Christian Use of Magic in Late Antique Egypt

Christian Use of Magic in Late Antique Egypt

Walter M. Shandruk

Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 20, Number 1, Spring 2012,pp. 31-57 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University PressDOI: 10.1353/earl.2012.0003

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Journal of Early Christian Studies 20:1, 31–57 © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press

1. ed. M. Markovich, Origenes. Contra Celsum: libri VIII, VCSupp 54 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 10; trans. Henry Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1953), 9–10.

Christian Use of Magic in Late Antique Egypt

WALTER M. SHANDRUK

Determining the contours of late antique Christian use of magic involves two variables: (1) the religious affiliation of the user and (2) the content of the magic. The presence or absence of Christian motifs does not provide a clear-cut solution to a user’s personal religious identity since Christian and non-Christian elements are often found side-by-side. This paper proposes that an onomastic analysis of user names from applied magical texts can provide a possible solution. An analysis of those results in comparison with the content of the texts reveals some significant patterns in the type of magic used and its chronological distribution.

INTRODUCTION

At Contra Celsum 1.6.11–15, Origen makes the following statement in response to Celsus’s accusations that Christians garner their efficacy from demons and incantations:

Οὐ γὰρ κατακλήσεσιν ἰσχύειν δοκοῦσιν, ἀλλὰ τῷ ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ μετὰ τῆς ἀπαγγελίας τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν ἱστοριῶν. Ταῦτα γὰρ λεγόμενα πολλάκις τοὺς δαίμονας πεποίηκεν ἀνθρώπων χωρισθῆναι, καὶ μάλισθ’ ὅταν οἱ λέγοντες ἀπὸ διαθέσεως ὑγιοῦς καὶ πεπιστευκυίας γνησίως αὐτὰ λέγωσι.

For they do not get the power which they seem to possess by any incantations but by the name of Jesus with the recital of the histories about him. For when these are pronounced they have often made daemons to be driven out of men, and especially when those who utter them speak with real sincerity and genuine belief.1

32 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

2. Marcovich, 10; trans. Chadwick, 10.3. See Eusebius, Theoph. fr. 5.9; John Chrysostom, Jud. 8.6.4 (PG 48:936): Καὶ οὐδὲ

οὕτως ἔδραμεν ἐπὶ μάντεις, οὐκ ἦλθε πρὸς ἐπαοιδοὺς, οὐκ ἐπέδησε περίαπτα, ἀλλ᾽ ἀνέμενε τὴν παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ βοήθειαν. For other condemnations of magic by John Chrysostom, see Bruce M. Metzger, “A Magical Amulet for Curing Fevers,” in Studies in the His-tory and Text of the New Testament in Honor of Kenneth Willis Clark, PhD, ed. Boyd L. Daniels and M. Jack Suggs, Studies and Documents 29 (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 1967), 93 n. 3.

4. Matthew W. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (Lon-don: Routledge, 2001), 304–7, 279–81. A dramatic example of a seventh-century magician-priest, burned at the stake for his crimes, is given in one of the anecdotes attributed to Anastasius of Sinai; see Bernard H. Stolte, “Magic and Byzantine Law in the Seventh Century,” in The Metamorphosis of Magic from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period, ed. Jan N. Bremmer and Jan R. Veenstra, GSCC 1 (Leuven: Peeters, 2002), 111–12.

5. Jan N. Bremmer, “Magic in the Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles,” in Metamor-phosis of Magic, ed. Bremmer and Veenstra, 62–68.

And again he repeats shortly after (1.6.28–31):

Ἄντικρυς δέ, κἂν δοκῇ ἀνέλεγκτον εἶναι τὸ περὶ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, πῶς ταῦτα ἐποίησε, σαφὲς ὅτι Χριστιανοὶ οὐδεμιᾷ μελέτῃ ἐπῳδῶν χρώμενοι τυγχάνουσιν, ἀλλὰ τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Ἰησοῦ μετ’ ἄλλων λόγων πεπιστευμένων κατὰ τὴν θείαν γραφήν.

But, on the contrary, even if it seems impossible to prove how Jesus did these things, it is clear that Christians make no use of spells, but only of the name of Jesus with other words that are believed to be effective, taken from the divine scripture.2

The statements are remarkable for several reasons. First, the claim that Christians did not use charms is hardly credible but not unique within the patristic tradition.3 It is clear from numerous papyrological evidence that Christians did indeed make use of “magical” incantations; furthermore, both condemnations among the fathers against such practices within their flocks and accusations (including convictions) against lower and upper clergy of the same make it clear that these practices were not limited to heterodox circles,4 which one might otherwise suspect from typical rhetoric (e.g., Tertullian, Praescr. 43; Irenaeus, Haer. 1.23.4) and the oft-repeated theme of face-off between Peter and Simon Magus in apocryphal texts (e.g., Acts of Peter, Acts of Paul).5

Second, Origen does, in fact, admit the use of certain acts of power by Christians in the form of Jesus’ name, historiolas (i.e. narratives of his life), and declarations of faith. Such sanctioned tapping into supernatural power finds precedent in the Gospels and Acts themselves, and examples may also be found among the papyri, those in which the power of the amulets

SHANDRUK / CHRISTIAN USE OF MAGIC 33

6. Even if this specific episode has no historical reliability, Jewish use of the name of Jesus for incantatory purposes is well within the realm of possibility, given the (admittedly much later) evidence in both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds where the efficacy of Jesus’ name is implicitly admitted but altogether condemned as impi-ous error; see Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 52–62.

7. On the flip side, a magical text cannot be rejected as Christian simply on the grounds of content, as we see done in Graham H. Twelftree, In the Name of Jesus, Exorcism among Early Christians (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 263–64.

8. Roger S. Bagnall, “Religious Conversion and Onomastic Change in Early Byz-antine Egypt,” BASP 19 (1982): 105–24.

9. Ewa Wipszycka, “La valeur de l’onomastique pour l’histoire de la christianisa-tion de l’Égypt. À propos d’une étude de R. S. Bagnall,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 62 (1986); for his response, see Roger S. Bagnall, “Conversion and Onomastics: A Reply,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 69 (1987); Roger S. Bagnall, Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History (London: Routledge, 1995), 87–89.

derives strictly from either the name of Jesus (P.Amst. 1.26), citation of Scripture (P.Berol.inv. 21911 = SM 26), or pious historiola (P.Turner 49). However, many other amulets with clear Christian elements also contain standard “magical” elements such as characateres, voces magicae, and esoteric figures, not to mention the use of “Christian” binding spells. The question then arises: to what extent did Christians make use of this ostensi-bly “Christian” magic? Since these texts were most likely composed by spe-cialist practitioners, one cannot immediately assume that elements within them reveal the religious proclivities of the end-users, although, surely, they may have been customized at the client’s request. But if the Jewish attempts at exorcism by Jesus’ name in Acts 19.13–17 retain any histori-cal reminiscence,6 one cannot merely assume that all amulets and binding spells invoking Christian motifs must be the result of request by Christian clients. Indeed, the multifarious divine invocations of the so-called Greek Magical Papyri should make it sufficiently clear that efficacy was drawn from any source that the practitioner deemed as having legitimate power.7

AN ONOMASTIC APPROACH

The one element within the papyri that retains the possibility of reveal-ing something about the religious background of the clients is the name and, due to its relative richness in documentary evidence, the place that is ripe for such an examination is Egypt. The point of departure here is Roger Bagnall’s famous onomastic study of the rate of Christianization in Egypt based on village registers from the Egyptian chora.8 While it has not been unopposed,9 the methodology is sound and applicable to the


10. Malcolm Choat, Belief and Cult in Fourth-Century Papyri, Studia Antiqua Australiensia 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 52–56.

