I Diverse Magic
Midnight. Everything is covered with darkness. The ghostly figures in hoods, like those of the Kulklans, are illuminated by the light only of the sacrificial fire burning in the right corner of the cave. In the center of the cave is a draped black altar with the body of a naked woman. Near the altar, on a stone table, surrounded by black candles, a whitish human skull grins in an ominous smile. The high priestess, also all in black, clutches a sword in her right hand, the blade of which, casting a glare of fire, seems alive. Casting spells, she summons the magical powers of the universe. Above, a horned deity gazes at her silently and dispassionately.
What is it? This is not a scene from a historical movie or a horror movie about the devil. No. This is one of the gatherings of black magic fans. It's no secret that such orgies attract people at the present time. Moreover, modern society is believed to be experiencing a renaissance of occultism and primitive sorcery. Witchcraft, sorcery, witchcraft, sorcery, occultism - these words nowadays do not leave the pages of magazines and newspapers.
II The causes of magic
There are various definitions of magic. However, all of them invariably note one feature of it, namely: it is always based on belief in supernatural forces and in the ability of a person to control the world around with the help of these forces.
“Magic is rituals associated with belief in the ability of a person to influence people, animals, natural phenomena, as well as imaginary spirits and gods in a supernatural way” (Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 9, 15, 152).
A magical action, as a rule, consists of the following basic elements: a material object (substance), that is, an instrument; a verbal incantation - a request or a request with which supernatural forces are addressed; certain actions and movements without words are a ritual.
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The time of the emergence of magic, scientists attribute to the period of primitive society, more precisely - to the era of the Stone Age. There is evidence that magic rituals and beliefs already existed among the Neanderthals who lived 80-50 thousand years ago. We are talking about burials (warehouses) of bear bones in the Mousterian caves Drachenloch (Switzerland), Peterschel (Germany), Regurdou (France), which are considered evidence of hunting magic (cave bears at that time were one of the main objects of hunting for people). Primitive people, some scientists believe, preserving bear skulls and bones, hoped that this would give the killed animals an opportunity to return to life and thereby increase the number of these animals. Among many tribes that preserved a primitive way of life at the end of the nineteenth century and had similar rites of burial of bones and skulls of killed animals,this is the explanation given to these rites.
As for the monuments of the Upper Paleolithic period discovered in the 19th - 20th centuries (the late Stone Age - 40 - 10 thousand years ago), they, and almost all scientists agree with this, testify to the presence of already developed magical ideas and rituals in primitive man. In 1879, a deep cave named Altamira was discovered in the Pyrenees Mountains (Spain). On the walls and ceiling of this cave, by the hand of a primitive artist, were depicted wild boars, bison, deer and other species of animals that people of that time hunted. The remains of three sculptures depicting cave lions were discovered in the Motespan cave opened after Altamira in France. On the neck and chest of one lion, traces of darts and spears that primitive people threw at this sculpture were clearly visible. The other two sculptures were completely destroyed as a result of frequent hits.
The most famous among such finds (and today there are more than 100 of them) is the famous Lasko Cave, discovered in 1940. This cave gained its fame because of the wealth and abundance of drawings of primitive people found here. Most of these drawings, and some of them are truly enormous in size, have been perfectly preserved to this day. In all the halls of the cave, in the passages between them on the wall and ceiling, the primitive artist depicted in various poses those animals that he saw around him: deer, bears, wild boars, etc. All drawings are multi-colored: three colors were used - black, yellow, red. Notches were made on the bodies of animals and next to them, symbolizing the flight of a dart and the wound of the animal. Many drawings bear marks of real spears and darts being thrown at them. There are so many drawingsthat in places they crawl over each other.
Why did primitive people draw the animals they hunted in such inconvenient, poorly lit, often inaccessible places - caves, their remote corridors and passages? Why, after finishing their work, did they not enjoy seeing it, but destroyed it - throwing spears and darts at it? Ethnographic observations of peoples who preserved their primitive way of life back in the 19th and 20th centuries help to answer these questions.
