Thaumaturgia; Or, Elucidations of the Marvellous. Oxonian
to remove present, and to avert future contingent evils; to construct talismans, etc. The Mecaschephim, or magicians, properly so called, who were conversant with the occult powers of nature, and the supernatural world; and the chasdim, or astrologers, who constituted by far the most numerous and respectable class. And from the assembly of the wise men on the occasion of the extraordinary dream of Nebuchadnezzar, it would appear that Babylon had also her oneirocritici, or interpreters of dreams—a species of diviners indeed, to which almost every nation of antiquity gave birth.
Like the Chaldean astrologers, the Persian magi, from whom our word magic is derived, belong to the priesthood. But the worship of the gods was not their chief occupation; they were also great proficients in the arts. They joined to the worship of the gods, and to the profession of medicine and natural magic, a pretended familiarity with superior powers, from which they boasted of deriving all their knowledge. Like Plato, who probably imbibed many of their notions, they taught that demons hold a middle rank between gods and men; that they (the demons) presided not only over divinations, auguries, conjurations, oracles, and every species of magic, but also over sacrifices, and prayer, which in behalf of men is thus presented, and rendered acceptable to the gods. Indeed, the austerity of their lives[4] was well calculated to strengthen the impression which their cunning had already made on the multitude, and to prepare the way for whatever impostures they might afterwards practise.
We are less acquainted with Indian magic than with that practised by any other Eastern nations. It may, however, be reasonably enough inferred that it was very similar to that for which the magi in general were held in such high estimation: although they were excluded, as beings of too sacred a nature, from the ordinary occurrences of life. Their Brahmins, or Gymnosophists, were regarded with as much reverence as the magi, and probably were more worthy of it. Some of them dwelt in woods, and others in the immediate vicinity of cities. Their skill in medicine was great; the care which they took in educating youth, in familiarizing it with generous and virtuous sentiments, did them peculiar honour; and their maxims and discourses, as recorded by historians, prove that they were much accustomed to profound reflection on the principles of civil polity, morality, religion and philosophy.
JEWISH MAGI.
Of the magi of the Jews, it is proved by Lightfoot,[5] that after their return from Babylon, having entirely forsaken idolatry, and being no longer favoured with the gift of prophecy, they gradually abandoned themselves, before the coming of our Saviour, to sorcery and divination. The Talmud, still regarded with a reverence bordering on idolatry, abounds with instructions for the due observance of superstitious rites. After their city and temple were destroyed, many Jewish impostors were highly esteemed for their pretended skill in magic; and under pretence of interpreting dreams, they met with daily opportunities of practising the most shameful frauds. Many Rabbins were quite as well versed in the school of Zoroaster, as in that of Moses. They prescribed all kinds of conjuration, some for the cure of wounds, some against the dreaded bite of serpents, and others against thefts and enchantments. Their divinations were founded on the influence of the stars, and on the operations of spirits, they did not, indeed, like the Chaldean magi, regard the heavenly bodies as gods and genii, but they ascribed to them a great power over the actions and opinions of men.
The magical rites of the Jews were, and indeed are still, chiefly performed on various important occasions, as on the birth of a child, marriages, etc. On such occasions the evil spirits are supposed to be more than usually active in their malignity, which can only be counteracted by certain enchantments.[6] They believe that Lilis will cause all their male children to die on the eighth day after their birth; girls on the twenty-first.[7] The following are the means adopted by the German Jews to avert this calamity. They draw arrows in circular lines with chalk or charcoal on the four walls of the room in which the accouchement takes place, and write upon each arrow: Adam, Eve! make Lilis go away! They write also on certain parts of the room the name of the three angels who preside over medicine, Senai, Sansenai and Sanmangelof, after the manner taught them by Lilis herself when she entertained the hope of causing all the Jews to be drowned in the Red Sea.
Josephus, the historian of the Jews, does not allow to magic so ancient an origin among them, as many Jewish writers do. He makes Solomon the first who practised an art which is so powerful against demons; and the knowledge of which, he asserts, was communicated to that prince by immediate inspiration. The latter, continues this historian, invented and transmitted to posterity in his writings, certain incantations for the cure of diseases, and for the expulsion and perpetual banishment of wicked spirits from the bodies of the possessed. It consisted, according to his description, in the use of a certain root, which was sealed up, and held under the nose of the person possessed; the name of Solomon, with the words prescribed by him, was then pronounced, and the demon forced immediately to retire. He does not even hesitate to assert, that he himself has been an eye witness of such an effect produced on a person named Eleazer, in the presence of the Emperor Vespasian and his sons. Nor will this relation surprise us, when we consider the rooted malignity entertained by the Jews to the christian religion, and this writer's attempt to appreciate the miracles of our Saviour, by ascribing them to magical influence, and by representing them as easy of accomplishment to all acquainted with the occult sciences.
Innumerable are the devices contained in the Cabala for averting possible evils, as the plague, disease, and sudden death. It directs how to select and combine some passages of scripture, which are believed both to render supernatural beings visible, and to produce many wonderful and surprising effects. The most famous wonders have been accomplished by means of the name of God. The sacred word Jehovah is, when read with points, multiplied by the Jewish doctors into twelve, forty-two, and seventy-two letters, of which words are composed that are thought to possess miraculous energy. By these, say they, Moses slew the Egyptians; by these Israel was preserved from the destroying angel of the wilderness; by these Elijah separated the waters of the river, to open a passage for himself and Elisha, and by these it has been as daringly and impudently asserted, that our blessed Saviour, the eternal Son of God, cast out evil spirits. The name of the devil is likewise used in their magical devices. The five Hebrew letters of which that name[8] is composed, exactly constitute the number 364, one less than the days of the whole year. They pretended that, owing to the wonderful virtue of the number comprised in the name of Satan, he is prevented from accusing them for an equal number of days: hence the stratagem before alluded to, for depriving the devil of the power of doing them any harm on the only day on which that power is granted to him.
In allusion to the cabalists, Pliny says, "There is another sect of magicians of which Moses and Latopea, Jews, were the first authors." It was the prevailing opinion among the Hebrews, that the Cabala was delivered by God to Moses, and thence through a succession of ages, even to the times of Ezra, preserved by tradition only, without the help of writing, in the same manner as the doctrine of Pythagoras was delivered by Archippus and Lysiades, who kept schools at Thebes in Greece, where the scholars learned all their master's precepts by heart, and employed their memories instead of books. So certain Jews, despising letters, placed all their learning in memory, observation, and verbal tradition; whence it was called by them Cabala, that is, a receiving from one to another by the ear an art said to be very ancient and only known to the christians in later times.
The Jews divided the Cabala into three parts; the first containing the knowledge of Bresith, which they call also cosmology, the object of which is to teach and explain the force and efficacy of things created, natural or celestial; expounding also the laws and mysteries of the Bible according to philosophical reasons, which on that account differs little from natural magic, a science in which King Solomon is said to have excelled. We find, therefore, in the sacred histories of the Jews, that he was wont to discourse from the cedar of the forests of Lebanon to the low hyssop of the valley; as also of cattle, birds, reptiles, and fish, all which contain within themselves a kind of magical virtue. Moses also, in his expositions upon the Pentateuch, and most of the Talmudists, have followed the rules of the same art.
The other division of the Cabala contains the knowledge of things more sublime, as of divine and angelical powers, the contemplation of sacred names and characters; being a certain kind of symbolical theology, in which the letters, figures, numbers, names, points, lines, accents, etc. are esteemed to contain