P. Mich. inv. 593.

²² On the quaternio as a standard quire size, and on codices with a single unio quire accompanying one or more quires of larger gatherings, see the discussions in Turner, Greek Papyri, 12–14; and Turner, Eric G., The Typology of the Early Codex (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977) 55, 60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ Concerning papyrus fiber directions, the codex was not constructed according to convention, but the first four sheets were placed into their quire so that facing pages (2–3, 4–5, 6–7, 10–11, 12–13, 14–15, and 16–17) had opposing fiber directions. Such facing pages lost a substantial amount of ink through abrasion as the opposing fibers wore against each other (Turner, Greek Papyri, 15; and idem, Typology, 54–58).

²⁴ The translation of the Coptic text is my own and follows that of Worrell as closely as possible. I have added words in parentheses in order to clarify the intent of the often obscure Coptic sentences. Numbers in parentheses designate items in the thirty-two part list; numbers in square brackets designate page and line numbers; and vertical strokes indicate separate lines; I also have introduced paragraph divisions. The translation presented here is based on my own transcription of the text found in the codex, rather than on my transcription of the nearly identical text found on the scrap papyrus sheets. This contrasts with Worrell's “reconstructed” Coptic text which is a collation of the two complete, but slightly varying versions of this text. Worrell's text does not exist in any of the manuscripts (note his comments in “Wizard's Hoard,” 241) and his critical commentary is sketchy. My selection of the text in the codex, rather than the nearly identical text on the scrap sheets, does not suggest that the codex preserves a better form of the text. In fact, the differences between the two versions are minimal (for example, P. Mich. inv. 598 includes six more lines of concluding narrative).

²⁵ I understand the repetition of titles to be deliberate epanadiplosis for emphasis (see Egyptian geminates), the first having an intensive adjectival function, rather than a scribal dittography or a simple repetition of the same title. The same phenomenon occurs in Hebrew and Greek (see Luke 6:46); see BDF §493.1.

²⁶ “All Powerful One” is a translation of the Greek Pantocrator (παντοκράτωρ); see the discussion and literature cited in Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1. 29 lines 5–6 (text and commentary).

²⁷ See Gen 3:13–15.

²⁸ The wisdom theme enters again at 4.13.

²⁹ On “Seth the Son of Adam,” see the revised version of Birger Pearson, “The Figure of Seth in Gnostic Literature,” in idem, Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 52–83; and the texts and literature cited in Mirecki, Paul A., “The Figure of Seth in a Coptic Magical Text,” in Johnson, David W., ed., Acts of the Fifth International Congress of Coptic Studies: Washington, 12–15 August 1992, vol. 2: Papers from the Sections (Rome: C.I.M., 1994)Google Scholar.

³⁰ See PGM 3.145; (“I am Adam the forefather; my name is Adam”; ὲγώ εἰμι Ἀδὰμ προγενής ὄνομά μοι Ἀδάμ); and PGM 5.108–11; (“I am Moses your prophet to whom you [the Headless One] have transmitted your mysteries”; ἐγώ εἰμι Μουσῆς ὁ προφήτης σου, ᾧ παρέδωκας τὰ μυστήριά σου) for texts and bibliography on Moses, see Hans Dieter Betz, “Magic and Mystery in the Greek Magical Papyri,” in Faraone and Obbink, Magika Hiera, 252, 259 n. 63.

³¹ See Dan 2:44–45. Worrell translates as “unformed hands,” interpreting fingers as a metaphor for hand. I thank Hans-Martin Schenke for his suggestion that be interpreted and translated literally as fingers (personal communication with the author, 1992).

³² The text does not specify which angels are of the night and which are of the day.

³³ Here the holy man speaks to the eight ministrants in a corporate plural, and so identifies with the authority of the seven archangels.

³⁴ The meaning is obscure; the archangels were either the first of the angelic creations to be named by their creator, or the reference is to the prayer itself, in which the names of the seven archangels were the first of the secret Hebrew names to be spoken by the holy man in his opening invocations.

³⁵ The text twice makes reference to angels who “are called” [3.1] and who “call” [3.5], Apparently the seven archangels call the names of the angels below them on the angelic hierarchy. The “call” implies a position of hierarchical—and perhaps emanational—priority and authority over those who hear the call. This reference to interangelic calling is found in the astrological tradition; see Manilius, Astronomica 1.263–74 (LCL; trans. Goold, G. P.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977) 25–26Google Scholar; (“Taurus who calls… the Gemini”).