11. Two examples warrant exclusion. The first is P.Cairo 10563 (= PGM LIX), where the person on whose behalf the amulet is made is already deceased and so it was probably deposited by an unnamed relative. The second is P.Lund inv. 32 (= PGM LXXXIX), a fever amulet on behalf of “little” Sophia-Priskilla, probably commis-sioned by the parents. Although the name is Christian and therefore likely indicates the parents are Christians as well, for the sake of consistency in methodology it is being excluded from the dataset.

12. Bagnall, “Onomastic Change,” 111.

study of general trends (while being much less reliable when limited to the treatment of specific individuals).10 Bagnall uses five criteria for identify-ing a Christian name, as follows: (1) Old and New Testament names; (2) theophoric names based on the Egyptian ntr (Coptic: pnoute), “God,” without a specific god being named; (3) names of Christian emperors fol-lowing their lifetime; (4) names based on abstract nouns of theological import (e.g., Dora, Eulogios); and (5) names of saints and martyrs fol-lowing their lifetime.

The name under consideration is, of course, the name of the user. Other names, such as the targets of curses, are irrelevant and texts that do not contain the name of the person on whose behalf the spell is being used should be excluded.11 This significantly reduces the data set and imposes a certain bias upon it. For instance, most binding spells, since they typically only contain the name of the victim, would be excluded. By the same token, since the data set is being specifically selected for the presence of the name of the user and amatory binding spells by their very nature require the presence of this name, this type of spell, more than any other type, would be overrepresented. As a result, conclusions about differences and simi-larities in the types and mechanics of spells used between the two groups, Christian and non-Christian, will have to be carefully qualified. Certain matters, such as the prevalence of non-amatory curses versus healing spells in general will simply be irreparably obscured by this bias.

Determining “pagan” names directly is significantly more difficult than Christian names. Whereas the derivation (e.g., biblical) of Christian names is often transparent, the etymology of other names is much less clear. Bagnall employed three categories for identifying “pagan” names: (1) Egyptian theophoric formations, (2) Greek theophoric formations on Egyptian gods, and (3) purely Greek theophoric formations.12 The first category (Egyptian formations) was filled with significant uncertainties, which resulted in a large third group of “not assigned” names. The pres-ent approach will dispense with the attempt to construct a “pagan” group


13. A quick perusal of the data set finds over a dozen names that are not obviously Christian but elude clear “pagan” identification using Bagnall’s criteria.

14. Notice, for instance, his explicit reference to women and children being sus-ceptible to Christian rhetoric in Origen, Cels. 3.44.13–15 (Marcovich 186): δῆλοί εἰσιν ὅτι μόνους τοὺς ἠλιθίους καὶ ἀγεννεῖς καὶ ἀναισθήτους καὶ ἀνδράποδα καὶ γύναια καὶ παιδάρια πείθειν ἐθέλουσί τε καὶ δύνανται, or more to the point in where Celsus asserts that they privately target wives and children and tell them not to pay attention to the father and teachers in 3.55.20–23 (Marcovich 196): ἐπειδὰν δὲ τῶν παίδων αὐτῶν ἰδίᾳ λάβωνται καὶ γυναίων τινῶν σὺν αὐτοῖς ἀνοήτων, θαυμάσι’ ἄττα διεξιόντας, ὡς οὐ χρὴ προσέχειν τῷ πατρὶ καὶ τοῖς διδασκάλοις σφίσι δὲ πείθεσθαι. By the fourth century, Christianization seems to have significantly penetrated among aristocratic women; see P. R. J. Brown, “Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy,” JRS 51 (1961): 6–7, but it should not be forgotten that the trope of female gullibility is not only to be found within Christian context, but also pagan, hence Juvenal, Sat. 6.512–41. For a sociological treatment of the question and argument supporting significant female participation in early Christianity, see Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 95–128.

15. A. Paul. et Thec. 15.12–13 (ed. Richard A. Lipsius and Max Bonnet, Acta apostolorum apocrypha, vol. 1 [Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1972], 245): Καὶ ὁ ὄχλος ἔλεγεν· Ἁπάγαγε τὸν μάγον· διέφθειρεν γὰρ ἡμῶν πάσας τὰς γυναῖκας, καὶ συνεπείσθησαν οἱ ὄχλοι.

of names and will simply consider all names not classified as Christian to be “pagan.” In theory this eliminates the statistical control value of a “pagan” group, but in practice, since the above approach would result in a large “not assigned” group, the control value of a “pagan” group would be compromised anyway.13

In some cases where the name of the user’s mother is given and the user bears a non-Christian name while the mother a Christian name, it will be assumed that the offspring is most likely Christian as well, given the far greater probability of staying within the Christian tradition rather than turning away from it (see comments below). The fact that magical texts, insofar as they bother to cite the parent of a user, will cite the mother instead of the father is not problematic. Indeed, if Celsus’s admittedly exaggerated rhetoric about the susceptibility of women and children to conversion contains any kernel of truth, one may feel somewhat more confident in identifying a mother’s Christianity with her children.14 The crowd’s condemnation of Paul in The Acts of Paul and Thecla takes on a similar tack, accusing him of having corrupted all of their wives.15

Methodological Limitations

Such an onomastic approach, of course, is filled with challenges, since names do not necessarily reveal anything about the religious background of the client himself, but that of his parents at the time of naming. This


16. G. H. R. Horsley, “Name Change as an Indication of Religious Conversion in Antiquity,” Numen 34 (1987): 1–17. See my comments below in Table 2 n. 28.

17. I. F. Fikhman, “On Onomastics of Greek and Roman Egypt,” in Classical Stud-ies in Honor of David Sohlberg, ed. R. Katzoff et al. (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1996), 408–9.

18. Study of the extent to which persons in Roman Egypt were named after the father, grandfather, or mother reveals a sizable figure, although, the variation among the two sample groups used is significant; see Deborah Hobson, “Naming Practices in Roman Egypt,” BASP 26 (1989): 165–72.

19. Bagnall, “Onomastic Change,” 117–20.20. In his initial study Bagnall arrived at the figure of 1.5 for this coefficient, which

was later subjected to some criticism by Ewa Wipszycka, “La valeur de l’onomastique,” 173–81. In his response (“Onomastics: A Reply,” 243–50), Bagnall provided a suit-able rebuttal, but it brought up two additional points concerning CPR 5.26, a register from the Hermopolite village of Skar. On the one hand, his brief analysis suggested that, if anything, a higher coefficient was required for the Skar data (perhaps as high as 1.9); on the other hand, the date of the codex was advanced from 388 to 433 as its terminus post quem, with a date after 448 being probable. This would have the effect of lowering the implied rate of Christianization. On the first point, that of the size of the conversion coefficient, since Bagnall seems to settle on 1.4 and 1.7 as the likely extreme bounds, his original figure of 1.5 is tentatively adopted in the present study. On the second point, that of the rate of Christianization, the revised levels pro-vided by him will be used as the points of reference for the fourth and fifth centuries.

is not to say that name change following conversion did not occur,16 but since name usage tends to be rather conservative,17 one should not assume it. Another complication, related to naming conservatism, is the extent to which formal names were ancestral, which may further remove the person at hand from the religious motivation that initially inspired the Christian name.18 However, given Christianity’s dramatic growth in Egypt during the late third century, it is far more likely that persons born into Christianity remained within it than converted away, and the period—the third and fourth centuries at least—is too short to have established an ancestral use of a Christian name. The fifth and sixth centuries are more likely to have seen ancestral Christian names, but by this time most of the population had already converted. More problematic is the use of ostensibly “pagan” names by Christians. Bagnall examines P.Lond. IV and J. M. Diethart’s Propopographia Arsinoitica I (Vienna: 1980), covering the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries c.e., to determine the ratio by which he may need to correct against the Christian use of “pagan” names.19 Both sources point to roughly the same ratio, that about two-thirds of Christians use Chris-tian names, thus requiring multiplication by a coefficient of about 1.5 to arrive at the actual level of Christians.20


21. John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora, From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press, 1996), 78–81; also noted by Bagnall, “Onomastic Change,” 110.

