The Bible is replete with stories of wondrous events. For the most
part these are miracles worked by divine power: miraculous escape from bondage,
healing, or resurrection. Certain passages, however, are about magical wonders
worked by powers other than God’s. And even the miracle stories are sometimes
reminiscent of magic in the outer details of what occurs, even if the
underlying cause of these wonders is not magical.
When the Old Testament deals explicitly with magic, it is to
condemn it. The biblical authors do so at times through straightforward
command, as in the often-quoted text of Exodus 22:18, “You shall not permit a
sorceress to live.” Elsewhere the point is made through stories about the
punishment for dabbling in magic. King Saul, who had banished all practitioners
of the occult from his kingdom, nonetheless consulted the “witch” of Endor
before going into battle against the Philistines (1 Samuel 28). This woman
summoned the prophet Samuel from the dead, and Samuel grudgingly came forth,
only to proclaim that because of Saul’s misdeeds he would be defeated in battle
and killed. Christian interpreters as early as Hippolytus (ca. 170-ca. 236)
were sure that the spirit who appeared to Saul was not really the ghost of
Samuel, but merely a demon posing as the prophet.
The most important set piece for biblical and later religious
literature is the story of the wonder-working contest between the magicians and
God’s own agents. In Exodus 7:8-13, Aaron impresses Pharaoh with his power by
throwing down his rod and having it turn into a serpent. Pharaoh’s magicians do
the same thing “by their secret arts”: each of them casts down his rod, and all
the rods become serpents. But to demonstrate the superior power of the Hebrews
and their God, Aaron’s rod then devours all the other rods. Again when the
prophet Elijah encounters the pagan priests of Baal, he wins in miracle-working
contest with them or Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). In medieval literature on
magic, however, it is the story of Pharaoh’s magicians that figures
prominently; Isidore of Seville and other writers cite this as proof that God’s
miracles are superior to the Devil’s magic.
The New Testament presents one classic example of an evil
magician, Simon Magus of Samaria (Acts of the Apostles 8:9-24). Simon had
impressed the people with his wonder-working. Confronted with the superior
powers of the Christian apostles, however, he offered money for a share in
their power, but the apostle Peter, outraged by this offer, insisted that such
power could not be bought. By the second and third centuries, Christian authors
were elaborating at length upon this simple story and converting Simon Magus
into an arch-heretic and rival of Peter. (Because the apostle Peter also bore
the name Simon, the two figures were aptly paired as foes: Simon Magus versus
Simon Peter.) The apocryphal Acts of Peter, a sort of novella purporting to
tell the apostle’s deeds not related in the Bible, describe one miracle contest
at length. Simon Magus feigns revival of a dead man by using a trickery to
rouse a few feeble movements in his body, but only Peter is genuinely able to
bring the man back to life. Frustrated and robbed of his following, the magus
announces that he is going to fly up to God. When he rises up, however, Peter’s
prayer beings him crashing down, and soon afterwards he dies. A similar version
of the story, which remained popular in medieval culture and became enshrined
in the influential Golden Legend of the thirteenth century, makes it
clear that when Simon Magus rises into the air he is borne aloft by demons, and
what Peter does is merely dispel them.
Another passage from the New Testament presents magicians in quite
a different light: the story of the magi who come to honor the newborn Christ
(Matthew 2:1-12). The gospel clearly represents them as honorable figures, and
medieval legend even represented them as kings. Defenders of magic could thus
argue that the magical arts hold a position of dignity, since magicians were
among the first to reverse Christ. One response to the argument, first made in
the second century, was that while certain forms of magic were legitimate under
the Old Testament, the New Testament had changed all that: the magic had
submitted to Christ, symbolizing the abdication of magic before Christ’s power.
It could always be argued, of course, that Christ himself and his
followers performed magic. Indeed, this was a common theme in the controversy
between Christians and pagans as early as the second century. The pagan writer
Celsus (second century) claimed that Jesus had learned the magical arts in
Egypt: the techniques for “blowing away” illness, creating the illusion of
food, and making inanimate things seem to move as if alive. This argument could
find support in the Gospels. When Jesus’ power suffices to cure a woman who
merely touches the fringe of his garment, and when Christ then exclaims, “Some
one touched me, for I perceive that power has gone forth from me,” one might
well wonder what sort of power this is (Luke 9:43-8). When he cures a deaf-mute
by putting his fingers in the man’s ears, spitting, and touching his tongue
(Mark 7:32-4), or when he heals a blind man by anointing his eyes with clay
made with his own saliva (John 9:6ff.), these procedures could easily seem
magical. Elsewhere, especially in Matthew’s gospel, Christ is seen healing
people without such techniques, merely by his word, with a simple command such
as “be clean,” “arise,” “or “rise, take up your pallet, and walk.” Yet this
lack of magical ritual did not dispel all suspicion of magic: some Jewish
opponents even argued that Christ was a magician specifically because his words
themselves had such power. (Richard Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages [2d
ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014], 33-35)