CHAPTER XX

OTHER CHRISTIAN DISCUSSION OF MAGIC BEFORE AUGUSTINE
Plan of this chapter — Tertullian on magic — Astrology attacked-^ Resemblance to Minucius Felix — Lactantius — Hippolytus on magic and astrology — Frauds of magicians in answering questions — Other tricks and illusions — Defects and merits of Hippolytus' exposure of magic and of magic itself — Hippolytus' sources — Justin Martyr and others on the witch of Endor — Gregory of Nyssa and Eustathius con- cerning the ventriloquist — Gregory of Nyssa Against Fate — Astrology and the birth of Christ — Chrysostom on the star of the Magi — Sixth Homily on Matthew — The spurious homily — Number, names, and home of the Magi — Liturgical drama of the Magi; Three Kings of Cologne — Another homily on the Magi — Priscillianists answered — Number and race of the Magi again.
Plan of In this chapter we shall supplement the picture of the Chris- chapter. *^^^ attitude towards magic supplied us in preceding chap- ters by some accounts of magic in other Christian writers of the period before Augustine. After giving the opinions of a few Latin fathers, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and Lac- tantius, we shall consider the exposure of magic devices in Hippolytus' Refutation of All Heresies, then compare the utterances of other fathers concerning the witch of Endor with those of Origen, and finally discuss the treatment of the Magi and the star of Bethlehem in both the genuine and the spurious homily of Chrysostom on that theme, adding some account of the medieval development of the legend of the three Magi, although leaving until later the statements of medieval theologians and astronomers concerning the star of the Magi. This makes a rather omnibus chapter, but its component parts are too brief to separate as distinct chapters and they all supplement the preceding chapter on Origen and Celsus.
462
CHAP. XX OTHER CHRISTIAN DISCUSSION 463
Some important features of Origen's account of magic Tertullian are duplicated in the writings of the western church father, °" magic. TertulHan, who wrote at about the same time or perhaps a few years before Origen. Again the Jews are represented as calHng Christ a magician/ and when TertulHan challenges the emperors to allow a Christian exorcist to appear before them and attempt to expel a demon from someone so pos- sessed and force the spirit to confess its evil character, he expects that his Christian exorcist will be accused of em- ploying magic.^ Again divination and magic are attributed to the fallen angels; in fact, Tertullian follows the Book '
of Enoch in stating that men were instructed by the fallen angels in metallurgy and botany as well as in incantations and astrology.^ The demons are represented as invisible and "everywhere in a moment." Living as they do in the air near the clouds and stars, they are enabled to predict the weather. They send diseases and then pretend to cure them by the recommendation of novel remedies or prescrip- tions quite contrary to accepted medical practice.^ "There is hardly a human being who is unattended by a demon." ^ Magicians are described by Tertullian as producing phan- tasms, insulting the souls of the dead, injuring boys for purposes of divination, sending dreams, and performing many miraculous feats by their complicated jugglery.* "The science of magic" is well defined as "a multiform con- tagion of the human mind, an artificer of every error, a de- stroyer of safety and soul." As examples of well-known magicians Tertullian lists Ostanes and Typhon and Dar- danus and Damigeron "^ and Nectabis ^ and Berenice. Ter-
^ Tertullian, Apology, cap. 21 ; Lithica, and in the Apology of
so also Cyprian, Liber de idolorum Apuleius, cap. 45 ; is cited in the
vanitate, cap. 13. Latin text of Geoponica, and was regarded by
Tertullian in PL, vols. 1-2; Eng- V. Rose as the Greek source of
lish translation in AN, vol. 3. the Latin "Evax" and Marbod on
'Apology, cap. 23. stones. BN 7418, 14th century,
^ De cultu feminarum, I, 2. Amigeronis de lapidibus, was
* Apology, cap. 22. printed by Pitra, Spic. Solcsm.,
^ De anima, cap. 57. Ill, 324-35, and Abel, Orphei
^Apology, cap. 23. Lithica, p. 157, et seq. See fur-
'' De anima, cap. 57. Damigeron ther PW, "Damigeron."
is mentioned in the Orphic poem, * Presumably Nectanebus.
