"New Presbyter," says Milton, "is but old priest writ large." Old
priest, it may be said, is but older sorcerer in disguise. In early
times religion and magic were intimately associated; indeed, it may be
said they were one and the same. The earliest religion being the
belief in spirits, the earliest worship is an attempt to influence or
propitiate them by means that can only be described as magical; the
belief in spirits and in magic both being founded on dreams. Medicine
men and sorcerers were the first priests. Herbert Spencer says
(_Principles of Sociology_, sec. 589): "A satisfactory distinction
between priests and medicine men is difficult to find. Both are
concerned with supernatural agents, which in their original form are
ghosts; and their ways of dealing with these supernatural agents are
so variously mingled, that at the outset no clear classification can be
made." Among the Patagonians the same men officiate in the "threefold
capacity of priests, magicians and doctors"; and among the North
American Indians the functions of "sorcerer, prophet, physician,
exorciser, priest, and rain doctor" are united.
Everywhere we find the priests are magicians. Their authority rests on
imagined and dreaded power.
They are supposed by their spells and incantations to have power over
nature, or rather the spirits supposed to preside over it. Hence they
became the rulers of the people. The modern priest, who is supposed by
muttering a formula to change the nature of consecrated elements or by
his prayers to bring blessings on the people, betrays his lineal descent
from the primitive rain-makers and sorcerers of savagery.
The Bible is full of magic and sorcery. Its heroes are magicians, from
Jahveh Elohim, who puts Adam into a sleep and then makes woman from his
rib, to Jesus who casts out devils and cures blindness with clay and
spittle, and whose followers perform similar works by the power of his
name. The most esteemed persons among the Jews were magicians. Pious
Jacob cheats his uncle by a species of magic with peeled rods. Joseph
not only tells fortunes by interpreting dreams but has a divining cup
(Gen. xliv. 5), doubtless similar to the magic bowls used to the present
day in Egypt, in which, as described by Lane in his _Modern Egyptians_,
a boy looks and pretends to see images of the future in water.
The fourth chapter of Exodus gives the initiation of Moses into the
magician's art by Jahveh, the great adept, who changes the rod of
Moses into a serpent and back again into a rod; suddenly makes his hand
leprous, and as suddenly restores it. Moses and Aaron show themselves
superior magicians to those at the court of Pharaoh, who, when Aaron
cast down his magic rod and it became a serpent, did in like manner with
their rods, which also became serpents, though Aaron's rod swallowed up
their rods (Exodus vii. 11,12). Upon this passage the learned Methodist
commentator, Dr. Adam Clarke, writing at an age when the belief in
witchcraft was almost extinct, after remarking that such feats evidently
required something more than jugglery, observes: "How much more rational
at once to allow that these magicians had familiar spirits who could
assume all shapes, change the appearance of the subjects on which they
operated, or suddenly convey one thing away and substitute another in
its place."
Aaron also used his rod to change _all_ the water into blood, a feat
which the Egyptian magicians also contrived to perform--we presume with
the aid of spirits. If you believe in spirits, there is no end to the
supposition of what they might do. The magic rod of Moses is used to
divide the water of the Red Sea, so that the children went through the
midst of the sea on dry ground (Ex. xiv. 16), and to draw water from
a rock (Num. xx. 8). Aaron's rod blossoms miraculously to show the
superiority of the tribe of Levi (Num. xvii. 8).
The Urim and Thummin of Aaron's breastplate were also magical articles
used in divination (see Num. xxviii. 21; 1 Sam. xxiii. 9, and xxx. 7,
8). Casting lots was another method of divination often referred to in
the Bible. Prov. xvi. 31, says "The lot is cast into the lap, but the
whole disposing thereof is with the Lord." It was because "when Saul
inquired of Jahveh, Jahveh answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by
Urim, nor by prophets" (1 Sam. xxviii. 6), that he resorted to the witch
of Endor. The ephod and holy plate (Ex. xxviii.), and the phylacteries
worn as frontlets between the eyes (Deut. vi. 8), were magical amulets.
Modern Arabs wear scraps of the Koran in a similar way. The holy oil
(Ex. xxx.) and the water of jealousy (Num. v.) were magical, as was
also the brazen serpent, adored down to the days of Hezekiah. The great
Wizard's ark was also endowed with magical powers, bringing with it
victory and punishing those who infringed its tabu; it was taken
into battle. His sanctuary was also called an oracle where the priest
"inquired of the Lord" (2 Sam. xvi. 23; 1 Kings vi. 16).