It is known that the Australian aborigines performed a special rite before the start of the hunt: they drew a figure of a kangaroo on the sand and, during a ritual dance, thrust their war spears into the depicted animal. At the same time, they believed that, having fallen into the drawing of the animal, they would fall into the animal itself during the hunt. Obviously, primitive man believed in the same way. Here you can cite the words of Karl Marx about fetishism: "A fantasy inflamed with lust creates an illusion in the fetishist that an" insensitive thing "can change its inherent properties in order to satisfy his whim." A similar illusion was created among the primitive participants in a magical ritual symbolizing the death and killing of an animal. The "fantasy inflamed with lust" of the performers of the ritual turned the imitation of the hunt into the hunt itself,ritual-magical "killing" of an animal into a real killing of an animal.
The real roots of the primitive belief in magic are to be found in the material and social conditions of their lives. The primitive state of humanity is sometimes portrayed as full of bliss, when people, as minions of nature, received from it in the form of gifts everything they needed for life. But the following figures eloquently speak about the difficulties of primitive people, about the harsh, sometimes tragic conditions of their life: almost 50% of Neanderthals did not live up to their twentieth birthday. The Cro-Magnon average life expectancy did not exceed 20 years. Women and children were in the most difficult situation: 38% of Neanderthals died before reaching the age of 11, almost none of the women lived to be 25. In Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus, mortality was even higher: 68% of Sinanthropus did not reach even 14 years old.
These data were obtained by scientists when studying the bone remains of primitive people. The high mortality rate was most often the result of frequent hunger strikes, mortal wounds while hunting large animals, which was natural and logical due to the underdevelopment of the primitive productive forces, poverty and the weakness of primitive technology. People of that era had only the simplest tools made of stone, bone, wood. They were rude and could not provide constant power supplies. The earliest people obtained their livelihoods by hunting, fishing, and gathering. However, the primitive hunter, despite all his skill and skill, was often left without prey, and the fisherman without fish: the animal disappeared from the forest, the fish left the rivers. Vegetable food could be obtained only in certain months of the year.
The labor activity of primitive people, all the efforts of our distant ancestors, which had as their goal to provide themselves and their loved ones with the means of subsistence, often ended in vain. This caused them a state of uncertainty in their abilities, uncertainty in the future. The lack of real means to guarantee reliable and permanent results of production activities, and were the main reasons that the man of the Stone Age turned to the search for irrational means of practical impact on nature. Magical rituals and ceremonies were similar means.
So the economic underdevelopment, the weakness of primitive mankind, expressed in the practical powerlessness of man before nature, was the social background on which the belief in magic grew.
Primitive people were convinced that through the performance of magical rites they come into contact with a supernatural force that could protect them from the elements of nature, from all evil forces and creatures, help in achieving a particular practical goal that they are not able to achieve through real methods and funds. Concrete forms of witchcraft were created by each clan, tribe, community independently, which resulted in a countless variety of magical rituals and ceremonies. Scientists have described and systematized literally thousands of witchcraft rituals and beliefs that existed among different peoples at different times.
III Occult
Originating in the primitive era of mankind, magic did not remain unchanged over the centuries, but took various forms. One of its developed forms is occultism.
Occultism (from Lat. Occultus - secret, secret) is a general name for teachings that “theoretically” substantiate the presence of magical (magical, supernatural) forces in man and space, inaccessible to mere mortals, but accessible to “initiates” who have undergone special initiation and training. The structure of occultism includes such "secret" sciences as astrology, mantic, or fortune telling (palmistry, physiognomy, etc.), spiritualism, hermetic (named after the legendary founder of occultism - Hermes Trismegistus, whose image was the result of combining the images of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god Hermes - the messenger of divine wisdom) medicine and others. For the first time, speech about occultism comes in the era of late antiquity, when in the 1st-4th centuries AD in Alexandria, an extensive occult literature was created, which was called hermetic.
