Steve Seven's Blog - Posts Tagged "christianity-and-gnosticism"
Is Magic Compatible with Christianity?
This is a small extract from the introduction to my book, "Ba'al Zebul: Lord of the Manor."
The earliest depictions we have of Jesus portray him as a magician, using a wand or staff as an aid in his wondrous feats. These sculptures and paintings have been found in Roman excavations dated to the third and fourth centuries. For many modern Christians, however, such images would be considered heretical because the Church today assumes that Jesus performed miracles and the power of magic is given by God's adversary: Satan. The problem with this perspective is that the situation was not defined in such black and white terms by the early Church as has been presumed.
As will be demonstrated in this book, the concept of a 'miracle' is anachronistic to use when engaging with ancient texts. The term, in the modern world subsequent to the 'Age of Reason,' means something that happens outside of the natural order but this concept was foreign to people in the first century. For the gospel writers and their audiences these events may have been extra-ordinary, they may have also carried divine significance and symbolism, but they were not dependent on an outside, 'supernatural' intervention for their occurrence. These 'signs and wonders' were considered part of the inherent, albeit infrequent, operations of nature.
Another conservative apologetic is to set the category of magic against one of religion and attempt to make a distinction between the two. The term 'religion,' however, is also a modern invention and, again, there is no equivalent word or concept to be found in Greek, the language used by the writers of the New Testament (NT), nor in the Jewish conceptualization of the ancient and Classical periods. What we term 'religion' was a dynamic that was not isolated from the larger culture in ancient times.
We cannot separate magic from religion simply by the modern construction and definition of words. The further we examine religions, the more we see that they are steeped with strains of sorcerous forces. The term 'sorcery' is closely related to magic and, in this series, it will be used to mean communicating with entities in the spirit world so as to be empowered by them in the material dimension.
This is an important theme to consider. What is the difference, for example, between praying to God for help or guidance and reciting a magical spell or invoking an otherworldly spirit? The answer to this is not as self-evident as it may seem. According to cultural historians, these lines are much more blurred than has been accepted by the modern church. The institute of saying prayers and the formal mass in the Catholic Church were both considered of magical efficacy up until the late middle ages (Thomas: 1971.36f) and the role of the priest in the transmutation of the elements was also considered magical. (Thorndike: 1923.168f; 1934.23f).
We could take this further and ask; 'what is the difference between the charismatic speaking a word of God in their church and the same procedure when it occurs in a pagan ritual?' One is called 'prophecy' and the other 'oracle,' but the motivation for guidance from the forces of the unseen world is the same and many of the mechanical operations involved in both have noticeable affinities. Ba'al Zebul: The Lord of the Manor. Magic and Sorcery in the Early Church I
The earliest depictions we have of Jesus portray him as a magician, using a wand or staff as an aid in his wondrous feats. These sculptures and paintings have been found in Roman excavations dated to the third and fourth centuries. For many modern Christians, however, such images would be considered heretical because the Church today assumes that Jesus performed miracles and the power of magic is given by God's adversary: Satan. The problem with this perspective is that the situation was not defined in such black and white terms by the early Church as has been presumed.
As will be demonstrated in this book, the concept of a 'miracle' is anachronistic to use when engaging with ancient texts. The term, in the modern world subsequent to the 'Age of Reason,' means something that happens outside of the natural order but this concept was foreign to people in the first century. For the gospel writers and their audiences these events may have been extra-ordinary, they may have also carried divine significance and symbolism, but they were not dependent on an outside, 'supernatural' intervention for their occurrence. These 'signs and wonders' were considered part of the inherent, albeit infrequent, operations of nature.
Another conservative apologetic is to set the category of magic against one of religion and attempt to make a distinction between the two. The term 'religion,' however, is also a modern invention and, again, there is no equivalent word or concept to be found in Greek, the language used by the writers of the New Testament (NT), nor in the Jewish conceptualization of the ancient and Classical periods. What we term 'religion' was a dynamic that was not isolated from the larger culture in ancient times.
We cannot separate magic from religion simply by the modern construction and definition of words. The further we examine religions, the more we see that they are steeped with strains of sorcerous forces. The term 'sorcery' is closely related to magic and, in this series, it will be used to mean communicating with entities in the spirit world so as to be empowered by them in the material dimension.
This is an important theme to consider. What is the difference, for example, between praying to God for help or guidance and reciting a magical spell or invoking an otherworldly spirit? The answer to this is not as self-evident as it may seem. According to cultural historians, these lines are much more blurred than has been accepted by the modern church. The institute of saying prayers and the formal mass in the Catholic Church were both considered of magical efficacy up until the late middle ages (Thomas: 1971.36f) and the role of the priest in the transmutation of the elements was also considered magical. (Thorndike: 1923.168f; 1934.23f).
We could take this further and ask; 'what is the difference between the charismatic speaking a word of God in their church and the same procedure when it occurs in a pagan ritual?' One is called 'prophecy' and the other 'oracle,' but the motivation for guidance from the forces of the unseen world is the same and many of the mechanical operations involved in both have noticeable affinities. Ba'al Zebul: The Lord of the Manor. Magic and Sorcery in the Early Church I