22. Gedaliahu G. Stroumsa, “The Manichaean Challenge to Egyptian Christianity,” in The Roots of Egyptian Christianity, ed. B. A. Pearson and J. E. Goehring, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1986), 312–15. So Serapion of Thmuis, Man. 3.9–14 (ed. R. P. Casey, Serapion of Thmuis, Against the Manichaeans, HTS 15 [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931], 30): ἰδοὺ γὰρ πολλοὶ μέν εἰσιν οἱ προελθόντες καὶ ὧδε κἀκεῖ πλάζονται, ἀντὶ κωδίων τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Χριστοῦ περιβεβλημένοι καὶ λεγόμενοι μὲν ὅ μὴ εἰδὶν, ὄντες δὲ ὃ λέγεσθαι οὐκ ἀνέχονται, ἀλλὰ τὴν οἰκείαν πονηρίαν καλύπτοντες τῷ σχήματι τοῦ ὀνόματος καὶ κοινωνοῦντες μὲν τῷ ὀνόματι, ἄρδην δὲ διαφθεῖραι τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐσπουδακότες κατὰ μὲν τοῦ στρατευ-όμενοι, Ἱησοῦν δὲ ἐπικεκλημένοι. According to Augustine, they considered themselves veri cristiani (Ludwig Koenen, “Augustine and Manichaeism in Light of the Cologne Mani Codex,” ICS 3 [1978]: 163 n. 31–33). Mani was, after all, an apostle of Christ (Koenen, “Augustine and Manichaeism,” 167–76). The high frequency of their invo-cation of Jesus’ name, Christian Scripture, and other features otherwise “Christian” even holds true for Manichaean texts from much further east (I. M. F. Gardner and S. N. C. Lieu, “From Narmouthis (Medinet Madi) to Kellis [Ismant El-Kharab]: Man-ichaean Documents from Roman Egypt,” JRS 86 [1996]: 147).

23. Paul Mirecki et al., “Magical Spell, Manichaean Letter,” in Emerging from Darkness, Studies in the Recovery of Manichaean Sources, ed. Paul Mirecki and Jason BeDuhn, NHS 43 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 1–32; Choat, Belief and Cult, 40.

Another possibility is the use of Christian names by pagans due to the popularity of those names, although, this possibility is largely neutralized when considering two points: (1) naming conservatism would favor pagan names in the third and fourth centuries, and (2) the rapid Christianization of Egypt in the fourth and fifth centuries lends to the probability that, by the time Christian names were sufficiently popular to attract the naming practices of pagans, most pagans would have already been converted.

Two other religious groups must be considered in such an onomastic approach: Jews and Manichaeans. While it is in principle possible that some persons using biblical names could be Jews, one of the advantages of using Egyptian data is that the suppression of the 116–117 c.e. Jewish revolt, dramatically reducing the Jewish population in Egypt, renders this possibility rather unlikely.21 The case of Manichaeans is more problem-atic, since they could pass themselves off as Christians and move within the same social circles,22 not to mention make use of Christian names (e.g. Maria and Matheos, P.Kell.Cop. 19; Paulos, P.Kell.Cop. 42; Petros, P.Kell.Cop. 18). The Manichaean usage of Coptic at Kellis, especially in P.Kell.Cop. 35, which preserves a Coptic incantation imbedded within a letter,23 reveals that Coptic spells, typically assumed to be of and for Christian


24. David Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 258.

25. Mirecki et al., “Magical Spell,” 9–10.26. R. M. Grant, “Manichees and Christians in the Third and Early Fourth Cen-

turies,” in Ex Orbe Religionum, Studia Geo Widengren, Studies in the History of Religions 21 (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 430–39.

circles, were in fact used by Manichaeans as well.24 It is difficult to deter-mine how extensive was the Manichaean role in the use and distribution of magical texts in Egypt. Mani’s traditional prohibition against “magic” seems to have fallen by the wayside, at least by those persons associ-ated with P.Kell.Cop. 35, although they did not themselves compose the incantation.25

There is no simple resolution to the Manichaean question. On the one hand, accusations of Manichaeism among the apologists of the early church often consisted of nothing more than banal name-calling, not unlike the pejorative moniker “gnostic,” and as such the common accusations of Manichaeism should not be taken as evidence of an extensive Manichaean population in Egypt. On the other hand, due to their appropriation of numerous Christian theological points and the use of Christian Scripture, Manichaeans, in a sense, stand within, or at least parallel to, the Chris-tian tradition,26 and it is not clear that they should be eliminated from “Christian” evidence any more than Montanists or the various flavors of “Gnostics.” Nonetheless, for the purposes of this study, all names classi-fied as “Christian” will be assumed to be non-Manichaean on the basis of their Egyptian population likely being an insignificant fraction of the rest.

THE DATA

The majority of texts here utilized has been culled from three highly use-ful collections: F. Maltomini and R. W. Daniel, ed., Supplementum magi-cum, 2 vols. (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990, 1992), hereafter SM; Marvin Meyer and Richard Smith, ed., Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), hereafter ACM; and Karl Preisendanz, ed., Papyri graecae magicae. Die griechischen Zauberpapyri, Vol. 2. (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973), hereafter PGM. In addition to this, Joseph van Haelst, ed., Catalogue des papyrus littéraires juifs et chrétiens (Paris: La Sorbonne, 1976), hereafter CPL, was consulted to fill in any gaps in SM and PGM, since both consciously exclude amulets that consist only of prayers, scriptural citations, or lit-urgy. A total of seventy texts that meet the required criteria have been identified (see Table 1).


Table 1.

