The Magician as Text Critic

Textual corruption has long been thought to play a role in the shaping of voces magicae, the half-nonsensical ‘magic words’ used in magic ritual (Versnel 135-141), but the insight into this process offered by the Greek magical papyri (PGM) is underappreciated. In this paper, I examine three instances where the PGM refer to variant readings in the spells they transmit. These passages show magicians using text editorial techniques to weigh out the best formulation of a spell. While the magician’s reasoning may seem familiar to a modern text-critic, there is a difference – I submit that the magician’s textual enterprise aims at copiousness more than fidelity. PGM IV 499-502 cites divergent spellings of the same set of magic words, presumably from garbled Demotic or Coptic (μετερτα vs. μεθαρθα). The attention to graphic detail is impressive, because the alternatives probably represent the same pronunciation in the reconstructed phonology of Roman era koine (Gignac 98-101). Since the papyrus instructs the practitioner to speak these words, the inclusion of multiple equivalent spellings may be quite irrelevant to the effectiveness of the spell. Including alternatives therefore seems to suggest the magician’s text-centered approach to the issue of variation. PGM V 359-368 helps elucidate such reasoning. It presents two long strings of magic words, but then mysteriously claims that only one of them stood in the ‘original’ (ἐν τῷ αὐθεντικῷ). The relative placement of letter sequences that appear in both word-strings suggests that the author of PGM V produced the first by skipping a line when copying the archetype. The author’s concern to also present a better version, and mark it as the original strikes home with the modern text-critic, but the fact that the magician also allowed the corrupt version to stand makes clear that a different notion of proper textual transmission obtains here. PGM V 47-52 offers a parallel example that does not focus on the transmission of magic words. Here the author provides instructions for a divination to be performed ‘when the moon is not full’ (μὴ πληθούσης), but also mentions ‘other copies’ that insist the spell should be performed ‘when the moon is full’ (πληθούσης). Parallels from Greek and Near Eastern ritual (Faraone) suggest strongly that the ‘full moon’ version of the spell is older, and more likely to be magically effective. Why does the author prefer the ‘non-full-moon’ version then? While it may be going too far to suggest that PGM V’s author follows the principle of lectio difficilior, the use of scholarly language here suggests that he or she thinks about the problem as a matter of divergent texts, rather than one only of diverse ritual methods. At the same time, the author’s presentation of multiple different sources without clear indication of relative merit suggests that the most important function of this variant catalogue is merely that, to catalogue. Considering the ancient magician’s approach to textual issues situates magic within the ambit of scholarship in the Roman Empire, and thereby helps to elucidate the structure of knowledge in that culture (cf. König & Whitmarsh) and elaborate on the activities of ‘learned magicians’ (Dickie). Variant citation in the PGM also underscores the need to consider these ancient spellbooks as books, and not just a repository of disjoint magical material.