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Wizards


Wizards
            Wizards are a fairly basic term used to describe a person who has magical abilities and can cast spells.  In one of his poems Virgil describes a Wizard, Moeris, and how he casts spells in order to help a peasant girl to win back her lover.  It states that “Spells can draw the moon down from from the skies.  Circe changed Ulysses’ crew with spells.  A meadow snake bursts cold when spells are sung” (124).
            In early Christian Europe Wizards were depicted as pagan worshipers who attacked Christians and worshiped false gods.  In the story of Simon Magus, Simon is a wizard who astonishes crowds with acts of magic.  However, Simon attempts to expose Peter for putting his faith in a fake god.  Peter’s prayer brings down Simon’s magic, and wins a contest of wonder, proving that his Christian God is the true God (218).
            Magic and wizards alike have been mocked onstage.  William Mewe wrote a play titled False Magic that   helps settle the fate of magic by laughing at it.  In it Otho a Persian Wizard is another character, Viraldus, in disguise who attempts to trick his eldest son, by faking his own death (473).  Wizards went from very pagan people who could also be very dangerous, to fools that could easily be mocked.

Related Terms: Magicians, Necromancy, Witches

Bibliography:
Virgil. 2015.  “Drawing Down the Moon”. In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver.  Penguin Classics, 124

 Copenhaver, Brian. 2015. “Armies of Sorcery and Flights of Angels: Early Christian Europe”. In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver.  Penguin Classics, 213-218

Mewe, William. 2015.  “Fake Magic Goes to College: Mewe, False Magic, 3.6-7.” In The Book of Magic: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment, Translated by Brian Copenhaver.  Penguin Classics, 473-475







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