Month: April 2011

Some notes on the Great Paris spell-book

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m looking at Preisendanz’ edition of the Greek magical papyri.  I thought some notes on one of them, PGM IV, also known as the great magical book, or the great spell-book, might be useful.  This is the codex that contains the so-called Mithras liturgy — in reality merely a spell-ritual.

The so-called “great Paris magical papyrus”, Bibl. nat. suppl. gr. 574.  A papyrus book of 36 leaves, written on both sides.  Foll. 1r, 3v, 16 and 36r are blank, described in the auction “Catalogue d’une collection d’antiquites egyptiennes par M. Francois Lenormant (Paris, Moulde et Renou 1857) Pap. IV” under No. 1073 as “manuscrit sur feuilles de papyrus pliees en livre, formant 33 feuillets ecrits de deux cotes.”  The auction catalogue number is still written on fol. 1r, together with the Anastasi number 1073.

The manufacturer of the book had 18 double sheets, which he folded in order to make the book.  The small Coptic item on page 1 may be a later addition.  [The sheets have become disarranged].  The leaves vary in size between 30.5cm and 27cm high, 13 and 9.5cm wide.  Margins have been left on all sides.

C. Wessely suggests that the copyist wrote during the fourth century AD, and more towards 300 than 400 AD, when the technology to make such papyrus codices was available.  See also Wiener Studien 8, 1886, p.189, which suggests the period of Tertullian, an origin of Upper Egypt, in Herakleopolis.  Dieterich felt the time of Diocletian was the terminus ante quem, and that the “liturgy” must belong to the period when Mithras was most in vogue.  Adolf Deissmann in Light from the ancient East 217-225 placed the composition of lines 2993-3086 before the fall of Jerusalem and the reference to the emperor in 2448 as referring to Hadrian.

E. Miller published some portions of the hymns: Melanges de Litterature grecque (1868),437-458.

It would be nice to know more up-to-date information on this subject.

Share

Eusebius update

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The revised cover design now seems OK to me.  I’ve asked Ben, who is doing the revising, to make sure it’s exported to PDF precisely as Lightning Source want.  Once that’s done, I’ll reupload, order a new proof, and … hopefully … we can go to print. 

The process has been delayed by a fortnight because I was starting a new job, and then starting a house purchase.  Neither will be of importance in the long run.  But of such delays and difficulties is the stuff of life made.

On a different note, I am hoping to have John the Lydian’s chapter on the month of March from On the Roman Months book IV available and online in English soon.

Share

Did Basil of Caesarea attack science

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In my post yesterday I discussed an online quotation from Eusebius in an anti-Christian diatribe:

#300
#Noted Catholic Bishops declare science to be of no interest to Christians
The attitude of most of the Church Fathers towards science, however, was one of indifference or hostility. Bishop Eusebius, the noted historian of the early Christian Church, says of scientists: “It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to better things“.  Basil of Caesarea declares it “a matter of no interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or a disk, or concave like a fan”. Lactantius calls the study of astronomy “bad and senseless”. Like many other churchmen, he combats the pagan Greek notion that the earth is round and argues on scriptual grounds that it must be flat.

The Eusebius I traced back to an article in Popular Science, Vol. 8, No. 25, Feb. 1876.  Pp.385-409, by Andrew D. White, and it turns out to be from the Praeparatio Evangelica book 15, chapter 1.  It has, of course, no relation to science at all, but rather to the endless noodlings on all sorts of subjects of the sophists.

