Syriac Love Charms. Part I . The Recipe-Type

In this paper we consider 6 Syriac love charms and edit their original text and trans -lation. All but two texts are published here for the first time. This is the first part of our inquiry, in which we consider one of the two types of Syriac love charms, the recipe - type . Among its primary characteristics is its extreme rarity in Syriac magic codices. Another prominent trait of this type, which makes these texts especially valuable, is that some of them contain ritual instructions which are exceedingly rare for Syriac charms as a whole, while others may contain what we call an allusion to it. Our assumption is that texts of this type reflect ancient magic practices originating in pre Christian time, which are credibly attested in the texts belonging to other magic tradi tions of the Near East and Egypt.

Magic practices of Syriac Christians1 are represented mostly with handbooks (or codices) dating from the 18th to the 20th century.2 Though to a lesser extent, Syriac charms are also found on such media as paper and leather scrolls and magic bowls. As argued by Saar, "research on primary sources relating to love magic from the Christian and the Islamic traditions is still in its infancy, like that of Jewish magic".3 Although this claim can be easily extrapolated to all Syriac magic texts, by this study we aim to fill the gap in the present knowledge of precisely the love charms found in the Syriac tradition.
This research is a contribution to the project "The Inventory of Syriac Charms" supported by HSE University.4 The aim of this project is to compile a comprehensive list of individual charms5 within the Syriac tradition of written charms, in order to grasp the whole scope of thematic and pragmatic (functional) variation within this tradition. By the Syriac tradition of charms we understand the corpus of texts in Classical Syriac known to us from the codices and scrolls (rolls, or rotuli) dated from the 18th to the 20th century. For reasons still to be explored, the core of these texts originate from the Eastern Syriac communities historically located in South-Eastern Turkey (Hakkari, Van), Western Iran (Iranian Azerbaijan) and Northern Iraq.6 By individual charm we 1 This work was supported by the Humanitarian Research Foundation of the Faculty of Humanities, HSE University in 2020, Project "The inventory of Syriac charms". Our deepest gratitude goes to Nikita Kuzin (Freie Universität Berlin) for his diligent assistance during the preparation of this article. Our gratitude also goes to Dr. Yulia Furman for her valuable advice in interpretation of the Syriac text. Likewise we thank Rim Nurullin (HSE University), who provided help cornerning the Mesopotamian parallels. We would also like to show our gratitude to Prof. Matthew Morgenstern (Tel Aviv University), for sharing his pearls of wisdom with us during the course of this research. Last but not least we wish to convey our gratitude to Dmitry Cherkashin (HSE University) for his constant support at all stages of the preparation of this paper. understand a text with its specific function, content and composition, which may be witnessed by a number of copies in various collections of charms. As is usual for the texts existing in multiple hand copies, there is a certain degree of textual variation from copy to copy of an individual charm. One of the main problems for this type of research is to ascertain which text belongs to which (individual) charm. Solving that kind of problem may be shown by the following example. Since the publication by H. Gollancz we know the charm "Binding the mouth of dogs" (ˀassārā d-pūmē d-ḵalbē).7 There are five more unpublished texts with the same title.8 Though three texts in this group may count as copies of the text, published by Gollancz,9 the other two texts are different.10 While the Gollancz version of this charm is centered upon the symbolism of the stone covering the mouth of the grave of Christ, the alternative version has a historiola of the Holy Family meeting dogs on their way from Egypt. Thus the discussed texts are copies of two distinctive individual charms, having the same title and function, but different in their content and composition. Turning to the charms discussed in this article, some of them have the title d-rāḥmūṯā (Text 1 and 2). As will be seen from the contents of those texts, they are totally different in wording and composition, though being of the same purpose. The charms published here are somewhat specific, all but one11 of them are represented by only one copy. It can be assumed that the uniqueness of some texts must be accounted for by the scarcity of the manuscripts at our disposal. Though we managed to study 50 mss. of Syriac charms, which contain a total of about 1500 charms (including copies of the same charm), the real number of Syriac charms mss. ever written must be in the thousands, and a significant part of the written tradition is hidden from the researchers.

