RECONSIDERING ‘CHRISTIAN’ Context and Categorisation in the Study of Syriac Amulets and Incantation Bowls Nils Hallvard Korsvoll Dissertation presented for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor Supervisor: Liv Ingeborg Lied MF Norwegian School of Theology 2017 ABSTRACT Reconsidering ‘Christian:’ Context and Categorisation in the Study of Syriac Amulets and Incantation Bowls Nils H. Korsvoll MF Norwegian School of Theology 2017 For over a hundred years scholars have debated, inconclusively, whether the Syriac amulets and incantation bowls from Sasanian Mesopotamia belong to a Christian, or any other cultural or religious, tradition. This dissertation addresses the four elements in these Syriac apotropaic devices that modern scholarship has suggested are traces of Christianity, but, instead of emphasising or trying to trace their origin or religious identity, I analyse the possibly Christian elements according to their use and function. My approach introduces recent insights and perspectives from research on late antique Jewish and Greco-Egyptian amulets into the study of the Syriac apotropaic devices. Moreover, this thesis is the first investigation of the biblical references, the invocations of Jesus, the liturgical formulae and the different cross-motifs that includes all instances of the elements from all published Syriac amulets and incantation bowls. My analysis consists of a structural comparison of the use and function of the possibly Christian elements, first with other, comparable elements in the Syriac apotropaic devices themselves, then in the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (JBA) incantation bowls and Greco- Egyptian amulets, and finally in other sources and genres across Late Antiquity. The aim of this analysis is twofold: First, I wish to refine and possibly reorient the understanding and discussion of the context(s) of the Syriac bowls and amulets, and second I assess whether ‘Christian’ is a relevant analytical and/or descriptive category in the study of these Syriac apotropaic devices. Concerning the context of the Syriac apotropaic devices, I find that the four possibly Christian elements seem to engage with a wider, shared universe of salient figures and topic- clusters, which encompasses, but is not restricted to, Christian tradition and teaching. Consequently, I conclude that ‘Christian’ is not a useful analytical category when studying this material, but it may be a relevant descriptive category in certain respects for some of the artefacts. This revision of the study of Syriac amulets and incantation bowls presents a more nuanced picture of the apotropaic devices and their interaction with contemporary culture and phenomena, which in turn contributes to the expanding knowledge of late Sasanian Mesopotamia and early Syriac traditions. Table of Contents Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ i List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... iv List of Abbreviations .................................................................................................................. v Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... vi 1 Reviewing Analytical Categories and Contextualisation ........................................................ 1 1.1 The Corpus: Incantation Bowls and Amulets .................................................................. 5 1.1.1 ‘Apotropaic Devices’ ................................................................................................ 8 1.1.2 Provenance and Forgeries ......................................................................................... 9 1.1.3 Medieval and Early Modern Amulets ..................................................................... 11 1.2 Theoretical Perspectives: Comparison and Categorisation ............................................ 11 1.3 Method: Structural Analysis ........................................................................................... 15 1.3.1 Outline and Approach ............................................................................................. 18 1.3.2 Editions, Translation and Transliteration ................................................................ 21 1.4 Summary of the Dissertation .......................................................................................... 23 2 Survey of Scholarship ........................................................................................................... 29 2.1 Dating and Physical Features ......................................................................................... 30 2.1.1 Typology and Ware ................................................................................................. 32 2.1.2 Archaeological Context ........................................................................................... 34 2.2 Use and Production ........................................................................................................ 35 2.2.1 Content .................................................................................................................... 37 2.2.2 Performance ............................................................................................................ 39 2.2.3 Production ............................................................................................................... 40 2.2.4 Practitioners ............................................................................................................. 40 2.2.5 Clients ...................................................................................................................... 