Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 187

THE AESTHETICS OF BLESSING AND CURSING:

LITERARY AND ICONOGRAPHIC DIMENSIONS OF
HEBREW AND ARAMAIC BLESSING AND CURSE TEXTS

MICHAEL D. SWARTZ

The articles in this volume constitute an effort to understand the

relationship between curses and blessings.1 Both types of speech acts
rely on formulaic language to be effective. Because of this, a way
of understanding the affinities between the two is by comparing the
formal characteristics of curse and blessing formulae. One influential
example is the extensive litany of blessings and curses in the book
of Deuteronomy:
Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country.
Blessed shall be the issue of your womb, the produce of your soil, the
offspring of your cattle, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your
flock.
Blessed shall you be in your basket and your kneading bowl.
Blessed shall you be in your comings and blessed shall you be in your
goings.
(Dt. 28:3-6)
Cursed shall you be in the city and cursed shall you be in the country.
Cursed shall you be in your basket and your kneading bowl.
Cursed shall be the issue of your womb, the produce of your soil, the
offspring of your cattle, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your
flock.
Cursed shall you be in your comings and cursed shall you be in your goings.
(Dt. 16-19)

The blessing and the curse are closely related not only semanti-
cally, but formally as well. The same style used to pronounce Israel’s
blessings is used to pronounce its curses. In Deuteronomy, symmetry
both in meaning and in form lends poetic power to the system of

1
This article originated as a paper delivered at the conference entitled “Bene-
dictio/Maledictio: What do Blessings Have to Do with Curses?” at the American
Academy in Rome in March 2001. I wish to thank the organizers, Professors
John Gager and Lester Little, as well as Professor David Frankfurter, for their
part in encouraging me to consider these questions.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006 JANER 5

Also available online – www.brill.nl
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 188

188 michael d. swartz

reward and punishment. These passages also acquire rhetorical force

from their repetition and from their arrangement in a list. Clearly,
then, there is an aesthetic dimension to the process of blessing and
cursing. The verses in Deuteronomy provide examples of how this
aesthetic dimension suits both functions.
Because of this affinity between beneficent and malevolent for-
mulae, it is useful to take a closer look at their formal and aes-
thetic properties. This study is a consideration of some of the
aesthetic and formal properties of one category of texts for bless-
ing and cursing: Jewish incantation texts, which include incanta-
tions for beneficial and malevolent purposes, and most of which
are commonly considered magical texts.2 Evidence for the aesthet-
ics of these texts comes in both verbal and visual form: In the lit-
erary way incantation texts are formulated; and in the tendency of
scribes to frame and embellish their texts graphically, with special
formats, designs, and illustration. This study is therefore an explo-
ration of these dimensions of blessing and curse texts to determine
if we can learn anything further about how they operate. The main
sources for this study are Jewish incantation texts from late antiq-
uity and the early Middle Ages.3 One corpus, numbering only a
few dozen, consists of amulet texts from Palestine written mostly
on silver and lead foil. These amulets can be dated to late antiq-
uity, especially from the fifth to seventh centuries.4 Moreover, research

2
For the term magic and how it can be applied to the diverse texts and arti-
facts from late antiquity and the early middle ages such as those surveyed here,
see Michael D. Swartz, “Scribal Magic and Its Rhetoric: Formal Patterns in
Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Genizah,” HTR 83 (1990),
163-80; and Yuval Harari, “What is a Magical Text? Methodological Reflections
Aimed at Redifining Early Jewish Magic,” in Shaul Shaked (ed.), Officina Magica:
The Workings of Magic (Brill: Leiden, 2005), 91-124.
3
For surveys of Jewish magical texts in late antiquity see Philip S. Alexander,
“Incantations and books of magic,” in Emil Schürer The History of the Jewish People
in the Age of Jesus Christ (Rev. and ed. Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar, and Martin
Goodman) 3.1 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1986), 342-79; and Michael D. Swartz, “Jewish
Magic,” in Steven T. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism 4 (forthcoming).
4
For Jewish amulets from Palestine and the surrounding region see Joseph
Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late
Antiquity, (2nd ed. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1987); and idem, Magic Spells and Formulae:
Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1993). For magical texts
from the Cairo Genizah see Lawrence H. Schiffman and Michael D. Swartz,
Hebrew and Aramaic Incantation Texts from the Cairo Genizah: Selected Texts from Taylor-
Schechter Box K1 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992); Peter Schäfer and
Shaul Shaked, Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza (3 vols.), Tübingen: Mohr, 1994-
97; and Naveh and Shaked, Amulets; and idem, Magic Spells.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 189

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 189

has shown that the incantations from Cairo Genizah, dating mostly
from the eleventh to fifteenth centuries, can be traced to the
Palestinian magical tradition; therefore amulet texts from the Genizah
will also be considered here.5 Also important are a large corpus of
several hundred Aramaic incantation bowls from Nippur and else-
where in southern Iraq, most of which can be dated around the
sixth century.6 This study will begin with an analysis of some poetic
and formal characteristics of Jewish incantation texts, and proceed
to a consideration of the visual elements of those texts, focusing
especially on the magical bowls.

