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.401 7).Some of the phrases, such as  sacred initiate, maydraw on the positive connotations associated with the magi wesaw, for example, in Clement of Alexandria s writings.They do notwarrant associating the mass of rituals with modern notions of magic.As a starting point for analyzing the love rites, the textualtraditions classify the actions as a particular type of action.They arereferred to in the Hebrew texts as h>im:  rite, action and in Greekas pr©xij:  rite, action. Rabbinic literature refers to a category ofpractitioner employing the same term h>im >ya:  man of rite,action. One of the most famous of these practitioners, Honi theCircle-Drawer, was famed for bringing rain by drawing a circle onthe ground and reciting prayers.3 These figures appear to have beenin competition with the rabbis, having their own sources of know-ledge and power.In The Book of Secrets, the  rites are explicitly connected withancient traditions which pre-date even Biblical texts.The openingof the composition describes the text as  a book from the books ofsecrets given by the angel Raziel to Noah before he went into theark.4 The claim to status as a heavenly book, a pre-flood esoterictradition revealed only to the few, was a common trope in apo-48ANCIENT RITES FOR GAINING LOVERScryphal and pseudepigraphic texts.5 This claim is supplemented bya chain of transmission similar to that found in rabbinic texts (Avot1.1), a step towards the  rabbinization of the rite traditions.Another step towards incorporating the rites in a rabbinic frame-work is the inclusion of hymn material in the seventh heaven.Thesehymns connect the entire text with rabbinic liturgy.The Greek term pr©xij:  rite, action is a very broad term used inmany cultural settings.It often focused on the practical aspects ofsome endeavor, that is, instructions as opposed to theoretical investig-ations.In the papyri the term refers to the technical contextualaspects of achieving a particular goal, that is, which items must beused and which words recited in order to achieve success.This doesnot mean that a  rite is without any theological underpinnings; onlythat these will not be discussed under the topic of  rite. The Greekrites are also presented as ancient wisdom, sometimes referred tospecifically as  traditional (PGM 1.54) and sometimes connected withancient figures such as Pythagoras and Democritus (PGM 7.795).Some parts of the rites in the Greek and Hebrew handbooks areidentical, such as praying to Helios (SHR 4.60; PGM 4.247) andmaking amulets (SHR 2.63; PGM 4.80).Common goals includeknowing the future (SHR 5.15; PGM 4.3210 and 7.540 78),healing (SHR 1.29; PGM 7.193 214), talking to or questioningvarious types of spirits (SHR 3.175; PGM 7.505 28), and gainingpower or influence over enemies and friends (SHR 2.18; 2.46 PGM10.24 35; 12.397 400).The range of goals is quite striking.Serious requests for healingoccur next to the seemingly comic, such as one recipe promising tofill a room up with smoke in order to impress friends.Rites to makethe practitioner immortal are juxtaposed with attempts to avoidgetting drunk.6Reading through the texts is often bewildering.The rituals appearto be in no particular order.They combine dense sets of instructionswith long lists of angel names.Numerous objects are mentionedranging from the familiar (flour, incense) to the more exotic (ashesfrom an idol, lion s heart).The Book of Secrets does have a clearstructure based on the model of seven heavens.The first six levelsoutline the placement of the angelic camps in that level, the namesof the angels, the tasks over which they are appointed, and how theangels can be employed.The seventh and final heaven contains onlyhymns praising the deity.The Greek handbooks do not have any clear overall organization.They mirror most closely the arrangement of rites within the49ANCIENT RITES FOR GAINING LOVERSindividual heavens of The Book of Secrets where similar themes re-appear in various sections with no clear organization.7 Emendations,variants, and multiple copies of the same rite demonstrate the statusof the papyri as ancient working documents (Nock 1972: 178 9).The Book of Secrets is somewhat cleaner, but strikingly similar.Assigning a precise date to these handbooks and the rituals theycontain is difficult.Dating The Book of Secrets depends on a singlereference to the Roman indiction ( the fifteen year cycle of thereckoning of the Greek kings ) in 1.27 8.This system was insti-tuted in 312 CE, though not used for non-fiscal concerns until thesecond half of the fourth century (Margalioth 1966: 24 5).8 Thereference dates only the final editing of the handbook; it probablycontains rituals from a much earlier period.The bulk of the Greekpapyri included in the collection date from the fourth century [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]