43 2.3 Language ........................................................................................................................ 45 2.3.1 Script ....................................................................................................................... 46 2.3.2 Layout ...................................................................................................................... 48 2.4 Summary and Outlook ................................................................................................... 49 3 Biblical References ............................................................................................................... 51 3.1 The Use of Biblical Text and References ....................................................................... 53 3.1.1 Biblical Material in Late Antique Apotropaic Practice ........................................... 55 3.1.2 Biblical References in the Syriac Apotropaic Devices ........................................... 57 3.1.3 Other Narrative Material in the Syriac Apotropaic Devices ................................... 68 3.1.4 Main Observations .................................................................................................. 75 3.2 The Function of Biblical Text and References ............................................................... 75 i 3.2.1 Reconsidering Biblical ............................................................................................ 77 3.2.2 Reconsidering Bible ................................................................................................ 79 3.2.3 Bible Reconsidered: Authoritative Discourse of Precedent .................................... 82 3.2.4 Summary and Outlook ............................................................................................ 85 4 Invoking Jesus ....................................................................................................................... 87 4.1 The Role of Invocations ................................................................................................. 90 4.1.1 Invoking Jesus in JBA Bowls and Greco-Egyptian Amulets .................................. 93 4.1.2 Invocations of Jesus in the Syriac Apotropaic Devices .......................................... 98 4.1.3 Other Invocations in the Syriac Apotropaic Devices ............................................ 105 4.1.4 Main Observations ................................................................................................ 125 4.2 The Function of Invocations ........................................................................................ 126 4.2.1 Jesus as Healer and Exorcist ................................................................................. 127 4.2.2 Three Approaches to Invocations .......................................................................... 130 4.2.3 Invoking Jesus in the Syriac Apotropaic Devices ................................................. 132 4.2.4 Summary and Outlook .......................................................................................... 134 5 Liturgical Formulae ............................................................................................................. 137 5.1 The Role of Formulae .................................................................................................. 140 5.1.1 Liturgy in the JBA Bowls and the Greco-Egyptian Amulets ................................ 141 5.1.2 Proposed Liturgical Formulae in the Syriac Apotropaic Devices ......................... 144 5.1.3 Other Formulae in the Syriac Apotropaic Devices ............................................... 157 5.1.4 Main Observations ................................................................................................ 161 5.2 The Function of Formulae ............................................................................................ 162 5.2.1 Variation and Flexibility ....................................................................................... 163 5.2.2 Reconsidering Liturgical ....................................................................................... 166 5.2.3 Formulaicity .......................................................................................................... 168 5.2.4 Summary and Outlook .......................................................................................... 171 6 The Cross and Iconography ................................................................................................. 175 6.1 The Role of Drawings and Symbols ............................................................................ 179 6.1.1 Drawings and Iconography in Late Antique Apotropaic Devices ........................ 180 6.1.2 Crosses in the Syriac Apotropaic Devices ............................................................ 184 6.1.3 Other Symbols and Motifs .................................................................................... 199 6.1.4 Main Observations ................................................................................................ 204 6.2 The Function of Drawings and Symbols ...................................................................... 206 6.2.1 Iconographic Tiers ................................................................................................. 207 6.2.2 Textual Versus Visual Expression ........................................................................ 209 6.2.3 Scribal Practice ...................................................................................................... 211 6.2.4 Summary and Outlook .......................................................................................... 