This morning I decided to search for the Basil quotation.  And immediately I turned up another article in Popular Science!  It turns out to be a revised version of the earlier article, by the same Andrew D. White, now an “ex-president of Cornell university”.  On p.447-8 of the August 1892 issue, we find the following:

But as civilization was developed, there were evolved, especially among the Greeks, ideas of the earth’s sphericity. The Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle especially cherished them. These ideas were vague, they were mixed with absurdities, but they were germ ideas, and even amid the luxuriant growth of theology in the early Christian Church these germs began struggling into life in the minds of a few thinking men, and these men renewed the suggestion that the earth is a globe.+

The footnote fails to note who these “few thinking men” of the first to fourth centuries might be, however.  The footnote is worth giving, as indicating the real sources that White had at his disposal:

+ The agency of the Pythagoreans in first spreading the doctrine of the earth’s sphericity is generally acknowledged, but the first clear and full utterance of it to the world was by Aristotle. Very fruitful, too, was the statement of the new theory given by Plato in the Timaeus; see Jowett’s translation, New York edition, 62, c. Also Phaedo, pp. 449 et seq. See also Grote on Plato’s doctrine of the sphericity of the earth; also Sir G. C. Lewis’s Astronomy of the Ancients, London, 1802, chap, iii, section i, and note. Cicero’s mention of the antipodes, and his reference to the passage in the Timaeus are even more remarkable than the original, in that they much more clearly foreshadow the modern doctrine. See his Academic Questions, ii; also Tusc. Quest., i and v, 24. For a very full summary of the views of the ancients on the sphericity of the earth, see Kretchmer, Die physische Erdkunde im christlichen Mittelalter, Wien, 1880, pp. 85 et seq.; also, Eicken, Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, Stuttgart, 1887, Dritter Theil, chap. vi. For citations and summaries, see Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, vol. i, p. 189, and St. Martin, Hist. de la Geog., Paris, 1873, p. 96; also, Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, Firenze, 1851, chapter xii, pp. 184 et seq.

I think we may suppose that White did not consult much of this.  But on he goes:

A few of the larger-minded fathers of the Church, influenced possibly by Pythagorean traditions, but certainly by Aristotle and Plato, were willing to accept this view, but the majority of them took fright at once. To them it seemed fraught with dangers to Scripture, by which, of course, they meant their interpretation of Scripture. Among the first who took up arms against it was Eusebius. In view of the New Testament texts indicating the immediately approaching end of the world, he endeavored to turn off this idea by bringing scientific studies into contempt. Speaking of investigators, he said, “It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to better things.” Basil of Cassarea declared it “a matter of no interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or a disk, or concave in the middle like a fan.” Lactantius referred to the ideas of those studying astronomy as ” bad and senseless,” and opposed the doctrine of the earth’s sphericity both from Scripture and reason. St. John Chrysostom also exerted his influence against this scientific belief; and Ephrem Syrus, the greatest man of the old Syrian Church, widely known as the “lute of the Holy Ghost,” opposed it no less earnestly.

But the strictly Biblical men of science, such eminent fathers and bishops as Theophilus of Antioch in the second century, Clement of Alexandria in the third, and others in centuries following, were not content with, merely opposing what they stigmatized as an old heathen theory; they drew from their Bibles a new Christian theory…*

* For Eusebius, see the Praep. Ev., xv, 61. For Basil, see the Hexameron, Hom, ix, cited in Peschel, Erdkunde, p. 96, note. For Lactantius, see his Inst. Div., lib. iii, cap. 3; also, citations in Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, London, 1867, vol. i, p. 194, and in St Martin, Histoire de la Geographie, pp. 216, 217. For the views of St John Chrysostom Eph. Syrus, and other great churchmen, see Kretschmer as above, chap. i.

It’s worth remembering that the Praeparatio Evangelica did not exist in English at this date, and I suspect that it is a safe bet that all the sources referenced are being quoted at second hand.  The error in the reference (xv, 61 instead of xv, 1) is preserved here, for instance.  Indeed White does not conceal that his knowledge of Basil is second hand.

We are not concerned with White’s foolish and slightly unpleasant attempt to demonise the better element among his contemporaries by proving that their coreligionists of 18 centuries earlier did not happen to have attended Cornell University, and — worse! — did not share the shibboleths of the late 19th century, views which White himself held only because he lived when he did. 