Occultism is based on the "principles" and "laws" of primitive magic. Occultists only systematized the most ancient magical ideas based on the principle: like causes like (sympathetic magic), part replaces the whole (contagious magic).
With the emergence of complex highly developed monotheistic religious systems such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, magic rituals have become their integral element. How magic entered the composition of one of the "higher" religions - Christianity - is worth telling in more detail.
IV Magic in Christian worship
1. The religion of slaves and freedmen
"Once a religion has arisen, it always retains a certain stock of ideas inherited from earlier times." F. Engels A similar statement applies to Christian rituals, which included elements of rituals and rituals of other religions that preceded Christianity or existed in the same era.
Christianity emerged as a religious product of socio-economic, ideological and political relations of a certain historical era. The social essence of early Christianity was that it emerged as a movement of the oppressed. At first, Christianity acted as a religion of slaves and freedmen, the poor and the powerless, conquered or scattered by Rome peoples, preached the coming deliverance from slavery and poverty and sought this deliverance in the afterlife afterlife in heaven.
In accordance with the basic principles of its doctrine, Christianity reworked the material borrowed from other religions and gave it a new symbolic meaning and meaning. So, all ancient religions were inherent in the idea that the gods, offended by people, could be propitiated by sacrifices. In Christianity, however, these ideas took the form of the belief that one great voluntary sacrifice, made by the mediator, atoned once and for all the sins of all times and all people. In a similar way, a new sound was given to the elements of ritual symbolism borrowed by Christianity from pagan religions: they began to associate with the person of the New Testament Jesus Christ, a deity who was embodied in the image of an earthly sufferer and by his death atoned for all the sins of mankind.
The Christian cult is a set of illusory-practical actions (ceremonies, rituals, sacraments, worship, fasts, prayers, etc.), with the help of which believers hope to reach contact with supernatural power. The most obvious connection with the most ancient beliefs and cults are Christian sacraments.
2. Christian sacraments
"The sacraments are the essence of the sacraments, which under a visible image really impart to the believers the invisible grace of God, - the essence of the instruments that must act by grace on those approaching them." Archbishop Macarius Christian sacraments differ little in their form from primitive magical ceremonies. Of course, the meaning and significance that the primitive sorcerer put into his rituals and which the Christian priest attaches to his actions is different. But the material from which the ceremony of magic ritual and Christian sacrament was formed in primitive times and is formed today, the technique of their execution, is essentially the same.
All Christian sacraments are based on faith in divine grace. Grace, according to the definition of Christian theologians, is “a special power, or a special action of God, communicated to us for the sake of the merits of our redeemer and accomplishing our sanctification, that is, on the one hand, it cleanses us from sins, renews and justifies before God, and on the other hand, it affirms and returns us to virtue for eternal life”.
This idea of grace as a force imparting special miraculous divine properties to a person dates back to primitive times. Primitive people believed in the existence of some kind of mysterious force emanating from spirits, gods, people, animals, and even inanimate objects, which can be assimilated by man through certain ritual actions. The Malanesians called this force "mana", among the Indian tribes of the Iroquois and Algonquins - "orenda" and "manitou". It was believed that sorcerers and tribal leaders possess this power to the greatest extent. To receive it, it was necessary to perform special magical ceremonies.
In the ancient world, pagans performed various secret rituals (in Greek - mysteries), with the help of which it was possible to come into contact with deities and receive grace from them, guaranteeing eternal afterlife bliss.
The mysteries became especially popular shortly before the rise of Christianity. In Rome, Greece and especially in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, pagans performed all kinds of fumigations, ablutions, purifications, sacrifices and other witchcraft actions in the hope of thus “purifying themselves”, entering into communion with the deity and becoming divine themselves.