The teraphim were also magical, as we learn from Ezek. xxi. 21, where
the word is translated "images." The prophet Hosea, one of the very
earliest of the Old Testament writers (about 740), announced as a
misfortune that "the children of Israel shall abide many days without
a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an
image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim." Laban, although a
believer in Elohim, calls the teraphim "his gods" (Genesis xxxi. 29,
30), and so does Micah (Judges xviii. 18-24). The latter chapter shows
that the teraphim were worshipped and served by the descendants of Moses
down to the time of David (see Revised Version). David's wife Michal
kept one in the house (1 Sam. xix. 13). It was evidently a fetish
in human shape. How comes it, then, one may ask, that divination and
sorcery are denounced in Deuteronomy xviii.? The answer is simple. The
Deutoronomic law was first found in the time of Josiah, B.C. 641 (see
2 Kings xxii. 8-11), and there is abundant evidence it was not known
before that time. Josiah, as we learn from 2 Kings xxiii. 24, put away
"the familiar spirits, and the wizards and the teraphim and the idols,"
as Hezekiah (b.c. 726) had destroyed the brazen serpent. Not only had
Jezebel practised witchcraft (2 Kings ix. 22), but Manasseh, the son
of Hezekiah, "dealt with a familiar spirit and with wizards" (2 Chron.
xxxiii. 6). These, it may be said, were wicked persons.
Yet another piece of evidence is derived from the fact that _Nashon_,
the chief of the tribe of Judah and one of the ancestry of the blessed
Savior, signifies "enchanter." Zechariah (b.c. 580) shows the great
advance made from the time of Hosea by declaring that "the teraphim have
spoken vanity, and the diviners have seen a lie, and have told false
dreams" (x. 2).
Samuel, like other early priests, was ruler and weather doctor, Elijah
was a corpse restorer and rain com-peller. Elisha not only inherited
his mantle, but also raised the dead and multiplied food. His very
bones proved magical. Jesus Christ was a great wonderworker or magician,
casting out devils, turning water into wine, healing diseases even by
the touch of his magical robe, and finally levitating from earth.
The charge brought against Jesus by the Jews was that he had stolen
the sacred Word and by it wrought miracles. We read in the Gospels that
Jesus "cast out spirits with his word" (Matt. viii. 16). Jesus promised
that in his _name_ his disciples should cast out devils, and Peter
declared that his name healed the lame (Acts iii. 16). When the Jews
asked, "By what power, or by what name have we done this" (Acts iv. 7),
Peter answered, "By the name of Jesus Christ." Paul says, "God hath...
given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus
every knee should bow in heaven and in earth and under the earth"
(Philip ii. 9, 10).
Any careful reader of the Bible must have been struck with the frequency
with which "the name of the Lord" is mentioned, and the care not to
profane that name. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in
vain" is the second commandment, and Christians still speak of God "in
a bondsman's key with bated breath and whispering humbleness," for no
better reason than this old superstition. In Leviticus xxiv. 11 and
16, the word translated by us "blasphemeth" was by the Jews rendered
"pronounces," so that the son of the Israelitish woman was stoned to
death for pronouncing the ineffable name of J.H.V.H. The Talmud say "He
who attempts to pronounce it shall have no part in the world to come."
Once a year only, on the day of Atonement, was the high priest allowed
to whisper the word, even as at the present day "the word" is whispered
in Masonic lodges. The Hebrew Jehovah dates only from the Massoretic
invention of points. When the Rabbis began to insert the vowel-points
they had lost the true pronunciation of the sacred name. To the letters
J. H. V. H. they put the vowels of Edonai or Adonai, _lord_ or _master_,
the name which in their prayers they substitute for Jahveh. Moses wanted
to know the name of the god of the burning bush. He was put off with the
formula I am that I am. Jahveh having lost his name has become "I was
but am not." When Jacob wrestled with the god, angel, or ghost, he
demanded his name. The wary angel did not comply (Gen. xxxii. 29.) So
the father of Samson begs the angel to say what is his name. "And the
angel of the Lord said unto him, why asketh thou thus after my name
seeing it is _secret_" (Judges xiii. 18). All this superstition can be
traced to the belief that to know the names of persons was to acquire
power over them.
In process of time the priest displaces the sorcerer, while still
retaining certain of his functions. The gods of a displaced religion are
regarded as devils and their worship as sorcery. Much of the persecution
of witchcraft which went on in the ages when Christianity was dominant
was really the extirpation of the surviving rites of Paganism. It is
curious that it is always the more savage races that are believed to
have the greatest magical powers. Dr. E. B. Tylor says: "In the Middle
Ages the name of Finn was, as it still remains among seafaring men,
equivalent to that of sorcerer, while Lapland witches had a European
celebrity as practitioners of the black art. Ages after the Finns
had risen in the social scale, the Lapps retained much of their old
half-savage habit of life, and with it naturally their witchcraft, so
that even the magic-gifted Finns revered the occult powers of a people
more barbarous than themselves."
