Line 3 of “The Phylactery of Moses” (third/early fourth century) reads:
3 Made a [s]pell on a gold
leaf six [letters]): “Sabaōth.”
[It is necessary] to make an offering with frank[i]ncense (and) myrrh. (Roy D.
Kotansky, “The Phylactery of Moses: A New Translation and Introduction,” in Old
Testament Pseudepigrapha: More Noncanonical Scriptures, ed. James R. Davila
and Richard Bauckham, 2 vols. [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2025], 2:367)
Commenting on “a gold leaf,” Kotansky wrote that:
The spell (or “formula,” Greek logos)
on a gold leaf (petalon chryson) follows instructions commonly found in
magical handbooks for writing inscribed “leaves” or lamellae. Note PGM
VII.382; XII.197, 199; etc. Because the practitioner seems to have
misunderstood the text he was copying, he wrote his amulet onto bronze (or,
copper, rather). Clearly the instruction intended a gold leaf to be engraved,
and this principally with the name of “Sabaōth,” etc. (Ibid., 367 note b.)
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