On the Selection Criteria
First, we need to outline what sort of texts we take into consideration before choosing a few which we will include in this study. The category of love charms may encompass texts which seek different goals. Thus, Saar has based her research on Jewish love magic, not only on the texts aiming to induce sexual attraction and preserve or reinforce loving feelings in marriage, but also on the charms for inducing impotence, sowing hate, and obtaining grace and favour with various kinds of people.12 Among Syriac charms we can also find these three categories: charms for love and/or attraction, charms for separation and charms for social appreciation. While admitting that these three spheres are closely interrelated since they all deal with affecting other people's emotions and state of mind against their will, we have decided not to take charms for sowing hate and impotence13 into consideration. Instead, we focus on charms that are intended to instill love of different sorts.14 The texts whose headings include Syriac words for 'love' (ḥubbā, rāḥmūṯā, reḥmṯā or raḥmē) are found in almost every codex available to us. All these texts can be divided into two major groups, which denote as "the recipe-type" and "the prayer-type". In this paper, which is the first part of our inquiry on Syriac love charms, we analyze the charms of the recipe-type, while the second group will be studied separately in a forthcoming paper. Unlike the prayertype texts, Syriac charms of the recipe-type are very rare. Therefore, we have decided to cover this group in its entirety, including two charms (Text 4 and 5), cited by Badger in his book,15 for which we do not have Syriac text.16

Special Traits of the Recipe-Type Texts
As already stated, this group of Syriac love charms encompasses 6 texts, since this equals the number of the charms of this type found in the available On this as well as other manuscripts used in this paper see Appendix.
manuscripts. Before adducing the charms themselves we will outline the special features of the recipe-type texts.17 Regarding their substance and composition, we must admit that all traits common to the entire group deal with the absence of certain features. They are: -no allusions to the Bible -no Biblical parallels -no mentions of any of the hypostases of the Trinity, or Christian saints, etc. In other words, these texts lack most of clear references to their circulation in the Christian milieu which are easy to detect in the rest of Syriac charms. A few exceptions need to be outlined here. Hosts are used as materia magica in Text 1, while Text 3 instructs the practitioner to recite Psalm 46. However, when compared to the prayer-type texts, this feature is still very prominent.
It is much more challenging, however, to find common features which are shared by all the texts of this group and have nothing to do with the absence of something. The table adduced below represents an attempt to outline such features, none of which is common to all the texts, but regarded cumulatively, as we believe, they still represent a significant piece of evidence, since no text matches less than 2 of 4 positions.
Thus, many of the recipe-type charms contain an instruction to perform a kind of magic ritual or, what we call, an allusion to such (cf. Commentaries to Texts 2 and 5). These instructions can imply manipulations with certain objects and substances, and we have put such cases in a separate column, named materia magica, or they can prescribe adjuration to some powers, not common to magic texts of Syriac Christians, i.e. not to Christian God, saints, etc. What can be slightly perplexing is that this kind of adjuration more often appears in these charms not as a part of a ritual prescription, but by itself: cf. e.g. "collect dust from the grave-yard and invoke the sun" vs. "I adjure you, holy letters". In the first case the adjuration is part of a prescription to perform a certain ritual, while in the second case it is not. In the column named "adjuration" we include cases of both types. The last prominent feature is the presence of voces magicae in 4 texts out of 6.
The commentaries to the following texts are designed to establish the wider context of the magic formulae and magic practices as attested in these charms, by adducing parallels from outer sources, such as Aramaic magic texts from Late Antiquity (magic bowls and scrolls from the 6th-8th cent. CE), texts from Cairo Geniza (10th-19th cent. CE), Greek and Demotic magical papyri 17 On the few commonalities between the two type of Syriac love charms see Syriac Love Charms. Part II. The prayer-type, forthcoming.

Texts and Commentaries
throws these hosts to bitches.

