Swearing, divorce and its consequences

Introduction

Sometime in the second half of the second century ce, the Platonist philos-opher Celsus published his Alêthês Logos (True Doctrine). In this attack on Christianity, he also dealt very critically with the Greek Bible, including the Jewish part of it, the Septuagint. In one of his critical passages, he remarks that circumcision did not originate with the Jews because this custom had been taken over by them from the Egyptians. In his refutation, written not long before 250 ce, the formidable Christian scholar Origen states that it is bet-ter to believe Moses “who says that Abraham was first among men to be cir-cumcised” (Contra Celsum [henceforth: CC] 1.22).1 The mention of the name of Abraham then induces Origen to make a brief excursus in which he adds the following words:

Many also of those who chant incantations for demons use among their formula’s ‘the God of Abraham’; they do this on account of the name and the familiarity between God and this righteous man. It is for this reason that they employ the expression ‘the God of Abraham’ although they do not know who Abraham is (CC 1.22).2

This is an instructive passage in that we learn from it (1) that the expression

‘the God of Abraham’ (or, more probably, in its more extended form, ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’)3 was used in exorcisms

1 The translation is by H. Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965 (2nd ed.), 22. The Greek text I used is the Sources Chrétiennes edition by M. Borret, Origène: Contre Celse, 5 vols., Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967–1976. On this passage see J.G. Cook, The Interpretation of the Old Testament in Greco-Roman Paganism (STAC 23), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004, 102–103.

2 In his Dialogus cum Tryphone Judaeo 85.3, Justin Martyr says that demons cannot be exor-cised in the name of kings or prophets or patriarchs but only in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

3 This biblical formula plays a prominent role in the theophany to Moses at the burning bush:

see Exod. 3:6, 15, 16; 4:5; it is found in the form ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel’ in 1 Kings 18:36; 1 Chron. 29:18; 2 Chron. 30:6. It is often found in post-biblical Jewish prayers of which the best known instance is the berakhah Avoth of the Shemoneh Esreh; see M. Rist,

81 did the gentiles know who abraham was?

by non-Jews and non-Christians in Origen’s lifetime, and (2) that Origen thinks that the exorcists who do so have no idea who Abraham was. As to the first point, later on Origen says that the Israelites trace their genealogy back to the three fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he continues:

Their names are so powerful when linked with the name of God that the formula ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’ is used not only by members of the Jewish nation in their prayers to God and when they exorcise demons, but also by almost all others who deal in magic and spells. For in magical treatises it is often to be found that God is invoked by this formula, and that in spells against demons His name is used in close connexion with the names of these men (CC 4.33).4

And as to the second point, after the passage just quoted Origen continues:

We ask all those who use such invocations of God: Tell us, sirs, who Abraham was, and how great a man was Isaac, and what power was pos-sessed by Jacob, that the name ‘God’ when attached to their names per-forms such miracles? . . . [But] in answer to our question no one can show any history as the source of the stories about these men (CC 4.34).5 And, finally, in yet another passage (CC 5.45), Origen stresses that it would make a spell useless and ineffective if one were to change the names of the three patriarchs into their supposed Greek translations resulting in the formula ‘the God of the chosen father of the echo, the God of laughter, and the God of the man who strikes with the heel’ (etymologies of the names that Origen found

‘The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: A Liturgical and Magical Formula,’ JBL 57 (1938) 289–303 (ibid. 293–295 on Samaritan use of the formula). Cf. also Philo, Abr. 50–1. For a NT occurrence see Acts 3:13.

4 See M. Smith, Jesus the Magician, London: Victor Gollancz, 1978, 73.

5 In this very same passage Origen also says that the formula ‘the God who drowned the king of Egypt and the Egyptians in the Red Sea’ was also widely used by pagans to overcome demons; see P.W. van der Horst, ‘‘The God Who Drowned the King of Egypt.” A Short Note on an Exorcistic Formula, in: A. Hilhorst & G.H. van Kooten (eds.), The Wisdom of Egypt. Jewish, Early Christian, and Gnostic Studies in Honour of Gerard P. Luttikhuizen, Leiden: Brill, 2005, 135–140, reprinted in my Jews and Christians in Their Graeco-Roman Context. Selected Essays on Early Judaism, Samaritanism, Hellenism, and Christianity (WUNT 196), Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006, 280–284.

