A Review of Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology, and Stereotype in the Ancient World by Kimberly B. Stratton
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A Review of Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology, and Stereotype in the Ancient World by Kimberly B. Stratton
In her book, Naming the Witch, Stratton provides a concise analysis of all the elements of culture and those that are ideologically oriented that motivated the early thoughts of magic, sorcery, as well as witchcraft in the antique world. She investigates the different ways in which stereotypes of magic and those who use it vary in the ancient world. Furthermore, she explores how the various social contexts in different historical periods influence particular stereotypes. Therefore studying Stratton’s work enables one to gain insight into the link between social, intellectual, and religious history of the ancient civilizations.
Notably, the past had very stringent rules against magic with the possibility of having a death sentence, marginalization of the individual or group of individuals if accused of practicing magic. It is worth noting that Stratton provides an analysis that overcomes the common views always propagated about these allegations and labels them as mere slander. According to her, representations and accusations of enchantment show how the ancient communities struggled to define authority, legitimacy as well as “others.”
Stratton examines the social context that give rise to specific stereotypes of magic concerning magic by exploring four different periods and cultures in the Ancient Mediterranean: the early Imperial Rome, Classical Greece, classical Greece, Rabbinic Judaism, as well as second and third Christianity. She argues that magic is a functional discourse, whose origins can be traced in Classical Athens; it was here that the concept of otherness cropped up after the Persian wars. The concept was then passed to Roman Society and the Hellenized world. The first chapter gives an introductory approach to magic, disclosure as well as beliefs. The latter chapters take us through the representations of magic in Greek, Roman, as well as Jewish Christian Literature. Towards the end, there is an epilogue for thoughts in gender, stereotyping and magic.
She determines her characters and place of study as a form of discourse that has its origins in the awareness of the alterity, in Athens, after warring with Persia, and then passed on to Rome and the rest of the ancient civilizations. She attempts to resolve the tension between continuing to study and the negativity associated with it, as well as rejecting it all together. Her work focuses on getting material evidence on the practice of magic for a detailed assessment, available literature that focus on reconstructing the social of magic and the magician, as well as recognize the connotations of magic in both ancient civilizations and modern usage. Her literary work concentrates on sources of stereotypes and their representations in literature.
At the beginning of the first chapter, she focuses on the various magical representations and stereotypes were shaped, as well as how magic emerged as a function of social and historical factors. She traces the available historical data on magic, sciences and religion (Pachoumi 138). She adopted Foucault’s definition of magic as a discourse and concentrated on the effect of both cultural and historical factors, the native concept of magic, as well as its agonistic features. Towards the end of chapter one, we get insightful knowledge of how the ancient Greek, Hebrews and Romans viewed magic.
Stratton explores the discursive formation of magic in Ancient Athens. She notes that the battle of Marathon probably remains one of the most important events in the history of Greece. To an extent, it marks a major turning point; the Athenians defeated the invincible Persians (p. 39-69). Democracy proved a reliable form of government, hence, the association of the Athenians with democracy increased tremendously. The introduction of new legal matters sought to limit and control the extent to which women participated in leadership and public life. The Athenians attributed citizenship solely to the men. Furthermore, the Greeks were self-absorbed and regarded Non-Greeks as “barbarians,” hence, their ongoing war-like operations against the Persians.
She argues that the emergence of magic after the Persian defeat was part of the discourse of alterity, in what she terms as the discourse of barbarism. The magic discourse was strengthened by a new type of ritual with binding spells, introduced to the Athenians from Mesopotamia in the archaic period. The discourse of magic draws on female alterity in Attic tragedy (Pachoumi 138). She closely examines the portrayal of Medea in Euripides’ Medea, where women use magic to gain power, revenge, as well as sexual jealousy. In this chapter, magic was considered very harmful and dangerous.
In chapter three, Stratton examines the existence of magic in Roman Literature (Stratton 71-105). She debates that there was an element of fear of women among the Romans, and through cultural interactions, some stereotypical concepts originated in Athens and was propagated in Rome. This fear, she seeks to prove, had a cause and may have had its foundations from the fact that some women were economically stable and independent (Kraus 51). The economic independence and an extent of social freedom witnessed in some Roman women developed as far as the 3rd century (Pachoumi 139). These independent women were regarded as either wicked or immoral. According to her, accusations about women’s immorality and misconduct exposed the social rivalries between men.
