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AS A METHOD TO INFLUENCE THE SUPERNATURAL
The anger of God expressed against Israel's worship of other gods in our Old Testament does not represent His jealousy as though He competed for attention. The Bible teaches us that worship of gods other than the Creator of all derives essentially from an attempt to manipulate the power of God, the supernatural, through various rituals and ceremonies rather than trustfully submit to His revealed character.
use of magic is common to this human manipulative tendency and derives from pagan belief that a supernatural force can be used or manipulated, or the services of a god may be employed, by
means of special ritual. Magic in church practice as derived from this
involves the attributing of supernatural influence to certain objects,
words, gestures and actions.
Catholic practice in this regard has varied according
to the society in which that church functions. The following is based
on Roman Catholic practice in England during the time in which it dominated
that society.
'They [Prayer Primers] therefore
pose in an acute form the question of the relation between orthodox
Christianity and magic in the religion of the late medieval laity.
It is my contention this ...can best be understood in the context
of official liturgy, from which it borrowed most of its rhetoric and
ritual strategies: in this perspective it represents not superstition
...but lay Christianity.' (1992,
p.8). |
need for magic went beyond this present world.
Although Dante's Purgatory made it an antechamber of Heaven staffed by
angels, among the common people it was certainly not so!
Purgatory was rather an out-patient department of Hell, according to
St. Thomas More, staffed by –
'cruell damned spirites,
odious, envious and hateful, despitous enemies' (Workes, pp.337-8).
A place, according to St.
John Fisher (c.1510 AD), which is –
'so great
acerbite of paynes that no dyfference is betweene the paynes of
hell, but only eternyte, the paynes of helle be eternall, and the
paynes of purgatory have an ende'. (English Works, p.10). |
escape or shorten this frightful fate then, much
effort and expenditure poured into the hands of the Clergy, from out of
which extortion most of the great cathedrals of Europe were built.
