Chapter III: The Origin of Gnosticism

The worship of the Alexandrian gods was in every sense a religion. Not only did it form a common bond between men and women of different rank and origin, but it had its roots in the idea of propitiating the spiritual world. In the belief of its votaries, the blessings of health, of riches, of long life, and of happiness in this world and the next, were the gifts of Serapis and Isis, which they might extend to or withhold from mortals as seemed to them good[287]. But now we approach beliefs and practices, for the most part formed into organized cults, which were founded on the opposite idea. Those treated of in this and the seven succeeding chapters all have as their common root the notion that it is possible instead of propitiating to compel the spiritual powers. If these beings, greater and stronger than man as they were thought to be, were once invoked by their real names and with the proper ceremonies, it was said that the benefits demanded of them would follow as a matter of course without regard to the state of mind of the applicant and without the volition of the invisible ones themselves entering into play. This idea appears so early in the history of religions that it is thought by some to be the very source and origin of them all. A number of able writers, of whom Lord Avebury[288] was one of the earliest, and Dr Frazer[289] is one of the latest examples, contend that there was a time in the history of mankind when man trusted entirely to his supposed powers of compulsion in his dealings with the invisible world, and that the attempt to propitiate it only developed out of this at a later period. It may be so, and the supporters of this theory are certainly not wrong when they go on to say that the same idea probably inspired those earliest attempts at the conquest of Nature which formed the first gropings of man towards natural science[290]. Up till now, however, they have failed to produce any instance of a people in a low state of culture who practise magic—as this attempted compulsion of the spiritual world is generally called—to the exclusion of every form of religion; and until they do so, their thesis cannot be considered as established. On the contrary, all researches into the matter lead to the conclusion that magic generally begins to show itself some time after the religious beliefs of a people have taken an organized shape, and most prominently when they have passed their period of greatest activity[291]. This is particularly noticeable in the case of Ancient Egypt, which affords, as M. George Foucart has lately shown with much skill[292], a far more lively and complete picture of the evolution of religious ideas than can be found in the beliefs of savages. Here we see beliefs and practices, once religious in every sense of the term, gradually becoming stereotyped and petrified until all memory of their origin and reason is lost, and the religion itself lapses into the systematized sorcery before referred to.

This phenomenon appears with great regularity in history; and it is an observation very easily verified that the practice of magic generally spreads in places and times where the popular religion has become outworn[293]. As, moreover, enquiry shows us that words taken from the rituals of dead faiths play the chief part in all ceremonial magic[294], we might be led to conclude that magic was but an unhealthy growth from, or the actual corruption of, religion. But if this were the case, we should find magicians despoiling for their charms and spells the rituals of cults formerly practised in their own countries only; whereas it is more often from foreign faiths and languages that they borrow. The tendency of all peoples to look upon earlier and more primitive races than themselves as the depositaries of magical secrets is one of the best known phenomena[295]. Thus, in modern India, it is the aboriginal Bhils and Gonds who are resorted to as sorcerers by the Aryans who have supplanted them[296], while the Malays seem to draw their magic almost entirely from the beliefs of their Arab conquerors[297]. So, too, in Egypt we find that the magicians of the XIXth Dynasty made use in their spells of foreign words which seem to be taken from Central African languages[298], and those of early Christian times use Hebrew phrases with which they must for the first time have become acquainted not very long before[299].

At the same time there are many proofs that magic is something more than a by-product of religion. No people, however backward, who do not practise magic in some or other of its forms, have yet been discovered; while at the same time it has always persisted among those nations who consider themselves the most highly civilized. Thus, we find the Mincopies who inhabit the Andaman Islands and are thought by some to be the lowest of mankind, threatening with their arrows the spirit that is supposed to cause tempests, and lighting fires on the graves of their dead chiefs to drive him away[300]. At the other end of the scale we have the story of the Scottish Covenanter,

“John Scrimgeour, minister of Kinghorn, who, having a beloved child
sick to death of the crewels, was free to expostulate with his Maker
with such impatience of displeasure, and complaining so bitterly,
that at length it was said unto him, that he was heard for that
time, but that he was requested to use no such boldness in time
coming”:

and a similar story is told of Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits[301]. It seems then that magic is so inextricably intertwined with religion that the history of one of them cannot be effectually separated from that of the other, and neither of them can be assigned any priority in time. This does not mean, however, that they are connected in origin, and it is probable that the late Sir Alfred Lyall was right when he said that magic and religion are in their essence antagonistic and correspond to two opposing tendencies of the human mind[302]. The same tendencies lead one man to ask for what he wants while another will prefer to take it by force, and it is even possible that the same alternative of choice is sometimes manifested in the lower animals[303].

Now it is evident that in the practice of cults where the idea of the compulsion of the invisible powers is prominent, the essential factor will be the _knowledge_ of the proper means to be adopted to attain the end sought. But this does not at once strike the observer, because at first sight these appear to be the same as those used in the cults which rest on the idea of propitiation. Prayers and sacrifices indeed appear in magical quite as often as in the case of propitiatory rites, but the reason of them is entirely different. Prayer in a religion—could any such be found—entirely free from all admixture of magic or compulsion, would be based on the attempt to move the pity of the divinity invoked for the miserable and abased state of the suppliant, or by some other means. A striking example of this can be found in the Assyrian prayers from the palace of Assur-bani-pal, which might be, as the rubric informs us, made to any god[304]. Says the suppliant:

“O my god my sins are many, my transgressions are great.
I sought for help, and none took my hand.
I wept, and none stood by my side;
I cried aloud, and there was none that heard me.
I am in trouble and hiding, and dare not look up.
To my god, the merciful one, I turn myself, I utter my prayer.
The feet of my goddess I kiss and water with tears....
O Lord, cast not away thy servant....”

The same spirit may be noticed in the early religions of the Greeks, although here the worshipper uses, as his means of propitiation, flattery rather than entreaty, as when the Achilles of the _Iliad_ tries to move Zeus by an enumeration of his different titles, addressing him as “Father Zeus, that rulest from Ida, most glorious, most great[305],” and Athena is appealed to by Nestor in the _Odyssey_ as “Daughter of Zeus, driver of the spoil, the maiden of Triton[306]” and so on. As, however, magical ideas come to the front, we find these prayers giving way to others containing neither appeals for mercy nor flattery, but merely long strings of names and attributes, all designed to show an acquaintance with the antecedents and supposed natural disposition of the divinity addressed, and inspired by the fear that the one name which might exert a compelling effect upon his answer might accidentally have been omitted[307]. So, too, the sacrifices, which in early times were chosen on the sole principle of giving to the god what was best and costliest, came later to be regulated by the supposed knowledge of what was especially appropriate to him for reasons based on sympathetic magic or the association of ideas. Thus, swine were sacrificed to Demeter, he-goats to Dionysos, cattle and horses to Poseidon, and rams to Heracles[308], instead of the animals, chosen only for their youth and beauty and with or without gilded horns, that we read about in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_[309]. Clearly such distinctions necessitate a much closer knowledge of the divine nature than where the answer to prayer or sacrifice depends merely on the benevolence of the deity.

