The Numerical Value of a Magical Formula

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The Numerical Value of a Magical Formula Campbell Bonner The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 16, No. 1/2. (May, 1930), pp. 6-9. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0307-5133%28193005%2916%3A1%2F2%3C6%3ATNVOAM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3 The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology is currently published by Egypt Exploration Society.

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T H E NUMERICAL VALUE OF A MAGICAL FORMULA BY CAMPBELL BONNER With PI. ix, figs. 3 and 4 I n the Berlin magical papyrus 5026, 11. 126 ff., in the course of a Ahyo7 addressed to UOL & ~ r j v r ~ lcai ( ~ aG&phv , POL f'6wprjoo Apollo, these words occur: Qyrh eiPL d 8eiva, SUTLP T ~ V TOG peyicrou uou 6vdparo~~ V & Q L V , O; ?j +++OF 8 3 q 8 . The text of this papyrus was newly collated for Preisendanz's edition by Wilcken and Kroll, and we may therefore accept the numeral 9999 as correct, although Parthey read only 8p. After the numeral follows a long series of combinations of the vowels, extending over four lines of the column. I n a note on the passage Preisendanz remarks, "Der Zahlenwert 9999 ist aus den Vokalgruppen nicht ermittelbar." No single group nor the sum of them all will yield this number. To search for a formula which would give this numerical value would be the idlest of idle tasks; but since a coincidence has suggested to me a plausible explanation of the number, i t seems worth while to call it to the attention of those who are interested in Graeco-Egyptian magic. About two years ago I purchased in Athens a "gnostic " stone which is a good specimen of a type known from several other examples (PI. ix, fig. 3). I t is a dark red jasper, shading a t the lower right-hand edge into dark green, oval in shape, and about 19 by 14 mm. in size; the setting, a modern gold ring of good workmanship, covers a small part of the margin. The centre of the field \ (Fig. 1) is occupied by a figure of the child Harpocrates seated upon a lotus in a papyrus boat, of which the right-hand extremity is rudely shaped into Fig. 1. Fig 2. the head of some animal, possibly an ox. The god faces to the left, his right hand is raised to his mouth, and with his left he holds a whip, the lash hanging over his shoulder. Above his head are three scarabs in a horizontal row, under these the moon to left and a star to right. Facing the figure of Harpocrates are three birds (hawks?) in a vertical row, behind him three goats similarly arranged. Under the boat to left there are three crocodiles vertically arranged, to right three snakes. The whole design is surrounded by a serpent with his tail in his mouth. On the back of the stone is an inscription cut in the rough capitals with strongly marked serifs which are characteristic of such stones (Pig. 2). I t reads XABPAX @NECXHP @IXPO @NTPW @WXCd BOX The letters are not crowded and each line seems meant to represent a separate word. The words have no meaning in either Greek or Coptic and are probably jargon. At any rate I found in them nothing significant beyond the circumstance that all the

Plate IX.

Babylonian cylinder-seal in the MusCe du Louvre (by courtesy of M. Delaporte). Figure of Bes with Horus, in glazed frit-ware. ScaZe c. +. 2. 3 and 4. "Gnostic" stones in the possession of Professor Campbell Bonner. Scale 1.: I.

