Laws against Astrologers and Magicians before the Fourth Century

Magic was common and widely practised in the ancient world, as attested in papyri and other material evidence such as amulets and tablets, containing magic spells, love charms or invocation formulae. Magic was bound up in the rituals and cultures surrounding the gods, religious pantheon, and religious practices of the Roman Empire. It was therefore attached to acts of miracle-healing, divination, astrology, and prediction. But scholars like the natural historian Pliny the Elder regarded magic as treachery to be separated from medicine, religion and research in the stars as early as the first century. Magic worked because it was suitable to summon demons. The burning of magical books also had powerful political, social and religious connotations that informed the cultural milieu in which these acts occurred. Within these contexts, the act itself took on the performative aspects of a ritual. Its development in this sense claimed the power of that which it was trying to replace. According to the Christian apologist Hipollytus of Rome (early third century), pagan magicians could burn magical notes to communicate with “demons.” The Christian appropriation of the act therefore inverted this, taking the spiritual nature of the act of burning itself but using it to avert demonical power.

The association of the written word with something magical was long standing in the Roman world. For example the term carmen (“poem, song, writing”) originated as an archaic invocation within the context of pagan cults or pagan philosophical schools. The term also came to be used with regard to harmful magic. The Law of the Twelve Tables, the earliest codification of law in Rome, already ruled the death penalty against incantations of carmina as harmful magic, aligning this charge with slander. Slanderous carmina continued to be punished in the imperial period. In Late Antiquity harmful carmina came to be associated with illegitimate pagan cult practice. Laws prohibiting and limiting its usage predate Christian times. Some emperors, such as Vespasian and Domitian, even expelled oppositional philosophers from the city of Rome in the context of bans of magic and astrology. It seems probable that blanket bans were rarely enforced and that all edicts and subsequent expulsions were temporary and regionally limited. While some books were burnt as a consequence of treason trials in the first century AD, there is no clear evidence that books were destroyed in accordance with laws against magicians.

Astrologers were granted pardon apparently without requiring them to burn their books. It is certainly true that punishments of astrologers became harsher in the late-imperial period: those who had knowledge of this art were to be thrown to the beasts or crucified while magicians (magi) were to be burnt alive. We do not know with any certainty when these laws were initially enforced, but Diocletian is the first emperor in Late Antiquity known to have ordered the destruction of books: books owned by the Manichaeans, Egyptian alchemists and Christians. A law issued by the emperors Diocletian and Maximian ruled a general, empire-wide ban on astrology: “To learn and practise the art of geometry is to the public interest. But the damnable art of astrology is illegal.”

1. The Great Persecution
2. There is no firm evidence that the Roman state burnt Christian religious books before Christianity became a major religion in the early fourth century. Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in the late fourth century, mentions books from the Judaeo-Christian tradition found in wine jars at several occasions after the early persecutions. Christians could have hidden them to avoid being identified as such. In fact, the Gnostic gospels of Nag el Hammadi have been discovered in wine jars in Egypt. However, this does not mean that they were hidden in response to the Roman authorities attempting to destroy Christian books. Initiated by Diocletian and his junior partner Galerius, the Great Persecution (303–311) is the first and only case where Roman authorities attempted to destroy visible monuments of Christianity such as assembly places and Bibles, because previous persecutions had created an increasing number of martyrs and therefore strengthened the appeal of Christianity. The underlying motivation for any religious persecution probably was the emperors’ quasi-divine status that was in conflict with Christian monotheism. Diocletian also had some poor experiences with Christians serving in the military. Before the Great Persecution, Diocletian ordered that books representing other groups be burnt. Although there is little evidence that has survived from these groups that would give further information, we know that in 297 Diocletian issued an edict against the Manichaeans: their spiritual leaders were to be burnt alive along with their scriptures. Manichaeism itself was a popular dualistic religion that originated in third-century Mesopotamia, combining syncretistic elements from Christian Gnosticism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. Diocletian also had books concerning the alchemy of gold and silver searched out and burnt in Egypt to cut off the rebellious Egyptians from these resources.

