Miracles in Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Sourcebook for the Study of New Testament Miracle Stories

285 Pages·1999·1.63 MB·English

by  Wendy Cotter C.S.J

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