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seven vowels occur in their proper order. However, I remembered the formula, and in the course of casual reading I have noted some other cases in which i t occurs. It is found on the reverse of a green jasper Abrasax stone in the Southesk Collection (Catalogue of the Southesk Collection of Antique Gems, I, P1. xiii, No. 1 ) ; in this case the letters are somewhat crowded and there was no effort so to divide them as to give a line to each word. Otherwise the agreement with the reading of my stone is exact. I n the catalogue of the gems of the Bibliotheque Nationale (Cabinet des Mkdailles) Chabouillet describes a haematite (No. 2196, p. 293) which has on the obverse a design similar to that on my stone, Harp~crat~es and the triplets of animals, with traces of the common legend a p x a v a O a v a k p a , and on the reverse the seven vowels in seven different arrangements ux There and a legend of which the following letters remain: a l l ~ o v ~ x a ~ p a X + v etcpo+vvp. is, or was, also in the Cassel Museum a stone for which I have to rely upon the description and rude illustration given by Kopp (Palaeographia Critica, IV, 266 ff .) ; the figure given in Matter's Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme (PI. iii, fig. 4) seems to be derived from an untrustworthy source. On the obverse is Harpocrates seated on a lotus in the right half of the field, in the left stands an adoring cynocephaius. Above, the moon and a star. Z ~ A F& i p a ~ ~ pOn . the reverse Kopp reads the inscription There is also the legend x a P p I a x + v f r / X?~P+LXP I o+vvpo+ / VXPO+VVP j ~ ~ + @ X WI PPa ~~ xXw w o x aI BIJauatGo9 I XapLv a x e I favGp. The engraver has carelessly repeated two words of the X a P p a ~ formula, and has given +vxpo for + L X P O the second time. Further evidence of his inattention is to be found in the omission of v from the common magical word i 3 a ~ v x w o w ~Kopp, . it may be ; remarked, discovers a meaning in Hebrew for the syllables x a p p a x and X ~ P + L X P Obut since in order to do so he has to remove them from their connexion, it is doubtful whether this is anything more than a coincidence. Finally, Matter (op. cit., P1. ii B, fig. 5) illustrates a stone in the Strasbourg library which he was the first to publish, and as to which his report may be taken as trustworthy. It represents a scarab with a jackal's head, surrounded by the x a P p a x formula as it appears on my stone with one difference only, + W X O for + o x w . It is likely that other stones with the same inscription could be found, but the point needs no further emphasis. The fact that the formula is found on the backs of magical stones shows that it is a "name of power "; compare P. Lond. XLVI, 450ff. (p. 196 Preisendanz), where directions are given for the making of a magical ring with a name engraved upon the back of the stone. The x a P p a x formula occurs with various palaeographical corruptions in the magical papyri. Thus it is found in Paris 2391 (PMimaut), 1. 79 and again a t 1. 152 f., in PBerlin 5025, 1. 142, and finally in PBerlin 5026, 1. 140 f. The last instance, i t will be observed, is only about ten lines removed from the number-name 9999 with which we started, and belongs to the same invocation to Apollo. While reading over the Berlin papyri in Preisendanz's excellent new edition, i t occurred to me to try whether any numerical value of significant appearance was associated with the formula on my ring-stone, especially since its recurrence on other stones and in the papyri seemed to mark i t as important. The result follows: xaPPax 600+1+2+100+1+600 1304 4vfC7x9P 500+50+5+200+600+8+ 100 1463 +LXPO 500+10+600+100+70 1280 $ V V P ~ 500+50+400+ 100+800 1850 + ~ X W 500+800+600+800 2700 P x 2+800+600 1402 9999

8

CAMPBELL BONNER

This is surely not a coincidence. It is true that not one of the papyrus examples of the formula mill give the result that appears above, because of the corruptions which affect them all-XL for V, 5 for X, K for X. o for o and others. But the stones agree closely enough to establish the right reading, and even the variants in the papyri evidently proceed from the version which appears in perfect form on my stone and on that in the Southesk Collection. It is worth noting that two other words associated with the xa,Bpax formula on the Cassel stone also have significant numerical values. In the case of 0/3~acraf(365) this has long been known. / 3 a ~ v ~ o o ogives x the palindromic number 3663, which has a mystical importance in the great Paris magical papyrus (Bibl. Nat. suppl. gr. 574), 1. 938: see Hopfner, Griechisch-Aegyptischer Ofl~nbarungszauber,I, 181. and Dornseiff, Das Alphabet in iMystik und Magie. 105 and 172. Although it has only a slight connection with the principal subject of this note. I take this opportunity to call attention to an isopsephic equivalent of P U L V X which ~ ~ Wappears X not to have been observed. It occurs on another stone in my possession, an oval jasper 15 by 10-5 nun. in size, with the design cut in the longer dimension (PI. ix, fig. 4). The stone Fig. 3. Fig. 4. is dark green except for an area of red covering the upper part of the obverse face and showing to some extent on the bevel, which in this stone is very broad; the reverse face of the stone measures only 11 by 7 mm. This also is a Harpocrates stone (Fig. 3). The god sits facing left on a lotus in a boat, his right hand lifted to his mouth, his left holding a whip as in the other specimen. His feet rest upon what appears to be a small altar or an altar-like footstool. On the stern of the boat, behind the god, sits a cynocephalus, on the prow a bird, apparently a cock. Under the boat is cut the word a p ~ p ~ o ~ a , o othe o r ,numerical value of which is 3663. The bevel is completely encircled by an inscription x~hichbegins just under the left end of the obverse face, a/3epa~eve600vXepe6efav(Fig. 4). Exactly the same letters are repeated, beginning however a t the other end of the series. on the small reverse face of the stone. That the two parts of the inscription were intended to make a palindrome is show11 by the fact that the last letter of the inscription on the bevel is not aligned with the others, but is placed lower and slightly turned, as if to guide the eye of the reader on to the reverse face, where the letters u a are placed close to the a v of the bevel. I do not remember any other instance of the word a/3~pioxooaoy,but the inscription on the bevel and the reverse of the stone is a version of a now well-known formula, of which several cases (with various readings, of course) are noted by Preisendanz Wiener Studien, XLI, 11f.) and Eitrem (Papyri Osloe~ues,I, p. 35). The occurrence of a number-name on the obverse of this stone may raise the question whether the palindrome on the bevel and the reverse might not also have been constructed with a view to some significant numerical value; but this is very doubtful. The sum of the letter-values in one or another of the versions of i t comes near enough to 3663 to suggest that the exact number might be obtained by some manipulation of the text, and by allowing one of its two parts to differ slightly from the other. But such experiments are scarcely worth while. ~ is to be found on the remarkable heart-shaped Another instance of the X a / 3 p a formula bronze amulet in the University of London collection which is described by Professor Petrie (Amulets, 30-31; Pls. xxii and xlix). It is pIaced on the upper left-hand quarter of

