Note 294 — Chapter III · THE ORIGIN OF GNOSTICISM

Some instances, such as “hocus-pocus” (hoc est corpus meum), are given in P.S.B.A. XX. (1898), p. 149. An excellent example is found in a spell to cause invisibility in a magic papyrus at Berlin where the magician is directed to say among other words anok peusire penta set tako “I am that Osiris whom Set murdered”—evidently a phrase from some Egyptian ritual extinct centuries before the papyrus was written. See Parthey, Zwei griechische Zauberpapyri, 1866, p. 127, l. 252. Cf. Erman, “Die Ägyptischer Beschwörungen” in Ägyptische Zeitschrift, 1883, p. 109, n. 1.