Did the Early Church Use Psychedelics?

I recently read Brian Muraresku's "The Immortality Key" as part of some research I am doing for a book I am working on. I wanted to take a quick moment to review one of the central claims in the book: that the earliest Christians engaged in φαρμακεία (pharmakeia).  φαρμακεία is often translated 'witchcraft' in the bible but as I pointed out in a previous article it is also the ancient Greek word for 'drugs'. The reason witchcraft and drugs are both acceptable translations of the word is that witchcraft in the ancient world very often involved the use of hallucinogenic drugs to speak to the gods and see visions.

In the Immortality Key, Muraresku argues that the evidence suggests that the earliest Christians engaged in pharmakeia as part of the Eucharistic sacrament. As evidence of this he has several supports:

1. There is evidence contemporary Greeks utilized φαρμακεία as part of their secret rites to encounter the gods. 

2. There is evidence that the Gospel of John utilized some similar language to the pagan words that surrounded these rites. There is also a suggestion in Paul that maybe the communion wine was mixed with something potentially deadly.

3. There are some frescos from the catacombs in which Christians apparently painted pagan scenes with φαρμακεία allusions that overlap with the Lord's supper.

4. There is at least one reference in the early Christian church to the Eucharist being called the "φαρμακεία (pharmakeia) of immortality" (see Ignatius of Antioch's letter to the Ephesians). 

5. And perhaps central to his argument is the pagan continuity hypothesis: the idea that the early church largely had large amounts of continuity with the pagan world that surrounded it. And if this is true, it would make total sense that the early church would carry on some of the most important elements with the "religion that has no name" as practiced by the pagans. 

Overall the book has a lot of interesting elements and helpful research. For example, on point #1, I found his arguments persuasive. I have long agreed that it seems likely that the ancient Greeks utilized hallucinogenics as part of their secret rituals. Muraresku makes a good case for this. His work finding evidence of Greek use of φαρμακεία in Spain and Pompeii was helpful. I also found his discussions on the potential knowledge of hallucinogens among medieval witches to be fascinating.

I also do not disagree that the Gospel of John at various points utilizes language that is intended to draw in pagan readers. His opening lines describing Jesus as the Logos for example are certainly allusions to the Greek philosophical idea of Logos. So I don't think it is impossible that when John describes the miracle of turning water into wine that he may have utilized language that would have been familiar to his pagan readers. With that being said, I also agree with Oxford's NT Wright that while John used language that may have stretched its branches out to a pagan audience, the trunk of his theology is firmly planted in the first century Jewish world. Whatever pagan allusions John might have, there is no reason to believe his doing so is evidence that the lines were blurred. From what we know of first century Judaism, the lines were very clear indeed. In fact, first century Jews would not even eat with gentiles let alone partake in their pagan ceremonies. No. John's language is the language of a missionary seeking to connect with people in order to pull them out into a new way of viewing God and the world.

Muraresku's discussion on St. Paul's 1 Corinthians 11:17-34 is interesting. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul warns his readers to not take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner and states that by doing so they drink judgement on themselves causing weakness, sickness and the Greek word "koimao." He makes a an argument that koimao in verse 30 must be translated as "died" not as "fallen asleep" as some translations render it. He argues this based on the fact that elsewhere in the New Testament it is rendered death (see 1 Thess 4:13). But it is worth noting that at least some New Testament uses of conjugations of the same root word are clearly just regular old sleep (see Matthew 28:13). The reason this translation is important to Muraresku is that he believes Paul is warning about getting the communion drink mix wrong. Elsewhere in the Immortality Key he argues that pagans in the area mixed their wine with various other drugs to cause ecstatic visions and he argues that 1 Corinthians 11 is a hint that the earliest uses of the Lord's Supper were also mixed wines that, if mixed wrong, could lead to sickness or death. 

Is this a strong argument? In short, no. First off, historically Christians have held this verse to be warning of supernatural not natural judgement. The goings on of the New Testament church involved a lot of miraculous things. People were at times miraculously able to speak in every language (see Acts 2), they were able to heal lifelong cripples (see Acts 3), they were able to see the future (1 Corinthians 14), they were able to be bitten by poisonous snakes and not die (Acts 28), and various people were struck dead miraculously for sinning against the Holy Spirit (see Acts 5). So when Paul recounts people dying for defiling the most holy of sacraments, one hardly needs a natural explanation. But even if one wanted a natural explanation, it is certainly possible to drink regular alcohol to the point of sickness and death. Paul is warning them against drunkenness in the passage (see verse 21) after all. At best, 1 Corinthians 11 is vague as to what is going on. The passage is in no way a strong argument for drug infused wines being used in the early incarnations of the sacrament. 

