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In Chapter 18 of the Testament of Solomon the 36 decans, each of whom is operative for a ten-day period under one of the 12 signs of the zodiac, are forced to present themselves to King Solomon. In a short speech, each decan identifies himself by his name, describes the specific evil that he inflicts on man, and reveals the divine name(s) by which he can be dispelled. Four Vienna papyrus fragments preserving parts of this chapter appeared as P.Rain.Cent. 39. Frr. a and b (inv. nos. G 29436 + 35030), published for the first time in P.Rain.Cent. 39, preserve the left and right sides of Test. Sol. XVIII 27–28. The following frr. c and d (preserved on inv. G 00330) are a re-edition of parts of Test. Sol. XVIII 33–40, first published by K. Preisendanz [1] in 1956. The fragments are from a tall rotulus inscribed transversa charta in a semicursive similar to that of the document P.Warr. 10 of A.D. 591/2.[2] This suggests a palaeographical dating of the Vienna fragments of the Test. Sol. to the second half of the 6^th or perhaps to the early 7^th century, roughly a hundred years earlier than the date suggested by Preisendanz in his edition of G 00330 and adhered to by me in P.Rain.Cent. 39.

Each short speech of a decan begins with the formula Ἐγώ, κύριε ῥήξ, ΝΝ καλοῦμαι. In the papyrus, these words are always written in ecthesis. This made it possible for Fritz Mitthof and Amphilochios Papathomas to identify an additional small fragment in the Vienna collection, inv. G 21390, as belonging to the same rotulus. It has now been added to the fragments of Test. Sol. that could already be viewed online at the website of the Papyrussammlung der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek.[3]

G 21390 contains only five letters.

Since this fragment probably broke away from one of the already published ones, the published image most likely shows the fragment in its proper place, directly to the lower left of fr. a.[4] We gain the first letter of the last line of XVIII 28 and the beginning of XVIII 29, where the 25^th decan introduces himself. He is the first (α̅) of the three decans who function under the zodiacal sign Sagittarius. In conformity with the formatting of the hitherto published fragments, this information will have been written inside a decorative frame, close to the right side of the column of writing, between the last line XVIII 28 and the first line of XVIII 29. This part of the text may be restored as follows:

In XVIII 28, 8 κ̣[αὶ περιάψῃ κτλ. replaces [καὶ περιάψῃ κτλ. in P.Rain.Cent. 39. In XVIII 29, 1 the words τοξότου δεκανὸϲ α̅ are restored according to the sequence that the papyrus requires and in agreement with information preserved by ms. N (see C. C. McCown’s edition, The Testament of Solomon [Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 9], Leipzig 1922, 120). On the value of ms. N and on the fact that the papyrus tends to agree with longer mss. N and P rather than with shorter H and L, see P.Rain.Cent. 39 intr. While L omits XVIII 29, mss. P, N and H unanimously transmit the name of this decan as Ἀνατρέθ. Anatreth is the decan who causes inflammation of the inner organs. He will state this in the next sentence of his short speech.

Speculation as to how the rest of this section may have run on the papyrus may perhaps help to identify yet another fragment in the Vienna collection. After καλοῦμαι, the papyrus will have continued with a sentence that ran along the lines of ζέϲειϲ καὶ πυρώϲειϲ εἰϲ ϲπλάγχνα ἀναϲτέλλω (with Η and presumably N) or καύϲειϲ καὶ πυρώϲειϲ εἰϲ τὰ ϲπλάγχνα ἀποϲτέλλω (with P). Next, the decan will reveal the secret magical name(s) that force him to leave the body of an afflicted person. McCown’s edition gives ἐὰν ἀκούϲω “αραρα αραρη,” εὐθὺϲ ἀναχωρῶ with H, but the papyrus probably had something closer to ἐὰν ἀκούϲω “αραραχαραρα,” εὐθὺϲ ἀναχωρῶ with P or, still more likely, ἐὰν ἀκούϲω “αραραχαραρα, ἀποδίωξον Ανατρεθ,” εὐθὺϲ ἀναχωρῶ with longer N. That the papyrus may have had αραραχαραρα (with P and N) rather than αραρα αραρη (with H) also seems probable since the former is well attested in the magical papyri as the middle part of a magical palindrome that runs ερηκιϲιθφη αραραχαραρα ηφθιϲικηρε.[5] Possibly the Vienna papyrus, which sometimes has a fuller text than any of the medieval manuscripts, contained that full palindrome as the divine name that dispels the decan. Another such palindrome, to be written in a heart-shaped Schwindeschema, seems to have been used to cast out a decan in XVIII 37. There the palindrome used the name Lykourgos. The reader was supposed to write:

[1] K. Preisendanz, Ein Wiener Papyrusfragment zum Testamentum Salomonis, Eos 48 (1956) 161–167.

[2] For reproductions, see, e.g., P.Warr. 10, pl. III; G. Cavallo, H. Maehler, Greek Bookhands of the Early Byzantine Period A.D. 300–800, London 1987, Nr. 36a.

[3] I thank Fritz Mitthof for informing me about the fragment, Bernhard Palme for permission to publish it.

[4] There is, however, no physical join and the fiber structure of G 21390 would match that of fr. a and the top of fr. c, both of which, to judge from their fibers, are the same sheet of papyrus, the first preserved kollesis appears below, i.e. directly above l. 11 of frr. c + d.

[5] See Suppl.Mag. I 51.1 comm. and, more recently, Pap.Lugd.Bat. XXXII 10.1–15 comm. For a recent, comprehensive study of disappearing schemes in ancient magical texts, see C. Faraone, Vanishing Acts on Ancient Greek Amulets: From Oral Performance to Visual Design (BICS Suppl. 115), London 2012.