Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

MAGIC

Incantation bowl with spiral inscription in Jewish Aramaic for protection of the household of Babai (Photograph courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum, ©ROM)

In the literature of the ancient Mediterranean world and the ancient Near East, including the Bible, many different terms are used to designate magic and ritual power as well as the practitioners of magic and ritual power. Gk. mageía and related words (cf. Lat. magia) derive from Iranian magus, which designated a person from an ancient Medo-Persian tribe with priestly functions (cf. Magi, Matt. 2). During Greco-Roman times and in Judeo-Christian contexts the term magic frequently was used in a polemical fashion to distinguish between the activities of one’s own group over against the opponents: “we” practice religion and perform miracles; “they” practice magic and engage in sorcery. Romans accused early Christians of practicing magic, later Christians accused pagans, and Protestant Reformers accused Roman Catholics. The word can thus be used as a club to attack outsiders, but it is not easily or precisely defined. A more neutral expression to describe the phenomena considered “magical” may be “ritual power.”

Ancient Mediterranean and Near East

Throughout the world of Mediterranean and Near Eastern antiquity, ritual power was employed as a means whereby power, particularly supernatural power, could be channeled through ritual activity. In many of the early traditions there was no dichotomy between magic and religion, and ritual power was accorded validity equally within organized religion and private practice. Ritual power was considered a gift of the divine, as in ancient Egypt, where Heka was the embodiment of divine power that emerged in the beginning and empowered the performance of public and private rituals. Often, but not in Egypt, malevolent ritual power (traditionally called “black magic”) was condemned and declared illegal, in contrast to benevolent ritual power (“white magic”). In classical Greece the Persian roots of the word were not forgotten, and Greek discussions of philosophy, theology, and medical science led to a denigration of magic. Nonetheless, ritual power was widely practiced throughout the ancient world, and the numerous magical texts, amulets, bowls, and artifacts that have survived show practitioners using ritual power to address all sorts of medical, demonic, sexual, and social problems. For example, one parchment magical book from Coptic Egypt (Michigan 136) prescribes folk remedies and ritual spells to treat such medical concerns as gout, eye disease, pains from teething, fevers, pregnancy and childbirth, abdominal pains, malignancy, skin disease, headaches, toothaches, earaches, hemorrhoids or other sores, constipation, foot disease, and mental problems. Another magical book (Heidelberg Kopt. 686) praises the divine and invokes divine power to provide aid for such problems as demon possession, imprisonment, domestic quarrels and violence, male impotence, a wife’s unfaithfulness, infant death, insomnia, and issues related to villages, workplaces, and herds of cattle.

Old Testament

Deut. 18:10-11 provides a catalog of some of the most significant terms for magic and ritual power and practitioners of magic and ritual power in the Hebrew Scriptures, and all the terms denote what is thought to be abominable to the God of Israel. Some of these terms remain difficult to translate and understand, but overall the prohibitions within this and similar passages appear to be directed against practices considered to be violations of authentic religion.

Many of the same kinds of practices that are condemned in Deut. 18, , however, are condoned and even commended elsewhere in the OT. For example, prophets of God divine the future, ritual specialists interpret dreams, priests and others employ the Urim and Thummim and other oracular devices, people of God utter blessings and curses, and Elisha parts the water and curses rude boys “in the name of the Lord” (2 Kgs. 2:24), most likely with the holy name that is called the tetragrammaton (Yahweh), later used extensively in spells of ritual power. This magical use of the name of the Lord may account for the Third Commandment, not to “take the name of the Lord your God in vain” (Exod. 20:7; Deut. 5:11). In Exodus Moses and Aaron are portrayed as successful practitioners of ritual power, and the Egyptian magicians admit, “This is the finger of God” (Exod. 8:19). The image of the finger of God is also applied to Jesus as exorcist in Luke 11:20, and the divine finger is personified as Orphamiel, the great finger of God the father, in several Christian texts of ritual power.

In spite of prohibitions in the OT against magical practice, then, it appears that the practice of ritual power was as evident among the Hebrews as among other people in the ancient Near East. The Jewish use of ritual power is later reflected in the influence of Jewish themes and names for the divine in the Greek magical papyri, in the Jewish handbook of ritual power, the Sefer ha-Razim (“Book of Mysteries”), and in the Aramaic incantation bowls with spiral texts meant to eradicate evil.

New Testament and Early Christian Texts

Within the literature of early Christianity the polemical presentation of magic and magicians continues. Simon of Samaria is accused of practicing magic (Acts 8), as are Elymas or Bar-Jesus (ch. 13) and the seven sons of Sceva and other practitioners from Ephesus (ch. 19). Sorcerers are listed among the wicked to be punished in Revelation, and sorcery is included in a list of vices in Galatians.

Yet, as in the OT, materials are incorporated that portray ritual power in a more positive light. Jesus and his followers are sometimes described as exorcists and faith-healers, and Paul himself overcomes Elymas (Acts 13) with his own ritual power. Some of the NT stories of the deeds of magic or ritual power performed by Jesus are adapted from the OT (Jesus, like Moses, feeds a multitude in the wilderness and, like Elijah, heals a widow’s son) or Greek mythological traditions (Jesus, like Poseidon, travels on water as on land and, like Dionysos, changes water to wine). By contrast, the story of the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac by Jesus (Matt. 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-39) illustrates features typical of other stories of exorcism and spells of ritual power. Here a possessed man, violent and uncontrollable, engages in a battle of adjurations with Jesus. Jesus orders the demon, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit,” and the victim responds by adjuring Jesus to leave him alone. Jesus assumes the upper hand in the struggle when he demands the name of the demon. Thus the exorcism is accomplished, and the patient is restored to health and sanity. The demonic forces are sent into a herd of pigs in a manner somewhat reminiscent of the demon sent by Apollonios of Tyana to knock over a statue as proof of its departure from a patient. In another story Jesus uses spittle, a powerful touch, oral exhalations, and an authoritative word (preserved in Aramaic) to heal a man who is hearing-impaired and has a speech impediment (Mark 7:31-37). Such stories indicate that the historical Jesus may well have been viewed by his contemporaries as an exorcist and faith-healer, and acts of ritual power may have accompanied his proclamation of God’s kingdom (Luke 11:20).

Jesus and early Christians were often accused of dabbling in magic, and the debate about whether this is so is played out in the NT and early Christian texts. The Gospels of Mark and John celebrate the miracles of Jesus but also divert the readers’ attention to other ways of understanding Jesus. Another approach to this debate involves an appeal to the distinction between miracle and magic. Jesus and early Christians, it is said, do not practice magic but rather perform miracles, and the power of Christian miracles surpasses that of pagan magic. Meanwhile, Christian spells of ritual power eventually were composed in large numbers as means for the faithful to tap into power available to solve the problems in their lives. These interests in magic, miracle, and ritual power continue as a form of popular piety within Christianity and other religions to the present day.

See Divination; Miracles.

Bibliography. H. D. Betz, ed., The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, 2nd ed. (Chicago, 1992); M. Meyer and P. Mirecki, eds., Ancient Magic and Ritual Power. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 129 (Leiden, 1995); Meyer and R. Smith, eds., Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (San Francisco, 1994).

Marvin Meyer