ISIDORE OF SEVILLE'S TAXONOMY OF

MAGICIANS AND DIVINERS

By WILLIAM E. KLINGSHIRN
In
Etymologies
8.9,
Isidore
presents
a detailed classification of the diverse
group
of ritual
experts
he calls
magi.
Well
organized,
erudite,
flexible
enough
to include a wide
range
of
specialists,
and,
as its record of influence
demonstrates,
enormously
useful as a
template
for later medieval classifica
tions,
the "De
Magis"
offers what can
rightly
be called the first definitive
western Christian
taxonomy
of unauthorized
practitioners. Although
Isidore
relied
heavily
on a wide
range
of
pagan
and Christian sources for the con
tents of the
chapter,
their
selection, revision,
and
arrangement
?
the ele
ments of his
taxonomy
?
were all his own.1
Yet,
for all its
importance,
Isidore's
chapter
has received little crit
ical attention in recent
years. Unlike,
for
instance,
its
neighbor
"De
diis
gentium" (Etym. 8.II),2
it has not been the
subject
of a
pub
lished
commentary
or an exhaustive
investigation
of its sources.3 It has of
course been used and summarized in studies of
magic,4 excerpted
in various
1
"Les sources des
Etymologies
sont
multiples.
. . .
Elles se
r?partissent,
sans distinction
apparente,
entre auteurs
pa?ens
et auteurs chr?tiens. Mais
l'important
est ici de
souligner
que,
ni
par
leur
conception
d'ensemble,
ni
par
la m?thode
d'investigation
et la d?marche
intellectuelle,
les
Etymologies
ne
paraissent pourvoir
remonter ? un mod?le
pr?cis:
les mat?
riaux sont tous
emprunt?s,
l'architecture est
originale" (Marc Reydellet,
"Sacr? et
profane
dans
l'encyclop?disme
d'Isidore de
Seville,"
in Le Divin: discours
encyclop?diques,
ed. Denis
H?e
[Caen, 1994],
313-25,
at
318-19).
This article is based on a
paper
delivered in
May
2000 at the annual
meeting
of the
North American Patristics
Society
in
Chicago.
For advice in
revising
it for
publication,
I
am
grateful
to members of the
audience,
to
my colleague,
Professor F. A. C.
Mantello,
and
to Professor J. N.
Hillgarth
and the other editors of Traditio. I should also like to thank
the American Council of Learned Societies for a
fellowship supporting my
work on diviners
in late
antiquity during
the 2000-2001 academic
year.
2
Katherine Nell
Macfarlane,
Isidore
of
Seville on the
Pagan
Gods
(Origines
VI
11.11),
Transactions of the American
Philosophical Society,
70:3
(Philadelphia, 1980).
3
Sophie
de Clauzade's
edition,
French
translation,
and
commentary
on book
8,
sched
uled to be
published by
Belles Lettres in the series Auteurs latins du
Moyen Age,
remains
forthcoming.
It will be based on
Sophie
de Clauzade de
Mazieux,
"Isidori
Hispalensis Ety
mologiarum
liber octavus de ecclesia et sectis: Edition
critique
et commentaire"
(master's
the
sis,
Ecole nationale des
Chartes, 1977).
An abstract can be found in Positions des th?ses
soutenues
par
les ?l?ves de la
promotion
de 1977
pour
obtenir le
dipl?me
d'archiviste
pal?ogra
phe (Paris, 1977),
49-54.
4
Most
recently by
Valerie
Flint,
The Rise
of Magic
in
Early
Medieval
Europe (Prince
ton, 1991), esp.
51-53.
60
TRADITIO
forms,5
and
fully
translated into
(and thereby interpreted in) Spanish,6
Ital
ian,7
and German.8 And a new
Spanish study
of the sources of book 8 of the
Etymologies9
now
supplements
the notes in the editions of Juan de Grial
(1599)10
and Faustino Ar?valo
(1798),11
which
Jacques-Paul Migne reprinted
in 1850.12 But
despite
this
scholarly progress,
basic
questions
about the "De
Magis"
still
persist:
what it is
actually
a
taxonomy of,
how Isidore con
structed
it,
and how his account matches the
perceptions
and
practices
of
magic
and divination in his own
day.
This
paper explores
the
structure, sources,
and contents of Isidore's "De
Magis"
with a view toward
advancing
the discussion of these
problems.
It
begins by arguing
that Isidore's
chapter
is not
simply
about
"magic,"
as is
often
said,
but rather about the
many
kinds of ritual
practitioners
that
could be
grouped
under the
capacious
term
magi.13
It continues
by showing
5
E.g.,
as an illustration of "the intellectual condition of the dark
ages," by
Ernest Bre
haut
(An Encyclopedist of
the Dark
Ages:
Isidore
of
Seville
[New
York,
1912], 7),
who trans
lates
portions
of the
chapter
at 200-203.
6
San Isidoro de Sevilla:
Etimolog?as,
trans. Jos? Oroz Reta and Manuel-Antonio Marcos
Casquero,
introd. Manuel C. D?az
y D?az,
2d.
ed.,
Biblioteca de autores
cristianos,
433
(Madrid, 1993),
1:713-17.
7
Fabrizio
Nicoli, Cristianesimo,
superstizione
e
magia
nell'alto Medioevo: Cesario di
Arles,
Martino di
Braga,
Isidoro di
Siviglia (Bagni
di
Lucca,
1992),
91-95.
8
Isidor von Sevilla: ?ber Glauben und
Aberglauben, Etymologien,
VIII.
Buch,
trans.
Dagmar
Linhart
(Dettelbach, 1997),
35-42.
Tantalizingly,
the author comments
only
on
chapters
1.4, 3.3, 3.7,
and
4.3-39;
a
complete commentary
is
promised
in a
forthcoming
Gesamtedition.
9
Angel
Valastro
Canale,
Herej?as y
sectas en la
iglesia antigua:
el octavo libro de las Eti
molog?as
de Isidoro de Sevilla
y
sus
fuentes (Madrid, 2000).
10
Divi Isidori
Hispalensis Episcopi Opera Philippi
Secundi catholici
reg?s
iussu e vetustis
exemplaribus
emendata
(Madrid, 1599).
I have consulted this edition in the
reprint published
in 1778
by
Bartholomaeus Ulloa: Divi Isidori
Hispalensis Episcopi Opera
... e vetustis
exemplaribus
emendata nunc denuo
diligentissime
correda,
atque aliquibus opusculis appendi
cis loco
aucta,
2 vols.
(Madrid, 1778).
11
?S. Isidori
Hispalensis episcopi Hispaniarum
doctoris
opera omnia,
7 vols.
(Rome,
1797-1803),
vol.
3,
Etymologiarum
libri
priores (1798),
369-74.
12
Grial's notes are at PL
82:310-14,
and Ar?valo's at PL 82:916-17.
13
It is
arguable
that
just
as ancient
magic
is best understood as a
category
of
"ritual,"
so too is ancient divination
(and,
for that
matter,
most ancient
healing practices).
This is
preferable
to the
Enlightenment taxonomy
in which such
practices
are
grouped
under the
major headings
of
"magic," "religion,"
and "science." See Einar
Thomassen,
"Is
Magic
a
Subclass of Ritual?" in The World
of
Ancient
Magic: Papers from
the First International
Samson Eitrem Seminar at the
Norwegian
Institute at
Athens,
4-8
May
1997,
ed. David
R.
Jordan,
Hugo Montgomery,
and Einar Thomassen
(Bergen, 1999),
55-66. The work of
David Frankfurter is
helpful
on this
question.
See in
particular "Dynamics
of Ritual
Expertise
in
Antiquity
and
Beyond:
Towards a New
Taxonomy
of
'Magicians,'"
in
Magic
and Ritual in the Ancient
World,
ed. Paul Mirecki and Marvin
Meyer (Leiden, 2002),
159-78.
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS
61
how Isidore classified the
figures
he
selected,
mainly by measuring
the
greater
or lesser
degree
of demonic influence
they
all
exhibited,
but also
by
more
secular,
classical
standards,
especially
technical distinctions in their
aims and methods. The article then discusses the
categories
and
subcatego
ries of Isidore's
taxonomy, paying particular
attention to the
reasoning
and
examples
that informed them. It concludes
by surveying
other evidence
from later sixth- and
seventh-century Spain
and Gaul in order to
compare
Isidore's classification with
contemporary parallels. Appended
to the article
is an annotated translation of
Etym.
8.9. Both the article and the transla
tion are
largely
based on W. M.
Lindsay's
Oxford Classical Text edition of
1911 but
diverge
from it on
occasion,
as noted.
Magi
It has
long
been
recognized
that the work we know as the
Etymologies
has a
complicated
textual
history.
First
arranged
in titilli
by
Isidore,
it
was divided into libri
by
Braulio of
Saragossa,14
and
eventually
into
capitula,
in
patterns
that
vary considerably
from one
group
of
manuscripts
to the next.15
Despite
these
variations,
it seems reasonable to
suppose
that
the "De
Magis" always
constituted its
own unit: it forms a
separate
titulus
in numerous
manuscripts organized by
tituli and receives a
separate
heading
in the lists of books and
chapters
to which
Lindsay gives
the
names Index librorum17 and
Capitula
librorum.18
Although
the
title "De
Magis"
is not found in
every manuscript,
its form
(De
+
the first word in
the
entry)
fits the
pattern
of other
titles,
both in its own half of book 8
(chapters 6-11),
and in the
larger
unit to which book 8
belongs (books
7-10,
on
nomina).19
14
"Etymologiarum
codicem nimiae
magnitudinis,
distinctum ab eo
titulis,
non libris:
quem quia rogatu
meo
fecit,
quamvis inperfectum ipse reliquerit, ego
in
quindecim
libros
divisi"
(Renotatio
Isidori a Braulione
Caesaraiig
listano
episcopo
edita,
ed. Pascual
Galindo,
in
C. H.
Lynch
and P.
Galindo,
San Braulio
Obispo
de
Zaragoza (631-651):
Su vida
y
sus
obras
[Madrid, 1950], 358).
15
Carmen
Codo?er,
"Los tituli en las
Etymologiae: Aportaciones
al estudio de la trans
misi?n del
texto,"
in Actas I
Congreso
Nacional de Latin Medieval
(Le?n,
1-4 de diciembre
de
1993),
ed. Maurilio P?rez Gonz?lez
(Le?n, 1995),
29-46.
16
"L.
VIII,
Tts. II: De
magicis
artibus." See Eduard
Anspach,
Taionis et Isidori nova
fragmenta
et
opera (Madrid, 1930),
32,
and
Codo?er,
"Los
tituli,"
30-31.
17
"Vili: De Ecclesia et
Synagoga,
de
Religione
et
Fide,
de
Haeresibus,
de
Philosophis,
Poetis,
Sibyllis, Magis, Paganis
ac Dis Gentium."
18
"VIIIB: iv. De
magis."
19
Walter
Porzig,
"Die Rezensionen der
Etymologiae
des Isidorus von
Sevilla,"
Hermes
72
(1937):
129-70,
at 138-41.
62 TRADITIO
How we translate the title "De
Magis" depends
on what we think the
chapter
is about. Ernest Brehaut headed the
chapter
"On the
magi,"20
a
translation followed
by
Jos? Oroz Reta and Manuel-Antonio Marcos Cas
quero ("Sobre
los
magos")21
and
Dagmar
Linhart
("?ber
die
Magier").22
A
better
English
translation would be
"Magi,"
since the
preposition
de in a
Latin title
simply
marks it as a title:
so,
Fabrizio Nicoli
("I Maghi").23
But
other scholars would translate
magi
as
"magicians,"
based on the notion
that
"magic"
is what the
chapter
is about. As
Lynn
Thorndike wrote in his
History of Magic
and
Experimental
Science: "Isidore's
chapter
on the
Magi
or
magicians
...
is a notable one.
. . .
Perhaps
the most
noteworthy point
. . .
is that he has made
magic
and
magicians
the
general
and inclusive head
[emphasis added]
under which he
presently
lists various other minor occult
arts and their
practitioners
for
separate
definition."24 Since most of the
prac
titioners listed in Isidore's
chapter
are in fact
diviners,
this view
presented
Thorndike with a
problem,
which he solved
by asserting
that,
"From the
first Isidore identifies
magic
and divination."25 Over the
years,
Thorndike's
translation and his solution to the
problem
it created have been influential:
among others,
they
can be found in
Stephen McKenna,26
Richard Kieckhe
fer,27
and Fritz Graf.28
20
Brehaut,
An
Encyclopedist (n.
5
above),
200.
21
Oroz Reta and
Casquero, Etimolog?as (
.
6
above),
1:713.
22
Linhart, ?ber Glauben und
Aberglauben (n.
8
above),
35.
23
Nicoli,
Cristianesimo
(
.
7
above),
91.
24
Lynn
Thorndike,
A
History of Magic
and
Experimental
Science,
8 vols.
(New
York,
1923),
1:628-29.
25
Ibid.,
1:629.
26
"Isidore then
proceeds
to define various kinds of
magic,
such as
necromancy, hydro
mancy, geomancy, aeromancy,
and
pyromancy.
