Bonner, SMA – PDF, 171.

British Museum,²⁴ is plainly engraved, yet may be a blunder for Uriel.²⁵ In a list of seven names on an agate in the same collection²⁶ the four archangels are accompanied by Phniel²⁷ (compare Peniel, “face of God”),²⁸ Ragauel,²⁹ and Suriel. A small rectangular prism of gilded glass in the Michigan collection has on three of its sides Iao, Sabao, Michael, and on the fourth, rather oddly, Thoth.³⁰

Allusions to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are to be found in several passages in the magical books, but their names rarely occur on amulets. A legend that appears without accompanying design on an amulet in the Newell collection reads Ιακωβ ακουβτα Ιαω βερω.³¹ A tentative interpretation proposed by H. C. Youtie rests upon the not very satisfactory assumption that Hebrew and Aramaic elements are mingled in the text, which on that theory might mean “Jacob, the likeness of Jahveh: his son.” But the possibility that the second and fourth words are voces magicae without traceable origin cannot be put aside entirely.

The name of Moses seems to occur twice. Montfaucon reproduces from Spon a stone showing a snake between the words Sabao and Iao, with Μουση on the reverse;³² and a haematite in the Newell collection shows a mummy with a curious peaked headdress and indistinct face, with αβρασαξ on one side, Μωσην on the other.³³

A few words and phrases that are good Greek have been found to be Semitic, or at least oriental, in certain religious applications. On an agate in the Walters Art Gallery an ouroboros encloses the words Ιαω πάντων δέσποτα, below which are three large characters and under them the vowels in random arrangement.³⁴ An onyx described by Mouterde similar several respects.³⁵ An ouroboros encloses the same inscription, the word Iao repeated at a lower level, three large characters and a small circle, also a female head of uncertain

²⁴ B. M. 56013. It closely resembles Chiflet, Pl. 6, 24, a stone then in the possession of the Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Chiflet describes it as “magnes,” a term under which he probably included haematite as well as magnetite.

²⁵ Baudissin, however, follows Bellermann's suggestion that it may mean “bow of God” or “truth of God” (Studien zur Religionsgeschichte, I, 196, n. 1).

²⁶ B. M. 56110.

²⁷ Phniel might be considered akin to Phanuel, who appears in the book of Enoch (9, 1; cf. 40, 9) as another name of Uriel, or perhaps as taking his place in the group of four archangels because of the special rôle assigned to Uriel as the guide of Enoch (21, 5). But both names appear, as if belonging to different angels, on the British Museum agate.

²⁸ Genesis 32, 30.

²⁹ Cf. Ragouel, Numbers 10, 29; Tobit 3, 7; Enoch 20, 4. In the last passage he is the angel ὁ ἐκδικῶν τὸν κόσμον τῶν φωστήρων.

³⁰ D. 361.

³¹ D. 275; see H. C. Youtie, JAOS 50 (1930), 214–220. The names of the three patriarchs occur on D. 284, which bears no design. There seem to be other Hebrew words in the inscription, as well as elements.

³² L'Antiquité expliquée, II, 2, Pl. 156, 9.

³³ D. 13.

³⁴ D. 279.

³⁵ Mouterde, “Le Glaive de Dardanos,” p. 72. The editor's attempt to read two of the characters and the circle as Ζοη is not convincing.

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