The Christian Church has included many pagan ceremonies in its cult, remaking them in its own way. But the similarity of Christian sacraments with pagan rites was explained by the church fathers as the machinations of the devil. Tertullian, for example, wrote this way: “The devil, trying to distort the truth, imitates even the divine mysteries in the pagan mysteries: he baptizes some as followers, promising them cleansing from sins through the font, and then imprints on the foreheads of his warriors, and solemnly makes an offering of bread … and even supplies a high priest in marriage."
Initially, Christians borrowed from the magic ceremonies and pagan mysteries of antiquity two sacraments - communion and baptism. Then others arose - chrismation, sanctification, confession, marriage and priesthood.
2.1 Communion
In the sacrament of communion, or the holy Eucharist (from the Greek eucharistia - a grateful sacrifice), the one who partakes, eats the flesh and blood of Christ under the guise of bread and wine, thereby communes with God and receives the pledge of eternal life. According to the teachings of the Christian Church, communion is the most sacred of the sacraments, for if in other sacraments Christ imparts certain gifts of his grace to those who believe in him, then here he offers himself - his body and blood.
The sacrament of the sacrament, according to the Christian doctrine, was established by Christ himself at the Last Supper. Thus, he "gave praise to God and the father, blessed and consecrated bread and wine, and, having introduced his disciples, ended the Last Supper with prayer for all believers." In memory of this event, the church continues to celebrate the sacrament of communion. The priest takes a prosphera and carves a cube on the sacrificial table, which is called a "lamb". At the same time, he says: “Like a sheep is being slaughtered”. Then he cuts the “lamb” into four parts, saying aloud the words: “The lamb of God is sacrificed”, pierces it with a spear and says: “Take, eat, this is my body, and drink from it all, this is my blood”.
The origins of this sacrament lie in the primitive magical beliefs, according to which the eating of the body of a superior being is able to convey to the eater the perfect properties of this creature and that direct eating of his flesh and blood can be replaced by eating an animal, plant, object, etc., in which this creature is embodied … Such ideas were extremely common among primitive peoples. This explains the customs of ancient cannibalism. Cannibals drank the blood of a slain enemy as the bearer of his life force. Throughout Oceania, the belief was spread that by eating the liver of the murdered one, you would acquire his strength and courage. Similar information was reported by travelers in the XVII-XIX centuries about the natives of New Caledonia, the Indians of South America, the indigenous inhabitants of many regions of Africa.
Gradually, the bloody sacrifices were replaced by symbolic sacrifices. In this case, the role of the victim was played by figures made of dough, grains, cereals, etc. In India, an image of a goddess in the shape of a truncated cone was made from rice and green grains. They decorated this image in every possible way, made offerings to him, sacrificed a ram or a goat. Then the participants in the ceremony fell on their knees in front of the image, after which they smashed the statue into pieces and ate it.
In Mexico, twice a year, on the day of the spring and winter solstice, the figure of the god Vitzliputzli was made from dough, which was first honored in a royal way, and then smashed and eaten.
In Ancient Greece and Rome, there was a God-eating in the form of eating bread and wine.
Of course, Christian ideas about the unity of man with God through theophagy (God-eating), imbued with the spirit of deep mysticism and magic, cannot be considered outside the spiritual background of the era. Feelings of hopelessness, apathy, disbelief in human strength associated with the general socio-political situation in the Roman Empire, and were the source for the emergence of faith in immortality, in the possibility of achieving a happy afterlife, gave rise to hope for supernatural salvation (which was a characteristic feature of symbolic rituals pagan mysteries) and led ultimately to the spread of magic and mysticism. The same motives and feelings underlie the emergence of another Christian sacrament - baptism.
2.2 Baptism
The sacrament of baptism also plays an extremely important role in Christianity, since it is the only sacrament, the recognition of which is an indispensable condition for belonging to the Christian faith. Baptism meant accepting a new member into a Christian community or church. The meaning of baptism, however, is not limited to symbolism. It is at the same time a mystical act that provides the baptized with a number of all kinds of earthly and heavenly goods.
