Egypt Exploration Society
Greek Magical Papyri Author(s): A. D. Nock Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 15, No. 3/4
(Nov., 1929), pp. 219-235 Published by: Egypt Exploration Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3854117 . Accessed:
08/03/2013 18:25Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your
acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars,
researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information
technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new
forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please
contact [email protected].
.
Egypt Exploration Society is collaborating with JSTOR to
digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Egyptian
Archaeology.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Mar 2013 18:25:51 PM All use
subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
219
GREEK MAGICAL PAPYRI'By A. D. NOCOK 1. This title covers a group
of documents differing widely in length and not a little in
character, but possessing a substantive uniformity. Some of them
are brief recipes for magical processes or exorcisms, others are
collections of such recipes together with more ambitious
invocations and methods of securing control over supernatural
forces. Many of these papyri were edited in a collective form by
Wessely in 1888 and 1893, a pioneer work which has rendered great
service to study; the London texts were republished with an
addition by Sir Frederic Kenyon, and the Oslo texts were produced
by Eitrem four years ago with an English translation and an
excellent commentary. We have now from Preisendanz the first volume
of an edition which bids fair to be the standard for many years 2.
In the nature of things it cannot be definitive; but it represents
a very real advance, and it should enable much more study to be
devoted to these texts than has been hitherto given to them.
Dieterich, to whom the idea of this Corpus is due, his friend
Wiinsch, who carried on his work, and Reitzenstein, who is happily
still with us and still active, have taught us how important they
are for a proper understanding of the religious history of the
Empire. The new Corpus, with its translation facing the Greek and
its brief but valuable notes, Eitrem's commentary, and Th.
Hopfner's admirable and exhaustive should make the papyri much more
accessible. Griechisch-Agyptische Offenbarungszauber3 May the new
Corpus receive such financial support as will ensure its speedy
completion! 2. Some of the short texts giving single recipes are on
palaeographical grounds placed as early as the second century of
our era4: the substantial magical books fall on the same grounds
between the late third and the fifth, and the presence in them not
merely of Coptic passages but of at least one misunderstanding of a
Coptic word5 confirms this date. We know of an extensive
destruction of magical books and persecution of their possessors
under Diocletian, but such action is seldom completely successful:
it might be thought I The substance of this paper was read to the
Hellenic Society on May 7, 1929. I am indebted to Mr. H. I. Bell,
Dr. A. B. Cook and Mr. G. W. Dyson for valuable suggestions. 2
Papyri graecae magicae, Die griechischen Zauberpapyri herausgegeben
und iibersetzt von Karl Preisendanz unter Mitarbeit von A. Abt, S.
Eitrem, L. Fahz, A. Jacoby, G. Moller, R. Wiinsch, i, pp. xii + 200
with 3 plates, 1928, Teubner, Leipzig. 18 M. 3 Vols. xxi and xxiI
of Wessely's Studien, here called I and II: a convenient survey by
H. in PaulyWissowa,xIV, 301 if. 4 A. S. Hunt's cryptogram(Proc.
Brit. Ac., xv) is strengthenedat the back with a strip from a
document of Hadrianic date: it is quite in the style of our later
texts. Kenyon dates P. Lond. 46 (Preis. vi) in the second
centuryA.D.: a Latin tablet from Hadrumetum assigned to the end of
the same century (Audollent, tabellae,370, no. 270) is of this
type. From the third century we have the love charm discussed,
Defixiornum 4947, and a Graeco-Demoticcollection contained in Pap.
Eg. Dept. later, pp. 221-2, Preisigke, Sammnelbuch, 10588 [late
third century] shortly to appear in Journal edited by H. I. Bell,
H. J. M. Milne, H. Thompson, and the writer; the latter is a
genuine magical book. The love charms edited by Boll,
Sitzungsber.Heidelb. Akad., 1910, i, and assigned by him to the 1st
century are of a simpler type. 6 Preisendanzon v, 75.
This content downloaded on Fri, 8 Mar 2013 18:25:51 PM All use
subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
220
A. D. NOCK
that this is reflected in the stringent instructions to secrecy,
but they are natural in magic, and a magic recipe in cryptogram
form brilliantly deciphered by A. S. Hunt is probably of Hadrianic
date. It is remarkable that we find in this period all these
substantial works, running to the 3274 lines of the great Paris
book, on good papyrus, some of them provided with elaborate
drawings as models. I think we must regard them as the actual
working copies of practical magicians, like the books burnt by St.
Paul's Ephesian converts and possessed of a considerable monetary
value, or a later magical MS at Athens which bears wax-drippings,
perhaps from the candles used in ceremonies', or the magical books
handed down in Germany from generation to generation2. A man who
wanted a love spell might apply to the possessor of such a book for
a suitable text to inscribe on a lead tablet and put in the mouth
of a mummy or for a rite to follow. This view of these papyri is
confirmed by the fact that it is probable that many of them belong
to a single library3. We have probably a magician's collection. And
it is noteworthy that the actual lead tablets, based no doubt on
similar magical books, tend to occur in groups together: most of
the so-called Sethianic curse tablets in Rome were written by one
hand. In this case the magician or his assistant clearly copied the
actual text for use4. Working copies have a history which is quite
different from that of ordinary literature. In literature the form
is essential; one may insert glosses, and one makes errors of
transcription, but one seeks to preserve its shape. A working copy
has to be useful, and so one modifies it and incorporates
suggestions from other sources5. So much we might conjecture, and
in fact there is abundant evidence of these proceedings in our
texts6. Thus we read in IV, 2427 To bvop,a Tov 'Ayaf9ov Aat'o,o?ov
ebr ov g v Xeye&'Etra4>po6vToq TO fvvvv pop#19 OpOXtolo, 4
8S6\ V Tc X v7rO/CEL,evov S4pq avwt
