Menacing the Gods in Ancient Magical Practice

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of “menacing the gods,” also called Götterbedrohung or Götterzwang. This is a well-attested feature of the formulae preserved in the Greek and Demotic magical papyri (PGM/PDM, c. 3rd–4th century CE), but is also known from earlier Egyptian, notably the New Kingdom (1550–1070 BCE) and Late Antique traditions. In these texts, the magical practitioners threaten the gods, e.g., that they will burn them alive or bring down heaven, should the gods not comply with their wishes or with those of their clients. I analyse the communicative situation between clients, gods, and magical practitioners, investigating what perceived power allowed the practitioners to utter such provocations against the divinities; and how the practitioners interacted as intermediaries between clients and gods, especially with regard to the phenomenon of blame-shifting. I also examine which rhetorical strategies the practitioners used to persuade the gods to do their bidding. The examples I analyse deal with healing of, e.g., diseases and snakebites. A close-reading of the narratives in the spells, as well as other parts of speech, facilitates the delineation of the emotions, agendas and rhetoric applied in the spells, leading in turn to a tentative detection of the life situations that lay behind—and prompted—their formulaic magical language.