The Great Magical Papyrus of Paris and the so-called Mithras Liturgy

The longest text among the Greek Magical Papyri is a papyrus codex held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France under the shelfmark Supplément grec 574. Scholars call it the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris and, in Preisendanz's numbering, PGM IV. Probably copied in the fourth century AD, it runs to more than 3,200 lines and is a true anthology: it gathers dozens of ritual texts of different origin and date, transcribed by one or more hands on bound leaves.

A codex from the 1857 auction

The manuscript comes from the collections of consul Giovanni Anastasi and was bought by the Paris library at the sale of 1857. The form of the book is significant: it is not a roll but a codex, a set of folded and sewn leaves like a modern book. This format spread precisely in the first centuries of the Christian era and indicates an object designed for consultation.

The contents are varied. There are hymns to Helios and Selene, invocations of Egyptian deities, protective texts, divinatory procedures and love formulas. A famous section near the end of the codex contains an exorcism attributed to a certain Pibechis, in which references to the biblical story of the Exodus appear. It is an example of how Jewish elements circulated in Greek-speaking magical circles.

The name given by Albrecht Dieterich

In 1903 the philologist Albrecht Dieterich published part of the codex under the title Eine Mithrasliturgie, «A Mithras Liturgy». The text describes an ascent of the soul through the heavens, with encounters with gates, guardians, luminous deities and finally a supreme god identified with Helios Mithras. Dieterich saw in it an authentic liturgy of the mystery cult of Mithras, adapted by a magician.

The thesis immediately met objections. Franz Cumont, the leading scholar of Mithraism at the time, observed that the text has little in common with what is known of the Mithraic mysteries from inscriptions and sanctuaries. Many today prefer to speak of an immortalisation ritual from an Egyptian milieu, which uses the name of Mithras without belonging to his cult. The title, however, has stuck.

A document for the history of religions

The value of the Great Paris Papyrus lies in its breadth. It lets us see side by side, in the same book, themes that elsewhere are scattered: astrology, solar theology, the Jewish tradition, Egyptian temple practices, Greek hymnic poetry. For the historian it is a window onto how a fourth-century reader organised his religious knowledge.

The codex also reveals the work of a careful compiler. As in other magical papyri, some texts record variants found «in another copy», a sign that the scribe compared several exemplars and wished to preserve alternative readings. This almost philological attitude brings the late antique magician close to the learned copyist and shows that handbooks were transmitted, corrected and compared like real books.

The codex has also had a long modern life. The editions of Carl Wessely in 1888 and Karl Preisendanz in 1928 made it accessible to scholars, and the Mithras Liturgy has become one of the most discussed texts of late antique religion. Even today, among philologists and historians, the debate over its nature remains open and fruitful.