A curious Sator charm

A curious charm which was extensively used as an amulet in medieval times consists of five Latin words so arranged that they can be read backwards or forwards and also upwards or downwards.

The disposition of the letters is as follows:

s a t o r

a r e p o

t e n e t

o p e r a

r o t a s

This charm has been preserved for us in Greek and Coptic as well as in Roman characters, and examples of it have been found cut in a marble slab above the chapel of St. Laurent at Rochemaur (Ardèche), France, and also in the plaster wall of an old Roman house at Cirncester, Gloucestershire, England.

In a Greek manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Paris, the Latin words are transliterated and translated as follows:

σάτορ, the sower
ἀρεπο, the plough
τένετ, holds
ὀπερα, works
ρότας, wheels

Another and more ingenious explanation of this puzzle has, however, been given.

Beginning with the last word “rotas,” and taking the other words in their order, it is proposed to read as follows:

“The plough-wheels (rotas), the laborer (opera), holds (tenet), creep after him (arepo), I, the sower (sator).”

The chief defect in this version appears to be the assumption that “opera” can be rendered “laborer,” an interpretation which is, at best, supported by a doubtful use of the word in that sense by Horace.

This charm appears in an Italian manuscript of the fourteenth century, where it is recommended to be used for the assurance of a speedy delivery.

Touching the wonderful and mystic power attributed to the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet by the Gnostics, C. W. King cites the following words from the Pistis Sophia of Valentinus:

Nothing therefore is more excellent than the mysteries which ye seek after, saving only the mystery of the Seven Vowels and their forty and nine Powers, and the Numbers thereof.

And no name is more excellent than all these [Vowels], a Name wherein be contained all Names and all Lights and all Powers.

The last sentence probably refers to the arrangement of these vowels often met with in inscribed Gnostic talismans, the so-called Abraxas gems.

Here we often find them in the following order Ι Ε Η Θ Ο Υ Α, and the sound of these vowels really suggests the conventional pronunciation of the Hebrew name Jehovah (yehowah).

The words quoted from the Pistis Sophia are placed in the mouth of Jesus, and King calls attention to the fact that in Greek the same word is used for voice and vowel (φώνη).

He therefore believes that the passage in Revelations (x, 3–4):

“The seven thunders uttered their voices,” signifies that the sound of the seven vowels “echoed through the vault of heaven, and composed that mystic utterance which the sainted seer was forbidden to reveal unto mortals.”

Certain talismans were supposed to afford protection not only to individuals but even to entire cities.

Of this class were two talismans described by Gregory of Tours.

He relates that Paris had enjoyed from ancient times a surprising immunity from serpents and rats, as well as from fires.

However, in clearing out the channel beneath a bridge across the Seine, the workmen found, embedded in the mud, two brazen images, one of a serpent and the other of a rat; after these had been removed from their resting place, serpents and rats appeared, and conflagrations became common.

George Frederick Kunz, Themagic of jewels and charms, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1915.

Photo: Pixabay/Darkmoon_Art 

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