I. Poetry and Incantation

Poetry and other literary forms play a significant role in magical

texts. Incantations are highly formulaic texts, which employ poetic
passages as well as prosodic forms such as repetition, assonance,
and interjections. Magical texts often include textual references and
quotations, especially from scripture and other sacred literature.7 In
Jewish magical texts poetry often follows models from the standard
Jewish liturgy, borrowing and adapting forms and phrases.8 But

5
The argument for the historical relationship between Palestinian magic and
magical texts from the Cairo Genizah is based on the linguistic characteristics of
the Aramaic used in both corpora, as well as direct textual parallels. See Naveh
and Shaked, Amulets, 29-30.
6
The most important early publication of the magical bowls is James A.
Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur (Philadelphia: University Museum,
1913); for the history of publication of the bowls see C. Isbell, Corpus of the Aramaic
Incantation Bowls (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975), 1-15; and Naveh and Shaked,
Amulets and Magic Bowls, 19-21; see also J. B. Segal, Catalogue of the Aramaic and
Mandaic Incantation Bowls in the British Museum (London: British Museum Press 2000);
and Dan Levene, A Corpus of Magic Bowls: Incantation Texts in Jewish Aramaic from
Late Antiquity (London: Kegan Paul, 2003).
7
On the extensive use of textual references and biblical citations in Jewish
incantation texts, see Schiffman and Swartz, Incantation Texts, 37-42 and 58-60;
and Naveh and Shaked, Magic Spells, 22-31. On the use of formulae and poetics,
see Susan Niditch, “Incantation Texts and Formulaic Language: A New Etymology
for hwmry,” Orientalia 48 (1979), 461-471; Swartz, “Scribal Magic”; and H. S.
Versnel, “The Poetics of the Magical Charm: An Essay in the Power of Words,”
in Paul Mirecki and Marvin Meyer (eds.), Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World
(Leiden: Brill, 2002), 105-58.
8
See Schiffman and Swartz, Incantation Texts, 58-59. For an interesting exam-
ple of the influence of the Babylonian Jewish liturgy on an incantation bowl see
Levene, Corpus of Magical Bowls, 71-74 (Bowl M108).
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 190

190 michael d. swartz

occasionally poetic forms originate in magical texts and are adopted

by the liturgical tradition. One motif is a litany of the powers of
the magical name, ostensibly framed as a historiola, which appears
in incantations from the Cairo Genizah. This is a widespread topos
found with some variations in several spells found there. The fol-
lowing version occurs in an amulet from the Genizah:
By the name that the sea heard and was split,
that the fire heard and was quenched,
that the boulders heard and were shattered,
and that the stone heard and exploded.9

This formulation found its way into the main Hebrew poetic tra-
dition of late antiquity, piyyut. A piyyut by Shimon bar Megas, a
liturgical poet of the sixth or seventh century CE, takes the form
of an alphabetic acrostic litany:
As is Your praise, so is Your name,
Help us for Your name’s sake
For it is the name that is recited
over the earth and it quakes
over hail and it flees
over coals and they are extinguished
over pestilence and it is vanquished
……………………………..10

This motif is much more widespread in magical texts than in litur-

gical texts and also has a parallel in at least one text of possible
Jewish origin in the Greek Magical Papyri.11 It is thus likely that
this literary motif proliferated in the magical literature of late antiq-
uity and was adapted by the poet to the formalities of piyyut and
not the other way around. This was possible for both genres to
share this motif not only because of the poet’s acquaintance with
the incantation formula, but because they shared similar literary
sensibilities.
The well-known tendency of blessing and curse texts to abound
in lists may be a reflection of these literary sensibilities. Much has

9
MS TS K1.127 lines 8-10, published in Schiffman and Swartz, Incantation
Texts, 113-122.
10
Joseph Yahalom, Piyyute Shim'on bar Megas ( Jerusalem: Israel Academy of
Sciences and Humanities, 1984), 169; see also p. 26.
11
For parallels in Genizah texts see our commentary there as well as MS TS
K1.68 (pp. 123-28); cf. also PGM IV lines 3045-70, translated in Hans Dieter
Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation Including the Demotic Spells 1 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1986), 96-97.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 191