3.1.1
Commentary This text was put first as it represents most of the features of its type: manipulations with materia magica, voces magicae, brevity and the total absence of 18 An abbreviation sign is used. The standard vocalization for this word is rāḥmūṯā. Here we have raḥm-instead. literary formulae common to the texts of the second type, since Text 1 contains no incantation. The aim of this recipe, as can be deduced from its content, is to instill love in a woman's heart through certain manipulations with flour, dough and hosts, which also involve the assistance of a virgin and female dogs.
Various parallels to this text can be found in erotic charms belonging to different magic traditions of the Near East, and in the following commentary we outline a few such similarities. Speaking about using flour as materia magica, the first parallel known to us comes from a tablet dated to the 7th century BCE which contains a Sumerian love incantation accompanied by the description of two rituals in Akkadian.19 One of the rituals prescribes the use of flour, which is normally used in offerings:20 it should be thrown into a river as a sacrifice to the god Ea. Later in this commentary we address this text more closely.
A few other parallels to our text come from Jewish sources, where flour is used in different magic recipes dealing with love, such as the following text from Sefer ha-Razim:21 Take a white cock and fine flour, and slaughter the cock into living water. And with the blood and the water knead the flour and make 3 cakes and place them in the sun, and write upon them in blood the name of the fifth encampment and the name of the overseer.22 In addition to using flour, this recipe proceeds with a prescription to knead the dough, bake (or, better to say, dry) a few cakes and inscribe some efficient names on it. All this provides a particularly striking parallel to our text.
Using hosts in a magic ritual is what one may denote as the "Christian layer" in our text. Notably, no other precedents of magic rituals involving the Christian ceremonial items in Syriac charms are known to us. Feeding hosts to a female dog implies likening them to the woman who is the target of the charm, thus providing an example of what Frazer called sympathetic magic. Animals are often mentioned in love charms originating from the Near East and Egypt. Among such cases that which precisely mention dogs are very prominent. For example, a dog features in an Old Babylonian tablet from Isin which contains several Akkadian love incantations: The dog is lying, the boar is lyingyou lie forever between my thighs.23 Here an analogy is implied between the behavior of sexually aroused human beings and that of dogs and pigs.24 One of the Coptic erotic spells contains a similar dog analogy:25 I desire that N. daughter of N. spend forty days and forty nights hanging on me like a bitch for a dog, like a sow for a boar26 According to Saar,27 in medieval Jewish magic dogs (as also pigs) are mentioned mainly in incantations for sowing hate,28 however it appears reasonable to compare our recipe with one yet unpublished medieval Jewish magic text she adduces: Write on gazelle parchment and touch the woman and she will follow you. And if you wish to try it put it on the head of a dog and it will follow you. And they are these. ⟨magical signs⟩29 We render the magic names that are required to be inscribed on the hosts merely with consonants, but thanks to vocalization dots provided by the scribe one can approximately30 reconstruct how most of them were read: ˁAprānītā, l-ˁAprānītā, ˀAḥīṣlaprī, Gabˁēh Nešmˁūn, Ladḥūldā. Typical voces magicae offer no possibility to interpret them on the basis of the vocabulary of the language in which the other parts of the text are written. This is not completely true for our text or the following ones, as for a few of the names, we can propose a more or less solid interpretation.
The name ˁAprānītā can be translated as 'earthy f. ' . Though not in the feminine form, the adjective is well attested in Syriac, e.g. in 1Cor. 15:47 Adam is called 'the first earthy man' , i.e. 'made of earth' . Some considerations let us suppose that this name was not used in this text accidentally or randomly. The magic practices intended to instill love may include manipulations with clay. 31 We often find prescriptions either to make a figurine, representing the target of the spell,32 and sometimes to also inscribe the target's name on it, or to inscribe something on a piece of unbaked clay or on a sherd. In some cases, clay products of both types are to be burnt, performing a sympathetic magic ritual: the target of the spell is supposed to burn with passion as the figurine or the piece of clay burns in the fire.33 Instead of burning, the Akkadian ritual that follows the Sumerian love incantation in KAR 61, mentioned above in connection with using flour as materia magica, prescribes burying the figurine in the place where the target is supposed to pass, implying a contagious magical effect:34 30 We say "approximately" because the scribe has not provided diacritics that would point to spirantized/unspirantized pronunciation of bgdkpt. ‫ܘܐܡܝܢ‬ ‫ܐܡܝܢ‬ Amen. Amen.