No. Text Lang. Cent. Name

1 Musée des Louvre no. 3378 (= PGM XVI)

Gk. 1st Dioskorous of Tikoi

2 T.Heid.Arch.Inst.inv. F 429 a and b (= SM 37)

Gk. 2nd Paitoutos of Tmesios

3 T.Genav.inv. 269 (= SM 38) Gk. 2nd Ammonion of Hermitaris

4 P.Hawara 312 (= PGM XXXII)

Gk. 2nd Herais of Thermoutharin

5 T.Cairo Mus. JdE 48217 (= SM 46)

Gk. 2nd–3rd Posidonios of Thsenoubasthis

6 T.Louvre inv. E 27145 (= SM 47)

Gk. 2nd–3rd Sarapammon of Area

7 P.Mich.inv. 6925 (= SM 48) Gk. 2nd–3rd Ailourion of Kopria

8 T.Köln inv. 1 (= SM 49) Gk. 2nd–3rd Theodoros of Techosis

9 T.Köln inv. 2 (= SM 50) Gk. 2nd–3rd Theodoros

10 O.Köln inv. 409 (= SM 51) Gk. 2nd–3rd Theodoros

11 Audollent, DT, 38 (= SM 54) Gk. 2nd–3rd Ionikos

12 Ashmol.Mus. (= PGM XXXIIa)

Gk. 2nd–3rd Serapiakos of Threpte

13 P.Cair. 60636 (= PGM LXVIII)

Gk. 2nd–3rd Eriea of Ercheelio

14 P.Mich.inv. 6666 (= SM 3) Gk. 3rd Helene

15 PUG 1.6 (= SM 4; PGM CIV) Gk. 3rd Althea

16 P.Oxy. 42.3068 (= SM 5) Gk. 3rd Sarmates

17 P.Köln inv. 1982 (= SM 7) Gk. 3rd Artemidora

18 T.Berol.inv. 13412 (= SM 39) Gk. 3rd Ptolemaios of Thaseis

19 P.Princ. 2.76 (= SM 40) Gk. 3rd Ptolemaios of Didyme

20 P.Teb. 2.275 (= PGM XXXIII)

Gk. 3rd Tais of Taraus

21 P.Alex.inv. 491 (= PGM XV) Gk. 3rd Capitolina of Peperous

22 Leipzig, U. B. P.gr. 9.418 (= PGM LI)

Gk. 3rd Neilammon of Tereus

23 T.Leid. Demarée (= SM 41) Gk. 3rd–4th Zoel of Droser

24 PSI 1.28 (= SM 42) Gk. 3rd–4th Sophia of Isara

25 P.Haun. 3.50 (= SM 8) Gk. 3rd–4th Aurelius Isidoros of Tausiris

26 P.Michael. 27 (= SM 9; PGM XCI)

Gk. 3rd–4th Techosis

27 P.Berol.inv. 21165 (= SM 10; PGM CVI)

Gk. 3rd–4th Touthous of Sara

Continued on p. 40


28 P.Princ. 3.159 (= SM 11) Gk. 3rd–4th Dias of Sophia

29 P.Gaál (= SM 12; PGM CXV) Gk. 3rd–4th Ammon

30 P.Köln inv. 5512 (= SM 44; PGM CVII)

Gk. 3rd–4th Achillas of Helene

31 T.Moen. s.n. (= SM 66) Gk. 3rd–4th Alexandros of Didyme

32 Institut français d’archéologie orientale, Cairo (= ACM 29)

Gk. 4th Mesa

33 P.Oxy. 6.924 (= ACM 15; PGM 5a)

Gk. 4th Aria

34 P.Reinach 2.88 (= SM 57) Gk. 4th Origen of Ioulle/Theodora

35 P.Köln inv. 5514 (= SM 43) Gk. 4th Dioskouros of Thecla

36 P.Lund 4.12 (= SM 13) Gk. 4th Sophia/Priscilla

37 P.Erl. 15 (= SM 14) Gk. 4th John

38 Staatliche Sammlung Ägyp-tischer Kunst, München, inv. ÄS 6791–6793 (= SB 14664)

Gk. 4th Priskos of Annous

39 P.Duk.inv. 230 (= SB 16650) Gk. 4th Didymon of Tepiam

40 Bibliothèque universitaire et régionale, Strasbourg, P.gr. 1167 (= PGM XVIIa)

Gk. 4th Hermeias of Hermione

41 P.Osl. 1.4 (= PGM XXXIX) Gk. 4th Allous of Alexandria

42 Nationalbibliothek, Vienna P.gr. 1 (= PGM XL)

Gk. 4th Artemisie of Amasis

43 P.Erl. 37 (= PGM LXXXVII) Gk. 4th John

44 Rémondon, “Un papyrus magique copte” BIFAO 52 (1953): 157–61 (= ACM 100)

Copt. 4th–5th Maria

45 Barry, “Deux documents concernant l’archéologie chrétienne,” BIFAO 6 (1908): 61–63 (= ACM 101)

Copt. 4th–5th Jacob

46 P.Köln inv. 2861 (= SM 20; PGM C; CPL 902)

Gk. 4th–5th Thaes

47 P.Köln 4.257 (= SM 21) Gk. 4th–5th Tiron of Palladia

48 P.Amst. 1.26 (= SM 22) Gk. 4th–5th Eremega of Anilla

49 P.Amst. 173 (= ACM 12; CPL 849)

Gk. 4th–5th Megas of D.

50 P.Berol.inv. 9909 (= PGM XIXa)

Gk. 4th–5th Apalos of Theonilla

Table 1 (continued).


Continued on p. 41


27. One such example is BGU 3.956 (= PGM XVIIIb, third-fifth cent.), whose original was lost in a fire so further examination is impossible (see PGM 2:140). The number of other texts whose dating is surrounded by too much uncertainty is too great to mention here.

51 P.Oxy. 12.1478 (= PGM XXVII)

Gk. 4th–5th Sarapammon of Apollonius

52 P.Mich.inv. 1523 (= ACM 108)

Copt. 4th–5th Theodora

53 P.Lugd.Bat. 25.9 (= SM 18) Gk. 5th Anatolios

54 P.Haun. 3.51 (= SM 23) Gk. 5th Kale

55 P.Prag. 1.6 (= SM 25) Gk. 5th Gennatia

56 P.Berol.inv. 21911 (= SM 26) Gk. 5th Phoibammon of Athanasios

57 P.Heid.inv. G 1386 (= SM 28) Gk. 5th John of Zoe

58 P.Köln inv. 3323 (= SM 45; PGM CI)

Gk. 5th Theon of Proechia

59 P.Oxy. 8.1151 (= ACM 16; PGM 5b)

Gk. 5th Ioannia

60 P.Rain. 9 (= PGM XLIII) Gk. 5th Sophia of Theoneilla

61 PSI 1.29 (= PGM XXXV) Gk. 5th Paulus Julianus

62 P.Princ. 2.107 (= SM 29) Gk. 5th–6th Taiolles of Isidoros

63 P.Köln inv. 851 (= SM 34) Gk. 6th Joseph

64 P.Lugd.Bat. 19.20 (= SM 35) Gk. 6th Vibius of Gennaia

65 P.Ups. 8 (= SM 59) Gk. 6th Sabinus

66 P.Hamb. 1.22a (= SM 60) Gk. 6th Sabinus

67 BGU 3.954 (= PGM 9; ACM 18; CPL 720)

Gk. 6th Silvanus of Serapion

68 Ashm. 1981.940 (= ACM 84) Copt. 6th Papapolo of Noe

69 P.Mich.inv. 3565 (= ACM 104)

Copt. 6th Apa Victor of Phibamon

70 P.IFAO 3.50 (= SM 19) Gk. 6th Amatis of Adone

The chronological cutoff point is the sixth century c.e. (inclusive) so as to limit the scope of investigation to Christian Egypt. Because of this dating requirement, some texts of likely Egyptian provenance but of insufficiently certain or unknown date27 have been eliminated from the data set. For the rest, the dates provided in PGM, SM, ACM, or CPL are

Table 1 (continued).



28. When love charms take on the form of binding spells they are, essentially, curses as well. Horoscopes and oracles are excluded.

29. The term εὐχή, “prayer,” is often used among the magical papyri, as in the εὐχή πρὸς Σελήνην, “prayer to Selene,” in PGM IV.2785, which takes on the traditional tripartite form of Greek religious prayers; see Fritz Graf, “Prayer in Magic and Reli-gious Ritual,” in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, ed. Christopher A. Faraone (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 189–90.

followed, with preference generally given to the most recent edition. In sum, the data set consists of all applied magical texts from Egypt known to the author that both contain the name of the end-user and are datable to the first six centuries c.e.

A significant challenge arises when one is tasked with distinguishing between “magical” and devotional texts. This speaks more generally to the problem of “magic” versus “religion.” There is no reason at this point to entertain any essentialist distinction between the two as post-Frazerian research has largely exploded that approach. However, there is a recogni-tion that certain uses of texts lend themselves the classification of “magic,” which is to say, it is not the content but the function of the text that should be considered. The functions here considered as “magical” are amulets, love charms, and curses.28 Of these three, the identification of amulets can be somewhat elusive. Scriptural quotations or a doxological formula have more than one function, but when the material on which they are written indicates that it was carried about (such as a folded papyrus), and the text itself is discontinuous, indicating that the fragment is not part of a larger literary work, then the amuletic function becomes clear. Prayers, often considered squarely outside of “magic,” are no different.29 When a prayer is written down and carried about, it is likely being used as an amulet.

As it stands, the data set is quite small when compared to the hundreds of name used by Bagnall for his study. This will significantly reduce the reliability and force of any statistical conclusions here made, and as such, any numerical values derived should only be considered as rough indica-tors and not precise values.

Who are the Christians?

When the five Christian name categories are applied to the names in Table 1, one arrives at the following list of likely Christian users and their texts (Table 2). Two points should be noted: (1) one triplet and one pair (nos. 8–10 and 65–66) share the same end-user and so have each been combined into a single entry, and (2) nos. 51 and 55 are asterisked indi-cating that upon closer examination the end-user should be removed from consideration as a Christian.