³⁶ On Hebrew as the language of heaven, the divine language with which God conversed with Adam, Eve, and the serpent, see T. Naph. 8.3–6 (“the holy language, the Hebrew language”); Jub. 12.25–27 (“Hebrew… the tongue of the creation”; see also Jub. 3.28); and Gen. R. 18.6, 31.8 (see also 1 Cor 13:1). For a rabbinic debate on whether Adam spoke Hebrew or Aramaic, see b. Sanh. 38b (on Ps 139:19). See also Louis Ginzberg, who lists Jewish and Christian sources in his The Legends of the Jews (7 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1909–38) 5. 205–6; Hayman, Peter, “Was God a Magician?” JJS 40 (1989) 225–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 133–34 §§ 230–31. References to the Hebrew language in Greek and Demotic magical texts can be found at PGM 4.3084–85, 5a.474–75, 13.80–84, 145–50, 455–60, 590–95, 975–79, and 22b.18–21. On foreign words in magical texts and Hebrew and Aramaic words transliterated into Greek in the Gospel of Mark, see Smith, Morton, Jesus the Magician (New York: Harper & Row, 1978) 128, 204Google Scholar.

³⁷ The antecedent is presumably the eight ministrants and six authorities who are under the authority of the seven archangels and the divinized holy man.

³⁸ The assumption is that the twenty-one angelic powers understand the Hebrew language. Thus, the holy man has access to the twenty-one powers and influence over them, because he can communicate with them in their primary language. They also understand human languages since they are in fact addressed here in Egyptian (Coptic, elsewhere Demotic) and elsewhere in other languages. The second-century satirist Lucian of Samosata refers to the belief that the lower demons could speak the language of the country of their origin, “the demon responds in Greek or a foreign tongue, depending on his country of origin” (Philops. 14–18); also compare the possibly Latin-speaking Legion of foreign mercenary demons in Mark 5:1–13.

³⁹ That is, the angels “will bring to pass in human reality anything of which the holy man performs in a ritual action as a representational model or type” (Morton Smith, personal correspondence with the author, 1987).

⁴⁰ The “it” in this section refers to the prayer mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. The last imperative statement appears to be an editorial comment.

⁴¹ The reference is to Adam who received the antediluvian teaching and delivered it to his son Seth. Seth's transmission of that teaching to his offspring was a common theme in antiquity, especially in gnostic texts, and was ultimately derived from Jewish sources such as the apocryphal Adam literature (see Pearson, “Seth in Gnostic Literature,” 52–83, esp. 71–76), but is otherwise unknown to me in magical texts. Of the three references in this text to the biblical Seth, this last reference has the closest conceptual parallels to the gnostic tradition with its reference to Adam's—and Seth's—reception of revelation. There is no clear indication in this passage, however, or elsewhere in this text, that the author knows of the gnostic world view.

⁴² Philo also makes a connection between Seth and virtue (ἀρετή) in his treatise On the Posterity and Exile of Cain. His comments on Gen 4:17–25 observe that all lovers of virtue are descendents of Seth (Poster. C. 42) and that Seth is the “seed of human virtue” (ibid., 173; σπέρμα ὢν ἀνθρωπίνης ἀρετῆς).

⁴³ Compare PGM 5.108–11 (“I am Moses your prophet to whom you [the Headless One] have transmitted your mysteries”). On the use of the word mystery (μυστήριον) in magic, see the comments by Betz, Hans Dieter, “The Formation of Authoritative Tradition in the Greek Magical Papyri,” in Meyer, Ben F. and Sanders, E. P., eds., Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. 3: Self-Definition in the Graeco-Roman World (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 164Google Scholar, 237 nn. 10–18. See also Betz, “Magic and Mystery in the Greek Magical Papyri,” 249–54.

⁴⁴ That is, those ritual actions that attend the prayer.

⁴⁵ The reference to “the other prayers that are concerned with these secret names and all the rest” is perhaps an allusion to similar spells and prayers, circulating freely as texts or employed by competing holy men.

⁴⁶ That is, the holy man who activates the prayer.

⁴⁷ The wisdom theme was introduced at 1.6–7. This sentence also seems to be a secondary editorial comment concerning ritual purity.

