Members-only podcast episode

Joseph Sanzo on Magic and Confessional Boundaries in Late Antiquity

Coptic Magical Handbook Leiden MS AMS 9, courtesy of the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden (creative commons use)

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In discussions of ancient magic and Christianity, a number of lines are often drawn. One common one is the ‘normal religion vs. magic’ line, whereby ‘magic’ will be the religious practices which are considered, by some vaguely-defined and often outright invented Christian mainstream, as beyond the pale, as countercultural, as evil and forbidden, or whatever. This doesn’t work very well, and we don’t use it much here on the SHWEP.

But there is another dichotomy often drawn in the study of magic, which we have used: that between ancient Christian intellectuals (the Augustine-of-Hippos of the ancient world), for whom magic is strictly outlawed, and the ordinary Christian in the street, for whom this kind of boundary-marking (as between, say , true religion and forbidden magic) is just no big deal. As Joseph Sanzo argues in this interview, the ordinary Christian in the street often was doing magic – if by that we mean addressative practices, often defensive but sometimes also aggressive – but was by no means uninterested in the question of what forbidden magic might be, nor in the ways in which boundaries are to be drawn between Christians and their (many) Others. Indeed, magic could be one tool in their arsenal for doing just that.

Interview Bio:

Joseph E. Sanzo is an Associate Professor of History of Religions and Director of the Center for the Study of Lived Religion at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice . He heads the interesting project Early Christian and Jewish Magical Traditions.

Works Cited in this Episode:

Roger Bagnall. Early Christian Books in Egypt. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2009.

David Frankfurter, editor. Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic. Brill, Leiden, 2019.

Dan Levene. `… And by the name of Jesus …’: An Unpublished Magic Bowl in Jewish Aramaic. JSQ, 6:283-308, 1999.

Joseph E. Sanzo. Ritual Boundaries: Magic and Differentiation in Late Antique Christianity. Christianity in Late Antiquity. University of California, Oakland, CA, 2024 [available through open access!]

Shaul Shaked. Jesus in the Magic Bowls: Apropos Dan Levene’s `. . . and by the name of Jesus . . .’. JSQ, 6:309-19, 1999.

Gary Vikan. Byzantine Pilgrimage Art. Dumbarton Oaks, Washington. DC, 1982.

Recommended Reading:

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