Sin, Impurity and Exorcism (4Q560)
We propose to study the manuscript 4Q560, which is preserved in two fragments.[235] Despite its fragmentary nature, we can surmise that the manuscript seems to depict demons attacking pregnant women—thus fragment 1, column 1, line 2, reads: “the punishment(s) of child-bearers” (pb* nmo).
The first preserved word is “to his/her midwife” (nmb’b), but the context is unclear. The text may associate the demonic attack of pregnant women with the mid- wife.[236] [237] The attack is named in the same line as “an evil madness” (WN3 4_ip3). The matter is clearly linked to the impurity that was associated with pregnancy by all Jewish groups around AD.[238] Indeed, line 4 preserves the end of Exodus 34:7 and Numbers 14:18 which attribute to yhwh the power to forgive “iniquity and transgression” (p^Sl JNlp). This implicit quotation may recall the impure state of pregnancy that only God can cancel. The only preserved word in line 6 is the plural adjective “w]icked” (pp’^[n), which can be used to refer to impurity. Furthermore, pregnant women, like menstrual women, are excluded from the Temple according to Leviticus 12:2-4. Therefore, this instance of demonic attack accords with well-known notions of impurity in Judaism. It seems to be even a logical extrapolation. But such an observation does not allow us to conclude that the Essenes composed the document preserved in 4Q560, because they were not alone in assuming strong links between earthly sin, impurity and heavenly agents. All Jewish groups broadly shared such a celestial imagination. It is more cautious to understand the preserved text of 4Q560 according to the dialectic movement of sin and impurity between the earth and the heavens where angels and demons inhabit. Therefore, the identification of the redactional milieu is difficult.Lines 3 to 5 seem to explain that demons created “evil madness”, what we would today call “illness”. Nevertheless, the Aramaic expression designated more precisely both the symptoms and the course of the illness inside the body, according to lines 3-5. The text in line 3 presents this idea as “all those who] enter into the flesh: the male wasting[239] and the female wasting[240]” (ÈËÇð² n’bnbni N131 N’nbnb N1^33 bbp [Üç). The chosen verb bnbn gives the idea of a demon progressively gnawing on a corpse. The actions of demons are described as symptoms experienced by the patient in line 4: the “fire” (NW) for the fever, the “chill” ([241] n,_ip) for the cold sweat, and the “fire of heart” (ÇÇÜ nWN) for headaches or heart palpitations.[242] The next line seems to present the moment of suffering for the patient, the moment when the demons act against him, as “during sleep” (NJW3). The male demon 131 313 and the female demon Ë’33 ÊËÇð³ are then named after their evil actions. The names are unknown with this orthography, but they are derived from the root pis which means “to break, to grind, to crush” rather than “to shrine” as in other contexts.[243] Literally, the name of the demons may mean “the grinder”. It is undoubtedly an image of demons who enter the body to destroy it, as seen in the picture of the body suffering with illness. The end of the line preserves the action of the female demon, “she who grinds”, literally “one who strikes so that” (’1 Nnno). While it is clear that the demon strikes something or somebody, the beginning of the next line is lost. The context may suggest the object of her attack is the body or parts of the body. The lines are fragmentary but it seems difficult to understand a male demon attacking a man and a female demon attacking a female.[244] [245] Both demons, “he who grinds” and “she who grinds”, attack pregnant women at the same time. Column 2 of the same fragment is also badly damaged but lines 5 and 6 twice preserve the aph'el form of the verb NO’, “to swear” or “to adjure” in context. After a description of demonic actions against pregnant women during the night, the new passage affirms the abjuration of the demons with the first person: [...]n ÈÏÏ ÇÃÃÎ1Ê [...]HO1O ÏÏ HJN1 And I am this one who adjures, O spirit [...] I adjure you, O spirit [...] The text is fragmentary but we clearly see a personal address to the demon(s) named “spirit” (ÏÏ). This designation is common in Late Antiquity. For example, another Aramaic contemporary document also discovered in Qumran cave 1, the Genesis Apocryphon, has a similar use of the word “spirit”. The work retells passages mainly preserved in Genesis and the book of Jubilees?2 For example, a narrative explains that Sarai, the wife of Abram, was taken by force in order to go to Pharaoh's court. During the night, Abram prayed to God to avoid the defilement