But it would be most interesting to see what Basil actually said.  Fortunately these homilies are online in the NPNF series 2.  Homily 9 begins as follows:

1. How did you like the fare of my morning’s discourse? It seemed to me that I had the good intentions of a poor giver of a feast, who, ambitious of having the credit of keeping a good table saddens his guests by the poor supply of the more expensive dishes. In vain he lavishly covers his table with his mean fare; his ambition only shows his folly. It is for you to judge if I have shared the same fate. Yet, whatever my discourse may have been, take care lest you disregard it. No one refused to sit at the table of Elisha; and yet he only gave his friends wild vegetables.

I know the laws of allegory, though less by myself than from the works of others. There are those truly, who do not admit the common sense of the Scriptures, for whom water is not water, but some other nature, who see in a plant, in a fish, what their fancy wishes, who change the nature of reptiles and of wild beasts to suit their allegories, like the interpreters of dreams who explain visions in sleep to snake them serve their own ends. For me grass is grass; plant, fish, wild beast, domestic animal, I take all in the literal sense. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel.”

Those who have written about the nature of the universe have discussed at length the shape of the earth. If it be spherical or cylindrical, if it resemble a disc and is equally rounded in all parts, or if it has the forth of a winnowing basket and is hollow in the middle; all these conjectures have been suggested by cosmographers, each one upsetting that of his predecessor. It will not lead me to give less importance to the creation of the universe, that the servant of God, Moses, is silent as to shapes; he has not said that the earth is a hundred and eighty thousand furlongs in circumference; he has not measured into what extent of air its shadow projects itself whilst the sun revolves around it, nor stated how this shadow, casting itself upon the moon, produces eclipses. He has passed over in silence, as useless, all that is unimportant for us.

Shall I then prefer foolish wisdom to the oracles of the Holy Spirit? Shall I not rather exalt Him who, not wishing to fill our minds with these vanities, has regulated all the economy of Scripture in view of the edification and the making perfect of our souls? It is this which those seem to me not to have understood, who, giving themselves up to the distorted meaning of allegory, have undertaken to give a majesty of their own invention to Scripture. It is to believe themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and to bring forth their own ideas under a pretext of exegesis. Let us hear Scripture as it has been written.

Does Basil attack science?  It seems not: surely he is attacking the allegorical interpretation of scripture? 

Is he attacking scientists, having viewed and rejected the science of late 19th century America, or so White suggests, doubtless by time-machine?  Again, the answer is no: he writes against contemporary Christians who get tangled up in the speculations of the philosophers, rather than concentrating on what the bible has to say.

It is, in fact, the words of a preacher, declining to involve himself with issues other than the text before him.  And surely that is a praiseworthy habit, rather than the reverse?

Share

Did Eusebius attack science?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Browsing a usenet forum today, I came across a vitriolic post attacking the Christians by quoting all the ancient Christian authors who did not happen to hold the same views of science as those living nearly a score of centuries later.  For some reason the poster did not include the ancient non-Christian authors in his survey.  Nor, of course, did he provide references for any of his “quotations”. Instead he was repeating an usenet post from sci.physics from May 10, 1993, by a certain Gregory Aharonian, who wrote as follows:

Recently Will Brandt at Caltech posted a very excellent timetable of significant historical events in the field of science.  Given that science is a much a search for the new as a fight against the old (or at least that’s my opinion), I thought I would post a list of historical events where religion did something against science or unscientific.  There is no particular significance to the events I have included, other than I came across them while researching various things.  Incidents touch on physics, mathematics, engineering, medicine and computers.

After a quantity of stuff, arranged by date, there is this:

#300
#Noted Catholic Bishops declare science to be of no interest to Christians
The attitude of most of the Church Fathers towards science, however, was one of indifference or hostility. Bishop Eusebius, the noted historian of the early Christian Church, says of scientists: “It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to better things“.  Basil of Caesarea declares it “a matter of no interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or a disk, or concave like a fan”. Lactantius calls the study of astronomy “bad and senseless”. Like many other churchmen, he combats the pagan Greek notion that the earth is round and argues on scriptual grounds that it must be flat.

