[2244] Cumont says (Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, p. 188): “But the ancients expressly distinguished ‘magic,’ which was always under suspicion and disapproved of, from the legitimate and honorable art for which the name ‘theurgy’ was invented.” This distinction was made by Porphyry and others, and is alluded to by Augustine in the City of God, but it is to be noted that Firmicus does not use the word “theurgy.” Cumont also states (p. 179) that in the last period of paganism the name philosopher was finally applied to all adepts in occult science. But in Firmicus, while magic and philosophy are associated in two passages, there are five other allusions to magic and three separate mentions of philosophers.
[2245] Kroll et Skutsch, I, 161, 26.
[2246] Computus, 3; calculus, 2; and “those who excel at numbers,” 1.
[2247] Including two mentions of court physicians (archiatri). See Codex Theod., Lib. XIII, Tit. 3, passim, for their position.
[2248] I leave this sentence as I wrote it in 1913.
[2249] Aestus animi, 5; insanity, 13; lunatics, 10; epileptics, 8; melancholia, 3; inflammation of the brain (frenetici), 4; delirium, dementia, demoniacs, alienation, and madness, one or two each; vague allusions to mental ills and injuries, 5.
[2250] In his last chapter he says, “Take then, my dear Mavortius, what I promised you with extreme trepidation of spirit, these seven books composed conformably to the order and number of the seven planets. For the first book deals only with the defense of the art; but in the other books we have transmitted to the Romans the discipline of a new work,” (II, 360, 10-15). And in the introduction to the fifth book he writes, “We have written these books for your Romans lest, when every other art and science had been translated, this task should seem to remain unattempted by Roman genius,” (I, 280, 28-30).
[2251] I, 41, 7 and 15; I, 40, 9-11.
[2252] I, 41, 5 and 11; I, 40, 8.
[2253] They are listed by Kroll et Skutsch, II, 362, Index auctorum.