Bonner, SMA – PDF, 11.

amulets is usually “white” rather than “black,” yet there are Graeco-Egyptian amulets that express such wishes as might be scratched on a curse tablet (κατάδεσμος, defixionis tabella). However, the true curse tablet, made for the sole purpose of destroying an enemy, is never worn by the person uttering the curse, but is hidden away or buried. When “black-magical” words are inscribed on a gem stone it may mean that the stone was intended to be used in a ceremony (πρᾶξις) directed against an enemy, or that the inscription represents a desire so passionately felt that the person who expresses it wishes to be constantly reminded of it.

A special problem is presented by the very numerous inscriptions which, though written in Greek letters, are not Greek; they are usually unintelligible jargon, though some Egyptian and Semitic words have been recognized. Certain words recur in connection with particular designs often enough to suggest that they are secret names of the god or demon represented or symbolized on the stone. These recurring names should be recorded, and the accompanying images or symbols noted, in the hope that some light may eventually be thrown upon their origin. Among them are Αρωριφρασις in connection with Aphrodite, Ηναμαρω with designs representing the baboon of Thoth, Κρατουαθ with Horus-Harpocrates. In the last example we may perhaps recognize an element in the name Harpocrates.

Other long words or combinations of words are found on both magical gems and magical papyri, and several passages in the papyri indicate that these jargon words constitute the “great” or “secret” name of the god invoked. Nevertheless, I am convinced that most of them have no meaning in any language. Some are meant to impress by their sonorous syllables and their suggestion of foreign speech, which is helped out by borrowed sound elements characteristic of other tongues. Others are mere babbling sequences of similar sounds, like αθθα βαθθα, ιβι αβι σελτι βελτι, and are comparable in their meaningless jingle to some of the “counting-out” rhymes used by children in their games. The questionable character of this jargon did not escape such ancient critics as Jerome, who fathers much of this magical nonsense upon the Basilidians, probably unjustly.

“. . . Armazel, Barbelon, Abraxan, Balsamum et ridiculum Leusiboram ceteraque magis portenta quam nomina, quae ad imperitorum et muliercularum animos concitandos, quasi de Hebraicis fontibus hauriunt, barbaro simplices quosque terrentes sono, ut quod non intelligunt plus mirentur.³⁵

“To stir up the minds of ignorant men and foolish women, they pretend to draw from Hebrew sources Armazel, Barbelo, Abraxas, Balsamus and the absurd Leusiboras, and other monsters rather than names, terrifying simple folk with barbarous sounds, that they may be the more amazed at what they cannot understand. ”

There was a magic power even in the arrangement of the letters in certain words. Palindromes, words that read the same forwards and backwards,

³⁵ Hier. Epist. 75, 3, 1 (CSEL 55).

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