Magic in the Roman World: Pagans, Jews and Christians

ISBN-13: 9780415202077 / Angielski / Miękka / 2001 / 160 str.

Naomi Janowitz

Opis

This volume demonstrates that the word magic was widely employed in late antique texts as part of polemical attacks on enemies - but at the simplest level it was merely a term used for other people's rituals. The study begins by analyzing Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman uses of the term in the first three centuries AD. The author then turns to a series of in-depth examples of magical practice - exorcisms, love rites, alchemy and the transformation of humans into divine beings, examining how such rituals were thought to work. The book ends with an exploration of issues of gender and magic, looking at the reasons behind the over-representation of women on charges of using magic. This book illuminates the fact that activities denounced as magical were integral to late antique religious practice, and shows that they must be understood from the perspective of those who employed them.

Spis treści

Introduction; Chapter 1 Greco-Roman, Christian and Jewish Concepts of “Magic”; Chapter 2 Daimons and Angels and the World of Exorcism; Chapter 3 Ancient Rites for Gaining Lovers; Chapter 4 Using Natural Forces for Divine Goals; Chapter 5 Divine Power, Human Hands; Chapter 6 “Even the Decent Women Practice Witchcraft”; Chapter 7 Concluding Note;

O autorze

Naomi Janowitz is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California-Davis. She is the author of Poetics of Ascent (1989) and numerous articles on the religions of late antiquity.