Magic Curses & Superstition

The Roman Era

Turning to the Roman Era we must first look at one of the greatest Roman poets, Virgil (70-19 BCE). In his eighth eclogue is a free translation or adaptation of Theocritus' second poem. He leaves out a number of details and gives it a happy ending-the magic works and the lover returns-but otherwise he is quite faithful to the original. It is a good assumption that the magic described was practiced in Italy as well as in Greece and Egypt. Virgil may have left out something or added some color, but the magical operation as a whole sounds authentic.

A more serious magical ceremony is described by Virgil at the end of Book 4 of the Aeneid. The hero of the epic, Aeneas, has landed on the coast of North Africa, where he meets Queen Dido, who has just begun to build a new city, Carthage. Dido resembles more an oriental fairy queen with a tragic past than a witch. She falls in love with Aeneas, and wishes him to stay as her prince consort. One is reminded of the Circe episode in the Odyssey and of Jason and Medea in Apollonius' Argonautica. In these epics, a traveling hero meets a beautiful and exotic woman who is potentially dangerous, although kind and hospitable as long as her love for the hero lasts. When Aeneas leaves Dido because Fate decrees that he must found an empire of his own, Dido's love turns to hate. She then stages a complex magical ritual designed to destroy her faithless lover. She builds a gigantic pyre in the main courtyard of her palace and prepares, with the assistance of a famous priestess, an elaborate sacrifice to the powers of the underworld. Realizing that no love magic could bring Aeneas back to her, she kills herself in her despair, adding the ultimate emphasis of doom to her curse. It was commonly believed that those who died before their time could unleash enormous powers of destruction at the moment of their death and sometime afterwards. Dido thus had sealed and extended her curse through her suicide. Unfortunately for her, Aeneas was protected by his gods. Her curse lingered on, however, leading to Rome's near crushing defeat by Carthage many centuries later.

Next, it would be best to describe Seneca, the philosopher and playwright (c. 5 BCE - CE 65), and his nephew, Lucan (CE 39-65), the epic poet, because they continue the literary tradition of the superwitch. Seneca's tragedies reflect the taste for the horrible, cruel and grotesque that seems so characteristic of the early Roman Empire. He selects some of the most gruesome Greek myths for dramatic treatment (Thyestes), and he spins out the theme of magic, necromancy and the like where it is given by the mythical tradition (Medea) and even where it is barely indicated (Hercules on Mount Oeta).[42] From the dialogue between Deineira and her nurse we learn that it is quite common for jealous wives to consult a witch; as it turns out, the nurse, very conveniently, is a witch herself. There is an implication in this passage that a great hero such as Hercules cannot be influenced by magical means, and in the end he is overcome by deadly poison that Deianira gives him, believing it to be a love charm.

In Seneca's Medea, her invocations and incantations are no longer left to the imagination, as they were when Apollonius wrote his epic three centuries previously. Her power of hating, which she can switch on and intensify at will is still the dominant theme, but Medea now has her cabinet of horrors from which to select the most efficient engines of destruction. Her magic now involves the whole universe; she claims that she can force down the constellation of the Snake.[43]

The magical papyri illustrate the sense of power that filled the operator during the course of the ritual. Seneca probably knew of such texts, but he gives them a literary polish that the professional magicians were rarely capable. Whether these plays were performed on stage or were simply recited, they must have shocked a contemporary audience, and shock, ekplexis, was supposed to have a therapeutic value. It is probably fair to say that Seneca created horror because, as a Stoic philosopher, he believed that the shock caused by horror cleansed the soul of all the emotions that interfere with peace of mind. As a Stoic, Seneca also believed in cosmic sympathy, and thus some of the tenets of magic would make sense to him.