It is also evident that such ideas will give rise to curiosity with regard to the nature and history of the gods, to their relations with one another, and to the extent and division of their rule over Nature, which would hardly affect those who think that all events depend simply upon the nod of the super-human powers[310]. Hence it is evident that one of the first consequences of a large admixture of magic in a religion will be a great increase of myths and legends in which the actions of the gods will be recounted with more or less authority, and some observed natural phenomenon will be pointed to as evidence of the truth of the stories narrated[311]. Moreover, the means by which the consequence of any voluntary or involuntary transgression of the supposed commands of the gods can be averted will be eagerly sought after, and these, whether they take the form of purifications, lustrations, or other expiatory rites, will all be strictly magical in character, and will generally consist in the more or less detailed representation of some episode in their history, on the well-known principle of magic that any desired effect can be produced by imitating it[312]. In all these cases it is knowledge and not conduct which is required, and thus it is that _gnosticism_ or a belief in the importance of acquaintance with the divine world, its motives, and the influences to which it is subject, enters into religion. Then it comes about that man begins to trouble himself about the origin of the universe and its end, the cause of his own appearance upon the earth, and the position that he occupies in the scale of being. Hence theogonies or tales relating how the gods came into existence, and their kinship to one another, cosmogonies or accounts of the creation of the world, and apocalypses or stories professing to reveal the lot of man after death and the fate to which our universe is destined, take shape to an extent unknown to religions which remain merely or chiefly propitiatory.

There is, however, another and a less sublime kind of knowledge which is everywhere associated with the appearance of gnosticism. This is the knowledge of ceremonies and formulas, of acts to be done and of words to be said, which are thought to exercise a compelling effect on the supra-sensible world, and which we may class together under the generic name of ceremonial magic. Our acquaintance with these at the period under discussion has lately been much enlarged by the decipherment and publication of the so-called Magic Papyri found for the most part in Egypt and now scattered throughout the principal museums of Europe[313]. These turn out on investigation to be the manuals or handbooks of professional sorcerers or magicians, and to range in date from the IIIrd century before to the IVth or Vth after Christ. They contain, for the most part without any order or coherence, details of the different ceremonies used for the personal aggrandizement of the user, for gaining the love of women and (conversely) for putting hate between a man and his wife; for healing disease and casting out devils; for causing dreams, discovering thieves, and gaining knowledge of the thoughts of men and of things past and to come; and for obtaining, by other than direct means, success in athletic competitions. In others, we find directions for evoking gods or spirits who may thus be bound to the service of the magician, for raising the dead for necromantic purposes, and for the destruction of enemies, mingled with technical recipes for making ink and for the compounding of drugs. A feature common to nearly all these charms is their illustration by certain roughly-drawn pictures and formulas which seem at first to be mere strings of letters without sense.

A few specimens of these charms may help to make this description clearer. In a papyrus now in the British Museum which is said from the writing to date from the IVth century A.D.[314], we find the following charms for obtaining an oracular response in a dream:

“Take of the inner leaves of the laurel and of virgin earth and
wormwood seeds flour and of the herb cynocephalium (and I have heard
from a certain man of Heracleopolis [now Ahnas el-Medineh] that he
takes of the leaves of an olive-tree newly sprouted).... It is
carried by a virgin boy ground up with the materials aforesaid and
the white of an ibis’ egg is mixed with the whole compound. There
must also be an image of Hermes clad in the chlamys, and the moon
must be rising in the sign of Aries or Leo or Sagittarius. Now let
Hermes hold the herald’s wand, and do thou write the spell on
hieratic paper. And take a goose’s windpipe, as I also learned from
the Heracleopolite, and insert it into the figure so as to be able
to blow into it. When you wish for an oracular answer, write the
spell and the matter in hand, and having cut a hair from your head,
wrap it up in the paper and tie it with a Phoenician knot, and put
it at the feet of the caduceus, or, as some say, place it upon it.
Let the figure be in a shrine of limewood, and when you wish for an
oracular answer place the shrine with the god at your head, and make
invocation, offering frankincense on an altar and some earth from a
place where there is growing corn, and one lump of sal ammoniac. Let
this be placed at your head and lie down to sleep after first saying
this, but giving no answer to anyone who may address you:

“Hermes, lord of the world, inner circle of the moon
Round and square, originator of the words of the tongue
Persuading to justice, wearer of the chlamys, with winged sandals
Rolling an ethereal course under the lower parts of the earth
Guide of spirits, greatest eye of the sun
Author of all manner of speech, rejoicing with lights
Those mortals whose life being finished are under the lower parts of
the earth.
Thou art called the foreknower of destinies, and the divine vision
Sending oracles both by day and by night.
Thou dost heal all the ills of mortals with thy medicines.
Come hither, blessed one, greatest son of perfect memory
Appear propitious in thy own shape, and send a propitious form
That by the excellence of thy divining art I, a hallowed man, may
receive what I need.
O Lord grant my prayer, appear and grant me a true oracle!

“Make the adjuration at the risings of the sun and moon.” (The
inscription to be written on the paper wrappings of the figure.)

“_Huesemigadôn, Orthô Baubô, noê odêre soire soire
Kanthara, Ereschchigal, sankistê, dodekakistê_” etc.

In this charm we have nearly all the typical elements of the magic of the period. The windpipe of a goose or other long-necked animal was, we learn from Hippolytus, inserted into the hollow head of the metal statue of the god, in order that the priest might use it as a speaking tube, and thus cause the statue to give forth oracular responses in a hollow voice[315]. Hence its use would be thought particularly appropriate when an oracle was sought, although in circumstances where it would be ineffective for purposes of deceit. The fragment of a hymn in hexameter verse to a god whom it addresses as Hermes is doubtless of great antiquity and taken from the ritual of some half-Greek, half-Oriental worship such as we may imagine to have been paid to the Cabiri, in which a god identified by the Greeks with their own Hermes was particularly honoured. The words of the spell to be written on the paper are by no means the mere gibberish they seem, although they have been so corrupted that it is almost impossible to recognise even the language in which they are written. The word _Huesemigadôn_ is, however, an epithet or name of Pluto the ruler of Hades, and occurs in that connection, as has been shown elsewhere, in many of these magic spells[316]. The _Orthô Baubô_ which follows it is generally found in the same context and seems to cover the name of that Baubo who plays a prominent part in the Mysteries of Eleusis and appears to have been confused in later times with Persephone, the spouse of Pluto[317]. _Ereshchigal_ [Eres-ki-gal], again, is a word borrowed from the first or Sumerian inhabitants of Babylonia, and means in Sumerian “the Lady of the great (_i.e._ the nether) world,” being a title frequently used for Allat the goddess of hell, who appears in the very old story of the Descent of Ishtar and is the Babylonian counterpart of Persephone[318]. Why she should have been called _dodekakistê_ or the 12th cannot now be said; but it is possible that we have here a relic of the curious Babylonian habit of giving numbers as well as names to the gods, or rather of identifying certain numbers with certain divinities[319]. On the whole, therefore, it may be judged that the words of the spell once formed part of the ritual of a Sumerian worship long since forgotten and that they travelled across Western Asia and were translated as far as might be into Greek, when that language became the common tongue of the civilized world after Alexander’s conquests.

