109 



and magic, and much of both these entered into Gnosticism. In 

 the Museum of Leyden is a bilingual papyrus, which has been 

 published by Professor Reuvens, containing several hundred 

 names, written in the demotic and hieratic characters of Egypt, 

 and also in Greek. Many of these coincide with the names of 

 the Sephiroth, as given by the Cabalists. The learned editor 

 attributes the MS. to the Marcosians, a sect of the Gnostics 

 founded by Marcus, a native of Palestine, but a teacher at 

 Alexandria, and supposes it to have been designed for thauma- 

 turgical purposes. It appears from a passage in Lucian, that 

 there was nothing which daemons so much dreaded as a spell in 

 the Egyptian language. A house at Corinth had been haunted 

 by a daemon, and many exorcists had in vain endeavoured to 

 cast him out. Arignotus the Pythagorean, however, undertook 

 the task and was shut up in the house all night. The daemon 

 made his appearance, squaHd, with long hair, and black as 

 night, and changed himself into a dog, a bull, and a lion, 

 thinking to frighten Arignotus as he had done his predecessors. 

 But Arignotus, picking out the most horrible of his spells, in 

 the Egyptian language, soon compelled him to vanish through 

 a dark comer.* There is a passage quoted by Jablonski f from 

 Michael Psellus, which may afford us another conjecture, 

 although he is speaking of an Assyrian, not an Egyptian 

 usage.J " Tesseris quibusdam infandisque nominibus mysticis- 

 que Uteris^ in sacerdotalibus bracteis se ipsos sanctificantes, 

 substratum illud incorporeis copiis lumen perspexerant." It 

 appears from this passage, that plates of metal inscribed with 

 mystic characters were used by devotees to obtain a sort of 

 beatific vision of the incorporeal light. 



If the indications now enumerated do not deceive us, we 

 have in this reUc, brought to Ught after so many centuries, a 

 record of a very early heresy in the Christian church. It adds 



• Lucian Philopseades Op. V. 7, p. 284 ed. Bip. 



+ Ponth. Egypt Lib. v. Cap. 0, p. 172. 



I " Canopi, prsetextu sacerdottdium literar^m, (ita enim appellant antiquas 

 Egyptiorum literas) magicse artis erat pene publica schola." (RufiSnus, quoted by 

 Jablonski, p. 142.) 



