Reviewed by: Witch Hunt in Galatia: Magic, Medicine, and Ritual and the Occasion for Paul's Letter to the Galatians by Jeremy Wade Barrier Mary Ann Beavis jeremy wade barrier, Witch Hunt in Galatia: Magic, Medicine, and Ritual and the Occasion for Paul's Letter to the Galatians (Paul in Critical Contexts; Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2020). Pp. xiv + 395. $125. In this ambitious and wide-ranging study, Jeremy Wade Barrier challenges the dominant interpretation of Galatians as Paul's response to a community of Christ-believing gentiles influenced by "Judaizers," either Jewish or Jewish-Christian, who had persuaded them, or were in the process of persuading them, that the ritual of baptism should be supplanted or supplemented by male circumcision. Paul's question about the evil eye in Gal 3:1 (tis hymas ebaskanen, "who has bewitched you?"), B. argues, is not a reference to those preaching circumcision but to Paul himself, whom the Galatians blamed for unspecified misfortunes that had befallen them since his departure. As "Gentiles participating on the margins of Jewish assemblies" (p. 21), some of the members of the Galatian ecclesia (not outsiders) were blaming Paul for their difficulties—accusing him of bewitching (casting an evil eye on) them. B. interprets both baptism and circumcision not simply in theological or initiatory terms but in cultural anthropological terms as apotropaic measures. The Galatians, B. argues, regarded circumcision as offering better protection against an array of possible troubles—illness, infertility, curses—than the novel rite of baptism. The bulk of B.'s arguments concerning the exchange between Paul and the Galatians are made in the central section of the book: part 1: Paul's Perspective on Medicine and Physiology in Galatians, and part 2: Cultural Systems for Paul and Galatia. In the two chapters that make up part 1 ("Pneuma in Ancient Physiology" and "Pathophysiology in Galatia: Anatomy, Physiology, and Etiology"), B. makes the case that both Paul and his addressees conceived of pneuma in material, physiological terms as vitalizing divine breath. The chapters in part 2 ("Evil Eye in a Cultural-anthropological Context" and "The Evil Eye and Fascinum in Context") make the case that belief in the evil eye was not only a feature of many ancient cultures, but that it was part of a cultural system that necessitated a variety of apotropaic defenses, including circumcision: "Circumcision is an apotropaic defense against the evil or the Evil Eye that is represented within Judaism contemporary to Paul's time, and the language provided is physiological" (p. 345; cf. Philo, Spec. 1–12 and QG 3.46–52). Part 3, Taking Pneuma from Physiology to Theology, ranges far beyond Galatians, arguing that the physiological understanding of pneuma endured for several centuries in the development of Christian doctrine ("Physiological Pneuma and the Doctrine of the Trinity: From Paul to Augustine") and in Gnostic theology ("Physiological Pneuma in the Apocryphon of John"). These chapters seem only tangentially related to the main argument of the book, although B.'s contention that Augustine was largely responsible for shifting pneumatology [End Page 319] from the physiological to the theological sphere (a tendency intensified by Cartesian body/mind dualism) is interesting: "Over time, the overwhelming influence of Augustine's theology allowed pneuma to be part of the center stage as 'Spirit,' while it had formerly played a much smaller role, usually as 'spirit'" (p. 302). Barrier's study adds to the work of redescription of Paul in terms of the magical, medical, and ritual context of the ancient Mediterranean world (e.g., Jennifer Eyl, Signs, Wonders, and Gifts: Divination in the Letters of Paul [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019]). The wealth of information on the understanding of pneuma in antiquity is impressive. However, while B.'s alternative explanation of the Galatian problem is intriguing, there is no clear textual evidence that the Galatian ecclesia was actually suffering the kinds of difficulties he posits. The claim that circumcision was understood in early Judaism as a defense against the evil eye seems strained in view of the limited evidence presented. B.'s point would be considerably strengthened by a more compelling argument that baptism was conceived as an apotropaic ritual (especially against the...