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Arabic Influences on the Syriac Charm Tradition
P. 389–455.
This article explores examples of influence from the Arabic magical traditions, both Christian and Muslim, that can be found in modern Syriac magical manuscripts. The following aspects of Arabic influence are discussed: visual elements (diagonal writing, kharaktēres, pseudo-Arabic script), terminology, texts containing Arabic formulae, magical practices, angels and demons (Gabriel and Michael, Tebʿā), and magic squares.
Bochkor A., Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Серия 12: Социология 2025 Т. 18 № 2 С. 229–241
The present study aims to explore the complex relationship between magic and religion in contemporary Russian society. Sociological studies acknowledge the challenge in differentiat-ing between the two spheres and uses a variety of approaches to define the boundary between magic and religion. However, the Russian Orthodox Church views magic as a distinct practice from religion ...
Added: February 12, 2026
Пузанов Д. В., Ученые записки Казанского университета. Серия: Гуманитарные науки 2021 Т. 163 № 6 С. 168–178
Оружие в представлении северных германцев имело способность самостоятельно воздействовать на окружающий мир. Этот факт исследователи интерпретируют как свидетельство того, что норманны считали оружие близким к категории живых существ. В работе показано, что многие акторные характеристики оружия в верованиях северных германцев удачнее всего объясняются через концепт «биографии» предметов, в то время как конструкция «частично одушевленного» оружия ...
Added: June 10, 2025
Leiden: Brill, 2026.
The Handbook of Neo-Aramaic aims to provide an introduction to, and details of the complex world of Neo-Aramaic. This large family of endangered Neo-Semitic languages is (or until recently was spoken by Jewish, Christian and Mandaean minorities in parts of the Middle East. Most members of these communities now live in various diasporas.
Following a series ...
Added: May 1, 2025
Gippius A., Russian Linguistics 2024 Т. 48 Статья 22
The author suggests a new interpretation of the inscription on a brick from the Dormition Cathedral of the Kiev Cave Monastery dated to the time of the construction of the cathedral (1073–1077). The previously proposed interpretations are rejected for linguistic reasons and because all of them were based on an incorrect assessment of the physical ...
Added: November 21, 2024
Minov S., , in: La religion populaire des chrétiens de tradition syriaque (Études syriaques 19).: P.: Librairie orientaliste Paule Geuthner S. A., 2024. P. 431–447.
The publication provides a comprehensive bibliography on popular religion, including magic and divination, among Syriac Christians. ...
Added: November 19, 2024
Minov S., , in: La religion populaire des chrétiens de tradition syriaque (Études syriaques 19).: P.: Librairie orientaliste Paule Geuthner S. A., 2024. P. 307–348.
In what follows, I provide a description of the contours of the magical discourse in relation to popular religion, as evidenced in the corpus of textual sources produced by Syriac Christians. Initially, I offer a brief excursus into the vocabulary and taxonomy of magic and divination in Syriac. This is followed by the main section, ...
Added: November 19, 2024
Minov S., , in: La religion populaire des chrétiens de tradition syriaque (Études syriaques 19).: P.: Librairie orientaliste Paule Geuthner S. A., 2024. P. 247–272.
This contribution offers a preliminary survey of the diverse contexts and means through which veneration of saints among Syriac Christians interacted with the lives of ordinary believers, influencing their religious practices and worldviews, and, in turn, undergoing changes as a result of their agency. However, given the scarcity of regional and period-specific studies on the ...
Added: November 19, 2024
P.: Librairie orientaliste Paule Geuthner S. A., 2024.
The vast majority of Syriac sources that have come down to us came from the ecclesiastical and scholarly elite. It was therefore natural for Syriac studies to focus primarily on the doctrines and normative practices promoted by these authors. Within this field of study, another historiographical vein has focused on magic and the occult sciences. ...
Added: November 17, 2024
Anna Bromirskaya, Grishin N., Häberl C. et al., Journal of Semitic Studies 2025 Vol. 70 No. 1 P. 67–86
Older residents of the Modern Western Aramaic-speaking village of Maaloula are keenly aware of the progressive impoverishment of their lexicon as the younger generations come to maturity without direct knowledge of traditional ways of life and material culture. In this short Modern Western Aramaic text, two such residents discuss both the localities in which these ...
Added: November 1, 2024
Gippius A., Studi Slavistici 2023 Т. 20 № 1 С. 5–20
The article analyses the Glagolitic prayer on the lead amulet published by K. Popkonstantinov
and H. Miklas in 2009. A new reading of the central phrase is proposed based on the parallels in
Novgorod birchbark documents. In the second part of the article, the Varna amulet and artefacts of
its circle are compared with the birchbark documents about ...
Added: September 26, 2023
Shumilin M., Аристей. Aristeas: Вестник классической филологии и античной истории 2023 Т. 27 С. 59–69
In the notes a set of conjectural solutions to the textual problems in three
passages of Pliny the Elder’s Natural history is porposed (Plin. NH praef. 4, 7.1 and
7.16). Several factors contribute to the need to reconsider the standard text in these
places: the number of scholars who set to look for new textual solutions in Pliny ...
Added: September 18, 2023
Shelov-Kovedyaev F. V., В кн.: Причерноморье в античное и раннесредневековое время. Сборник научных трудов, посвящённых памяти профессора Виктора Павловича КопыловаВып. 3: Сборник научных трудов, посвящённых памяти профессора Виктора Павловича Копылова.: Издательство Южного федерального университета, 2024. Гл. 29 С. 348–350.
В статье анализируется магическое граффито из Китея ...
Added: July 10, 2023
Berzon E., Maksim Kalinin, Sergey Koval et al., Journal of Semitic Studies 2023 Vol. 68 No. 2 P. 391–402
This paper offers an interpretation of an insufficiently understood verb form in the Neo-Babylonian letter OIP 114, 17:8, 29, thereby clarifying its contents. The word in question is shown to be an Aramaic verb form. This interpretation is supported by observations on the orthography and phonology of early Neo-Babylonian. It follows from the study that ...
Added: April 6, 2023
Cherkashina A., Lyavdansky A., Scrinium: Journal of Patrology and Critical Hagiography 2022 Vol. 18 No. 1 P. 22–48
The first part of the inquiry on Syriac love charms was devoted to the recipe-type
charms. This article edits four more Syriac love charms, which are attributed to the so-called prayer-type. The special features of this type of Syriac love charms are addressed and compared with that of the recipe-type texts, edited in Part I. The ...
Added: December 17, 2022
Minov S., Entangled Religions 2022 Vol. 13 No. 3 P. 1–66
This essay focuses on one particular aspect of Jewish-Christian relations during the Sasanian period, namely various types of interaction between the two religious groups in the domain of magic. For that purpose, two distinctive bodies of textual evidence are examined: hagiographical literature produced by Syriac Christians, and Aramaic magic bowls, Jewish as well as Christian. ...
Added: November 1, 2022
Cherkashina A., Cherkashin D., Saar O., Scrinium: Journal of Patrology and Critical Hagiography 2022 Vol. 18 No. 1 P. 49–84
This article considers a text-unit known in five Syriac codices and consisting of up to
three magical recipes. The target of all these recipes is a mill: two of them are curses
(ˀassārā ‘binding spell’) and intend to stop the mill, while the third one is a counter-spell
(šeryānā ‘loosening spell’), which aims to annul the curse. One ...
Added: October 29, 2022