Note 2325 — Chapter XXV · POST-CLASSICAL MEDICINE
Reading edition
Marcellus is often called of Bordeaux, notably in Grimm’s article, Über Marcellus Burdigalensis, 1847; also by C. W. King, The Gnostics and their Remains, 1887, p. 219; and by J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, I, 23; but there seems to be no definite proof that he was from that city.
Jules Combarieu, La musique et la magie, 1909, p. 87, says in reference to the following incantation recommended by Marcellus, tetunc resonco bregan gresso, “Je remarque en passant qu’il faut frotter l’œil en disant ce carmen, et que dans le patois du Midi, brégua ou brége, signifie frotter. Marcellus, si je ne me trompe, était de Bordeaux.”
Grimm, however (1847), p. 455, interpreted bregan as “lies”—“breigan gen. pl. von breag lüge,” and the whole line as in modern Irish teith uainn cre soin go breigan greasa (“fleuch von uns staub hinnen zu der lügen genossen!”).