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 191

been written on this tendency, related to what Albrecht Alt called

Listenwissenschaft.12 The common explanation for this tendency is that
the practitioner simply wants to be as inclusive as possible in his
specification of entities to be attacked or defended. Richard Gordon,
in a very suggestive article, challenges us to look beyond this expla-
nation, which, he argues, has its roots in the tendencies of early
scholars to see them as signs of the magician’s irrational anxiety.13
For Gordon, lists, such as those of body parts to be affected by a
curse or love charm, serve among other things to objectify the
object of the practitioner’s love or hate. But there is also an aes-
thetic dimension to this formal feature of incantation texts. Students
of ancient Hebrew liturgical poetry as well as the literature and art
of early Mediterranean Christianity have begun to find evidence in
their own sources to support the view that late antiquity was a time
of an important change in artistic sensibilities. They argue that in
the “post-classical” period, a peculiar aesthetic, termed “the jew-
eled style” by Michael Roberts, dominated the verbal and graphic
arts.14 This aesthetic, in contrast to the classical age, privileged not
proportion or narrative shape, but the interplay of individual ele-
ments arranged for dazzling effect. As a result, late Latin poetry
abounded in artfully composed lists of distinct parts and elabora-
tions of what was known as leptologia, the lavish description of details
in the course of a poem or narrative. In this aesthetic, lists took
pride of place. A key example in his argument is the lists of the

12
Albrecht Alt, “Die Weisheit Salamonis,” Theologische Literaturzeitung 76 (1951),
139-44; cf. Jonathan Z. Smith, “Wisdom and Apocalyptic,” Map Is Not Territory:
Studies in the History of Religions (Leiden, 1978), 67-87; Michael E. Stone, “Lists of
Revealed Things in Apocalyptic Literature,” in F. Cross, W. E. Lemke, and P. D.
Miller, Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God (Garden City, 1976), 414-52; Martin
S. Jaffee, “Deciphering Mishnaic Lists: A Form-Analytical Approach,” in William
Scott Green (ed.), Approaches to Ancient Judaism vol. 3 (Chico, CA, 1981), 19-34.
13
Richard Gordon, “‘What’s in a list?’ Listing in Greek and Graeco-Roman
malign magical texts,” in David R. Jordan, Hugo Montgomery and Einar Thomassen
(eds.), The World of Ancient Magic: Papers from the First International Samson Eitrem Seminar
at the Norwegian Institute at Athens, 4-8 May 1997 (Bergen: Norwegian Institute at
Athens, 1999), 239-77.
14
Michael Roberts, The Jeweled Style: Poetry and Poetics in Late Antiquity (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1989); cf. Patricia Cox Miller, “‘Differential Networks’:
Relics and Other Fragments in Late Antiquity,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6
(1998), 113-138; and Michael D. Swartz, “Ko˙a u-Teqifah shel ha-Shirah ha-'Ivrit be-
Shilhe ha-'Et ha-'Atiqah,” in Lee I. Levine (ed.), Jewish Cultural Life in Late Antiquity
in Its Byzantine-Christian Context ( Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 2004), 542-62.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 192

192 michael d. swartz

precious stones on the High Priest’s breastplate according to Exodus

28:17-20, such as this passage in the Heptatuchus attributed to
Cyprianus Gallus:15
First in position is the carnelian, and emerald along with the topaz; then
comes the sapphire, with which the carbuncle blazes, and the jasper is green
and shines with tawny gold. Third place is taken by amber, and along with
it the agate and amethyst, with its bright purple hue. Fourth the chryso-
lite, and onyx next to the beryl.16

Here the list of the jewels on the breastplate serves the poet’s wishes
to create an aural equivalent of the visual effect of the sparkling
gems. This function is no less present in magical lists. Indeed, the
very form of incantation texts carries with it its own prosody.
Repetition was also used for rhythmic effect in Hekhalot literature,
the visionary texts of the Merkavah mystics of the third to eighth
centuries. When the authors of these texts composed songs to be
sung during a mystical visit to the divine throne-room, they did
much the same thing, employing extravagant lists of synonyms for
praise and song.17
There are two additional aspects of the list that should be taken
into account. The first, which was brought to the forefront by those
studies that explore the function of Listenwissenschaft in antiquity, is
that the use of a list also constitutes a display of the magician’s
virtuosity and range of esoteric knowledge. By listing elements of
the universe or demons or diseases, the magician seeks to demon-
strate both to his audience and to the powers being commanded
or importuned of his mastery over secrets of the universe. This cor-
responds to the academic and esoteric function ascribed to the
magician.18 The second is that lists are prominent both in magical
and legal formulae. In Jewish magic these two functions are often
closely related, as can be seen from magical bowls in which the

15
Roberts, Jeweled Style, 10-13, discussing Cyprianus Gallus, Heptateuchus E, lines
1098-1103.
16
The translation is by Roberts, Jeweled Style, 11.
17
On these see Phillip Bloch, “Die Yorde Merkavah, die Mystiker der Gaonzeit
und ihrer Einfluss auf die Liturgie,” MGWJ 37 (1983), 18-25, 69-74, 257-66, 305-
311; Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken,
1941), 57-63; for further discussion see Michael D. Swartz, Mystical Prayer in Ancient
Judaism (Tübingen: Mohr, 1992) and the literature cited there.
18
See Jonathan Z. Smith, “The Temple and the Magician,” in Map Is Not
Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 172-89.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 193

