Prayers For Justice Research Articles

Making Justice: Justin Martyr and a Curse From Amathous, Cyprus

Abstract At the beginning of Justin’s Apology, an account of injustice, Justin calls upon the emperors as ϕύλακες δικαιοσύνης, “guardians of justice.” Justin, 1 Apologia 2,2 (OECT, 80,13 Minns/Parvis). As part of a documentary and legal strategy, Justin’s Apology includes what he claims is an imperial rescript. This paper probes Justin’s Apology and its appended document(s) in relation to other contemporaneous strategies and materializations of seeking justice: appeals and imperial rescripts, on the one hand, and defixiones or “prayers for justice,” on the other. It argues that a cosmology of δαίμονες was activated not only by Justin, who awaits the imminent end of the world, but also by the curses of antiquity. These curses, and Justin’s own libellus or βιβλίδιον, must also be understood as paralegal materials reasonably intended to engage capricious and sometimes violent systems of justice.

CURSE TABLETS AGAINST THIEVES IN ROMAN BRITAIN: THE SOCIAL AND LEGAL INFLUENCES ON A MAGICAL-RELIGIOUS TECHNOLOGY

This article deals with curse tablets against thieves, also known as ‘prayers for justice’. In the first part, I offer a short introduction to the topic and the scholarly debate surrounding the definition of this type of inscription, concluding that a more emic approach can help us understand the complex nature of a technology that, far from being monolithic, evolved over time and space. In the second part, I compare the literary and epigraphic evidence (in Greek and Latin), pointing out the similarities and differences between our different sources of information. Finally, I turn to the handful of Latin curse tablets from Roman Britain in which the stolen object's value is divided between the principal and the invoked gods. In my view, this type of transaction should be analysed as a new take on the more traditional votum, in which legal concepts such as obligatio or ownership also play an important role. By establishing an almost contractual agreement with a deity, practitioners obtained not only divine assistance but also tangible evidence of the god's participation.

Morality, Emotions and Reason: New Perspectives in the Study of Roman Magic

Abstract Academic interest in magic has grown considerably during the last twenty years. Leaving aside the old stereotyped dichotomy between magic and religion, I consider magic a pragmatic subsystem of religion whose function is to alleviate or deal with daily life’s misfortunes. I suggest in this paper some possible approaches that might be interesting to deepen in the social study of Roman magic. This paper is divided in three sections. The first one deals with morality and magic: even if legal sanctions on magic can be influential in the individual’s decision to resort to magical practices, H. Versnel’s category of Prayers for Justice proved that some curses can be perceived as legitimate from the subjective point of view of the user; I suggest that subjective legitimation can in fact be applied to all Roman curses. The second section tackles the topic of emotions and magic: based on western conceptualisations of emotions, scholarly approaches on ancient magic have generally failed to see the evidence that make the choice of resorting to magic a rational option more than an emotional act. Finally, the third part of this paper analyses magic as rational choice in the individual’s strategies for decision taking.

Prayers and petitions for justice. Despair and the ‘crossing of boundaries’ between religion and law

Both Demotic, Greek and Coptic prayers for justice on papyrus and contemporary petitions to civil authorities demonstrate that people displayed and used despair in their narrative and persuasion strategies in order to achieve justice. These overlaps and the expression of despair demonstrate the similarities between the two genres and the similarities in the social and cultural circumstances that produced these texts. They also pinpoint the interdependence of religion and law on a daily basis and for a variety of people.

A Study in Conceptual Parallels: Graeco-Roman Binding Spells and Babylonian Incantation Bowls

This article explores the similarities and differences between Babylonian incantation bowls and Graeco-Roman binding spells and ‘prayers for justice’. It does not intend to demonstrate a direct historical link between the two, but rather to examine the conceptual relations between magical texts and artefacts stemming from different cultures.

A.5. The social and cultural implications of curse tablets [defixiones] in Britain and on the Continent

The central theme of this study is to analyse the idiosyncratic nature of the Romano-British interpretation of the use of defixiones and various 'prayers for justice'. The prevalence of revenge as a theme within this comparatively isolated Roman province is notable and clearly illustrates the regional interpretation that affected the implementation of this religious tradition. The Romano-British curse tablets were largely reactionary, seeking either justice or revenge for a previous wrong, which in turn affected the motivation that led to their production. This regional interpretation was quite different to their overall use on the continent, but even these examples frequently also exhibit some degree of local interpretation by their issuers.