of his wife. God listened to Abram in sending “a spirit of wound to strike him (i.e. Pharaoh) and every man of his household, an evil spirit, and continued to strike him and every man of his household” (iQapGen xx 16-17). Consequently, Pharaoh was unable to have sexual relations with Sarai. The end of the narrative concludes that “none of the healers, magicians and wise men were able to heal him; on the contrary, the spirit struck all of them” (iQapGen xx 20). Thus, in a complete passage, the word “spirit” clearly designates the demon. Therefore, this passage of 4Q560 seems to be an adjuration addressed to the demon(s) in order to heal pregnant women. The use of the verb NO’, “to swear”, to express the demons' adjuration is not unique. We also find an example in another passage of the Genesis Apocryphon. The patriarch Lamech, the father of Noah, knowing the story of the angelic Watchers who had descended to take human wives, was afraid that his wife, Bitenosh, had engaged in sexual relations with one of them. Thus the way to heal is to adjure, but what is the identity of the person who adjures?[246] [247] [248] As the text is fragmentary, we could understand that the possessed one (probably a pregnant woman) had to implore the demon(s) to leave her alone.14 Indeed, the ends of lines 5 and 6 are not preserved and, without this context, fragment 2, or at least this passage from column 2, could look like a kind of “self-exorcism”. But such a formula is not unique and it is likely that it presents a different meaning. For example, another text of exorcism^5 attributed to the legendary magician Pibechis from Egypt presents common formulas in Greek. An introductory sentence describes the addressees thus: “for those possessed by demons”. The text preserves many nomina barbara (i.e. barbarous names) which finish with a call to the demons to “come out from” the person. Then the document gives instructions to wear a “tin lamella” with nomina barbara. The names are of a divine nature in order to terrify the demons. In a practical way, the scribe/magician places the patient opposite himself and he “conjures” according to numerous formulas in the first person according to the pattern: “I conjure you by...” This text contains many references to Pharaoh and the plagues of Egypt. As 4Q560 1 ii 7 preserves the localization “on earth, in clouds” (pJJp3 5p), Pibechis' charm invokes the heavens many times. Other details in the papyrus seem to have been directly borrowed from Jewish formulas. Although the Pibechis document is in Greek and the Qumran text is in Aramaic, the formula of invocation, respectively “I conjure you by” God and “I adjure you”, seems to be the same. Before discussing the identity of “I” in both documents, we also remark that numerous late Jewish incantations contain a spell with the formula “I adjure you” with the same Aramaic verb ’O’.[249] The Jewish Babylonian bowls which contain the verb are later than 4Q560 but the formula is clearly a part of the spell's pattern.1[250] In the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic bowls, the Pichechis papyrus and the Qumran manuscript 4Q560, the identity of the speaker remains open to interpretation. Two possibilities emerge: the person attacked by the demon or the scribe who tries to ward off the demon. Therefore we may postulate that the fragmentary manuscript 4Q560 presented an adjuration of demons by the possessed one in the first person and invocations of yhwh's power over the demons. The appropriate way to categorize this literary genre would belong to a ‘self-exorcism to expel demons'?[251] But the preserved text of 4Q560 is not explicit to confirm this view and the other uses of the same formula in other corpora lead us to prefer the second hypothesis. The scribe/the magician engaged an adjuration to ward off and expel the demon(s) in presence of the victim. The Egyptian papyrus and the Jewish Babylonian bowls may allow us to understand the nature of the Qumran document more precisely: 4Q560 may be a part of a book of incantations?[252] The practice of copying an extract of such a book on a sheet of leather, on papyrus, on a bowl, or on a lamella in metal has been noted elsewhere.[253] The scribe would personalize the extract with the name of the client. A text on leather or papyrus would be rolled and put inside an amulet or buried in the floor of a house, often under the threshold of the door.