During the persecution, Christians only destroyed copies of the book-burning edict itself. One Christian became a martyr when he seized a notice of the edict posted publicly and “tore it to pieces as an unholy and sacrilegious thing.” Eusebius adds that this Christian could expect the punishments associated with martyrdom. Echoing Eusebius’ account, later Martyr Acts commemorate a child having suffered martyrdom because it threw a copy of Diocletian’s edict rather than Christian books into the fire. It thus appears that in the Christian response burning of the right kinds of texts was associated with the fate of the body in the afterlife. The memory of book-burning in the age of Diocletian was still alive in the age of his successor, the Christian emperor Constantine.

Constantine

Constantine (306–337) was the first emperor reported to have become a Christian, which he did formally through baptism at the end of his life. He was also the first emperor to actively promote the Christian Church, notably when his soldiers carried the symbol of Christ on their shields in defeating his rival Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312. Much has been written about Constantine’s religious background, whether he was a genuine convert or simply used Christianity as a political tool, and to what extent he actively sought to curb the old religion. I shall argue that some of the censorship laws in the age of Constantine need to be seen as reactions to the events during the Great Persecution and that the Roman authorities became increasingly concerned with the unity of the church as bishops played an increasing role in local administration. The scholarly consensus is that although Constantine took selective measures to suppress paganism, he was concerned primarily with effecting compromise between the different religious groups. Eusebius’ Life of Constantine generally tends to overemphasise the Christian character of Constantine’s reign. Eusebius’ account often runs contrary to extant archaeological evidence of temple destruction.

1. Christian Reactions to the Great Persecution
2. In sum, a number of Christian authors demonised pagan philosophy because, they argued, some philosophers had advised emperors such as Diocletian to persecute Christians. Philosophers and their texts and teachings were therefore portrayed as enemies of Christianity and as demons able to destroy the souls of the faithful and to drag them into hell. Authors such as Lactantius and Eusebius acted as advisors of the emperor Constantine and therefore appear to have influenced the censorship legislation of that time, just as philosophers like Porphyry had informed the decision of the emperor Diocletian to destroy Christian texts. In the next section, we will see that Constantine’s successors continued to curb specific pagan forms of magic and divination, although their intent was to battle oppositional forces and stabilise their dynasty, and that the emperor Julian’s short-lived attempt to revive a specific form of pagan higher education led to further reactions by Christian authors keen to reverse just this.

1. Julian and the Constantinian Dynasty
2. Constantine’s sons, Constantius II (337–361) and Constans I (337–350), continued to favour Christianity. Zealous Christians, such as monks, destroyed temples, although a law forbade this practice, and it was perhaps not before 356 that sacrifices and worship of images were banned by threat of capital punishment. The anti-pagan legislation under Constantine’s successors ruled against certain aspects of paganism perceived to be dangerous rather than against paganism per se. Nevertheless, these early religious laws paved the way to later bookburning laws and reported acts of book-burning. In 357, Constantius issued an edict to the people of Rome, banning all kinds of divination. He visited Rome in that year. Under the threat of capital punishment it was forbidden for anyone to consult persons involved in this art, including astrologers (mathematici), prophets (vates) and representatives of the old Greco-Roman religion involved in divination. It is possible that Constantine reacted to slanderous rumours about his reign, as some emperors did in the first century. It is clear that this kind of divination would have attracted the most attention. Nevertheless, the link between paganism and divination must have been welcome to the clergy. Thus, the council of Ancyra in 314 had defined the act of divination as “being in accordance with the customs of the pagans.” Around the same time, a further law by Constantius, addressed to the people of Rome, condemned those who practiced the magic arts (magicae artes). Exemptions from torture, traditionally enjoyed by persons from the upper strata of society, were waived in cases of magi, who “are to be regarded as enemies of humankind” as well as anyone involved in divination “including even a mathematicus.”