What of the frescos that appear to overlap the Christian sacrament and the Greek wine rituals that (possibly) involved φαρμακεία? There are a lot of problems with taking these to be strong indications of φαρμακεία  being used in the early church. First, it is worth noting that the earliest church did not allow images to be used. We read time and time again in the early church fathers that images are a pagan thing that Christians do not engage in. The icons and images that are now so common in the Catholic and Orthodox churches did not become popular until the fifth and sixth centuries. The earliest Christian icons we have are from the third and fourth century. Whatever findings Muraresku might bring from the frescos we need to note that the time of their painting almost certainly was well after Christian orthodoxy had been established and the Lord's Supper was firmly not drug infused. 

It is worth noting that Muraresku is correct that Christianity was not perfectly homogeneous in the early days. Just as Christianity today includes groups considered "orthodox" and those considered heterodox, there have always been small sects (and even large ones) rejected by the apostolic church. If you read the writings of  Irenaeus (130-202 AD) you will see him make the argument that one group of Christians is following in the Apostolic tradition (Irenaeus lists a line of Christian bishops dating right back to the apostles) and others were getting secret knowledge (the "Gnostics") without any connection to the apostles. 

The question for Christians has always been one around what Jesus and his apostles taught and intended for the church. And it is difficult to claim that a collection of Jews from a region where Jews would not so much as share a meal with gentiles would come up with a religion that had more continuity with paganism than Judaism. And so as we look at these Gnostic traditions and compare them to Orthodoxy we see this stark contrast. The Gnostics did have continuity with paganism. They followed Platonic (and other Greeks) philosophy. They minimized or completely removed the Jewish debates found in the New Testament, and they took on a style that was more palatable to the wider pagan world. In contrast, the Christianity of Orthodoxy maintained a strongly Jewish character (keeping the Hebrew Bible, keeping the Jewish debates of the first century, keeping a Jesus and a Paul that affirmed the Jewishness of the faith). Which is more likely? That distinctively Jewish accounts of Jesus would be taken and paganized as the faith spread from Israel to the pagans throughout the Roman Empire or that a paganized account would be taken and made more Jewish in nature? The answer is obvious.

[I write more about this question here if you would like to learn more.]

Is it possible that some paganized Gnostic forms of Christianity practiced φαρμακεία? Even Muraresku admits that this evidence is far from conclusive but even if you, like him, thinks this is where the weight of the evidence points, this is not evidence that Jesus, Paul or any of the Apostles or the orthodox church that followed them had continuity with paganism or that they practiced or approved of φαρμακεία.

Now there is one orthodox early Christian that Muraresku points to as potential evidence of φαρμακεία within orthodoxy. Muraresku notes that Ignatius of Antioch (c 110 AD) calls the Lord's Supper, the "φαρμακεία of immortality" in his Letter to the Ephesians. And this is true. But Muraresku  didn't make Ignatius central to his case for a very good reason: Ignatius uses the phrase for the specific purpose of differentiating Christianity from the pagan cults. In his Letter to the Ephesians chapter 19 and 20, Ignatius arguing that Christianity is not like the pagans. He says that they use sorcery and spells but those have lost their power. The real power is in Jesus Christ the King. It is only after this that he notes that the Eucharist is the true "drug of immortality". He is not saying “we are doing the same thing” he is saying that our drug of immortality is this little drink of wine in which we partake of Jesus. In other words, he uses the word of the pagans to differentiate Christianity not to make it the same. 

And we can be doubly sure that Ignatius was not endorsing φαρμακεία here because elsewhere Ignatius specifically condemns φαρμακεία! In Ignatius’s letter to the Trallians, we see his true views on φαρμακεία,  

“I urge you, therefore — not I, but Jesus Christ’s love — use only Christian food. Keep off foreign fare, by which I mean heresy. For those people mingle Jesus Christ with their teachings just to gain your confidence under false pretenses. It is as if they were giving a deadly poison (φαρμακon) mixed with honey and wine, with the result that the unsuspecting victim gladly accepts it and drinks down death with fatal pleasure."

Here he warns against using anything other than Christian food (in the Eucharist) and warns against using "foreign fare". Then he goes on to say that those that mix Christian food with the foreign food are like those who mix wine with φαρμακon. Here the φαρμακon he is talking about is literally deadly but his allusion would have been very on the nose to any audience and this passage puts to bed that he supported mixing wine (a central argument to everything Muraresku argues in the Immortality Key). 

But what about other early church fathers? What do they have to say? Among the writings commonly described as 'Apostolic Fathers' (writers of the late first and early second century thought to have close connections to the apostles), there are two other authors that discuss φαρμακεία and both speak of it in very negative tones. 

In the Didache (c 90AD), author says Christians must not practice magic do not practice φαρμακεία  (2.2). Later, he lists φαρμακεία as a “way of death” (5.1).  Here, one of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament makes it clear that φαρμακεία and Christianity are completely incompatible. And in the Shepherd of Hermes Vision 3 (early 2nd century), the author says “Be not like the sorcerers (φαρμακois).” 

So here we have three of the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament (Ignatius, Didache, and Shepherd of Hermes) all unreservedly condemning φαρμακεία .

Finally, and Muraresku would agree with me here, by the mid to late second century voices of orthodoxy such as Irenaeus. the bishop of Lyon, made it clear that φαρμακεία had no place in Christianity.

