Marvels wrought by magic.
But when once the demons have revealed their secrets, henceforth the charms of the magic art have efficacy. Of the marvels worked by means of magic Augustine has little doubt; to deny them would indeed in his opinion be to deny the truth of the Scriptures, to whose accounts of Pharaoh’s magicians,[2170] the witch of Endor, and the Magi and the star, he adverts many times in his various works. If actors in the theater and performers in spectacles are able by art and exercise to display astounding alterations in the appearance of their earthly bodies, why may not the demons with their aerial bodies produce marvelous changes in elementary substances or by occult influence construct phantom images to delude human senses?[2171] Augustine even grants that the magicians are able to terrify the inferior spirits into obedience to their commands by adjuring them by the names of superior spirits, and thereby with divine permission “to exhibit to the eye of sense certain results which seem great and marvelous to men who through weakness of the flesh are incapable of beholding things eternal.” He does not regard this as inconsistent with the assertion of Jesus that Satan cannot cast out Satan, since while it may be that thus demons are expelled from sick bodies, the evil one thereby only the more surely takes possession of the soul.[2172]
Cannot be equalled by most Christians.
Augustine further grants that magicians, although stained with crime, can at present work miracles which most Christians and even most saints cannot perform. For this, however, he finds Scriptural precedent. Pharaoh’s magicians performed feats which none of the Children of Israel could equal except Moses who excelled them by divine aid. Augustine, like earlier fathers, usually fails to mention Aaron in this connection.[2173] This superiority of magicians to most Christians in working marvels Augustine believes is divinely ordained so that Christians may remain humble and practice works of justice rather than seek to perform miracles. Magicians seek their own glory; the saints strive only for the glory of God. And the more marvelous are the feats of magic, the more Christians should shun them; the greater the power of the demons, the closer Christians should cling to that Mediator who alone can raise men from the lowest depths.[2174]
Miracles of heretics.
Like Origen, Augustine further distinguishes the miracles wrought by heretics both from magic and from the miracles of true Christians. He holds that every soul in part controls itself and exercises as it were a private jurisdiction, in part is subject to the laws of the universe just as any citizen is amenable to public jurisdiction. Therefore magicians perform their marvels by private contracts with demons; good Christians perform theirs by public justice; bad Christians perform theirs by the appearance or signs of public justice.[2175] This view would seem to indicate that God, like the demons, regards the signs alone and not the character and purpose of the performer, so that Christian miracles, if they can be duplicated by heretics, would appear to be largely a matter of procedure and art, like magic.
Theory of demons.
For his theory of demons and their characteristics Augustine seems largely indebted to Apuleius, whom he cites in several chapters of the eighth and ninth books of The City of God. In his separate treatise, The Divination of Demons,[2176] he explains their ability to predict the future and to perform marvels by the keenness of their sense, their rapidity of movement, their long experience of nature and life, and the subtlety of their aerial bodies. This last quality enables them to penetrate human bodies or affect the thoughts of men without men being aware of their presence. Augustine, however, of course does not believe that the world of nature is completely under the control of the demons. God alone created it and He still governs it, and the demons are able to do only as much as He permits.[2177]
Limitations to the power of magic.
There were, for example, some things which Pharaoh’s magicians could not do and in which Moses clearly excelled them. They were able to change their rods into snakes but his snake devoured theirs. How the magicians got their rods back, if at all, neither Augustine nor the Book of Exodus informs us. But whether with or without their magic wands, they were still able to duplicate one or two of the plagues sent upon Egypt. Augustine explains that neither they nor the demons who helped them really created snakes and frogs, but that there are certain seeds of life hidden away in the elemental bodies of this world of which they made use. But their magic failed them when it came to the reproduction of minute insects.[2178] Augustine furthermore has some hesitation about accepting the stories of magic transformations of men into animals, which he represents as current in his own day as well as in times past, so that certain female inn-keepers in Italy are said to transform travelers into beasts of burden by a magic potion administered in the cheese, just as Circe transformed the companions of Ulysses and as Apuleius says happened to himself in the book that he wrote under the title, The Golden Ass. These stories, in Augustine’s opinion, “are either false or such uncommon occurrences that they are justly discredited.”[2179] He does not believe that demons can truly transform the human body into the limbs and lineaments of beasts, but the strange personal experiences of reliable persons have convinced him that men are deceived by dreams, hallucinations, and fantastic images.