Under the
heading
of
magic
he also
groups
the
practice
of
divination,
by
means of the
flight
of
birds,
the entrails of
animals,
and the
movement of the stars"
(Stephen McKenna,
Paganism
and
Pagan
Survivals in
Spain up
to
the Fall
of
the
Visigothic Kingdom,
The Catholic
University
of America Studies in Mediae
val
History,
n.s. 1
[Washington,
D.C.,
1938], 140).
27
"Isidore of Seville
. . .
listed
geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy,
and
pyromancy
. . .
under the
heading "magic,"
and then went on under the same
heading
to discuss divina
tory
observation of the
flight
and cries of
birds,
the entrails of sacrificial
animals,
and
positions
of stars and
planets.
. . .
Only
after
cataloging
these and other
species
of divina
tion did he include enchantment
(magical
use of
words), ligatures (medical
use of
magical
objects
bound to the
patient),
and various other
phenomena
in his discussion of
magic"
(Richard Kieckhefer,
Magic
in the Middle
Ages [Cambridge, 1989], 10-11).
28
"In his
Etymologies
. . .
Isidore,
bishop
of
Seville,
dedicates a
chapter (8.9)
to
magi
cians or sorcerers
(De magis).
After
naming
Zoroastrian Persia as the cradle and home-land
of
magic,
he tells how the fallen
angels brought
this non-sense
(vanitates)
to their human
brides
?
and how 'for the sake of
knowing
the future and Hell and how to call it
up,'
there
developed
'the arts of the
haruspex
and the
augur,
and what
they
call oracles and
necromancy.' Magic,
then,
is
nothing
more than the various methods of
pagan
divination"
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS 63
The
problem
with Thorndike's
position
lies in its
equation
of the Latin
term
magi,
which had
acquired
an almost
impossibly
wide
range
of mean
ings by
Isidore's
time,
with the
English
term
"magicians,"
which covers
(and
should
cover)
a far narrower semantic field.29 Isidore's
magi
are not so much
"magicians"
as,
literally,
a
:
specifically,
the
mages
hell?nis?s well de
scribed
by Joseph
Bidez and Franz
Cumont,
whom centuries of Greek and
Roman
(mis)interpretation
had transformed from Persian
priests specializing
in sacrifice and divination into all manner of wise
men, sorcerers, diviners,
poisoners, astrologers,
and frauds.30
Saying
that the "De
Magis"
is about
"magic"
or
"magicians" inaccurately prejudges
its contents and
specifically
endorses the
opinion
that Isidore believed that
magic
and divination were
identical. As we shall see in more detail
below,
such a view is contradicted
by
the careful
organization
of the "De
Magis." Although
Isidore
placed
magicians
and diviners under the
general heading
of
magi
and
explicitly
included divination
among
their artes
(??2, 3),
he also took
pains
to
organize
the
chapter
in such a
way
as to
distinguish magicians,
who
performed
occult
actions
(??4-10),
from
diviners,
who
supplied
occult
knowledge (??14-29).
At
the
fuzzy edges
of these
categories,
he located
"boundary-crossers."31
These
included necromancers and
hydromancers, practitioners par
excellence of
"magical
divination"
(??11-12),
and incantatores
(?15),
whose incantations
summoned demons for divination
(?11),
but also
empowered healing
amulets
(?30)
and harmful
spells (?10).
The reason Isidore
(or
whoever
supplied
the
title)
chose the term
magi
to
describe the individuals and
groups
of individuals listed in the
chapter
was
precisely
its wide
range
of
meanings.
The main virtue of the title "De
Magis"
was that it did not have to mean
any specific
kind of
practitioner
(Fritz
Graf,
"Magic
and
Divination,"
in The World
of
Ancient
Magic [note
13
above],
283-98,
at
284).
29
So, OED2,
s.v.
"magician":
"One skilled in
magic
or
sorcery;
a
necromancer, wizard,"
with
OED2,
s.v.
"magic":
"The
pretended
art of
influencing
the course of
events,
and of
producing
marvellous
physical phenomena.
. .
." The fact that
English (and French) speak
ers can differentiate between
magi (mages)
and
magicians (magiciens)
is due to the creation
in Middle
English
and Old French of a
separate
word,
"magicien" (magiciien),
derived from
the Latin
magicus,
and to the simultaneous survival of the
original
term in both
languages.
See
Adolphe
Hatzfeld and Ars?ne
Darmesteter,
with Antoine
Thomas,
Dictionnaire
g?n?ral
de la
langue fran?aise,
2 vols.
(Paris, 1890-93), 2:1440,
s.v.
"magicien,"
and
1:95,
?244:
"Suffixe ANUS." See also Robert-L?on
Wagner,
"Sorcier" et
"Magicien":
Contribution d
?histoire du vocabulaire de la
magie (Paris, 1939),
156-57,
217.
30
Joseph
Bidez and Franz
Cumont,
Les
Mages
Hell?nis?s:
Zoroastre,
Ostan?s et
Hystaspe
d'apr?s
la tradition
grecque,
2 vols.
(Paris
1938; repr. 1973).
See also Fritz
Graf,
Magic
in
the Ancient
World,
trans. Franklin
Philip (Cambridge,
Mass.,
1997),
20-29.
31
I take this term from G. E. R.
Lloyd's
discussion of Aristotle's
zoological taxonomy
in
Science, Folklore,
and
Ideology (Cambridge, 1983),
44-50.
64 TRADITIO
at all.32 It could therefore be used as a blanket term not
only
for
magicians
of various
types,
but also for
diviners, healers,
and others with secret knowl
edge.
This
meaning
is consistent with the word's
usage
in Latin from an
early point,33
and is
especially prominent
in
Pliny
the
Elder,
on whom Isi
dore relied
heavily.34
Where Isidore uses the term in more
specific
senses in
the
chapter
itself,
it
designates
various
figures:
the Persian
priests
whose
chief was Zoroaster
(?1),
the Pharaoh's
magicians (?4),
Circe
(?5),
the male
fici
condemned
by
Roman law
(?9),
and the
astrologers
"from the East" in
Matt. 2:1
(?25).
Elsewhere in the
Etymologies,
Isidore uses the word
magi primarily
in
pas
sages
borrowed from
Pliny,
where it
usually
refers to wise men who
possess
arcane
(but
not
necessarily "magical")
scientific
knowledge.
For
instance,
in
Etymologies,
book 16
(dependent
on books 36 and 37 of the Natural
History)
Isidore lists what
magi
believe about or
perform
with various kinds of
stones. Their
knowledge
and
practices
relate to
magic (8.1,
5; 11.1; 13.8;
14.7; 15.8, 17,
24), necromancy (15.22, 26),
and divination
(15.23, 25).
Apart
from these
passages,
Isidore's most
significant
use of the word
magus
occurs in the De
differentiis
uerborum,
where he
distinguishes
between
the incantator and three other kinds of
practitioner:
magus, aruspex,
and
maleficus.35
All four definitions are taken
directly
from Jerome's Commen
tarli in D?nielem 1.2.2a
(CCL 75A:783-84)
and 1.2.27b
(CCL 75A:790),
with
only
one
significant change. Recalling
his earlier discussion of their status as
Persian wise men
(Comm.
in Dan. 1.1.20
[CCL 75A:782]),
Jerome had
defined
magi
as those "who
philosophize
about individual
things" (qui
de
singulis philosophantur [CCL75A:784,
line
161]). Wishing
to be more
precise,
Isidore revised this definition in the
light
of Jerome's added comment that
the
magi
were Chaldean
philosophers (philosophi
Chaldaeorum
[CCL
75A:784,
lines
166-67]).36 Knowing
that Chaldeans had invented
astrology
(Etym. 3.25.1),
he therefore altered Jerome's text to read that
"Magi
are
those who
philosophize
about the constellations
(de sideribus)." Interestingly
32
"Ce mot si
g?n?ral
avait un
avantage;
il ne
pr?jugeait
rien du caract?re de l'homme
auquel
on
l'appliquait" (Wagner,
"Sorcier" et
"Magicien" 143).
33
For a
survey,
see the article
by
Hermann
Dietzfelbinger
in ThLL
8:149-52,
s.v.
"magus."
34
Jos? Oroz
Reta,
"Pr?sence de Pline dans les
Etymologies
de saint Isidore de
S?ville,"
in Pline Canden: t?moin de son
temps,
ed. Jackie
Pigeaud
and Jos? Oroz Reta
(Salamanca,
1987),
611-22.
35
"Inter incantatorem et
magum, aruspicem
et maleficum. Incantatores sunt
qui
rem
verbis
peragunt; magi qui
de sideribus
philosophantur;
malefici
qui sanguine
utuntur et
victimis et
saepe contingunt corpora
mortuorum;
aruspices qui
exta
pecudum inspiciunt
et ex eis futura
praedicunt" (De differentiis
1.84,
ed. Carmen
Codo?er,
Isidoro de Sevilla:
Diferencias [Paris, 1992],
124
[=
De
diff.
1.29
(PL 83:40)]).
36
Codo?er,
Isidoro de Sevilla:
Diferencias,
332.
taxonomy of magicians
65
however,
unlike his definitions of the other
terms,
which
reappear
verbatim
in "De
Magis,"
this definition of
magus
was not reused in the
chapter.
It
may
be that the idea of
magi
as
philosopher-astrologers
contradicted the less
benign
definitions that Isidore chose to
include,
or
that he
thought
that
since this
meaning
of the term had been
eclipsed
at Christ's birth
(Etym.
8.9.25),
it should hold no
permanent place
in his
taxonomy.
The Structure of the "De Magis"
Like other
chapters
in the
Etymologies,
the "De
Magis"
consists at its
most basic level of
glosses
on related
lemmata,
in this
case,
on terms for
different kinds of
practitioners.
If we
imposed
no other structure on the
chapter,
we could
say
that
magi
is the first and most
extensively glossed
of
these
terms,
with a definition
proper only appearing
at
?9 ("Magi sunt")
after a
general
introduction
(??1-3)
and other
prefatory
material
(??4-8).
Once
introduced,
magi
are
defined as
malefici,
whose own
bad deeds are dis
turbingly
recited
(??9-10).37
These first ten sections form the most elaborate
part
of the
chapter. They
contain all its
poetic quotations
and feature all
but one of the occurrences of
magus
and its derivatives.38 After
this,
the
chapter
continues in a much
simpler
fashion,
beginning
with a new lemma
at
?11 ("Necromantii sunt"),
and so on to
?30
where the
pattern changes
to
accommodate
amulets,
a
conclusion,
and
sundry
additional facts.
In a certain
sense, then,
although
the
chapter
is titled
"Magi,"
it is
only
the first ten sections that are
actually
about
magi.
The
chapter
then
gradu
ally
moves on to other
figures, beginning
with necromancers
(?11)
and
hydromancers (?12),
the latter deemed to
practice
a
genus
diuinationis
(?13).
At this
point,
we enter a new realm of
practitioners
and
practices,
headed
by
Varro's
listing
of the four
types
of divination. We do not encoun
ter
magi again
at
all,
except
in
?25,
where the use of the word to mean
"astrologers"
is treated as a biblical fossil and
relegated
to the time before
Christ's birth.
It could be
argued,
however,
that the "De
Magis"
is more than a
loosely
organized
stream of lemmata and
glosses.
One
simple way
of
arranging
its
sections occurs in some of the
manuscripts organized by
tituli,
where the
titulus "De
magicis
artibus" is divided into "i. De
magicae
inventoribus"
37
Against
Thorndike,
History of Magic (n.
24
above),
1:629,
I understand
malefici
rather
than
magi
to be the antecedent of hi in the two
passages
where it occurs. In Hi et elementa
(?9)
hi is more
likely
to refer to
malefici,
because Uli would be needed to refer to
magi.
In
Hi etiam
sanguine (?10),
Isidore is
paraphrasing
a
passage
from the De
differentiis
verborum
(n.
35
above),
and
replaces malefici
with hi and
qui
with etiam.
38
The forms are
magi (??9, 25), magorum (??1, 4), maga (?5), magicae
artes
(?2), magica
rum artium
(?3), magicis
artibus
(?6),
and murmure
magico (?8).
66 TRADITIO
(??1-3),
"ii. De
magorum praestigiis" (??4-8),
and "iii. De
generibus mago
rum"
(??9-35).39
This does not do much more than to show
how,
already
in
the
early
Middle
Ages,
the
prefatory
material of
??1-8
could be divided into
two
parts.
But such a schematization also
suggests
that it would not be out
of
place
to look for a more
sophisticated arrangement
overall. The
following
outline
represents
one
possibility.
I. Introduction:
history
of
magic
and divination
(??1-3)
II.
Magicians
A.
performing
illusions
1. Pharaoh's
magicians,
Moses
(?4)
2.
Circe,
the Arcadians
(?5)
B.
raising
the dead
1. the
Massylian
witch
(?6)
2. the witch of Endor
(?7)
3.
Mercury (?8)
C.
doing
evil
(??9-10)
III.