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 193

magician presents the demons to be exorcised with a “bill of divorce,”

often granted by the authority of an important rabbi.19
One unusual document from the Cairo Genizah illustrates how
both poetic and legal formulae coexist in magical texts—indeed,
how magical and legal texts can be one and the same. The text is
a fragment dated to the twelfth century that was published by
Schäfer and Shaked.20 It was written on a long strip of paper, and
judging from the photograph, it was probably rolled. It was there-
fore classified as an amulet. Yet the text lacks many features usu-
ally associated with Jewish magic, such as the appeal to the
intermediaries and potent names of God.21 Here the extant text is
translated:
1 May curse and damage amputate their thighs. Amen.
2 May murder and butchery slice up their bowels. Amen.
3 May slashing and swelling blow up their legs. Amen.
4 May weariness and cursing cut their feet. Amen.
5 Let these curses come to all their limbs
6 and all their sides, to perpetuate their illness
7 and to make their flesh rot, until their name is obliterated,
8 as is written in the Torah of Moses about them and those like them:
9 Let the Lord never forgive them, as it is said:
10 “The Lord will never forgive him”22 etc., one and all,
11 and may each and every one of them
12 be destroyed, swallowed up, mutilated, stabbed, thrown down,
13 damaged, torn, impaled, chained,
14 torched, left to die, injured, burned, uprooted,
15 split, diminished, ruined, ignited, annihilated,
16 hung, struck by all kinds of boils and pestilence.
17 And may all plagues affect him.23 In the evil hours
18 when the stern decrees go out,
19 that come newly to him, as it is said:
20 “The Lord strike you with consumption;” etc.;24 “The Lord will strike
you with Egyptian inflammation” etc.;25 evil;

19
On these, see especially Baruch A. Levine, “The Language of the Magical
Bowls,” in Jacob Neusner, History of the Jews in Babylonia 5 (Leiden: Brill, 1970),
343-75.
20
MS TS K1.90, published in Peter Schäfer and Shaul Shaked, Magische Texte
aus der Kairoer Geniza 1 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1994), 199-205.
21
This translation is based on Schäfer and Shaked’s edition; their German
translation has been consulted.
22
Deut 29:19. The word “etc.” in this translation represents the Hebrew ve-
gomer and indicates the rest of the verse.
23
The text seems to be switching temporarily to the singular, perhaps because
the scribe is copying a formula text cast originally in the singular.
24
Deut 28:22.
25
Deut 28:27.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 194

194 michael d. swartz

21 “The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness” etc.;26 “and
you shall become [a horror to the peoples of the earth];”27
22 “Cursed shall you be in the city,” etc28 and all the rest of the curses
23 written in this book of the Torah, to eradicate
24 their name and memory and to eliminate them from the world.
25 Amen Amen Selah.
26 Cursed be they by the awesome, magnificent and fearsome one,
27 twelve hours a day. Amen.
28 Cursed be they by God, who dwells in the high heavens,
29 twelve hours each and every night. Amen.
30 Cursed be they by God, who authorizes every plague—
31 Eighty-eight thousand
32 eight hundred eighty-eight every moment.
33 Cursed be they by God, who is glorious in holiness,
34 thirty days of every month.
35 Cursed be they by God who is before him,
36 twelve months of every year.
37 Cursed be they by the one who established (that which is) above and
below,
38 seven years of every sabbatical cycle.

This document contains many features familiar from curse texts,

such as the enumeration of body parts to be affected29 and quota-
tions from scriptures, in this case the curses from Deuteronomy 28.
But it also contains some additional interesting poetic features. In
lines 12-16 the verbs enumerating of the aggressive actions to affect
the accursed are arranged in alphabetical acrostic according to root.
This is a common feature of piyyut.30 Lines 26-37 take the form
of what Schäfer and Shaked call a Fluchpiyyut,31 combining the curse
with pious epithets for God and counting the units of time for
which the objects of the ritual are to be cursed. This text is also
unusual in that unlike most magical curses, it is directed not at an
individual but a group. This raises the question whether this is a
non-normative or private equivalent of the rabbinic ban of excom-
munication (“erem or niddui ), directed perhaps at an ostracized polit-
ical or religious faction.32

26
Deut 28:28.
27
Deut 28:25.
28
Deut 28:16.
29
On this see Gordon, “What’s in a List?” 267ff.
30
Two well-known examples of word-by-word acrostics, in which each word
begins with the next letter of the alphabet are the hymns El Barukh Gadol De'ah,
in the daily morning service and Tiqanta Shabbat in the Amidah of the Additional
Service (Musaf ) for the Sabbath; the latter is a reverse acrostic.
31
Schäfer and Shaked, Magische Texte 1, 7.
32
For a review of the Rabbinic institution of ˙erem, which was a ban of excom-
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 195

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 195

This text is therefore an intriguing example of literary creativity

mustered for the sake of the curse. The author has followed bib-
lical models, the techniques garnered from liturgical literature, and
perhaps normative, if unusual, legal formula and woven them
together for potent effect. So too, like the incantations discussed
above, this text, with its sonorous language and lists of verbs and
epithets is intended not only to impress the higher powers, but to
make an impression on the ear of the listeners.