Table 2. Applied Magical Texts from Egypt of Christian Authorship

No. Cent. Name Category

8–10 2nd–3rd Theodoros of Techosis 2

23 3rd–4th Zoel of Droser 2, ζοήλ, probably from ζοὸς ηλ or ζῶν ηλ, “living god,” reflecting phrases like Deut 5.26: θεοῦ ζῶντος (Hb. אלהים חיים), Jos 3.10: θεὸς ζῶν (Hb. אל חי), Matt 16.16: τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ζῶντος, and 2 Cor 3.3: θεοῦ ζῶντος.

24 3rd–4th Sophia of Isara 4

27 3rd–4th Touthous of Sara 1 (mother)

28 3rd–4th Dias of Sophia 4 (mother)

34 4th Horigenes of Ioulle/Theodora

On lines 42–43 of the text, the mother’s double name Ἰούλλη (Lat. Julia?) ἡ καὶ Θεοδώρα presents a problem. Only the second name, Θεοδώρα (category 2) is Christian. Was this the given name or the adopted name? While one might pre-sume the second name to be the adopted one, as in Acts 13.9 (Σαῦλος δὲ ὁ καὶ Παῦλος), notice the switch in the order of Ἀθανάσιος and Φιλάδελφος between P.Sakaon 11.3–4 and 12.7.30 While Ori-gen (᾽Ωριγένης) does not fit into one of Bagnall’s categories, he was one of the most famous Christian theologians from Egypt in the third century, which bet-ter fits the scenario of Θεοδώρα being the adopted name following conversion and naming her son after the famous theologian.

35 4th Dioskouros of Thecla 5 (mother), the earliest reference to Thecla being in the late second century, Tertullian, Bapt. 17.

36 4th Sophia/Priscilla 4/1, while the names are perfectly Chris-tian names, Sophia is qualified by the term of endearment τῆς μεικρᾶς, strongly suggesting the amulet was not requested by Sophia but on her behalf. However, it is hardly likely that “little Sophia” should be Christian and her parents, the likely acquirers of the amulet, not.

30. For further discussion of Aurelius Philadelphos/Athanasius, see Horsley, “Name Change,” 4–5, and the import of by-names for conversion in general, 2–8. On the sociological import of by-names, see Hobson, “Naming Practices,” 169–71.

Continued on p. 44


37 4th John 1

38 4th Priskos of Annous 5, Πρίσκος after one of several possible martyrs, or masc. version of biblical Prisca (Rom 16.3, 1 Cor 16.19, 2 Tim 4.19).

43 4th John 1

44 4th–5th Maria 1, evidenced in Christian contexts from the late third century onward; see I. Gardner, A. Nobbs, and M. Choat, “P.Harr. 107: Is this Another Greek Manichaean Letter?,” ZPE 131 (2000): 120 n. 15 and 16.

45 4th–5th Jacob 1

51* 4th–5th Sarapammon of Apollonius

5 (father), Ἀπολλώνειος, possibly after St. Apollonius (martyred 185 c.e.); Sara-pammon unlikely Christian name, but see Bishop Serapammon in Athanasius, Hist. Arian. 2.12 (written 357/8 c.e.).31 Altogether, identification as a Christian name too uncertain.

52 4th–5th Theodora 4

55* 5th Gennatia 5, Γεννατία (var. of Γενναδία, see P.Strasb. 3.148.4) possibly after St. Gennadius I of the same century, a name admitted by Bagnall for category 5,32 unfortunately, the attestation of the name prior to the fifth century (e.g. P.Oxy. 12.1431.2, 352 c.e.; P.Cair.Goodsp. 15.2, 362 c.e.) and uncertainty about whether P.Prag. 1.6 post-dates St. Gennadios I, renders identification of Gennatia as a Christian name too uncertain.

56 5th Phoibammon of Athanasios

5/5, Φοιβάμμωνος υἱοῦ Ἀθανασίου, after St. Phoibammon, a third century martyr, and St. Athanasius, fourth century.

57 5th John of Zoe 1/1 (ζωή = Eve, Gen 3.20).

59 5th Ioannia 1

60 5th Sophia of Theoneilla 4

Table 2 (continued). Applied Magical Texts from Egypt of Christian Authorship


Continued on p. 45

31. trans. Henry Wace and Philip Schaff, NPNF2 4:266–67.32. Bagnall, “Onomastic Change,” 111.


33. Bagnall, “Onomastic Change,” 120–24, especially his table on 120.34. See discussion in n. 22 above.

Table 2 (continued). Applied Magical Texts from Egypt of Christian Authorship


61 5th Paulus Julianus 1

63 6th Joseph 1

65–66 6th Sabinus 5, Σαβεῖνος, after St. Sabinus of the third century (d. 304 c.e.).

67 6th Silvanus of Serapion 5/5, Σιλουανός, after St. Silvanus, mar-tyred 150 c.e.; St. Serapion martyred 3rd cent.

69 6th Apa Victor of Phibamon

5/5, apa biktwr, after St. Victor (Pope), late second-century, or St. Victor Maurus, martyred 303 c.e.; cf. St. Victor invoked in no. 59. For the name fibamwn see no. 56.

With such a small data set it would be reassuring to know whether its distribution is at all consistent with Bagnall’s findings on the rate of Christianization. A significant divergence may signal some type of sam-pling bias that would undermine any possible chronological arguments based on it. Because the data set’s resolution is fairly coarse (many texts are dated within a range of one to two centuries), the texts are grouped by two-century intervals that overlap by one century each. Texts that share the same end-user (nos. 6–8 and 65–66) are counted as a single entry.

When the results of Table 3 are compared to those arrived at by Bag-nall,33 they are found to be generally consistent. The first interval indicates a Christian population of 14%, which is consistent with an estimate of up to 13% suggested by Bagnall’s data. The next three intervals suggest a rapid growth of up to four-fifths of the population (cf. Bagnall’s revised rates of 18% [313 c.e.], 50% [393 c.e.] and 78% [428 c.e.]).34 Finally, the fifth interval suggests a very high level of conversion, which is roughly consistent with Bagnall’s extrapolation of about 95% by 525 c.e. Alto-gether, it can be observed that the data set provides an adequate basis for some general chronological insights into Christian use of magical texts from the second to sixth centuries.


35. P. Maltomini, “Cristo all’Eufrate, P.Heid.G.1101: amuleto cristiano,” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 48 (1982): 150 n. 3.

36. Typically crosses accompany other Christian indicators, although, one text, P.Laur. 3.58 (= SM 1), in which three crosses are the only indicator, and which the SM editors classified as pagan, has been treated here as Christian.

37. Two exceptions are nos. 52 and 69, where invocation of the holy martyrs and the use of “Amen,” respectively, define the content as Christian.

Which are the Christian Texts?

Determining whether a magical text is “Christian” or not can be an exer-cise in arbitrary judgment.35 What will be meant by “Christian” here is any mention of Jesus (Christ) or other prominent New Testament figures, quoting of or reference to the New Testament or Christian Apocrypha in general, doctrinal or liturgical statements such as Trinitarian doxologies and the trisagion, and the presence of manifestly Christian symbols such as crosses,36 christograms,37 and the like. Some of these texts are limited to such Christian references while others invoke alongside them a diverse array of other supernatural forces and formulas. What is intended by the above denotative definition of “Christian” is to identify any text that at least partially draws on Christian names, ideas, or symbols to establish or bolster the efficacy of the intended magic. This category of texts will hereafter be simply referred to as “Christian magic” with the understand-ing that it can indicate a wide range of possibilities for the nature of those traditions in contact with (or participating in) Christianity.

