This is no recent publication, yet the short book Magic and Copts—Study and Texts, issued by its author Watani reporter Robeir al-Faris in
In his introduction to the book, Faris stresses the unquestionable fact that Christianity totally bans magic through outright commandments in the Bible. He highlights the fact that magic or sorcery focuses on resorting to diverse spiritual forces to achieve one’s demands. Faris’s book focuses on folkloric Christian heritage throughout the Coptic era and reveals the impact of the Pharaonic, Jewish and Arab civilisations on Copts, as obvious in Arabic and Coptic poetry. He highlights the fact that when Egyptians embraced Christianity in the first century they never discarded their folk culture—this was impossible since culture is the build-up of collective experience throughout centuries on end. Egyptian culture, accordingly, merely took on a Christian hue.
Folk culture
As Faris attempts a differentiation between Christianity as a religion and the Christian folk culture of
Of the many topics covered in the 60-page book, Faris cites the position of the Christian faith regarding envy or the evil eye. This especially is one very sensitive issue with Egyptians, who wholeheartedly believe in it as a force of evil, and thus call upon every spiritual power to guard against it. Pharaonic texts metamorphosed into Christian ones, with the saints taking the place of ancient Egyptian gods to guard against evil.
The book cites several ancient and more recent magical texts. In many instances charms and talismans serve to help capture the attention of a loved one, to give an infertile woman children, to guard against oppressive superiors, to mention but a few. The seven angels’ talisman calling for protection of loved ones is a good example.
The book draws the reader’s attention to the reasons behind the appearance of certain beliefs, for example the text of the “Entrance to the rulers”. When Muslims started ruling
Unacceptable
The author discusses the rituals, customs and beliefs that Copts inherited from their ancestors, of which some, such as music, were of great value. Other customs, however, were unacceptable to the Christian faith. Among these was mummification, to which St Anthony and Anba Shenouda the hermit were opposed.
Finally, Faris writes that since magic was always part of Egyptian culture and, as T. S. Elliot wrote, culture is much broader than religion, it was a virtual impossibility for