We can hardly avoid the conclusion that mediæval magic is a Gnostic tradition, and so additional light is thrown upon the vehement language in which the "chapter" denounces as heretical, and more than heretical—as something worse than paganism—every feature of a system which apparently aimed at nothing less than a pantheistic identification of good and evil through the deification of the devil.
I shall now proceed to show that antecedently to, and contemporaneously with, the legislation of the "chapter," there existed in the church a belief in the power of Satan and in the reality of magic differing not at all from that which prevailed in the middle ages. It is easy to make, as Maffei has done, a catena of fathers who speak in contempt of magic, some going so far as to call it a "nullity." The great fact that impressed the early Christians with regard to magic was that everywhere it was shrinking back before Christianity; that simple children, armed with the cross, were more than a match for the masters of devilish lore. They were full of that triumphant disenchantment and purification of nature so gloriously expressed in the concluding stanzas of Milton's "Nativity" ode. But men do not celebrate a triumph over nothing, neither can nothing be brought to naught. The question is, Did the fathers think it "heretical to attribute superhuman effects to the aid of demons"? It will be to the purpose to collect a few examples of the way in which they talked of two of the earliest and most generally accepted relations of magic—the account of Simon Magus' magic powers and Peter-stinted flight, and the legend of Cyprian and Jovita. It is altogether beside the point to insist that one or both of these relations are mere legends; the question is, what the fathers thought it consistent with the Christian faith to believe. I shall confine myself to passages which unmistakably exclude the hypothesis of mere jugglery.
Of Simon Magus, Justin Martyr (A.D. 133, Apol., i. 26) says that "he did mighty acts of magic by virtue of the art of the devils acting in him."
S. Hippolytus (A.D. 220, Refut., bk. vi.) says that he did his sorceries partly according to the art of Thrasymedes, in the manner we have described above, and partly also by the assistance of demons perpetrating his villany, "attempted to deify himself." This testimony as to the reality of the diabolical intervention is the more remarkable, as Hippolytus was a most keen exploder of the tricks of pagan magicians, amongst whom was Thrasymedes, and gives, in the work from which I quote, detailed accounts of how they produced their effects by powders and reflectors, so that people saw Diana and her hounds, and all manner of things, in the magic cauldron. Arnobius (A.D. 303, Advers. Gentes, lib. ii.) says, "The Romans had seen the chariot of Simon Magus and his fiery horses blown abroad by the mouth of Peter, and utterly to vanish at the name of Christ."
S. Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 350, Cat. vi. Illum.): "After Simon had promised that he would rise up aloft into the heavens, and was borne up in a demon chariot and carried through the air, the servants of God, throwing themselves on their knees, and manifesting that agreement of which Jesus spake—'If two of you be of accord concerning whatsoever thing you shall ask, it shall be granted'—by the javelin of their concord let fly at the magician brought him headlong to the ground."
S. Maximus of Turin (Serm. in Fest. S. Petri): "When that Simon said he was Christ, and declared that as a son he would fly up on high to his father, and straightway, lifted up by his magic arts, began to fly, then Peter on his knees besought the Lord, and by his holy prayers overcame the magic levity." The story of Cyprian and Jovita records the repeated but fruitless attempts of the heathen magician, Cyprian, to overcome the chastity of the Christian virgin, Jovita, by means of a lascivious demon, whom he employs as his agent, and how Cyprian is finally converted.
S. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. 24) does not hesitate to speak thus: "He (Cyprian) tried all the more, and employed as his procurer no ancient hag of the sort fit for such things, but one of the body-loving, pleasure-loving demons; since the envious and apostate spirits are keen for such service, seeking many partners in their fall. And the wage of such procuration was offerings and libations, and the appropriation of the fumes of blood; for such reward must be bestowed upon those that are thus gracious."
As to S. Augustine, even Janus admits that this father does furnish an awkward passage (De Civ. Dei, xv. 23) about the commerce of demons with women, which "the Dominican theologians seized on"; "but the saint used it in mere blind credulity," and, though he never exactly retracted it, did retract "a similar statement (Retract., ii. 30)."[121] Unfortunately for Janus, no two statements could be more dissimilar. The statement which S. Augustine retracts is one limiting the devil's power; the statement which he does not retract is one in which it is precisely Janus' complaint that he exaggerates it. In matter of fact, S. Augustine is the great storehouse from which the scholastics have obtained almost all they have to say on diablerie.
S. Augustine, in his treatise, De Trinitate (lib. iii. cap. 8), having distinguished the creator of the "invisible seeds," the first elements of things, latent everywhere throughout the frame of nature, as the Creator, whereas all other authors are but producers, thus speaks (cap. 9): "What they (the evil spirits) can do by virtue of their nature, but cannot do through the prohibition of God, and what they are not suffered to do by the condition of their nature, is past man's finding out, except through the gift of God, which the apostle commemorates, saying, 'To another the discernment of spirits.' We know that man can walk, though walk he cannot unless he be permitted; so those angels can do certain things if allowed by more powerful angels at God's command, and cannot do certain other things, even if these allow them, because he suffers it not from whom their nature hath its native bounds, who, through his angels, very often prevents them doing such things as he allows them to be able to do."