⁴⁸ On the use of a hawk's egg in ritual, see The Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden (3 vols.; ed. Griffith, Francis Llewellyn; London: Grevel, 1904–9) 14.115Google Scholar, which describes a concoction of hawk's egg and myrrh rubbed on the eyes. For its mention in a spell see PDM 14.620–26, which describes a hawk's egg in the mouth of the deity who speaks. On the preparation of a concoction using a bird's egg and honey, along with other elements, to be smeared on genitals in a love and sex spell, see PGM 36.283–94; and on the magical use of eggs smeared with toad's blood, see Horace Epodes 5. Two eggs and the eyes of a black cat are part of a magical love ritual nearly performed by the hapless polylingual monk Salvatore for the love of the unnamed town girl in Umberto Eco's historical novel The Name of the Rose (trans. Weaver, William; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983) 326–32Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ This is one of only two occurrences of the Greek νοῦς known to me in Coptic magical papyri; the other is in Rossi's “Gnostic” Tractate (1.5), a Coptic magical book destroyed in 1904 in a fire at the Biblioteca Nazionale in Turin. See Meyer, Marvin W., “Rossi's ‘Gnostic’ Tractate,” Occasional Papers of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity 13 (1988)Google Scholar and the literature cited there. Worrell suggests that the reference might be to a scrying ceremony in which the reflective surface of the egg yolk became the mirror of thoughts in the mind of the self-hypnotized gazer, but here the egg is to be fried and eaten (“Wizard's Hoard,” 257 n. 1); compare PGM 3.590–610; 5.459–69; 13.791–94; 13.173, 487; and Apuleius Apologia (or De magia) 42–43 (“the boy's mind, when awakened, quickly applies itself to the business of divination”); compare Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 109 n. 61. See the more detailed analysis of the passage in Mirecki, Paul A., “The ‘NOUS’ in the Greek and Coptic Magical Papyri: A Contribution to the Study of the ‘NOUS’ in Manichaeism” in van Tongerloo, Alois, ed., Acta of the Symposium on the Manichaean Nous (Leuven: International Association for Manichaean Studies, 1994)Google Scholar. On the scrying ritual, see the survey of theories and literature in Luck, Georg, Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985) 254–56Google Scholar. The divination is also similar to a type of pyromancy (divination by fire) known as oöscopy in which a raw egg is broken over fire and its subsequent shapes are interpreted.

⁵⁰ Or “as a request”; the meaning and use of the Greek term ἀπόκρισις suggest that the ritual is performed as a “response” to specific problems that arise unexpectedly. In the Greek magical papyri the term refers to a reply from a god (for example, “I call upon you… give an answer”; PGM 4.3221), or to an explanation of a ritual which is not to be given to anyone in order to keep its actions or invocations secret and thus to avoid interference once the ritual has begun (for example, “while performing the invocation, give answer to nobody”; PGM 2.24; see also PGM 5.399; 7.440, 726, 1011; 8.67; compare Mark 1:40–44; 7:32–36a; 11:33; further see Mark 14:60–61; 15:4–5; 16:8; and Luke 1:19–20, as suggested by Morton Smith in personal correspondence with the author, 1988). Gunther Roeder (Die ägyptische Religion in Texten und Bilden, vol. 4: Der Ausklang der ägyptischen Religion mit Reformation, Zauberei und Jenseitsglauben [Zurich: Artemis-Verlag, 1961] 223Google Scholar), however, translates the term with the German “meine Bitte,” when it is found in a Coptic magical text in P. Carlsberg 52 (line 40); see the recent discussion in Brashear, William M., ed., Magica Varia (Brussels: Fondation Égyptologique Reise Élisabeth, 1991) 35Google Scholar, and the literature cited on pp. 16 and 25 n. 18.

⁵¹ This reference to the effectiveness of the prayer for troubles encountered by married men is in line with the general male orientation of the text. See the informative discussion of gender roles in relation to “pharmacology and magicoreligious assumptions” in John Scarborough, “The Pharmacology of Sacred Plants, Herbs, and Roots,” in Faraone and Obbink, Magika Hiera, 161–62. Note the absence of gender specific language, in favor of a generalizing masculine formula, in a Greek protective charm for a woman client named Taiolles (P. Princeton 2.107) in Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1. 29 lines 6–8; see n. 77 below.

⁵² There is no mention of bites from beasts in the list of prescriptions following this section, suggesting that this reference is general or purely formulaic. Bites from reptiles are mentioned in the first prescription.

⁵³ This is probably a general promise for protection from evil, with exorcistic overtones, rather than a reference to the invisibility spells so popular in the Greek and Demotic texts.

⁵⁴ A common theme in magical texts is that some incantations can be used to break the power of malevolent incantations or potions used by one's enemy (see prescription 30 below; and PDM 14.309–15).

