In the first centuries of Christianity, several communities of believers formed on the territory of Egypt, who called themselves Gnostics, and the official church - heretics. Their writings were mercilessly destroyed by the church fathers. And we rejoice at every find of a new manuscript. So the Coptic Handbook of Supernatural Ritual Power caused a storm of emotions in the scientific world …
The origins of the Gnostic texts are always complicated. Few of them manage to give the exact address of the "registration", for example, "a manuscript from the Nag Hammadi library." Usually, before getting to scientists, finds pass from hand to hand, from reseller to reseller. The place from which they were taken is carefully hidden. The names are called very reluctantly, and often invented. Trading in ancient texts is a dangerous job, it can rob, and mutilate, and kill.
Study history
The suddenly appeared new Gnostic text did not surface in Europe or the USA, but in Australia, which is very interesting in itself. Another, equally interesting feature: the manuscript is written in the Coptic language. The third, more than piquant detail - the Australian Coptic text is devoted not to events from the life of Christ, not then known to sciences, not to philosophical reflections, but to applied magic. It's even crafted to be easily transported when traveling - like a pocket guide. And it was compiled according to the template of a reference book - with recipes for all occasions. And it is quite small in volume - it consists of 20 parchment sheets.
The book got to the Museum of Ancient Cultures of Macquarie University back in 1981, when it was acquired from a certain keeper of antiquities from Vienna - Mikael Fakelman. The university did not really know anything about Mikael himself or how this text ended up in his hands. There were no specialists in the Coptic language among the Australian scholars. For more than 30 years, the ancient codex lay on a shelf until it caught the eye of archaeologist Malcolm Choat. He just knew this dead language! And together with the Sydney scholar Ian Gardner, he took up translation and publication. This couple of enthusiasts brought the project to completion in 2014, publishing a facsimile text, and their translation, and comments to it.
As soon as the translation began, the scientists were surprised a lot. Literally in the very first lines of the ancient text, they met the name of Bakhtiof. Apparently, this was a god, to whom the author of the text addressed very respectfully: "You are great, unshakable, master of forty and nine kinds of snakes!" In none of the known texts of that time, no Bakhtiofa, who ruled over 49 species of snakes, was mentioned. Further more. In addition to Bakhtiofa, another name immediately surfaced - Set (or Seth). No, not the Seth, who is the evil brother of Osiris, but Seth, who in Russian transcription reads as Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, born after Cain killed Abel. Basically, the prayers with which the manuscript abounds are addressed precisely to this Set-Seth.
And here I must say that in the first two centuries of Christianity in Egypt there was a group of believers who believed that Jesus Christ and Seth were one and the same person.
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Who are the Sethians?
The Sethians, like other Gnostics, believed that the original world had a purely spiritual nature, it was created from the union of divine essences of an immaterial order - the invisible spirit and mother of all things Barbelo. All zones of the spirit world and the Self-begotten Son originated from them. However, one of the minor gods, the son of Sophia (embodied wisdom), fell out with his disembodied father and decided to create his own world. His name was Jaldabaoth, the Jews called him Yahweh. Jaldabaoth could not become like the invisible spirit. Everything he created was not spiritual, but material in nature. His son, known as Cain (the fruit of sin with the first woman Eve), brought death and destruction to the world created by Yahweh. He demanded complete submission from people, but people did not obey him. Sophia, during the act of creation, tried to intervene and endowed people with a spark of spirituality,so that after death they may be able to be reborn. But the creation of Yahweh turned out to be defective: material nature prevented people from realizing that they were carrying a spark of divine fire. The Sethians believed that the truth was revealed to some of them nonetheless. And some are even born of a spiritual family, to which the third son of the forefathers belonged - Seth.
Yahweh systematically tries to destroy his creation, which he considers ungrateful. But the point is not the ingratitude of people, but the fact that they need to conquer their material nature. It is impossible to mix further spiritual and physical. For this, the eternal son Seth came in the form of Jesus Christ. He showed how the material principle dies and the spiritual is resurrected. But people again did not understand anything. The light that the souls of people are endowed with must go to the primary source, to the Pleroma. Only then will the chaos end and the true fullness of being, spiritual, without any material inertia, will return, and man will become equal to his creators, and Sophia will return to the Pleroma. The Sethians believed that they should quickly part with material bonds and release the divine light, forever uniting with the upper world, and then they will receive full knowledge and eternal life.
Magic is immortal
Among the Sethians there were quite a few very prolific authors. The earliest texts and books written after the 2nd century have come down to us. It is sometimes very difficult to distinguish the Sethian manuscripts from the other Gnostic ones. But this time there really seems to be no doubt. In the manuscript, Sifu's prayers are mixed with those of the usual pattern. This can serve as confirmation that the text was composed when there was still no gap between the Sethians and the orthodox believers. Scientists have attributed the found manuscript to the 7th-8th centuries, although this date can be revised, because, of course, there are no “output data” in the ancient text. Of course, the manuscript could have been written earlier, but not later: the 8th century is the upper limit for the existence of the Sethians. Later they disappeared from the historical scene. Only one thing is certain: according to the peculiarities of the dialect, the text comes from Upper Egypt,but most likely from Hermopolis, where the Sethian community was.
However, another thing is interesting: the Sethians were not particularly interested in magic. They were happy to talk about the eternal, and not about miraculous healings or the attraction of completely earthly goods. And here, in addition to prayers, there are spells and rituals that are completely "Egyptian" in spirit to attract money, drive out evil spirits, love spells, get a good job, and heal diseases. Recipes are sometimes the simplest (take two iron nails, read the appropriate prayer and drive them one opposite the other into the door jamb - and you will be protected by iron from the enemy, disease and any misfortune, and if you do the same in someone else's house, you will gain power over its owner) … Sometimes - complex, with very intricate spells. Consider, for example, the seating of eight turtles in the eight corners of the building from the inside and outside, using a spell by the spirit of Eremiel.
Who owned the manuscript in the Middle Ages is difficult to say. It is unlikely, of course, that it was a person of spiritual dignity or a Gnostic philosopher who was alienated from everything worldly. After all, we practically do not know the environment in which the Sethians lived. And how this environment has changed since the II century, when the faith and idea of these Christians was strong and unshakable. It is possible that their conviction has become less unshakable, and earnest faith has been replaced by something that always comes to replace it in a period of decline - superstition. By that time, they became more interested in the purely worldly component of life. And no wonder that the place of philosophical research was taken by magic spells and rituals - not only in Egypt, but throughout Europe, magic gradually crept into scientific offices and monasteries.
Elena FILIPPOVA
