In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

28 SOME THOUGHTS ON THEURGY ALAN F. SEGAL It is a pleasure to contribute this essay to the celebration of Peter Richardson's career and influence on scholarship. Even before we became colleagues at the University of Toronto, his work on the people of God stimulated my own research and helped me to conceptualize Christian self­definition. After I left Toronto, we continued our conversations. It is a tribute to our friendship that it continued to develop so well even after I defected from the friendly and comfortable surroundingsofToronto to the relativelylesscomfortable position in NewYork. Our discussions and challenges to each other have continued to help my work, so I present to him some further thoughts on the assumptions behind our definitions of magic and religion, a topic that I first pursued while in Toronto (Segal 1981). It isimpossibleto enter the field ofreligionwithout revealing some ofone's deepest­held feelings, at first often not fully articulated even to oneself. It continues to be the case, in scholarship as in life, that one person's magic is another's religion. So, to define religion we must not only ask about the assumptions made byordinary people who operate in aworld where both magic and religion exist, but also, equally, ask ourselves what we are assuming about the nature of magic and religion. To do so, we can subject the definitions of other scholars, including classicists and anthropologists, to the same analysis and compare our stance to theirs. Although many different definitions of "magic" have been offered throughout the history of religious and anthropological research, no one definition has reached general use. Magic's relation to religion and science has never been clearly delineated. In our society both religious leaders and 506 TEXTAND ARTIFACT scholars delineate the differences between magic and religion for their own purposes. Hence there is always a natural bias toward clear distinctions between the two. Both anthropologists and religionists propose careful definitions in order to carry out their analyses. For instance, Bronislaw Malinowski (1944: 200) defined the difference between magic and religion as sharply as possible. Religion refers to the fundamental issues of human existence, while magic always turns around specific, concrete and detailed problems. Religion isconcerned with questions ofultimate concern—salvation, death, the meaning of existence—while magic is concerned with immediate goals—control ofthe weather, good health, achieving a specificposition. Magic is characterized by manipulation and attempts to control nature. Religion is expressive, magic instrumental. This should appear sensible to us, since it amounts to a concise statement of one of our definitions of magic. A surprising consequence of this definition is that magic can be viewed as an early form of science. Neat though it is, such a clear­cut distinction leads to problems in studying the ancient world where no clear­cut definitions existed. Some figures in the ancient world sought out clear distinctions between the two, while others sought to erase the distinction. We shall have to specify where and when each strategy was effective.n But even in our own culture there are other ways to construe magic—as false causation, as entertainment, as wonder and miracle, or as subversion. I have argued elsewhere (1981) that no definition of magic can be universally applicable because "magic" cannot and should not be construed as a properly 1 See especiallyM. Smith (1973; 1978) and J. Z. Smith (1975; 1977). Remus (1983) outlines and surveys the traditional approach in admirable detail. He shows that, for example, K. H. Rengstorf in Kittel'sWorterbuch and C. F.D.Moule attempt to distinguish between Christian miracles and pagan wonders on the basis of vocabulary, hence preserving an essential difference between them in the texts. His conclusion is that the texts evince more fluid use of the words than either Rengstorf or Moule allow. See also van der Loos (1968); Martroye (1930); Tiede (1972); Holladay (1977);Theissen (1974); and Kee (1983). 2 See Benedict (1935); more recently: Wax and Wax (1962; 1963); Douglas (1970a; 1970b); and Mair (1969). An interesting structuralanalysisissuggested by Leach (1976). 3 See Remus (1983) for a history of research. It should be noted that many anthropologists are inclined to resist a sharp distinction between magic and religion (e.g., Douglas 1970a: 74­76). Very often it seems to me as though theoretical work has tended to separate the two phenomena while fieldwork has tended to combine them. My point is to recommend that we distinguish between the two enterprises and give more attention to how the...

Share