II. The Visual Arts of Blessing and Cursing

If blessing and curse texts seek to impress the ear, some also seek
to impress the eye. Despite the fact that drawings, diagrams, and
other graphic elements are widespread in magical texts, this topic
has not been the subject of attention by scholars until recently.
Moreover, the role these elements play in the working of the magic
has yet to be analyzed. In 1979 Morton Smith sketched out some
of the relationships between the magical papyri and the magical
gems.33 In 1980 Paul Corby Finney called for a systematic collec-
tion and study of images in Greco-Roman magical texts and sought
to provide a methodological model for examining their iconogra-
phy.34 David Frankfurter’s important article on “The Magic of
Writing and the Writing of Magic” deals with the physical fact of
writing and its implications for understanding magic.35 Erica Hunter
has discussed the drawings in Babylonian incantation bowls and
their relationship to the texts.36 Recently, an important step in
understanding the role of art and design in magic has been taken
by Sophie Page in her book Magic in Medieval Manuscripts. In a chap-
ter on “the power of the image,” she focuses on the ritual func-
tion of drawings in magical texts, stressing the instrumental value

munication directed at individuals, see Moshe Greenberg, “Herem,” Encyclopedia

Judaica 8 (1971), 344-355.
33
M. Smith, “Relations between Magical Papyri and Magical Gems,” Papyrologica
Bruxellensia 18:3 (1979), 129-36.
34
Paul Corby Finney, “Did Gnostics Make Pictures?” in Bentley Layton (ed.),
The Rediscovery of Gnosticism (Leiden: Brill, 1980).
35
David Frankfurter, “The Magic of Writing and the Writing of Magic: The
Power of the Word in Egyptian and Greek Traditions,” Helios 21 (1994), 189-
221.
36
Erica C. D. Hunter, “Who are the Demons? The Iconography of Incantation
Bowls,” in Studi Epigrafici e Linguistici sul Vicino Oriente antico 15 (1998), 95-115.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 196

196 michael d. swartz

of the drawings for the rituals prescribed in the manuscripts. Page

shows how ritual diagrams, as she puts it, “acted like curses inscribed
in books” and served to “increase or maintain the potency of recipes
and operations.”37 Likewise, magical diagrams “acted as surrogates
for spiritual and cosmological universals.”38 What follows is a brief
survey of some of the visual elements in ancient Jewish blessing
and curse texts and a consideration of how their aesthetic and rit-
ual functions intersect.
Most scholars who study the relationship between the graphic
arts and magic have been interested in how various elements in
ritual objects or the decorative arts have magical purposes. Thus,
for example, Henry Maguire’s work on the decorative arts in early
Christianity focuses on what he considers to be the apotropaic use
of crosses, images, and other forms in domestic architecture and
clothing.39 Curators and art historians also deal with magic when
they display and study amulet casings and gems. This should remind
us that amulets serve a decorative function to a considerable extent.
Paper amulets are rolled up and placed in decorative pendants
often made of precious metal; magical gems may also serve as dec-
orative jewelry, and metal talismans are hung on walls and around
people’s necks.40 It is not uncommon as well to see paper amulets
framed on the walls of shops throughout the Mediterranean. In
modern times, these displays can take several forms. There are
printed amulets that contain diagrams or drawings, often of mag-
ical figures such as angels or demons, or micrographic designs in
the shape of a menorah or hand (¢amsa). These obviously have a
decorative attraction of their own. There are various objets de magique
such as shadowboxes and ¢amsas made of glass, metal, or clay. In
recent years, an interesting development has taken place: In reli-
gious bookstores and gift shops in Jerusalem one can find microfiche

37
Sophie Page, Magic in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2004),
33.
38
Ibid.
39
Henry Maguire, “Magic and Geometry in Early Christian Floor Mosaics and
Textiles,” in Rhetoric, Nature, and Magic in Byzantine Art (Aldershot and Brookfield:
Ashgate, 1998), 265-74; “Magic and the Christian Image,” in Henry Maguire
(ed.), Byzantine Magic (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1995), 51-71; cf. Eunice
Dauterman Maguire, Henry P. Maguire, and Maggie J. Duncon-Flowers, Art and
Holy Powers in the Early Christian House (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois
Press, 1989).
40
Smith, “Magical Papyri and Magical Gems.”
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 197

