Many pagan authors harp on about Christian persecution of witches and pagans. I quickly tire of the long tirades and ask what is the relevance to the practice of magic? I don’t think I have ever noticed a practical magical application to thinking of oneself as repressed. Maybe a magician might see a respectable power in the oppressed and attempt to invoke it, but really that could do just as much to hinder their practice as it could help.
Since it is not applicable to the practice of magic, I don’t really feel the need to touch on this subject often and I hope to not cover this in tirades with emotive language. I intend to approach this historically with a object academic detachment, which will allow me to keep a cool head and remain objective.
I often ask myself why they feel the need to go on. I can only conclude that they feel they have been personally wronged and the main religions owe something to them. The main religions did not at the time persecute them. In fact most of the time, the church persecuted its own Christians. There is no evidence to suggest a history of pagans through Christian periods other than conjecture. Most of the time the witch who drone on about this come from Wiccans who believe in the Margaret Murray thesis, which has been mostly discredited by the academic world due to lack of evidence.
Margaret Murray’s thesis, known as Witchcult in Western Europe, suggests that since most hanged witches eventually confessed to worshiping a horned man that there was secretly a cult of Pan, Cernunnos and/or Herne worshipping witches. However their descriptions were all of a Christian devil which they called the devil. They were all just admitting to whatever they were told to admit to by their torturers. It is very unlikely that there was a secret cult that kept disappearing. Most of its “followers” would have had to practice a Christian faith openly, never had any idols of their deity and only mention him when they were tortured and told to admit to worshipping the devil. And even then their descriptions were quite clearly of the devil rather than Pan.
Finally I ask myself what’s the advantage to harping on about it? Well I can only guess there is some hope that Neopaganism / Wicca would be given a seat at the table next to the other major world religions and it would achieve that though some means of reparation. I’m sorry to say this to people, but Christians are not going to give any reparation based on something that is probably not historically accurate. And to quote Apocalyptic Witchcraft by Peter Grey, they only reason Christians are happy to have Witches at the table is because they no longer believe in or fear the Witch. Having Wiccans at the table with the big boys is not a sign of respect. It’s a concession to a foolish younger brother. That is not a position from which I want to operate personally.
Christian beliefs concerning magic
Firstly it’s important to recognise the change between pagan approach to the metadivine and the Hebrew god which I explore in this article with more detail. Essentially the pagans deified the forces of nature, however they had a force that went above and beyond the forces of nature, which they call the metadivine. The Hebrew faith surrounding this idea of worshiping god most high was an attempt to personify and deify the metadivine.
In previous pagan culture magic was achieved by connecting to the metadivine and through that controlling the forces of nature (the gods). In the Hebrew world view there was no room for this view however since the metadivine was a god, himself and therefore could not be messed with or manipulated through magic.
Therefore any belief or practice involving magic was not achieved through divine or welcome means, but probably a deception.
Natural magic v Demonic magic
So through the Middle-ages magic was often divided into two major types. Natural magic and demonic magic. Natural magic was often described as anything that caused unusual natural phenomena through means of natural, but occult powers. This was viewed more positively than Demonic magic which was caused by demonic intervention.
Early Christian writers, such as Tatian (120-180ce), often saw ALL magic as related to demons so this distinction is not irrelevant. For Tatian herbs and amulets have no power in themselves but demons have devised a purpose for each one and they are to lead people from God.
He held much the same views with regards to divination. It was operated entirely by demons.
John Chrysostom (347-407 ce) peached warning against women who turned to demonic magic to help with the safeguarding of the welfare of their unborn children rather than resorting to Christian means. So it is clear that the church was afraid of the effect the threat that demonic magic posed to Christian faith.
Many authors both pagan and Christian implied that women were more inclined to magic. Tertullian (155-240 ce) said that demons taught the secret powers of herbs to woman. Note the slight contradiction here where the herbs have natural powers where as Tatian believed they had none at all.
Only harmful magic was punished under pagan law in the Roman empire but after Christian take over their law allows for punishment of any kind of magic. See the Theodosian code (439 ce) and the Code of Justinian (529 ce).
While oppressing forms of magic the acceptance of many pagan practices occurred with the spread of Christianity.
Natural Magic
So early magic in Christian history was deemed to be divided into a few main parts geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy and pyromancy (or divination via earth, water, air and fire). Also the reading of entrails and astrology. These categories were pretty standard until around 13th century.
Around this time was respect for natural magic in terms of knowledge and scientific alchemy and scientific astrology. This time also saw the introduction of Arabic learning which included the Aristotelian sciences. The practitioners of these subjects would not see it as related to magic until the end of the medieval ages.
Aquinas was known for believing in astrology and natural phenomena, but reserved the word magic for feats that he believed required the intervention of demons.