According to the Christian catechism, the “visible side” of the sacrament, that is, the baptismal procedure itself, consists in the fact that the baby is immersed three times in the font (for the Orthodox), poured over with water (for the Catholics), and sprinkled with it (for the Protestants). When baptized by the Orthodox, the priest also reads three prohibition curses, addressing them to the devil, blowing into the mouth, forehead and chest of the newborn, calling out to God in order to drive out the unclean. Then the rite of "cleansing from the devil" is performed, during which the priest and godchildren of the newborn spit on the floor three times - as if on Satan. After baptism, the child is given a name, most often the saint whose memory is celebrated on the day of baptism.
Baptism cleanses a newborn from the sin of his ancestors and drives away the devil, as a result of which a person is born again and receives the right to eternal life in the heavenly kingdom.
The theory of the “rebirth” of man is attributed to Jesus Christ himself (Gospel of John). The epistles of Paul explain in detail the meaning of the Christian teaching about the second “birth” of a person through baptism: it is associated with faith in the resurrection, and baptism itself is considered as death in Christ, which guarantees the believer at the same time resurrection with Christ in a new life.
This seemingly mysterious Christian rite of death and rebirth has a long history. Even primitive tribes had numerous similar rituals and representations. They were an integral part of the sacraments of initiation of primitive peoples. Admission to members of secret unions, admission of a young man who has reached puberty, membership in a community, etc. accompanied by symbolic rituals of imaginary death and new birth. “Death” and “new birth” upon joining full members of the primitive collective were associated with the symbolic mortification of young men by special spirits. Methods of staging the “killing” of initiates in primitive collectives were varied. This is a "fatal" blow with a bamboo stick; the fall of “dead” bodies at the sign of one of the elders; noise and rumbling in the hut into which the initiates were brought in,and then pushing a bloody spear through the hole; "Swallowing" of young men by animals, which symbolized the shape of the hut or the entrance to it, etc. After their “rebirth”, the young men, upon returning home, behaved like little children, pretending that they did not know how to walk, drink and eat, speak, and did not “recognize” their loved ones. We ate food for children, communicated with gestures and hums.
The idea of a “second birth” was widespread in the ancient world as well. In the mysteries of that time, “death” and “rebirth” were associated with the idea of mystical communion with the deity through the magical repetition of similar events in his life. After all, practically all the gods of the ancient mysteries were by their origin deities of annually “dying” and “resurrecting” vegetation. In the rituals and ceremonies of "death" and "resurrection" of the Ancient World, there is a soteriological orientation. In other words, these rituals in the pagan mysteries aimed at achieving religious "salvation" with the help of a supernatural savior, the soter. This idea, as well as the rituals symbolizing it, was later adopted by the first Christians, choosing the person of Christ as their savior.
The Christian baptismal procedure is a magical ceremony. Submerging the body in water three times, dressing the baby in a clean shirt in order to preserve the purity of his soul, etc. - these are all remnants of homeopathic magic, based on the belief that "like produces like", "the effect is similar to its cause."
The custom of blowing on a baby, on water, oil in order to give them grace and at the same time to drive away Satan, to spit on Satan during baptism is also a relic of the ancient belief - the belief that human breath and saliva have special witchcraft power. Among the Baniora tribe in Uganda, for example, a priest on the third day after the birth of a child introduced him to the spirits and asked them for all sorts of benefits for the newborn, accompanying each request with spitting.
In fact, the ceremony of "tonsure of Vlasov" is also a primitive magic rite. Cutting the hair of a child at baptism and throwing it into the baptismal font is a relic of the ancient belief that, by placing at the feet of a deity an animated particle of his body, which has a wonderful property of growth, a person establishes a strong relationship with him. In ancient times, many peoples had the custom of donating hair to the gods. So, in the Phoenician temples of Astarte there was even a special position - galab-elim - God's barber. Statues depicting gods in ancient temples were often covered with male and female hair from top to bottom.