This may be taken for a spell having its origin in, or at any rate depending for its efficacy upon, the relics of some Western Asiatic faith. The following taken from another papyrus now in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris shows acquaintance with the Egyptian religion—probably through the Alexandrian or Isiacist form of it described in Chapter II—and is perhaps a more salient example of the compulsive element common to all magic, but particularly associated with the Egyptian magicians. It is given in the shape of a letter purporting to be addressed by a certain Nephotes to the Pharaoh Psamtik whom the Greeks called Psammetichos, and who managed, as has been said above, to drive out the Ethiopians and to rule Egypt by the help of Greek mercenaries. There is no reason to suppose that this attribution is anything more than a charlatanic attempt to assign to it a respectable origin; but it is probable from certain indications that it was really taken from an earlier hieratic or demotic MS. of pre-Christian times. It has been published by Dr Karl Wessely of Vienna[320] and is written in Greek characters of apparently the IIIrd century A.D.

“Nephotes to Psammetichos king of Egypt, the ever living, greeting.
Since the great god [Serapis?] has restored to thee an eternal
kingdom, and Nature has made thee an excellent adept, and I am also
willing to show forth to thee the love of art which is mine—I have
sent to thee this ceremony, a holy rite made perfect with all ease
of working, which having tested, you will be amazed at the
unexpected nature of this arrangement. You will see with your own
eyes in the bowl in what day or night you will and in what place you
will. You will see the god in the water, receiving the word from the
god in what verses you will. [It will reach also?] the world-ruler
and if you ask a question of him he will speak even of all the other
things you seek. [A description of the ointment to be used doubtless
once followed, but has been omitted in the Paris MS.[321]] Having
thus anointed yourself and having put together before the rising of
the sun in this form (?) what things you will, when the third day of
the moon has come, go with the mystagogue upon the roof of the
house, and spread upon the earth a clean linen cloth, and having
crowned yourself with black ivy at the 5th hour after noon, lie down
naked on the linen cloth, and order him [the mystagogue] to bind
your eyes with a bandage of black linen; and having laid yourself
down like a corpse [or, on your back?], close your eyes, making the
sign of consecration towards the sun with these words:—

“O mighty Typhon of the sceptre on high, sceptred ruler, God of
Gods. King _Aberamenthôu_[322], hill shaker, bringer of thunder,
hurricane, who lightens by night, hot-natured one, rock shaker,
destroyer of wells, dasher of waves, who disturbs the deep with
movement. _Io erbêt autauimêni._ I am he who with thee has
uprooted the whole inhabited world and seeks out the great Osiris
who brought thee chains. I am he who with thee fights on the side
of the gods (some say against the gods). I am he who has shut up
the twin sides of heaven, and has lulled to sleep the invisible
dragon, and who has established the sea [and?] the red springs of
rivers. Until thou shall no longer be lord of this dominion, I am
thy soldier, I was conquered [and hurled] headlong by the gods. I
was thrown down by [their] wrath in vain [or, because of the
void]. Awake! I come as a suppliant, I come as thy friend, and
thou wilt not cast me out, O earth-caster. King of the gods.
_aemonaebarôtherreethôrabeaneïmea_[323]. Be strong, I entreat!
Grant me this grace that, when I shall command one of the gods
themselves to come to my incantations, I may see them coming
quickly! _Naïne basanaptatou eaptou mênô phaesmê paptoumênôph
aesimê trauapti peuchrê, trauara ptoumêph, mouraianchouchaphapta
moursaaramei. Iaô aththarauimênoker boroptoumêth attaui mêni
charchara ptoumai lalapsa trauei trauei mamôphortoula[324] aeêio
iou oêôa eai aeêiôi iaô aêi ai iaô_[325]. On your repeating this
three times, there will be this sign of the alliance[326]. But you
having the soul of a magician will be prepared. Do not alarm
yourself, for a sea-hawk hovering downwards will strike with his
wings upon your body[327]. And do thou having stood upon thy feet
clothe thyself in white garments, and in an earthen censer scatter
drops of frankincense speaking thus: ‘I exist in thy sacred form.
I am strong in thy sacred name. I have lighted upon the
flowing-forth of thy good things, O Lord, God of Gods, king demon.
_Atthouin thouthoui tauanti laôaptatô’._ Having done this, you may
descend like a god, and will command the [order?][328] of Nature
through this complete arrangement of autoptic [_i.e._ clairvoyant]
lecanomancy. It is also a way of compelling the dead to become
visible. For when you wish to enquire concerning [any] events, you
must take a brazen jar or dish or pan, whichever you will, and
fill it with water, which if you are invoking the celestial gods
must be living [Qy. running or sparkling?]; but, if the
terrestrial divinities, from the sea; and if Osiris or Sarapis,
from the river [Nile?]; and, if the dead, from a well. Take the
vessel upon your knees, pour upon it oil made from unripe olives,
then bending over the vessel repeat the following invocation and
invoke what god you will and an answer will be given to you and he
will speak to you concerning all things. But if and when he shall
have spoken, dismiss him with the dismissal which you will wonder
at, using the same speech.

“Speech to be said over the vessel. _Amoun auantau laimoutau riptou
mantaui imantau lantou laptoumi anchômach araptoumi._ Hither, such
and such a god! Be visible to me this very day and do not appal my
eyes. Hither to me such and such a god! giving ear to my race [?].
For this is what _anchôr anchôr achachach ptoumi chancho charachôch
chaptoumê chôraharachôch aptoumi mêchôchaptou charach ptou chanchô
charachô ptenachôcheu_, a name written in a hundred letters, wishes
and commands. And do not thou, most mighty king, forget the
magicians among us; because this is the earliest name of Typhon, at
which tremble the earth, the abyss, Hades, heaven, the sun, the
moon, the place of the stars and the whole phenomenal universe. When
this name is spoken, it carries along with its force gods and
demons. It is the hundred-lettered name, the same name as last
written. And when thou hast uttered it, the god or the dead person
who hears it will appear to thee and will answer concerning the
things you ask. And when you have learned all things, dismiss the
god only with the strong name, the one of the hundred letters,
saying ‘Begone, Lord, for thus wills and commands the great god!’
Say the name and he will depart. Let this treatise, O mighty king,
be kept to thyself alone, being guarded from being heard by any
other. And this is the phylactery which you should wear. It should
be arranged on a silver plate. Write the same name with a brazen pen
and wear it attached with a strip of ass’s skin[329].”

The purpose of the charm just given is, as will be seen, to produce apparitions in a bowl containing liquid after the fashion still common in the near East[330]. It amply bears out the remark of Iamblichus that the Egyptian magicians, differing therein from the Chaldaean, were accustomed in their spells to threaten the gods[331], and many other instances of this can be found in other passages of the magic papyri. But it should be noticed that in this case the magician is dealing with a power thought to be hostile alike to man and to the beneficent gods. Typhon, who is, as Plutarch tells us, the Greek equivalent of the Egyptian Set, was looked upon in Hellenistic times as essentially a power of darkness and evil, who fights against the gods friendly to man with the idea of reducing their ordered world to chaos. Yet the magician avows himself on his side, and even speaks of his name as being able to compel the heavenly gods, to whom he must therefore be superior. Iamblichus tries to explain this, and to refine away the obvious meaning of such spells, but their existence certainly justifies the accusation of trafficking with devils brought by the early Christian Fathers against the practisers of magic.

