Notice on the Bruce Gnostic Papyrus

THE
GNOSTIC
BRUCE
PAPYRUS.

these ideas further as they deserve. Hieroglyphic signs are not the only ones used in the papyrus: the copyist or the author has also used signs or forms of abbreviations which are entirely in the taste of Egypt. Under the Pharaohs, when one had to write a known formula, the scribes wrote it entirely or abbreviated it as they pleased 1: the interpretation is no easier for us. Likewise in this papyrus. The scribe or the author has used two symbols which are true ideographic hieroglyphs and abbreviations which gave me much trouble at first, because I was not used to the idea of such a manner of writing, especially since the sign of the abbreviation is accompanied by a greater or lesser number of words that compose the formula. These various signs are the following ⳥, ⊡, ☉, θ, 𐍈 and a complex looped monogrammatic cross. The first of these signs is well known to all those who have practiced Coptic manuscripts a little: it is the one that is used to write the word MARTYROS martyr in abbreviation. Thus, in the formula that scribes usually use to date their copy, one finds this sign, as in the following example: XPONO TON AGI ⳥, era of the holy martyrs. But, in the Gnostic work, one cannot think of such an abbreviation when one encounters phrases like the one that follows:

1) One can see a striking example of this sort of abbreviation in the Denkmäler of Lepsius, Bd. V, Abth. III, Bl. 8, where it concerns the purification of the young Aménophis IV after his birth. The formula, which consists of about forty words, is reduced to a few signs.