Nomina sacra have not been included among the indicators despite their prima facie importance. As an orthographic convention they only necessarily reveal something about the pious inclinations of the scribe

Table 3. Chronological Distribution of Applied Magical Texts with Names

Century 1st, 2nd, or 2nd–3rd

3rd or 3rd–4th

4th or 4th–5th

5th or 5th–6th

6th

Nos. (Christian Name)

8–10 23, 24, 27, 28

34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 44, 45, 52

56, 57, 59, 60, 61

63, 65–66, 67, 69

Nos. (non- Christian Name)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11, 12, 13

14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 29, 31

32, 33, 39, 40, 41, 42, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51

53, 54, 55, 58, 62

64, 68, 70

Ratio 1/11 4/16 9/21 5/9 4/7

Ratio x 1.5 0.14 0.38 0.64 0.83 0.86


38. Robert W. Daniel, The Two Greek Magical Papyri in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden: A Photographic Edition of J 384 and J 395 (= PGM XII and XIII), PapColon 19 (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1991), 34.

39. Notice the separate classification of “gnostic” in SM 1:78 and CPL 331–34.

and not necessarily the content he is employing. To a certain extent, the distinction is problematic since the visual presentation of a magical text was often an integral element of its efficacy and, of course, if a nomen sacrum is presented in a visually exceptional manner that suggests a sig-nificance beyond its orthographic import, it should certainly be classified as a “Christian symbol.” However, as is attested in many documentary texts, nomina sacra often had little if any significance beyond mere ortho-graphic convention. The problem is then in deciding whether the scribe intended the nomen sacrum to convey a certain efficacy to the text or was simply participating in an orthographic convention. The dilemma is not as serious as it may at first appear since in many instances there is an obvi-ous Christian referent (Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and so on); however, some nomina sacra, like Θ ˇΣ ˇ (= θεός) and ΚˇΥ ˇ (= κύριος), may be ambiguous in the absence of any other indicators. In some cases the nomen sacrum is downright incongruent. In PGM XIII, the so-called Eighth Book of Moses, lines 76b–77 read: ἐπικαλοῦμαί, σε, κῡ (= κύριε), ὡς οἱ ὑπό σου θεοὶ φανέντες, ἵνα δύναμιν ἐχω ˇς ˇ (= ἔχωσιν),38 “I call upon you, Lord, as the gods appear-ing below you, so that they may have power.” The polytheistic context is particularly incongruent with a “Christian” nomen sacrum, especially in a text that altogether betrays no Christian influence (there is one more nomen sacrum, also for κύριος, on line 742). However, the manuscript is riddled with various types of abbreviations (as the ἐχω ˇς ˇ in the same line attests) such that one must seriously consider the probability that the use of the two nomina sacra simply may have been a consequence of the copyist employing whatever practical means available from the scribal toolkit of the fourth century to economize his task as he felt appropriate. The upshot of this is that the formal presence of nomina sacra does not necessarily indicate anything particularly “Christian” about the expected magical efficacy of the text.

In order not to hamper the utility of Table 4 with information over-load, comments about content will be limited to only a few words, with more detailed discussion following. It should be noted that the dubious category of “gnostic” is not considered useful for such an exercise and as such has been avoided, despite some temptations of prior editors.39 The “Name” column in Table 4 comprises of the conclusions from Table 3. The “Content” column categorizes defixiones into three types: 1) direct


Table 4. Content Summary of Applied Magical Texts with Names

No. Cent. Name Content (C = Christian, N = non-Christian)

1 1st N defixio (2); love; voces magicae

2 2nd N defixio (2); love

3 2nd N defixio (2); love

4 2nd N defixio (2); love; voces magicae

5 2nd–3rd N defixio (2); love; voces magicae



8–10 2nd–3rd Christian N defixio (2); love; voces magicae

11 2nd–3rd N defixio (2); curse (love?); voces magicae

12 2nd–3rd N defixio (2, 3); love; voces magicae

13 2nd–3rd N defixio (2, 3); love

14 3rd N amulet; fever; voces magicae


16 3rd N note about amulet for tonsillitis

17 3rd N amulet

18 3rd N defixio (2); love; voces magicae

19 3rd N defixio (2); love; voces magicae


21 3rd N defixio (1, 2); love, voces magicae

22 3rd N defixio (2); curse

23 3rd–4th Christian N defixio (2); love; voces magicae

24 3rd–4th Christian N defixio (2); love; voces magicae

25 3rd–4th N amulet

26 3rd–4th N amulet; fever; voces magicae

27 3rd–4th Christian N amulet; fever; voces magicae

28 3rd–4th Christian N amulet; fever; voces magicae; characteres

29 3rd–4th N amulet; fever; voces magicae

30 3rd–4th N defixio (2); love; voces magicae; characteres

31 3rd–4th N necromancy; voces magicae; characteres

32 4th C defixio (2); curse

33 4th C amulet; fever; vowels, Abrasax

34 4th Christian N defixio (2); anger; voces magicae

35 4th Christian N defixio (2); love; voces magicae; characteres

36 4th Christian N amulet; voces magicae

37 4th Christian N amulet; fever; voces magicae

Continued on p. 49


38 4th Christian N defixio (2); love; voces magicae

39 4th N defixio (2); love; voces magicae

40 4th N defixio (2); love; voces magicae; characteres


42 4th N defixio (2); curse

43 4th Christian N amulet; voces magicae

44 4th–5th Christian C defixio (2); curse; Michael, Gabriel, Souleel

45 4th–5th Christian C defixio (2); curse; Michael, Gabriel, Souleel

46 4th–5th C amulet; vowels; voces magicae; characteres

47 4th–5th C amulet; fever; characteres

48 4th–5th C amulet; fever

49 4th–5th C amulet; fever

50 4th–5th N defixio (2); love; voces magicae

51 4th–5th N amulet; victory; voces magicae

52 4th–5th Christian C defixio (2); curse; prayer for justice

53 5th N amulet; fever; voces magicae

54 5th C amulet; fever; characteres

55 5th C amulet; fever; flee formula; Sabaoth

56 5th Christian C amulet; eyes

57 5th Christian C amulet; fever; voces magicae


59 5th Christian C amulet; fever; flee formula

60 5th Christian N amulet; fever; voces magicae

61 5th Christian N defixio (2); favor and victory; voces magicae; many Jewish elements

62 5th–6th C amulet; fever; voces magicae

63 6th Christian C amulet; fever; voces magicae; wolf flee formula

64 6th C amulet; fever

65–66 6th Christian C defixio (2); curse

67 6th Christian C amulet


69 6th Christian C defixio (2); love; vowels, Sabaoth

70 6th N amulet; fever; voces magicae

Table 4 (continued). Content Summary of Applied Magical Texts with Names

No. Cent. Name Content (C = Christian, N = non-Christian)


40. John G. Gager, Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 13.

binding formula without reference to divine assistance, 2) invocation of divine assistance to bind the person, and 3) persuasive analogies.40

At first blush our assumed sample bias against curses would seem not to be reflected in the data since a large number of defixiones appear, but it will be quickly noticed that virtually all of these are amatory in nature, whose form requires the mention of the end-user. This point will become especially relevant in the following discussion.

Who is Using What?

Two general patterns can be immediately discerned in Table 4. First, up until just before the fourth century turned into the fifth (before no. 44), all eleven Christian names are associated exclusively with non-Christian magic, after which there is a reversal and the remaining ten become associ-ated exclusively with Christian magic. This reversal is associated with the upsurge in Christian magic in general, with only two exceptions existing prior to no. 44, namely, nos. 32 and 33. In addition, many non-Christian names begin to be associated with Christian magic as well, although, some of these may well be Christians. Second, in conjunction with the above trend reversal an upsurge in the use of amulets can be observed. The data is summarized in Table 5 (the two groups nos. 8–10 and 65–66, where a single individual accounts for multiple spells, are treated as single entries for the “Content” and “Name” columns).

