This week we’re going to take another look at one of the most unusual magical texts to survive from Late Antique Egypt, P. Kell. Copt. 35, a letter containing a magical spell intended to separate a couple. We already discussed this text briefly in our post about Manichaeism and magic – like all of the texts from the ancient oasis-city of Kellis, this papyrus was uncovered by the excavations of the team from the University of Monash in Melbourne, Australia, led by Colin Hope. It was found in House 3 of Area A, inhabited in the fourth century by several generations of an extended family of Manicheans, who abandoned it…
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Religion in the Coptic Magical Papyri VII: Monks and Magic
Two weeks ago we discussed a book of amulets which showed how “magical” practices could be entirely Christian, and we noted that the book’s format suggested it might even have been produced by monks. The idea that monks played a prominent role in the practice of magic in late antique Egypt has been promoted recently by David Frankfurter, whose book Christianizing Egypt argues that most of the surviving magical texts that we have were copied by monks. We do indeed have several texts which seem to come from monasteries or monastic cells, although many more have no clear provenance, and, as we saw in the case of the ancient town…
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Religion in the Coptic Magical Papyri III: Manichaeans and Magic
In one of the earliest surviving Coptic letters, a man named Makarios wrote to his son: My son, my beloved one who is greatly honoured by me: the child of righteousness; the one whose good reputation is in my mouth at every moment, whose testimony remains in my heart; (whose) name is sweet in my mouth, my beloved son Matheos. P. Kell. Kopt. 19 ro ll.1-4 A good Christian, he continues by imparting some paternal advice: Do not earn fault or mockery by your… conduct. Study your Psalms, in Greek or Coptic, (every) day. P. Kell. Kopt. 19 ro ll.12-14 But what might be surprising to us is that although…