{"id":7339,"date":"2011-10-07T13:58:59","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T12:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=7339"},"modified":"2011-10-07T13:58:59","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T12:58:59","slug":"jesus-in-the-greek-magical-papyri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2011\/10\/07\/jesus-in-the-greek-magical-papyri\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus in the Greek Magical Papyri"},"content":{"rendered":"

An email this morning asks about the probable date of the exorcism spell in the Paris magical codex (PGM<\/em> IV, lines 3007-86 and 1227-64) which references Jesus, and quoting a 2006 article on Hypotyposeis by Andrew Criddle<\/a> (which itself seems to have been replicated around the web).<\/p>\n

…lines 1227-64 of this papyrus [contain]\u00a0another Exorcism with the invocation Hail God of Abraham Hail God of Isaac Hail God of Jacob; Jesus Chrestos the Holy Spirit the Son of the Father who is above the Seven who is within the Seven. Bring Iao Sabaoth may your power issue forth from him NN until you drive away this unclean daimon Satan who is in him<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0I find in Twelftree, In the name of Jesus: exorcism among early Christians, p.263<\/a>, n.172, a statement:<\/p>\n

\n

Although it is generally agreed that this papyrus dates from the fourth century CE, its contents are more likely to come from the second century CE.[172]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The author cites Andre Jean Festugiere, La revelation de Hermes Trismegiste<\/em>, (1949-54), vol. 1, p.303, n.1 in support of this, but he also refers to Eugene N. Lane, On the date of PGM IV<\/em>, Second Century 4 (1984), p.25-7, who argues from the presence of menoturanne<\/em> on line 2664 that this is a reference to Attis Menotyrannus.\u00a0 The title (of unknown meaning) Menotyrannus appears only in inscriptions, and these date between 374 and 390, and therefore argues that PGM IV must have been composed after ca. 380.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

My own, amateur, opinion on Lane’s argument is that since the title is of unknown meaning, we cannot say with certainty that it is intended to refer to Attis only — what if it means something like Invictus<\/em>? or Almighty<\/em>?<\/p>\n

It seems to me that the magical texts are not the kind of text that is transmitted unchanged.\u00a0 It is entirely possible that a copyist would lace the text with new “names of power”.\u00a0 These are not literary texts, after all — the owners and copyists are people in search of concrete results.\u00a0 The texts range in date from the 2nd century BC to the 4th century AD, and the copies we have seem to have belonged to a 4th century priest in Thebes (modern Luxor).<\/p>\n

When would “Jesus” be considered a name of power?\u00a0 The New Testament refers in Acts to Jewish magicians trying to use his name in this way, and coming unstuck!\u00a0 But in general Jesus was a disreputable figure in the Roman world.\u00a0 The vicious attack on him by the pagan Caecilius in the Octavius<\/em> of Minucius Felix indicates that a crucified lower-class fakir was not someone that a reputable Roman took seriously.\u00a0 The same attitude may be seen indirectly in the early heresies, which all invented stories that Jesus was not really<\/em> crucified, but was replaced by a phantasm or something like that.\u00a0 This is the heresy known as Docetism.\u00a0 Indeed Tertullian in De Carne Christi<\/em> 5, 4 also attests the problem, addressing Marcion — a docetist — when he says that it is precisely because the death of Christ is disreputable that\u00a0 it must be true, rather than a made-up story.<\/p>\n

This attitude wanes, however.\u00a0 By the fourth century the Christians are so numerous, and their character so well known, that pagan attacks of this kind become perfunctory.\u00a0 But on the other hand Christianity was so well known, and so much a solid threat to all magic and paganism, that it is a little hard to see “Jesus” being tossed into a syncretistic stew as a random power-name.<\/p>\n

Some may remember the famous passage in the Historia Augusta<\/em> (Life of Alexander Severus<\/em>, 29),<\/em> where syncretism is described, and the emperor has a chapel containing statues of the gods, and Moses and Jesus.\u00a0 The HA<\/em> is a fake; but a fake with earlier sources, and the attitude described is just that of the early 3rd century.<\/p>\n

I would myself, therefore, tend to suggest that the text in its current form perhaps dates from that time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An email this morning asks about the probable date of the exorcism spell in the Paris magical codex (PGM IV, lines 3007-86 and 1227-64) which references Jesus, and quoting a 2006 article on Hypotyposeis by Andrew Criddle (which itself seems to have been replicated around the web). …lines 1227-64 of this papyrus [contain]\u00a0another Exorcism with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[1445],"class_list":["post-7339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-roman-magic"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}