Angels in the Magical Papyri. The Classic Example of Michael, the Archangel

In order to write adequately about angels in the magical papyri,1 au thors must exactly be aware of what they are actually writing about. Some questions, which demonstrate the difficulties such a study might bring with it, must be answered prior to the writing process itself: how can ‘angels’ be defined? Who is regarded as an ‘angelic being’ in the sense of such a definition and who is not? What period of time and what geographical region does such a study cover? Which texts form the relevant corpus for such a study? At a first glance, all these questions might raise hardly any trouble. But this is only partly true. The first question already offers severe problems, as for the Greco Roman world of antiquity and late antiquity and the notions and beliefs found in some of the magical papyri it is not always self evident who is an angel there and who is not. As all kinds of religious ideas from a Greco Roman, an Egyptian, a Jewish, and a Christian background – to mention only the most prominent socio cultural settings – interact with each other in a certain period of time, it is hardly possible to define today without much doubt whether an obviously ‘spiritual’ and ‘celestial being’ is actually (a) an angel, (b) a deity, or (c) a demon (in the modern sense of the word). ‘Beings’ bear ing Egyptian names in the papyri are in particular problematic here, as the polytheistic belief(s) of the Egyptians merged with other religious notions. Then when Jewish and Christian ideas and contents had been mixed into that melting pot of conceptions and when Egypt had be come for its most part a ‘Christian’ country, some of the former Egyp tian deities might have been treated and regarded as ‘angels’ by some people, because for them they fulfilled the same duties and tasks angels