214 ii 7 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 217 7.1 Contextualising by New Criteria .................................................................................. 219 7.2 ‘Christian’ Reconsidered .............................................................................................. 223 7.2.1 Christian as Analytical Category ........................................................................... 224 7.2.2 Christian as Descriptive Category ......................................................................... 226 7.3 Suggestions for Further Research ................................................................................ 228 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 231 Appendix I .............................................................................................................................. 262 Appendix II ............................................................................................................................ 264 iii List of Figures Figure 1: VK 5738:3. Photographer: Markku Haverinen. 6 Courtesy of the National Museum of Finland Figure 2: BnF Syr 400/1. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France 7 Figure 3: Map of Mesopotamia. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 31 Web. 31 May. 2017. <https://www.britannica.com/place/Mesopotamia- historical-region-Asia?oasmId=2341> Figure 4: Lamellae from Luristan. 33 Courtesy of the Belgian Archaeological Mission to Iran Figure 5: Incantation bowls at Nippur. 35 From Hilprecht, Explorations in Bible Lands, 448 Figure 6: BM 91736. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum 182 Figure 7: CBS 9012. Courtesy of the Penn Museum, image no. 228557 185 Figure 8: AO 207964-O. Photographer: Donald E. Hurlbert. 187 Courtesy of the Department of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution Figure 9: BM 117882. Courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum 188 Figure 10: VK 5738:3. Photographer: Markku Haverinen. 190 Courtesy of the National Museum of Finland Figure 11: CBS 8826. Courtesy of the Penn Museum, image no. 228560 193 Figure 12: BnF Syr 400/2. Courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France 195 Figure 13: BLMJ 0070. Photographers: A. Amar and M. Greyevsky. 196 Courtesy of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem iv List of Abbreviations AfR Archiv für Religionsgeschichte ASE Annali di storia dell’esegesi BASP The Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists BN Biblische Notizen BSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Byzantion Byzantion: revue internationale des études byzantines CSCO Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium Hugoye Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies HTR Harvard Theological Review IJS IJS Studies in Judaica JAC Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society JANER Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies JJS Journal of Jewish Studies JNES Journal of Near Eastern Studies JSAI Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism JSRC Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture JSS Journal of Semitic Studies JSQ Jewish Studies Quarterly JTS Journal of Theological Studies N.S. LNTS Library of New Testament Studies Mesopotamia Mesopotamia: rivista di archaeologia, epigrafia e storia MRLA Magical and Religious Literature of Late Antiquity Muséon Le Muséon: revue d’études orientales NABU Nouvelles assyriologiques brèves et utilitaires OCP Orientalia christiana periodica OrChrAn Orientalia christiana analecta Philippika Philippika: Altertumswissenschaftliche Abhandlungen REJ Revue des études juives RGRW Religions in the Graeco-Roman World STAC Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum StudOr Studia orientalia TENTS Texts and Editions for New Testament Study TSAJ Texte und Studien zum Antike Judentum TUGAL Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament v Acknowledgements First and foremost I want to thank Liv Ingeborg Lied for supervision and support above and beyond the call of duty. Thank you for your guidance, your encouragement and for always treating me as a colleague and equal. I am grateful to Joseph E. Sanzo and Nicholas A. Marshall for reading a full draft of this dissertation and providing valuable feedback to help me focus my argument and sharpen the precision of my discussion. My thanks and gratitude are also due to David Frankfurter and Marco Moriggi for their consideration of my project at an early stage and valuable advice on how to pursue my questions, and to Moriggi for further help and suggestions along the way. I must also thank Line Bonde for her aid in my foray into art historical theory and review of chapter 6, and Anna-Liisa Tolonen for her comments on my introduction and our continuous exchange of ideas and literature on method and theory. I have also greatly appreciated the suggestions and encouragement offered by Erica C. D. Hunter and Hugo Lundhaug during this period. Needless to say, any mistakes are my own. My academic outlook and sensibilities have been shaped by my fellows and teachers in the Religious Roots of Europe MA-programme, and I am thankful that we continue our Nordic community of students of Late Antiquity. I have also benefitted greatly from my colleagues at the Oslo Society for the Study of Early Christianity. I am humbled by the warm welcome I have received among Syriac scholars, whether studying under George Kiraz at the Polis Institute at Jerusalem or at the World Syriac Conference at SEERI. Thanks also to the Oslo Syriac