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 197

copies of holy texts, laminated and available for display, or to be

carried on one’s person.
There are also amulets, often handwritten or copies of hand-
written amulets, written either by an individual practitioner or by
a famous sage. In Israel today, a “practical Kabbalist” named
Yitzhak Kadouri is known for writing such amulets, copies of which
are often displayed in business or homes. Kadouri is an elderly
man and his hand is not steady. But the aesthetic function of this
latter amulet is no less significant than that of the fancier, printed
ones. Its very lack of artifice is a testimony to its authenticity and
therefore serves to impress the observer.
Many amulets were written by trained scribes, who occasionally
called on the arts of calligraphy to ornament the text. Among the
amulets from the Genizah, there are many that are indistinguish-
able from other legal or literary documents, judging purely from
the handwriting. Others imitate other types of sacred texts. For
example, MS TS K1.152, a late amulet, is written in an emula-
tion of a calligraphic hand, using “crowns” (tagin) to ornament the
letters (fig. 1).41 Biblical texts, especially Psalms, written in biblical
calligraphy, can often be used as amulets. Such texts can be placed
on a continuum with other non-official calligraphic genres, such as
children’s writing manuals42 and decorative micrography.43 So too,
Jewish marriage contracts (ketubot) can be embellished not only with
lavish illuminations but with talismanic phrases such as “a good
omen” (siman tov).
In amulet texts themselves, visual elements take several forms
and serve several functions. One of the most common is the prac-
tice of setting apart elements such as magical names, names of
clients, and biblical verses in boxes or squares.44 Just as common
is the arrangement of text in a specific way so as to fulfill a pro-
pitious function. The best-known example of this practice, found
in Greek, Coptic, and Hebrew amulets, is the arrangement of a

41
Schiffman and Swartz, Incantation Texts, p. 138.
42
On these see Bezalel Narkiss, “Illuminated Hebrew Children’s Books from
Medieval Egypt,” in Moshe Barasch (ed.), Scripta Hierosolymitana XXIV: Studies in
Art ( Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1972), 59-71.
43
Leila Avrin, Hebrew Micrography: One Thousand Years of Art in Script ( Jerusalem:
Israel Museum, 1981).
44
Most handbooks and many amulets from the Genizah employ this device.
For a good example, see MS TS K1.91 (= Geniza 16) in Naveh and Shaked,
Magic Spells, 174-81 and Plate 47.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 198

198 michael d. swartz

demonic name in a triangle so as to diminish the name on every

successive line.45 Sometimes, when a divine name consists of sev-
eral repetitions of a syllable, such as Yah, those repetitions will be
lined up in rows and columns. This serves the scribe, who can keep
track of the number of times he has written the name, as well as
the viewer. A text written with these scribal conventions looks like
nothing else but an amulet. These conventions can thus serve as
markers, intended or unintended, of the purpose of the text. These
textual arrangements are common in Genizah amulets, and their
presence in foil amulets from Palestine is evidence that this is an
old tradition.46
Better known are the charakteres, the simulated or purportedly
symbolic letters, usually tipped with circles, inscribed on magical
texts. These are well attested in Greek and Coptic texts; their antiq-
uity in Jewish magic can be seen from some of the Palestinian
amulets on foil and cloth.47 In Genizah amulets, they often appear
in the middle of the long strip of paper or parchment, breaking
up the monotony of the text (fig. 2). It has long been known that
these are not true ciphers that stand for letters of the alphabet.
However, at some point in the medieval esoteric tradition they did
become the subject of a hermeneutical system, and mystical schol-
ars published “angelic alphabets” claiming to decode them.48 This
raises the question of whether the explanations that accompany the
abstract designs in the Gnostic Bruce Codex, the so-called Books
of Jeu, are themselves the result of such a process of attachment
of meaning to common, inert glyphs.49
More striking are depictions, usually crude, of the angelic or
powerful figure commanded to do the magician’s bidding or of the
demon bound, sealed, or otherwise restrained or damaged. Such
depictions are found at times in Greek papyri, where armed figures
and snakes are not uncommon. They are more commonplace in

45
On this and other textual arrangements and their function see Frankfurter,
“Magic of Writing.” For an example from a Jewish magical text, see MS. TS
Arabic 44.44 page 2 (= Naveh and Shaked Geniza 24), in Naveh and Shaked,
Magic Spells, 223 and plate 71.
46
See Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls ( Jerusalem: Magnes, 1985),
Amulets 1 and 8.
47
See Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, Amulets 2, 8, and 13.
48
Israel Weinstock, “Alfabeta shel Metatron u-Ferushah” Temirin 2 (981), 51-76.
49
Cf. Finney, “Did Gnostics Make Pictures?” pp. 436-38.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 199

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 199

Coptic magical texts, where they seem to be a constant feature.50

Among the extant Jewish magical texts from antiquity and the
Middle Ages they vary according to provenance. Only one of the
extant amulets in Palestine Aramaic contains such a drawing: Naveh
and Shaked’s Amulet 5, which unfortunately has been lost and is
known only from photographs (fig. 3),51 includes a drawing of a
snake and other fragmentary images. Genizah texts occasionally
include such drawings. However, the most widespread attestation
to these drawings—perhaps one of the largest collections of such
drawings in antiquity—is among the magical bowls from Nippur
from the fourth to sixth centuries. These figures, drawn in the cen-
ter of spiral incantations on clay bowls buried under houses, often
depict demonesses bound and constrained and magical heroes armed
for battle.52
Thus, for example, numerous bowls depict demonesses with
unkempt hair, shackled. These pictures of Lillith and other demons,
who are often named in the texts, have the obvious function of
effecting the binding and incapacitation of the demoness. Binding
is also accomplished through the incantation itself, especially for-
mulae such as asir ve-¢atim, “bound and sealed,” applied to the
object of the exorcism. In the drawings binding is indicated by
crossed hands53 and often by some kind of restraining material,
such as a chain, a rope, or a circle limiting the movement of the
demoness. These texts also describe the enemy in all her savagery.
Montgomery’s Bowl 8 (fig. 4) includes a particularly vivid drawing
of a bound and shackled demoness with pronounced sexual char-
acteristics. The text is a writ of divorce against the demons, who
are designated as male and female Lilliths. They are described in
the text:
[Naked] are you sent forth, nor are you clad, with your hair disheveled
and let fly behind your backs.54