Another charm may be quoted for the purpose of showing the acquaintance, superficial though it was, with the religions of all nations in the Hellenistic world and the indifference with regard to them which the practice of magic necessitated. It appears in the papyrus in the British Museum last quoted from and is directed to be spoken over “the lamp” which plays so great a part in all magical processes[332]. Of its real or supposed author, Alleius Craeonius, nothing is known:

“A spell of Allêius Craeonius spoken over the lamp. _Ôchmarmachô_,
the _nouraï chrêmillon_ sleeping with eyes open, _nia_, Iaô
equal-numbered[333] _soumpsênis siasias_, Iaô who shakes the whole
inhabited world, come hither unto me and give answer concerning the
work [_i.e._ the matter in hand] _kototh phouphnoun nouebouê_ in the
place prepared for thy reception [?]. Take an inscription[334] with
on the obverse Sarapis seated holding the royal sceptre of Egypt and
upon the sceptre an ibis. On the reverse of the stone, carve the
name and shut it up and keep it for use. Take the ring in your left
hand, and a branch of olive and laurel in your right, shaking it
over the lamp[335], at the same time uttering the spell seven times.
And, having put it (the ring) upon the Idaean finger[336] of your
left hand, facing and turning inwards [Qy. away from the door of the
chamber?] and having fastened the stone to your left ear, lie down
to sleep returning no answer to any who may speak to you:

“‘I invoke thee who created the earth and the rocks [_lit._ the
bones] and all flesh and spirit and established the sea, and shakes
the heavens and did divide the light from the darkness, the great
ordering mind, who disposes all, the everlasting eye, Demon of
Demons, God of Gods, the Lord of Spirits, the unwandering Æon. Iao
ouêi [Jehovah?] hearken unto my voice. I invoke thee the ruler of
the gods, high-thundering Zeus, O king Zeus Adonai, O Lord Jehovah
[?]. I am he who invokes thee in the Syrian tongue as the great god
_Zaalaêr iphphou_[337] and do thou not disregard the sound in Hebrew
_ablanathanalba_[338] _abrasilôa_. For I am _silthachôouch lailam
blasalôth_ Iaô ieô _nebuth sabiothar bôth arbath iaô_ Iaôth Sabaoth
_patourê zagourê Baruch adonai elôai iabraam_[339] _barbarauô
nausiph_, lofty-minded, everliving, having the diadem of the whole
ordered world, _siepê saktietê_ of life (twice) _sphê nousi_ (twice)
_sietho_ (twice). _Chthethônirinch ôêaêêol aôê Iaô asial Sarapêolsô
ethmourêsini sem lau lou lurinch._’

“This spell loosens chains, blinds, brings dreams, causes favours,
and may be used for any purposes you wish.”

In this spell, we have Zeus and Yahweh associated with Serapis in the apparent belief that all three were the same god. Although the magician parades his learning by using the name of one of the Syrian Baals, and it is possible that some of the unintelligible words of the invocation may be much corrupted Egyptian, he is evidently well acquainted with Hebrew, and one of the phrases used seems to be taken from some Hebrew ritual. It is hardly likely that he would have done this unless he were himself of Jewish blood; and we have therefore the fact that a Jewish magician was content to address his national god as Zeus and to make use of a “graven image” of him under the figure of the Graeco-Egyptian Serapis in direct contravention of the most stringent clauses in the Law of Moses. A more striking instance of the way in which magicians of the time borrowed from all religions could hardly be imagined.

The uncertain date of the charms under discussion prevent any very cogent argument as to their authorship being drawn from them; but there are other grounds for supposing that the use of magic was never so wide-spread as in the last three centuries before and the first three centuries after the birth of Christ, and that this was mainly due to the influx of Orientals into the West. One of the indirect effects of Alexander’s conquests was, by substituting Greek kings for the native rulers who had till then governed the countries lying round the Nile and the Euphrates, to break up the priestly colleges there established, and thus to set free a great quantity of the lower class of priests and temple-servants who seem to have wandered through the Hellenistic world, selling their knowledge of curious arts, and seeking from the credulity of their fellows the toilless livelihood that they had till then enjoyed at the expense of the state. The names given to the most famous of these charlatans in the early Roman Empire—Petosiris, Nechepso, Astrampsuchos[340], and Ostanes[341]—are in themselves sufficient to show their origin; and “Chaldaicus” passed into the common language of the time as the recognized expression for the professional exponent of curious arts. Even in the time of Sulla there seems to have been no lack of persons who, if not magicians, were at all events professional diviners capable of interpreting the Dictator’s dreams[342], and the writers of the Augustan age allude frequently to magic, such as that taught by the papyri just quoted, as being generally the pursuit of foreigners. The Thessalian magicians are as celebrated in the Roman times which Apuleius describes as in those of Theocritus. The Canidia or Gratidia of Horace had also a Thessalian who assisted her in her incantations[343]. But these, like the Chaldaean and Egyptian sorcerers just mentioned, were at the head of their profession, and in many cases made large sums out of the sale of their services. The taste for magic of the poorer classes, slaves, and freedmen, was catered for by the crowd of itinerant magicians, among whom the Jews (and Jewesses) seem to have been the most numerous, who used to hang about the Circus Maximus[344]. Renan is doubtless perfectly right when he says that never were the Mathematici, the Chaldaei, and the Goetae of all kinds so abundant as in the Rome of Nero[345]. Their prevalence in the great cities of the eastern provinces of the Empire may be judged from the frequency of their mention in the New Testament[346].

It would, of course, be very easy to consider all such practices as the result of deliberate and conscious imposture. This is the course taken by Hippolytus in the _Philosophumena_, in which the heresiologist bishop gives a description of the tricks of the conjurors of the IIIrd century accompanied by rationalistic explanations which sometimes make a greater demand on the credulity of the readers than the wonders narrated[347]. These tricks he accuses the leaders of the Gnostics of his time of learning and imitating, and the accusation is therefore plainly dictated by the theological habit of attempting by any means to discredit the morals of those who dissent from the writer’s own religious opinions[348]. But a study of the magic papyri themselves by no means supports this theory of conscious imposture. The spells therein given were evidently written for the use of a professional magician, and seem to have been in constant employment. Many of them bear after them the note written in the hand of the scribe that he has tested them and found them efficacious. The pains, too, which the author takes to give variations of the process recommended in them—as for example in the quotations from a “man of Heracleopolis” in the first of the spells given above—all show that he had a more or less honest belief in the efficacy of the spells he is transcribing. The recording in the same papyri of what would be now called “trade secrets” such as recipes for the manufacture of ink all point the same way, and go to confirm the view that the magicians who made use of them, although willing to sell their supposed powers over the supernatural world for money, yet believed that they really possessed them.

This is the more likely to be true because many of the phenomena which these spells are intended to produce are what would now be called hypnotic. The gods and demons invoked are supposed to appear sometimes in dreams, but more generally to a virgin boy gazing fixedly either at a lamp or at the shining surface of a liquid. This is, of course, the form of “crystal-gazing” or divination by the ink-pool still used throughout the East, a graphic description of which is given in Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_[349]. In this case as in the charms for the healing of disease—especially of epilepsy and other nervous maladies—given in the same papyri, the active agent seems to be the power of suggestion, consciously or unconsciously exercised by the operator or magician. A full but popular explanation of these phenomena from the standpoint of modern science will be found in the lectures on “Hypnotisme et Spiritisme” delivered at Geneva by Dr Émile Yung in 1890[350], while the subject has been treated more learnedly and at greater length by a great number of writers, among whom may be specially mentioned M. Pierre Janet[351], the successor and continuator of the researches of the celebrated Charcot at the Salpêtrière.