Magical
diviners
A. necromancers
(?11)
B.
hydromancers (??12-13a)
IV. Diviners
A. definitions
(??13b-14)
1. Varro's division of divination
2.
etymology
of divinas
3. Cicero's division of divination
B.
types
of diviners
1. incantatores
(?15)
2. harioli
(?16)
3.
haruspices (?17)
4.
augurs (??18-20)
5.
pythonissae (?21)
6.
astrologers
a.
astrologi (?22)
b.
genethliaci (?23)
c.
mathematici
(?24)
d.
magi (??25-26)
e.
horoscopi (?27)
7.
sortilegi (?28)
8. salisatores
(?29)
39
Anspach,
Taionis et Isidori
(
.
16
above),
32.
taxonomy of magicians 67
V. Amulets
(?30)
VI.
Summary:
the ars daemonum
(?31)
VII.
Appendix ("Firsts")
A.
Phrygians
the first to discover
augury
from birds
(?32)
B.
Mercury
the first to discover illusion
(?33)
C.
Tages
the first to transmit
haruspicy (??34-35)
This outline
organizes
the six main
parts
of the
chapter (apart
from the
appendix)
into three nested
pairs
in the
pattern
abccba. The first and sixth
parts (a),
which constitute an introduction and
conclusion,
bracket the sec
ond and fifth
parts (b),
which discuss
magicians
and
amulets;
these in turn
bracket the third and fourth
parts (c),
which discuss two different classes of
diviners. It is a mark of the
chapters
deliberate
organization
that Isidore
relegates
to an
appendix
what does not fit into this neat scheme. In other
chapters
in which "first" discoverers
appear, they
are
usually
more
promi
nently displayed.40
A brief discussion of each main
heading
will
help
to
explain
Isidore's
reasoning.
Introduction
(??1-3)
Isidore relies
on
Pliny
the Elder and Lactantius to set the
stage.
The first
two
sections,
drawn from the
opening chapters
of
Pliny's
book
30,
focus on
the
"bibliography"
of the artes
magicae by directly mentioning
the
body
of
writings
attributed to Zoroaster
(?1)
and
alluding
to the works
(haec opera
eius
[Pliny,
Hist. Nat.
30.2.9])
attributed to Democritus
(?2).
Isidore also
emphasizes
the
long history
of the arts of the
magi
and their wide
geo
graphic spread
from Zoroaster's Persia and Ninus's
Assyria through
Greece
in the time of Democritus and
Hippocrates
to Rome at the end of the
republic,
marked
by
Lucan's
poem
on the battle of Pharsalus in 48 b.c.
It is after
Lucan,
in the third
section,
that Isidore
gets
to the heart of his
introduction. Here he
explains
the two
principles
that structure the rest of
the
chapter:
first,
that the arts of the
magi
were learned from the wicked
angels (ex
traditione
angelorum malorum),
and
second,
that these arts flour
ished over a
long
extent of
space
and time because of
(per)
a
knowledge
of
the future
(quandam
scientiam
futurorum)
and the
calling
forth of the dead
(infernorum evocationes). Owing
to a
problem
with
Lindsay's
text,
my analy
sis of section 3 is based on the text of
Sophie
de
Clauzade,
as
approvingly
40
E.g.,
at the
beginning
of a
chapter: Etym.
17.1.1: "Rerum rusticarum scribendi soller
tiam
apud
Graecos
primus
Hesiodus Boeotius humanis studiis
contulit";
17.3.1: "Prima
Ceres
coepit
uti
frugibus
in
Graecia";
17.5.1: "Vitis
plantationem primus
Noe instituit rudi
adhuc saeculo."
68 TRADITIO
reported by Jacques
Fontaine.41 It is this text that I
reproduce
below,
organized per
cola et commata. Isidore's sources
(precise
references for which
appear
in the
appended translation)
are noted in the
right
column.
?3. Itaque
haec uanitas
magicarum
artium
ex traditione
angelorum
malorum
in toto terrarum orbe
plurimis
saeculis ualuit
per quandam
scientiam futurorum
et infernorum euocationes:
eorum inuenta sunt
aruspicia, augurationes,
et
ipsa quae
dicuntur
oracula et necromantia.
"M?gicas
vanita tes"
(Pliny)
"in toto terrarum orbe
plurimisque
saeculis valuit"
(Pliny)
"scientiam rerum futurarum"
(Cicero)
"et inferum evocatione"
(Pliny)
"Eorum inventa sunt
astrologia
et
haruspicina
et
auguratio
et
ipsa quae
dicuntur
oracula et necromantia"
(Lactantius)
The
phrase
ex traditione
angelorum
malorum
may
be
Isidore's,
based on a
common construction in Christian Latin42 and on a common idea in Chris
tian
thought.
To
judge by
the last sentence in the
section,
his immediate
source is Lactantius's identification of the wicked
angels
with demons in
Divine Institutes 2.14-16
(itself
based on Minucius
Felix,
Octavius
26).
Describing
the
widespread
evil actions of
demons,
Lactantius had
explained
that "the entire art and
power
of the
magi
also
depends
on the
inspirations
of these. Called
upon by magi, they
deceive human
sight by blinding
tricks,
so that
people
do not see what exists and think
they
see what does not
exist."43
41
Jacques
Fontaine,
"Le 'sacr?'
antique
vu
par
un homme du Vile si?cle: le livre VIII
des
Etymologies
d'Isidore de
S?ville,"
Bulletin de Association Guillaume Bud?
(1989):
394-405,
at 396
.
7. One
argument
in favor of this
reading
is that it
acknowledges
Isi
dore's
adaptation
of the
phrase
et
infernorum
euocationes from
Pliny's
et
inferum
evocatione;
another is that it
recognizes
from Lactantius that a new
thought begins
at eorum inuenta.
Lindsay's
text reads et vocationes instead of euocationes and
punctuates differently:
"Per
quandam
scientiam futurorum et infernorum et vocationes eorum...." This
produces
a
very
different sense,
as Graf's translation indicates: "for the sake of
knowing
the future and Hell
and how to call it
up" (Graf, "Magic
and Divination"
[n.
28
above], 284).
42
The construction ex traditione
+
gen. (a
Grecism: a a e +
gen.)
is a favorite
of Rufinus. It is found in his translation of Eusebius's Ecclesiastical
History
2.9.2 and
5.18.14
(ed.
Eduard
Schwartz,
Theodor
Mommsen,
and Friedhelm
Winkelmann,
Eusebius
Werke,
vol.
2,
Die
Kirchengeschichte,
2d
ed.,
pt.
1,
GCS
[Berlin, 1999],
125 and
479),
and in
his translation of the Pseudo-Clementine
Recognitiones
1.50.3, 3.30.1,
and 9.20.1
(ed.
Bern
hard Rehm and
Georg
Strecker,
Die
Pseudoklementinen,
vol.
2,
Rekognitionen
in
Rufins
?bersetzung,
2d
ed.,
GCS
[Berlin, 1994],
37, 118,
272).
43
Lactantius,
Diu. inst. 2.14.10
(CSEL 19.1:164): "magorum quoque
ars omnis ac
poten
tia horum
adspirationibus
constat,
a
quibus
invocati visus hominum
praestigiis
obcaecanti
bus
fallunt,
ut non videant ea
quae
sunt et videre se
putent
illa
quae
non sunt."
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS
69
On the basis of this
idea,
Isidore then
specifies
the means
by
which the
arts of the
magi prevail:
that
is,
through
a
knowledge
of the future and the
calling up
of the dead. He
develops
this
point
in the final sentence of section
3,
where he returns to the Divine Institutes. As the
original
context makes
clear,
the antecedent of Isidore's eorum
(like Lactantius's)
is
angelorum
malo
rum and not the much nearer
infernorum.44
It is therefore to the wicked
angels
and not to the
spirits
of the dead that Isidore attributes
haruspicies,
auguries,
oracles,
and
necromancy.
Of these modes of
divination, enabled,
as
we have
seen,
by
the wicked
angels,
the first three
pertain
to a
knowledge
of the future and the last to the
calling
forth of the dead. This
bipartite
arrangement
continues
(in
inverted
form)
into the
following
sections. After
a brief excursion into the illusions
performed by magi (??4-5),
Isidore first
treats
practitioners
known for
calling
forth the dead
(??6-12)
and then dis
cusses those known for a
knowledge
of the future
(??14-29).
In both
catego
ries,
Satan and the wicked
angels (demons)
are
repeatedly
blamed,45
a
point
that is
bluntly brought
home in the
summary (?31).
A
survey
of the
chap
ter's
major
divisions will reveal further details of Isidore's
argument.
Magicians (??4-10)
This division consists of three
categories
that
merge
into one another and
are
arranged
in order of
increasing
wickedness: those who
perform
illusions
(??4-5),
those who raise the dead
(??6-8),
and those who
perform
evil
actions,
especially
homicide
(??9-10).46
The entire division is
neatly
brack
eted
by
the words necromantia at the
very
end of
?3
and necromantii at the
very
beginning
of
?11.
It is here that Isidore locates most of the activities
and
figures
we can
properly
call
"magical"
in the
chapter;
the others
appear
in sections 15 and 30.
Isidore's decision to
begin
with
magi
who
perform praestigiae may
have
been
inspired by
Lactantius's
praestigiis
obcaecantibus
(n.
43
above).
Exam
ples
include the illusions
performed by
the Pharaoh's
magicians
in Exodus 7
and two cases of
magical
transformation
(both reversible)
cited from
City of
God 18.17: Circe's transformation of men into beasts in the
Odyssey,
and the
nine-year
transformation of certain Arcadians into wolves.47 Christian
authors believed that
praestigiae (or,
less
correctly, praestigia)
were the
44
Fontaine,
"Le 'sacr?'
antique,"
396
.
7,
citing
S. de Clauzade.
45
Satanae
fallada (?7);
Demonibus addtis
(?10),
daemones
(?11),
umbras daemonum
(?12),
daemonum
responsa (?16).
46
Fontaine sees the same three
categories, though
he characterizes them somewhat dif
ferently;
see "Le 'sacr?'
antique,"
396.
47
Fontaine
points
out that all three
examples
share the notion of
(sacrilegiously)
over
turning
the natural
order,
which also connects them with the
Massylian priestess
who
introduces the next
category:
"s?rie verbale vertentes
(magiciens
de
Pharaon),
mutavit
70
TRADITIO
means
by
which
magi,
with the
help
of
demons,
counterfeited divine
miracles to deceive the faithful.48 That
they
were not miracles is the first
point
Isidore wants to make. But he also wants to show how
spectacular
such illusions could be and so chooses dramatic
examples
from
pagan
liter
ature,
notably
witches from Homer and
Virgil.
Circe is described at second
hand and mentioned
only
for her skill at
turning
men into
beasts,
but the
Massylian
sacerdos described
by
Dido is
presented
in
Virgil's
own words and
depicted
as
fully qualified
in the
magicae
artes. Her
spells
could
help
or
harm,
overturn
nature,
and raise
up spirits
from the dead.
It is her
spirit-raising power
that links the
Massylian priestess
with the
witch of
Endor,
who summoned the
spirit
of Samuel to
prophesy
for Saul
(1
Sam.
28:7-9),
and with the
god Mercury (Hermes), frequently
mentioned
in
magical
texts. Thus is the
raising
of the dead
placed
in the central cate
gory
of this
tripartite
division of
magicians,
linked to both the first
category
(praestigiae)
and the third
(malefici) by Mercury,
who in fact
belongs
to all
three
categories.
For in addition to
raising up ghosts
from the
dead,
which
puts
him in the second
category, Mercury
also invented
praestigium (?33),
which
puts
him in the
first,
and has the
power
to send the
living
down to
death
(?8),
which
puts
him in the third.
Mercury's
ars
noxia,
in
turn,
introduces the reader to
magi
who
specialize
in
truly
evil
practices
and are therefore known as
malefici.
Under this
lemma,
Isidore
places figures
condemned
by
three
separate
laws in the The
odosian Code
as well as his fourth woman in the
chapter:
Erichtho,
Lucan's
Thessalian
witch,
also
skilled, among
her other
arts,
in
necromancy.
To con
clude the division and
move to the
next,
Isidore
repeats
verbatim the defi
nition of
malefici
that he had
previously given
in De
differentiis
verborum.
Their contact with
blood, sacrifices,
and dead bodies
provides
a smooth
transition to necromancers and
hydromancers,
whose
divinatory knowledge
came from the
spirits they
were able to
conjure up
from the dead.
Magical
divination
(??ll-13a)
Already previewed
at the end of the introduction and in the
figure
of the
witch of
Endor,
necromantii are here
given
their own
lemma,
along
with the
closely
associated
hydromantii.
Isidore bases his discussion on a
passage
from
the
City of
God
(7.35)
in which
Augustine
draws on Varr?. He
goes beyond
Augustine,
however,
in
providing etymologies
for necromantii and
hydroman
tii and in
explaining
how their arts were connected. Not
only
did both
spe
(Circ?),
convertabantur
(Arcadiens),
vertere retro
(la magicienne ?voqu?e
dans
En?ide, 4,
487)" (ibid.,
396 with
.
8).
48
Tertullian,
Apol.
22.1-23.1 is the locus classicus in Latin. Further references in ThLL
10.2,
fase. 6
(1991),
cols.
936-38,
s.v.
"praest(r)igiae."