It is always a good idea to verify such things.  First, for the Eusebius quotation, I did a google search for “the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless”.  This indicated that the text was widely used on a certain kind of website, such as this one. 

But far more usefully, it led me to an article in Popular Science, Vol. 8, No. 25, Feb. 1876.  Pp.385-409 (and “to be continued”!) contain an article entitled The Warfare of Science, and written by a certain Andrew D. White, stated to be “President of Cornell University”.  On page 387 appears something very like our material. 

But we must start on page 386 to see the context:

Among the legacies the thought left by the ancient world to the modern, were certain ideas of the rotundity of the earth.  These ideas were vague; they were mixed with absurdities, but they were germ ideas, and, after the barbarian storm which ushered in the modern world had begun to clear away, these germ ideas began to bud and bloom in the minds of a few thinking men, and these men hazarded the suggestion that the earth is round — is a globe. [1]

The greatest and most earnest men of the time took fright at once.  To them, the idea of the earth’s rotundity seemed fraught with dangers to Scripture: by which, of course, they meant their interpretation of Scripture.

Among the first who took up arms against the new thinkers was Eusebius.  He endeavored to turn off these ideas by bringing  science into contempt.  He endeavored to make  the innovators understand that he and the fathers of the Church despised all such inquiries. Speaking of the innovations in physical science, he said: “It is not through ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to better things.”[1]

The first footnote refers to Plato and the Timaeus; and also to Cicero’s works.  The second footnote may be given in full.

1.  See Eusebius, “Praep. Ev.,” xv., 61.

There is a certain confusion in Dr White’s eloquent paragraphs, for he seems to suppose that Eusebius lived, not in ancient times, but in the Middle Ages; and in days when society was entirely Christian, rather than in the days of the persecution of Diocletian.  But doubtless this is merely an accident.

But what does Eusebius say? 

Well, in the days when I was scanning large quantities of literature, one of the items I scanned was the only English translation of the Praeparatio Evangelica.  This is a large and scholarly work, stuffed to the gills with word-for-word extracts of Greek philosophy.  Book 15 may be found here.

The book consists of listing the opinions of a whole range of Greek philosophers on a wide range of subjects, and thereby showing that they cannot be used as an authority, since they disagree violently among themselves on all of them.  The quotations run to some 50 chapters, and are too long to reproduce here.  Let us merely give the last section, from chapters 59-61 (I have abbreviated the chapter titles, which may not be authorial anyway):

So much, then, concerning the Sea.

But as to those who professed to give physiological explanations about the whole world, and things celestial and ethereal, and the conception of the universe, how little they knew even of their own nature, you may learn from their discordant utterances on these points also, as follows.

LX —- OF THE PARTS OF THE SOUL.

PYTHAGORAS, Plato: in the first analysis the Soul has two parts; for it has one part rational and another irrational. But in close and exact consideration, its parts are three: for they distinguish the irrational into the irascible and the appetitive.

‘The Stoics: it is composed of eight parts; five senses, sight, smell, hearing, taste, touch; and a sixth, speech; a seventh, generation; and an eighth, the actual ruling principle, from which proceeds the extension of all these through their proper organs, in a similar manner to the tentacles of the polypus.

‘Democritus, Epicurus: the Soul consists of two parts, its rational faculty being settled in the breast, and the irrational diffused over the whole complexity of the body.

‘But Democritus thought that all things, even dead bodies, naturally partake of a certain kind of soul, because in an obscure way they have some warmth and sensation, though the greater part is dissipated.’

LXI.  ‘PLATO, Democritus: it is in the head as a whole.

‘Straton: between the eyebrows.

‘Erasistratus: about the membrane of the brain, which he calls the epicranis.

‘Herophilus: in the cavity of the brain, which is also its base.

‘Parmenides: in the breast as a whole.

‘Epicurus, and all the Stoics: in the heart as a whole.

‘Diogenes: in the arterial cavity of the heart, which is full of breath.

‘Empedocles in the composition of the blood.

