Why now was this miscellany made? Not certainly for edification or the use of the sect or school[42] whose doctrines it sets forth. Every Coptic inscription on tombstone or wall and nearly every Coptic religious text has at its head the words [Coptic], with God, generally accompanied by the so-called Coptic or Orbed Cross, itself an adaptation of the _ankh_ or symbol of life in Pagan Egypt. That this was the practice with heretics as well as orthodox Christians is shown by the _Bruce Papyrus_, which actually bears as its frontispiece such words and such a cross with the letters Α and Ω and which seems to be a reproduction of the Constantinian Labarum.[43] If, too, we put side by side the passages in our MS. and the _Bruce Papyrus_ which are practically identical—as is the case with the three sacraments or baptisms mentioned in the Fourth Document of our text—we find that the “seals” or diagrams, passwords, and names given in the Oxford MS. have all been omitted from the London book. No one who is familiar with the beliefs current in Pagan Egypt can mistake the reason of this omission, which is obviously to avoid the risk of their being used in magic.[44] A like precaution was taken with many chapters of the _Book of the Dead_ and becomes more insistent with every successive recension. It is absent from the Pyramid texts, doubtless because when these were once carved on the inside of a royal burying-place and the entrance closed, there was little risk of these being seen by unauthorised persons. The same reason doubtless operated in the same way with the wooden coffins of the eleventh dynasty on which the next recension was inscribed. But with the Theban recension of the New Empire, the case was changed. “Let no one outside know it. It is a mystery which is not known to the common people,” says the hundred and sixty-first chapter after directions to engrave it on the coffin of the dead. “Reveal it not to anyone, may he be thy father or thy son except thyself. It is a real mystery.”[45] So, too, with the Saite recension. “This book is most secret,” says the hundred and sixty-second chapter, which M. Pierret thinks was intended to be the last. “Let it not be seen by any man, for it is forbidden to know it. Let it be hidden. It is called the mistress of the hidden abode. This is the end.”[46] That similar ideas persisted into Christian times may be guessed from the Homily _de Magis_ ascribed to St. Ephraim in which the Homilist tells his hearers that in his day (circa A.D. 450) even the clergy resorted to magicians for these mysterious writings. “Instead of the blessings of the Saints,” he says, “they carry about the incantations of the magicians, and instead of the Holy Cross, they carry the books of devils ... and a child who knows nothing at all, carries about devil’s names and comes to church.”[47]