Belief in the power of the eyil eye was just as prevalent in Semitic lands as in those of classical antiquity. Especially were women with an ugly squint or strange look or contracted heavy eye- brows considered to possess powers of the evil eye (see art. Magic, vol. iii. p. 208').
Tradition ascribed the belief in the power of the evil eye to Babylonia. Rab lived in Babylonia, where the evil eye is often found (Jerus. Shabbath 14c**; cf. Bnba mezin 1076, above). It is said of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, that after they were delivered from the fier3- furnace they fell victims to the many eyes which were fixed on them. According to Baba bathra i. 18, Joshua commanded the sons of Joseph to conceal them- selves in the wood in order that they might not be overpowered by the evil eye (Jos n'"). Men of distinction were specially exposed to this evil. But the tradition prevailed that descendants of Joseph were exempt. Thus when the distinguished and handsome Raljbi Jochanan was asked whether he did not fear the evil eye, he replied, ' I am of the seed of Joseph, who are not injured by the evil eye ' (BerakhOth 20a, below). It was recom- mended as a precaution, if one is about to enter a town and is afraid of the evil eye, to place the right thumb in the left hand and the left thumb in tlie right hand and say, ' I am N. son of N., and am descended from the seed of Joseph.' Another preservative was to look <in the left side of the nose.
SORCERY
SORCERY
605
Horses were preserved from the power of tlie evil eye by hanging a fox's tail or a scarlet thre:iil between the ej-es. Children were more frequently
{)rovided with amulets than adults, and those tlu-y leld in their hand (Shabbath 106, 616). Children have naturally a weaker power of resistance to evil influence or fascination than adults. Hence an in.scribed card or leaf (TiTTdKioi-) or other kind of amulet was hunn; around the neck. A Jewish amulet would contain the letters of the nrime of Deity and various extracts from the Torah. It would also contain the name of the person to be protected.
Kven articles of furniture or vessels were pro- tected in this manner. Handles and pedestals were inscribed with the Divine name. Especially the betlstead was guarded in this way against en- chantment. The blessing in Nu6""^was intended to protect Israel against the evil eye. Indeed the Torah itself was designed by God as a defence against evil (Wmjiiikra rabbn, c. 25, ndinit.).
The magic of the evil ej'e is a topic avoided in the Mishna, and the attitude of orthodox Judaism towards the entire subjrct of sorcery was hostile, and in this respect coincided with the spirit and teaching of St. Paul, who regarded sorcery as belonging to the sphere of the Mpycia tou -aTanS. and ^pfiahla as one of the products ((pya) of the Itesli (Gal S-""). This attitude of Judaism rested on the ancient precepts of the Torah, even the most primitive code (Ex 22", cf. Dt 18'") containing prohibitions and death penalties directed against sorcerer and sorceress.
The causes of this ancient antagonism between religion and magic, which certainly existed, though far from universal, e\'idtntly lie in some funda- mental distinction betwcm tlie two, which we h.ave all jady endiMvoured to elucidate in the opening pages of the art. Magic. The subject has been ably discussed in Frazer's Golden Bou(jh(\. ]>. 61 ft". ), but not with complete success, since the writer refuses to admit what the researches of Tj'lor and others liave m.-ide clear, viz. that ancient culture in all its manifold forms rests upon a primitive basis of animism, an interpretation of life wh(?reby man surrounded him.self with a cosmic society of personal agencies. Krazer considers that the few cases cited, ' in which the operation of spirits is assumed, and an attempt made to win their favour by prayer and sacrifice,' are exceptional. ' Wher- ever sympathetic magic occurs in its pure un- adulterated form, it assumes that in nature one event follows another necessarilj' and invariably without the intervention of any spirit^ml or personal agency.' The (inal negative clause of this sen- tence, which we have italicized, lacks historic proof. The most ancient inscribed documents of human life, discovered in Babylonia and Egypt, point to the opposite conclusion, that in man's primitive condition magic was closely interwoven with a belief in gods and demons. That in some more recent examples of sympathetic magic the primitive elements of spiritual belief have dis- appeared, and nothing apparently* remains but the assumption that 'in nature one event follows another necessarily and invariably,' we may with certain limitations admit to be true. In some exponents of ' modern .science ' we observe a similar process of the attrition of a belief in or recogni- tion of an ultimate Personal Cause which sustains ' nature's unchanging harnionj'.' But without the assumption of a primitive belief in personal agen- cies, how can we explain the constant employ-
• We nay *ap|iarently,' because miHsionaries from Central Africa, where iim^'ic abounds (we refer particularly to the Rev. Hurry Johnson), have informed the present writer that natives •re vcr)' reticent with rejrard to their beliefs on to what under- lies their frvctlce. Moreover, belief in spirits thev certainly paneM.