‘Others in the membrane of the pericardium: and others in the diaphragm. Some of the more recent philosophers say that it reaches through from the head to the diaphragm.

‘Pythagoras: the vital power is around the heart; but the rational , and intelligent faculty in the region of the head.’

So far, then, as to their opinions on these matters.

Eusebius then draws the natural conclusion.  For if these men are authorities, what use is their authority to anyone?

Do you not think therefore that with judgement and reason we have justly kept aloof from the unprofitable and erroneous and vain labour of them all, and do not busy ourselves at all about the said subjects (for we do not see the utility of them, nor any tendency to benefit and gain good for mankind), but cling solely to piety towards God the creator of all things, and by a life of temperance, and all godly behaviour according to virtue, strive to live in a manner pleasing to Him who is God over all?

But if even you from malice and envy hesitate to admit our true testimony, you shall be again anticipated by Socrates, the wisest of all Greeks, who has truthfully declared his votes in our favour. Those meteorological babblers, for instance, he used to expose in their folly, and say that they were no better than madmen, expressly convicting them not merely of striving after things unattainable, but also of wasting time about things useless and unprofitable to man’s life. And this shall be testified to you by our former witness Xenophon, one of the best-known of the companions of Socrates, who writes as follows in his Memorabilia:

LXII.  [XENOPHON] ‘No one ever yet saw Socrates do or heard him say anything impious or unholy. For he did not discourse about the nature of the universe or the other subjects, like most of them, speculating upon the condition of the cosmos, as the Sophists call it, and by what forces of necessity the celestial phenomena severally are produced: rather he used to expose the foolishness of those who troubled themselves about such things.

…

‘Such, then, was the nature of his remarks about those who busied themselves with these matters: but he himself was always discoursing of human interests, inquiring what was, pious, what impious; what noble, what base; what just, what unjust; what sanity, what madness.’

These, then, were the opinions of Socrates. And next after him Aristippus of Cyrene, and then later Ariston of Chios, undertook to maintain that morals were the only proper subject of philosophy; for these inquiries were practicable and useful, but the discussions about nature were quite the contrary, neither being comprehensible, nor having any use, even if they were clearly understood.

For it would be no advantage to us, not even if soaring higher in the air than Perseus,

‘O’er ocean’s wave, and o’er the Pleiades,’

we could with our very eyes survey the whole world, and the nature of all ‘beings,’ of whatever kind that is.

For we certainly shall not be on that account wiser, or more just or brave or temperate, nay, not even strong, or beautiful, or rich, without which advantages happiness is impossible.

Such are the remarks of Eusebius.

Is this an attack, in desperate fear of novelty, on the idea that the world is round?  It is not.  The subject is remote from the author’s mind.  He is concerned with one thing, and one only; to prepare men to hear the gospel, to point out that the teachings of the Jews are of no value, and those of the Greeks also except insofar as they point men to the need for moral improvement.

It is meaningless to complain that Eusebius attacks “science”.  In his day nothing of the kind existed.  Our own modern systems were unknown to him, and equally unknown to those he attacked.  He attacked, rather, the Greek philosophers, or rather Sophists, the peddlers of ideas to those willing to pay to be entertained thereby.

We remember Pythagoras for his theorems.  But in the ancient world he was just another teacher, with a set of invented ideas and rituals, such as not eating beans.

But to return to Dr. White: are his words found here?  There are not.  Rather they are found in chapter 1 of book 15:

As we have been deferring up to the present time our final discourse hereon, which is the fifteenth Book of the treatise in hand, we will now make up what is lacking to the discussions which we have travelled through, by still further dragging into light the solemn doctrines of the fine philosophy of the Greeks, and laying bare before the eyes of all the useless learning therein. And before all things we shall show that not from ignorance of the things which they admire, but from contempt of the unprofitable study therein we have cared very little for them, and devoted our own souls to the practice of things far better.

