In the definition, or rather description, above
iven we have had chiefly in view the usages and liefs of the Christian era and the ages that pre- ceded it. In other words, magic is regarded as the outgrowth of demonology, the necessary accom- iment of a belief in demons. To quote once more from Blau’s treatise: ‘These spirits the magician endeavours by his occult methods to bring under his power, or to compel them to carry out his will. he conceptions respecting the nature and power of these spirits, whom man can make serviceable to himself, differ with the different races. This does not, however, alter the essential fact. Belief in demons and belief in magic are in- separable the one from the other’ (p. 7). As it is not the purpose of this article, contributed to a Bible Dictionary, to travel beyond the confines of the subject in its biblical relations, we shall con- tent ourselves with the above conception of magic based on the animistic interpretation of the universe out of which demonology arose + (see article DEMON, DEVIL, vol. i. p. 590). It must be premised, how- ever, that demonology does not wholly explain magic in all its varied forms and ramifications.
Investigation of the historic sources of the magical beliefs and practices of Israel leads us to ancient Egypt and Babylonia—more especially the latter. In both magic was highly developed, and penetrated deeply into the life of the people. In
* See Lehmann, td. p. 31f.
+ Tylor (Prim, Culture i. p. 116), basing his generalization on a broad survey of savage life, modern superstition and folk-lore, finds the psychology of magic in faulty association of ideas. ‘ By δ vast mass of evidence from savage, barbaric, and civilized life, magic arts, which have resul from thus mis- taking an ideal for ἃ real connexion, may be clearly traced from the lower culture which they are of to the higher culture which
they are in. Such are the practices whereby a distant person {a to be affected by acting on something closely associated with
him, his a tga! clothes he has bee and above all cuttings
from his hair and nails.’ This is, no doubt, largely true. But the saacley ἢ e in Tylor’s work clearly shows that the theory must be supplemented thoy assumption of demonology or a belief in the sorcerer, 9 bo is a quasi-demon.
;| prepare the food for the deceased.
* MAGIC, MAGICIAN
both we fortunately have access to ancient docu- ments in considerable abundance belonging to an age far anterior to the Exile and even the Regal period in Hebrew history.
Erman’s instructive work, Life in Ancient Eqypt, describes vividly the magical conceptions and prac- tices that prevailed in the Nile Valley. As in Babylonia, magic was one of the most potent influences in the intellectual and moral life of ancient Egypt. ‘The belief that there were words and actions by which they could produce an effect on the powers of nature, upon every living being, upon animals, and even upon gods, was indissolubly connected with all the actions of the Egyptians’ (p. 352). It infected their funeral ceremonies. Wooden figures were supposed to do the work or These with stone geese and wooden models of kitchens had been endowed through incantations with magical
wer. Even gods availed themselves of magic ormulz to constrain each other, or wore amulets. Isis pre-eminently was mistress of magic. Her name was placed on amulets worn by the deceased as a protection, and it was also used in medicines prepared for the living. The underlying concep- tion in many of the formule employed was that in the history of one of the gods some good fortune came to the deity. The magician for the time regarded himself as identified with the god, and would repeat the words which the god had spoken on that occasion, and he might even designate himself as the god. Erman cites the example (p. 353)—
* Thou art not above me—I am Amon, Iam Anhor, the beautiful slayer, I am the prince, the Lord of the Sword,’ etc., by which crocodiles were conjured.
In the description of the great trial for high treason—a harem conspiracy against Rameses II. (contained in the judiciary papyrus of Turin, papy- rus Lee and papyrus Kollin)—we read that ‘ the royal superintendent of the cows, a man of high rank, procured a magical book from the Pharaoh’s own library, and according to its directions made certain wax figures which were smuggled into the palace, where they were supposed to cause lameness and illness’ (Erman, p. 143). Magic and medicine were closely bound up with one another in Egypt asin Babylonia. Our chief authority on this sub- ject is the great papyrus Ebers. In order that a special remedy might be effective, certain incanta- tions were pronounced over it. The following formula, we learn from the above papyrus, was recited in the a See aci of all medicines; ‘That Isis might make free, make free. That Isis might make Horus free from all evil that his brother Set had done to him when he slew his father Osiris. O Isis, great enchantress, free me, release me from all evil red things, from the fever of the god and the fever of the goddess, from death, and death from pain, and the pain which comes over me; as thou hast freed, as thou hast released thy son Horus, whilst I enter into the fire and go forth from the water,’ etc. (Ebers, i. 12 ff). From the same authority we can readily perceive the dense ignorance of Egyptian doctors respecting the in- ternal organism and its parts. They had a vague conception of the heart as the centre of the circula- tory system, as well as some knowledge of the bones and large viscera, but respecting the eti- ology of disease knew nothing. Diseases they, like other ancients, ascribed to demons. The body was divided into 36 parts, and over each part a demon presided, and in case of disease he was addressed in order that restoration to health might follow. From the Book of the Dead we learn that in the case of a dead body the different parts of the body fell to the care of respective deities. Thus Nu