A central role in all rituals was played by water, to which people have long attributed magical qualities. Christian theologians explained baptism by water by the fact that Jesus Christ sanctified the Jordanian waters by receiving the first baptism from John the Baptist. However, the magical ritual of washing with water is actually much earlier than Christ and Christianity. Many centuries before the emergence of Christianity and the birth of the Messiah himself, the ancient Egyptians dipped babies into water, the Zoroastrians from Iran carried newborns to the temple, where the priests bathed them in special vessels with water, the Romans bathed the boy on the ninth day after his birth, and the girls - on the eighth. The rituals of bathing a newborn in water, sprinkling it with water are known among the peoples of Ancient Mexico, China, Japan, Tibet, New Zealand,Africa … Practically in all pre-Christian religions there were rituals of ritual washing of a newborn, the purpose of which was to cleanse him of evil spirits.
According to the famous historian of Christianity A. B. Ranovich, “belief in the miraculous ability of water to drive away hostile forces was the source of various, ubiquitous kultt actions, in which water is used for purification, sprinkling, libation, and witchcraft. The use of water in the Christian sacrament of baptism is based on the same primitive concept of the cleansing property of water”.
Likewise, the origins of other Christian sacraments - chrismation, sanctification, confession, marriage and priesthood - date back to the era of primitiveness.
2.3 Confirmation and blessing
"Confirmation is such a sacrament through which the holy spirit is taught to the baptized." Ariepishop Macarius.
The Christian catechism explains in detail the meaning of anointing with myrrh or oil (that is, oil or fat) on certain parts of the body. The chela anointing means the sanctification of the mind, the perseus anointing is the sanctification of the heart or desires, the anointing of the eyes, ears and lips is the sanctification of the senses, the anointing of the hands and feet is the sanctification of the deeds and all behavior of a Christian.
Sanctification of the oil, according to the same catechism, “is a sacrament in which, when the body is anointed with oil, the grace of God is called upon the sick person, which heals mental and bodily infirmities”. This sacrament is intended for the seriously ill who are dying.
By comparison, among the "primitive" tribes, it was believed that fat was the seat of the soul. It was believed that fat, as a substance that contains the life force of an animal, can convey certain qualities of this animal to a person. To do this, it was enough to eat a piece of fat with the magic power contained in it, or simply touch it, smear it with it. The Arabs of East Africa, for example, were smeared with lion's fat to become brave like lions, and the natives of the Andaman Islands poured pork fat on them at the initiation of young men to give them strength and strength.
Gradually, from a magical transmitter of the properties of a spirit that lives in an animal or a person, fat turned into a substance that itself has magical qualities. In India, for example, there was a belief that an ointment made from the fat of murdered boys had supernatural properties. In medieval Europe, cadaveric fat slashes were considered one of the main elements of a witch's accessory.
Belief in the magical power of fat led to the fact that they began to "heal" the sick with the charmed fat. For example, on the island of Buru, its inhabitants smeared the body with coconut oil to protect against the demons of the disease.
2.4 Confession
In addition to the anointing with oil in order to alleviate physical and mental ailments, the so-called confession was widely used among primitive and ancient peoples, i.e. enumerating out loud their sins for “cleansing” and deliverance from them. This custom is very ancient, which existed long before the advent of Christianity.
The primitives endowed the word with a special, witchcraft power, and therefore, translating their sins into words, a person hoped to get rid of them, to transfer them to some object. So, the Malagasy whalers, before going fishing in the sea, confessed to each other in the most secret sins. If someone had accumulated too many sins, he was not allowed to go to sea.
The custom of cleansing from sins with the help of the word and the goat existed among the Hebrew tribes. Once a year, all members of these tribes, young and old, gathered in the center of the settlement, where the high priest, going up to a pre-selected black goat and laying both hands on it, began to loudly list the sins and crimes of his fellow tribesmen. At the end of this procedure, the goat was driven into the desert so that it would take away its sins and die with them there without water and food. This is where the famous saying "scapegoat" came from. A colorful description of this rite is given in the Bible (Leviticus, 16, 7-11, 21-23). Instead of a goat, other peoples used a variety of animals for similar purposes: dogs, buffalo, etc.