I suspect that Eusebius would have been amused by A. D. White.  For after all, Eusebius has already answered White’s objection by quoting Socrates.  It is not an attack on the value of science to point out the futility of empty speculation.  It is not an attack on learning and reason to follow the path of moral self-improvement advocated by all the best philosophers of antiquity, and the moralists of every age and country.  Only a man of White’s limited sympathies could suppose it.

As for the modern poster with whom we started, we may feel confident that he had never read a line of Eusebius, nor verified whether what he said was true.  Eusebius was not discussing “scientists”, nor science.

Share

Life on the edge of the forum

Posted on by Roger Pearse

When I read the epigrams of Martial or the satires of Juvenal, what strikes me more than anything else is the sheer discomfort of living in ancient Rome.  Martial himself had no running water laid on at his home.  Juvenal describes the risk of a poor man on his way home being crushed in the mass of people, making their way through the streets, and how his slaves — everyone has slaves, it seems — await him in vain while he sits shivering on the banks of the Styx, without a copper to pay the ferryman.

The abuse of those enslaved is endless, as Martial makes plain, yet, as in a modern office, the human element breaks through.  Some “owners” are in fact under the thumb of their slaves; others again refuse to allow their slaves even to sleep at night. 

At the other extreme, we read the letters of the younger Pliny, of a life of retirement in one of a number of rural farms, interspersed with a public career.  Even Martial, who wears a bad cloak, acquires a farm of some kind from a benefactor.

None of us, I suppose, would truly choose to live in ancient Rome.  And yet … the fascination with it is endless.

Share

Preisendanz’ edition of the Papyri Graecae Magicae

Posted on by Roger Pearse

An email this evening asks where the Greek text of the Greek Magical Papyri might be found.  The wikipedia article tells me that Karl Preisendanz published them between 1928-31, and that a revised edition came out in the 70’s.

Interestingly someone has placed the first edition online here.  I wonder whether they are indeed out of copyright?

Share

The demands of the world on the church

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Two quotations.  The first, from the Christian Post via Curious Presbyterian, relates to an atheist academic.  Dr A. became a Christian and was then denied tenure at the university.  A court has ruled this was unlawful discrimination.  From the plaintiff:

Adams and his attorney … assert that both Levy, an outspoken feminist, and Cook, an atheist, denied the full professorship in retaliation to his faith.

By Alliance Defense Fund accounts, Cook described that her ideal candidate for the teaching position would be “a lesbian with spiked hair and a dog collar.”

The other is by W.H.Auden, reviewing the Lord of the Rings:

Secondly, the kind of Evil which Sauron embodies, the lust for domination, will always be irrationally cruel since it is not satisfied if another does what it wants; he must be made to do it against his will.

When the world seeks to dominate the church, it does so by making demands which it knows violate the teaching of Christ. 

Foolish Christians try to dress up their compliance in the language of Zion; but their reward is the mockery of the world, as it gives them a contemptuous approval for their deference.

Share

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A correspondent is helping revise the Eusebius book cover.  A problem that I am encountering is that Nick the graphic designer is using Adobe Indesign CS3, while Bob the typesetter is using CS5 and Ben who is doing the revision is doing the same.  It turns out that you can’t export from Indesign CS5 back to Indesign CS3.  That effectively makes it impossible for my team to work together on the cover.  For a piece of software costing a thousand dollars, that is very bad indeed.

So … I’ll have to compromise somewhat on the cover.  Oh well.  I don’t want to delay the book further.

I’ve been onto the Lightning Source site and rejected the first proof.  When LSI tell me what to do, and I get the revised PDF from Ben, I’ll try a second proof.

Mind you, Lightning Source charge very heavily for the proofs: $40 a go.  So you really don’t want to do this lots of times!

Personal note: I started a new job a week ago, which is rather tiring because of 8-hour days, but looks as if it will be OK.  Mind you, I really feel the extra half-hour!  The job will involve some travel as well, it turns out.  Just when it was least necessary, today I saw a house which I wanted to buy (for buy-to-rent – I’m not moving house), which means rushing around about mortgages and the like, and generally spend a lot of time talking to people one usually tries to avoid!  And my washing machine broke down!

