As Christianity spread through the Roman Empire, magic became a battleground between old religious traditions and a rapidly changing understanding of supernatural power. Andrea Maraschi explores how emperors and Christian thinkers sought to confront magic, from Constantine’s laws to Augustine’s efforts to define what separated Christian belief from superstition.
By Andrea Maraschi
During the fourth century, the clash between the old cults and the new faith was interpreted as a proper fight of supernatural forces. Christian apologists tried on several occasions to boast the superiority of God’s powers over any trick a “magician” may have ever worked. Constantine the Great played a key role in the Christianization of the Empire: his vision of a cross in the sky with the attached phrase “By this conquer” is arguably the most famous passage in Eusebius’ Vita Constantini, though its authenticity has long been disputed.
However, the emperor’s biographer recorded more intriguing information about Constantine’s efforts to discredit magic and idolatry, and—consequently—Constantine’s main enemy: the shameful tyrant Maxentius. The military campaign against him, culminating in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, which Eusebius sees as the liberation of the West, is presented by the author as the clash between pagan superstition and Christianity. According to him, the prize at stake was so important that both the rulers sought the aid of supernatural forces: Maxentius relied on “mischievous magical devices,” whereas Constantine wanted to resort to a deity. Actually, the latter believed that military numbers would be secondary if a god helped him on the battlefield. The question was: which god?
Constantine’s vision and the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in a 9th century Byzantine manuscript – BnF MS Grec 510 fol. 440r
Constantine based his decision on his own experience. He had seen many rulers who worshipped polytheistic pantheons having ephemeral success and miserably failing; on the contrary, according to Eusebius, his father Constantius was Christian and was protected by the Lord. From this came Constantine’s decision to convert to Christianity. The portrayal of Maxentius as a persecutor of Christians is reinforced by the description of his familiarity with sorcery. He committed crimes for magical purposes such as slicing open pregnant women, searching the entrails of newborn babies, slaughtering lions, and conjuring up demons, all aimed at gaining an advantage over his rival.
It is hard to assess whether such information can be considered reliable. In fact, Eusebius describes Constantine’s co-emperor Licinius (308–324) in fairly similar terms: this may have rhetorically justified Constantine’s attack against him in 314 and his final victory ten years later. According to Eusebius, Licinius mocked Constantine because the latter was surrounded by priests, while he preferred the assistance of soothsayers, diviners, Egyptian poisoners and sorcerers, sacrificial interpreters, and prophets, and he kept asking them what the outcome of the war would be. They predicted a glorious victory for Licinius and, despite his delusional hopes, history proved them wrong.
Between 319 and 320, Constantine issued specific laws concerning magic and superstitions, in line with other emperors who – as guarantors of the order of things in the world – aimed at fighting practices that disturbed this order. Firstly, he forbade consulting diviners in private, or both the latter and their clients would be severely punished (as they had been in the past). Diviners would be burned alive, whereas their clients would have their properties confiscated and be exiled to an island. However, consulting diviners publicly was permitted, which reveals an attempt to be tolerant towards followers of the traditional cults.
While such a “superstition” could take place in public, however, the law specified that accusers of the aforesaid crimes were to be rewarded because they served a useful purpose for the Empire. Most interestingly, since Christianity was quickly spreading among the urban population but not as much in country districts, Constantine made an important and pragmatic exemption: while he condemned harmful magic, he allowed the rural pagan population to continue performing magical rituals to save their harvests from bad weather and as a remedy for illness.
The concern for the diffusion of magic across Europe was deep, and was not merely linked with dangerous spells and potions made by ordinary individuals. The issue lay in the risky spreading of magic practice among churchmen. A late antique canon originally attributed to the Council of Laodicea (363–364) made a clear statement on this matter:
Those who are of the priesthood, or of the clergy, should not be magicians, enchanters, mathematicians, or astrologers, or make what are called amulets, which are chains for their own souls: and those who wear such, we command to be cast out of the Church.