Commentary
This text is intended to induce love in a woman's heart. It starts with voces magicae. As in Text 1, this is not a typical example of abracadabra since most of the words seem to be of clear Syriac (or at least Aramaic) origin, however, they do not make any sense when analyzed as a sentence (or a group of sentences). Given that among the most clearly identifiable words are kaḏ 'when, while' , lḇīš 'dressed' and qum 'stand imv. m. sg. ' , we can suppose that these words indeed could represent a corrupted Syriac text. The charm proceeds with adjuration: bāˁēnā 'I demand from you pl.masc. ' . This clearly indicates that as in Text 1 these voces magicae (or some of them) act here as names of some supernatural powers (cf. Text 4). However, the following text is evidently corrupted. Presumably, these voces magicae are invoked and, assuming a textual mistake (suff. 2 pl.m. instead of 3m.pl.), asked to fulfill their promises. It is difficult to establish on which of the preceding words Syr. da-lwāṯ nūrā 'in front of (or near) the fire' is syntactically dependent. The phrase seems to be a reminiscent of some fire ritual, similar to the ones that we mentioned in connection with Text 1. Indeed, a ritual prescription is present (or alluded to) in most of the texts of this type40 and, providing that words da-lwāṯ nūrā are difficult to interpret within the present textual context, an assumption can be made that at least at some earlier stage of the text tradition this incantation was accompanied by a magical procedure. The Syriac words 38 Translation is based on reading ‫ܫܘܘܕܝܟܘܢ‬ šūḏaykōn, since in view of two forms pointing to 2 m.pl. ‫ܡܢܟܘܢ(‬ and ‫,)ܬܥܠܘܢ‬ šūḏayhōn 'their promises' appears to be a scribal mistake.

39
Any interpretation of this passage implies a scribal mistake. Our reading d-ḥāzyā lēh 'until she sees him' supposes that the scribe omitted l-after lēh, i.e. ‫ܕܦ:‬ ‫ܒ:‬ ‫ܠܦ:‬ ‫.*ܠܗ‬ Another possible interpretation is d-ḥazyā lēh 'until he sees her' (or, literally, '(until) she is seen by him'), which still requires the same emendation of the text as the preferred interpretation does. 40 The only unambiguous exception is Text 4. meaning 'stand' , 'dressed' and 'while' found among the voces magicae increase the plausibility of this interpretation. Finally, this text, corrupted as it is, still represents a clear parallel to Text 5, where an allusion to a fire ritual can also be assumed (cf. commentary to Text 5).
A lot of recipes intended to instill love and displaying similar structure can be found among the Geniza texts, of which we adduce one example: For a man to be liked and loved by everyone who looks at him. Write, and suspend from the left arm: (magic characters). You, holy letters and [praised] characters. Give grace, charm and love to N. son of N. in the eyes of every one who looks at him and who hears his voice41 The following formula "Enter into NN as fire …, so that she neither eats, nor drinks …" appears to be a combination of the two most common formulae in love magic. Both of these formulae represent the motif of love as a torment or a disease and intend to inflict the spell target with the same sufferings that are being experienced by the client himself.42 The first formula in question deals with love or sexual desire affecting its subject as fire (love is fire43). It is extremely popular in erotic magic and widely represented in texts originating from the Near East, Egypt and Greece, starting from Greek magical papyri (PGM), after which, retaining its popularity in the Coptic spells, it can still be found in medieval Jewish and Islamic magic.44 This said, it is not unexpected that this motif is expressed not once in our small corpus: cf. Text 5.
The second formula is about the target's inability to eat and drink (and often sleep) before he/she sees or comes to the client (love is abstinence45). As shown by Martinez, the formula and the motif which stands behind this has deep roots in Greek and Jewish literature and magic tradition.46 However, the earliest reminiscent of this motif known to us comes from an Akkadian incantation: Be (f.) awake at night-time! At day-time may you(f.) not sleep! At night-time may you(f.) not sit down! Incantation of the lover.47 Below we cite an elaborate one Coptic incantation which contains both motifs and also illustrates the thesis that the spell beneficiary aims to induce in the target the same feelings by which he himself is afflicted. It is the spell of Cyprian of Antioch, which begins with a description of the hero (Cyprian, but we can argue with enough probability that it also relates to the client) suffering from love: I am all afire. I have lain down to rest, but I could not sleep; … I have eaten and drunk in sighing and groaning48 The text proceeds with an adjuration to God: He comes in the rush of his power at your command, O father of the aeons, to go to N. daughter of N…. filling her heart, her soul, her spirit, and her mind with burning desire and hot longing…. She must not eat or 45 The same conceptual metaphor clearly underlies a following formula from the Old Akkadian incantation MAD V. drink, slumber or sleep, for her garments burn her body, the sky's lightning sets her afire, and the earth beneath her feet is ablaze49 Both formulae occur in other Syriac love charms. The motif of burning is also found in Text 5. (H 160, ff. 44v-45r