Table 5. Distribution of Applied Magical Texts against Content, Names, and Chronology

Content Name Chronology

1 2 3 4 5 6

ChristianNon-

Christian ChristianNon-

ChristianNos. 1–43

Nos. 44–70

Amulets 14 (70%) 17 (35%) 11 (48%) 20 (45%) 14 (34%) 17 (63%)

Amatory defixiones 1 (5%) 23 (50%) 6 (26%) 18 (42%) 21 (51%) 4 (15%)

Non-Amatory defixiones 5 (25%) 7 (15%) 6 (26%) 6 (13%) 6 (15%) 6 (22%)


41. For amatory binding spells, assuming an expected average of 34% if there were no difference between Christian and non-Christian name groups, we calculate χ2 = ((26 – 34)2/34) + ((42 – 34)2/34) = 3.76, which is less than the expected value of 3.842 for p = 0.05. For non-amatory binding spells, the corresponding calculation is χ2 = ((26 – 19.5)2/19.5) + ((13 – 19.5)2/19.5) = 4.3, which just barely exceeds the value for p = 0.05.

At this point the caveats raised earlier must be dealt with. Since our data set required the presence of the name of the user, non-amatory binding spells should be expected to be underrepresented, while amatory binding spells overrepresented. Likewise, since many amulets typically did not have any name, the rate of amulets may be underrepresented. As a result, the percentages in each column do not reflect the true rates of use. This affects both inner-columnar (i.e. comparison of spell types down each column) and intra-columnar (i.e. comparison along the rows among the “Content,” “Name,” and “Chronology” columns) comparison of percentages. Fortu-nately, for the “Name” columns the observed distribution percentages are such that they somewhat mitigate the above difficulty for intra-columnar comparison. For the amulets category the percentages are nearly the same (48% and 45%). In the case of amatory binding spells some difference is observed, however, it is not statistically significant: the calculated c2 value does not exceed the expected value for p = 0.05.41 This is important since whatever the magnitude of the sampling bias discussed above, both col-umns will be affected in nearly the same way. As a result, one can come to the first firm conclusion: Christian and non-Christian names are asso-ciated with a very similar rate of use for all three spell types, especially amulets. Stated a bit more strongly, Christians use amulets equally as much as non-Christians, and vary insignificantly in their use of binding spells.

In the case of the “Content” and “Chronology” columns, an equally striking pattern exists. Columns 1 and 6 versus columns 2 and 5 bear significant resemblance, which is to say, the earlier chronological group (nos. 1–43) resembles non-Christian content and the later chronological group (nos. 44–70) resembles Christian content. However, it is not clear whether the differences within each category (“Content” and “Chronol-ogy”), that is, between columns 1 and 2 and then again between 5 and 6, are statistically significant, since the sampling bias will differentially affect each column (e.g., if amatory binding spells are overrepresented and all of that overrepresentation falls into columns 2 and 5, then the amulet and non-amatory binding spell percentages for those columns will be signifi-cantly affected while those of columns 1 and 6 will not). To help correct the percentages, PGM, SM, ACM, and CPL were consulted for applied


42. PGM: XVIIb, XIXa, XXI, XXVIIIa–c, XXXIII, LIX, LXIV, LXXXIX, XCIX, CV, CIX, CXII, CXIII; 1, 3, 6a–c, 7, 8a–b, 13, 15a, c, 16–19, 24; SM: 1, 2, 24, 27, 30–32, 36, 52, 53, 55, 58, 61, 62, 64, 65, 92; ACM: 13, 14, 20, 21, 23–28, 90, 103; CPL: 84, 93, 160, 183, 198, 222, 341, 345, 347, 423, 482, 591, 727, 850, 881, 893, 899, 911, 952, 976, 984, 1019, 1058–59. Naturally, these four collections overlap to some extent; priority was given to the collections in the above order in terms of how a text present in multiple catalogues should be referenced. So, when ACM reprints a text already printed in PGM, the text is here listed as PGM. Likewise for texts described in CPL but also printed in PGM, SM, or ACM.

43. For amulets, assuming an expected average of 66% if there were no differ-ence between Christian and non-Christian content groups, we calculate χ2 = ((84 – 65.5)2/65.5) + ((47 – 65.5)2/65.5) = 10.45, which is greater than the expected value of 3.842 for p = 0.05 and 6.635 for p = 0.01. For amatory binding spells, the cor-responding calculation is χ2 = ((1 – 18.5)2/18.5) + ((36 – 18.5)2/18.5) = 33.11, which likewise exceeds values for both p = 0.05 and p = 0.01.

magical texts datable to the relevant time period (first to sixth centuries) and that omit the name of the user, with the expectation that their addi-tion to the above sums will help compensate for the sampling bias. A total of eighty-five texts were identified.42 Table 6 above combines these texts with the values from Table 5.

The striking correspondences between columns 1 and 6 and then again between columns 2 and 5 already observed in Table 5 have been retained as well as the notable differences within each category (“Content” and “Chronology”). For the “Content” category, the calculated χ2 values for both the difference in amulet use and difference in amatory binding spell use exceed the expected values for not only p = 0.05 but even p = 0.01, which is to say that there is less than a 1% chance that the observed gap in percentages would obtain randomly.43 The differences observed among corresponding values for the “Chronology” category are likewise statis-

Table 6. Distribution of Applied Magical Texts with and without Names against Content and Chronology

Content Chronology

Christian Non-Christian 1st–4th Cent. 4th/5th+ Cent.

Amulets 69 (84%) 34 (48%) 36 (52%) 68 (80%)

Amatorydefixiones 1 (1%) 25 (35%) 23 (33%) 3 (3%)

Non-amatory defixiones 12 (15%) 12 (17%) 10 (15%) 14 (17%)


44. For amulets, assuming an expected average of 65% if there were no differ-ence between the period down to the cusp of the fourth-fifth century and the remain-ing period down to the sixth century, we calculate χ2 = ((52 – 65.5)2/65.5) + ((79 – 65.5)2/65.5) = 5.56, which is greater than the expected value of 3.842 for p = 0.05. For amatory binding spells, the corresponding calculation is χ2 = ((33 – 19)2/19) + ((5 – 19)2/19) = 20.63, which exceeds values for both p = 0.05 and p = 0.01.

45. Construal of love magic as harmful is already seen in the second-century trial of Apuleius, who was accused of magically seducing a woman.

46. C. Th. 9.16.3.1–3 (ed. Theodor Mommsen et al., Theodosiani libri XVI cum Constitutionibus Sirmondianis et leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes [Berlin: Weidmann, 1905], 1:460): Eorum est scientia punienda et severissimis merito legi-bus vindicanda, qui magicis adcincti artibus aut contra hominum moliti salutem aut pudicos ad libidinem deflexisse animos detegentur.

tically significant, with the difference in amulets exceeding p = 0.05 and the difference in amatory binding spells exceeding p = 0.01.44 Thus, the next three firm conclusions can be reached: (1) Christian content is more associated with amulet use and less associated with amatory binding spells than non-Christian content; (2) after the fourth-fifth century cusp amulets became much more widely used and amatory binding spells much less; con-sequently, (3) an increase in the use of Christian content is correlated with an increase in amulet use and decrease in the use of amatory binding spells.

TOWARDS A SOLUTION: THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF MAGIC

A driving force behind the observed changes is, no doubt, the dramatic change in the supernatural landscape of Egypt. Certainly one of the char-acteristics of magic and magicians was that they should want to corrupt women, which is to say, make use of love magic (Eusebius, D. e. 3.6), but it would be hardly credible to suggest that people should stop wanting to seduce each other in the pursuit of sex, love, appropriation of property, or some combination of the above simply because certain church leaders saw it to be morally reprehensible; furthermore, the data of columns 3 and 4 in Table 5 does not support it. The transformation we find reflected in the textual data of the fourth and fifth centuries, then, is not moral but technical: the tools began to be used differently.

