[90] ἐλέγξαντες.
[91] νόθος, “bastard.” Is this an allusion to the composite nature of the Elchesaite religion?
[92] All these phrases are so condensed as to make the conjectural restoration of important words necessary. It would seem that the author was here hurrying over his task.
[93] νόμου πολιτείαν. The Jewish Law is of course intended.
[94] Transmigration of souls does not appear to have entered into the conceptions of the Mandæans, Mughtasila, or any other sects with which Elchasai is known to have been connected; but Buddhist ideas seem to have made some way with the Dead Sea communities. Did Alcibiades draw this idea from them? If so this might explain the allusion to the Seres.
[95] ἐπίλογοι.
[96] The text puts both Holy Spirit and Angels of Prayer in the plural. Yet they must be singular, or the seven witnesses would be more than that number. Brandt (op. cit.) thinks many mistakes in this chapter are to be explained by a faulty translation from Aramaic into Greek. He also thinks that the mention of salt implies a sacrament celebrated with bread and salt, and that earth, as one of the five elements of Aristotle, should be substituted for the Earth as a pendant to which Heaven is thrown in. It is simpler to derive the spell from the ancient Babylonian religion in which Heaven and Earth are coupled for the purpose of conjuration.
[97] πνεῦμα διαφθορᾶς. Cruice and Macmahon both translate “spirit of destruction.” It evidently refers to rabies, and the authors of the spell seem to have known that mere contact with a rabid animal might produce infection.
[98] Both Miller and Duncker read προσευξάσθω, which has been adopted here as making better sense. Cruice reads προσδειξάσθω, “show himself unto.”
[99] εὐσεβεῖς. Often applied by the Jews of this time to those who observed their usages, but were not full proselytes.