Φapmakeytpia Ohne Φapmakon. Überlegungen zur Komposition des zweiten Idylls von Theokrit

AbstractIn the first part of the article, the question of Theocritus' treatment of magic in the 2nd Idyll is being discussed. The author's view is that Theocritus not only accurately depicted the contemporary magical practices, but that the very composition of the poem was influenced by the magical texts. The second part of the paper pays attention to a special class of magical texts, the defixiones influenced by the prayers for justice. The author argues that Simaetha's confession to Selene bears close resemblance to the prayers for justice and that Simaetha's argumentative strategy in the description of her short love affair with Delphis serves the purpose of portraying her as the betrayed party, thus enabling her to put the blame on Delphis and demand of the goddess that the justice (e.g. the return of Delphis to Simaetha) should be done. Finally, the effect of Simaetha's magical practice and her prayer is being discussed. Since the motif of ϕαρμακον connects the 2nd with the 11th Idyll, a comparison between Simaetha and Cyclops is called for and some general conclusions about the motif of the healing properties of poetry in the Theocritean corpus are suggested.

Some Reflections on the Relationship Magic-Religion

The well-known substantialist-'Frazerian'-definitions of magic as distinct from religion by its immediate and individual goals, the concomitant manipulative and coercive attitude, the instrumental and mechanical type of action etc., have been under attack for more than half a century. Anthropologists in particular have argued that no meaningful contrast between religion and magic can be gained from this approach and that our notion 'magic' is a modern-western biased construct which does not fit representations of other cultures. Consequently, in the view of some of them, the term 'magic' should be altogether avoided. Furthermore, with respect to the ancient and early modern world, in which the opposition religion-magic is supposed to have originated, it is argued that magic and religion function exclusively as value-judgments, terms indicating 'magic' being exploited to stigmatize illegitimate or undesired (religious) behaviour of socially or culturally deviant groups. In the present article it is argued that-although admittedly this functionalist approach has yielded remarkable and lasting results-rejection of the term 'magic' will soon turn out to be unworkable and, in fact, is putting the cart before the horse. From an etic point of view-which in the view of the author is the only possible way to conduct scholarly discourse-it will be impossible to do cultural research without the aid of heuristic instruments such as-at least broad, polythetic or prototypical-definitions. And, if possible at all, it would be utterly unpractical to completely eliminate religion as one of the obvious models of contrast. This position is substantiated with some practical instances from the Graeco-Roman world. It is shown that, at least in the context of (magical) curse-tablets and-related but clearly distinct-(religious) prayers for justice or vengeance, the ancient authors were clearly aware of the very same distinctions modern people normally associate with the notions of magic and religion.

Some Reflections On the Relationship Magic-Religion

AbstractThe well-known substantialist-'Frazerian'-definitions of magic as distinct from religion by its immediate and individual goals, the concomitant manipulative and coercive attitude, the instrumental and mechanical type of action etc., have been under attack for more than half a century. Anthropologists in particular have argued that no meaningful contrast between religion and magic can be gained from this approach and that our notion 'magic' is a modern-western biased construct which does not fit representations of other cultures. Consequently, in the view of some of them, the term 'magic' should be altogether avoided. Furthermore, with respect to the ancient and early modern world, in which the opposition religion-magic is supposed to have originated, it is argued that magic and religion function exclusively as value-judgments, terms indicating 'magic' being exploited to stigmatize illegitimate or undesired (religious) behaviour of socially or culturally deviant groups. In the present article it is argued that-although admittedly this functionalist approach has yielded remarkable and lasting results-rejection of the term 'magic' will soon turn out to be unworkable and, in fact, is putting the cart before the horse. From an etic point of view-which in the view of the author is the only possible way to conduct scholarly discourse-it will be impossible to do cultural research without the aid of heuristic instruments such as-at least broad, polythetic or prototypical-definitions. And, if possible at all, it would be utterly unpractical to completely eliminate religion as one of the obvious models of contrast. This position is substantiated with some practical instances from the Graeco-Roman world. It is shown that, at least in the context of (magical) curse-tablets and-related but clearly distinct-(religious) prayers for justice or vengeance, the ancient authors were clearly aware of the very same distinctions modern people normally associate with the notions of magic and religion.