50
On Coptic magical texts see Marvin Meyer (ed.), Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic
Texts of Ritual Power (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994).
51
First published by H. Vincent, “Amulette judéo-araméenne” Revue Biblique
(ns) 5 (1970), 10-21.
52
On the drawings see Montgomery, Incantation Texts, 53-55.
53
See Shaked and Naveh, Amulets and Magic Bowls, Bowl 13.
54
Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts, 154-60. The drawing is transcribed in
plate VIII. Montgomery’s translation is used here.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 200

200 michael d. swartz

Erica Hunter’s survey of iconography in magical bowls shows that

the drawings do not always correspond directly to the texts. But
there are exceptions, including the description of Lillith quoted
above. In at least one extant text, the drawing is accompanied by
a legend labeling it as an illustration. It appears in a bowl first
published by Markham Geller and then by Naveh and Shaked
(fig. 5):55
This is the figure of the Tormentor that appears in dreams and takes on
various forms. This is the bond from today and for ever. Amen Selah.
Gabriel Nuriel.56

The text thus both explains the image and accomplishes the desired
debilitation of the demon through the verbal formula. Another inter-
esting case of the use of text in a drawing is Montgomery’s text
20 (fig. 6). In the drawing of the bound and shackled demon, the
figure is surrounded by an enclosed space on either side. The space
on the right bears the inscription ’asura (binding or prohibition) and
the space on the right is labeled rashu’ (permission). On the lower
right side of the body is the client’s name. According to Montgomery,
the pictures graphically present “the idea that the demon has no
power over the lady in question.”57 Naveh and Shaked’s Bowl 13
is one of the largest found (fig. 7).58 In the center of this bowl is
a bound and shackled figure. A circle is drawn around the feet of
the figure and it is flanked by two snakes; these in turn seem to
be encircled by a snake in the form of the uroboros, a snake with
its tail in its mouth. Inside this circle is written “For that Lillith
who dwells with Yawitai, daughter of Hatai,” followed by a quo-
tation of Exod 15:7.
Some drawings depict not a demon but a magical warrior, armed
for battle against the evil forces. In a bowl published by Naveh
and Shaked, the figure seems to be waving ribbons which, accord-
ing to the editors, “constitute a symbol of royalty in Sasanian iconog-
raphy” (fig. 8).59 Another, Text 4, is described by Montgomery as

55
Markham Geller, “Eight Incantation Bowls,” Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 17
(1986), 101-17; Naveh and Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae ( Jerusalem: Magnes,
1993), Bowl 18.
56
Lines 1-2; Naveh and Shaked’s translation.
57
Montgomery, Incantation Texts, 201; Plate XXI.
58
Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, 198-214; plates 30-31.
59
Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, 27 (bowl 4); plates 18-19.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 201

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 201

“evidently the sorcerer who is depicted, waving in his hand a magic

bough. This is the use we find in Babylonian magic, in which a
branch of the datepalm or tamarisk was held aloft to repel the
demons” (fig. 9).60 This figure thus represents the magician himself,
an image of whom is placed on the bowl to do battle with the
demons in the way that the text itself acts as a weapon against
them. One particularly well-drawn example, in Montgomery’s Text
3, is a smiling soldier with sword, lance, helmet and shackles on
feet (fig. 10).61 The fact that the figure is shackled may indicate
that it represents a demon, or, perhaps, an angelic warrior bound
into servitude on behalf of the magician. These images correspond
to statements in the texts regarding the power of the magician him-
self. One bowl declares,
Again I come with my own might. On my body are arms of iron, a body
of pure fire. My might is from Him who created heaven and earth. I have
come to strike out against the evil enemies.62

The idea that both the heroes and the villains in the ritual drama
are depicted in the bowls deserves further consideration. Both images
serve the purposes of the magician, both towards the powers being
commanded or importuned and toward the person or persons who
will purchase the bowls, hear the incantation, and see the draw-
ing. Here both the verbal statement and the drawing do the work
of binding or exorcising the demon. They therefore perform a func-
tion analogous to performative utterances.63 That is, the drawing is
not in the strict sense informational; rather, its very presence is
meant to effect the desired incapacitation of the demon depicted
in it.
At the same time, the client sees the soldier armed to the teeth
or the demon in shackles and is reassured. This, and not only the