2.5 Wedding
Various ceremonies and rituals accompanying a person's marriage became widespread in the historical epochs preceding the emergence of Christianity. In one form or another, marriage has always been "sanctified." In the Christian wedding ceremony, in its "visible side", there is nothing that would not have corresponding analogs in pagan religions. Engagement, wedding rings, wedding gifts, wreaths, etc. - all this existed in the wedding rituals of primitive and ancient peoples and had as its purpose to provide the married man and woman with supernatural grace and fertility.
The Christian wedding ceremony, like all other Christian rituals and sacraments, is performed by a special sacred person - a bishop or presbyter, who disposes of divine grace and transfers it to other persons through certain manipulations, accompanied by incantation prayers.
2.6 Priesthood
“Under the name of the priesthood as a sacrament, we mean such a priesthood, in which through the prayerful laying on of the bishops' hands on the head of the chosen person, divine grace is brought down to that person, sanctifying and placing him on a certain level of the church hierarchy, and then assisting him in passing his hierarchical duties. This sacrament is also called the ordination, elevation to the priesthood, the blessing of the priesthood, the sacrament of the hierarch."
This sacrament, like all other Christian sacraments, has its "visible side", which consists in the fact that the bishop, who has a monopoly on consecration, lays hands on the ordained person.
The laying on of hands was used in many pre-Christian cults as a way of transferring supernatural magical properties. It was common among the ancient Jews. It was also used in the cult of Mithra. On the Klagenfurst relief, on other Mithraic monuments, Mithra is depicted as the sun god laying his hands on his head.
The basis of such ideas about the transfer of various kinds of beneficial properties through the hands is the primitive idea of the independent power of the hands and fingers. Among the peoples who preserved a primitive way of life at the end of the 19th century, the custom was widespread, for example, according to which the fingers of a killed enemy, subjected to special preparation, were given to soldiers to eat in order to give them courage, courage and valor. Many tribes also believed that just sucking a finger was enough to get miraculous properties from it.
It was these beliefs and customs that were adopted by Christianity in a specific form. The primitive belief in the magical meaning of the hand was reflected in the following biblical story: “And Jesus did as Moses told him, and went to fight the Amalekites; and Moses and Aaron and Hor went up to the top of the hill. And when Moses lifted up his hands, Israel prevailed, and when he lowered his hands, Amalek prevailed; but Moses' hands became heavy, and then they took a stone and placed it under it, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hor supported his hands, one on one side and the other on the other. And his hands were lifted up until the sun went down”(Exodus, 17, 10-12). Biblical expressions such as “this finger of God” or “the Israelites saw a great hand, which the Lord showed over the Egyptians” reflects the belief of the ancient Jews in the magical effect of a hand at a distance.
V. The relationship between Christianity and paganism
At first, the fact of the continuity and connection of paganism and Christianity did not raise any objections among the early Christians, and was even emphasized in every possible way by them, for it contributed to the influx of new members into Christian communities and churches from among the worshipers of pagan gods and goddesses. With the development of Christianity and especially since its transformation into the state religion of the Great Roman Empire, the attitude towards this fact changes. Having found rivals to Christ and the Christian cult in the gods and goddesses of antiquity, in the pagan ritualism, the church fathers considered the idea of continuity and historical connection between Christianity and paganism dangerous and consigned it to oblivion in anathema. The policy of the Christian church in relation to pagan religions also changed: after a short period of coexistence between Christianity and paganism, a long era of persecution and persecution of pagans began.
However, it was not possible to completely destroy the popularity of pagan beliefs and rituals among the population of those countries where Christianity became the dominant religion. The greatest interest was and continues to be enjoyed by the pagan witchcraft that has gone underground, so to speak, because of the fact that the struggle with all kinds of witches, sorcerers, warlocks, magi, etc. occupied a significant place in the activities of the Christian church.
