Towards Historicizing 'Magic' in Antiquity

Magic in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean

When does a prayer turn into a curse? What is the difference between pious worship and manipulative coercion? Who ultimately draws the boundaries between magic and religion? When we consider the various connotations of magic in the context of Greco-Roman culture before the Common Era, we are faced with a twofold conundrum. The concept of magic is constructed, on the one hand, from the often-biased depictions of what the ancient authors judged to be magic and, on the other hand, from the varied approaches that modern scholars have used to study Greco-Roman magic. Yet, even though we have ample evidence on ancient practices that were widely considered to be magic, these practitioners seldom left any commentaries on their work. In this chapter, I will outline the development of magic as a concept within both the Greco-Roman literature and the scholarship discussing ancient magic. I do not aim to describe any actual magical practices; instead, I will concentrate on the discourse on magicancient and modern. 1 First, I will briefly survey how the ancient concept of magic has been reconstructed in modern scholarship, and how it may have affected our understanding of the phenomenon. Second, I will consider various elements that Greco-Roman literati employed in crafting their definitions of magic. Any endeavor to describe, analyze, or understand the ancient concept of magic requires a working definition of what exactly is considered to be magic. As such, magic is a notoriously elusive concept which is often talked about, but which seldom has clear definitions or unambiguous content that all parties would agree on. Some regard magic as a substantial phenomenon that has certain modi operandi, actual operational powerswhether they work for good or for badand tangible effects, while others use magic as a discursive concept that classifies and labels various practices. Therefore, it is important to clarify whose ideas of magic are being considered: are they those of ancient practitioners of 'magic,' for instance, people employing potions and spells for their own use or professionals offering their services for a fee, or those of educated literati, who often employed the term magic in a deprecatory sense? Or, are they perhaps those of modern scholars attempting to define magic from the perspective of their own cultural background? Furthermore, one needs to keep in mind that these ancient and modern contexts for definitions vary in different places and different times. Therefore, before surveying Greek and Roman views on magic, we need to consider how the etic perspective on ancient magic, that is, our modern concepts of magic which are projected on the 1 See Gordon and Simón 2010, 5. 2 ancient sources, have developed and shaped our understanding of Greco-Roman magic in recent decades. Since ancient testimonia show that magic involved evocation, utilization, and even manipulation of superhuman 2 powers, a logical starting point for many scholarly constructions of magic has been its relationship to and distinction from religion. Perhaps the most influential scholars in this respect have been the two pioneers of anthropology, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor and Sir James George Frazer. They were both advocates of the nineteenth century ideas of cultural evolution, which led them to assign the practice of magic to less developed stages of societies. Tylor considered that all societies passed from savagery to barbarism and finally to a civilized state: and, in his view, magic belonged to the less educated and more primitive levels of development. 3 Yet, evolution is not linear, and just as civilized societies can lapse back into more primitive forms of spiritualism, they have also preserved survivals of past ways through "stupidity and unpractical conservatism and dogged superstition." 4 On the other hand, Tylor noted that all communities tend to associate magic with other groups that they consider more savage than themselves, 5 which foreshadows the contemporary view on magic as an othering device. Tylor mainly viewed magic as a psychological tool that provided its practitioners with authority and prestige; when magic seemingly works, it is by pure chance or because of natural causes, while the magicians are skilled in finding excuses for their failures. Yet, Tylor does not label those practicing magic as impostors, since they rely on complex pseudo-scientific explanatory systems that are transmitted among fellow professionals. 6 The opposing lines that Tylor draws between magic, religion (or "animism" as he calls it), and science are even more clearly presented in the evolutionary scheme of his follower, Sir James George Frazer. For Frazer, magic represents the lowest stage of cultural development, which will be replaced by religion and which will, in turn, give way to science. He believed this progress to be universal, so that the intellectually more primitive stage of magic use has preceded the development of religion in different cultures, even though they can still coexist. 7 In his magnum opus, The Golden Bough, Frazer delineates the crucial differences between magic, religion, and science. While magic and science share the idea of a predictable world where the succession from one thing to a certain effect is fixed, magic essentially misperceives the laws that govern this succession. Thus, magic is fundamentally fallacious. On the other hand, magic and religion share the belief in superhuman force that either 2 To use the term "supernatural" would violate ancient understanding of natural world.