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS 71
cialists summon
up
the dead for
prophecy,
but,
he
theorized,
they
both also
used water and blood. In
necromancy,
the
gore required
was mixed with
water
(cruor aqua miscitur),
and in
hydromancy,
in addition to
water,
san
guis
was
applied.
These sections continue Isidore's interest in
magi
who can raise the dead
but focus on their
divinatory purposes
for
doing
so. It is clear that the whole
division is about divination
?
Isidore uses the word three times
(?11:
divi
nare, divinatio;
?13a: divinationis)
?
but also that
magic
is involved
(?11:
praecantationibus,
cadaveri,
cruore
sanguinis).
As
Auguste Bouch?-Leclercq
observed in
1879,
"La n?cromancie
n'est,
en
effet,
possible qu'avec
le con
cours de la
magie."49
It is thus
entirely
in
keeping
with Isidore's
purposeful
organization
of the
chapter
that his readers make the transition to the
gen
eral
category
of divination
by way
of two of its most
obviously magical
and,
especially,
demonic
species (?11:
daemones;
?12:
umbras
daemonum).
As we
shall
see,
this
magical
theme is carried over into Isidore's
descriptions
of
diviners,
but
gradually disappears
as divination based on
furor gives way
to divination based on ars.
Diviners
(??13b-29)
It is clear that this
represents
a
major
new
heading.
An
etymology
of the
word divini is bracketed
by
two
separate
classifications of divination: Var
ro's classification into four
genera
on the basis of the four elements and Cic
ero's classification into two
genera
on the basis of Plato's distinction
(Phaed
rus
244d)
between
a a
(furor)
and
(sc.
,
ars)
After this
comes an extensive
catalogue
of
diviners,
which follows Cicero's rather than
Varro's classification. It is
arranged along
the
spectrum
between demonic
inspiration (furor)
and technical skill
(ars).
There are three
subgroups.
The
first
group (??15-16)
consists of diviners who
displayed
the most
furor
(incantatores, harioli);
the third
group (?? 22-29)
of those who
displayed
the
most ars
(astrologers, sortilegi, salisatores).
Between these two
groups
Isidore
placed haruspices, augurs,
and
pythonissae (??17-21).
This is a mixed
group:
one
type, pythonissae,
exhibits demonic
inspiration
and the other
two,
harus
pices
and
augurs, rely
on skill. What seems to
bring
these
divergent types
together
is their official status in the divination
systems
of
Etruria, Rome,
and Greece
(Delphi).
The diviners listed in the first
group
were
thought
to obtain their infor
mation
directly
from demons. In
patristic
texts incantatores
were
usually
associated with
magicians,
and
especially
with
spells,
herbs,
and amulets.
Isidore reflects this view elsewhere in the
Etymologies,
when he
repeats
the
49
Auguste Bouch?-Leclercq,
Histoire de la divination dans
Antiquit?,
4 vols.
(Paris,
1879-82),
1:333.
72 TRADITIO
commonly
held view that
asps
could resist the voces
magicae
uttered
by
incantatores
by pressing
one ear to the
ground
and
covering
the other with
their tail.50 In this
chapter
he most
likely assigned
incantatores to the cate
gory
of diviners rather than to that of
magicians
because his source, Jerome,
had identified them with harioli: "Those whom we
translate
as
harioli,
others translate as a , that is incantatores."51 Harioli for their
part
were
primarily
known
by
the fourth
century
for
gaining
access to the divi
natory power
of demons
by prayers
and sacrifices.52
The order of Isidore's
presentation
seems to
slip
a bit when we come to
the second
group.
As
divinely inspired mouthpieces, pythonissae
should be
closer to incantatores and harioli than to
haruspices
and
augurs.
These latter
practitioners,
on the other
hand,
more
closely
resemble the rest of Isidore's
diviners,
who
explicitly employ
neither
magic
nor demons in their search for
answers,
but rather the
"knowledge" (recalling quandam
scientiam
futurorum,
?3) supplied by
their
particular
arts
(?26:
cuius artis
scientia;
?28:
divinationis
scientiam).
The most
likely
reason for this
arrangement
is that Isidore
wanted to
keep
harioli and
haruspices together,
both because of their
popu
lar
etymological
association
(although
Isidore does not mention
this)
and
because of their close historical connection and
rivalry.53
Because
they
were
in turn
closely
associated with
haruspices
in the Roman state
religion,
augurs
would then have had to come next.
Pythonissae
were
accordingly
displaced
to their
present
location in the
catalogue.
As the most "scientific" form of divination and
ipso
facto the least
suscep
tible to demonic
interference,
astrology
dominates the final
group.
One term is
given
for its
general practitioners (astrologi),
four for
practitioners
of natal
astrology (genethliaci,
mathematici,
horoscopi, magi),
and one for
practitioners
of
horary astrology (if
we include Isidore's other definition of
haruspices).54
This
group
of technical diviners is rounded out
by sortilegi
and
salisatores,
both
of whom
practiced
lot divination from texts that still survive.55
50
Etym.
12.4.12. Isidore takes the
story
from
Augustine,
Enarrationes in Psalmos 57.7
(CCL 39:714-15).
ol
"Quos
nos
'hariolos' ceteri a
interpretati
sunt,
id est 'incantatores'"
(Commen
tarli in Danielem 1.2.2
[CCL 75A:784]).
52
Santiago
Montero,
"M?ntica
inspirada y demonologia:
los Harioli"
VAntiquit?
classi
que
62
(1993):
115-29,
at 124-27.
53
Ibid.,
121-23.
Ji
On this other
definition,
see
Jacques Fontaine,
"Isidore de Seville et
l'astrologie,"
Revue des etudes Mines 31
(1953):
271-300,
at
281,
who is followed
by
Flint,
Rise
of Magic
(n.
4
above),
95. On
horary astrology (determining
the
advisability
of a
particular
enter
prise
based on the stars'
positions
at the time of
inquiry),
see
Tamsyn
Barton,
Ancient
Astrology (London, 1994),
29, 49, 57,
60.
??
For a text used
by sortilegi
that is
exactly contemporaneous
with
Isidore,
see Alban
Dold,
Die
Orakelspr?che
im St. Galler
Palimpsestcodex
908
(die sogenannten
((Sortes
Sangal
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS 73
The most
striking
feature of Isidore's classification of diviners is its rela
tively high degree
of differentiation and
precision, especially
when
compared
with his classification of
magicians.
This
probably
reflects both a
high
level
of
specialization historically
in Mediterranean divination and the
correspond
ingly
detailed record for it to which Isidore and his sources had access. It is
also
significant
that a
long history
of
state-sponsored
divination had
(within
limits) legitimated
its
practice by private
individuals.
Magic
was not so
authorized,
which
encouraged magicians
to be
circumspect
about their serv
ices. Even if
they
did cultivate different
specialties, they
were not necessa
rily eager
to advertise these.56 Diviners on the other hand seem to have been
freer and more inclined to market their skills in
public. They developed,
named,
and advertised different
specialties
not
only
because different divi
natory techniques
were
available,
but also because such
"product
differen
tiation" was
good
for business and could be
safely
conducted in the
streets,
baths, fora,
and other
public places.
Even when the
political atmosphere
made certain kinds of divination
dangerous, practicing
in
public
could still
be
recommended,
in
part
as a defense
against charges
of
illegal activity.
As
the
astrologer
Firmicus Maternus wrote in the
early
fourth
century,
"You
will then
give
your responses
in
public,
and
you
should
announce this to
clients
beforehand,
that
you
are
going
to tell them
everything
about which
they
ask in a loud
voice,
to
prevent anything being
asked of
you
which it is
not
permitted
either to ask or to answer."57
Although
its most intensive
phase
was
certainly
over
by
the fourth cen
tury,
the
process
of
divinatory specialization
made an indelible
impact
on
texts and
practices
alike. In late
antiquity,
even the most hostile critics of
divination could not avoid
knowing
about
many
different kinds of diviners
from what
they
read and heard as well as what
they
encountered them
selves.
Magicians
left no
comparably
differentiated
public
record of them
selves and their
activities,
and
indeed,
for
safety's
sake sometimes even
practiced
under the cover of one or another
divinatory specialty,
like the
lenses"),
Sb. Akad.
Vienna,
225.4
(1948),
with the
Erl?uterungen by
Richard
Meister,
Die
Orakelspr?che
im St. Galler
Palimpsestcodex
908
(die sogenannten
"Sortes
Sangallenses"),
Sb.
Akad.
Vienna,
225.5
(1951).
For a text used
by
salisatores,
see Hermann
Diels,
"Beitr?ge
zur
Zuckungsliteratur
des Okzidents und
Orients,
I: Die
griechischen Zuckungsb?cher (Me
lampus
e a
),"
Abh. Akad. Berlin
(1907),
Abh.
4, 3-42,
and "II: Weitere
griechi
sche und
au?ergriechische
Literatur und
Volks?berlieferung,"
Abh. Akad. Berlin
(1908),
Abh.
4,
3-16.
56
Hans Dieter
Betz,
"Secrecy
in the Greek
Magical Papyri,"
in
Secrecy
and Concealment:
Studies in the
History of
Mediterranean and Near Eastern
Religions,
ed. Hans G.
Kippen
berg
and
Guy
G.
Stroumsa,
Studies in the
History
of
Religions,
65
(Leiden, 1995),
152-75.
57
"Dabis sane
responsa publice
et hoc
interrogaturis
ante
praedicito,
omnia
quidem
illis,
de
quibus interrogant,
clara sis voce
dicturus,
ne
quid
a te tale forte
quaeratur, quod
non
liceat nec
interrogare
nec dicere"
(Mathesis 2.30.3).
74 TRADITIO
haruspex
who offered to cast a
spell
for
Augustine
in
Carthage (Conf.
4.2.3).
Faithful to his
sources,
Isidore reflects these differences in his cata
logue.
Amulets
(?30)
This brief section on
amulets,
adapted
from
Augustine's
De doctrina Chris
tiana,
clearly represents
a new
heading. Shifting
the
subject
from
practi
tioners to
practices,
it
opens by stating
that "amulets too
pertain
to all
these
things" ("ad
haec omnia
pertinent
et
ligaturae").
Ad haec omnia is an
adaptation
of
Augustine's
ad hoc
genus,
which Isidore had to
change
because,
unlike
Augustine,
he is not
referring
to a
genus.
Ad haec omnia
refers not to the diviners of the
previous category
?
if he had meant to
say
that,
Isidore would have written ad hos omnes
?
but rather to the entire
subject
matter of the
chapter,
that
is,
who
magi
are and what
they
do. More
specifically,
the section returns to the
subject
of
magic:
the word
praecanta
tionibus in
?30
echoes the same word in
?11,
where it described the
magical
means
by
which necromancers raise the dead to
prophesy.
Isidore's focus
here, however,
is on the use of
spells, magical symbols (char
acter
es),
and
amulets in
healing.
He follows
Augustine
in
contrasting
these
magical
rem
edies with those recommended
by physicians,
but substitutes the word ars
for
Augustine's disciplina, just
as,
conversely,
he had substituted the word
disciplina
for
Pliny's
ars at
Etym.
8.9.2. If the reason was not
simply
varia
tio,
Isidore
may
have wanted to contrast
physicians
with
practitioners
of the
other artes mentioned in the
chapter (??2,
3, 6, 10, 14,
26),
behind all of
which stood the ars daemonum
(?31).
Summary
and
Appendix (??31-35)
As in
?30,
the
summary
in
?31
is also
adapted
from
Augustine's
De doc
trina Christiana.
Likewise,
its
opening
words
(in quibus omnibus)
refer to
the entire
chapter.
Demons,
Isidore
says,
are behind
everything
that
magi
do,
all of which the Christian should avoid. This
produces
a
rhetorically
effective
ending,
but the
chapter
does not end here.
Instead,
it continues
for four more sections of
"firsts,"
a favorite
topic
of Isidore's
curiosity,
here
displaced
to the end
by
the
chapter's tight organization.
In this
appended
material,
Mercury,
the inventor of
illusion,
takes center
position.
He is flanked on the one hand
by
the
Phrygians,
first discoverers of bird
auguries,
and on the other
by Tages,
who first handed down the art of
haruspicy
to the Etruscans. It is an indication of the careful
organization
of the rest of the
chapter
that
magic
and divination come
jumbled
together only
here. Elsewhere in the
chapter,
as we have
seen,
they
are
clearly separated
from one another.
taxonomy of magicians 75
Isidore's World
Like all
taxonomies,
Isidore's
taxonomy
of the
magi
is an ideal
construct,
composed mainly
of
fragments
of other ideal constructs. But readers of Isi
dore have often looked to the "De
Magis"
for
something
else: a
glimpse
of
the
magical (and divinatory)
activities that went on in his world. "It is not
at all
improbable
that Isidore in his discussion had in mind actual
magical
practices among
the
people
of
Spain,"
wrote
Stephen
McKenna in 1938.58
Valerie Flint echoes this view: "Isidore's
description
...
of
magical practices
seems
partly
to be borrowed
. . .
but
many may
well also have been
directly
encountered."59 No
taxonomy,
of
course,
can be taken as a
straightforward
representation
of
reality,
but to make
any
sense,
it must
classify
what is at
least
thought
to exist. Can we
argue
that Isidore's treatment of
magicians
and diviners in the "De
Magis"
reflects the beliefs and
practices
of his own
day,
or is his
compilation
too full of traditional Christian
teaching
and bor
rowed
antiquarian learning
to fulfill that
hope?