The ultimate horrors and powers of witchcraft are portrayed by Lucan in Book 6 of the Pharsalia, probably an effort to surpass his uncle. Before the decisive battle of Pharsalus (48 BCE), in which Julius Caesar defeats the forces of Pompey, the two armies had moved through Thessaly, the classical country of witchcraft. There, one of Pompey's sons consults the famous witch Erictho about the outcome of the upcoming confrontation. In Lucan's epic, Erictho is the most powerful witch, and is appropriately loathsome and disgusting. She can compel the lesser gods to serve her and cause them to shudder at her spells.[44]

Let us now turn to three historical personages of the first century CE who seems to have many of the characteristics earlier associates with Orpheus, Pythagoras and Empedocles. Jesus Nazareth, Simon Magus and Apollonius of Tyana.[45]

It is controversial to examine Jesus in terms of this particular tradition, though more has been written on the subject in the last ten years. Since he was called a "magician" by Pagans and Jews alike, it seems appropriate to examine him in this light. From an outsider's point of view Jesus obviously was a typical miracle-worker. He exorcised daemons, he healed the sick, he raised the dead, he made predictions, but apart from walking on waves he never performed the ostentatious magic that Moses and Aaron performed when they defied the Egyptian magicians. He did not, however, practice necromancy. Nevertheless, within three hundred years of his birth, he was accused of stealing the "names of the angels of might" from Egyptian temples.[46] The "angels of might" could be translated as "powerful daemons," and the Egyptian concept of "words of power" could be connected with Jesus' belief in angels close to the throne of the Father.[47] According to the Gospels, he did not practice necromancy, but his life story is full of features that can be paralleled elsewhere: his divine origin, his miraculous birth, the annunciation and the nativity surrounded by unusual events; he is menaced in his infancy; his ministry is handed to him by an earlier evangelist (John the Baptist); he has to face a powerful daemon representing the evil forces of the world (Satan), and refuses to make a deal with him, winning a trial of spiritual strength. These encounters can all be paralleled: Abaris yielded to Pythagoras, and Zoraster had to resist evil daemons.

Matthew's report that Jesus was taken to Egypt as an infant was used by hostile sources to explain his knowledge of magic; according to a rabbinical story, he came back tattooed with spells.[48] It is also pointed out that in rabbinical tradition that Jesus was mad, which was often associated with people of great power (dynamis). The Gospels speak of the "descent of the spirit," the pagans of "possession by a daemon," and both are possibly explaining the same mystical phenomena. It has even been suggested that Jesus' claim to be "the Son of God" is a formula used in magical rites by the operator who identifies himself closely with the supernatural power that he invokes.[49]

Simon is the name of a magus mentioned in Acts 8:9ff. and elsewhere.[50] He was active in Samaria about the time of the Crucifixion, and his disciples called him "the power of God that is called the Great Power." Simon was deeply impressed by the apostle Philip's cures and exorcisms and by the gift of the Spirit that came from the apostles' laying on of hands; therefore, he not only "believed and was baptized" but he asked the apostles to sell him their special gift so that he could practice it too. This is the typical attitude of the professional magician. To Simon, the charisma of this new religion is a kind of magic that can be purchased, for a price, and his is prepared to pay for it as he probably had before for the kind of magic he lad learned. The sharp rebuke that he draws from Peter-and that he is flexible enough to take it in good grace-shows how the early Church drew a line between itself and practitioners of magic such as Simon.[51]

We hear about Simon again from Justin martyr (e.g., Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 120), who says that he was a magus born in Samaria, that his followers worshipped him as the supreme God, and that a Phoenician woman, former prostitute called Helen, lived with him. She was considered the "primary notion" emanating from him. She was a fallen power for whose salvation he had appeared.

According to other Christian writers[52] Simon established his own Trinity, in which he was the Father, Jesus was the son, and Helen was something like the Holy Spirit; but in another sense Simon was all three. This remarkable bit of theology shows how skillfully Simon adapted the Gospel to his needs. It is quite possible that he started out as a magus and then developed into a cult figure by borrowing from Christianity whatever suited him. He and Helen were worshipped before statues of Zeus and Athena; this, no doubt, was designed to make the ritual more palatable to pagans. The priests of Simon's religions were said by some early writers to practice both magic and free love-a combination of charges that appears throughout history.

From the testimonies we have, Simon Magus emerges as a skilled practitioner of the occult sciences, which he was supposed to have learned from Egypt. He did, unlike Jesus, practice necromancy, and even claimed according to the Clementine Recognitions,[53] to have created a human being. Simon claimed to have invoked the soul of an innocent boy who had been murdered and commanded it to enter a new body that he had made from air, thus forming a new human being.