⁵⁵ On the role of the laurel plant (“Apollo's laurel, plant of presage”; PGM 6.40) in magic, see the discussion by Ludwig Deubner, Kleine Schriften zur klassischen Altertumskunde (Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 140; Königstein; Hain, 1982) 401–3. Drinking and washing with water that has anise and laurel leaves in it is the supposed antidote promised to Lucius before he is transformed magically into an ass in Apuleius Met. 3.21–28.

⁵⁶ Worrell (“Wizard's Hoard,” 257 n. 4) briefly discusses the Coptic term in relation to its use in the Demotic and Coptic medical papyri. See also Roy Kotansky, “Incantations and Prayers for Salvation on Inscribed Greek Amulets,” in Faraone and Obbink, Magika Hiera, 113–14, 117, 133 nn. 71–74.

⁵⁷ Both bricks and water were common ritual objects and appear repeatedly in the Greek and Demotic magical texts, but this reference to “brick-water” () remains obscure. See Drescher, James, “Two Coptic Magical Ingredients,” Bulletin de la Société d'archéologie copte 14 (1950–57) 59–61Google Scholar; and Burmester, Oswald Hugh Ewart, The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical Services and the Rites and Ceremonies Observed in the Administration of Her Sacraments (Cairo: French Institute of Oriental Archaeology, 1967) 250–56Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ On cures for headaches, see PDM 18a. 1–4; PGM 20.1–4, 13–19; 65.4–7; and 122.50–55.

⁵⁹ Hiktanos, or “Spanish oil” (), was an astringent oil known to medical authors, originally of Spanish origin but not necessarily produced there; see Arce, Xavier, “SPANIA, SPANOS—SPANH—SPANON on Papyri,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 61 (1985) 30–32Google Scholar; compare with item 23 below and Worrell, “Wizard's Hoard,” 258 n. 4. The reference to two types of oil in the prescription suggests that either one could be used, depending on their availability.

⁶⁰ See Worrell, “Wizard's Hoard,” 258 n. 5.

⁶¹ On spells that induce insomnia in the victims of so-called love magic, see John Winkler, “The Constraints of Eros,” in Faraone and Obbink, Magika Hiera, 225–26.

⁶² The cure for this perceived problem (impotence, lack of interest, or homosexuality) is wine, suggesting that intoxication through a supposed alcoholic aphrodisiac would function as an effective cure. Prescription 28 similarly suggests that the infatuated person give wine to the person desired (the probable inhaling of wine fumes in prescription 14 is conceptually unrelated). Petronius (Satyricon 131) described a successful magical cure for impotence employing various rituals and colored threads. Magical cures concerned with male sexual potency are discussed under the rubric “erotic pharmacology” in Winkler, “The Constraints of Eros,” 220–21, 237 n. 30. Wine was used as a cure by the Roman physician Asclepiades of Prusa (died ca. 40 BCE) as mentioned in Apuleius Florida 19.

⁶³ See Worrell, “Wizard's Hoard,” 258 n. 9.

⁶⁴ Worrell (“Wizard's Hoard,” 259 n. 1) surveys some possible identifications of this obscurely described malady, the “illness of burning (lungs)” ().

⁶⁵ On the treatment of gout in magical texts, see the discussion and literature cited in Kotansky, “Incantations and Prayers,” 118–19, 134 nn. 84–85.

⁶⁶ On the ibis in magical texts, see PGM 1.245–46; 2.46–47; 4.45–50, 799–812, 1689, 2587, 2649–54, 2685–89; 5.252, 375–80, 447–58; see also Bonnet, Hans, Reallexikon der ägyptischen Religionsgeschichte (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1952) 162–64Google Scholar, 321; Barb, Alphons A., “Magica Varia,” Syria 49 (1972) 343–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Bell, H. Idris, Nock, Arthur Darby, and Thompson, H., “Magical Texts from a Bilingual Papyrus in the British Museum,” Proceedings of the British Academy 17 (1931) 235–87Google Scholar.

⁶⁷ On the use of vinegar in magical cures, see PGM 70.21 and prescription 23 below.

⁶⁸ This seems to be a ritual for reconciliation. See also the discussions on the holy man as social mediator in Brown, “Rise and Function of the Holy Man,” 89–90, esp. n. 119. On the application of various concoctions to the faces of those who are in conflict socially, see PGM 7.179–80 and the other reconciliation ritual in prescription 29 below.

⁶⁹ On references in Greek magic to general protection “from all evil” (ἀπὸ παντὸς κακοῦ) see the texts and literature cited in Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1. 6 lines 8–9.