But such is life.  “Life is what happens to you, while you are making plans to do other things”, as the saying goes.  I’m enjoying rather a lot of life, then.

I’m really looking forward to getting back to sanity, and the classics, and the fathers!

Share

A letter of St. Pisentios on Islam

Posted on by Roger Pearse

While looking rather carelessly through the online volumes of the Revue de l’Orient Chretien, whose Syriac contents are listed here, I found myself looking at something interesting and non-Syriac.

In ROC 19 (1914), on p.79f. and 302 f. (the article was split into two parts, issued in successive quarters), A. Perier publishes the Arabic text of a letter of St. Pisentios, Coptic bishop of Qeft, to his flock.  The letter exists in four manuscripts in the French National library, the Bibliotheque Nationale, and Perier gives a French translation.

The second half of the letter consists of a prophecy of the coming of the Moslems, and their leader Mamadanous (Mohammed) whose name, in Coptic letters, is said to add up to 666.

Unfortunately the letter cannot be genuinely by the pre-Islamic bishop.  The predictions of the actions of the Turks, the very general terms in which Moslem atrocities are described, the whole feel of the letter suggests a later composition, in which past history and current woes are depicted in apocalyptic terms as a prophecy.  Several Coptic apocalypses are of the same kind, which I think means that we are probably dealing with a literary genre here, rather than several attempts at forgery.

It is rather too long and diffuse for me to turn the French into English, sadly, with my current concerns. 

But it is by no means uninteresting.  It makes the point that the ROC contains a great deal more than just the Syriac articles.  It contains, indeed, publications of texts from the Near East.  Wouldn’t it be nice if someone would digest down a table of contents of these articles also?

Share

An online translation of the Greek magical papyri

Posted on by Roger Pearse

At Abnormal Interests there is an interesting poston the find of the Greek magical papyri.  The anecdote is taken from H. D. Betz translation of all these papyri, which someone has uploaded to ScribD (Hans Dieter Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.)   

This is fortunate in many ways, for so obscure a subject would otherwise hardly escape the confines of major academic libraries.  The papyri themselves were discovered in the 19th century by an adventurer.

… the discovery of the Greek magical papyri was often still is the outcome of sheer luck and almost incredible coincidences. In the case of the major portion of the collection, the so-called Anastasi collection, the discovery and rescue is owed to the efforts (and, if one may use the term, cooperation) of two individuals separated by more than a thousand years: the modern collector d’Anastasi and the original collector at Thebes.

In the nineteenth century, there was among the “diplomatic” representatives at the court in Alexandria a man who called himself Jean d’Anastasi (17801-1857). Believed to be Armenian by birth, he ingratiated himself enough with the pasha to become the consular representative of Sweden. It was a time when diplomats and military men often were passionate collectors of antiquities, and M. d’Anastasi happened to be at the right place at the right time. He succeeded in bringing together large collections of papyri from Egypt, among them sizable magical books, some of which he said he had obtained in Thebes. These collections he shipped to Europe, where they were auctioned off and bought by various libraries: the British Museum in London, the Bibliotheque Nationale and the Louvre in Paris, the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, and the Rijksmuseum in Leiden. Another papyrus was acquired by Jean Francois Mimaut (1774-1837), also a diplomat, whose acquisition ended up in the Bibliotheque Nationale (PGM III). Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about the circumstances of the actual findings. But it is highly likely that many of the papyri from the Anastasi collection came from the same place, perhaps a tomb or a temple library. If this assumption is correct, about half a dozen of the best-preserved and largest extant papyri may havc come from the collection of one man in Thebes. He is of course unknown to us, but we may suppose that he collected the magical material for his own use. Perhaps he was more than a magician. We may attribute his almost systematic collcctions of magica to a man who was also a scholar, probably philosophically inclined, as well as a bibliophile and archivist concerned about the preservation of this material.

The references for these statements may be read in Betz.  They are to works that few have seen; but which, perhaps, may now be online and accessible to us all.

Share