Society for our weekly meetings to read Syriac texts and manuscripts. My sincere gratitude goes to the MF Norwegian School of Theology for this opportunity to research late antique Syriac amulets and incantation bowls. Thank you to all my colleagues and PhD-fellows for discussion, and diversion, and also to the library staff who have been ordering me books from all over Europe without complaint. A special note of thanks goes to Hilde Brekke Møller for her advice and guidance in this process, and to Anna-Liisa Tolonen for helping me maintain my interest and motivation by generously sharing her knowledge, ideas, enthusiasm and curiosity. Finally, I am thankful to my friends and family for their tolerance and support throughout this project, and I am encouraged by the fact that several by now actually know what my thesis is about. Nils H. Korsvoll Oslo, May 2017 vi 1 Reviewing Analytical Categories and Contextualisation Syriac amulets and incantation bowls from Late Antiquity have puzzled scholars for over a century. While Syriac grew to regional prominence through the prestige of its native city Edessa as a Christian centre,1 the Syriac bowls and amulets contain very little Christian material.2 Instead, in the first comprehensive study of this material, James A. Montgomery described the incantation bowls, in a tone perhaps deemed more appropriate in 1913, as the “degenerate survival of the religious and magical developments of ancient Egypt and Babylonia, of the Hellenistic world, of Judaism.”3 Indeed, both Syriac and other apotropaic bowls and amulets from Sasanian Mesopotamia include Jewish angelology and divine names, Babylonian deities and astrology,4 Hellenistic apotropaic traditions5 and Zoroastrian demons,6 as well as traces of Arabic onomastics and linguistics.7 Attempts at establishing their 1 There are some profane Syriac inscriptions, but the vast majority of Syriac sources from the period are closely tied with Christianity and the Church (Joseph Naveh, “A Syriac Amulet on Leather,” JSS 17 [1997]: 33). 2 See for instance Jacob N. Epstein, “Gloses babylo-araméennes,” REJ 74 (1922): 41; Hannu Juusola, “Who Wrote the Syriac Incantation Bowls?” StudOr 85 (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1999), 76; Christa Müller- Kessler, “Of Jesus, Darius, Marduk …: Aramaic Magic Bowls in the Moussaieff Collection,” JAOS 125 (2005): 220. 3 James A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur, vol. 3 in Publications of the Babylonian Section (Philadelphia: The University Museum, 1913), 68. See also Shaul Shaked, “Jews, Christians and Pagans in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls of the Sasanian Period,” in Religions and Cultures: First International Conference of Mediterraneum, ed. Adriana Destro and Mauro Pesce, Academic Studies in Religion and the Social Order (Binghampton, NY: Global Publications, 2002), 61-89; Erica C. D. Hunter, “Combat and Conflict in Incantation Bowls: Studies on Two Aramaic Specimens from Nippur,” in Studia Aramaica: New Sources and New Approaches: Papers Delivered at the London Conference of the Institute of Jewish Studies, University College London, 26th-28th June 1991, ed. M. J. Geller, J. C. Greenfield and M. P. Weitzman, vol. 4 in the Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 61-75; Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1985), 13. 4 See for instance Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts, 230; Gaby Abousamra, “Coupe de prière syriaque chrétienne,” Parole de l'orient 35 (2010): 28; Christa Müller-Kessler, “Aramäische Koine - Ein Beschwörungsformular aus Mesopotamien,” Baghdader Mitteilungen 29 (1998): 331-333; idem, Die Zauberschalentexte in der Hilprecht-Sammlung, Jena, und weitere Nippur-Texte anderer Sammlungen, vol. 7 in Texte und Materialien der Frau Professor Hilprecht Collection of Babylonian Antiquities im Eigentum der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität, Jena (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), 105. 5 Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts, 8; Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, 18. There are even a few bilingual amulets from Late Antiquity with Greek and Aramaic or Hebrew, see for instance Roy Kotansky, Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, “A Greek-Aramaic Silver Amulet From Egypt in the Ashmolean Museum,” Muséon 105 (1992): 5-24; Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, 101-104; Marco Moriggi, “Una lamina bilingue dal Medagliere Capitolino: considerazioni sul testo ebraico,” Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 107 (2006): 163-170; Roy Kotansky, “An Inscribed Copper Amulet from ʿEvron,” ʿAtiqot 20 (1991): 81-87. 6 Shaul Shaked, “Popular Religion in Sasanian Babylonia,” JSAI 21 (1997): 103; idem, “Bagdāna, King of the Demons, and Other Iranian Terms in Babylonian Aramaic Magic,” in Hommages et opera minora 11: Papers in Honour of Professor Mary Boyce, vol. 25 in Acta Iranica (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), 511-525. In addition, many of the client names are Iranian (see section 2.2.5), and, moreover, the exterior caption on two Syriac bowls is written in Pahlavi (idem, “Manichean Incantation Bowls in Syriac,” JSAI 24 [2000]: 64-65). 