| Description |
xiii, 145 p. ; 23 cm. |
| Series |
Religion in the first Christian centuries |
|
Religion in the first Christian centuries.
|
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-128) and indexes. |
| Summary |
"This volume demonstrates that the word "magic" was widely employed in late antique texts as part of polemical attacks on enemies - but at the simplest level it was merely a term used for other people's rituals." "Janowitz's work illuminates the fact that acvities denounced as magical were integral to late antique religious practice, and shows that they must be understood from the perspective of those who employed them."--BOOK JACKET. |
| Contents |
1. Greco-Roman, Christian and Jewish concepts of "magic" Pliny's critique of the magi. The church fathers' views of magic. Rabbinic classifications of magic -- 2. Daimons and angels and the world of exorcism. The rise of angelology and daimonology. Daimons, possession and exorcism -- 3. Ancient rites for gaining lovers -- 4. Using natural forces for divine goals: Maria the Jewess and early alchemy -- 5. Divine power, human hands: becoming gods in the first centuries. The emergence of deification techniques. Deification techniques in early Christian texts. Ascent techniques routinized -- 6. "Even the decent women practice witchcraft": magic and gender in late antiquity. |
| Subject |
Magic, Ancient.
|
|
Rites and ceremonies -- Rome.
|
| ISBN |
0415202078 (pbk.) |
|
041520206X |
|
9780415202060 |
|
9780415202077 (pbk.) |
|
