example of faith in James 5:18. Choni the Circle-Drawer was a famous
rainmaker in thefirst centuryBCE(Mishnah Taanit 3:8) and praying for rain
was established in post-Talmudic Judaism (Lasker & Lasker, 1984). From
Tertullian (c.160–c.220) we learn that Christians were able to obtain rain
through prayer (Apology5). In Greco-Roman antiquity, the official and private
practice of rainmaking is attested since archaic times and continues beyond
the Christianization of the empire (Graf, 2005, p. 298).
In addition to following a variable reinforcement schedule, the amount of
rain in each rainfall also displays a particular regularity called thepower-law
distribution(Peters & Christensen, 2002, 2006). In simple terms, this means
that the time we have to wait for rainfalls of increasingly larger sizes is rapidly
increasing; yet even very large rainfalls can occur once in a while.^2 Another
natural event that follows the same regularity is earthquake, as captured by the
Gutenberg–Richter law. Interestingly, earthquakes constitute a well-known
topic in early Christian magic and miracle. In the Book of Acts,first the
apostles, then Peter alone, andfinally Paul and Silas are miraculously delivered
from prison (apostles: Acts 5:17–20; Peter: 12:6–12; Paul and Silas: 16:25–43).
The apostles see an angel who opens the prison doors. Peter also sees an angel,
his chains fall down, and he becomes invisible when wrapping his cloak
around himself at the angel’s instruction. When Peter and the angel came to
the iron gate leading into the city,“it opened for them of its own accord”
(αὐτομάτηἠνοίγηαὐτοῖς, Acts 12:10). From the Greek Magical Papyri it
appears that rescuing people from jail was also something magicians were
known to achieve when relying on the power of the proper helper (πάρεδρος,
on which see more below in section 6.3). That is, they could“open closed
doors and free people in chains”(PGM I.90–130). Christian magical texts
contain similar references:
Let the rock [split], let the darkness split before me, [let] the earth split, let the
iron dissolve <...>. (London Oriental Manuscript 6796[2], 9–25, trans.
Meyer 2002)
They will force him out onto the street, by the will of God. (Heidelberg Coptic text
686, 14.251, trans. Meyer 1999)Let us note that that demolishing buildings (mainly pagan sanctuaries) is also
frequently achieved by the apostles in the apocryphal Acts (e.g.,Acts of Paul 5
in Papyrus Heidelberg 37–39;Acts of John 42 – 47;Acts of Titus9;Coptic Acts of
Philipin Lemm, 1890, p. 191;Acts of John by Pseudo-Prochorusin Zahn, 1880,
pp. 42, 81;Acts of Barnabas19; cf. Czachesz, 2007a, p. 206). The textual
evidence suggests that Christians practiced magic related to two natural
(^2) A power-law relation means that the dependent variable changes in proportion to the
independent variable raised to some constant power (y=c×xk). In our case, the density of rain
events per year is inversely proportional to the released water column raised to the power 1.4.
Magic and Miracle 127