⁷⁰ Although such a phenomenon as an issue of blood is generally considered to be dysfunctional (as in the case of the woman in Mark 5:24–34), there is evidence that the womb and its natural reproductive and cleansing processes were considered subject to unnatural human and supernatural interventions that sought to control its timely opening and closing, possibly in connection with solar or lunar theologies. Women's reproductive systems, therefore, were subject to the control of the ritualist; we cannot determine from this text, however, whether that control was a woman's choice. See also the study by Aubert, Jean-Jacques, “Threatened Wombs: Aspects of Ancient Uterine Magic,” GRBS 30 (1990) 421–49Google Scholar.

⁷¹ Prescription 23 employs two different sympathetic elements in two separate rituals (vinegar poured and oil anointed), suggesting the editor may have had knowledge of two different cures for the same illness, and simply included them both. Issues related to women's sexuality are referred to in PGM 7.260–71 (displaced uterus); 12a.9–10 (breast and uterus pain); 36.320–32 (female contraception); 62.76–106 (a spell to cause menstruation); PDM 14.953–55, 961–65, 970–84, 1196–98; and PGM 22a.2–9 (all are spells to stop menstruation or abnormal bleeding); a prescription apparently for an abortion is found in PDM 14.1188–89 (see Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 249 n. 614); a curse against a husband for lack of child support is found in PGM 60.1–18 (see Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 280, and the literature cited there concerning tomb desecrations); women's heterosexual and lesbian love spells are found in PGM 15.1–21 and 32.1–19. See also the discussions in Winkler, “The Constraints of Eros,” 227–28, 240–41 nn. 73–77. On pennyroyal, lodestone, and other elements used in birthing, nursing, as female contraceptives, and abortifacients, see the informative discussions in Scarborough, “The Pharmacology of Sacred Plants, Herbs, and Roots,” 144–45, 158–59.

⁷² On spells for success in business endeavors, see the two lengthy spells in PGM 4.2359–72 and 2373–2440; and also those in PGM 8.35–63; 12.96–106; and 12.270–350. On the use of defixiones (“binding spells”) to inhibit the commercial success of business rivals, see the discussion and literature cited in Faraone, “The Agonistic Context of Early Greek Binding Spells,” 11. On spells for good weather for travellers, see the spell in PGM 28.1–10; the literature cited by Edward N. O'Neil in Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 266; and the discussion in Smith, Jesus the Magician, 119, 199–200; see also PDM 14.1056–62 and PGM 7.615–19. See further the discussion on beliefs and rituals of travellers who encounter crossroads in Johnston, Sarah I., “Crossroads,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik (1991) 217–24Google Scholar, esp. 220 n. 16.

⁷³ The Greek term θυλακτήριον (“phylactery”) is used.

⁷⁴ See the comments concerning the relationship between political success and the blessing of the holy man in Brown, “Rise and Function of the Holy Man,” 98 n. 221.

⁷⁵ On spells for dreams and dream oracles, see PGM 1.329; 4.2075–80, 3172–3208; 7.250–54, 407–10, 740–55; and 8.64–110. See the collection of visionary reports by Arthur Darby Nock, “A Vision of Mandulis Aion,” in Stewart, Essays on Religion, 1. 357–400; see also S. Eitrem, “Dreams and Divination in Magical Ritual,” in Faraone and Obbink, Magika Hiera 175–87; and Luck, Arcana Mundi, 231–39 for a survey of primary texts.

⁷⁶ On the ritual of placing sympathetic objects beside or under one's head before sleeping, see PGM 5.390–400; 7.748; and PDM 14.1070–77; and Eitrem, “Dreams and Divination in Magical Ritual,” 177–79, 212; on the related ritual of burning salt and other elements before going to bed, see Graf, “Prayer in Magic and Religious Ritual,” 196 nn. 64–65.

⁷⁷ Unless the masculine gender is an instance of deliberate gender specific language (in which case we would have a rare homosexual love prescription), the masculine gender is probably another instance of a generalizing masculine formula that includes females.

⁷⁸ The anointing of the face is a common ritual for those who are at odds with each other, suggesting that here we may have another reconciliation ritual (see prescription 20) rather than a ritual for some type of protection for men.

⁷⁹ On the evil eye in magic, see PDM 14.1097–1103 and the literature cited in Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 247 n. 590. Perhaps the earliest Greek literary reference to the evil eye in magic concerns Medea's use of the evil eye to curse the eye of the monster Talos in Apollonius of Rhodes Argonautica 4.1635–90 (ca. 250 BCE). For a bibliography of relevant anthropological and classical studies on the evil eye, see Winkler, “The Constraints of Eros,” 235 n. 7.

