The allusions to natural science in the Reply to Celsus are not numerous. There are a few passages where animals or gems are mentioned. The remarks concerning animals mention the usual favorites and embody familiar notions which we either have already met or shall meet again and again. Celsus speaks[2000] of the knowledge of poisons and medicines possessed by animals, of predictions by birds, of assemblies held by other animals, of the fidelity with which elephants observe oaths, of the filial affection of the stork, and of the Arabian bird, the phoenix.[2001] Origen implies the belief that the weasel conceives through its mouth when he says, “Observe, moreover, to what pitch of wickedness the demons proceed, so that they even assume the bodies of weasels in order to reveal the future.”[2002] Origen also adduces the marvelous methods of generation of several kinds of animals in support of the virgin birth of Jesus.[2003] Origen’s allusions to gems can scarcely be classified as natural science. He contends that Plato’s statement that our precious stones are a reflection of gems in that better land is taken from Isaiah’s description of the city of God.[2004] In another passage Origen again quotes Isaiah regarding the walls, foundations, battlements, and gates of various precious stones, but states that he cannot stop to examine their spiritual meaning at present.[2005] In one of his homilies on the Book of Numbers Origen displays a favorable attitude towards medical and pharmaceutical investigation, saying, “For if there is any science from God, what will be more from Him than the science of health, in which too the virtues of herbs and the diverse properties of juices are determined.”[2006]
Origen later accused of countenancing magic.
Origen’s belief that the stars were rational beings continued to be held by the sect called Origenists and also by the heretic Priscillian and his followers in the later fourth century. Priscillian, as we have seen, was accused of magic and executed in 385. But we are surprised to find Theophilus of Alexandria, who attacked some of Origen’s views as heretical and persuaded Pope Anastasius to do the same, accusing Origen in a letter written in 405 and translated into Latin by Jerome, of having defended magic.[2007] Theophilus states that Origen has written in one of his treatises, “The magic art seems to me a name for something which does not exist”—a bold and admirable assertion, but one which, as we have seen, the Epicurean Celsus would have been much more likely to make than the Christian Origen—“but if it does, it is not the name of an evil work.” Theophilus cannot understand how Origen, who vaunts himself a Christian, can thus make himself a protector of Elymas the magician who opposed the apostles and of Jamnes and Mambres who resisted Moses. Huet, the learned seventeenth century editor of Origen, knew of no such passage in his extant works as that which Theophilus professes to quote.[2008]
CHAPTER XX
OTHER CHRISTIAN DISCUSSION OF MAGIC BEFORE AUGUSTINE
Plan of this chapter—Tertullian on magic—Astrology attacked—Resemblance to Minucius Felix—Lactantius—Hippolytus on magic and astrology—Frauds of magicians in answering questions—Other tricks and illusions—Defects and merits of Hippolytus’ exposure of magic and of magic itself—Hippolytus’ sources—Justin Martyr and others on the witch of Endor—Gregory of Nyssa and Eustathius concerning the ventriloquist—Gregory of Nyssa Against Fate—Astrology and the birth of Christ—Chrysostom on the star of the Magi—Sixth Homily on Matthew—The spurious homily—Number, names, and home of the Magi—Liturgical drama of the Magi; Three Kings of Cologne—Another homily on the Magi—Priscillianists answered—Number and race of the Magi again.
Plan of this chapter.
In this chapter we shall supplement the picture of the Christian attitude towards magic supplied us in preceding chapters by some accounts of magic in other Christian writers of the period before Augustine. After giving the opinions of a few Latin fathers, Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and Lactantius, we shall consider the exposure of magic devices in Hippolytus’ Refutation of All Heresies, then compare the utterances of other fathers concerning the witch of Endor with those of Origen, and finally discuss the treatment of the Magi and the star of Bethlehem in both the genuine and the spurious homily of Chrysostom on that theme, adding some account of the medieval development of the legend of the three Magi, although leaving until later the statements of medieval theologians and astronomers concerning the star of the Magi. This makes a rather omnibus chapter, but its component parts are too brief to separate as distinct chapters and they all supplement the preceding chapter on Origen and Celsus.
Tertullian on magic.
Some important features of Origen’s account of magic are duplicated in the writings of the western church father, Tertullian, who wrote at about the same time or perhaps a few years before Origen. Again the Jews are represented as calling Christ a magician,[2009] and when Tertullian challenges the emperors to allow a Christian exorcist to appear before them and attempt to expel a demon from someone so possessed and force the spirit to confess its evil character, he expects that his Christian exorcist will be accused of employing magic.[2010] Again divination and magic are attributed to the fallen angels; in fact, Tertullian follows the Book of Enoch in stating that men were instructed by the fallen angels in metallurgy and botany as well as in incantations and astrology.[2011] The demons are represented as invisible and “everywhere in a moment.” Living as they do in the air near the clouds and stars, they are enabled to predict the weather. They send diseases and then pretend to cure them by the recommendation of novel remedies or prescriptions quite contrary to accepted medical practice.[2012] “There is hardly a human being who is unattended by a demon.”[2013] Magicians are described by Tertullian as producing phantasms, insulting the souls of the dead, injuring boys for purposes of divination, sending dreams, and performing many miraculous feats by their complicated jugglery.[2014] “The science of magic” is well defined as “a multiform contagion of the human mind, an artificer of every error, a destroyer of safety and soul.” As examples of well-known magicians Tertullian lists Ostanes and Typhon and Dardanus and Damigeron[2015] and Nectabis[2016] and Berenice. Tertullian states that a literature is current which promises to evoke ghosts from the infernal regions, but that in such cases the dead are really impersonated by demons, as was the fact when the pythoness seemed to show Samuel to Saul, a point on which Tertullian disagrees with Origen. Magic is therefore fallacious, a point which Tertullian emphasizes more than Origen did, although Tertullian is not very explicit. He avers that “it is no great task to deceive the outer eye of him whose mental insight it is easy to blind.” The rods of Pharaoh’s magicians seemed to turn into snakes, “but Moses’[2017] reality devoured their deceit.”
Astrology attacked.