The influence that such practices exercised upon the development of the post-Christian sects or schools generally classed together under the name of Gnostic is not very clearly defined. It may, indeed, be said that the great diffusion of the magical rites that took place during the centuries immediately preceding, as in those immediately following, the birth of Christ, predisposed men’s minds to the search for a cosmogony or theory of the universe which should account for its evolution as part of an orderly and well-devised system rather than as the capricious and, as it were, incoherent creation of the gods. That some such force was at work may be gathered from the fact that magical beliefs and practices seem to have crept into the religion of the whole civilized world at this period. But that the schools calling themselves Gnostic owed their development directly or exclusively to them is an idea that must be repudiated. Hippolytus, as has been said, does, indeed, make some such charge, but only in general terms and without any evidence in its support. When later he goes through the sects _seriatim_, he only reiterates it in the cases of Simon Magus, of his successor Menander, and of Carpocrates of Antioch; and it is probable from the context that in all these cases he is only referring to what seemed to him the superstitious attention paid by the “heretics” in question to the externals of worship, such as the use of pictures and statues, lights and incense, which seem in many cases to have been borrowed directly from paganism.

This attention to the details of ritual, however, did in itself contain the germ of a danger to the survival of any organized cult in which it was present in excess, which was to receive full illustration in the later forms of Egyptian Gnosticism properly so-called. As will be shown in its place, the seed of Gnosticism fell in Egypt upon soil encumbered with the débris of many older faiths which had long since passed into the stage of decay. Nor could the earnestness or the philosophic insight of the great Gnostics of Hadrian’s time, who started their propaganda from Alexandria, contend for long with the inherited preconceptions of a degraded and stubborn peasantry who had learned for millennia to regard all religion as sorcery. Here Gnosticism degenerated quickly into magic of the least enlightened and basest kind, and thus lost all right to be considered in any sense a religion[352]. The case was different in other parts of the Roman Empire, where a better intellectual equipment and the practical syncretism or fusion of worships offered more favourable ground for the development of new faiths not appealing to the members of one nationality only.

That this idea of Gnosticism or of the importance of knowledge—were it only the knowledge of charms and spells—in dealing with the spiritual and invisible world was bound to play a prominent part in the evolution of the world-religions which Alexander’s conquests had rendered possible is therefore evident. Some writers have gone further and have declared that Christianity itself may be “only an episode—though a very important episode—in the history of Gnosticism[353].” But to say this, as will presently be shown, is to go too far, and Christianity, although she obtained many converts from those Gnostic sects with which the Church of the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic ages found itself in competition[354], yet proved in the long run to be the most bitter enemy of Gnosticism. From the first, the Catholic Church seems to have recognized that the ideas which lay at the root of Gnosticism—to which word I have ventured here to give a meaning more extended than that which it connotes in heresiological writers—were opposed to religion altogether; and if allowed to triumph would have had their end in the development of a science, which, if not absolutely atheistic, would at least reduce the necessary action of the spiritual world upon this to the vanishing point[355]. It would indeed be quite possible to argue that such ideas must always appear when a people of inferior culture, but of vigorous intellect, come into frequent contact for the first time with a material civilization higher than their own. It is sufficient for the present purpose to have shown that they were widely spread during the centuries which immediately preceded the appearance of Christianity, and that they count for something in the evolution of the many heretical sects who came to trouble most seriously the peace of the Catholic Church in the early centuries of our era. The same causes, however, must have been at work some time before, and it is impossible to explain some of the features of Gnosticism in its more extended sense without going back to an early period of Greek history. For it was in Greece that the Orphic teaching first appeared, and it is to this that most of the post-Christian Gnostic heresies or sects attributed, not untruly, their own origin.

Connected in practice with, yet entirely different in origin from, this magic was the astrology or star-lore which after the conquest of the Euphrates valley by the Persians began to make its way westwards. It would seem that its birthplace was the plains of Chaldaea, where the clear air brings the starry expanse of the sky nearer, as it were, to the observer than in the denser and more cloudy atmosphere of Europe, while the absence of rising ground not only enables him to take in the whole heaven at a glance, but gives him a more lively idea of the importance of the heavenly bodies. There the careful and patient observation of the Sumerian priests at a period which was certainly earlier than Sargon of Akkad (_i.e._ 2750 B.C.) established the fact that certain groups of stars appeared and disappeared at regular intervals, that others moved more swiftly than their fellows, and that the places of both with reference to the apparent path of the sun varied in a way which corresponded with the recurrence of the seasons. Primitive man, however, does not distinguish between _post hoc_ and _propter hoc_, or rather he assumes unhesitatingly that, if any natural phenomenon occurs with anything like regularity after another, the first is the cause of the second. Hence the swifter stars soon came to be clothed in the minds of the early astronomers with attributes varying with the phenomena of which they were supposed to be the cause. Thus, the planet or “wandering” star which we call Jupiter came to be known as the “god of good winds,” the Hyades and Pleiades were looked upon as the bringers of rain, and the stars whose appearance ushered in the cold and darkness of winter were considered as hostile to man[356]. As time progressed, however, these observations accumulated—largely, one would think, because of the imperishable material on which they were recorded—and it then began to be perceived that the movement of the heavenly bodies were not due to their individual caprice or will, but were dictated by an inexorable and unchangeable law. In the drawing of this conclusion, the patient and logical mind of the Mongoloid inhabitants of Sumer, ever mindful at once of the past and the future of the race, no doubt played its full part.

The effect of this change in the mental attitude of man towards the universe was to introduce an entirely new conception into religion. At first the Babylonians, pushing, as man generally does, the application of their last discovery further than the facts would warrant, declared that all events happened in a regular and prearranged order; and that man could therefore predict the happening of any event directly he knew its place in the series. Thus in the “astrological” tablets preserved in the palace of Assur-banipal at Nineveh, some of which certainly go back to the reign of Sargon of Akkad[357], we read:

“In the month of Nisan 2nd day, Venus appeared at sunrise. There
will be distress in the land.... An eclipse happening on the 15th
day, the king of Dilmun is slain, and someone seizes his throne....
An eclipse happening on the 15th day of the month Ab the king dies,
and rains descend from heaven, and floods fill the canals.... An
eclipse happening on the 20th day, the king of the Hittites in
person seizes the throne.... For the 5th month an eclipse on the
14th day portends rains and the flooding of canals. The crops will
be good, and king will send peace to king. An eclipse on the 15th
day portends destructive war. The land will be filled with corpses.
An eclipse on the 16th day indicates that pregnant women will be
happily delivered of their offspring. An eclipse on the 20th day
portends that lions will cause terror and that reptiles will appear;
an eclipse on the 21st day that destruction will overtake the riches
of the sea[358].”

