Curse

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CURSE

The possibility of a curse is present whenever man stands in any relation whatever to the Absolute and the Transcendent. Cursing presupposes this reality, at least in principle. According to the forms of relation to the Holy—as the reality of the Absolute and the Transcendent may be designated—two kinds of curse can be distinguished and defined. With respect to other persons, the curse, in contrast to blessing, signifies the calling down of misfortune upon persons or objects, or it is this misfortune itself. With respect to the curser, the curse is the consciously irreverent act—and proclaimed as such—of hostility toward the world of the Holy (misuse of the name of God, or of holy persons and things). In both cases, magic attitudes and practices are often in evidence.

In respect to others, the curse, on the one hand, belongs to prayer, so far as the curser maintains an attitude

of reverence and affirms the holy in relation to divine commands and norms, as in the OT. On the other hand, the curse belongs to magic. Yet in concrete instances the transition to prayer can be easy. A definite effect (the onset of misfortune or its averting) is thought to be accomplished by the employment of harmful expressions or signs. In Egypt vessels on which curse formulas were written were broken. In Athens and Rome too, curse tablets were in frequent use.

The occasion for the curse may be anger and fear, but it may also be hate and envy. In the latter case, there is often question of the use of witchcraft and sorcery, which may also be called black magic. Examples of transitional forms of the curse are cursing motivated by a more or less justified anger, or the cursing of desecrators of graves or of sacred objects. The following words are found on the great stele of Hammurabi and may have helped to preserve it: "If that man did not heed my words which I wrote on my stele, and disregarded my curses, and did not fear the curses of the gods, but has abolished the law which I have enacted…, may mighty Anum, the father of the gods, who proclaimed my reign, deprive him of the glory of sovereignty, may he break his scepter, may he curse his fate!" (J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament [2d, rev. ed. Princeton, N.J., 1955] 30–31).

In this general category should be placed as well the elaborate curse formulas associated with the execution of a judgment against an individual, such as to involve exclusion from the community. There is a widespread idea that the curse of a dying person, and particularly of a mother, has special efficacy (see, e.g., Odyssey 2.134; Sir3.9). Conversely, the removal of the curse by ritual purification, or its warding off, e.g., by making the sign of the cross, may be cited as ambivalent phenomena.

In the second sense, the curse is made against the world of the Holy itself. God is blasphemed in order by this means to take vengeance on Him and on the lot given by Him. This is done by the blasphemous utterance of sacred or tabooed names. The names are often given a changed meaning (euphemism) or are mutilated, so that the curse may not turn against the curser himself. Emotions of revenge, pride, despair, defense, or unjust anger, therefore, operate together, so that it is necessary in a given case only to determine which of these emotions specifies the curse. Here, too, the transition from curse and violent expression is easy, and especially because the custom and practice of daily speech no longer make it possible to recognize the original sense of many curses.

Curse in the religion of Israel. Israel's faith in the sovereign power of Yahweh transformed the curse, once thought to possess independent and inexorable efficacy, into an expression of God's justice, which operated only to punish the guilty. The ordeal rite prescribed for a wife suspected of adultery (Nm 5.11–29) had its origin in magical practice. However, it was now no longer the words of imprecation washed off into the holy water that was to bring punishment upon the guilty wife but rather the Lord who would execute the curse (Nm 5.21). Formulas that previously might have been employed to invoke a curse upon the enemy appear in the Psalter as prayers to God for vindication (Ps 82–83).

Particularly important from the viewpoint of orientation toward the NT was the covenant curse. Yahweh was the guardian of all covenants (Gn 21.22–23; 31.44), and especially the covenant between Himself and Israel. Guilty Israel had merited the incurring of all the covenant curses (Dt 27.14–26; 28.15–68). The Deuteronomist could only hold out the hope that, should they still repent, "all those curses the Lord, your God, will assign to your enemies" (Dt 30.7). Jeremiah (31.31–34) and Ezekiel (16.62; 34.25) held out the more radical promise of a new covenant.

Curse in the New Testament. Christ warns His disciples against recourse to imprecatory oaths (Mt5.33–37). He threatens with woe the Pharisees (Mt 23.13–31) and the incredulous (Mt 11.21), but, apart from His symbolic cursing of the barren fig tree, He pronounces a proper malediction only once: "Depart from me, accursed ones" (Mt 25.41). It is the common theology of the NT that redemption in Christ has taken away the force of all curses, except for the final curse of a freely chosen damnation. St. Paul says that Christ became "a curse for us" to redeem us from the curse of the law (Gal3.13), so that for those who are in Christ Jesus, "there is now no condemnation" (Rom 8.1); and creation itself, which had been put under a curse because of man (Gn3.17), "also will be delivered from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the sons of God" (Rom 8.21). Revelation teaches the same doctrine under the figure of the Heavenly City, where "there shall be no more any accursed thing" (Rv 22.3). Christ comes as the amen to the covenant promises of blessing (2 Cor 1.20; see also Lk 24.50–53 ), and not as the Amen to the curses of the old covenant (Dt 27.15–26).

See Also: magic; blessing (in the bible).

Bibliography: s. eitrem, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, ed. m. cary et al. (Oxford 1949) 246. a. e. crawley, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. j. hastings (Edinburgh 1908–27) 4:367–374. r. thurnwald, "Fluch," Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte, ed. m. ebert (Berlin 1924–32) 3:391–398. j. a. wilson, in j. b. pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (2d, rev. ed. Princeton, N.J., 1955) 328. a. audollent, Defixionum tabellae (Paris 1904). g. van der leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, tr. j. e. turner (London 1938). h. c. brichto, The Problem of "Curse" in the Hebrew Bible (Journal of Biblical Literature monograph ser. 13; Philadelphia, Pa. 1963). s. h. blank, "The Curse, Blasphemy, the Spell, and the Oath," Hebrew Union College Annual 23 (1950–51) 73–95. j. scharbert, Solidarität in Segen und Fluch im A.T. und in seiner Umwelt (Bonn 1958). s. o. mowinckel, Segen und Fluch in Israels Kult und Psalm-endichtung (Kristiana 1923; repr. Amsterdam 1961).