The marriage and adultery laws passed by Augustus aimed at idealizing and politicizing the vision of female behavior as part of his imposing belief (p.99). This resulted in the emergence of the image of the immoral witch. The Senate Tribunal accused women of practicing magic, and they were convinced that women practiced witchcraft more than men. Stratton sees the mixing of the discourse of magic and the emergence of the wicked women as a sensible development of the discourse alterity. Her examination of women who practiced magic reveals that such women aggressively used magic more than the Ancient Athenians.
Chapter of her work is dedicated to early Christianity and their view of magic (107-141). The life of the life of Early Christians is contrasted with malpractice. The early Christian depiction of magic begins from the book of Luke to Acts of the Apostles in The New Testament. Simon, for instance, is said to have amazed the Samaritans with his magical deeds. Later on, we see him leveling accusations of magic against the male representatives of sanctioned rituals like Elymas. This is just to mention but a few. In her writings, Stratton demonstrates that there may be ideological strategies behind particular stories. She observes that Simon the Magus, is demonized and, consequently marginalized in the Acts of Apostles.
Moreover, her sample of demonized magicians and the conflict between legitimate supernatural power and heretic power could be enriched and enlarged; though it misses in her publication. In her work, she points out that the early Christian writers did not demonize women, but men, who seduced women and lured them into their heretic practices, in what she terms male magicians and their female followers (p. 130).
When Christianity became a factor in the Roman Society, the belief that men lured women into magic, came into an abrupt halt. Instead, women became the target of the ideological Christian writers. These changes paralleled the stereotypes found in the Roman Society. Stratton notes the battle for supremacy between Christian supernatural miracles and the heretic magical practices like those of Simon Magus. Hence, what we know today is a depiction of the case from a winner’s perspective, but not from the Magus side. Thus, magic was an effective discourse in the life of the early Christians and served to demonize those who took part in the religious competition.
In her last chapter, Stratton deals with the rabbinic literature (143-76). She presents a number of rabbis who studied and used diverse forms of magic. This was an absolute proof that magic was something that could be comprehended and at the same time, manifest divine power, which may be subversively dangerous at times. This ambivalence of magic as both powerful and dangerous is expressed in the Babylonian Talmud. This exposes her optimism to unearth early attitudes and social principles preserved in rabbinic sayings.
Stratton feels free to provide the reader with numerous to demonstrate her point that magic works ambivalently. As a way of regulating the influence of women, rabbinic sources show that feminine magic is linked with food so that authority and strength of men resulted from the consumption of this food. Stratton also demonstrates that cultural and religious view influenced the rabbinic view and the discourse of exertion of power in relation to magic.
The connection between representations of magic and as well as their historical contexts makes Stratton’s work invaluable to anyone interested in the study of the various cultural practices of the ancient societies. Her work is clearly written and well structured, as well as providing the necessary materials for readers who may not have the same depth of background in the early civilizations. She considers the origin of magic and the ideologies behind “Othering Devices.”
The theoretical end pieces are in a way, the most stimulating part of the book, as Stratton neatly lays her ideas, and tackles some of the greatest problems in the study of ancient magic. She also provides a good summary of the hullabaloos that have been problematic to earlier scholars. She goes ahead to show how her approach to magic as a discourse of alterity could evade or resolve many challenges caused by the essential definitions of magic. By examining the various modes of alterity, she highlights how particular stereotypes are linked to the specific social concerns of the time and strategies to constructing legitimate authority.
Stratton notes the use of female figures as “Others” in contexts in ancient civilizations. She takes note of the vengeful feminine witch figures in Greek tragedy, in contrast to the lustful women in Roman poetry. She argues that both these female types differ from the male sorcerers of early Christian writings. The early sorcerers in early Christian literature make women their victims. She notes that while the Greek and Roman literatures contrasted women to a normal male citizen, the Christian writers, however, conceived as “Others” in the Roman Empire, and presented the vulnerabilities of women in the hands of men.
Therefore, Stratton’s approach that is much explorative and relative clearly indicates the extent to which magic was a cultural piece which depended upon and mirrored particular social contexts. Her piece of work is exemplary since it includes antique Judaism, unlike previous scholars whose writings distinguished the classical world and Judaism. The book further illustrates the degree to which the ancient cultures shared ideas concerning power and legitimate authority, as well as developing the ideologies behind these and in varied approaches.
Bibliography
Kraus, Thomas J. Gender, Religion and Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.
Pachoumi, Elen. “Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology and Stereotype in the Ancient World
(Review).”Magic, Ritual & Witchcraft, 5(1); pp. 138-142, 2010
Stratton, Kimberly B. Naming the Witch: Magic, Ideology, & Stereotype in the Ancient World.
New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.