In
1953,
Jacques
Fontaine laid down conditions for
answering
such
ques
tions that still remain valid.
On ne
peut
acc?der ? la v?ritable
originalit?
d'Isidore de S?ville
que par
un
triple
d?marche.
D'abord,
un bilan aussi
complet
et d?taill?
que possible
de
ses sources directes et indirectes.
Ensuite,
un observation minutieuse des
coupures,
additions et modifications
auxquelles
Isidore soumet le texte
qu'il
emprunte.
Enfin,
la r?f?rence ? la r?alit?
contemporaine
sous tous ses
aspects.60
To
put
it in other
words,
whatever mixture of tradition and
originality
or,
in
historical
terms,
continuity
and
change
we
might
see in Isidore's
catalogue
of
magi
comes down to how we think he
deployed
other texts and how the
cultural world in which he lived
?
itself known to
him,
as to
us,
primarily
through
texts
?
reflected and is reflected in his
procedures
of
selection,
revision,
and
composition.
Although
this is in
many ways
an
impossible project,
I think we can
say
that in the "De
Magis,"
Isidore's
shaping
of his material is so careful and
deliberate,
as we have
seen,
that in its
very
broadest outlines it does reflect
the beliefs and
practices
of his own
day,
at least as
perceived by
the eccle
siastical elite to which he
belonged.
But Isidore's use of sources makes it
very
hazardous to
postulate
this of
any specific
detail.
First,
there is the
danger
of
missing
the source
entirely.
Thus,
paraphrasing
Isidore's
descrip
tion of
malefici (?10),
Valerie Flint
writes,
"Such malefici make
use,
he
says,
58
McKenna,
Paganism
and
Pagan
Survivals
(n.
26
above),
140.
59
Flint,
Rise
of Magic (n.
4
above),
51
60
Fontaine,
"Isidore de Seville et
l'astrologie,"
300
.
1.
76 TRADITIO
of blood and sacrifices and dead bodies
especially (surely
Isidore is
calling
upon
direct observation
here)."61
So confident a
supposition
is rendered
unlikely by
Isidore's verbatim
borrowing
of this
description
from Jerome's
commentary
on Daniel.
Moreover,
even when we know Isidore's source,
it
is
impossible
to conclude from this that a
particular phenomenon
was not
still observed in his own
day. Conversely,
it is also
possible
that ideas or
practices
for which no earlier source can be
found,
or which were Isidore's
own,
had no identifiable connection to the "real
world,"
however we
might
be able to
identify
such a link. It therefore seems more
promising
to com
pare
Isidore's
taxonomy
of
practitioners
with the lists and
descriptions
we
find elsewhere in the
period. Many
of these texts relied on the same sources
as Isidore and so cannot be considered to
provide strictly independent
evi
dence,
but their
differing
contexts, authors,
and audiences do at least
pro
vide another
angle
from which to look.
Let us
begin
with a list of
practitioners
that is
exactly contemporaneous
with the "De
Magis."
It comes from the fourth council of
Toledo,
over
which Isidore himself
presided
in 633. In canon
29,
the assembled
bishops
prohibit
one another and all other
clergy
from
consulting
a wide
range
of
specialists.
If
any bishop, priest,
deacon,
or other cleric shall have been found to have
consulted
magi, haruspices,
or
harioli,
or
certainly augurs, lot-diviners,
or
those who
profess any
art,
or
any people practicing things
similar to
these,
he should be
deposed
from the status of his office and be
placed
in the care
of a
monastery.
There,
devoted to
lifelong penance,
he should atone for the
sacrilegious
crime he has
perpetrated.62
Jacques
Fontaine
suggests
a connection between these
figures
and the
practitioners
mentioned in the "De
Magis," noting
that the two lists follow
almost the same order
(except
that
haruspices
and harioli are
reversed)
and
include several of the same
names.63 This is
plausible,
but there is a much
closer
parallel
at
hand,
namely
the law issued
by
the
emperor
Constantius in
358 from which canon 29 was
adapted.
The relevant
portion
follows:
if
any magus,
or
anyone
accustomed to the
contagions
of the
magi
who is
popularly
called a
maleficus,
or
any haruspex,
hariolus,
or
certainly augur
or also
astrologer
or
anyone hiding any
art of divination in the
interpreta
61
Flint,
Rise
of Magic,
52.
62
"Si
episcopus quis
aut
presbyter
sive diaconus vel
quilibet
ex ordine clericorum
magos,
aut
aruspices
aut ariolos aut certe
augures
vel
sort?legos
vel
eos,
qui profitentur
artem
aliquam,
aut
aliquos
eorum similia
exercentes,
considere fuerit
deprehensus
ab
honore
dignitatis
suae
depositus
monasterii curam
excipiat ibique perpetuae poenitentiae
deditus scelus admissum
sacrilegii
luat"
(Concilios Visig?ticos
e
Hispano-Romanos,
ed. Jos?
Vives et al.
[Barcelona, 1963], 203).
63
Fontaine,
"Le 'sacr?'
antique" (
.
41
above),
398.
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS 77
tion of
dreams,
or
certainly anyone practicing anything
similar to these shall
have been discovered in
my
court or in that of the Caesar
[Julian],
let him
not
by
the
protection
of his status
escape
tortures and torments.64
There are of course differences between the two
rulings,
but the borrow
ing
is obvious. Not
only
do both laws share the names of four
specialists
occurring
in the same order
(magi, haruspices,
harioli,
augures),
but
they
also
share the identical
phrases
artem
aliquam
and
fuerit deprehensus
and the
nearly
identical
phrases
cerle
augures/certe augur,
similia
exercentes/simile
exercens,
and honore
dignitatis/praesidio dignitatis.
In
addition,
both laws deal
with the consultation of
objectionable practitioners by high-ranking
officials:
clergy
in the case of Toledo IV and courtiers in the case of Constantius's
law. But the
bishops
assembled at Toledo also modified Constantius's law
to suit their own
purposes.
First,
they
made the reference to
magi
even
vaguer by shortening
the
sequence magus
vel
. . .
male
ficus
. . .
nuncupatur
to the
single
term
magos.
Then
they
substituted
sortilegi
for
mathematicus,
and eliminated
dream-interpreters
in favor of a
vague
reference to the
prac
titioners of
"any
art."
Finally, they
converted horrific civil
penalties
into
milder ecclesiastical sanctions.
It is
significant
that the list of
practitioners
in canon 29 is almost but not
quite
a match with the one in "De
Magis."
To be sure,
all the
figures
men
tioned in the canon were also mentioned
by
Isidore,
and one of the
special
ties it did not
mention,
dream
interpretation,
was also not mentioned
by
Isidore
(probably
because,
like the
bishops
assembled at
Toledo,
he did not
object
to
it).
But the canon also leaves out
mathematici,
who were men
tioned both in Constantius's law and in the "De
Magis." Jacques
Fontaine
suggested
that the term
haruspices
in the canon was meant to
represent
astrologers,
as he
argued
it does in the "De
Magis."65
But we cannot assume
that Isidore's
idiosyncratic etymology
for the word
haruspex
was
accepted
at
the fourth council of Toledo
against
the term's
more usual
meanings.66
We
also cannot
suppose
that the
magi
mentioned in canon 29
were
really
astrol
ogers,
since the law on which it was based
clearly
identified
magi
with
magi
cians
(malefici).
In
fact,
as we shall see,
the council of Toledo was not
unique
in
taking
this
step:
other
Visigothic
lists of
practitioners
also leave
out the astrologers found in their sources. This could mean that astrologers
64
"Si
quis magus
vei
magicis
contaminibus adsuetus,
qui
malefieus
vulgi
consuetudine
nuncupatur,
aut
haruspex
aut hariolus aut certe
augur
vei etiam mathematicus aut narran
dis somniis occultane artem
aliquam
divinandi aut certe
aliquid
horum simile exercens in
comitatu meo vei Caesaris fuerit
deprehensus, praesidio dignit?tis
cruciatus et tormenta
non
fugiat"
(Cod.
Theod.
9.16.6).
65
Fontaine,
"Isidore de Seville et
l'astrologie" (n.
54
above),
280-81.
66
Santiago
Montero,
Pol?tica
y
adivinaci?n
en el
Bajo Imperio
Romano:
emperadores y
haruspices (193
D.C.-408
D.C),
Collection Latomus,
211
(Brussels, 1991), esp. chap.
4.
78 TRADITIO
were
actually
scarce or that
legislators
did not
object
to them and therefore
declined to mention them.
The fact that the council of Toledo substitutes
sortilegi
for
astrologers
is
also
significant. Sortilegi
and the sortes
they interpreted
are
frequently
men
tioned in fifth- and
sixth-century
Gallic sermons and councils
(from
one of
which Isidore takes his
definition),
and there is little doubt that diviners with
this title were also active in
Spain
in the later sixth and seventh
century.
A
law of
king
Chindaswinth
(642-53),
for
instance,
bans the
testimony
of three
categories
of offenders:
1)
murderers,
malefici,
thieves,
poisoners,
and other
criminals;
2)
those who commit abduction or
perjury;
and
3)
those who con
sult
sortilegi
and divini.67
Sortilegi
and divini are also mentioned
together
in
canon 71 of the Greek canons
translated
by bishop
Martin of
Braga
and
approved by
the second council of
Braga
in 572. Taken from the council of
Ancyra (314),
this
ruling prohibits anyone
from
bringing
divini,
and
specifi
cally sortilegi,
into his house in order to drive out
evil,
uncover evil deeds
(maleficia),
or
perform pagan purifications.68
In
many cultures,
the detection
and
expulsion
of
magic
is a
job
for
diviners,
and there is no reason not to see
the same
assignment
of duties
here,
as the canon itself states.
That
sortilegi
were involved in such
operations
is
clearly
documented in
the
divinatory
manual known as the Sortes
Sangallenses,
whose sole
copy,
possibly
made in southern
Gaul,
dates to the late sixth or
early
seventh cen
tury.69
Several of its
responses convey
the
unhappy
news that the
inquirer
or his house has suffered occult harm and
urge
him to seek
help.
For
instance,
response
10 to
question
112 states that "You must be
protected
by
remedies if
you
do not wish to be driven out of
your
house."70
Response
9 to
question
113 warns the
inquirer
to
"Help yourself,
because
you
have
been
bewitched,71
while
response
10 to the same
question
adds the further
detail that a woman is
responsible.72
In
response
12 to
question
111,
the
diviners advice is to
"Help yourself,
because
your
house has been
put
under
a
binding spell."73 Finally,
in
question 114,
the
inquirer
learns in
response
8
67
"Homicidae, malefici, fures, criminosi,
sive
venefici,
et
qui raptum
fecerint vel falsum
testimonium
dixerint,
seu
qui
ad
sort?legos divinosque concurrerint,
nullatenus erunt ad
testimonium admittendi"
(Leges Visigothorum 2.4.1,
ed. Karl
Zeumer,
MGH
Leges
1.1
[1892], 95).
68
"Si
quis paganorum
consuetudinem
sequens
divinos et
sort?legos
in domo sua introdu
xerit,
quasi
ut malum foras mittant aut maleficia inveniant vel lustrationes
paganorum
faciant,
quinqu?
annis
poenitentiam agant" (Ca?ones
ex orientalium
patrum synodis
71,
ed.
Claude W.
Barlow,
Martini
Episcopi
Bracarensis
Opera
Omnia
[New
Haven,
1950], 140).
69
Dold,
Die
Orakelspr?che (
.
55
above),
7-8.
70
"Remediis tibi tuendum
est,
si vis non
fugari
de domo"
(ibid., 67).
71
"Succurre tibi
quia
medicamentatus es"
(ibid.).
72
"Succurre
tibi,
quia
a muliere medicamentatus es"
(ibid.).
73
"Sucurre
tibi,
quia obligata
est domus tua"
(ibid., 66).
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS 79
that he has not been
put
under a
binding spell,74
and in
response
9 that he
has not been
"bewitched,"
but rather
(equally vexing)
has been "made sub
ject," perhaps
to a love
spell.75
The obscurities of these
responses
were
pre
sumably
cleared
up by
the diviner
employing
them,
who would also have
been in a
position
to recommend
protective steps
or,
if
necessary,
to refer
the client to another
practitioner.
Other diviners mentioned
by
Isidore are also found in
contemporary
texts
from
Spain
and Gaul.
Pythonissae,
for
instance,
appear
in
Gregory
of
Tours.76 A law of
king
Chindaswinth
(adapted
from the same
portion
of the
"Sentences of Paulus" that Isidore used for his
etymology
of divini in
?14)
condemns those who consult
harioli,
haruspices
or
vaticinatores77
concerning
the health or life of the
king
or of
anyone else,
as well as those diviners who
reply
to such consultations.78 Like canon 29 of the council of
Toledo,
it too
leaves out the mathematici mentioned in its source. In another
law,
issued a
generation
later
by king Erwig (680-87), judges
were
prohibited
from con
sulting
divini or
haruspices
to
investigate
the facts of a case.