It was a sign that past pragmatic efforts may not have worked out. As long as certain practices remained in rural and/or public spaces, and were performed by ordinary people, authorities proved fairly tolerant. But Constantine’s son, the Emperor Constantius II, changed his father’s dispositions and prohibited divination from 357 onwards. Practitioners of magicae artes were similarly condemned by metaphorically casting a deadly curse on them. If a high-ranking official turned to magic, he became an enemy of the Empire and was to be severely tortured regardless of his high status.
Damaged head of a Valentinianic emperor. It most likely depicts Valentinian I, or perhaps his brother, Valens. Photo by Marco Prins / Wikimedia Commons
With a very similar approach, between 364 and 371 the Western Emperor Valentinian I forbade astrology, nocturnal magical practices, and funereal sacrifices to the demons, while he allowed divination because, in his opinion, it was not a superstition and had no connections to magic, as long as it did no harm to anyone.
Some theologians were not scared by “magicians” in the slightest. Around 389, for instance, Ambrose of Milan showed considerable confidence in the powers of Christ, the Church’s own enchanter, who protected and screened her from all sorts of magical spells. Magic had no powers over the Church, and no wizard could defeat Christ.
Nevertheless, the “terror of magic” seems to have spread under the reign of Constantius II. At least, this is what emerges from Ammianus Marcellinus’ account, who suggests that consulting soothsayers or using traditional “magic” for medicinal purposes could cost one their life. According to Ammianus, the prosecutions against sorcerers, diviners, and their customers under the reigns of Constantius II and Valens in 371 were particularly aggressive. Constantius, in particular, sentenced to death people who apparently resorted to very light and harmless forms of “magic,” such as wearing amulets on their necks to protect themselves from sickness, or going past a tomb in the evening (as this was associated with necromancy).
The New Definition of Magic
13th century depiction of Augustine of Hippo refuting the heretic – Wkiimedia Commons
Augustine gave a fundamental contribution to the development of a Christian idea of magic in the fourth century. He played a major role in categorizing “magic” as an art based on the contact between humans and demons by means of certain signa, which formed the basis for later reflections on the matter. He had to defend his own faith and mark neat distinctions, admitting that Christianity contained “magic” as well, but a different kind of magic that did not involve demonic entities. According to him, that which concerned the making or worshipping of idols, consultations and contracts with demons (such as those pertaining to the art of magic), the activity of diviners and augurs, all the amulets, the remedies based on incantations or marks that were condemned by physicians, hanging and tying things to other things for magical purposes, or making such things “dance”, were all superstition.
In a society and in a time still imbued with sorcery and superstitions, the intellectual pinnacles of Christianity had the hard task of demonstrating that charms and incantations were no match for Christian powers. Augustine mentioned amulets in his exegetical work In Joannem, where he compares them with the powers of the gospels: “When your head hurts, we praise you if you place the gospel at your head, instead of resorting to an amulet,” he writes. “The gospel is preferred to amulets,” he adds.
Magic represented a major threat for the Church because it offered alternative remedies to more or less ordinary problems (health, anxiety for the future, etc.), and also because it required Church intellectuals to explain how and why the powers of the Christian God and of the saints were different and superior. Augustine gave some interesting examples about such a clash of supernatural forces: people could believe that the power of magnets was magic, as well as the peculiar powers of many other natural elements. Consequently, God was to be considered superior to any magician, for it was He who gave all such elements their virtues.
The war on magic and idolatry was just beginning: authorities and intellectuals from all over Christendom made efforts to ensure that the transition from paganism to Christianity left no uncertainties as to why the old gods and the traditional arts had failed.
Andrea Maraschi holds a BA degree in Modern Humanities (2008), an MA degree in Medieval History (2010), and a Ph.D. in Medieval History from the University of Bologna (2013). From 2014 to 2017 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Iceland. From 2018 to 2021 he taught Medieval History and Social and Economic History of the Middle Ages at the University of Bari. He has published on many aspects connected with food in medieval times such as banqueting, religious symbolism and magic practice, and his research interests include gender, astrology, astronomy, cultural memory and mythology.
