Witchcraft, Sorcery and the Practice of Magic in the Torah
As a follow on from my recent article on the infamous 'Witch Hunter’s Bible' - the Malleus Maleficarum or the 'Hammer of Witches' - it is important to provide evidence of my central contention of the nature of the Biblical prohibitions on the interlinked subjects of witchcraft, sorcery and the general practice of magic. My argument was simply that because the Old Testament - or the Tanakh as it is known in somewhat different form in Judaism - is the central source for the ideas concerning - and the prohibition of - these magical practices in Europe, which ultimately lead to the witch hunts of the late medieval and early modern eras.
Then the jews - whose vehemently anti-magic orthodoxy (in spite of having their own tradition of 'holy magic' often linked to belief in jewish mysticism) was the only source by which the Malleus drew its opinion of the practitioners of magic - are significantly culpable for the witch hunts as they created the intellectual conditions which would eventually necessitation some form of witch-hunting behaviour. Further - as I pointed out in my previous article - the first recorded recognizable mention of a historical witch hunt is to be found in the Mishnah of the jews with a major leader of pre-rabbinic Judaism Shimeon ben Shetach executing eighty witches in Palestine. (1)
Now Shimeon ben Shetach's basis for this behaviour is to be found in the (Written) Torah, which remember is the ostensible basis for everything that Judaism believes. Since if it is in the (Written) Torah then it is the word of Yahweh and if it is the word of Yahweh then the jews - as Yahweh's covenanted people - must obey its strictures.
The first mention we find of the practice of magic in the (Written) Torah is in the famous competition between Moses and the Egyptian magicians. To wit:
'And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “When Pharaoh says to you, 'Prove yourselves by working a miracle,' then you shall say to Aaron, 'Take your rod and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it may become a serpent.'” So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did as the Lord commanded; Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and his servants, and it became a serpent. Then Pharaoh summoned the wise men and the sorcerers; and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did the same by their secret arts. For every man cast down his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods.' (2)
Now in this passage from the book of Exodus it is interesting to note that a fine distinction is created by Yahweh: in so far as he works what we would call magic by transforming Aaron's rod into a serpent and refers to this as being a miracle. In other words, Aaron is performing good magic (sometimes called somewhat controversially 'white magic'), but yet when the Egyptian magicians perform the same function then it is by their 'secret arts' and this - as is implied by the term 'secret arts' (i.e., the occult) - is evil magic (sometimes called somewhat controversially 'black magic').
This is the origin of a fundamental distinction in both jewish and Christian thought regarding magic in so far as while miracles are inherently magical: they are from God and thus are good magic. Meanwhile acts that are not miraculous, but which are magical are not from God and are thus evil magic. The importance of this distinction is that Christian thought tended to not place too much of a premium on the status of evil magic up till the high medieval era (outside of overt devil worship) and also allowed a lot of latitude with their definition of good magic so as to include the usual amulets, incantations and remedies that were common in pre-Christian Europe.
When this changed with the advent of mass education (in the medieval sense) then this latitude with the definition of what was good magic was removed and the latitude given to what was evil magic significantly widened. This in turn lead to the witch hunts and is symbolized in the pages of the Malleus.
This fine distinction is key to understanding this passage, because it allows us to comprehend that according to the book of Exodus: Moses and Aaron have performed a miracle (i.e., a magical act directly caused by Yahweh) and have not engaged in witchcraft or sorcery.
This is just as well since later in the book of Exodus we come to a direct (and very famous) prohibition of this kind of evil magic. To wit:
'You shall not permit a sorceress to live.' (3)
While the book of Leviticus makes the punishment very clear when it states:
'A man or woman who is a medium or a wizard shall be put to death; they shall be stoned with stones, their blood shall be upon then.' (4)
It is also explains why this prohibition exists when it admonishes the jews accordingly:
'Do not turn to mediums or wizards; do not seek them out, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God.' (5)
Which is then further elucidated in the book of Deuteronomy thus:
'There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord; and because of these abominable practices the Lord your God is driving them out before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not allowed you so to do.' (6)
Now from these exhortations and rather specific prohibitions we can see that Yahweh is actually denying the jews the right to engage in almost any magical practice at all since everything from divination to necromancy is outlawed. However, it is important to note that while necromancy (i.e., mediumship vis-à-vis the medium of Endor) and the use of sorcery is prohibited on pain of death by stoning: the practice of divination is not. Rather divination - which is the historic focus of jewish magic - (7) is strongly disapproved of but is not condemned under pain of death in the Torah.
This gave divination the leeway to develop into the main focus of jewish magic, but also gives us an idea of why the Malleus - to use one example - was so insistent about the necessity of combating sorceresses since they were specifically outlawed in the (Written) Torah and more specifically were condemned to death for their practice of evil magic.
This is only confirmed by the reassertion in the book of Leviticus that witches and sorceresses should be executed post haste. While then (along with the book of Deuteronomy) giving us the rationale that this is so because the practice of witchcraft and sorcery because it has broken the commandment in the Decalogue not to worship other gods in relation to the fact that these practices are associated with all other religions, but Judaism. Hence jews - as followers of Yahweh - have to eliminate these practices among their own, because they are both the practices of non-jews and also direct contraventions of the word of Yahweh as embodied in (Written) Torah.
Thus, we can easily see how Christianity's intellectual conception of the witch and sorceress - which obviously materially and significantly contributed to the witch hunts - derived directly from Judaism's ideas on the subject as expressed in (Written) Torah. This then allows us to clearly identify the (Written) Torah as being one of the key intellectual sources for the witch hunt phenomenon and it is not too much to say - as jews love to pithily state about the 'Protocols of Zion' - that the (Written) Torah is book bathed in innocent blood.
The blood of those men and women were accused of; and executed for, witchcraft by both jews and Christians.
References
(1) Robert Goldenberg, 2007, 'The Origins of Judaism: From Canaan to the Rise of Islam', 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, p. 212
(2) Ex. 7:8-12 (RSV)
(3) Ibid, 22:18; 'sorceress' is often translated as 'witch', but the academic debate favours 'sorceress' as being the more accurate term.
(4) Lev. 20:27 (RSV)
(5) Ibid., 19:31 (RSV)
(6) Deut. 18:10-14 (RSV)
(7) Derek Collins, 2008, 'Magic in the Ancient Greek World', 1st Edition, Blackwell: Oxford, p. 90