In addition to these direct references to
diviners,
contemporary
texts
mention various
divinatory practices.
In a
separate provision
of
Erwig's
law
about
judges, people
devoted to
auguries (auguriis dediti)
were also con
demned.79
Auguries (augurio)
and the
interpretation
of bird
signs (alia
dia
boli
signa per aviedlos)
were also attacked in the De correctione rusticorum of
Martin of
Braga.80
The same
passage
mentions the
divinatory interpretation
of sneezes
(per
. . .
sternutos),
a subset of the
larger category
of divination
by
bodily
movement
practiced by
salisatores.81 Martin also
prohibited
Christians
from
using
what seem to be
astrological
and other
practices
in connection
with
building
a
house,
planting crops
or
trees,
or
getting
married.82 Where
74
"Obligatus
non es"
(ibid., 67).
75
"Non es
maleficatus,
sed
magis
es subiectus"
(ibid.).
For this
interpretation,
see Meis
ter,
Erl?uterungen (
.
55
above),
34.
76
Hist.
5.14; 7.44,
ed. Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm
Levison,
MGH
Scriptores
rerum
merovingicarum
1.1
(1937-51),
210,
364-65.
77
Although
vaticinatores
(those
who issued
vaticinici,
the utterances of
vales)
were not
mentioned
by
Isidore in the "De
Magis,"
he had referred in
Etym.
8.7.3 to divini who went
by
the name vates.
78
Leges Visigothorum
6.2.1,
ed.
Zeumer,
257.
79
Ibid., 6.2.2,
ed.
Zeumer,
257-59.
80
De correctione rusticorum
16,
ed.
Barlow,
Martini
Episcopi
Bracarensis
Opera
Omnia
(
.
68
above),
198-99.
81
Arthur
Stanley
Pease,
M. Tulli Ciceronis De Divinatione
(Darmstadt, 1963),
487.
82
"Non liceat Christianis tenere traditiones
gentilium
et observare vei colere elementa
aut lunae aut stellarum cursum aut inanem
signorum
fallaciam
pro
domo facienda vei ad
segetes
vel arbores
plantandas
vel
coniugia
socianda"
(Ca?ones
ex orientalium
patrum syno
dis
72,
ed.
Barlow,
141).
80 TRADITIO
all these texts differ from the "De
Magis"
is not in the
practices they
con
demn but in their reluctance to
assign
these to
specific figures (augurs,
sali
salores,
astrologers).
This difference
may
be
partly
the result of an oversche
matization of diviners' titles
by
Isidore. But we cannot overlook the
possi
bility
that it also
signals
the
increasing scarcity
of some kinds of
highly
specialized
diviners
by
the end of the sixth
century.
The same kinds of near-matches are
evident when we turn to the
magi
cians and
magical practices
Isidore classified in the "De
Magis."
We have
already
noted the
appearance
of
malefici
in the law of Chindaswinth that
barred various classes of
persons
from
testifying,
and three of his other laws
mention these and other
practitioners
of occult harm as well. One law
focuses
solely
on
venefici**
and the other two on various evil
practices.
The
longer
of these laws combines Codex Theodosianus 9.16.3 and 9.16.7. It is
directed
against malefici
who
perform
harmful weather
magic, against
those
who disturb human minds
by calling
down
demons,
against
those who
per
form
necromancy,
and
against
those who consult
any
of the above.84 The
other law
targets
those who
perform
actions intended to harm
people,
ani
mals,
or
crops,
whether
by
means of
magic (maleficium), bindings (liga
mento),
or written
spells (scriptis)85
Still another law in the
Leges Visigotho
rum,
dated
prior
to
654,
prohibits robbing sarcophagi
to
procure
a reme
dium86 This has been
interpreted
as a restriction on
necromancy,87
but
more
likely
refers to the remedium of a saint's
relic,
to Christian
eyes
a
very
different means
by
which one called
upon
the dead for
help.
These laws
probably
stand closer to
contemporary practice
than does Isi
dore.
Similarly,
when we come to the incantatores and incantationes men
tioned in two of the Greek canons translated
by
Martin of
Braga,
we see not
diviners,
as in
Isidore,
but healers. Canon
59,
adapted
from the council of
Laodicea
(ca. 352), prohibits
clerics "from
being
incantatores and
making
amulets,
which is a
binding
of souls."88 In
mentioning only
incantatores,
it
differs
significantly
from the Greek
original,
which,
along
with a
(incantatores),
lists a , a a , and a
.89 Another Latin
version of the same
canon,
found in the
seventh-century
collectio
Hispana,
83
Leges Visigothorum
6.2.3,
ed.
Zeumer,
259.
84
Ibid., 6.2.4,
ed.
Zeumer,
259.
85
Ibid., 6.2.5,
ed.
Zeumer,
260.
86
Ibid., 9.2.2,
ed.
Zeumer,
403.
8/
McKenna,
Paganism
and
Pagan
Survivals
(
.
26
above),
125; Flint,
Rise
of Magic
(n.
4
above),
216.
88
"Non liceat clericis incantatores esse et
ligaturas
facer?,
quod
est
colligatio
animarum.
Si
quis
haec
facit,
de ecclesia
proiciatur" (Ca?ones
ex orientalium
patrum synodis
59,
ed.
Barlow,
138).
89
Council of
Laodicea,
can.
36,
ed. P?ricl?s-Pierre
Joannou,
Discipline g?n?rale antique,
vol.
1.2,
Les canons des
Synodes
Particuliers
(IVe-IXe s.),
Pontificia Commissione
per
la
redazione del codice di diritto canonico
orientale, Fonti,
fase. 9
(Rome, 1962),
145.
taxonomy of magicians 81
restores
magi
to the
list,
but not mathematici or
astrologi.90
The other canon
directs those who collect medicinal herbs not to
perform
the rituals or utter
the incantations
usually prescribed
for their maximum
healing power
but
only
to recite the creed and Lord's
Prayer.91
These
prayers,
Martin of
Braga
asserts
elsewhere,
constitute a form of incantatio sanda that can be
directly
substituted for "the
spells (incantationes)
. . .
discovered
by magi
and male
fici.9992
A Christian incantation from
eighth-century
Asturias,
designed
for
protection
rather than
healing, provides striking documentary
confirmation
for the endurance of this
strategy.93
Isidore's
relatively
clear divisions between divination and
magic
are
muddled even further in the miracle stories of
Gregory
of Tours. Rather
than
confining
the titles
sortilegi
and harioli to
diviners,
Gregory applies
them to
practitioners
who used
amulets,
potions,
and
spells
for
healing.94
His fullest
description appears
in the
story
of one of his own
slaves,
who was
stricken
by plague
in the
village
of Brioude. Without
Gregory's knowledge,
his other slaves called in a hariolus. "He
. . .
came to the sick
boy
and tried
to
practice
his art: he murmured
incantations,
cast
lots,
[and] hung
amulets
around his neck."95 All in vain: the
boy's
fever worsened and he died
shortly
after the healer's arrival. Whether hariolus was the healer's own label or
Gregory's,
it is clear that a diviner's title had been
appropriated
for someone
who
practiced
both divination
(in
the
casting
of
lots)
and
magic (in
the use
of amulets and
spells).
Isidore's classification is not
hospitable
to such a con
fusing
combination of roles.
Conclusions
We can conclude from this
survey
that Isidore's
taxonomy
of
magicians
and diviners
presents
a more
finely
differentiated,
comprehensive,
and
90
"Quoniam
non
oportet
ministros altaris aut clerieos
magos
aut incanta tores esse,
aut
facer?
quae
dicuntur
phylacteria, quae
sunt
magna obligamenta
animarum: hos
autem,
qui
talibus
utuntur,
proici
ab ecclesia iussimus"
(Sententiae quae
in veteribus
exemplaribus
con
ciliorum non
habentur,
sed a
quibusdam
in
ipsis
insertae
sunt,
ed. C. Munier,
CCL
148:228).
91
"Non liceat in collectiones
herbarum, quae
medicinales
sunt,
aliquas
observationes aut
incantationes adtendere,
nisi tantum cum
symbolo
divino aut oratione
dominica,
ut tan
tum Deus creator omnium et dominus honoretur"
(Ca?ones
ex orientalium
patrum synodis
74,
ed.
Barlow, 141).
92
De correctione rusticorum
16,
ed. Barlow
(
.
80
above),
199.
93
Isabel
Vel?zquez
Soriano,
Las Pizarras
visigodas:
Edici?n cr?tica
y estudio,
Antig?edad
y
cristianismo,
6
(Murcia, 1989),
no.
104, pp. 312-14,
614-17.
94
De virtutibus sancii Martini
1.26; 4.36,
ed. Bruno
Krusch,
MGH
Scriptores
rerum
merovingicarum
1.2
(1885),
151,
208-9.
9:3
"Ule
. . .
accessit ad
aegrotum
et artem suam exercere conatur. Incantationes inmur
murat,
sortes
iactat,
ligaturas
collo
suspendit" (De
virtutibus s. Iuliani 46a,
ed. B.
Krusch,
MGH
Scriptores
rerum
merovingicarum
1.2
[1885], 132).
82 TRADITIO
orderly picture
of their activities than do other texts from the later sixth
and seventh centuries. While
necessarily fuzzy
around the
edges,
Isidore's
classification still maintains
fairly
distinct boundaries between
magic
and
divination. There are two main reasons for this.
First,
overly rigid
distinc
tions are what we
expect
from a
taxonomy,
whose
very purpose
is to
impose
an order on disorder in such a
way
as to
produce
a clearer
depiction
of real
ity
than
reality
itself
provides.96
Second,
although
Isidore
manipulated
his
sources in various creative
ways,
he did in the end
rely
on
them,
which
inevitably
led to a traditional selection of
practitioners
and to conservative
representations
of those he selected. This
may explain why augurs
and
astrologers play
an
important
role in the "De
Magis"
but not in other Visi
gothic
texts,
and
why
Isidore's harioli and
sortilegi
do not show the versatil
ity
of
Gregory's
healers.
These conclusions would seem to contradict both the
opinion
that the
"De
Magis"
conflates the
categories
of
magic
and
divination, and,
as a cor
ollary,
the
opinion
that it
faithfully
records
contemporary
realities. The fact
that the "De
Magis"
has often been
subjected
to these kinds of
readings
may
be due to the
prior assumption
that the
category
of
magic
is
always
wide
enough
to
encompass divination,
and therefore that a close match is
possible
between the
seeming
tidiness of Isidore's
taxonomy
and
untidy
con
temporary practice. Ironically,
this
assumption
is
encouraged by
the
power
ful
ideological
datum embedded in Isidore's "De
Magis"
that all
objection
able
practices, including
divination and
magic,
must be controlled
by
demons. But
Isidore,
relying
on
traditional classical distinctions between
divinatory knowledge
and
magical
action,
found it
possible
to nuance this
fundamental Christian conviction in
ways
that later readers have not
always
been
prepared
to
recognize.
In so
doing,
while not
providing
much direct
evidence for the
practices
and
practitioners
he
classifies,
he does
suggest
how these
might
have been understood
by
others,
especially
but not
only
Christians,
in late
antiquity
and the
early
Middle
Ages.
Confirmed,
at least
in this limited
way,
as firsthand
evidence,
Isidore's classification of the
magi
cians, diviners,
and other
specialists
he knew as
magi
can still be of use in
retrieving
what we can of the lives and actions of those elusive
figures,
whose secret arts and
powerful knowledge
have not ceased to fascinate and
puzzle
readers of the "De
Magis."
The Catholic
University of
America
96
On "the drive for taxonomie
clarity,"
see Alan F.
Segal,
"Hellenistic
Magic:
Some
Questions
of
Definition,"
in Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic
Religions
Presented to
Gilles
Quispel
on the Occasion
of
His 65th
Birthday,
ed. R. Van Den Broek and M. J. Ver
maseren
(Leiden, 1981),
349-75,
at 375.
taxonomy of magicians 83
Appendix
An Annotated Translation
of
Isidore,
Etymologies 8.9
This translation is for the most
part
based on
Lindsay's
edition,
with diver
gences
as noted. I have
consulted,
and on occasion
followed,
the modern versions
cited above in notes
5-8,
especially
Ernest Brehaut's well-translated selections.
MAGI
1. Of the
magi,
the first was
Zoroaster,
king
of the
Bactrians,97
whom
Ninus,
king
of the
Assyrians,
killed in battle.98 Aristotle writes of him that labels on his
scrolls
identify
two million lines
composed by
him.99
2.
Many
centuries later Democritus
enlarged
this art100 at the same time as
Hippocrates
flourished in the
discipline
of medicine.101 Lucan attests that
among
the
Assyrians
the
magic
arts are abundant:
Who
by
means of entrails could learn what
Has been done
(facta),102
interpret
birds,
pay
attention to the
lightning
of the
sky
And observe the constellations with
Assyrian
skill?
(Pharsalia 6.427-29).
3. And so this
vanity
of the
magic
arts
prevailed
in the whole world for
many
centuries103
by
the
teaching
of the wicked
angels through
some sort of
knowledge
97
Eusebius, Chron.,
ed. Rudolf Helm arid Ursula
Treu,
Eusebius
Werke,
vol.