Top Image: Christ Healing the Paralytic, an early Christian wall painting from Dura-Europos in Syria, dating to around AD 232. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
As Christianity spread through the Roman Empire, magic became a battleground between old religious traditions and a rapidly changing understanding of supernatural power. Andrea Maraschi explores how emperors and Christian thinkers sought to confront magic, from Constantine’s laws to Augustine’s efforts to define what separated Christian belief from superstition.
By Andrea Maraschi
During the fourth century, the clash between the old cults and the new faith was interpreted as a proper fight of supernatural forces. Christian apologists tried on several occasions to boast the superiority of God’s powers over any trick a “magician” may have ever worked. Constantine the Great played a key role in the Christianization of the Empire: his vision of a cross in the sky with the attached phrase “By this conquer” is arguably the most famous passage in Eusebius’ Vita Constantini, though its authenticity has long been disputed.
However, the emperor’s biographer recorded more intriguing information about Constantine’s efforts to discredit magic and idolatry, and—consequently—Constantine’s main enemy: the shameful tyrant Maxentius. The military campaign against him, culminating in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, which Eusebius sees as the liberation of the West, is presented by the author as the clash between pagan superstition and Christianity. According to him, the prize at stake was so important that both the rulers sought the aid of supernatural forces: Maxentius relied on “mischievous magical devices,” whereas Constantine wanted to resort to a deity. Actually, the latter believed that military numbers would be secondary if a god helped him on the battlefield. The question was: which god?
Constantine based his decision on his own experience. He had seen many rulers who worshipped polytheistic pantheons having ephemeral success and miserably failing; on the contrary, according to Eusebius, his father Constantius was Christian and was protected by the Lord. From this came Constantine’s decision to convert to Christianity. The portrayal of Maxentius as a persecutor of Christians is reinforced by the description of his familiarity with sorcery. He committed crimes for magical purposes such as slicing open pregnant women, searching the entrails of newborn babies, slaughtering lions, and conjuring up demons, all aimed at gaining an advantage over his rival.
It is hard to assess whether such information can be considered reliable. In fact, Eusebius describes Constantine’s co-emperor Licinius (308–324) in fairly similar terms: this may have rhetorically justified Constantine’s attack against him in 314 and his final victory ten years later. According to Eusebius, Licinius mocked Constantine because the latter was surrounded by priests, while he preferred the assistance of soothsayers, diviners, Egyptian poisoners and sorcerers, sacrificial interpreters, and prophets, and he kept asking them what the outcome of the war would be. They predicted a glorious victory for Licinius and, despite his delusional hopes, history proved them wrong.
Laws Against Magic and their Exceptions
Between 319 and 320, Constantine issued specific laws concerning magic and superstitions, in line with other emperors who – as guarantors of the order of things in the world – aimed at fighting practices that disturbed this order. Firstly, he forbade consulting diviners in private, or both the latter and their clients would be severely punished (as they had been in the past). Diviners would be burned alive, whereas their clients would have their properties confiscated and be exiled to an island. However, consulting diviners publicly was permitted, which reveals an attempt to be tolerant towards followers of the traditional cults.
While such a “superstition” could take place in public, however, the law specified that accusers of the aforesaid crimes were to be rewarded because they served a useful purpose for the Empire. Most interestingly, since Christianity was quickly spreading among the urban population but not as much in country districts, Constantine made an important and pragmatic exemption: while he condemned harmful magic, he allowed the rural pagan population to continue performing magical rituals to save their harvests from bad weather and as a remedy for illness.
The concern for the diffusion of magic across Europe was deep, and was not merely linked with dangerous spells and potions made by ordinary individuals. The issue lay in the risky spreading of magic practice among churchmen. A late antique canon originally attributed to the Council of Laodicea (363–364) made a clear statement on this matter:
Those who are of the priesthood, or of the clergy, should not be magicians, enchanters, mathematicians, or astrologers, or make what are called amulets, which are chains for their own souls: and those who wear such, we command to be cast out of the Church.
