Manuals of Procedures and Incantations
Manuals that have survived from Graeco-Roman Egypt, such as the ‘Theban Magical Library’, are one of the main sources of information about customary ways of formulating incantations and writing amulets in antiquity. This chapter discusses a number of recipes in manuals and fragments of manuals in which Christian elements are present. The relatively few Greek manuals in which Christian elements appear are supplemented by a select number of Coptic manuals. While the types of incantations with Christian elements found in these manuals are limited and the origin of some of the Christian material remains enigmatic, the evidence from manuals is helpful in that it offers glimpses of how scribes gathered and reproduced incantations.