Simon's downfall came, according to Acts, when Simon and Peter challenged each other before the emperor Nero in Rome. Most people will be familiar with the tale of the Simon born by the winds and Peter banishing the daemons that caused Simon to fall to his death.

The third magus of this period was Apollonius of Tyana, who was born in Cappadocia a few years after Jesus, and survived into the reign of Nerva (c. 97 CE). About a century later, Flavius Philostratus wrote a comprehensive Life of Apollonius of Tyana, which is our most important source.[54] Philostratus, a professional writer, was a protégé of the empress Julia Domna, mother of the emperor Caracalla. This cultured lady was interested in philosophy, religion and science; Galen was another of her protégés. She owned a document that claimed to be the memoirs of a certain Damis of Niniveh, a disciple of Apollonius; this she gave to Philostratus as raw material for a polished literary treatment. From Philostratus' biography the strange, ascetic, traveling teacher called Apollonius emerges. He is usually labeled a Neo-Pythagorean; although he is more like a new Pythagoras. He certainly represents, in a different age, the same combination of scientist, philosopher, and magus. A revival of Pythagoreanism took place in the first century CE, with its centers in Alexandria and Rome. If we can trust his biographer, Apollonius traveled as far as India, where he exchanged ideas with the Brahmins, who were considered to be true Pythagorean philosophers.

What we know of Apollonius' teaching is fairly consistent with traditional Pythagorean doctrine. Animals have a divine soul, just like human beings; hence it is a sin to kill an animal, either to eat it or use its fur or skin for clothing or to offer it to the gods as a sacrifice. Vegetarianism and a pure, ascetic life are necessary. Apollonius also believed in the transmigration of the soul and claimed to remember his own previous existences, but he explicitly denied certain astonishing feats that were ascribed to him by Philostratus-for example, that he had descended into the underworld and that he could raise the dead. Since he was arrested on charges of magic twice, once under Nero and again under Domitian, he must have had every reason to reduce the miracles he was credited with to reasonable dimensions. His disciples probably made him more into a thaumaturge than he himself wanted to be. In some ways Apollonius resembles Socrates: he enjoyed lively philosophical debates and was very good at using an opponent's premise against him. Like Socrates, he had a daimonion. Unlike Socrates, he published, we know of one treatise, On Sacrifices.

The Natural History of Pliny the Elder (CE 23/24-79) is a voluminous survey of science, pseudo-science, art and technology. Reflecting the state of knowledge in the late Hellenistic era, it is based on a hundred or so earlier authorities. This huge composition deals with cosmology, geography, anthropology, zoology, botany, pharmacology, mineralogy, metallurgy and their uses in ancient art. It is a mine of information, but since nearly all the sources that Pliny used are lost, it is of considerable value to us, and it had a great influence on later thought. Pliny believed in ancient traditions and was convinced that the powers of certain herbs or roots were revealed to humanity by the gods. The divine powers in their concern for the welfare of humanity, have ways of making us discover the secrets of nature. In their wisdom and love the gods bring us gradually closer to their status; this is the Faustian aspiration of being like the gods. There will always be progress of this kind according to Pliny.[55] How it works in the short term is not important; in the long term it emanates from benevolent powers. This concept is firmly rooted in Middle Stoicism: here we have a "cosmic sympathy" that, if properly understood and used, operates for the good of humanity.

With all his learning, Pliny preserved many religious and magical practices. He did not believe in the effectiveness of all magical arts; in fact, he felt that most claims of the professional sorcerers were exaggerated or simply false (25.59, 29.20, 37.75). The sorcerers would not have would not have written down their spells and recipes unless they despised and hated humanity (37.40). If their promises were worth anything, the emperor Nero, who studied magic with the best teachers and had access to the best books, would have been a formidable magician, but in fact he did nothing extraordinary (30.5-6). Pliny's conclusion, however, is cautious: though magic is ineffective and infamous (intestabilis), it nevertheless contains at least "shadows of truth" (veritatis umbras) which are due to the "arts of making poisons" (veneficae artes). Yet, Pliny states, "there is no one who is not afraid of spells" (28.4), and he seems not to exclude himself. The amulets and charms that people wore as a kind of preventive medicine he neither commends or condemns. It is better to err on the side of caution, for, who knows, a new kind of magic, a magic that really works, may be developed somewhere this very minute. This is why the professional magicians, as we have seen, were always on the lookout for new ideas.