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the obverse side. Almost all of the letters are there, but the parts of the formula have been so intermingled with other words and symbols that i t is not surprising that the editor did not see that they belonged together. Because of this oversight there are probably some slight misreadings, though this cannot be determined without inspection of the original; and some of the interpretations proposed for individual words or syllables (Petrie, 30, cf. E. Peterson, Rh. Mus. 75, 421) can scarcely hold. The amulet deserves to be re-examined with closer attention to its relations with other gnostic amulets, for i t contains subjects which appear again and again upon the stones. The maker has lavished upon this one piece enough of the familiar magical synlbols and formulas to make a dozen amulets of the ordinary type. In conclusion I would call attention to two other names or formulas which appear to have significant equivalents in numbers. I n the great Paris papyrus (IV, 2428 Preisendanz) the name of the Agathos Daimon is given on the authority of Epaphroditus, presumably the maker of a magical book, as follows: Qp7j a v o i ' + W ~ X W + v v v v p o p q ~ qo p o ~ w w i ' . The numerical value is 608+861+2800+2100+1180+2450 =9999. I find no significant numbers in the alternative formula, the ' A p n - o ~ ~ x v o v +Xdyoq ~ which is mentioned in 1. 2434, and which is given in full, as Preisendanz points out, in one of the Berlin magical papyri (Preisendanz I, 28). This second occurrence of a name represented numerically by a succession of nines may serve as an excuse for mentioning a sacred name with the value 99. In two passages of the Leyden papyrus J 395 (most conveniently consulted in Dieterich, Abraxas, 6) these words occur in an invocation: r t ) 82 +vosrcdv o o u duopa a l y v n - r ~ u r l .' I a X G a p a e ~ ~The . form of the name is corrupt in the papyrus, but this restoration is virtually certain; cf. Dieterich's note on p. 6, also p. 46. I n one of the passages there stand the additional words yptipILara d K ~ T E C T L V . Since there are actually ten letters in the name, this must mean, as Dieterich perceived, that E L is treated as a single sound equivalent to iota. The numerical value of 'JaX8aBa~ is~then found to be 99. This case would be of little interest but for the circumstance that (99) evidently had a talismanic value in Coptic writings-a point which would have escaped me but for the kindness of my colleague Professor W. H. Worrell. In Zeitschr. f. ag. Spr., XXIV,73, Stern calls attention to the occurrence of the symbol p in religious texts, and explains it (following Agapius Bsciai) as an allusion to the parable of the flock of a hundred sheep-the writer of the symbol putting himself in the place of the lost sheep and invoking the prayers of the other ninety-nine, viz., his fellow Christians. On p. 102 of the same volume Springer explains i t as a numerical equivalent for dPlLy'v (1+40+8+50=99), and shows that this tradition passed into the church literature of the early Middle Ages. Worrell found the number a t the beginning and a t the end of the prooemium of a Coptic homily on the Archangel Gabriel, and again a t the end of the work; see his Coptic Manuscripts in the Freer Collection (vol. x of U?ziversity of Michigan Studies, Humanistic Series), 327, n. 2. If ' I a X 8 a p a is ~ ~a number-name, i t is probable that the sacred or talismanic character of the number ninety-nine is older than its use in either magical papyri or Christian documents, and any explanation based upon either of these sources alone should be accepted only in a limited sense.

Journ. of Egypt. Arch.

XVI.