Commentary
The charm is designed to induce or reinforce love in one of the spouses. Two interpretations for the heading are possible, depending on our translation of d-rāḥem lāh baˁlāh: 'so that her husband would love her' or 'whose husband loves her' . Preferring the first interpretation, we suppose, that the woman is a client, seeking her husband's love, while in the second case it would be the other way around. The text prescribes using hair, which probably belongs either to the client or to his wife, and to put it under the house's threshold. Finally, Psalm 46 is to be recited.
Using hair in a magic ritual is what we call contagious magic, following Frazer's terminology. This well-known magic practice can be performed with different purposes besides instilling love, e.g. to curse, to cure, or to exorcise evil spirits.52 In our text the use of hair belonging either to the spell beneficiary or to the spell target is intended to strengthen the bond between these two persons.53 The contagious effect is increased by putting the hair under the threshold, where the target is supposed to pass.54 A few parallels can be found in the texts stemming from another branch of Christian magic -the Coptic spells. Below we adduce two erotic spells that also require putting the produced spell at the target's door.
Write these signs on a sheet of tin…. Bury it at the woman's door55 I adjure you by your powers and your amulets and the places where you dwell and your names, that just as I take you and put you at the door and the pathway of Phello son of Maure, (so also) you must take his heart and his mind; you must dominate his entire body56 While recitations and written quotations of Psalms is a very well documented practice in Jewish and Christian magic,57 to our knowledge, Psalm 46 is not mentioned or cited in any other magic text of either of the two traditions.

Text 4. Charm to Excite Love in a Woman towards a Man (Badger I:240)
In that she may run after M.D. the son of N.D. I demand of these names that A.B. may also go after M.D. and follow him from house to house, from town to town, from village to village, from city to city, and from market to market. Even so order it to be. Amen and Amen.
3.4.1 Commentary For Texts 4 and 5 we have only English translation (see Appendix).
At the beginning of the charm the "names of the talismans" are adduced, which are used (cf. Text 2) to immediately affect the mind of a certain woman, so that she starts seeking the spell beneficiary in a wide range of locations.
Below we elaborate upon two common motifs attested in this charm. One of them depicts love and passion as depriving their subject of mind and consciousness (love is madness). One parallel comes from the Coptic erotic spells: I adjure you by all these things for the sake of a heartfelt love and a pang and a heartfelt madness in the heart of N. daughter of N. Quickly!58 Having lost its mind, the target has to submit to the will of the spell beneficiary, contrary to his/her own will. This is what Saar includes in her list of "preliminary goals" of love spells.59 An intention to get control over the spell target not only via his/her heart, but also through subjugating his/her mind, soul, (parts of) body, etc. is most notably expressed in Greek and Demotic magical papyri (PGM and PDM) and defixiones, from where it was presumably inherited by the Coptic erotic spells.60 You must take his heart and his mind; you must dominate his entire body61 58 Marvin W. Meyer, Richard Smith, Ancient Christian Magic, p. 159 (Text 74:9-10). 59 "The target should ignore his/her own wishes, abandon any family ties, and focus only on the spell beneficiary. The free will and/or the body of the target are bound through magical means, so that they are no longer autonomous", see where most of the love spells end with the words "immediately, immediately, quickly, quickly".67

Text 5. Charm to Excite Love in a Man towards a Woman (Badger I:239)
I ascend seven mountains, and descend into seven valleys, and I saw there a tree of frankincense, and I conjure with awful oaths, that as incense burns in the fire even so may A.B. the son of C.B. [his mother] burn with love of C.D. the daughter of E.D. [her mother.] amen.

