Chapter 7.—Great Miracles
Wrought by Magic Arts.
12. I see here what may occur to a
weak judgment, namely, why such miracles are wrought also by magic
arts; for the wise men of Pharaoh likewise made serpents, and did
other like things. Yet it is still more a matter of wonder, how it
was that the power of those magicians, which was able to make
serpents, when it came to very small flies, failed altogether. For
the lice, by which third plague the proud people of Egypt were
smitten, are very short-lived little flies; yet there certainly the
magicians failed, saying, “This is the finger of God.” And hence it
is given us to understand that not even those angels and powers of
the air that transgressed, who have been thrust down into that
lowest darkness, as into a peculiar prison, from their habitation
in that lofty ethereal purity, through whom magic arts have
whatever power they have, can do anything except by power given
from above. Now that power is given either to deceive the
deceitful, as it was given against the Egyptians, and against the
magicians also themselves, in order that in the seducing of those
spirits they might seem admirable by whom they were wrought, but to
be condemned by the truth of God; or for the admonishing of the
faithful, lest they should desire to do anything of the kind as
though it were a great thing, for which reason they have been
handed down to us also by the authority of Scripture; or lastly, for the exercising, proving, and manifesting of the patience of the righteous. For it was not by any small power of visible miracles that Job lost all that he had, and both his children and his bodily health itself.