And there is no room to suggest that sometime between the apostles (writing in the mid to late first century) and the apostolic fathers (writing in the late first to early second century) φαρμακεία was removed from the practices of the church. Because in the New Testament itself we have multiple direct condemnations of φαρμακεία. The Apostle Paul, in Galatians 5:19-20, lists φαρμακεία as one of the things that are signs of having a sinful nature and that those who practice such things "will not enter the kingdom of heaven." The Book of Revelation has several condemnations of φαρμακεία including Revelation 9:21 where a church is condemned for failing to set aside their 'witchcraft' (φαρμακεία).  Revelation 21:8 and Revelation 22:15 list those who practice φαρμακεία as the people who will be cast out of the Kingdom at the Day of Judgement.

So the evidence in the actual writings of the Apostles and the people that knew the apostles is overwhelming. φαρμακεία is viewed as a clear abomination. But this should not surprise us if we reject the pagan continuity hypothesis and we accept a Jewish continuity hypothesis. Because the Jews of Jesus' day were equally opposed to φαρμακεία.

Consider the bible of first century Jews. In the first-century world of Jesus and his Apostles, there was a Koine Greek translation of the Old Testament that was widely used called the Septuagint. When the New Testament quotes the Old Testament it is more often than not the Septuagint that is quoted. So Koine Greek is the language of the New Testament and the language of the Bible that Jesus and his apostles would have read.  

Let's review some of what the Septuagint references to φαρμακεία.

Let's start with Exodus 22:18. 

"You shall not allow a φαρμακous to live." 

That seems pretty rough.

Now let's go to Deuteronomy 18:10,

"Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in φαρμακous." 

Now consider 2 Chronicles 33:6 a verse talking about the evil King Manasseh, 
"He sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced sorcery, divination, and witchcraft (epharmakeueto), and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the LORD, provoking him to anger."

The conjugation of φαρμακεία is rendered by the the Liddell Scott Lexicon,
"1- to administer a drug or 2 - to use enchantments." So the king got so evil that he sacrificed his children in the fire and started administering drugs (with the implication of spiritual or ritualistic
usage). 

Moving on, we see in 2 Kings 9:22 that,  "When Joram saw Jehu he asked, "Have you come in peace, Jehu?" "How can there be peace," Jehu replied, "as long as all the idolatry and witchcraft of your mother Jezebel abound?"

Jezebel is the notoriously evil queen in the bible. When Jehu lists her evils he lists two things, "idolatry and witchcraft (φαρμακεία)." Yes, one of the evilest people in the bible's two most evil actions included using drugs for spiritual purposes. 

And in Nahum 3:4 the prophet says that the city of Ninevah, "enslaved nations by her prostitution and peoples by her witchcraft (φαρμακεία)."

Many other references in the Old Testament carry on this theme. For example, in Exodus 9, the men who prevent Egypt from listening to the warnings of Moses (and ultimately bringing on the plagues) were sorcerers (φαρμακous). And in Micah 5:12, God promises that when he acts he will act to destroy φαρμακεία.

To summarize the Old Testament (as found in the Koine Greek Septuagint the earliest Christians would have read) states that those who practice φαρμακεία (the ritual/spiritual/magical use of drugs) are not worthy to live. They are the worst sorts of people that deceive whole nations and lead to human sacrifice and blood lust. Is it any surprise that the earliest Christians shared the condemnation of φαρμακεία ?

Before I stop, I wanted to also quote a verse from the Septuagint that is not in the Protestant Bible but is in the Catholic Deuterocanonical text of Wisdom (c first century BC) because I think it speaks more clearly to how Jews contemporary to Jesus and the apostles would have thought. Wisdom 12:4, says God hated the Canaanites because of two things: their wicked sacrifices (likely human) and their φαρμακεία. 

For all these reasons, I do not find the arguments in Brian Muraresku's "The Immortality Key"to be persuasive when it comes to the early church. I would agree with Muraresku that it is quite possible Greeks were practices in φαρμακεία places. And I think I also agree that it is quite possible that some heretical sects of Christianity (i.e. the Gnostics) may have practiced it as well. But I think that all the available evidence shows that Jesus, St. Paul, and their successors followed the Jewish hatred of the practice rather than whatever pagan acceptance there may have been. 

Our modern day rejection of drugs in worship is then not a break with the founders of the Christian faith but consistent with their views and the views of the apostolic church from the inception on through to today. 

In short, we can be sure that φαρμακεία should have no place in the life of the modern Christian.

 [Final note: Muraresku has an interesting discussion near the end of his book on medieval persecution of witches in which he provides interesting hints that they may have been mixing hallucinogenics with the Eucharist. He argues that this might be evidence that some hidden tradition was handed down from the early church. I agree that it is likely they were utilizing hallucinogenics but think it is much more likely the tradition they got them from were pagan not Christian in origin. It is worth noting that the medieval world still had deep pagan traditions and that Christianity was not anywhere near as thorough as is oft supposed.]