in the works of Philo).6 Interestingly, Origen adds the warning that the words

“Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” are effective only if pronounced in Hebrew. This passage makes unambiguously clear that Origen himself was convinced of the efficacy of this formula in the fight against demons. But we will leave it at that and let our agenda be dictated by the first two passages which inevitably raise two questions adumbrated already above: (1) Is there independent proof that gentiles used the formula ‘the God of Abraham (and Isaac and Jacob)’ for magi-cal purposes? (2) Is Origen right in saying that these gentiles had no idea who Abraham is? The answer to both questions will turn out to be a qualified yes.7

The Magical Papyri

As is well-known, the importance of Jewish elements in Greek magical papyri should not be underrated: in approximately one third of the rites and charms Jewish elements are detectable.8 Not only are Iao and Adonai and Sabaoth invoked more frequently than most other deities, except Helios, but also Moses, Solomon and the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob figure in sev-eral passages in these papyri, and “angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim abound.”9 All these biblical names seem to have become elements of a “trans-cultural magical lingo,” as Morton Smith has dubbed it.10 Also the strange sounding voces magicae or nomina barbara11 may in some cases have a Hebrew

6 See Chadwick ad locum (300 notes 2–4) for references to Philo. For Abraham as patêr eklektos êchous see, e.g., De gigantibus 64 and De Abrahamo 82, with the comments in D. Winston & J. Dillon, Two Treatises of Philo of Alexandria (BJS 25), Chico: Scholars Press, 1983, 271, and esp. L.L. Grabbe, Etymology in Early Jewish Interpretation: The Hebrew Names in Philo (BJS 115), Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988, 126–127.

7 For a brief general survey of the role of Abraham in early Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-Roman sources see Th. Klauser, ‘Abraham,’ RAC 1 (1950) 18–27.

8 See M. Smith, ‘The Jewish Elements in the Magical Papyri,’ in his Studies in the Cult of Yahweh, vol. 2, Leiden: Brill, 1996, 246–247. Note that this implies that in two thirds of the material no Jewish influence at all is to be detected. On the importance of Jewish elements see also Th. Hopfner, Griechisch-ägyptischer Offenbarungszauber, 2 vols., Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1974–1983 (corrected reprint of the edition of 1921–1924), 2.31–33.

9 W. Brashear, ‘The Greek Magical Papyri: An Introduction and Survey; Annotated Bibliography (1928–1994),’ ANRW II 18,5, Berlin & New York: W. de Gruyter, 1995, 3380–

3684, here 3427. Brashear’s book-length article is the best introduction to the study of Greek magical papyri to date.

10 Smith, ‘The Jewish Elements’ 245.

11 For an extensive list see Brashear, ‘The Greek Magical Papyri’ 3576–3603.

83 did the gentiles know who abraham was?

or Aramaic background.12 Even if that is not the case, sometimes alliterative hocus-pocus of several hundred words is simply called Hebrew by the magi-cians themselves.13 This has to do with the great reputation of Jewish magimagi-cians and magic in late antiquity.14 Jewish and biblical elements, names, motives and formulas were borrowed freely because they were believed to be exceptionally potent and effective. It is, therefore, not strange that, if one moves from pagan magical texts to Jewish ones, one often does not have the feeling of moving to a different world. If syncretism is to be found anywhere, it is in the world of ancient magic.15 The only thing that mattered there was that the spell worked.

And apparently spells with the formula ‘the God of Abraham’ (or, more probably, ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’) did work. When we take a look at the corpus of Greek magical papyri in the edi-tion of Karl Preisendanz (PGM),16 we find several instances of magical reci-pes containing that formula.17 E.g., PGM IV 1227–1264 is a spell for driving out demons. Although it is part of a pagan handbook for magical rituals,18 it con-tains several elements of both Jewish and Christian nature. In half Greek and half Coptic it invokes ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of

12 For instances see C. Bonner, Studies in Magical Amulets, Chiefly Graeco-Egyptian, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1950, 187. But see also the caveat by G. Bohak,

“Hebrew, Hebrew Everywhere? Notes on the Interpretation of Voces Magicae,” in S. Noegel, J. Walker, and B. Wheeler (eds.), Prayer, Magic, and the Stars in the Ancient and Late Antique World, University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003, 69–82.

13 In PGM V 115–116 even the Egyptian name Osoronnophris (= Osiris Wennefer) is said to be ‘the true name which has been transmitted to the prophets of Israel’! For Hebrew in Coptic magical papyri see A.M. Kropp, Ausgewählte Koptische Zaubertexte, 3 vols., Brussels: Fondation Egyptologique Reine Elisabeth, 1930, 3.218.