7,
Die
Chronik des
Hieronymus,
3d
ed.,
GCS
(Berlin, 1984),
20a: "Zoroastres
magus
rex Bactria
norum." For Zoroaster's
position
as the first
magus,
see
Pliny,
Hist. Nat. 30.2.3. On these
legends
about
Zoroaster,
see Bidez and
Cumont,
Les
Mages
Hell?nis?s
(
.
30
above).
98
For his defeat in
battle,
see
Augustine,
De civ. Dei 21.14.
99
Pliny (Hist.
Nat.
30.2.4)
attributes this information to
Hermippus (of Smyrna)
rather
than to Aristotle:
"Hermippus qui
de tota ea arte
diligentissime scripsit
et viciens centum
milia versuum a Zoroastre condita indicibus
quoque
voluminum eius
positis explanavit."
Hermippus's catalogue
of Zoroaster's works
may
have come from a e a written
about 200 b.c.
(Karl
M?ller,
Fragmenta
historicorum
graecorum,
vol. 3
[Paris, 1883], 53-54).
Bidez and Cumont
(Les Mages
Hell?nis?s,
1:86-87) point
out
that,
at 2500 lines
per scroll,
the number of volumes
Hermippus
attributed to Zoroaster would have amounted to about
800,
not
by any
means an
impossible pseudepigraphic corpus.
100
I.e.,
by increasing
the number of available texts. Isidore alludes to
Pliny's
statement
that Democritus based his own
writings (haec opera eius)
on the
teachings
of
Apollobex
of
Coptos
and Dardanus the Phoenician
(Hist.
Nat.
30.2.9).
101
Pliny
notes this
conjunction
at Hist. Nat. 30.2.10.
102
Lucan's text has
fata.
Isidore's direct
quotations
of classical authors often deviate
slightly
from the texts
printed
in modern editions of their
works,
whether because he was
relying
on his
memory, quoting
at second
hand,
or
using
an inferior
manuscript.
The
prob
lem has been much discussed. See on book
8,
Valastro
Canale,
Herej?as (
.
9
above)
and,
in
general,
Nicol?
Messina,
"Le citazioni classiche nelle
Etymologiae
di Isidoro di
Siviglia,"
Archivos leoneses 34
(1980):
205-65.
103
Pliny,
Hist. Nat. 30.1.1: "in toto terrarum orbe
plurimisque
saeculis valuit."
84 TRADITIO
of future
things104
and the
calling
forth of lower
spirits.105
Their devices are
haruspicies, auguries,
and what are called oracles and
necromancy.106
4. And there is
nothing
miraculous about the illusions of the
magi,
whose
malevolent arts reached such a
point
that
they
even resisted Moses
by signs very
like
his,
turning
staffs into
serpents107
and the waters into blood.108
5. There is also the tale of a
certain
very
famous
maga, Circe,
who turned
Ulysses' companions
into animals.109 And one reads of the sacrifice that the
Arcadians offered to their
Lycaean god:
those who
partook
of it were trans
formed into
animals.110
6. From this there
appears
to be some truth in what that noble
poet
writes of
a certain woman who excelled in the arts of the
magi.ux
He
says:
She
promises
to free
by
her
spells
the minds
Of
anyone
she
wishes,
but to
impose oppressive
troubles on
others;
To
stop
the flow of a river
(fluminis)112
and reverse the movements of stars.
She stirs
up
the
spirits
of the dead at
night,
and
you
will hear the earth
Rumble beneath
your
feet and see ash trees descend from the mountains
(Virgil,
Aeneid
4.487-91,
quoted
from
Augustine, City of
God
21.6.2).
7. What more
[can
one
say],
if it is
right
to believe of the
Pythoness,113
that
she called forth the soul of the
prophet
Samuel from the secret
places
of hell114
and
presented
him to the
sight
of the
living115
?
that
is,
if we can believe that
it
really
was the soul of the
prophet
and not some
fantastic illusion created
by
the
deception
of Satan?116
104
Cicero,
Diu. 1.1.1: "scientiam rerum futurarum."
Sophie
de Clauzade's text is
prefera
ble here. See
above, pp.
67-68.
105
A close
paraphrase
of
Pliny,
Hist. Nat. 30.2.6: "et inferum evocatione."
106
Lactantius,
Diu. inst. 2.16.1
(CSEL 19.1:167):
"Eorum inventa sunt
astrologia
et
haruspicina
et
auguratio
et
ipsa quae
dicuntur oracula et necromantia."
107
Exod. 7:11-12
(Vulg.): "proieceruntque singuli virgas
suas
quae
versae sunt in dra
cones."
108
Exod. 7:20
(Vulg.): "percussit aquam
fluminis coram Pharao et servis eius
quae
versa
est in
sanguinem."
109
Augustine,
De civ. Dei 18.17: "de illa
maga
famosissima
Circe, quae
socios
quoque
Ulixis mutavit in bestias."
110
Ibid.: "cum
gustasset
de
sacrificio,
quod
Arcades immolato
puero
deo suo
Lycaeo
facer? solerent." The
Lycaean god
was Pan or Zeus. On these
transformations,
see further
Isidore,
Etym.
11.4.1.
111
Augustine,
De civ. Dei 21.6.2: "ut
congruere
hominum sensibus sibi nobilis
poeta
videretur,
de
quadam
femina, quae
tali arte
polieret."
112
Virgil's
text has
fluviis.
113
Isidore takes her title from
Augustine's
discussion of the witch of Endor in his
Quaes
tiones vii ad
Simplicianum
2.3.1
(CCL 44:81).
The
Vulgate
has mulierem habentem
pythonem
at 1 Sam. 28:7 and
pythonissam
at 1 Par.
(Chron.)
10:13.
114
Augustine, Quaestiones
vii ad
Simplicianum
2.3.1
(CCL 44:82):
"de abditis mortuorum
receptaculis
evocare."
115
Ibid.,
2.3.3
(CCL 44:86): "magicis
carminibus evocatam vivorum
apparere conspecti
bus."
116
Ibid.,
2.3.2
(CCL 44:83):
"ut non vere
spiritum
Samuelis excita tum a
requie
sua creda
mus, sed
aliquod phantasma,
et
imaginariam
illusionem diaboli machinationibus factam."
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS 85
8. Prudentius also relates this of
Mercury:
He is said
by
his control over the wand he had taken
up
To have called the souls of the dead back into the
light
But to have condemned others to death
(Against Symmachus
1.90-91,
93).
And a little later he added:
For his harmful art knows how to raise
up pale ghosts by magic murmuring
And
cleverly
to enchant
sepulchral
ashes,
And likewise to
despoil
others of life
(Against Symmachus 1.96-98).
9.
Magi
are those who are
popularly
called evil-doers
(malefici)
because of the
magnitude
of their crimes.117 These shake
up
even the
elements,118
disturb
human
minds,119
and without
any
drink of
poison
kill
merely by
the violence of
a
spell.
10. Whence also Lucan:
The mind
perishes,
not contaminated
by
a
poisonous
venom it has
drunk,
But
by
enchantment
(Pharsalia 6.457-58).
For,
by summoning
demons,
they
dare to set them in motion in order that
each one
might destroy
his enemies
by
evil arts.120
They
also use blood and sac
rifices,
and often touch the bodies of the dead.121
11. Necromancers
(necromantii)
are those whose incantations seem to
bring
the dead back to life to
prophesy
and answer
questions.122
For in Greek nekros
means a dead
man,
and manteia means divination. To raise them
up,123
blood is
applied
to a
corpse;124
for it said that demons love blood.
Therefore,
whenever
necromancy
takes
place, gore (cruor)
is mixed with
water,
that
they may
be
more
easily
summoned
by
the
bloody gore (cruore sanguinis).
12.
Hydromancers (hydromantii)
take their name from water. For it is
hydro
mancy
to call forth the shades of demons
by looking
into water and to see their
117
Cod. Theod. 9.16.4: "Chaldaei ac
magi
et
ceteri, quos
mal?ficos ob facinorum
magni
tudinem
vulgus appellat."
On
quotations
from the Theodosian Code in the
chapter,
see fur
ther
Harry
L.
Levy,
"Isidore,
Etymolog?ae
VIII, 9, 9,"
Speculum
22
(1947):
81-82.
118
Cod. Theod. 9.16.5: "Multi
magicis
artibus ausi dementa turbare."
119
Ibid., 9.16.3,
interpr.:
"Malefici vei incantatores vei inmissores
tempestatum
vei
hi,
qui per
invocationem daemonum mentes hominum turb?nt."
120
Ibid.,
9.16.5: "et manibus accitis audent
ventilare,
ut
quisque
suos conficiat malis
artibus inimicos."
121
Jerome,
Commentarli in Danielem 1.2.2
(CCL 75A:784):
"malefici
qui sanguine
utun
tur et victimis et
saepe contingunt corpora
mortuorum."
122
Augustine,
De civ. Dei 7.35: "ubi videntur mortui divinare."
123
I read suscitandos
(Ar?valo)
for sciscitandos
(Grial, Lindsay).
Ar?valo's note
(PL
82:916C) justifies
the
reading.
124
The locus classicus is
Odysseus's
consultation of Tiresias in the underworld in Od.
11,
but Grial also adduces
Servius,
ad Aen.
6.149,
ed.
Georg
Thilo,
Servii
grammatici qui fe
runtur in
Vergila
carmina
commentarli,
voi. 2
(Leipzig, 1883),
32: "sed secundum Lucanum
in necromantia ad levandum cadaver
sanguis
est necessarius." The reference is to
Luc?n,
Phars. 6.667: "Pectora tune
primum
ferventi
sanguine supplet."
86 TRADITIO
representations
or
deceptions,
and then to hear
things
from
these,125
when
they
too
[i.e., hydromancers]
are believed to
question
the dead if blood has been
sup
plied.126
13. This kind of divination is said to have been introduced
by
the Persians.127
Varr?
says
that there are four kinds of divination:
by
earth, water, air,
and fire.
Hence,
they
are called
geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy,
and
pyromancy.128
14. Diviners
(divini)
receive this name from
being
"full of
God";
for
they pre
tend that
they
are full of
divinity
and
by
some sort of
deceptive cunning
inter
pret
future events for
people.129
There are two kinds of divination:130 skill and
inspiration.131
15. Enchanters
(incantatores)
are those who exercise their skill
by
words.132
16. Arioli
(harioli)
take their name from the fact that
they
utter abominable
prayers
and offer
deadly
sacrifices133 around the altars of idols.134 From these
rituals
they
receive the
responses
of demons.135
125
Augustine,
De civ. Dei 7.35: "ut in
aqua
videret
imagines
deorum vei
potius
ludifica
tiones
daemonum,
a
quibus
audiret,
quid
in sacris constituere
atque
observare deberet."
126
Ibid.: "ubi adhibito
sanguine
etiam inferos
perhibet
sciscitari."
12/
Ibid.:
"Quod genus
divinationis idem Varr? a Persis dicit allatum."
128
Serv. Dan. ad Aen.
3.359,
ed. Arthur Frederick Stocker et
al.,
Servianorum in
Vergila
carmina commentariorum editionis Harvardianae
volumen,
vol. 3
(Oxford, 1965),
141: "Varr?
autem
quattuor genera
divinationum
dicit, terram, aerem,
aquam, ignem
?
geomantis,
aeromantis,
hydromantis, pyromantis."
129
Pauli Sententiae
5.21.1,
ed. S. Riccobono et
al.,
Fontes Iuris Romani
Antejustiniani
(Florence, 1940),
2:406:
"Vaticinatores,
qui
se deo
plenos
adsimulant." For
Augustine's
use
of this
etymology,
see Serm. 243.6.5
(PL 38:1146):
"Divine
videbunt,
quando
Deo
pieni
erunt." See
further,
Celestina
Milani,
"Note sul lessico della divinazione nel mondo clas
sico,"
in La
profezia
nel mondo
antico,
ed. Marta Sordi
(Milan, 1993),
31-49,
at 31-32.
130
Cicero,
Div. 1.6.11: "Duo sunt enim divinandi
genera, quorum
alterum artis
est,
alterum naturae."
131
Isidore has substituted the narrower and less
benign
term
furor
for Cicero's
natura,
perhaps
on the basis of
Servius,
ad Aen. 3.359
(ed.
Stocker,
140):
"nam,
ut ait
Cicero,
omnis divinandi
peritia
in duas
partes
dividitur: nam aut furor est
. . .
aut ars." On
furor,
see
Cicero,
Div. 1.31.56.
132
Jerome,
Comm. in Dan. 1.2.2
(CCL 75A:784): "Ergo
videntur mihi 'incantatores' esse
qui
verbis rem
peragunt."
133
Cod. Theod. 9.16.7: "Ne
quis deinceps
nocturnis
temporibus
aut nefarias
preces
aut
m?gicos apparatus
aut sacrificia funesta celebrare conetur." Similar
language
can be found
in the mid-sixth
century
Commentarii
super
Cantica ecclesiastica
by
Verecundus,
bishop
of
Iunca
(Tunisia):
"Arioli dicuntur
qui
sacrificiis et
precibus quibusdam impiis
et suasionibus
funestorum verborum ad fantasias daemones
conpellunt" (CCL 93:96).