These events are evidently predicted from a knowledge of what happened immediately after the occurrence of former eclipses and other celestial phenomena, and it is perhaps characteristic of the lot of man that most of them are unfavourable and that the disasters greatly outnumber the good things. But it is plain that as time went on, the observers of the stars would begin to perceive that even such unusual celestial phenomena as eclipses occurred at intervals which, although long compared with the lifetime of a man, could yet be estimated, and that the element of chance or caprice could therefore be in great measure eliminated from their calculation. Then came about the construction of the calendar, and the formation of tables extending over a long series of years, by which the recurrence of eclipses and the like could be predicted a long time in advance. All this tended to the formation of different ideas of the laws which, it was now seen, governed man’s life, and the shape which these now took were equally erroneous, although at first sight more rational than those held by the first observers.

This new idea was in effect that system of “correspondences” which occupied a prominent place in nearly all religious systems from the time of Assyria’s apogee to the triumph of Christianity, and which through the mediaeval Cabala may be said to retain to the present day some shadow of its former power over the minds of the superstitious. This was the notion that the earth in effect is only a copy of the heavens, and that the events which happen here below are nothing but a copy of those which are taking place above[359]. If any great catastrophe such as the fall of an empire like that of Assyria or the sudden death of a man distinguished above his fellows like Alexander occurs, it is because of some conjunction or meeting of hostile stars; and if some great and unexpected benefit such as universal peace or an abundant harvest smiles upon mankind, it is because those stars most generally favourable to him have recovered temporary sway. The result was a sort of mapping-out of the heavens into regions corresponding to those of the earth, and the assigning of a terrestrial “sphere of influence” to each[360]. But as the predictions made from these alone would have been too speedily and too evidently falsified in most cases by the march of events, it became necessary to attribute a predominant influence to the planets, whose swifter and more irregular movements introduced new factors into the situation. These planets were decided to be seven in number, Uranus and Neptune not having yet been discovered, and the Sun and Moon being included in the list because they were thought like the others to move round the earth. Hence all terrestrial things were assumed to be divided into seven categories corresponding to the seven planets, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, the Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn, and to be in an especial way under the influence of the heavenly bodies of which they were the earthly representatives.

Into the details of the so-called science of astrology thus founded, it is not our purpose to enter. To do so would occupy a greater space than is at our disposal, and would involve besides the discussion of a great many documents only just beginning to come to light, and the exact meaning of which is still uncertain[361]. But it may be mentioned here that astrology entirely changed its character when it came into contact with the dawning science of mathematics, which is perhaps the most enduring monument which bears witness to the fertility and inventiveness of the Greek mind. So soon as the observations of the Babylonians were placed at their disposal, the Greek mathematicians set to work in real earnest to discover the laws of the universe and established the science of astronomy pretty much on the basis on which it stands at the present day. The discovery of the Metonic cycle, of the trigonometrical method of measuring the celestial sphere, and of the precession of the equinoxes all followed in succession, and the prediction of eclipses, conjunctions of stars, and other celestial phenomena which had before been more or less a matter of guesswork, now became a matter of calculation presenting no mystery to anyone versed in mathematics. The heavens were mapped out, the stars catalogued, and tables were produced which enabled the place of any particular star to be found at a given moment without the actual inspection of the heavens[362].

The result of this improved state of things was not long in reacting both upon religion, and its congener, magic. On the first of these, the effect was much the same as that produced by the discoveries of Copernicus in the XVIth century and those of Darwin in the XIXth. We do not know enough of the history of thought at the time to be aware if the Greek additions to the ascertained laws of Nature aroused the same resentment in priestly minds as did those of the Prussian and the English philosophers; but it is evident that if they did so, the quarrel was speedily made up. Every religion in the Graeco-Roman world which sought the popular favour after the discoveries of Hipparchus, took note of the seven planetary spheres which the geocentric theory of the universe supposed to surround the earth, and even those known before his time, like Zoroastrianism and Judaism, hastened to adopt the same view of the universe, and to modify the details of their teaching to accord with it. The seven stoles of Isis are as significant in this respect as the seven-stepped ladder or the seven altars in the mysteries of Mithras, while the seven Amshaspands of the Avesta and the attention paid to the seven days of the week by the Jews go to show how even the most firmly held national traditions had to bow before it. As for magic, the sevenfold division of things which implied that each planet had its own special metal, precious stone, animal, and plant, placed at the disposal of the magicians an entirely new mode of compulsion which lent itself to endless combinations; while, for the same reason, special conjurations were supposed, as we have seen, only to exercise their full influence under certain positions of the stars. Perhaps the climax of this state of things is reached in one of the Gnostic documents described later, where the salvation of Christian souls in the next world is said to be determined by the entry of one of the beneficent planets into one or other of the signs of the Zodiac[363].

One of the most important results of this impulse was the sudden importance thus given to the worship of the material sun, which henceforth forms the centre of adoration in all non-Christian religions. As we have seen, in the worship of Isis, the newly-made initiate was made to personify the daystar in the public, as no doubt he had done in the secret, ceremonies of the cult. All the post-Alexandrian legends of the gods were turned the same way, and Serapis, Mithras, Attis were all identified with the sun, whom philosophers like Pliny and Macrobius declared to be the one supreme god concealed behind the innumerable lesser deities of the Graeco-Roman pantheon[364]. Even the Christians could not long hold out against the flood, and the marks of the compromise to which the Catholic Church came in the matter may perhaps be seen in the coincidence of the Lord’s Day with Sunday and the Church’s adoption of the 25th day of December, the birthday of the Unconquered Sun-God, as the anniversary of the birth of Christ[365]. It is certainly by no accident that the emperors whose reigns immediately preceded the establishment of Christianity all turned towards the worship of the sun-god who was looked upon as the peculiar divinity of the family to which Constantine belonged[366].

To Gnosticism, whether we use the word in the sense in which it has been used in this chapter, or in its more restricted connotation as the generic name of the earlier heresies which afflicted the nascent Church, the development of astrology came as a source of new life. Henceforth to the knowledge of the history of the personal dispositions and of the designs of the gods, had to be added that of the laws governing the movements of the stars. Moreover, the new theory introduced into Gnosticism an element which had hitherto been foreign to it, which was the idea of destiny or of predetermined fate[367]. If all things, as the astrologers said, happened in a certain regular order of which the movements of the stars were at once the cause and the symbol, it follows that their course is determined beforehand, and may possibly be capable of being ascertained by man. Hence came in all the ideas as to the predestination of certain souls to happiness and of others to misery both in this world and the next, which play such an important part in the religions of the centuries under consideration, and the influence of which is by no means extinct at the present day. It is true that, as M. Cumont has recently pointed out, man is never rigidly true to his beliefs, and has generally invented some compromise by which either the favour of the gods or his own conduct is supposed to free him from the worst effects of a predetermined fate. Such compromises appear furtively here and there in Christian Gnosticism, but without sufficient prominence to take away the effect of the general notion that man’s fate in the next world is determined before his birth in this.

The general effect of these considerations is, it is thought, that the Gnosticism which came to trouble the peace of the Christian Church during its infancy and adolescence had its roots, first in the decay of the earlier faith, which showed itself in the popular taste for cosmogonical and other myths, until then wholly or partly absent from the ideas of the more civilized nations of the Persian Empire. On the top of this, came the great spread of ceremonial magic which seems to have followed the first introduction of something like upright and just government by the Aryan conquerors of the East; and then the idea of a universe ruled not by the unchecked will of capricious gods, but by the regular and ordered movement of the stars. The predestinarian view of the fate of the individual which naturally follows from this last conception, as has just been said, was subject to exceptions and compromises, but yet appears as a kind of background or framework to all the religions (orthodox Christianity excepted) which came into prominence during the six centuries to which our survey is limited. But before dealing with those hitherto unnoticed, it is necessary that we should glance at those pre-Christian forms of Gnosticism, the earliest of which was perhaps that which appeared simultaneously in most parts of the Greek world at the beginning of the Vth century before Christ and is generally known as Orphism.