3.5.1
Commentary At the beginning the charm mentions a journey undertaken by an unidentified character, which is probably to be associated either with the "magician" (i.e. the person, who performs the ritual) or the spell beneficiary. The goal of his journey, as we can tentatively deduce from the text, is to find the frankincense tree and, probably, to obtain some frankincense. The adjuration which follows has no specified addressee. It contains a formula, that likens the burning of frankincense with the burning of the female target's heart with love. Though the text lacks any clear ritual instructions, we can consider these lines to be an allusion to a burning ritual in view of both the inner and outer comparative data (cf. commentary to Text 1 and 2 and v. below).
Brief as it is, this text contains a few features very prominent in ancient magic and love literature. Such landscapes as gardens and valleys with delicious fruits and beautiful flowers, springs with pure and sweet water, and fertile fields are frequently mentioned in love lyrics and erotic incantations of the Near East and Egypt.68 Most scholars agree that, though these places represent symbols of love and pleasure in general, in many cases these passages allude to women's beauty and sexuality or to female genitalia, while descriptions of characters coming to these places and finding pleasure there are to be interpreted as allusions to sexual intercourse.69 Of all parallels we adduce one, which comes from the Old Akkadian incantation MAD V.8 and is of special interest, since it also mentions a journey and obtaining incense as its possible goal: I am guided by(?) the sapflow of the incense-tree. Two beautiful maidens were blossoming, They went down to the garden, To the garden they went down. They cut from the sapflow of the incense-tree70 In their study of this incantation, J. Goodnick and Aage Westenholz adduce parallel passages from Mesopotamian literature and the Song of Songs, arguing that fragrance serves as a metaphor for attractiveness in love lyrics.71 The following lines of our text are particularly significant not only since they contain another attestation of the love is fire metaphor in our corpus (cf. Text 2), but also due to the very formula in which this metaphor is expressed. The most ancient attestation of this formula is found on five pieces of potsherd dated to the 5th or 6th cent. CE, which were discovered during the excavations of the ancient synagogue in Ḥorvat Rimmon: The Aramaic text of the incantation is reconstructed according to a few similar recipes, found among Geniza magic books,73 which prescribe writing these voces magicae on a piece of unbaked clay and throwing it into the fire. Originating most probably in Jewish magic, this formula went far beyond Geniza recipe books, extending to other magical traditions74 and, eventually, to the Syriac Christian charms.

3.6
Text 6. For Love of Everyone (H 162, f. 1v 3.6.1 Commentary Nothing but the heading unequivocally points to this text being relevant for our inquiry. The heading itself can be interpreted in two different ways: either the charm aims to instill love towards the spell beneficiary in a person of any sex or it is intended to help its beneficiary to find grace in every person he/she meets.
Starting with a set of voces magicae, among which we find recognizable Syriac words 'seven' , 'son' , and 'clay' ,79 the text proceeds with a requirement to invoke the sun and the moon. As far as the structure of the text is concerned, Text 6 resembles Texts 2 and 4: all three charms begin with voces magicae and proceed with magic formulae. However, among these two, Text 4 represents a closer comparison to our charm, since it also contains an allusion to a magical procedure in between these two blocks.
Invocations to the sun and the moon can be found among love spells belonging to Greek80 and Jewish81 magic, but in each case, they do not seem typical for love charms.82 There are two more Syriac charms that contain a similar set of voces magicae. Both texts were published by Gollancz. The first of them83 is headed ṭlsm da-qḏām šulṭānē 'An amulet of avail before the rulers' and shows a lot of similarities with our text. This is a very short spell which begins with drgy mrgy and other voces magicae (partly similar to ours), mentions the sun and the moon, and ends with 'Let them be with the bearer of these writs.' The second text84 seems to have two headings: ˀassārā d-ˀaḥīḏē 'Binding of the tyrants' and ˀassārā d-leššānē 'Binding of the tongues' . With our charm it shares some of the voces magicae and the mention of the sun and the moon, but at the same time this text contains a few formulae of Christian origin: the trinitary formula and biblical allusions. If we consider all three texts to be textual variants of one charm, these Christian features could represent a problem for our classification of Syriac love charms. As outlined above, commonly we do not find this kind of evidence in the recipe-type texts. However, when compared to the other two variants that lack these features, we can define them as later editorial changes.
The biblical allusions in Cod. C, §11 are of interest not only for the matters of our classification. In this text we find three allusions to the biblical precedents, each introduced by ˀaykannā d-rāḥem ˀalāhā 'Same as God loved…': they recall the biblical stories about Moses, David and Daniel. Though we consider these allusions to be later additions, together with the heading of our text they represent a valuable peace of evidence for classifying this text as a love charm.