It was a sign that past pragmatic efforts may not have worked out. As long as certain practices remained in rural and/or public spaces, and were performed by ordinary people, authorities proved fairly tolerant. But Constantine’s son, the Emperor Constantius II, changed his father’s dispositions and prohibited divination from 357 onwards. Practitioners of magicae artes were similarly condemned by metaphorically casting a deadly curse on them. If a high-ranking official turned to magic, he became an enemy of the Empire and was to be severely tortured regardless of his high status.
With a very similar approach, between 364 and 371 the Western Emperor Valentinian I forbade astrology, nocturnal magical practices, and funereal sacrifices to the demons, while he allowed divination because, in his opinion, it was not a superstition and had no connections to magic, as long as it did no harm to anyone.
Some theologians were not scared by “magicians” in the slightest. Around 389, for instance, Ambrose of Milan showed considerable confidence in the powers of Christ, the Church’s own enchanter, who protected and screened her from all sorts of magical spells. Magic had no powers over the Church, and no wizard could defeat Christ.
Nevertheless, the “terror of magic” seems to have spread under the reign of Constantius II. At least, this is what emerges from Ammianus Marcellinus’ account, who suggests that consulting soothsayers or using traditional “magic” for medicinal purposes could cost one their life. According to Ammianus, the prosecutions against sorcerers, diviners, and their customers under the reigns of Constantius II and Valens in 371 were particularly aggressive. Constantius, in particular, sentenced to death people who apparently resorted to very light and harmless forms of “magic,” such as wearing amulets on their necks to protect themselves from sickness, or going past a tomb in the evening (as this was associated with necromancy).
The New Definition of Magic
Augustine gave a fundamental contribution to the development of a Christian idea of magic in the fourth century. He played a major role in categorizing “magic” as an art based on the contact between humans and demons by means of certain signa, which formed the basis for later reflections on the matter. He had to defend his own faith and mark neat distinctions, admitting that Christianity contained “magic” as well, but a different kind of magic that did not involve demonic entities. According to him, that which concerned the making or worshipping of idols, consultations and contracts with demons (such as those pertaining to the art of magic), the activity of diviners and augurs, all the amulets, the remedies based on incantations or marks that were condemned by physicians, hanging and tying things to other things for magical purposes, or making such things “dance”, were all superstition.
In a society and in a time still imbued with sorcery and superstitions, the intellectual pinnacles of Christianity had the hard task of demonstrating that charms and incantations were no match for Christian powers. Augustine mentioned amulets in his exegetical work In Joannem, where he compares them with the powers of the gospels: “When your head hurts, we praise you if you place the gospel at your head, instead of resorting to an amulet,” he writes. “The gospel is preferred to amulets,” he adds.
Magic represented a major threat for the Church because it offered alternative remedies to more or less ordinary problems (health, anxiety for the future, etc.), and also because it required Church intellectuals to explain how and why the powers of the Christian God and of the saints were different and superior. Augustine gave some interesting examples about such a clash of supernatural forces: people could believe that the power of magnets was magic, as well as the peculiar powers of many other natural elements. Consequently, God was to be considered superior to any magician, for it was He who gave all such elements their virtues.
The war on magic and idolatry was just beginning: authorities and intellectuals from all over Christendom made efforts to ensure that the transition from paganism to Christianity left no uncertainties as to why the old gods and the traditional arts had failed.
Andrea Maraschi holds a BA degree in Modern Humanities (2008), an MA degree in Medieval History (2010), and a Ph.D. in Medieval History from the University of Bologna (2013). From 2014 to 2017 he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Iceland. From 2018 to 2021 he taught Medieval History and Social and Economic History of the Middle Ages at the University of Bari. He has published on many aspects connected with food in medieval times such as banqueting, religious symbolism and magic practice, and his research interests include gender, astrology, astronomy, cultural memory and mythology.
Further Readings:
Davies, Owen. Magic: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2012.
Flint, Valerie I. J. The Rise of Magic in Early Medieval Europe. Princeton University Press, 1991.
Skemer, Don C. Binding Words: Textual Amulets in the Middle Ages. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006.
Top Image: Christ Healing the Paralytic, an early Christian wall painting from Dura-Europos in Syria, dating to around AD 232. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
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