⁸⁰ See the discussion for prescription 23, above. The “something sweet” () is probably a reference to a honey-based candy. Bathing is part of the ritual for the client.

⁸¹ Fth (Coptic: or , Greek: ) is the abbreviation for the number ninety-nine, representing the Greek ἀμήν (“amen”) (see Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 233 §398, and the texts listed there), but the addition of a final to create the form indicates an anomalous form. Otherwise, the text was meant to begin “Amen, amen,” but then continues with glossalaliac nonsense consisting mostly of juxtaposed consonants. The same text in P. Mich. inv. 603 has a single (presented in Worrell's text without comment). For a list of occurrences of “amen” in Greek magical texts not in PGM, see Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1. 23 lines 1–4. These nine lines of magical words contain four of the six Demotic letter symbols— (hori, 7 times); (fai, 6 times); (ti, once); and (chima, once)—which are absent from the concluding set of ninety-five lines of magical words and names.

⁸² The following prayer introduces mythical elements and angelic and demonic beings whose identities and functions do not easily fit into the mythical cosmos so carefully and consistently described in the opening invocations of this long text (1.1–5.19). An unidentified god, not to be confused with “the Father” (14.5b–8), is summoned to come with his attendant spirits in order that they might extinguish this chaos along with an otherwise unidentified great dragon who attacks an unidentified being of light. No doubt an imaginative mind could integrate the two independent source texts theologically and cosmologically in a variety of ways.

⁸³ On the chariots of the gods in magical texts, see PGM 6.35–39; and Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 111 n. 11.

⁸⁴ Apparently the holy man's endearing name for his client.

⁸⁵ That is, the great Spirit whose virtues are praised seven times in this concluding aretalogical hymn.

⁸⁶ Or “the river (which leads to) the ocean”; as Morton Smith suggests (personal correspondence with the author, 1988), this is “probably an allusion to traditional speculation on the source of the Nile River which ultimately flows into the (primeval?) Mediterranean Ocean.” Smith also points out the Aramaic nahara (the “river”; ארהנ) for the Nile River in lQapGen 19.12 and similarly the Greek ὁ ποταμός (“the river”) in Porphyry Epistula ad Anebonem 2.12b [= Eusebius Praep. Ev. 3.4.1–2]. This mythical topos is alluded to in the Greek amulet P. Haun. 3. 50; see the text, discussion, and literature cited in Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1. 8. A story with a similar mythic structure is employed by Virgil (Aeneid 4.450–705): “Near the far end of the Ocean, where the sun sets, at the limits of Ethiopia, is a place where Atlas, the giant, turns on his shoulders the axle that is fitted to the sphere of the burning stars. A priestess of the Massylians who lives there… can stop the flowing of a river and turn the course of stars around.”

⁸⁷ The beginning and end to the scheme seems to be limited to this sentence.

⁸⁸ The reference may be to “a setting star, like Sirius, signaling the beginning of summer, since its heat (mentioned here and in the next sentence) burns all of the trees” (observation by Morton Smith, personal correspondence with the author, 1988).

⁸⁹ Here the unidentified angels surround all humanity, while in the first text they surround the unknowable Pantocrator (1.9).

⁹⁰ See the study on the structure of prayer in the magical tradition in Graf, “Prayer in Magic and Religious Ritual,” 188–213.

⁹¹ Such lists of tricks and medical prescriptions are common in the magical tradition; see, for example, PGM 7.167–86 (and the literature cited for that text in Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 120); PGM 13.235–335; PDM 14.74–90; PGM 121.1–14; and PGM 127.1–12.

⁹² A single tau-rho staurogram (), a standard Christian scribal abbreviation for ὁ σταυρός; (“cross”), is found in this codex at the beginning of the invocation (13.1); three staurograms are found at the end of the last line of the book (20.17); see Dinkler, Erich, Signum Crucis (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1967) 177–78Google Scholar; Kurt Aland, “Bemerkungen zum Alter und zur Entstehung des Christogrammes,” in idem, Studien zur Überlieferung des Neuen Testaments und seines Textes (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967) 173–79; and Wischmeyer, Wolfgang, “Christogramm und Staurogramm in den lateinischen Inschriften altkirchlicher Zeit,” in Andresen, Carl and Klein, Günther, eds., Theologia Crucis—Signum Crucis: Festschrift für Erich Dinkier (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1979) 539–50Google Scholar.