134
This common
etymology
connects arioli with altars
(arae).
It is found in a number of
glossaries
and
commentaries,
none of which is
obviously
Isidore's source. For
references,
see
Montero,
"M?ntica
inspirada y demonologia" (
.
52
above),
124-25.
135
Valastro
Canale,
Herej?as (
.
9
above),
171-72,
traces the
phrase
"daemonum
responsa percipiunt"
to a
commentary
on 1
Kings long
attributed to
Gregory
the Great:
In librum
primum regum
6.33
(CCL 144:569).
But if Adalbert de
Vog??
is correct
(SC
449:20-23)
that the
commentary
was in fact written
by
Peter II
(Divinacello),
monk of
Cava and abbot of Venosa
(d. 1156),
then the whole
passage, including
its
etymology
of
ara,
may
be based instead on Isidore.
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS 87
17.
Haruspices
are called this because
they
are
inspectors
of the hours
(horae)\xm they
watch over the
days
and hours for
doing
business and services
and attend to what a
person
should do at
any given
moment.137
They
also
inspect
the entrails of cattle and from these
predict
the future.138
18.
Augurs (augures)
are those who attend to the
flights
and sounds of
birds,
and other
signs
of
things
or unforeseen observations that
people experience.139
They
are the same as bird-seers
(auspices).
For
auspices (auspicia)
are what
peo
ple making
a
journey
observe.
19. Now
auspices
receive their name from observations of birds
(avium
aspicia).140 Auguries (augurio)
receive their name from the
chattering
noises birds
make
(avium garr?a),
that
is,
the sounds and utterances of birds.141
Likewise,
augury (augurium)
receives its name from
avigerium,
that
is,
what birds do.142
20. There are two kinds of
auspices:
one
pertaining
to the
eyes
and the other
to the ears. Birds'
flight pertains
to the
eyes
and their sound to the ears.143
21.
Pythonesses (pythonissae)
are so called from
Pythian Apollo,
because he
was
alleged
to be the source of their
divining.144
136
^e jgjdQj-g'g own
etymology.
As Fontaine notes
("Isidore
de Seville et
l'astrologie" [
.
54
above],
281
.
2),
it is not found in other authors. Other
popular ety
mologies
defined
haruspices (aruspices)
as
"inspectors
of an altar"
(Corpus
Glossariorum
Latinorum,
ed. G.
Goetz,
vol. 4
[Leipzig, 1889],
21,
line 25:
"Aruspex
are
inspector")
or
of the sacrificial victims
variously
known as
harigae, harugae, ariugae,
or
arvigae (ThLL
2.728-29,
s.v.
"arviga").
For modern
theories,
see
Milani, "Note,"
47-48.
137
A definition of
horary astrology,
in which the
positions
of the stars were consulted
for advice about
particular
actions. See n. 54 above.
138
Jerome,
Comm. in Dan. 1.2.27b
(CCL 75A:790): "qui
exta
inspiciant
et ex his futura
praedicant."
139
What
augurs
did is best
explained by Jerzy
Linderski,
"The
Augural
Law,"
Aufstieg
und
Niedergang
der romischen Welt 2.16.3
(1986),
2146-312. Isidore
correctly
states that the
observation of birds constituted
only
one
aspect
of their divination.
140
Festus,
Gloss Lat. 93
explains
the
etymology: "Auspicium:
from the
observing
of a
bird;
for
aspicio,
which we
say
with a
preposition,
the ancients used to
say
without a
prep
osition:
spicio." [Auspicium:
ab ave
spicienda;
nam
quod
nos cum
praepositione
dicimus
aspicio apud
veteres sine
praepositione spicio dicebatur.]
Serv. Dan. ad Aen. 3.374
(ed.
Stocker,
147), gives
a
slightly
different version: "dictum ab ave
inspiciendo, quasi avispi
cium." A shorter version can be found in
Keil,
Gramm. Lat.
5:455,
line 10: "ab
aspicio
auspex."
141
Festus,
Gloss. Lat. 93: "from the
chattering
of birds"
(ab
avium
garritu).
142
Servius ad Aen. 5.523
(ed.
Stocker,
550): "'augurium'
dictum
quasi 'avigerium',
id est
quod
aves
gerunt."
143
On the division of
bird-auspices
into those based on
flight
and those based on
sound,
see
Cicero,
Div. 1.42.94. The distinction was based on the two
types
of birds consulted for
auspices:
alites were birds whose
flight
was
interpreted,
and oscines were birds whose sound
was
interpreted.
See
Isid.,
Etym.
12.7.75-78,
and
Bouch?-Leclercq,
Histoire de la divination
(
.
49
above),
4:200.
144
jms obvious
(and correct) etymology may
be Isidore's own. For his
speculation
on
the
epithet "Pythius"
for
Apollo,
see
Etym.
8.11.54-55,
with
Macfarlane,
Isidore
of
Seville
on the
Pagan
Gods
(n.
2
above),
23.
88 TRADITIO
22.
Astrologers (astrologi)
are named for the fact that
they
conduct their
aug
uries
among
the stars
(in
asir
is).145
23. Genethliaci are named for their observance of
birthdays.146
For
they
arrange people's horoscopes (gen?ses) according
to the twelve
signs
of the
zodiac,
and
by
the course of the stars
try
to
predict
the
characters, actions,
and fortunes
of the
natives,147
that
is,
who was born under what kind of
sign,
and what effect
this has on the native's life.
24. These are
[the astrologers]
who are
popularly
called mathematici.*48 Latin
speakers
call this kind of
superstition
"Constellations,"
that
is,
how the stars are
observed to be
arranged
when each
person
is born.149
25. Now
originally interpreters
of the stars also used to be called
magi,
as we
read of those who announced the birth of Christ in the
Gospel;150
afterwards
they
went
only by
the name mathematici.
26.
Knowledge
of this art was
permitted up
to the time of the
Gospel,
so that
after Christ had been born no one ever
again
should
interpret anyone's horoscope
from heaven.151
27.
Horoscopi
receive their name from the fact that
they
observe the hours
(horas)
of birth of
people
of dissimilar and different fortune.152
28. Lot diviners
(sortilegi)
are those who under the label of what
pretends
to
be
religion profess
a
knowledge
of divination
through
the kinds of lots
they
call
saints'
lots,
or who
predict
future events
by looking
into
any
kind of
writings
whatever.153
145
See also Isidore's distinction between
astronomy
and
astrology
at
Etym.
3.27.2,
echoed at
??22
and 23.
146
Augustine,
De doctr. christ. 2.21.32
(CSEL 80:56): "qui genethliaci propter
natalium
dierum considerationes." Gr.
genethlios
means
"pertaining
to one's
birthday."
147
Ibid.,
2.22.33
(CSEL 80:57):
"velie nascentium mores actus eventa
praedicere magnus
error et
magna
dementia est." "Native" is the
astrological
technical term for the
subject
of
a
nativity.
148
Ibid.,
2.21.32
(CSEL 80:56):
"nunc autem
vulgo
mathematici vocantur."
149
Ibid.,
2.22.33
(CSEL 80:58):
"Constellationes enim
quas
vocant notatio est
siderum,
quomodo
se habebant cum ille nasceretur de
quo
isti miseri a miserioribus consuluntur."
150
Tertullian,
De idolatria 9.3
(CCL 2.2:1108):
"Sed
magi
ab oriente venerunt.
. . .
Primi
igitur
stellarum
interpretes
natum Christum annuntiaverunt."
151
Ibid.,
9.4
(CCL 2.2:1108):
"At enim scientia ista
usque
ad
evang?lium
fuit concessa,
ut Christo edito nemo exinde nativitatem alicuius de caelo
interpretetur."
152
Evidently
a
gloss
on Persius 6.18
(geminos, horoscope,
varo
\ produc?s genio), probably
taken from the so-called Commentum Cornuti: "HOROSCOPOS autem
est,
qui
horas nati
vitatis hominum
speculato.
VARO
GENIO,
id est dissimili et diverso fato"
(ed.
Otto
Jahn,
Auli Persii Flacci Satirarum Liber
[Leipzig,
1843; repr.
Hildesheim,
1967], 343).
On
a fourth- or
fifth-century
date for this
commentary,
see W. V.
Clausen, ed.,
A. Persi Flacci
et D. Iuni luvenalis Saturae
(Oxford, 1959),
viii,
citing
Karl Friedrich
Hermann,
Lectiones
Persianae
(Marburg, 1842)
and
idem,
Analecta de aetate et usu scholiorum Persianorum
(G?t
tingen, 1846).
lo3
Council of
Agde,
506,
can. 42
(CCL 148:210-11):
"sub nomine fictae
religionis, quas
sanctorum sortes
uocant,
diuinationis scientiam
profitentur,
aut
quarumcumque scriptura
rum
inspectione
futura
promittunt."
TAXONOMY OF MAGICIANS 89
29.
Interpreters
of twitches
(salisatores)
are so
called because when
any
of
their
body parts
twitch
(salierint), they predict
that it
signifies something
favor
able or sad for them afterward.154
30. To all these
things
also
pertain
the amulets of detestable
remedies,
which
the art of
physicians
condemns,
whether
involving
incantations,
magical sym
bols,
or the
hanging
and
tying
on of
any
other
objects.155
31. In all these
things,
the skill of demons has arisen from some sort of nox
ious association of humans and wicked
angels.
For this
reason,
all of it must be
avoided
by
the
Christian,
completely rejected
and
condemned,
and
totally
detested.156
32. As for
auguries
of
birds,
Phrygians
first discovered these.157
33. And illusion
(praestigium) Mercury
is said to have been the first to dis
cover. For illusion takes its name from the fact that it causes blindness
(praes
tringat
aciem
oculorum).158
34. As for
haruspicy,
a certain
Tages
is said to have been the first to transmit
this art to the Etruscans.159 He
pronounced haruspicy [.
.
.],160
and never
appeared
afterward.161
154
Augustine,
De doctr. christ. 2.20.31
(CSEL 80:56):
"si membrum
aliquod
salierit." On
this mode of
divination,
see in
general, Bouch?-Leclereq,
Histoire de la divination
(
.
49
above),
1:160-65.
155
Augustine,
De doctr. christ. 2.20.30
(CSEL 80:55):
"Ad hoe
genus pertinent
omnes
etiam
ligaturae atque
remedia
quae
medicorum
quoque disciplina
condemnat,
sive in
prae
cantationibus sive in
quibusdam
notis
quos
caracteres vocant,
sive in
quibusque
rebus sus
pendendis atque illigandis.
. .
." Valastro Canale,
Herej?as (
.
9
above),
32,
identifies
Eugippius's Excerpta
ex
operibus
S.
Augustini
259
(CSEL 9:832)
as Isidore's source for this
passage
and the next.
156
Augustine,
De doctr. christ. 2.23.36
(CSEL 80:59):
"ex
quadam pestifera
societ? te
hominum et daemonum
quasi pacta
infidelis et dolosae amicitiae constituta,
penitus
sunt
repudianda
et
fugienda
Christiano"
(= Eugippius, Excerpta
ex
operibus
S.
Augustini
259
[CSEL 9:834]).
157
por
Dejje^
widely
held
by
Christians,
see
Pease,
M. Tulli Ciceronis De Divina
tione
(n.
81
above),
260.
158
Literally
"blunts the
sharpness
of
sight." Probably
taken from the
commentary
of
Ps.-Acro
(early
fifth
century)
on
Horace,
Carm. 1.10.8
(ed.
Otto
Keller,
Scholia in Hora
tium
Vetustiora,
vol. 1
[Leipzig, 1902], 52): "[Mercurius] praestigiator
dicitur ab eo
quod
praestringat
aciem oeulorum."
159
Cicero,
Div. 2.23.50:
"Tages quidam
dicitur in
agro Tarquiniensi
. . .
extitisse
repente
et eum adfatus esse
qui
arabat."
160
The
passage
is
corrupt. Lindsay
has
fex orisf.
Pease
(following Grial) suggests
ex
arvis 'from the fields'
(presumably
based on
Ovid.,
Met.
15.554),
Ar?valo
conjectures
exo
riens
"arising."
Another
possibility
is exaratus
"dug
out,"
used to describe
Tages by
Cicero
(Div.
2.38.80: "Etrusci tarnen habent exaratum
puerum
auctorem
disciplinae suae")
and
Censorinus
(DN
4.13:
"puer
dicitur divinus
exaratus").
161
For various versions of the
story,
see
Pease,
M. Tulli Ciceronis De Divinatione
(n.
81
above),
435-37,
and for an
attempt
to harmonize these,
see J. R.
Wood,
"The
Myth
of
Tages,"
Latomus 39
(1980):
325-44.
90 TRADITIO
35. The
story
is told that when a certain
peasant
was
plowing, Tages sprang
up
from the clods of earth and
pronounced
the art of
haruspicy,
and died the
same
day.
The Romans translated these books from Etruscan into Latin.162
162
On the various titles of these
books,
see
Bouch?-Leclercq,
Histoire de la
divination,
4:7-14.