Early this morning I was writing a post on medieval witchcraft, which looked something like this:
Witchcraft in early Christian England was used for medicinal purposes and often invoked Christian prayer during the brewing of potions or when they were administered. This developed out of the Christian's desire to help the pagan believers who were comfortable with magic to convert to Christianity. If they could keep their old beliefs but still mix it with Jesus, they would be alright. And then some guy comes along and ruins everything. St. Augustine of Hippo theorized that magic was actually the work of the devil and yet neither Satan nor witches could have any real power, the pagans were just making things up. This was in the 5th Century a.d. and things just get worse from there.
The 800's produced a mixed bag of beliefs: the Bishop of Lyon and company stated that witches did have real power. St. Boniface declare do that belief in witches was un-Christian. Charlemagne said that burning witches was a pagan ritual punishable by death. But wait! It still gets worse! Starting from the 7th century, things begin taking a turn for the worse for witches and their craft. The Church comes to re-define the word "maleficium" to malevolent magic instead of wrong doing. The witches get split up into two categories: white witches (good) and black witches (bad).
By the time I had to stop, I kept wondering, "what on earth am I going to do with this?"
And then someone said something in class about Beowulf having a Christian narrator but Pagan characters. I started thinking and was lead to this thought process:
The early Anglo-Saxon's seem like they were willing to work with these pagan ideologies and the people who believed in them to convert them over to Christianity. Kind of like "You can keep your beliefs and stories - you just have to believe in Jesus first before everything else." This makes the early Anglo-Saxon's much more lenient than their later counterparts where they force everyone to believe in their religion and adopt their culture. What they are doing is still not okay, they are still forcing their religion and culture on others but they recognize that if they treat others beliefs as even slightly valid then they might be able to convert them to Christianity.
Granted, the language the text uses still points to what the shift in the witch and witchcraft shift does: it takes their polytheistic religion and makes it out to be evil. We know now that their polytheistic belief system is not evil, just different and goes along with witchcraft. It's not evil - it's different and as they develop their sense of Christianity different becomes evil.
Or were they just in an odd transitionary time where even the most devoutly Christian among them were not yet willing to completely give up their pagan belief's?
(Source: Witches and Witchcraft)
This is very interesting. Witches sound more like pharmacists (lol). As a Christian I have always stood firm in my belief that you should not add to or take away from the Gospel, one must take it in its entirety follow and learn from it. The methods in which medieval "Christians" used to convert were so contradictory to biblical teachings. They clearly did not comprehend the bit about loving your neighbor and withholding judgment. You can share your beliefs all you want but never should you force them upon others. Beowulf is interesting in that there is a strange mix of paganism and Christianity, it does make one wonder about the identity and time period of the author.
ReplyDeleteIt is also important to remember that one the reason that witches were considered agents of the devil was because of the bible. It says in Leviticus 22:18 that a witch isn't supposed to be let live. (of course I am paraphrasing). In Deuteronomy it calls out all sorts of things including divination, witchcraft and more. In Isaiah it calls witches the living dead (Isaiah 8:19) In 1 Samuel it says that those who practice witchcraft have rejected God. When we are looking at this time in Anglo-Saxon culture where Christianity was so widespread (or at least seems to be so by what we have read) I think it is important to see what the bible says about it.
ReplyDeleteWhat caught my attention the most was when you said white witches were good and black witches were bad. What makes the white witches good? How are they any different than the black witch? Also I agree with Kinzi, as a Christian we can not force anything upon others. I also think that we should not add in or take away parts of the gospel just for our liking.
ReplyDeleteExcellent and contemplative post, Amy. Keep an eye out for other areas in which the pagan and the Christian don't comfortably co-exist this semester.
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