MIRACLES IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity is a sourcebook which presents a concise selection of key miracle stories from the Greco- Roman world, together with contextualizing texts from ancient authors as well as footnotes and commentary by the author herself. The sourcebook is organized into four parts that deal with the main miracle story types and magic: Gods and Heroes who Heal and Raise the Dead, Exorcists and Exorcisms, Gods and Heroes who Control Nature, and Magic and Miracle. Two appendixes add richness to the contextualization of the collection: Diseases and Doctors features ancient authors’ medical diagnoses, prognoses and treatments for the most common diseases cured in healing miracles; Jesus, Torah and Miracles selects pertinent texts from the Old Testament and Mishnah necessary for the understanding of certain Jesus miracles. This collection of texts not only provides evidence of the types of miracle stories most popular in the Greco-Roman world, but even more importantly assists in their interpretation. The contextualizing texts enable the student to reconstruct a set of meanings available to the ordinary Greco-Roman, and to study and compare the forms of miracle narrative across the whole spectrum of antique culture. Wendy Cotter C.S.J. is Associate Professor of Scripture at Loyola University, Chicago. MIRACLES IN GRECO-ROMAN ANTIQUITY A sourcebook Wendy Cotter, C.S.J. First published 1999 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2003. © 1999 Wendy Cotter C.S.J. The right of Wendy Cotter C.S.J. to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Cotter, Wendy, 1946– Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity: a sourcebook/Wendy Cotter. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-11863-8.—ISBN 0-415-11864-6 (pbk.) 1. Miracles. 2. Greece—Religion. 3. Rome—Religion. I. Title. BL785.C35 1999 292.2’117–dc21 98–19320 CIP ISBN 0-203-02955-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-21258-4 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-11863-8 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-11864-6 (pbk) FOR MY MOTHER, ISABEL COTTER WITH MY GRATITUDE AND LOVE CONTENTS Preface viii Introduction 1 PART 1 Gods and heroes who heal 1 Gods who heal 11 2 Heroes who heal 35 3 The healing miracles of Jesus 54 PART 2 Exorcists and exorcisms 4 Daimons/demons in Greco-Roman antiquity 75 5 Daimons/demons in apocalyptic and Christian sources 106 PART 3 Gods and heroes who control nature 6 Gods and heroes who control wind and sea 131 7 Changing water into wine and other nature miracles 164 vi CONTENTS PART 4 Magic and miracles 8 Magic in the ancient world 175 Appendix A Diseases and doctors 201 Appendix B Jesus, Torah and miracles 223 Bibliography 248 Index of texts 256 Index of Jesus miracles 260 General index 263 vii PREFACE This book is the result of David Aune’s invitation one afternoon several years ago in the Theology Department library as I had just finished expounding to him my concern over the lack of proper cultural contextualization in miracle story analysis. My own involvement with the interpretation of miracle stories had begun with the research for my doctoral dissertation, “The Markan Sea Miracles: Their history, formation, and function in the literary context of Greco-Roman Antiquity” (Ph.D. dissertation: University of St Michael’s College, Toronto, 1991). It was during those years that I discovered what few tools were readily available for situating miracle story claims and heroes in the reality of the first-century Mediterranean world. That afternoon, David informed me that he had just agreed to be editor of Routledge’s new series, Christianity in Context, in which forms in Christian texts would be provided their proper cultural settings through illuminating extracts from Greco-Roman texts. David’s invitation to me to prepare the sourcebook for miracle story contextualization was an honour as it was a practical answer to my concern, and I would like to express my sincerest thanks to him. I hope that this volume of selected texts will be found helpful by many scholars and students who have searched for a book of pertinent sources to assist them in their interpretation of Greco-Roman miracle stories. I would like to acknowledge in a special way the generosity of Loyola University of Chicago in awarding me a summer research grant to begin the necessary research for the book, and then adding to this a paid semester sabbatical to bring it to completion. Profound thanks go to my own religious community, the Sisters of St Joseph of London, Ontario, Canada, for their kind funding of a summer field study in Rome as part of the research for this volume. I am so grateful for their constant support, their warm ix