Magie im antiken Christentum. Eine Studie zur Alten Kirche und ihrem Umfeld by Marco Frenschkowski (review)

The book under review is a fine, rather comprehensive, and very useful contribution to an adequate understanding of magic in the days of ancient Christianity. Marco Frenschkowski, situated in Leipzig at the Institut für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, is a scholar with an astoundingly broad knowledge in diverse fields of religious and cultural studies, of fantastic and arcane literature, and of the phenomenon "magic." Consequently, he was predestinated to write a handbook-like survey of magic in the first centuries of Christianity that involves inter-religious, non-Christian, and even modern approaches alike. The monograph is mainly based on a general encyclopedia article ("Magie," in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum, 23 [2010], 857–957), the profile of which Frenschkowski enhanced according to the focus on ancient Christianity for the present book. Repeatedly, he asserts his lack of understanding for scholars who were and still are not fascinated by ancient magical texts and to this day have prejudices against that sort of literature. Besides, he underlines his penchant for the "classic" and thus, "older" literature in that field of research (see p. xiii and often elsewhere), something that motivated and attracted him to plunge deeper into that field of research.

All in all, the book is divided into nine main chapters of rather uneven page lengths, starting with a discussion of abstract terms, concepts, and general methodical issues (chapter I) and a history of concepts and basic approaches to developing a theory of magic (chapter II). The thematic main body consists of chapters III to VI with clear focusses on (a) a survey of magic in Greek and Roman antiquity and (b) magic in the New Testament and in early Christianity (integrating Christian writers and special and/or splinter groups as well), with an aside to ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Jewish traditions of magic. The final three main chapters just occupy a few pages and are specialized on the legal history in the Constantinian and post-Constantinian period or provide very short reflections on the relations between ancient and modern concepts of magic and on the attitude of the Ancient Church toward magic. An appendix contains three interesting ancient texts (by Theocritus, Pliny, and Proclos) whose inclusion, however, appears arbitrary. A selective bibliography and two useful indices of modern authors and names/subjects help readers to navigate through the book and swiftly find essential pieces of information.

Although, experts in ancient magic and associated areas of research will not find much new in this book and regret that in principle Frenschkowski refrains from phrasing his own definitions and drawing critical conclusions from the plentitude of information, other scholars, post-graduates and people with a certain interest, will certainly profit from the richness, the rather comprehensive and always reliable survey of magic in ancient Christianity, which itself is embedded into Greek and Roman culture and interrelated with Jewish and other traditions by the author. Marco Frenschkowski is to be thanked and congratulated for this fine presentation of a topic that still is a victim of ideologies and prejudgments. As a matter of course, informed or even just interested readers will certainly find it hard to stop reading due to the fascinating topic and the fluent and attractive style in which the German text is written.