⁹³ Worrell (“Wizard's Hoard,” 261 n. 7) condescendingly refers to the prayer as a “hymn (which) is nonsense, and was nonsense to our magician.” Segal, Alan F. (“Hellenistic Magic: Some Questions of Definition,” in van den Broek, R. and Vermaseren, M. J., eds., Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions [Leiden: Brill, 1981] 351–53Google Scholar) discusses scholarly attitudes towards hymnic passages in magical texts. Fritz Graf (“Prayer in Magic and Religious Ritual,” 188–213) has convincingly demonstrated that prayer language in magical texts indicates normative religious sentiments and values, challenging the classic Frazerian dichotomy between magic and religion. See also the useful discussions in Riesenfeld, Harold, “Remarques sur les hymnes magiques,” Eranos 44 (1946) 153–60Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ The two exceptions are item 7 where the recurring phrase “recite it over” has apparently dropped out through a copyist's error, and item 27 where no reference is made to the prayer or its ritual recitation. In this last instance, one would expect the prayer to be recited over the rocksalt (see 12.4–5); its absence probably is due to accidental omission.

⁹⁵ Such sympathetic elements, especially human substances like hair, are referred to as οὐσία in the Greek texts (for example, PGM 1.99; on οὐσία in the magical papyri, see Karl Preisendanz, “Miszellen zu den Zauberpapyri, I,” Wiener Studien 40 [1918] 1–8, esp. 5–8). The word does not occur in Kropp's Greek index for the Coptic papyri, but is briefly discussed in the second volume (Koptische Zaubertexte, 2. 110–13). See the discussions on sympathy in Preisendanz, “Miszellen, I,” 2–5; and Hopfner, Offenbarungszauber, 1. 667–77.

⁹⁶ “Many [forms of healing] are connected with the administration of an innocuous placebo that is charged with the blessing of the holy man. The blessing gives reality and efficacy to what were thought of as the inscrutable workings of providence” (Brown, “Rise and Function of the Holy Man,” 96).

⁹⁷ Till, Walter C., Die Arzneikunde der Kopten (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1951)Google Scholar. See also Edelstein, Ludwig, “Greek Medicine in Relation to Religion and Magic,” Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 5 (1937) 201–46Google Scholar; and Ritner, Robert K., The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice (Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1993)Google Scholar and the literature cited there.

⁹⁸ On the ritual of cleansing an area with enchanted water, see PDM 14.481–83, 843–45.

⁹⁹ Compare item 30 to items 21–22.

¹⁰⁰ See the papyrus amulet employed in prescription 18.

¹⁰¹ See the discussion and literature cited by Collins, Adela Yarbro, “Numerical Symbolism in Apocalyptic Literature,” in ANRW 2. 21/2 (1984) 1221–87Google Scholar. See also Gundel, Hans G., Weltbild und Astrologie in den griechischen Zauberpapyri (Munich: Beck, 1968)Google Scholar.

¹⁰² Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966) esp. 2–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On ritual purity see Eitrem, “Dreams and Divination in Magical Ritual,” 177.

¹⁰³ Paul apparently knew of Christians in midfirst-century Corinth who made the same claim (1 Cor 13:1).

¹⁰⁴ The use of names in this text is typical, although noteworthy. In reference to the “Pantocrator,” the opening lines of the text clearly state that only he knows his own name. When the divinized holy man says that he is “Seth the son of Adam,” he ranks himself above the twenty-one angelic powers; when he speaks their names in the following lines, he demonstrates the secret knowledge that he has received and that gives him power over them: “after an invocation, it is common for the speaker to declare his exalted identity in order to secure obedience” (observation by Morton Smith, personal correspondence with the author, 1988). See the discussion in Graf, “Prayer in Magic and Religious Ritual,” 191–94.

¹⁰⁵ In contrast to a widely held conception, Graf has shown (“Prayer in Magic and Religious Ritual,” 192, 210 nn. 32–35) that the magical words and names “are not used… to force the divinity: they take the place of, and serve as, the [holy man's] credentials, an ample display of knowledge…. The papyri state that these names were secret, that the god enjoys being called by them and helps [the holy man] out of joy.”

¹⁰⁶ The four scribes who copied these magical words (or the scribe of their source) often added spaces in the middle of words and names and also connected words and names by omitting spaces where one would expect them. This introduces a considerable amount of variation in the forms of some words and names.