7 J. B. Segal, Catalogue of the Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum (London: British Museum Press, 2000), 22; Shaul Shaked, “Form and Purpose in Aramaic Spells: Some Jewish Themes (The 1 background and context are also frustrated by the absence of references to these bowls and amulets in historical sources,8 as well as a lack of archaeological information as most have been acquired through the antiquities market.9 Nonetheless, scholars still find enough invocations, references and liturgical phrases typical for the respective traditions to agree that the so-called Jewish Babylonian Aramaic (JBA)10 incantation bowls belong to a Jewish context and those written in Mandaic11 are of Mandaic origin.12 In contrast, the Syriac amulets Poetics of Magic Texts),” Officina Magica: Essays on the Practice of Magic in Antiquity, ed. Shaul Shaked, vol. 4 in IJS (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 4 n. 15. In fact, John Punnett Peters writes in the excavation report from Nippur that they also found bowls with Arabic script, but that no such Arabic bowls were among those sent back to the University of Pennsylvania (Nippur: Explorations and Adventures on the Euphrates: The Narrative of the University of Pennsylvania Expedition to Babylonia in the Years 1888-1890 II [London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1897], 184). Consequently, scholarship on these amulets and incantation bowls has for a long time noted the lack of Arabic influence as one of the significant traits of the Mesopotamian apotropaic devices from Late Antiquity, see for instance Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts, 105; Victor P. Hamilton, “Syriac Incantation Bowls” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Brandeis University, Ann Arbor, 1971), 20. 8 Contemporary documents and texts only include very general descriptions of apotropaic practices, and there is very little of this that compares with what one sees in the artefacts themselves. See for instance Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 420-421; Michael G. Morony, Iraq After the Muslim Conquest, in the Princeton Studies on the Near East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 416-418; Maria Gorea, “Coupes magiques syriaques et manichéennes en provenance de Mésopotamie,” in Les inscriptions syriaques, ed. Francoise Briquel Chatonnet, Muriel Debié and Alain Desreumaux, vol. 1 in Études Syriaques (Paris: Geuthner, 2004), 111; Richard Gordon, “Memory and Authority in the Magical Papyri,” in Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World, ed. Beate Dignas and R.R.R. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 146-147. 9 See for instance Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic, 115; Hamilton, “Syriac Incantation Bowls” 11; Roberta Venco Ricciardi, “Trial Trench at Tell Baruda (Choche),” Mesopotamia 8/9 (1973/1974): 19-20. The archaeological sites where incantation bowls have been found are Babylon, Borsippa, Kish, Nippur, Uruk and Susa (Christa Müller-Kessler, “The Use of Biblical Quotations in Jewish Aramaic Incantation Bowls,” in Studies on Magic and Divination in the Biblical World, ed. Helen R. Jacobus, Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme and Philippe Guillaume, vol. 11 in Biblical Intersections [Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2013], 227). 10 JBA uses the square script and is found only in the Mesopotamian incantation bowls. It has no direct literary parallels, but many scholars point to the Babylonian Talmud as its closest literary parallel. See for instance Hannu Juusola, Linguistic Peculiarities in the Aramaic Magic Bowl Texts, vol. 86 in StudOr (Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1999), 250; Christa Müller-Kessler, “Die Stellung des Koine-Babylonisch-Aramäischen auf Zauberschalen innerhalb des Ostaramäischen,” Neue Beiträge zur Semistik. Erstes Arbeitstreffen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Semistik in der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft vom 11. bis 13. September 2000 an der Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, ed. Norbert Nebes, vol. 5 in Jenaer Beiträge zum Vorderen Orient (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002), 97. Still, Matthew Morgenstern warns against making too much of this comparison since “the Talmud survives only in later manuscripts, of which only a small number may be regarded as linguistically reliable” (in Shaul Shaked, James Nathan Ford and Siam Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls 1, vol. 1 in MRLA [Leiden: Brill, 2013], 39). Shaul Shaked, commenting on the linguistic differences between the contemporaneous Talmud and JBA bowls, suggests that “the Talmudic literature represents an informal colloquial language of discourse, while the magic formulae are more archaic and more formulaic,” although “neither language is entirely colloquial or, for that matter, purely literary” (“Rabbis in Incantation Bowls,” in The Archaeology and Material Culture of the Babylonian Talmud, ed. Markham J. Geller, vol. 16 in IJS [Leiden: Brill, 2015], 98). 11 The Mandeans are a religious group originating from central Mesopotamia, and Mandaic is an Eastern Aramaic dialect similar to both Syriac and JBA but written in its own script. The Mandean religion is described as “syncretistic, gnostic, and baptistic,” and there are still small Mandaic communities today. Their earliest manuscripts date back to the Middle Ages, so the Mandaic amulets and incantation bowls are the oldest examples of the Mandaic script and linguistics (Edwin M. Yamauchi, Mandaic Incantation Texts, vol. 49 in American Oriental Series [New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1967], 1-2; Shaked, Ford and Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells, 6, n. 23). For more on the Mandean religion traditionally and in the modern era, see for instance Jorunn J. Buckley, The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and Modern People (Oxford: Oxford University 2