Code-switching with the Gods

The Bilingual (Old Coptic-Greek) Spells of PGM IV (P. Bibliothèque Nationale Supplément Grec. 574) and their Linguistic, Religious, and Socio-Cultural Context in Late Roman Egypt

Edward O. D. Love

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2016
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9783110466362
• Subtopic: Egyptian Ancient History
• Index: History

This volume provides the first comprehensive text edition of the Egyptian language sections of P. Bibliothèque Nationale Supplément Grec. 574 (PGM IV) and analysis of their script, language, and the bilingual spells which they are part of. The magical practices preserved in the PDM and PGM have been published for nearly a century, yet it is only recently that research has focused on investigating the complex relationship between the languages, scripts, and religious traditions they exhibit, as well as the question of who composed, copied, and practiced these spells. Focusing on the bilingual divinations, lust spell, and exorcism of PGM IV, written in the Egyptian and Greek languages - and rendered in Old Coptic scripts and the Greek script respectively - this volume analyses their textual content and ritual mechanics, contextualised among the PDM and PGM, and investigates the potential identities of the magical practitioners of late Roman and Late Antique Egypt. Encompassing the disciplines of Egyptology, Coptology, Papyrology, and Late Antique studies, this volume focuses in particular on the themes of magical practice, bilingualism, script, and the social context of magic in Egypt during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE.

1“The Old Coptic Magical Texts” of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)

148 years ago, the first mention by a scholar of a manuscript featuring an “Egyptian text” rendered partly in “Greek characters”, “more perfect and valuable” than any example at that time otherwise known, which “exists or did exist at Paris”, was made by Goodwin, cf. 1868, 24, who wrote from Shanghai in April 1867, and whose remarks were published in ZÄS 6. 15 years, and 15 volumes of ZÄS, later, Adolf Erman published in ZÄS 21 the first substantial treatment of “Die ägyptischen Beschwörungen des großen Pariser Zauberpapyrus”, cf. 1883. He was followed 17 years, and 17 volumes of ZÄS, later by F. L. Griffith, cf. 1900b, who termed them “The Old Coptic magical texts of Paris”. The “Great Magical Papyrus of Paris” is the term by which the “papyrus, purchased for the Bibliothèque Impériale in 1857, at a sale of antiquities from the collection of M. Anastasi”¹ noted by Goodwin, cf. 1868, 23–24, has been subsequently known by scholars. It is with reference to these formative treatments published in “die Zeitschrift” that this study has been produced for the new Beiheft series of the ZÄS. Following such an illustrious precedent, the work presented here has had several manifestations: Firstly as the thesis presented as part fulfilment of my Master of Studies (MSt) undertaken in the Griffith Institute at the University of Oxford in 2013–2014, secondly as a series of articles submitted to the ZÄS, and finally in the form in which it appears here. The rationale behind this study was not only to provide the first comprehensive treatment – since those of Erman and Griffith – of all the Egyptian-language sections of the “Great Magical Papyrus of Paris” (1.2–1.9), as well as incorporating the section otherwise left for Coptologists (1.10), but also the first treatment which comprehensively analyses the graphemes and phonemes of these sections (2), the religious and temporal milieu in which they were produced (3), their textual content and thereby magical practice (4; 5; 6), as well as the first attempt to contextualise the individuals who produced and practiced such spells (7) during late Roman period and into Late Antique Egypt.

1.1Introducing P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)

Ever since the formative text editions of Preisendanz et al.², cf. GZPI; GZPII, the “Great Magical Papyrus of Paris”, i.e. formerly P. Anastasi 1073, currently P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574, has been better known as Greek Magical Papyrus, i.e. PGM, IV (TM #64343). PGM IV is a 72-page papyrus codex − now bound into a hardback volume³ and held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris – dating at the earliest to the late 3^rd century CE, with scholarly consensus preferring the first hal...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 “The Old Coptic Magical Texts” of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)
• 2 The Graphemes and Phonemes of “The Old Coptic Magical Texts” of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)
• 3 Contextualising the Bilingual Spells of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)
• 4 Contextualising the Bilingual Divinations of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)
• 5 Contextualising the Bilingual “Old Coptic Love Spell” of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)
• 6 Contextualising the Bilingual Exorcism of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV) 190
• 7 The Practitioners of the “Old Coptic Magical Texts” of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)
• Appendix 1 — Interlinear transcription of the format of the text as extant in codex P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 and transliteration of the text as established as PGM IV
• Appendix 2 — The multivalent OC graphemes of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)
• Appendix 3 — Dialectal adherence in the Egyptian-language sections of P. Bibliothèque nationale Supplément grec. 574 (PGM IV)
• Bibliography
• Index of Words in Old Coptic Script
• Index of Key Content
• Plates
• Endnotes