Bonner, SMA – PDF, 142.

the numerical values of its component letters are added together the sum is 9999, a number which has a magical sound;⁸ and in the Apolline magic of the second Berlin papyrus (5026, PGM II, 128) the operator boasts that the god has granted him the knowledge of his “greatest name, whose number is 9999.” Not only that, but the Chabrach formula, inaccurately copied, actually occurs a few lines below, almost at the end of the λόγος. This invocation of Apollo is highly syncretistic, and we find that the god is not only addressed by well-known Greek epithets (Parnassios, Kastalios, Phoibos, Pythios), but is also identified with the sun, and with Harpocrates in his various local manifestations; even magical words that normally belong to Set (ιω ερβηθ) are included.⁹ The Chabrach formula, again in a corrupt form, is included in an address to the sun in P. Mimaut, and in an earlier passage of the same papyrus its solar character is scarcely to be doubted, although Set-Typhon is an important factor in the procedure at that place.¹⁰ On the whole, it is clear that the Chabrach formula ranks with the other two that have been listed above as appropriate for magical procedures in which the sun is invoked.

This borne out by the practice of the amulet makers. The Chabrach formula is found on more than a dozen stones, and on eight of them the type represents Harpocrates either with the animal groups or in some simpler design. On one the animal triads appear without the young god; on another single sacred animals are shown on the obverse.¹¹ In two specimens the formula is cut on the reverse of a stone which shows the cock-headed god on the obverse — another solar figure, as we have seen.¹² On one curious stone of unusual shape the inscription is carved round a figure of the jackal-headed Anubis.¹³

These tedious details would not be worth noting but for the fact that the inscriptions just discussed, and a few other magical words, seem by their solar connections to link some designs together as symbols of the pervading multiform solar religion. Similar correlations are indicated by the interchange of type designs, even when they are not accompanied by inscriptions. A gem (red jasper) in the Lewis collection affords an excellent illustration of this.¹⁴ The obverse represents the cock-headed god with snake legs, and the reverse shows the familiar five triads of animals, grouped, however, not round Harpocrates, but round the serpent with a radiate lion's head. Obviously this serpent, elsewhere often inscribed Chnoubis or Chnoumis, is here treated as a surrogate for Harpocrates. The same combination of themes appears on two other amulets which may come from the same workshop that

⁸ For a discussion of this formula see the article in JEA 16 (1930), 6-9, where its numerical significance was first pointed out.

⁹ PGM II, 88 ff., 102 ff., 115.

¹⁰ PGM III, 151; 78 f.

¹¹ B. M. 54276, 56109.

¹² Southesk N 1 (Pl. 13); B. M. 56449.

¹³ D. 363.

¹⁴ Middleton, Lewis Collection, p. 80 (Class C, 17).

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