¹⁰⁷ Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 123 §202: αγραμμα χαμαρι. On the possible derivation of the name from Hebrew, see Scholem, Gershom, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (2d ed.; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965) 94–100Google Scholar. See the list of occurrences of this word in Greek magical texts not included in PGM in Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1. 10 line 1. For in two Coptic magical texts, see Beltz, Walter, “Die koptischen Zauberpergamente der Papyrus-Sammlung des Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin,” Archiv für Papyrusforschung 30 (1984) 94Google Scholar [P. 8328]; and idem, “Die koptischen Zauberpapiere und Zauberostraka der Papyrus-Sammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin,” Archiv für Papyrusforschung 31 (1985) 32 [P. 11347].

¹⁰⁸ Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 122 §201: αβλαναθαναλβα. See the literature cited and a list of texts not included in PGM in Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1. 9 lines 1–7. The word is not listed in Beltz, Walter, “Die koptischen Zaubertexte der Papyrus-Sammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin: Register,” Archiv für Papyrusforschung 32 (1986) 57Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁹ This is the only occurrence of the word known to me in Coptic texts. Both of these long forms incorporate the shorter Baphrenemoun formula. Compare Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 126 §210: ιαεωβαφρενεμουνοθιλαρικριφια.

¹¹⁰ See the concise discussion and the literature cited in Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 331, “ABRASAX”; see also Beltz, Walter, “Die koptischen Zauberpapyri der Papyrus-Sammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin,” Archiv für Papyrusforschung 29 (1983) 62Google Scholar [P. 5565] and 84 [P. 15990]; on the form “abraxas,” see Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 123 §203; αβραχας. On the form “abraxax,” see Beltz, “Zauberpergamente,” 89 [P. 8109].

¹¹¹ Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 126 §211: σεσεγγεν βαρφαραγγης; see also Fauth, W., “SSM PDRSSA,” ZDMG 120 (1970) 229–56Google Scholar, esp. 254–55. See the literature cited and a list of texts not included in PGM in Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1. 10 line 2. The word is not listed in Beltz, “Register,” 63.

¹¹² Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 125 §207: σεμεσιλαμ. See the literature cited and a list of texts not included in PGM in Daniel and Maltomini, Supplementum Magicum, 1. 10 lines 4–5. The word is not listed in Beltz, “Register,” 64.

¹¹³ See the concise discussion and the literature cited in Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 335 (s.v. IAO). See the occurrences of the word in Beltz, “Zauberpapyri,” 79–80 [P. 10587], 84 [P. 15990], and idem, “Zauberpergamente,” 95–96 [P. 8503], 98–99 [P. 9074], 103–104 [P. 20911].

¹¹⁴ The Hebrew plural ending חו was freely added to other letter combinations to create false Hebrew words or magical neologisms. On the creation of bogus Hebrew words, see the discussion in Brashear, Magica Varia, 22, and the literature cited there.

¹¹⁵ See the concise discussion and the literature cited in Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 331, “ADONAI” and “ADONAIOS”; see also Beltz, “Zauberpapyri,” 79–80 [P. 10587].

¹¹⁶ See the concise discussion of the Greek form and the literature cited in Betz, Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 334, “ELOAIOS”; see also “ELOEI” in Beltz, “Zauberpapiere und Zauberostraka,” 32 [P. 11347].

¹¹⁷ The full form of Iao Adonai Eloai Sabaoth often occurs as a unit in early Jewish and Christian literature; see Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 128 §217.

¹¹⁸ Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 84 §145 and 215 §367. On Aō, see the useful discussion and bibliography by Kittel, Gerhard, “AΩ” TDNT 2 (1964) 1–3Google Scholar.

¹¹⁹ See Beltz, “Zauberpergamente,” 99 [P. 9074].

¹²⁰ Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 32 §48.

¹²¹ Ibid., 3. 124 §206: μαρμαραωθ; see also in Beltz, “Zauberpapyri,” 85 [P. 15990]; and ) in idem, “Zauberpapyri,” 75 [P. 8326]; and idem, “Zauberpergamente,” 100 [P. 11918].

¹²² Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 32 §48.

¹²³ Ibid., 3. 78 §137.

¹²⁴ Chara was the traditional mother of Gabrilia; see Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 2.63 (London MS OR. 6948[2]).

¹²⁵ All such names end in the Greek -ηλ, except Marmarel and Dinamieel, which end in -ελ.

¹²⁶ See also Soumarta in PGM 2.116; 4.947, 1805, 3158, and 8.82; see Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, 86, 89, 94–95.

¹²⁷ Kropp, Koptische Zaubertexte, 3. 85 §146 and 132 §227.