[254] [255] [256] [257] 4Q560 does not seem to fit this function because both fragments of the manuscript have not been rolled. We know in the Qumran corpus of some scrolls with a small size which seem to be portable scrolls.22 4Q560 may belong to this physical category. However, the fragmentary state of the manuscript does not permit us to evaluate the size of the whole scroll. Therefore it remains difficult to choose between part of a handbook of incantations or an individual scroll with these tiny preserved fragments. Analysing the potential link with the Essene community may give us more information. There is no textual hint of Essene composition, but the manuscript is preserved in Cave 4, very close to the site of Khirbet Qumran (one settlement of the Essene community). Therefore, there is no doubt that the manuscript is somehow linked to the community: Was it just deposited by a new member in the community or was it used by a member of the community? It is difficult to say. Moreover, very few or even no women resided there according to recent studies of excavated tombs in the cemetery close to the site.23 Therefore, it is hardly possible to imagine a woman wearing this amulet in the community. The manuscript seems rather to be part of a document preserving information about demons that act against pregnant women on account of their impurity. This explanation may correspond to a passage in the Damascus Document, preserved in Cave 4, concerning the impurity of menstrual women and parturient women, and how to restore purity.[258] [259] Such a preoccupation of the Qumran community is well documented in the description of Flavius Josephus:25 many Essenes lived in establishments in the desert named “camps” and other Essenes resided in urban sites, but all wished to remain in a state of high purity. All these observations lead us to consider that 4Q560 is part of a book rather than an individual amulet for a pregnant woman. Its presence in Cave 4 may be because it addressed demonic actions against pregnant women, thus confirming their impurity according to the Torah. Thus, the presence of 4Q560 in Qumran Cave 4 may correspond to a secondary use of the text in order to prove and confirm that the members of the Essene community must avoid contact with women to maintain a state of purity. The passage's importance does not lay in that it presents demons as being expelled by a self-exorcism, but it constitutes one of the first attestations in time of a textual structure of a Jewish incantation which requested a bystander. Other contemporary documents tell a similar story of demons being expelled but always with the help of an intermediary. For example, the angel Raphael acts in favour of Sara in Tobit 3:17. The angel healed the illness in Tobit's eyes, and then he expelled the demon Asmodeus, the “evil demon”, from Sara. Tobit 6:17 adds a ritual to expel the demon with the liver and heart of a fish on ashes of perfume. Prayers and benedictions seem to be recited at this moment according to Tobit 8:4-8. Another narrative preserved in the work of Josephus, Jewish Antiquities viii 46-48, introduces another medium: a ring. Before Vespasian, his sons and his officers, a Jew named Eleazar expelled a demon from the body of someone who was possessed. He used a ring “whose seal corresponded to one of the roots indicated by Solomon”. He also repeated incantations of Solomon inscribed in a book. Such a book attributed to Solomon is also known in the Jerusalem Talmud[260] and the Babylonian Talmud.[261] [262] The Christian bishop Theodoret of Cyrus interpreted 1 Kings 5:1328 at the beginning of the fifth century and referenced the “medical books” attributed to Solomon. The compilation named “decree of Gelasius” at the beginning of the sixth century lists a book called Contradictio Salomons. A Greek Testament of Solomon still exists but has been heavily transformed, collecting a variety of traditions concerning the medical powers of Solomon. Nevertheless, it is not a set of incantations attributed to Solomon, and the text does not give rituals of exorcism where the possessed one exorcises himself or herself. Thus, it is difficult to link 4Q560 to a Solomonic tradition. The Qumran manuscript seems to be one of the first attestations in Judaism of an adjuration’s pattern with the practice of an intermediary. The discovery of the text in the so-called library of the Essenes in the Qumran caves is not clear evidence that this was an original practice of the Essenes otherwise not known in Judaism, because there exist no textual hints of Essene composition. It is best understood as a document that was preserved by the Qumran community, as other Aramaic documents discovered in the Qumran caves/[263] on account of its ideas standing in accord with the Essene conception of purity and impurity. The document reveals the necessary practice of exorcism with textual support to expel demons around the turn of the era.