cн. ii Of Artificial Magic

Magic is of two kinds, natural and artificial. Natural or legitimate magic was, together with all other knowledge, a gift from God to Adam, who by peopling the world handed it down to posterity. This, as Psellus* {De Daemombus) and Proclus f (De Magia) have noted, is no more than a more exact knowledge of the secrets of Nature, which by observing the courses and influence of the stars in the heavens, and the sympathies and antipathies subsisting between separate things, compares one thing with another and so effects marvels which to the ignorant seem to be miracles or illusions. As when Tobias dispersed his father's blindness with the gall bladder of a fish, a virtue which Galen and many others attribute to the dragonet.* Also the sound of a drum made from a wolf's skin will burst a drum made from the skin of a lamb. Many other notable examples are mentioned by S. Augustine :| such as the peacock's flesh which cannot decompose; chaff which by its coldness preserves snow, and by its heat ripens fruit; a chalk which is set on fire by water, but will not bum if oil be poured upon it; the salt of Girgenti which melts in fire, but becomes hard and groans in water; and many other such things.

The other kind is artificial magic, which effects marvels by means of human skill. This again is two-fold, Mathematic and Prestidigital. Mathematical magic involves the principles of Geometry, Arithmetic or Astronomy: and examples of this are the setting fire to the ships at the siege of Syracuse by means of mirrors; the flying wooden doves of Archytas § of Tarenturn; the golden singing birds || of the Emperor Leo; and such matters. Yet we affirm that by this means nothing can be effected which is opposed to the nature of things, but rather that it necessarily requires the help of natural causes and the correct application of certain movements and dimensions. The other sort, which may be called Prestidigital, is ludicrous and illusionary, and its effects are not such as they seem to be. To this sort belongs much that is believed to be done by conjurers and rope-walkers by means of feigned incantations as well as by the agility of their hands and feet. Such feats are at times performed by carefully trained brute animals; sometimes they are effected by the stealthy movements of hidden persons, as in the case of the priests of Bel 41 who claimed that the food was eaten by the Dragon. Now thaumaturgy and natural magic are in themselves good and lawful, as any art is of itself good. But it may happen to become unlawful: first, when it is done for an evil purpose; second, when it gives rise to scandal, being thought to be done with the help of demons; third, when it involves any spiritual or bodily danger to the conjurer or the spectators. And it must be noted that, for every ten tricks of prestidigital illusion, these men perform one of pure sleight of hand, so as to foster the belief that there is no illusion or sorcery in anything that they do, but that all is done by pure skill and dexterity. Ulricus Molitor * states that the devil is able to make one thing seem as if it were another; and Nider t tells us that many other tricks are practised by conjurers. For this prestidigital art was taught by the giant demons before the Flood, and from them Ham % learned it, and from him the Egyptians, then the Chaldaeans and Persians, and so in succession. S. Clement in his Recognitions (IV) says: Zoroaster was the first of the Chaldaeans, and he was struck by lightning as a fit reward for his deeds.

Examples

A certain virgin of Cologne was said to have performed in the presence of the nobles wonders which seemed to be due to magic art: for she was said to have torn up a napkin, and suddenly to have pieced it together again before the eyes of all; she threw a glass vessel against the wall and broke it, and in a moment mended it again; and other like things she did. She escaped from the hands of the Inquisition with a sentence of excommunication.From the same source we hear of a conjurer in France named Trois Eschelles,§ who in the sight of all and in the presence of Charles IX, called the Praiseworthy King, charmed from a certain nobleman standing at a distance from him the rings of his necklace, so that they flew one by one into his hand, as it seemed; and yet the necklace was soon found to be whole and uninjured. This man was convicted of many actions which could not have been due to human art or skill or any natural cause, and confessed that they were all devil's work, although he had obstinately denied this before.

John Trithemiusll tells that much earlier, in the year 876 during the time of the Emperor Louis, a certain Zedechias, a Jew by religion and a physician by profession, worked wonders in the presence of Princes. For he appeared to devour a cart loaded with straw, together with the horses and the driver; he used to cut off men's heads and hands and feet, and exhibit them in a bowl dripping with blood, and then suddenly he would restore the men unharmed each to his own place; and in mid-winter he created in Caesar's palace a most beautiful garden, with trees, grass, flowers, and the singing of suddenly produced birds.

Thomas Fazelli, O.P.,* relates in his De rebus Siculis, Decade II. v. г (also Dec. I. iii. i) wonders of a certain Diodorus, commonly known as Lio-dorus, who was endowed with magic art and flourished at Catania by means of his marvellous skill in illusions. This man, by the force of his incantations, appeared to change men into brute beasts, to effect a metamorphosis of nearly all things into new shapes, and instantly to bring to himself objects very far distant from him. Moreover by slandering and insulting and reviling the people of Catania he bound them with such vain credulity that he incited them to worship him. When he was delivered up to be punished with death, by means of his pre-eminent skill in incantations he had himself carried out of his gaolers' hands through the air from Catania to Byzantium, to which Sicily was then subject, and back again from Byzantium to Catania in a very short space of time. And the people so wondered at this magic that they thought there was some divine power in him, and in sacrilegious error began to worship him. At length Leo, the Bishop of Catania, received a sudden power from God and in the midst of the city caused him to be cast in the sight of all into a furnace of fire, in which he was burned. In this way divine justice prevailed; for he who had escaped death at the too lenient hands of the judges, could not escape from the hands of the Holy Man.

In our own times they say that one Cesare, a Maltese, was captured by the Parisians, but cunningly escaped from prison; and this, among other charges, was brought up against him in judgement by Bazius the Inquisitor. But as he was being exhorted to fear damnation, and the Governor of that time had required the Ecclesiastical Judges to preside over the enquiry, he broke away into the midst of the Court and there began to do many fresh marvels. He caused another person to hold magic cards in his ands, and standing at a distance he altered their appearance two or three times: he charmed to himself vesselsElaced on another part of the table у merely moving a small piece of glass: at times he divined the thoughts of others, as when he scattered on the table a great number of small grains of sugar, and told each man which grain he was thinking of; and even if any one was doubtful of his choice, he would then come to a decision after a little hesitation, boasting that he had long before known which they would choose: and many other such marvels he claimed to perform. Wherefore he was a third time called to trial by the illustrious Archbishop of Malines, the learned Hovius.f in the year 1600; and though he undertook to appear, he escaped to a refuge with a Pnnce who was the chief champion of Antichrist.

This Prince who unlawfully kept the conjurer from the Judge's authority hardly lived two years longer, but died in the prime of his life; and after he had undertaken the defence of an evil cause nothing prospered in his government. From this it is clear that God never leaves unpunished those Princes who defend His enemies; for He has expressly commanded: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".