Aquinas carefully distinguishes magic from miracle.[1985] A miracle is contrary to the order of all created nature and can be performed by God alone. Many things that seem marvelous to us or of which the cause is hidden from us are not, strictly speaking, miraculous. An eclipse seems a miracle to some ignorant people, but not to a philosopher who understands its cause. Other seeming marvels which are not divine miracles are the occult virtues of physical bodies “for which a reason cannot be assigned by man,”[1986] and the effects produced in our lower world by the influence of the constellations. Even more difficult of human comprehension are the doings of demons, who, Aquinas is convinced, can not only deceive the senses and affect the human imagination, but also truly transform bodies. Yet even their feats are not true miracles in violation of natural order; they simply add to the marvelous virtues of physical objects and the potent influences of the stars something of their own peculiar powers. After all, their feats can be explained, they operate by means of art; God alone is a cause absolutely hidden from every man.
Reality of magic affirmed.
As for magicians, in their feats they make use of herbs and other physical bodies: of words, usually in the form of “invocations, supplications, and adjurations”; they also employ figures and characters, sacrifices and prostrations, images and rites, carefully observed times, constellations, and other considerations.[1987] As a result the whereabouts of stolen objects is disclosed, hidden treasure is found, the future is revealed, closed doors mysteriously open, men become invisible, inanimate bodies move and speak, apparitions of rational beings are summoned and answer questions. Some contend that such apparitions are imaginary, but Aquinas replies that on such occasions third parties have been present whose senses were working normally and who also witnessed the apparitions, and furthermore that no phantom of our imagination could reveal things of which we ourselves were ignorant. In the reality of such feats of magic, then, Thomas firmly believes.
Magic not a science but due to demons.
But Aquinas will not admit that the magician and his materials are a sufficient cause of the magic. He also denies that certain men are especially endowed with magic power by the stars at their birth or that the influence of the constellations can be controlled to perform particular feats of magic. Demons in his opinion really perform the magic. Words, figures, spells are mere signs to them; the poor magician is their dupe. It looks, Thomas admits, as if spirits came only when invoked, and as if they often came unwillingly, and sometimes performed good deeds at the magician’s bidding which must be very distasteful to them as evil beings. But in all this they are simply deceiving mankind. “It is not true then,” says Aquinas, “that the magic arts are sciences, but rather they are certain fallacies of the demons.”[1988] In discussing the “notory art,” which professes to acquire knowledge by fasting, prayers to God, figures, and strange words, he declares that demons cannot illuminate the intellect, although they may express in words some smattering of the sciences.[1989]
And is evil.
Aquinas further charges that the practitioners of magic are generally criminals, perpetrating illicit deeds, adulteries, thefts, and homicides, a fact which has gained for magicians the further name of evil-doers, i. e. malefici (sorcerers). At best magic does not aid man in science or virtue, but in trivial matters such as the discovery of stolen goods.[1990] Aquinas repeats the criticism of Porphyry in The Letter to Anebo that the methods of magic are immoral. Therefore it is wrong to seek to learn “the magic sciences” in order to use them, but permissible to study them in order to confute them. Aquinas then makes haste to correct this phrase “magic sciences,” as we have already noted above.
Some regard magic as a human art or science.
But by his own denial Aquinas makes it sufficiently evident that many men of his time thought the magic arts sciences, and that magicians believed themselves able by personal qualifications, by subtle use of occult natural properties, by rites and ceremonies, and by the art of astrology, either to work wonders directly and immediately or to coerce demons to work wonders for them.
Aquinas believes in witchcraft.