Hebrew magic as depicted by Celsus
Celsus regarded Moses equally with Jesus as a wizard,[1881] and he evidently, like Juvenal and other classical writers, considered the Jews and Syrians as a race of charlatans, especially given to superstition, sorcery, incantations, ambiguous oracles and conjuration of spirits. “They worship angels,” he declared, “and are addicted to sorcery, in which Moses was their instructor.”[1882] He stated that the Jews traced back their origin to “the first generation of lying wizards,” by which phrase Origen thinks he referred to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose names Origen admits are much employed in the magic arts.[1883] Celsus further characterized the Jews as “blinded by some crooked sorcery, or dreaming dreams through the influence of shadowy specters,”[1884] and as “induced to bow down to the angels in heaven by the incantations employed by jugglery and sorcery, in consequence of which certain phantoms appear in obedience to the spells employed by the magicians.”[1885] Celsus, also, in describing the many self-styled prophets, Redeemers, and Sons of God in the Phoenicia and Palestine of his own time, states that they make use of “strange, fanatical, and quite unintelligible words, of which no rational person can find any meaning,”[1886] and that those prophets whom he himself had heard had afterwards confessed to him that these words “really meant nothing.”[1887] Yet even the Christians—Celsus complains—who condemn all other oracles, regard as marvelous and accept unquestioningly “those sayings which were uttered or were not uttered in Judea after the manner of that country, as indeed they are still delivered among the peoples of Phoenicia and Palestine.”[1888]
Various recriminations of magic.
To these accusations of Celsus Origen himself adds that the Jews affirm that Jesus passed Himself off as Christ by means of sorcery,[1889] while the Egyptians charge Moses and the Hebrews with the practice of sorcery during their stay in Egypt.[1890] Origen, on the other hand, speaks of “the magical arts and rites of the Egyptians” and holds that it was by divine aid and not by superior magic that Moses prevailed over Pharaoh’s magicians.[1891] Celsus for his part had accused Jesus during His residence in Egypt of “having there acquired some miraculous powers, on which the Egyptians greatly pride themselves.”[1892]
Origen’s distinction between miracles and magic.
Origen repudiates the charges of magic made against Christ and His followers as slanders. He asserts that Christianity on the contrary strictly forbids the practice of magic arts,[1893] and that these lost much of their force at the birth of Christ.[1894] He contends that no magician would teach such noble doctrines as those of Christianity.[1895] Origen goes so far as to deny that even the “false Christs and false prophets,” who “shall show great signs and wonders,” will be sorcerers, and he states that no sorcerer has ever claimed to be Christ[1896]—an amazing assertion in view of his own allusions to Simon Magus. Works of magic and miracles, Origen affirms, are no more alike than are a wolf and a dog or a wood-pigeon and a dove. They are, however, so closely related that if one admits the reality of magic he must also believe in divine miracles, just as the existence of sophistry proves that there is such a thing as sound argument and an art of dialectic.[1897] Moreover, in one passage Origen admits that “there would indeed be a resemblance” between miracles and magic, “if Jesus, like the dealers in magic arts, had performed His works only for show; but now there is not a single juggler who, by means of his proceedings, invites his spectators to reform their manners, or trains those to the fear of God who are amazed at what they see, nor who tries to persuade them so to live as men who are to be justified by God.”[1898] On the contrary, Origen asserts that the magicians’ “own lives are full of the grossest and most notorious sins.”
Origen frees Jews as well as Christians from the charge of magic.
Since it is one of Origen’s chief concerns to uphold Hebrew prophecy as a proof of Christ’s divinity, although Celsus subjects the argument from prophecy to ridicule; to defend the Old Testament against Celsus’ attacks as an inspired record of greater antiquity than Greek philosophy, history, and literature, which he asserts have stolen truths from it; and to maintain that “there is no discrepancy between the God of the Gospel and the God of the Law”:[1899]—since this is so, it is incumbent upon him to rebut also the accusations of magic laid by Celsus at the door of the Jews. Origen therefore asserts that the Jews “despised all kinds of divination as that which bewitches men to no purpose,” and cites the prohibition of Leviticus (xix, 31) against wizards and familiar spirits.[1900]
Celsus’ sceptical description of magic.
The Reply to Celsus is of especial interest to us because it presents as it were in parallel columns for our inspection the classical and the Christian conceptions of and attitudes towards magic. Before proceeding, therefore, to inquire how far justified Origen seems to be in thus acquitting, or Celsus, on the other hand, in condemning Christians and Jews on the charge of magic, it is essential to note what magic means for either author. Both evidently regard it as a term of reproach and as usually evil in character.[1901] Celsus lists as feats of magic the expelling of demons and diseases from men, or the sudden production of tables, dishes, and food as for an expensive banquet, or of animals who move about as if alive. Celsus, however, seems to speak with a sneer of “their most venerated arts” and describes the banquet dishes as “dainties having no real existence” and the animals as “not really living but having only the appearance of life.” Therefore the ensuing comment of Origen seems unusually stupid or unfair, when he tries to convict Celsus of inconsistency on the ground that “by these expressions he allows as it were the existence of magic,” whereas Origen hints that it was he “who wrote several books against it.” “These expressions” are, on the contrary, precisely those which a man who had attacked magic as deceptive would use. Celsus further stated that an Egyptian named Dionysius had told him that magic arts had power “only over the uneducated and men of corrupt morals,” but had no effect upon philosophers, “because they were careful to observe a healthy manner of life.”[1902] Celsus himself observed that “those who in market-places perform most disreputable tricks and collect crowds around them ... would never approach an assembly of wise men.”[1903] It was at the request of a Celsus, moreover, that the second century satirist Lucian wrote his Alexander or Pseudomantis[1904] in which some of the tricks of a magician-impostor and oracle-monger are exposed, and in which allusion is made to the “excellent treatises against the magicians” written by Celsus himself. It seems reasonably certain that the Celsus of Lucian and the Celsus of Origen are identical, as there are no chronological difficulties and the same point of view is ascribed in either case to Celsus, whom both Lucian and Origen regard as an Epicurean or at least in sympathy with the Epicureans. Galen, in a treatise in which he lists his own writings, mentions an “Epistle to Celsus the Epicurean.”[1905] This, too, might be the same man.