Moses the Magician
I have been fascinated with the traditions of Moses in the first to fourth centuries CE lately. In connection with my "Christian Moses" project, I have been reading up on how his reputation developed in contemporary sources. For this, there are many important scholarly works, but perhaps one of the most helpful ones in considering his broader significance in the ancient world is John Gager's Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism . Of any figure from the Jewish tradition, Moses was the best-known to outsiders. And while many erudite Greeks and Romans (and Egyptians) tended to refer to Moses as a lawgiver (usually as one inferior to Plato, among others), perhaps the most widespread view of Moses was that of a magician. He is invoked among the Greek and Demotic magical papyri as an authority--sometimes works are written in his name (such as the much under-studied Eighth Book of Moses) or his name is invoked in surviving amulets because it was thought to have power in ...