14 See for literature Brashear, ‘The Greek Magical Papyri’ 3426 note 222. M. Simon, Verus Israel. A Study of the Relations Between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire (AD 135–425), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, 339–368. J. Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1972, 134–161.

15 Sometimes it is impossible to decide whether a magical papyrus is of Christian or Jewish provenance; e.g., P.IFAO iii 50 in R.W. Daniel & F. Maltomini (eds), Supplementum Magicum I, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1990, 49–52 (no. 19).

16 Papyri Graecae Magicae. Die griechischen Zauberpapyri, 2nd ed. by K. Preisendanz &

A. Henrichs, 2 vols., Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973 (orig. 1928). For an English translation see H.D. Betz (ed.), The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.

17 For Christian instances of the formula see, e.g., Kropp, Ausgewählte koptische Zaubertexte 2.165 and 236 (nos. 45 and 71).

18 See P.W. van der Horst, ‘The Great Magical Papyrus of Paris (PGM IV) and the Bible,’ in his Jews and Christians in Their Graeco-Roman Context 269–279.

Jacob’ but also Jesus Chrestos (sic) and the Holy Spirit (1231–1234). Because the pagan elements are not very prominent in this case, one may wonder whether we may have here an originally Christian magical recipe taken into service by the pagan compiler of the handbook, perhaps because it contained the formula ‘the God of Abraham.’ In PGM V 459–489, however, we have a very clear-cut case: After some vague allusions to the biblical creation story the text goes on calling upon ‘the god of gods’ who is called both Iao (= YHWH) and Zeus. Then follows a long list of nomina barbara or voces magicae with the word Hebraïsti prefixed. This string of holy nonsense19 is certainly not Hebrew, except for four words in the middle (479–480): barouch Adônai elôai Abraam =

‘Blessed is the Lord, the God of Abraham.’ There is little reason to assume that the writer of this charm understood this Hebrew phrase, but the fact that the name of Abraham occurred here in a setting of a “transcultural magical lingo”

that he took to be Hebrew (correctly, in this case), apparently sufficed for it to be included in this spell.

Another case is PGM XII 270–350.20 It first describes a ring of a special stone of which it is said that “it makes men as famous and great and admired and rich as can be” (270) and “it also works for demoniacs” (281). When its bearer wants it to work one of its miracles, he/she should say a spell that consists mostly of the usual abracadabra, in the middle of which we suddenly come across the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (287, spelled as Abraän, Isak, Jakkôbi). Here we see that the mere mentioning of the name(s), without the words ‘the God of’ being prefixed, was deemed sufficient to be effective.21 The fact that the names are here part of a string of nonsense words (such as Nouchitha, Nêphygor, Katakerknêph) makes one suspect that the compiler of the spell had no idea of what these names stood for and perhaps even thought they were deities.22

In another spell, PGM XIII 734–1077, we find Zeus and Helios mentioned side by side with the names of Egyptian gods and of Iao Sabaoth. It is a clearly poly-theistic text with again several strings of nomina barbara. In the middle of one

19 See P. Cox Miller, “In Praise of Nonsense,” in A.H. Armstrong (ed.), Classical Mediterranean Spirituality: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986, 481–505.

20 For PGM XII and XIII, I consulted the new edition by R.W. Daniel, Two Greek Magical Papyri in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1991.

21 The same applies to PGM I 219 where the words Ambrami Abraam occur in a string of voces magicae.

22 Klauser, ‘Abraham’ 20: “In diesen Texten [= PGM] ist ‘Abraham’ oder ‘A[braham], Isaak und Jakob’ vielfach als Name des Judengottes verstanden.” For Jacob as a deity in the PGM see G. Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, 199.

85 did the gentiles know who abraham was?

such series, containing words with many Egyptian elements, we suddenly read:

“I have received the power of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (815–817). Here again we find only the names of the patriarchs (God not being mentioned), but the formulation indicates that the author knew that these names referred to pow-erful persons (or deities). The quasi-Egyptianizing setting, however, makes one doubt whether the author had any notion of the biblical provenance of these names. This impression is further strengthened by the fact that later on in the same spell there is an isolated notice (in a list of supposedly secret writings) to the effect that something (but what?) is explained in the Law in Hebrew as fol-lows: “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob” followed by a list of voces magicae, most of them being permutations of the divine name Iao (975–978). It is extremely doubtful whether the magician had any idea of what the names of the three patriarchs stood for. Neither did the author of the spell in PGM XXXVI 295–311 who men-tions Abraham in the midst of a series of nomina barbara.23