I QUADERNI DEL RAMO D'ORO, vol. 10, 2018

Ancient Magic Then and Now, 2020

Dictionary of Daily Life in Biblical and Post-Biblical Antiquity, 2015

There is serious difficulty in defining the limits of what constitutes magical practice in the ancient world and the concept of magic had culturally specific interpretations that varied across time and place. In general, magic has been understood as the attempt to influence a course of events through intentional actions beyond direct physical cause, typically of a ritual nature, performed by gods, skilled practitioners, and laity alike. Even this general description poses certain difficulties and the broad nature of magic may necessitate dispensing with any universal definitions in favor of interpretations sensitive to their cultural and temporal contexts. Judgment of legitimacy was a matter of perspective, as practices considered "magical" by modern Western standards permeated ancient societies and had potential legitimacy according to accepted social norms. Considerations of black (i.e., harmful) and white (i.e., beneficial) magic often depended entirely on who was the intended target, with magic directed against royalty punishable by death throughout antiquity, not necessarily because of the practice of magic per se, but because the practice was aimed at those in positions of power.

2020

Magic is an essential topic in the New Testament. Still, compared to other items of discussion in New Testament Studies, the significance of the theme of magic has been unjustly undermined, as indicated by David E. Aune. From all eight occurrences of magic in the New Testament, four are found in the Acts of the Apostles. Therefore, the Acts of the Apostles is the most significant source to understand magic in the New Testament. The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the significance of magic in the Greco-Roman era as the historical context to understand magic in the Acts of the Apostles. Since Christianity flourished in the Greco-Roman period, the understanding of magic in the Greco-Roman era is necessary to understand its confrontation with Christianity in the Acts of the Apostles. This article will examine the definition of magic, the positive and negative judgment of magic, the aspects of magic, which are the philosophy and sacraments related to the Acts of the Apostles, and the relation between magic and religion in the Greco-Roman Era.

Journal of Ancient History, 2013

Magic is usually assumed to have been ubiquitous and culturally significant in the early Roman Empire, something exemplified by Pliny the Elder's claim that "there is no one who does not fear to be spellbound by curse tablets". 1 A variety of written and material evidence is commonly taken to be indicative of both the regular use of magic and widespread anxiety about its deployment. However, this paper argues that if we attempt, having determined a contextually appropriate definition of magic, to gauge the prevalence and significance of magic in this period, it can be seen to have had little cultural salience. Not only is evidence for its presence more equivocal than usually presumed, but magic is found to be strikingly absent from major popular cultural sources that shed light on the presuppositions and preoccupations of most of the empire's inhabitants, and to have had little explanatory or symbolic utility. The paper then proceeds to suggest possible reasons for magic's lack of salience in the early Empire, including the role of various sceptical discourses concerned with the supernatural in general and magic in particular, and the consequence of the largely agonistic context of its use on the limited occasions that it was employed.

Jewish Quarterly Review, 2009

In the last quarter of a century, historical scholarship has made a quiet but impressive advance in the study of magico-religious phenomena in ancient Jewish and Christian culture. This progress is most evident in two general areas of scholarly activity: on the one hand, there has been a sharp increase in translation and publication of magico-religious texts that for various reasons had been difficult to access for many students; but, just as importantly , during the same period a shift in theory and method has taken place which, by critically scrutinizing some of the key categories normally used to organize and evaluate the evidence, has facilitated a growth in awareness of how ideological interests have influenced not merely the magico-religious activities of ancient worshippers but also the interpretative manoeuvres of modern analysts.