Pliny devotes the beginning of Book 30 to the magi andrefers to them here and there especially in Books 28 and 29.[56] To him they are basically sorcerers, but they might also be priests of a foreign religion, such as the Druids of the Celts in Britain and Gaul. He even includes Moses in a list of famous magi. According to Pliny, the art of the magi touches three areas: medicina, religio and artes mathematicae (30.1), "healing power," "ritual," and "astrology." Pliny's religio is not the same as our religion, sometimes he uses it in the sense of "superstition," sometimes in the sense of "expression of religious belief or custom".[57]

To the Platonist philosopher Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45-125 CE) we owe the treatise On Superstition, which reminds one here and there of Theophrastus' sketch.[58] Plutarch defines deisdaimonia 'superstition' as "fear of the divinity or of the gods," though he has examples he uses show that, like Theophrastus, he has in mind a kind of fear that becomes an obsession. Specifically, he mentions magical rites and taboos, the consultation of professional sorcerers and witches, charms and spells, and unintelligible language in prayers addressed to the gods.[59] Although Plutarch himself takes dreams and portents seriously, he reserves superstitious for those who have excessive or exclusive faith in such phenomena. Clearly, it is a matter of discrimination. He also takes for granted other magical practices, such as hurting someone by the evil eye, and offers an explanation of that phenomenon. He also believes in daemons that serve as agents or links between gods and human beings and are responsible for many supernatural events in human life that are commonly attributed to divine intervention. Thus, a daemon, not Apollo himself, is the real power behind the Delphic oracle. Some daemons are good, some are evil, but even the good ones, in a fit of anger, can do bad things.[60]

In general, Plutarch accepts a certain amount of what we would call "popular superstition," but he is anxious to select only what is compatible with his own philosophical doctrine, and what he selects he purifies and gives, as far as possible a rational explanation. He does not discuss ritual magic in any detail and he seems to reject astrology.

A later Platonist, Apuleius of Madaura (born c. 125 CE), gives us a substantial amount of information on contemporary beliefs in occult science. We have the speech he delivered in his own defense against the charge of magic, circa 160 CE, and from this Apologia (another title is De Magia) we learn how easy it was, at that time, for a philosopher to be accused of magiocal practices. Yet Apuleius may not have been completely above suspicion. In his novel, Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden Ass), a piece of fiction which seems to have autobiographical elements, the ehro, Lucius, dabbles in magic as a young man, gets into trouble, is rescued by the goddess Isis, and then finds true knowledge and happiness in her mysteries.[61]

Like Plutarch Apuleius firmly believed in the existence of daemons. They populated the air and were, in fact, formed of air. They experienced emotions just like human beings, and their mind was rational. In a sense, then, the human soul was also a daemon, but there were daemons who never entered bodies.[62] In his treatise On Socrates' God Apuleius presented a complete, systematic version of daemonology that was acceptable to later Platonists.

When magic is mentioned in Roman laws, it is always discussed in a negative context. A consensus was established early which viewed harmful acts (and only harmful acts) of magic as criminal. The Laws of the Twelve Tablets (451-450 BCE) expressly forbid anyone from enticing his neighbors' crops into his fields by magic. Furthermore, the maleficient arts were often considered to be identical with death by poisoning and punishable with equal severity. An actual trial for alleged violation of these laws was held before Spurius Albinus in 157 BCE.[63] Cornelius Hispallus expelled the Chaldaen astrologers from Rome in 139 BCE - ostensibly on the grounds that they were magicians.[64] In 33 BCE astrologers and magicians are explicitly mentioned as having been driven from Rome. Twenty years later, Augustus ordered all books on the occult subject to be burned. In 16 CE magicians and astrologers were expelled from Italy, which was reinstated by edicts from other Emperors in 69 CE and 89 CE. Later, Constantine issued a ruling to cover all charges of magic. In it he distinguished between helpful charms, not punishable, and antagonistic spells.[65]