Not from PGM but from the Supplementum Magicum is the following mate-rial. No. 2 is a silver amulet against fever in the form of a triangular tablet inscribed with the following text: “I call upon you, who are over the air of the ocean, obach, and by babarathan baroch Abraham sabaraam, protect him who wears you from fever and everything (else) etc.”24 Here the easily recognizable Hebrew words barukh Avraham (blessed be Abraham) leave little doubt that the author of this spell had no idea what these words meant. For him it was as much sacred abracadabra as the immediately surrounding words. To put it in the words of Gideon Bohak, “When powerful formulae moved from one culture to another, and into the hands of people who had no firm grasp of the culture whence they came, such misunderstandings, transformations, and creative reconfigurations were almost bound to happen.”25 In no. 29, another amulet against fever, we find an invocation of ‘the Lord of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,’ but we leave this case out of account because the surrounding text with quotes from both Psalm 90 and the Paternoster make clear that here we

23 See on this latter spell also Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic 204–206. PGM VII 315 too lists the name Abraham at the beginning of a list of nomina barbara. There are two more passages in PGM where Abraham or the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are mentioned, namely XXIIb 6 and XXXV 14, but I leave them out of account since these spells are almost cer-tainly of Jewish origin and probably did not undergo recasting by pagan magicians, as far as I can judge; on the former one (XXIIb) see now the commentary by Judith Newman in P.W. van der Horst & J.H. Newman, Early Jewish Prayers in Greek, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008, 215–246.

24 R.W. Daniel & F. Maltomini (eds.), Supplementum Magicum, vol. 1, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1989, 7–8 (no. 2).

25 Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic 200.

have to do with a Christian charm.26 Finally, attention should be paid to the famous love charm on a lead tablet from the necropolis of Hadrumetum (near Carthage) in which a woman named Domitiana invokes inter alios ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ (albeit in a very garbled form)27 in order to induce a certain Urbanus to take her as his wife.28 Although the religious affiliation of the writer cannot be determined with certainty, I think it most likely that this is a case of “a pagan writer using a magical recipe which was originally composed by a Jewish practitioner.”29

This quick overview of the evidence from magical papyri and amulets,30 limited though it is, does make clear that Origen informed us correctly when he stated that his non-Jewish and non-Christian contemporaries used the for-mula ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’ for exorcistic and other ritual pur-poses. His observation that these pagans, in spite of their use of this formula, did not know who Abraham and his son and grandson were, would also seem to be confirmed since none of the passages from the magical papyri gives any impression that the authors knew more than just the names of the patriarchs.

26 It is also no. LXXXIII in Betz, Greek Magical Papyri 300, where Roy Kotanski describes it as “syncretistic rather than distinctively Christian.” In vol. 2, no. 75, line 21, of the Supplementum Magicum (1992), Daniel and Maltomini supplement a lacuna in the papy-rus as b[arouch Abram], but that is no more than a conjecture. In no. 88, line 11, the name Abraham does occur but without context because of gaps on both sides of the word. The spell seems to be pagan.

27 The text reads the names as Abraan, Iakou, Israma. One could take Iakou to be a form of Iakoub (Iakôb), but the fact that the garbled form Israma must mean Israel (= Jacob) makes it more probable that Iakou is a mistake for Isakou, the genitive of Isakos, so that we have the traditional order of the names of the patriarchs. The heavy garbling of these names makes it less probable that the author was Jewish.

28 Text, photo, translation, and commentary in A. Deissmann, Bibelstudien, Marburg:

Elwert, 1895 (reprint Hildesheim: Olms, 1977), 25–54; see also L. Blau, Das altjüdische Zauberwesen, Budapest: Landes-Rabbinerschule, 1898 (reprint Westmead: Gregg International Publishers, 1970), 96–112; J.G. Gager, Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, 112–115.

29 Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic 211. See also A. Bernand, Sorciers grecs, Paris: Fayard, 1991, 299–302. For (Jewish and Christian) epigraphic attestations of the formula “the God of Abraham etc.” see A.E. Felle, Biblia Epigraphica: La Sacra Scrittura nella documentazione epigrafica dell’ orbis christianus antiquus (III–VIII secolo), Bari: Edipuglia, 2006, nos. 234 and B1083.

30 For depictions of Abraham sacrificing Isaac on three magical gems see C. Bonner, Studies

30 For depictions of Abraham sacrificing Isaac on three magical gems see C. Bonner, Studies