Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/428

390 the later ages of classical antiquity, because they form links in the chain of history of those philosophical and religious doctrines which, arising from Zoroastrianism, spread over Western Asia, Egypt, and Greece, in the ages immediately preceding and following the Christian era, and, having attracted a number of foreign elements, issued in that extraordinary amalgam known to us as Gnosticism. The obscurity overhanging the Gnostic creed and practices is only to be accounted for by reasons as complex as Gnosticism itself. The secrecy preserved by its disciples, the strange and often inconsistent symbolism they employed, the zeal of early Christian ecclesiastics in hunting out and destroying the documents embodying its teaching and practices, the blunders and sometimes, it is to be feared, the wilful misrepresentations made by the Fathers in combating the Gnostic "heresy," all contributed their share to the result. Every relic, therefore, however fragmentary, that modern research can discover, has become doubly valuable for the purpose of reconstructing the history of the system, and ascertaining how far, if at all, it continued to influence rites and speculation, whether within or without the Church, in later ages.

The MS. here printed belongs to the thirteenth or fourteenth century; but its contents are to be identified with a writing referred to in the reply of Haya Gaon, the head of the rabbinical school of Babylon at the beginning of the eleventh century, to certain enquiries addressed to him by some Jewish inhabitants of Kairouan. From this it would appear that The Sword of Moses was then regarded as of authority, and presumably was of some antiquity, though the Gaon himself seems to have taken it "with a pinch of salt." Its contents agree with what we know of Gnostic writings. It consists of a number of divine names and names of angels, with directions for use. The virtue of the prescriptions resides chiefly in the knowledge of the right names to be invoked for the various purposes, but also partly in the proper state of ceremonial purity of the performer, and in the correct performance of the ceremonies.

We shall not attempt to pick the plums out of the pudding. It shall suffice to say that not merely are many of the recipes curious, but that they often raise questions of more than a passing interest.

By way of Appendix Dr. Gaster has added texts and translations