464 MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
tullian states that a literature is current which promises to evoke ghosts from the infernal regions, but that in such cases the dead are really impersonated by demons, as was the fact when the p)rthoness seemed to show Samuel to Saul, a point on which Tertullian disagrees with Origen. Magic is therefore fallacious, a point which Tertullian emphasizes more than Origen did, although Tertullian is not very ex- plicit. He avers that "it is no great task to deceive the outer eye of him whose mental insight it is easy to blind." The rods of Pharaoh's magicians seemed to turn into snakes, "but Moses' ^ reality devoured their deceit." Astrologj- Tertullian further diverges from Origen in definitely
classifying astrology as a species of magic along with that other variety of magic which works miracles. Astrology is an art which was invented by the fallen angels and with which Christians should have nothing to do. Tertullian would not mention it but for the fact that recently a certain person has defended his persistence in that profession, that is, presumably after he had become a Christian. Tertul- lian states, again unlike Origen, that the Magi who came from the east to the Christ child were astrologers — "We know the union existing between magic and astrology" — but that Christ's followers are under no obligation to as- trology on their account, although he again implies the ex- istence of Christian astrologers in the sarcastic remark, "Astrology now-a-days, forsooth, treats of Christ; is the science of the stars of Christ, not of Saturn and Mars." As Origen affirmed that the power of the demons and of magic was greatly weakened by the birth of Christ, so Ter- tullian affirm,s that the science of the stars was allowed to exist until the coming of the Gospel, but that since Christ's birth no one should cast nativities. "For since the Gospel you will never find sophist or Chaldean or enchanter or diviner or magician who has not been manifestly pun- ished." ^ Tertullian rejoices that the mathematici or as-
*It is Aaron's rod in the King ^ De idolatria, cap. 9.
James version.
XX OTHER CHRISTIAN DISCUSSION 465
trologers are forbidden to enter Rome or Italy, the reason being, as he states in another passage,^ that they are con- sulted so much in regard to the life of the emperor.
Tertullian's account of magic is perhaps borrowed from Resem- the dialogue entitled Octavius by M. Minucius Felix, ^ which Mlnucius is generally regarded as the oldest extant work of Christian Felix. Latin literature and was probably written in the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Some of the words and phrases used by Tertullian and Minucius Felix in describing magic are almost identical,^ and a third passage of the same sort appears in Cyprian of Carthage in the third century.* Ostanes, one of Tertullian's list of magicians, is also mentioned as the first prominent magician by both Minucius Felix and Cyprian. Minucius Felix ascribes magic to demons and seems to re- gard it as a deceptive and rather unreal art, saying, "The magicians not only are acquainted with demons, but what- ever miraculous feats they perform, they do through demons; under their influence and inspiration they produce illusions, making things seem to be which are not, or mak- ing real things seem non-existent."
A century after Tertullian Lactantius of Gaul treats of Lactan- magic and demons in about the same way in his Divine In- **"^* stitntes,^ written at the opening of the fourth century. He denies that Christ was a magician and declares that His miracles differed from those attributed to Apuleius and Apollonius of Tyana in that they were announced before- hand by the prophets. **He worked marvels," Lactantius says to his opponents, "and we should have thought Him a magician, as you think now and as the Jews thought at the time, had not all the prophets with one accord predicted that Christ would do these very things." ^ Lactantius believes
^Apology, cap. 35. edunt ... si multa miracula cir-
" PL, vol. 3 ; AN, vol. 4, culatoriis praestigiis ludunt."
" Thus Minucius Felix says, * Cyprian, Liber de idolorum
Octavius, cap. 26, "Magi . . . vanitate, caps. 6-7.
quidquid miraculi ludunt ... * PL, vol. VI ; AN, vol. VII ; the
praestigias edunt," while Ter- following references are all to
tullian. Apology, cap. 23, writes, this work.
"Porro si et magi phantasmata * V, 3,
466
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Hippoly- tus on magic and astrology.
that the offspring of the fallen angels and "the daughters of men" were a different variety of demon from their fathers and more terrestrial. Be that as it may, he affirms that the entire art and power of the magicians consist in invocations of demons who "deceive human vision by blinding illusions so that men do not see what does exist and think that they see what does not exist," ^ the very expression that we have just heard from Minucius Felix. More specifically Lactan- tius regards necromancy, oracles, liver-divination, augury, and astrology as all invented by the demons.^ Like Origen he emphasizes the power of the sign of the cross and the name of Jesus against the evil spirits,^ and he implies the power of the names of spirits when he states that, although demons may masquerade under other forms and names in pagan temples and worships, in magic and sorcery they are always summoned by their true names, those celestial ones which are read in sacred literature.*
From these accounts of magic in Latin fathers, which do little more than reinforce the impressions which we had already gained concerning the Christian attitude, we come to a very different discussion by Hippolytus who wrote in Greek although he lived in Italy. Eusebius and Jerome state that Origen as a young man heard Hippolytus preach at Rome; in 235 he was exiled to Sardinia; the next year his body was brought back to Rome for burial. In Hippoly- tus, instead of attacks upon astrology as impious, immoral, and fatalistij:, and upon magic as evil and the work of demons, we have an attempt to prove astrology irrational and impracticable, and to show that magic is based upon imposture and deceit. In the first four of the nine books of his Philosophiimena or Refutation of All Heresies ^ Hip- polytus set forth the tenets of the Greek philosophers, the system of the astrologers, and the practice of the magicians
'II, IS. 'II, 17. •IV, 27. MI, 17.