Constantius’ successor Julian (361–363) was the only acknowledged pagan emperor since Constantine. His Christian adversaries charged him with apostasy. Much has been written about Julian’s psychological development, his intellectual and educational background, and what inspired the emperor to turn from Christianity to the previous state cult. It is worth looking in more detail at exactly what the last pagan emperor contributed to the narrative of censorship and book-burning we have established so far as well as at the legal and psychological consequences of Julian’s religious policy in the years following his death. Firstly, the so-called teacher edict certainly is the best known of Julian’s laws. It is generally interpreted as representing Julian’s intention to put Christian teachers out of business. The edict puts the local decurions in charge of granting teaching licenses to regulate these standards and in reaching the standard reading of it, much has been made out of Julian’s letters. For Julian, moral integrity meant that a teachers’ religious belief had to be commensurate with the pedagogical material he used. As a result, the academic conclusion is that Julian barred Christians from teaching classical literature, such as Homer, and that he generally intended to exclude Christians from higher education. Nevertheless, at least one scholar suggested the alternative interpretation that the teacher edict was part of a general program to improve the administrative and moral status quo of the empire rather than to discriminate against Christians.

This is a more persuasive position as the edict mentions only the moral standing of teachers (grammarians and rhetoricians). It seems that because the edict was worded neutrally, it was included in the Codex Theodosianus, despite its possible anti-Christian tendency. Watts has recently argued that as a consequence of this edict pagan teachers were in turn those who had to face adversities in their profession, once emperors continued to be Christians. Secondly in this context, Julian was suspicious not only of Christian educators but also of certain schools of philosophy, preferring himself Neoplatonic philosophy. What is less known is that although he readmitted philosophers to his court he also argued for censorship. In a letter he stated that pagan priests should not read the poetical works of Archilochus, Hipponax, and the Old Comedy as well as the philosophical works of Epicurus and Pyrrho, adding that most books by the Epicurean and Pyrrhonic philosophers had perished by this time. It also appears that pagans took advantage of the changed religious climate during Julian’s reign, going as far as to confiscate books. In Alexandria the Arian bishop George of Cappadocia, a man with the reputation of being a fierce executor of Constantius’ II laws against sacrifices and temples was a victim of this. George was one of the multiple replacements for the important theologian Athanasius (who was many times expelled from his bishop’s see as an adversary of Arius). As a consequence of his policy, the mob murdered George and his library was plundered during the ensuing riot in 361 when the religious climate had changed following Julian’s accession.

1. Christian Reactions to the Emperor Julian
2. Julian’s works and religious policy provoked similar polemics as the Great Persecution had done. While these polemical discourses have not directly affected imperial censorship legislation, they may to some extent account for clerical interests with regard to the banning of books. Gregory of Nazianzus composed two orations against Julian (or. 4 and 5) in 363 or shortly after, that immediately reacted to Julian’s religious policy and death. Gregory heavily attacks Julian for attempting to deprive Christians of literature (lógoi) and education through the teacher edict (4.101). As another educated Christian who, like his fellow student Basil, was a connoisseur of classical literature, he argued in his speech that Julian was wrong to claim that pagan literature and religion are connected. He suggested that Christians could endorse pagan culture but dismiss sacrifices (4.5).

Gregory also was the first to criticise Julian’s anti-Christian writings, particularly his Contra Galilaeos (4.74; 5.41), where Julian posited the link between paganism and classical culture. Gregory ranked these writings alongside Porphyry’s which Constantine ordered to be burnt. Both, he argued, contained the same lies (5.41). Gregory’s position is that of a Christian author who aligned Julian’s anti-Christian policy with the influence of those pagan philosophers who advised Julian. As with those Christian authors who wrote against philosophers like Porphyry in the aftermath of the Great Persecution, Gregory’s speeches underpinned the division between acceptable and unacceptable aspects of pagan learning, indicating that pagan philosophical views disagreeing with the Christian world view were detrimental to the well-being of Christians, going as far as to compare Julian’s religious policy with earlier persecutions of Christians. Gregory’s position here certainly has to be seen within the context of the atmosphere soon after Julian’s death and the specific expectations of his audience. Julian’s religious policy and his works, particularly his treatise Contra Galilaeos (that is Christians), frequently provoked Christian criticism even long after his death. Fragments of this work by Julian (361–363) are extant largely because of quotations in a later refutation by the Christian author Cyril, patriarch of Alexandria (412–444). Julian’s work is thus among the very few surviving philosophical texts of Antiquity which undertake a comprehensive refutation of Christianity, arguing, for example, against the biblical concept of creation.