Footnote 287:

Thus an Orphic verse, preserved by a commentator on Plato, says that
Dionysos “releases whom he wills from travail and suffering.” See
Abel’s _Orphica_, Fr. 208, p. 237. Servius in his commentary on
Virgil’s First Georgic, after declaring that Dionysos or “Liber Pater”
is identical with the Osiris torn in pieces by Typhon, says that he is
called Liber because he liberates. Cf. fragment and page quoted.

Footnote 288:

Lubbock, _Origin of Civilisation_, 5th ed., pp. 332, 333, and 349.

Footnote 289:

_The Golden Bough_, 3rd ed. pt I. vol. I. p. 226, n. 2. Cf. Hubert and
Mauss, _Esquisse d’une Théorie générale de la Magie_, Paris, 1904, p.
8. Goblet d’Alviella, reviewing Dr Frazer’s 2nd edition, _Rev. Hist.
Rel._ t. XLVIII. (July-Aug. 1903), pp. 70, 79 rebuts his theory. Mr E.
S. Hartland, at the British Association’s Meeting in 1906, propounded
the view that both magic and religion were based on the conception of
a transmissible personality or _mana_. Cf. _id._ _Ritual and Belief_,
1914, pp. 49 _sqq._

Footnote 290:

Hubert and Mauss, _op. cit._ p. 7.

Footnote 291:

Thus the German Reformation, which (whatever be its merits) was
certainly accompanied by a general questioning of ideas till then
considered the very basis of all religion, was followed by the
terrible outbreak known as the Witch Mania of the XVIth century. See
Mackay, _Extraordinary Popular Delusions_, 1869, pp. 101-191. Other
authorities are quoted in “Witchcraft in Scotland,” _Scottish Review_,
1891, pp. 257-288.

Footnote 292:

_Histoire des Religions et Méthode Comparative_, Paris, 1912, pp.
21-61.

Footnote 293:

See note 4 on p. 91, _supra_. Cf. also the great increase of magical
practices which followed the attempted overthrow of religion by the
philosophers after Alexander.

Footnote 294:

Some instances, such as “hocus-pocus” (_hoc est corpus meum_), are
given in _P.S.B.A._ XX. (1898), p. 149. An excellent example is found
in a spell to cause invisibility in a magic papyrus at Berlin where
the magician is directed to say among other words _anok peusire penta
set tako_ “I am that Osiris whom Set murdered”—evidently a phrase from
some Egyptian ritual extinct centuries before the papyrus was written.
See Parthey, _Zwei griechische Zauberpapyri_, 1866, p. 127, l. 252.
Cf. Erman, “Die Ägyptischer Beschwörungen” in _Ägyptische
Zeitschrift_, 1883, p. 109, n. 1.

Footnote 295:

Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, 1871, I. pp. 102-104. Cf. Crookes,
_Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India_, 1896, II. p. 283;
Hubert and Mauss, _op. cit._ pp. 26, 27; A. Réville, _Religion des
Peuples non-civilisés_, 1883, II. p. 173.

Footnote 296:

Crookes, _op. cit._ II. p. 261, says that witchcraft in Northern India
is at present almost specialized among the Dravidian, or aboriginal
people—of which fact Mr Rudyard Kipling makes great use in his
charming story “Letting in the Jungle.”

Footnote 297:

W. W. Skeat, _Malay Magic_, 1900, pp. 533 _sqq._

Footnote 298:

Chabas, _Le Papyrus Magique Harris_, 1860, pp. 151, 162 _sq._ Erman,
_Life in Ancient Egypt_, Eng. ed. p. 355, while admitting that the
Egyptians thought the words in question belonged to a foreign tongue,
says that they were “pure inventions.” He is certainly wrong, for some
of them can be identified.

Footnote 299:

Leemans, _Papyri Graeci Mus. Antiq. Lugduni-Batavi_; Wessely,
_Griechische Zauberpapyrus von Paris und London_, and _Neue
Griechische Zauberpapyri_, Wien, 1893, _passim_. Cf. Kenyon, _Greek
Papyri in the British Museum_, p. 62. So in mediaeval magic, the words
in the spells unintelligible to the magician are generally Greek. See
Reginald Scot, _Discovery of Witchcraft_ (1651), p. 168.

Footnote 300:

Réville, _Rel. des Peuples non-civilisés_, II. p. 164.

Footnote 301:

Scott in the _Heart of Midlothian_ quotes the first story, I think,
from Peter Walker, but I have not been able to find the passage. For
Ignatius Loyola, see Böhmer, _Les Jésuites_, French ed. 1910, p. 10.
Cf. Alphandéry, _R.H.R._ 1911, p. 110.

Footnote 302:

_Asiatic Studies_, 1882, p. 77.

Footnote 303:

_E.g._ well-fed dogs who worry sheep, and cats who steal fish and
other delicacies rather than have them given to them. The actions of
the animals show in both cases that they know that what they are doing
is displeasing to their owners.

Footnote 304:

Sayce, _Gifford Lectures_, pp. 420 _sqq._ For these penitential psalms
generally, see Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_,
Boston, 1898, chap. XVIII.

Footnote 305:

_Il._ III. ll. 280 _sqq._ (Lang, Leaf, and Myers trans. p. 57).

Footnote 306:

_Odyss._ III. ll. 373 _sqq._ (Butcher and Lang trans. p. 43).

Footnote 307:

According to Maspero, _Ét. Égyptol._ I. p. 163, this was always the
case in Egypt, at least in historic times. “Prayer,” he says, “was a
formula of which the terms had an imperative value, and the exact
enunciation of which obliged the god to concede what was asked of
him.”

Footnote 308:

Maury, _Religions de la Grèce Antique_, II. pp. 97 _sqq._

Footnote 309:

_Il._ X. l. 292; _Odyss._ XI. l. 30, and where before quoted.

Footnote 310:

Perhaps it is to this last view that we should attribute the
well-known indifference of the Semitic peoples to mythology and
science.

Footnote 311:

_E.g._ the Rainbow in Genesis ix. 12-16. Erman, in his _History of
Egyptian Religion_, p. 31, points out that Egyptian mythology is found
only in magical books.

Footnote 312:

Frazer, _Golden Bough_, 3rd ed. pt I. vol. I. p. 52.

Footnote 313:

The principal collections of these are indicated in note 3 on p. 93,
_supra_. Cf. “The Names of Demons in the Magic Papyri,” _P.S.B.A._
1901.

Footnote 314:

Kenyon, _Gk. Pap. in Brit. Mus._ p. 77. This is the date of the MS.
The spells themselves are probably much older.

Footnote 315:

_Philosophumena_, Bk IV. c. 28. Hippolytus is probably wrong in
thinking this a conscious imposture. The magician, like his clients,
does not connect cause and effect in such cases. Sir Alfred Lyall told
Lord Avebury that he had often seen Indian sorcerers openly mixing
croton oil with the ink in which their charms were written so as to
produce a purgative effect when the ink was washed off and swallowed.
See Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, p. 24.

