MAGIC AMONG THE GREEKS AND ROMANS.
The Greeks have always boasted that they received the art of magic
from the Persians, or the Bactrians. They affirm that Zoroaster
communicated it to them; but when we wish to know the exact time at
which Zoroaster lived, and when he taught them these pernicious
secrets, they wander widely from the truth, and even from probability;
some placing Zoroaster 600 years before the expedition of Xerxes into
Greece, which happened in the year of the world 3523, and before Jesus
Christ 477; others 500 years before the Trojan war; others 5000 years
before that famous war; others 6000 years before that great event.
Some believe that Zoroaster is the same as Ham, the son of Noah.
Lastly, others maintain that there were several Zoroasters. What
appears indubitably true is, that the worship of a plurality of gods,
as also magic, superstition, and oracles, came from the Egyptians and
Chaldeans, or Persians, to the Greeks, and from the Greeks to the
Latins.
From the time of Homer,[153] magic was quite common among the Greeks.
That poet speaks of the cure of wounds, and of blood staunched by the
secrets of magic, and by enchantment. St. Paul, when at Ephesus,
caused to be burned there books of magic and curious secrets, the
value of which amounted to the sum of 50,000 pieces of silver.[154] We
have before said a few words concerning Simon the magician, and the
magician Elymas, known in the Acts of the Apostles.[155] Pindar
says[156] that the centaur Chiron cured several enchantments. When
they say that Orpheus rescued from hell his wife Eurydice, who had
died from the bite of a serpent, they simply mean that he cured her by
the power of charms.[157] The poets have employed magic verses to make
themselves beloved, and they have taught them to others for the same
purpose; they may be seen in Theocritus, Catullus, and Virgil.
Theophrastus affirms that there are magical verses which cure
sciatica. Cato mentions (or repeats) some against luxations.[158]
Varro admits that there are some powerful against the gout.
The sacred books testify that enchanters have the secret of putting
serpents to sleep, and of charming them, so that they can never either
bite again or cause any more harm.[159] The crocodile, that terrible
animal, fears even the smell and voice of the Tentyriens.[160] Job,
speaking of the leviathan, which we believe to be the crocodile, says,
"Shall the enchanter destroy it?"[161] And in Ecclesiasticus, "Who
will pity the enchanter that has been bitten by the serpent?"[162]
Everybody knows what is related of the Marsi, people of Italy, and of
the Psyllae, who possessed the secret of charming serpents. One would
say, says St. Augustine,[163] that these animals understand the
languages of the Marsi, so obedient are they to their orders; we see
them come out of their caverns as soon as the Marsian has spoken. All
this can only be done, says the same father, by the power of the
malignant spirit, whom God permits to exercise this empire over
venomous reptiles, above all, the serpent, as if to punish him for
what he did to the first woman. In fact, it may be remarked that no
animal is more exposed to charms, and the effects of magic art, than
the serpent.
The laws of the Twelve Tables forbid the charming of a neighbor's
crops, _qui fruges excantasset_. Valerius Flaccus quotes authors who
affirm that when the Romans were about to besiege a town, they
employed their priests to evoke the divinity who presided over it,
promising him a temple in Rome, either like the one dedicated to him
in the besieged place, or on a rather larger scale, and that the
proper worship should be paid to him. Pliny says that the memory of
these evocations is preserved among the priests.
If that which we have just related, and what we read in ancient and
modern writers, is at all real, and produces the effects attributed to
it, it cannot be doubted that there is something supernatural in it,
and that the devil has a great share in the matter.
The Abbot Trithemius speaks of a sorceress who, by means of certain
beverages, changed a young Burgundian into a beast.
Everybody knows the fable of Circe, who changed the soldiers or
companions of Ulysses into swine. We know also the fable of the Golden
Ass, by Apuleius, which contains the account of a man metamorphosed
into an ass. I bring forward these things merely as what they are,
that is to say, simply poetic fictions.
But it is very credible that these fictions are not destitute of some
foundation, like many other fables, which contain not only a hidden
and moral sense, but which have also some relation to an event really
historical: for instance, what is said of the Golden Fleece carried
away by Jason; of the Wooden Horse, made use of to surprise the city
of Troy; the Twelve Labors of Hercules; the metamorphoses related by
Ovid. All fabulous as those things appear in the poets, they have,
nevertheless, their historical truth. And thus the pagan poets and
historians have travestied and disguised the stories of the Old
Testament, and have attributed to Bacchus, Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo,
and Hercules, what is related of Noah, Moses, Aaron, Samson, and
Jonah, &c.
Origen, writing against Celsus, supposes the reality of magic, and
says that the Magi who came to adore Jesus Christ at Bethlehem,
wishing to perform their accustomed operations, not being able to
succeed, a superior power preventing the effect and imposing silence
on the demon, they sought out the cause, and beheld at the same time a
divine sign in the heavens, whence they concluded that it was the
Being spoken of by Balaam, and that the new King whose birth he had
predicted, was born in Judea, and immediately they resolved to go and
seek him. Origen believes that magicians, according to the rules of
their art, often foretell the future, and that their predictions are
followed by the event, unless the power of God, or that of the angels,
prevents the effect of their conjurations, and puts them to
silence.[164]
Footnotes:
[153] Homer, Iliad, IV.
[154] Acts xix. 19.
[155] Acts viii. 9; xiii. 8.
[156] Pind. Od. iv.
[157] Plin. I. 28.
[158] Cato de Rerustic. c. 160.
[159] Psalm lvii. Jer. vii. 17. Eccles. x. 11.
[160] Plin. lib. viii. c. 50.
[161] Job xl. 25.
[162] Ecclus. xii. 13.
"Frigidus in pratis cantando rumpitur anguis."--_Virgil_, Ecl. viii.
"Vipereas rumpo verbis et carmine fauces."--_Ovid._
[163] Plin. lib. xxviii.
[164] The fables of Jason and many others of the same class are said
by Fortuitus Comes to have a reference to alchemy.