60
Montgomery, Incantation Texts, 55; Plate IV.
61
Montgomery, Incantation Texts, Plate IV.
62
Montgomery, Incantation Texts, Text 2 (pp. 121-26), translated by Baruch A.
Levine, “Language of the Magical Bowls,” 362.
63
The literature on the significance of speech act theory for magic is consid-
erable. See for example Stanley J. Tambiah, “The Magical Power of Words,”
Man, n.s. 3 (1968), 177-208; and Wade Wheelock, “The Problem of Ritual
Language: From Information to Situation,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion
50 (1982), 49-71; for Jewish magic, see Rebecca Lesses, Ritual Practices to Gain
Power: Angels, Incantations, and Revelation in Early Jewish Mysticism (Harrisburg, PA:
Trinity Press International, 1998). Cf. also Versnel, “Poetics.”
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 202

202 michael d. swartz

scribe’s lack of artistic talent, most probably helps account for the
crudeness of the drawings. These icons are there to frighten some-
body—presumably the demon, and, to some extent, the client as
well.64 This uncanny character also serves the process of mystification,
a central rhetorical strategy in magical procedures and texts. The
images can be compared to such practices as the composition of
magical names by the obscuring of comprehensible language, the
use of bizarre metaphors in spells, and the use of magical charac-
ters as described above. As H. S. Versnel observes, these devices
accomplish more than simply giving the incantation a mysterious
and powerful aura.65 They also serve as a link between the magi-
cian (and client) and another world by exposing them to sounds,
ideas, and images that transcend ordinary discourse and common
objects. By introducing what he calls a “world of ‘otherness,’”66
they link the mundane concerns of the humans in need of the
incantation to the alternate reality of demons, deities, and cosmic
topography from which help will arrive.67 By including drawings of
monstrous and mysterious beings, the magician thus signals that he
is entrusted with the vision and knowledge to recognize the demons,
to face them down with the proper ritual weapons, and to enlist
beneficent and malevolent forces for the good of the client.

III. Conclusions

Do these disparate elements—the use of literary figures and styles,

the methods for arranging text and design, and the drawings that
appear on amulets and magical bowls—constitute an aesthetic of
blessing and cursing? One the one hand, some tendencies in incan-
tation texts and artifacts aim at beautifying the object or increas-
ing its potency by using artistic language and design. The poetic
fragments, elaborate lists, calligraphy and graphic framing devices
make the amulet a visually attractive object that delivers a message
effectively to earthly and unearthly beings. However, the crude

64
See also Montgomery, Incantation Texts, 54.
65
Versnel, “Poetics,” 154-56.
66
Ibid., 155.
67
On semiotic communication as a feature of Jewish magical ritual see Michael
D. Swartz, “Understanding Ritual in Jewish Magic: Perspectives from the Cairo
Genizah and Other Sources,” In M. J. Geller (ed.), Officina Magica: The Workings
of Magic (Brill: Leiden, 2005), 235-55.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 203

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 203

drawings, the impenetrable magical names, and depictions of mon-

strous figures seem to work against this aesthetic of beauty.
The formal and aesthetic elements of incantation texts thus attest
to a variety of goals and impulses, ostensibly at odds with each
other. When we look at how literary and visual features are inte-
grated into the acts and artifacts of blessing and cursing, we can
detect paradoxical tendencies towards order and disorder, mystification
and demystification. By arranging both his speech and his letters
and figures symmetrically, the practitioner serves the need for an
incantation that is rhetorically compelling as well as an object that
commands the onlooker’s attention. Likewise, the use of familiar
poetic tropes, calligraphic hands, and other conventions not only
signals the author’s piety, but is a natural reflection of the degree
to which these practices were part of everyday life. At the same
time, the strange creatures, characters, and displays of seemingly
random letters accomplish the work of mystification. This process
lends power to the formula (emically) by casting the communica-
tion with the relevant powers in their own, hidden language, and
at the same time (etically) by convincing the human community of
the seriousness and exceptional nature of the formula and the arti-
fact. If blessing and cursing are acts with serious consequences, they
must be approached with all the skill and artistry the practitioner
can muster.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 204

204 michael d. swartz

Figure 1. Schiffman and Swartz, Incantation Texts, p. 138.

Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 205

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 205

Figure 2. Schiffman and Swartz, Incantation Texts, p. 146.

Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 206

206 michael d. swartz

Figure 3. Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, p. 63.

Figure 4. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts, Plate VIII.

Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 207

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 207

Figure 5. Naveh and Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae, Plate 23.

Figure 6. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts, Plate 20.

Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 208

208 michael d. swartz

Figure 7. Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, p. 200.

Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 209

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 209

Figure 8. Naveh and Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, Plate 18.
Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 210

210 michael d. swartz

Figure 9. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts, Plate IV.

Janer 5_f9_186-211 2/15/06 1:01 PM Page 211

the aesthetics of blessing and cursing 211

Figure 10. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts, Plate IV.