Footnote 316:

_P.S.B.A._ XXII. (1900), pp. 121 _sqq._ An explanation of the name is
attempted by Giraud, _Ophitae_, Paris, 1884, p. 91, n. 5.

Footnote 317:

Daremberg and Saglio, _Dict. des Antiq._ _s.v._ Baubo. The name Ortho
perhaps suggests that of the very ancient goddess later called Artemis
Orthia, whose original name seems to have been Orthia only. Cf. M. S.
Thompson’s paper “The Asiatic or Winged Artemis” in _J.H.S._ vol.
XXIX. (1909), pp. 286 _sqq._, esp. p. 307.

Footnote 318:

_P.S.B.A._ XXII. (1900), p. 121, and see Griffith and Thompson,
_Demotic Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden_, p. 61 and note.

Footnote 319:

Probably, however, it refers to the number of letters in the name in
some more or less fantastic spelling or cryptogram. When Hippolytus
speaks of the Demiurge Ialdabaoth as “a fiery God, a fourth number”
(_Philosophumena_, Bk V. c. 7, p. 153, Cruice), there can be little
doubt that he is referring to the Tetragrammaton or four-lettered name
of Jehovah. Cf. the “hundred-lettered” name of Typhon, p. 104,
_infra_.

Footnote 320:

_Griechische Zauberpapyri von Paris und London_, pp. 24-26.

Footnote 321:

The use of ointment for magical purposes is well known, and it was the
incautious use of an ointment of this kind which changed Lucius, the
hero of Apuleius’ romance, into an ass. The use of ointments which had
the property of translating the user to the Witches’ Sabbath
frequently occurs in the witch-trials of the Renaissance, and it has
been suggested that drugs producing hallucinations were thus applied.
The word κοινή often found in these spells seems to point to some
ointment or preparation used in _all_ the magic ceremonies described.

Footnote 322:

_Aber-amenti_: “Lord (lit. Bull) or Conqueror of Amenti,” the Egyptian
Hades. The name is of frequent occurrence in all these spells. Jesus,
in one of the later documents of the _Pistis Sophia_, is called
_Aberamenthô_, in circumstances that would make the title peculiarly
appropriate.

Footnote 323:

A palindrome containing the same word or sentence written both
forwards and backwards. The phrase here given (_aemonaebarôth_) is
probably Hebrew, which the scribe may have known was written the
reverse way to most European languages. It is noteworthy that a
mistake in transcription is made when the phrase is written backwards.

Footnote 324:

This sentence was probably once Egyptian from the frequent recurrence
of _p_ and _t_ as the initial letters of words. They are the masculine
and feminine forms of the definite article in Coptic.

Footnote 325:

These “boneless strings of vowels,” as C. W. King calls them in his
_Gnostics and their Remains_, 1887, p. 320, are thought by him to
cover the name of Jehovah. Another theory is that they are a musical
notation giving the tone in which the spell is to be pronounced.

Footnote 326:

Σύστασις. The text gives the most usual meaning of the word: but it
may here mean something like the “materialization” spoken of by
spiritualists.

Footnote 327:

The word used (πλάσμα) properly means image. But no image or idol has
been mentioned. It is curious that in the Mithraic mysteries, we hear
of the initiates, apparently during the reception of a candidate,
“striking [him?] with birds’ wings.” Cf. the text attributed
(doubtfully) to St Augustine in Cumont, _Textes et Monuments relatifs
aux Mystères de Mithra_, Bruxelles, 1896, t. II. p. 8.

Footnote 328:

Some word like οἰκονομία seems to have been omitted by the scribe.

Footnote 329:

Because the ass was considered a Typhonic animal.

Footnote 330:

The form of hypnotism known as crystal-gazing. A full description is
given in Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_, 1896, pp. 276 _sqq._ Cf.
“Divination in the XVIIth Century,” _National Review_, 1899, pp.
93-104, for its practice in England.

Footnote 331:

See the letter of Porphyry to Anebo quoting Chaeremon. That this
practice was peculiar to the Egyptian magicians is stated by
Iamblichus, _de Mysteriis_, Bk IV. c. 7. A good instance is given by
Maspero, “Sur deux Tabellae Devotionis” in _Ét. Égyptol._ 1893, t. II.
p. 297, where a magician threatens, if his prayer be not granted, to
go down into the secret places of Osiris and destroy his shroud.

Footnote 332:

Kenyon, _Greek Papyri in the British Museum_, pp. 79-81.

Footnote 333:

Or isopsephic, _i.e._ composed of letters having an equal numerical
value. One of the many forms of juggling with words and letters
current in the early Christian centuries. The “number of the beast” in
Revelation xiii. 18, where, as is now generally admitted, 666 covers
the name of Nero Caesar which has that numerical value in Hebrew, is
the most familiar instance. Other instances can be found in the
Epistle of Barnabas, c. 9, Hilgenfeld, _N.T. extra Canonem receptum_,
Lips. 1884, and Hippolytus, _Philosophumena_, Bk VI. c. 48, p. 318,
Cruice.

Footnote 334:

The context shows that a scarab set in a ring is indicated.

Footnote 335:

A rude drawing representing the magician in this attitude often
appears in the margin of papyri such as that quoted in the text. See
Wessely, _Griech. Zauberp._ p. 118.

Footnote 336:

Doubtless the index, because the Idaean Dactyli were said to be the
_first_ of men.

Footnote 337:

This seems to be a corruption of some name like Baal-zephon. The
confusion of ζ for β in these papyri is very common.

Footnote 338:

A Hebrew name meaning “Thou art our father.” It was thought especially
valuable because it could be read either way.

Footnote 339:

Of these words, _Iaoth Sabaoth_ is “Jehovah of hosts”; _patoure
zagoure_, “who openeth and shutteth” (cf. Revelation i. 8); _Baruch
adonai eloai iabraam_, “Blessed be the Lord God of Abraham.” All are
fairly good Hebrew not very much corrupted.

Footnote 340:

Astrampsuchos appears, oddly enough, as the name of one of the
celestial guardians of a heaven in one of the documents of the
Bodleian Bruce Papyrus which is described in Chap. X, _infra_. See
Amélineau, _Le Papyrus Gnostique Bruce_, Paris, p. 109, who
transcribes it Etrempsuchos, while Schmidt (_Koptisch-gnostische
Schriften_, Leipzig, 1905, Bd. I. p. 345) writes Strempsuchos.
Hippolytus gives the name as that of one of the Powers worshipped by
the Peratae, _v. Philosophumena_, Bk V. c. 14, p. 196, Cruice.

Footnote 341:

M. Maspero contends that this name is a corruption of an epithet of
Thoth. See _Ét. Égyptol._ V. p. 259.

Footnote 342:

See Plutarch, _Sulla_, _passim_, especially cc. IX. XXVIII. and
XXXVII. from which last it appears that he consulted “the Chaldaeans.”

Footnote 343:

Horace, _Epode_, V.

Footnote 344:

Juvenal, _Sat._ VI.

Footnote 345:

Renan, _L’Antéchrist_, Paris, 1873, p. 28, n. 4, for authorities.

Footnote 346:

Acts xiii. 8; _ibid._ xix. 13-19. Cf. Renan, _op. cit._ p. 421.

Footnote 347: