Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists 30 (1993) 73-75
William M. Brashear, Magica Varia. With contributions by Adam BillowJacobsen. Papyrologica Bruxellensia, 25. Bruxelles: Fondation
Egyptologique Reine Elisabeth, 1991. 84 pages + 15 plates. BF 540.
The great resurgence of interest in the Greek magical papyri from
Egypt in recent years has resulted in a spate of new translations, reeditions
of known texts and editions of new texts. In the present volume, William
Brashear publishes a small number of magical texts and objects from museums in Berlin, Paris and Copenhagen. Except for text 2, all of the items in
this book are previously unedited, probably in part because of their difficulty or obscurity. Far from being the detritus of the magical papyri,
however, the texts published in this slim volume are of great interest and,
in some cases, unique.
Part of the value of the present volume lies in the extensive commentaries by the editor, who goes into great detail on many aspects of the
texts he edits. Even the uses of relatively common words (such as ai1v in
the Christian prayer amulet 2) and symbols (the crosses in the same text),
are extensively glossed by the editor, often with parallels from far beyond
the realm of Graeco-Roman-Egyptian magic. At times, this makes the book
seem somewhat pedantic and heavy going, but the information is of great
use for the study of the magical papyri and it is convenient to have so many
references available in such a short book.
The first text in the volume is the longest: P. Carlsberg 52, a bifolio
fragment of a parchment codex containing a previously-published Coptic
magical text and a Greek text first edited here. (The transcription, translation and palaeographical commentary are by Adam Billow-Jacobsen.) The
commentary and discussion of the content of this text are very extensive,
filling over half of the present volume. Not only does the editor discuss the
Greek text, but he also discusses the Coptic and the relation between the
two, providing a recent German translation of the Coptic text. The Greek
text provides a rare description of a descent into the underworld-virtually
unknown in Greek magical texts. Despite the fifth-seventh century date of
the manuscript, there are no Christian elements in the texts. Instead, the
texts contain a mixture of Greek, Jewish and Egyptian motifs. Discussion
of Egyptian elements in the texts shows a distinctly Hellenistic bias:
references to the "inconsistencies" of Egyptian iconography and the "multifarious adventitious heads" of various deities, for example, seem to be
imposing a western model on Egyptian religion that is not really relevant.
Text 2 is a Christian prayer amulet on parchment in the Louvre, a
prayer written for a woman to remove her afflictions. This text was
previously published by the editor in Journal of Ancient Civilizations,
which appeared in China, and is republished here with some revisions to