"The work was discovered in 1842 at Mount Athos and edited
by E. Miller in 1851, Duncker and Schneidewin in 1859, and Abbe Cruice in i860. Greek text in PG, vol. XVI, part 3 ; English transla- tion in AN, vol. V.
XX
OTHER CHRISTIAN DISCUSSION
467
In order later to be able to show how much the various here- tics had borrowed from these sources. His second and third books are not extant ; it is in the fourth book or what is left of it that we have portions of his discussion of astrology and magic.^
In exposing the frauds of magicians Hippolytus uses the word judTos, and not yo-qs, a sorcerer. He tells how the magicians pretend that the spirits give response through a medium to questions which those consulting them have written on papyrus, perhaps in invisible ink, and folded up, after which the papyrus is placed on coals and burned. The magician, however, operating in semi-darkness and making a great noise and diversion and pretending to invoke the demon, is really occupied in sprinkling the burnt papyrus with a mixture of water and copperas (vitriol?) or fumi- gating it with vapor of a gall nut or employing other meth- ods to make the concealed letters visible. Having by some such method discovered the question, he instructs the me- dium, who is now supposed to be possessed of demons and is reclining upon a couch, what answer to give by whis- pering to him through a long hidden tube constructed out of the windpipe of a crane or ten brass pipes fitted together. It will be recalled that it was by such a tube made of the windpipes of cranes that Alexander the false prophet, ac- cording to Lucian, caused the artificial head of his god to give forth oracles. Hippolytus adds that at the same time the magician produces alarming flames and liquids by such chemical mixtures as fossil salts and Etruscan wax and a grain of salt. "And when this is consumed, the salts bound upward and give the impression of a strange vision." ^
Hippolytus also reveals how magicians secretly fill eggs with dyes, how they cause sheep to behead themselves against a sword by smearing their throats with a drug which makes them itch, how a ram dies if its head is merely bent back facing the sun, how they obstruct the ears of goats with
* R. Ganschinietz, Hippolyto^ text.
Frauds of magicians in answer- ing ques- tions.
Other tricks and illusions.
Capitel gegen die Magier, 1913, in TU, 39, 2, is a commentary on the
28.
'Refutation of All Heresies, IV,
468
MAGIC AND EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE chap.
Defects and merits of Hippo- lytus' ex- posure of magic and of magic itself.
wax SO that they cannot breathe and presently die of suffo- cation, how out of sea foam they make a compound which, like alcohol, will itself burn but not consume the objects over which it is poured.-^ He tells how the magician pro- duces stage thunder, how he is able to plunge his hand into a boiling cauldron or walk over hot coals without being burnt, and how he can set a seeming pyramid of stone on fire. He tells how the magicians loosen seals and seal them up again, just as Lucian did in his Alexander or The Pseudo- Prophet; how by means of trap-doors, mirrors, and the like devices they show demons in a cauldron; how they pretend to show flaming demons by igniting drawings which they have sketched on the wall with some inflammable substance or by loosing a bird which has been set on fire. They make the moon appear indoors and imitate the starry sky by at- taching fish scales to the ceiling. They produce the sensa- tion of an earthquake by burning the ordure of a weasel with the stone magnet upon an open fire. They construct a false skull from the caul of an ox, some wax, and some gum, make it speak by means of a hidden tube, and then cause it suddenly to collapse and disappear or to burn up.^
This exposition of the frauds of the magicians by Hippo- lytus is rather broken and incoherent, at least in the form in which his text has reached us.^ Also we do not have much more faith in some of the methods by which he says the feats of magic are really done than he has in the ways by which the magicians claim to perform them. But while his notions of the chemical action of certain substances and of the occult virtue of others may be incorrect, the note-
* Since writing this sentence I have found an article by Diels on the discovery of alcohol in So- cietas Regia Scientiarum, Abhandl. Philos.-Hist. Classe, Berlin, 1913, in which he argues from this passage in Hippolytus that the discovery was made in the Alex- andrian period and that it reached western Europe again only through the Arabs about the twelfth century, since alcohol is
not mentioned in the older Schlettstadt version of the Mappae clazncufa. If this be so, Adelard of Bath was perhaps the first to introduce it from the Arabs or the orient, although Diels does not say so.
^Refutation of All Heresies, IV, 29-41.
' In some places the text is il- legible.
XX OTHER CHRISTIAN DISCUSSION 469
worthy point is that he endeavors to explain magic either as a deception or as employing natural substances and forces to simulate supernatural action, and that his exposure of magic devices leaves no place for the action of demons. Moreover, v^e see that magic fraud involves chemical ex- periment and considerable knowledge or error in the field of natural science. Under the guise or tyranny of magic experimental science is at work.
The question then arises whether Hippolytus himself Hippoly discovered these tricks of the magicians or whether he is sources, simply copying his explanations of them from some previous work. An examination of the earlier chapters of his fourth