In terms of explanatory force, legal proscription may, at first blush, seem like a compelling cause and the Theodosian Code’s condemnation of harmful magic, under which love magic would have certainly fallen,45 fits the chronology nicely.46 Its exception for protective magic would allow for


47. C. Th. 9.16.3.3–5 (Mommsen et al. 1:460): Nullis vero criminationibus impli-canda sunt remedia humanis quaesita corporibus aut in agrestibus locis, ne maturis vindemiis metuerentur imbres aut ruentis grandinis lapidatione quaterentur.

48. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World, 146–47; James B. Rives, “Magic in Roman Law: The Reconstruction of a Crime,” Classical Antiquity 22 (2003): 322–28.

49. Which is not to say that other accusations of magic cannot be found in a sec-ondary place among other charges, often concerning that of conspiracy against the emperor, murder, or adultery; for a list of such cases from Tacitus, see J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 133–35. For brief discussion see Peter Garnsey, Social Status and Legal Privi-lege in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 109–11.

50. Dickie, Magic and Magicians, 150.51. ed. and trans. John C. Rolfe, Ammianus Marcellinus. History, Volume I Books

14–19, LCL 300 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 232.

why amulets became much more popular.47 Unfortunately, the argument quickly stumbles when one considers that the Theodosian Code (= C. Th.) does not reflect the first attempt to control harmful magical practices. On the one hand, the Twelve Tables (§8.1b) already outlawed both supernat-ural theft of crops and harmful incantations. On the other hand, C. Th. itself incorporates earlier legislation such as the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficiis (= Pauli Sententiae 5.23), passed in 81 b.c.e., which was the likely law under which Numantina (23/24 c.e.) and Apuleius (158/59 c.e.) were prosecuted,48 and which was later expanded into C. Th. 9.14–17. So, simply the presence of such laws does not mean anything should have changed. Indeed, prosecution seems to have been rather lax, as the above two are the only known trials specifically for magic in this period under the aforementioned lex.49

There are some indications that things changed in the fourth century. In the horoscopes recorded in the Mathesis of Firmicus Maternus, there are seven occasions on which he “cites nativities that will give rise either to a condemnation for sorcery or a related offense or to the danger of being charged with such an offense.”50 People would not be concerned about such things if there were no prosecution for them. On the other side of the Mediterranean, Ammianus Marcellinus (res Gest. 16.8.2) writes that under Constantius:

nam si super occentu soricis vel occursu mustelae, vel similis signi gratia consuluisset quisquam peritum, aut anile incantamentum ad leniendum adhibuisset dolorem, quod medicinae quoque admittit auctoritas, reus unde non poterat opinari, delatus, raptusque in iudicium, poenaliter interibat.51

For if anyone consulted a soothsayer about the squeaking of a shrew-mouse, the meeting with a weasel on the way, or any like portent, or used


52. LCL 300:233.53. Valerie Flint, “The Demonization of Sorcery and Magic in Late Antiquity:

Christian Redefinitions of Pagan Religions,” in Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 322–24.

some old wife’s charm to relieve pain (a thing which even medical authority allows), he was indicted (from what source he could not guess), was haled into court, and suffered death as the penalty.52

Another incident under Constantius brings matters closer to Egypt, when informers brought to his attention oracles of Besa from the Thebaid, which prompted him to send Paulus and Modestus to the East, but the locus of the imperial response ended up being Scythopolis in Palestine (19.12.3–8). Under Valens, Ammianus reports that incantamenta and amatoria were used to frame victims and send them to death (29.2.3). As for Firmicus, he operated in Rome and insofar as his horoscopes offer some indirect evidence for fear of the law it should not be assumed to apply under the same conditions outside of Italy. Altogether, such incidents do not help account for the data. They not only were limited in scope in terms of time and place but also tended to apply to all types of magic.

Aside from such imperial excesses, how such matters should be handled in the provinces was far from uniform and according to the whims of the governor. For Egypt there seems to have been little official concern with “magic”—the documentary record is resoundingly quiet on the subject. P.Yale inv. 299 (198/99 c.e.) offers one instance of the prefect of Egypt being concerned with magic—divination in this case—but divination could have repercussions for the government if the divined future spoke ill of the fate of particular officials.

All of the above, of course, took place before C. Th. was promulgated in the fifth century, but seeing both how uncertain and uneven the effects of imperial law were prior to it, and to what extent consequences for the practice of magic seemed to be tied to the whim of particular imperial per-sonalities, one should be quite cautious in attributing the transformation of the practice of magic to the C. Th., the earlier rulings it encompassed or any other legal proscription.

Ironically, the church, at the forefront of demonizing “magic,” was more lenient to its practice, both formally and informally. By demonizing the spiritual forces behind magic it opened an avenue for new conversions by exculpating the sorcerer-victims of personal guilt, since they had been the victims of demonic forces, allowing the practitioners to be assimilated rather than destroyed.53 Indicative of this trend is Macedonius’s exorcism


54. Theodoret, H. rel. 8.55. Flint, “The Demonization of Sorcery,” 303.56. See entry for apa in W. E. Crum, A Coptic Dictionary (Eugene, OR: Wipf and

Stock Publishers, 2005 [1939]), 13.57. Chadwick, Origen, 10.58. Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt, 209–14.59. Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt, 214–17.60. The latter aspect—salvation—may also account for the slightly higher interest

in non-amatory binding spells among Christians (nos. 34, 44, 45, 52, 61, 64–65), since most of these (nos. 34, 52, 64–65) are concerned with revenge for some wrongs inflicted, that is to say, salvation from injustice; however, with the limited sample size, this can only remain as an interesting suggestion.

of a girl who had been bewitched by a love-spell. Although, he exorcizes the demon he does not allow the sorcerer to be legally implicated in the crime but rather opts to convert him.54

Christian attitude during the apostolic period was, of course, not so measured, but with time began to soften.55 Such leniency was perhaps in part conditioned by unofficial priestly involvement in magical practices, indicated by the condemnation of such involvement at the Council of Laodicea (canon 36). The condemnation, naturally, failed to extinguish such practices as is made clear from our own data (no. 69). “Apa” (apa),56 a title of reverence often used for saints, martyrs, and clergy, betrays Victor of Phibamon as likely associated with the church in some clerical capacity. Such involvement in magical practices may have been facilitated by the attitude reflected in the quotation from Origen, provided earlier, that what Christians make use of is “the name of Jesus with other words which are believed to be effective, taken from the divine Scripture.”57 This certainly seems to be an appropriate characterization of so many Christian amulets and points to a solution for our problem.

During the third and fourth centuries, as the temple institution in Egypt dramatically broke down, the role of the Egyptian priest transformed into that of a local charismatic leader, able to employ their ritual expertise to provide the local population with spiritual solutions to daily concerns by means of apotropaic, healing, and binding spells.58 But, starting in the fourth century Christian holy men began to encroach upon this social role.59 It is precisely within the clergy and religious orders that the moral strictures reflected in Eusebius should be taken most seriously and so it is here where one can identify the seeds of change. The magic they would traffic in would be largely defensive and healing in nature. After all, the acts of Jesus, both canonical and apocryphal, are overwhelmingly concerned with healing and exorcism, and Christian theology takes the same tack, focusing on the healing and salvific nature of Jesus’ powers.60 Therefore,


61. See, for instance, Cyprian’s defense of the apotropaic use of the sign of the cross on the forehead in Test. 2.22.

62. William Anderson, “An Archaeology of Late Antique Pilgrim Flasks,” Anato-lian Studies 54 (2004): 79–93.

the changes observed within the landscape of magical practice go hand-in-hand with the Christian priestly appropriation of these arts. Increasing use of the cross,61 pilgrims’ tokens and flasks,62 and similar amulets should be seen as part of the same trend.

Walter M. Shandruk is a Doctoral Student in Classics at the University of Chicago

Christian Use of Magic in Late Antique Egypt

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