The same writer continues*: "Among the early Christians, sorcery was
recognised as illegal miracle; and magic arts, such as turning men into
beasts, calling up familiar demons, raising storms, etc., are mentioned,
not in a sceptical spirit, but with reprobation. In the changed
relations of the state to the church under Constantine, the laws against
magic served the new purpose of proscribing the rites of the Greek and
Roman religion, whose oracles, sacrifices and auguries, once carried on
under the highest public sanction, were put under the same ban with the
low arts of the necromancer and the witch. As Christianity extended its
sway over Europe, the same antagonism continued, the church striving
with considerable success to put down at once the old local religions,
and the even older practices of witchcraft; condemning Thor and Woden
as demons, they punished their rites in common with those of the
sorceresses who bewitched their neighbors and turned themselves into
wolves or cats. Thus gradually arose the legal persecution of witches
which went on through the Middle Ages under ecclesiastical sanction both
Catholic and Protestant."
* Encyclopedia Britannica, article "Magic."
But the religion of Christendom contained scarcely less elements of
magical practices than that of Paganism. In the early Christian Church
a considerable section of its ministry was devoted to the casting out of
devils. Regulations concerning the same were contained in the canons
of the Church of England. The magical power of giving absolution and
remission of sins is still claimed in our national Church. Throughout
the course of Christianity, indeed, magical effects have been ascribed
to religious rites and consecrated objects.
Viktor Rydberg, the Swedish author of an interesting work on _The Magic
of the Middle Ages_, says (p. 85): "Every monastery has its master
magician, who sells _agni Dei_, conception billets, magic incense,
salt and tapers which have been consecrated on Candlemas Day, palms
consecrated on Palm Sunday, flowers besprinkled with holy water on
Ascension Day, and many other appliances belonging to the great magical
apparatus of the Church."
Bells are consecrated to this day, because they were supposed to have a
magical effect in warding off demons. Their efficacy for this purpose is
specifically asserted by St. Thomas Aquinas, the greatest doctor of the
Church, who lays it down that the changeableness of the weather is owing
to the constant conflict between good and bad spirits.
Baptism is another magical process. There are people still in England
who think harm will come to a child if it is not christened. In
Christian baptism we have the magical invocation of certain names, those
of the ever-blessed Trinity. The names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
were used as spells to ward off demons. The process is supposed to have
a magical efficacy, and is as much in the nature of a charm as making
the sign of the cross with holy water, or the unction with holy oil, as
a preparation for death. So important was it considered that the saving
water should prevent demoniac power, that holy squirts were used to
bring magical liquid in contact with the child before it saw the light!
The doctrine of salvation through blood is nothing but a survival of the
faith in magic. Volumes might be written on the belief in the magical
efficacy of blood as a sacrifice, a cementer of kinship, and a means of
evoking protecting spirits. Blood baths for the cure of certain diseases
were used in Egypt and mediæval Europe. Longfellow alludes to this
superstition in his _Golden Legend_:
The only remedy that remains
Is the blood that flows from a maiden's veins,
Who of her own free will shall die,
And give her life as the price of yours!
This is the strangest of all cures,
And one I think, you will never try.
The changing of the bread and wine of the Christian sacrament into the
body and blood of God is evidently a piece of magic, dependent on the
priestly magical formula. The affinities of the Christian communion with
savage superstition are so many that they deserve to be treated in a
separate article. Meanwhile let it be noticed that priests lay much
stress upon the Blessed Sacrament, for it is this which invests them
with magical functions and the awe and reverence consequent upon belief
therein.
Formulated prayers are of the nature of magical spells or invocations.
A prayer-book is a collection of spells for fine weather, rain, or other
blessings. The Catholic soldier takes care to be armed with a blessed
scapular to guard off stray bullets, or, in the event of the worst
coming, to waft his soul into heaven. The Protestant smiles at this
superstition, but mutters a prayer for the self-same purpose. In essence
the procedure is the same. The earliest known Egyptian and Chaldean
psalms and hymns are spells against sorcery or the influence of evil
spirits, just as the invocation taught to Christian children--
Matthew, Mark, Luke And John
Bless The Bed That I Lie On.
The belief in magic, though it shows a survival in Theosophy, as ghost
belief does in Spiritism, is dying slowly; and with it, in the long run,
must die those religious doctrines and practices founded upon it. No
magic can endure scientific scrutiny. Almost expelled from the physical
world, it takes refuge in the domain of psychology; but there, too, it
is being gradually ousted, though it still affords a profitable area for
charlantanry.
Lucian has a story how Pancrates, wanting a servant, took a door-bar
and pronounced over it magical words, whereon he stood up, brought him
water, turned a spit, and did all the other tasks of a slave. What
is this, asks Emerson, but a prophecy of the progress of art? Moses
striking water from the rock was inferior to Sir Hugh Middleton bringing
a water supply to London.
Jesus walking on the water was nothing to crossing the Atlantic by
steam. The only true magic is that of science, which is a conquest of
the human mind, and not a phantasy of superstition.