Egyptian Magical Practice under the Roman Empire: the Demotic Spells and their Religious Context

Ritner, Robert K.

doi:10.1515/9783110875720-012

Cited by 31 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…110 This was subsequently supplemented by Nunn (1996) 23. 110 For inventories of the magical medical spells see Ritner (1995) and Brashear (1995). For discussion of irrationality and rationality in Egyptian medicine see David (2004).…”

Section: Ancient Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

“…13 Nutton (2004) 16. 14 See for example the Greek and Demotic medico-magical papyri and the attempts made by scholars to separate the medical texts from the magical texts, and the Greek texts from the Demotic texts, despite the fact that they were all written on the same pieces of papyrus - Betz (1992) ix and xlv commented critically upon these attempts at segregation, but they continued with Brashear (I 995) and Ritner (1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Approaches to Healing in Roman Egypt

Draycott¹

2012

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This thesis examines the healing strategies utilised by the inhabitants of Egypt during the Roman period (from the late first century Be to the fourth century AD) in order to investigate how Egyptian, Greek and Roman customs and traditions interacted within the province. It explores the symbiotic relationship between 'professional' and 'amateur' medical practice within Egypt, and examines the ways in which three particularly well-attested health problems -eye complaints, febrile conditions and the injuries inflicted by wild animals -were approached, evaluated and treated. By considering a range ofliterary, papyrological, archaeological, and anthropological sources, this thesis argues that healing strategies were developed in response to a variety of historical, cultural and social factors, and were intimately connected to the region's climate, geography and natural resources. This thesis, then, presents a fresh and nuanced approach to understanding healing strategies in Roman provincial culture, identifies diagnostic features of healing in material culture and offers an integrated reading of ancient medical literary and documentary papyri, and archaeological evidence.

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Section: Ancient Medicinementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Approaches to Healing in Roman Egypt

Draycott¹

2012

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“…In 199 AD, the Romans issued a prohibition against oracles, driving the formerly public practice into the private sphere. Four demotic magical treatises of the Roman Period (third or early fourth century AD) speak to such private religious activity, P. BM 10588, P. Leiden I 384 vo, P. Leiden and London (the well‐known London‐Leiden Magical Papyrus ), and P. Louve E 3229 (Betz 1986, Ritner 1995, Dieleman 2005). These texts probably come from a single Theban cache, and seem to have served as “reference manuals” for a temple or private library.…”

Section: Oracle and Divinatory Textsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Religious Literature of Late Period and Greco‐Roman Egypt

Jay

2006

Religion Compass

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Although Egypt was ruled by foreigners during most of the Late and Greco-Roman periods, native religious traditions remained strong and the period witnessed the production of a wide variety of religious texts written in the Egyptian language. This article presents many of the major religious texts of Egypt's Late and Greco-Roman periods and comments on the trends of continuity and change that they suggest. It is divided into three sections. The first discusses texts written on temple walls or on papyri stored in temple scriptoria which speak to the ritual and theological activities of the priesthood. The second examines different types of oracle requests and divinatory texts which represent the practical religion of the living. The third focuses on mortuary texts recited over the deceased and funerary texts placed in the grave. 1

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“…23 Heka in addition plays an important role in the daily reenactment of creation that the Egyptians represented in the daily and nightly voyage of the barque of the sun god Re; he joins Hu and Sia on the vessel, "invoking the separation of heaven and earth" and performs as a guardian of the barque in its nightly passage through the Duat, or Underworld, to defeat the Apophis serpent and the chaos he represents. 24 22) R.K. Ritner (1993) 17. 23) Ibid.…”

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confidence: 99%

Iamblichus' Egyptian Neoplatonic Theology in De Mysteriis

Clark¹

2008

Int J Platonic Tradit

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In De Mysteriis VIII Iamblichus gives two orderings of first principles, one in purely Neoplatonic terms drawn from his own philosophical system, and the other in the form of several Egyptian gods, glossed with Neoplatonic language again taken from his own system. The first ordering or taxis includes the Simple One and the One Existent, two of the elements of Iamblichus' realm of the One. The second taxis includes the Egyptian (H)eikton, which has now been identified with the god of magic, Heka, glossed as the One Existent. The Egyptian god Kmeph is also a member of this taxis, and is the Egyptian Kematef, a god of creation associated with the solar Amun-Re. Iamblichus refers to this god also as the Hegemon of the celestial gods, which should be equated to Helios, specifically the noeric Helios as described by Julian in his Hymn to Helios. Iamblichus describes Kmeph as an “intellect knowing himself”, and so the noeric Kmeph/Helios should also be seen as the Paternal Demiurgic Zeus, explicitly described also by Proclus as an intellect knowing himself. This notion of a self-thinking intellect may offer a solution to the problematic formulation by Proclus in his Timaeus commentary of Iamblichus' view of the Demiurgy encompassing all the noeric realm. The identification of Kmeph as the noeric Helios now also allows the first direct parallels to de Mysteriis to be found in extant Hermetica. In addition it can be inferred from the specific Neoplatonic terminology employed that the noetic Father of Demiurges, Kronos, appears, as well as the secondary Demiurgic triad of Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto, in the forms of the Egyptian Amun, Ptah, and Osiris, thus raising the question that much of the theology documented only in Proclus might appear already to have been established by Iamblichus.

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Egyptian Magical Practice under the Roman Empire: the Demotic Spells and their Religious Context

Cited by 31 publications

References 0 publications

Approaches to Healing in Roman Egypt

Approaches to Healing in Roman Egypt

Religious Literature of Late Period and Greco‐Roman Egypt

Iamblichus' Egyptian Neoplatonic Theology in De Mysteriis

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