Studies in the Syriac Magical Traditions

he contributions to this volume, therefore, have been assembled with the aim of offering a critical assessment of where we are as a field, and to demonstrate the potential, indeed the necessity, for the field to be taken forward in a methodologically sound manner. Accordingly, the first contribution by Abigail Pearson analyses how Syriac magic practices were first brought to the attention of the academic world nearly one-hundred and seventy years ago, at a time 27 Bortolani, Nagel, ‘Introduction’, in Eaedem, Furley, Quack (eds), Cultural Plurality, p. 3. 2021185 [Moriggi-Bhayro] 002-CH1-BhayroMoriggi-proof-02 [version 20210921 date 20210921 16:08] page 9 syriac studies and magic: an introduction 9 when magic was often treated with suspicion or dismissed as having little scholarly value. Pearson demonstrates how the negative effects of these attitudes have proved difficult to dismantle and, consequently, how the study of Syriac magic is still in its early stages as progress has often been slow and sporadic. She begins with publications that date from 1852 to 1945, and examines the myriad of social, intellectual, and cultural influences which caused magic texts to be ignored. She then considers publications from 1946 to 2019, outlining how changes in the way magic was perceived led to greater recognition of the contributions this material could make to our understanding of social and religious history, and assessing both their positive contributions as well as some shortcomings. She ends by outlining some desiderata, stressing in particular the importance of a sustained approach to the publication of more primary source material. Following this, Siam Bhayro discusses how, for every period for which we have evidence, we can see Syriac Christian priests preserving, studying, and practising both the magical and medical arts. The nature of the evidence changes from period to period, with the modern period providing both manuscript evidence and eye-witness testimony, the medieval period furnishing manuscript evidence, and the late-antique period giving more indirect evidence. Taking a diachronic approach, however, means that the more recent evidence shines a light on the earlier, less illuminated periods. This, in turn, permits a consistent picture of Syriac Christian priestcraft to emerge from the modern, medieval, and late-antique periods, suggesting a remarkable degree of continuity in terms of magical-medical therapeutic knowledge and practice. This revolves around two manuscript types—the magical ‘Book of Protection’ and the magical-medical ‘Book of Medicines’—which probably first appeared during the so-called ‘Syriac Renaissance’ (eleventh–thirteenth centuries ce) as learned and practical handbooks for use by priests. In the next chapter, Marco Moriggi discusses how the testimony of the incantation bowls springs directly from the realm of micro-history and may thus shed more light than the canonical texts on the real, day-to-day, interactions between cultural groups. It is possible, when one analyses the Syriac incantation bowls more closely and for more than simply the presence of Jewish elements, to discuss the interaction between Syriac Christianity and Judaism in Sasanian Babylonia from a new perspective. This new approach may, on the one hand, yield new data for the study of Jewish-Christian relations, and, on the other, foster the creation of a methodology based on linguistic variation in texts that are parallel but that come from different cultural traditions. The next chapter, by Michael Zellmann-Rohrer, considers new contributions to the history of Syriac magic from an editorial project on the so-called ‘Book 2021185 [Moriggi-Bhayro] 002-CH1-BhayroMoriggi-proof-02 [version 20210921 date 20210921 16:08] page 10 10 moriggi and bhayro of Protection’ or ‘Book of Charms’ and related texts. Zellmann-Rohrer shows in impressive detail how these compendious ritual handbooks, extracts of which are dispersed in miscellanies, and the finished amulets that were produced from such handbooks, are more numerous and widely distributed than previously thought (based in particular on the important but limited publication by H. Gollancz), both diachronically and geographically throughout greater Mesopotamia and beyond. He presents excellent examples of how our understanding of these texts, whether published or unpublished, can be advanced, how they are a rich source for the daily life and thought of the Christian communities that they served, and how the textual motifs can also be contextualised in terms of broader ritual traditions in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. In his contribution, Nils Korsvoll addresses the comparative paucity of biblical references in the Syriac magic bowls and amulets from Late Antiquity, a phenomenon that has been considered notable and significant. Korsvoll brings recent developments in biblical studies and the study of magic to bear on this question, particularly in regard to the problem of the relevance and usefulness of definitive or teleological categories like biblical. He revisits the biblical references and invocations that are present in the Syriac amulets and bowls in light of such developments, drawing especially on David Frankfurter’s proposal of an authoritative discourse of precedent, and thus proposes that they do not refer to the Bible or necessarily to a biblical story, but rather to narratives or figures in a wider storied universe. This is followed by David Calabro’s contribution, which describes the complex relationships between the different versions of Syriac charms produced within East Syriac communities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some charms, such as the Anathema of Mar ʿAbdishoʿ, show a wide degree of variation, while others, such as the prayers that introduce the book, are relatively stable. Calabro presents a classification of the charms based on a comparison of three sections of the book: the introductory prayers, the Anathema of the Gospel, and the anti-weapon charms, concluding that the evidence suggests that the charms were spontaneous productions sharing a basic structure; the most textually stable charms are those which are shortest, those which are based on biblical quotations, and those which are produced by the same scribe. In his contribution, Gaby Abousamra presents a catalogue of Christian features of the late antique Syriac magic texts, before moving on to list the parallel features in the modern Syriac magic texts. This enables him to argue for a degree of continuity from the ancient to the modern. The final contribution is by Matthew Morgenstern and Ohad Abudraham. Moving away from Syriac sources, this chapter presents the first full edition 2021185 [Moriggi-Bhayro] 002-CH1-BhayroMoriggi-proof-02 [version 20210921 date 20210921 16:08] page 11 syriac studies and magic: an introduction 11 of an important Mandaic magic text, preserved on three lamellae, with reference to parallels preserved in several Mandaic magic bowls. The importance of publishing texts with reference to as many parallels as possible is clearly demonstrated, something which should be adopted into the treatment of Syriac magic texts. Furthermore, coming from the same cultural environment as the late antique Syriac sources, the Mandaic sources shed much light on the nature of magic in Sasanian Mesopotamia, but without the overt Christian elements that appear in some of the contemporary Syriac sources.