# Archaeological Journal/Volume 11/Notices of Archaeological Publications: Publications of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Fragments of a Greco-Egyptian work upon Magic

By publishing this remarkable fragment, the Cambridge Antiquarian Society has done much to elucidate a very interesting branch of inquiry. The art of the magicians who withstood Moses and Aaron, the strange magical doctrines of some of the early Eastern heretics, and the doings of the modern Egyptian magicians, alike receive illustration from the fragment and the valuable notes with which it is accompanied.
​The author of the work, as the editor remarks, appears to have held similar, but not identical, doctrines with those of the Gnostic author of the "Pistis Sophia." He seems to have acknowledged the religion of the Hebrews as well as those of Persia and Greece, but his fundamental doctrines appear to have been Egyptian; indeed, there is little doubt that he was a priest or magician of Egypt and that he lived during the second century of the Christian era, or at no great distance of time from that period. His work is among the oldest of its kind and connects the Gnostic heresy with the ancient Egyptian religion, while it affords us some insight into what must have been the magic of the days of the Pharaohs.
The papyrus consists of a series of invocations accompanied by directions. The first of these, entitled "a Sarapian divination," is directed to be wrought by help of "a boy, with a lamp, a bowl, and a pit," and it is related that a throne should be seen to be brought in. These and other like particulars, coupled with the manner in which this mode of divination is said to have been conducted, on other ancient authority, indicates, as the editor observes, a very similar performance to that which Mr. Lane describes in his Modern Egyptians (vol. ii. c. xii.), as practised at the present day in Egypt. It is not a little remarkable that this magical rite should have continued in use throughout a period of near two thousand years, if not for a far longer time, while Egyyt has twice changed its religion and once its language, so that superstition has survived nationality.
Passing over the second and third divinations as of minor importance, we find in the fourth the magician calling himself Moses, and invoking the God of Israel in words that indicate some acquaintance with the history and literature of the Hebrews. In the tenth, likewise, we find a similar incantation. Both are evidences that the magicians thought all religions serviceable, and were unwilling to alter foreign names, as one of the Zoroastrian precepts commands not to change barbarous names, for that they had a great efficacy in the mysteries. When they did not use foreign names, they called on those whom they wished to propitiate, in a strange series of meaningless words, chiefly formed of the vowels, of which we find many examples here.
The remaining invocations are curious and well deserving a careful examination. Perhaps the most remarkable of them is that wherein the magician threatens to divulge the most hidden mysteries, and otherwise pretends to terrify the gods, calling himself Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes, that he may obtain what he desires. Porphyry ridicules this kind of magic in his letter to Anebo, but it appears to have been very prevalent among the so-called philosophers of that time who were addicted to magic, and recalls to mind the menaces which have been offered in other countries and later times to persons held sacred and their images.
We cannot conclude without expressing a hope that Mr. Goodwin, and others as well qualified for the task, will continue the investigation of this remarkable subject, and lay fresh material before the public.
R. S. P.