Theologians laid stress
especially upon the famous utterances of the Psalmist that "all
the gods of the heathen are devils," and of St. Paul that "the
things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils";
and it was widely held that these devils were naturally
indignant at their dethronement and anxious to wreak vengeance
upon Christianity. Magicians were held to be active agents of
these dethroned gods, and this persuasion was strengthened by
sundry old practitioners in the art of magic--impostors who
pretended to supernatural powers, and who made use of old rites
and phrases inherited from paganism.
Hence it was that as soon as Christianity came into power it
more than renewed the old severities against the forbidden art,
and one of the first acts of the Emperor Constantine after his
conversion was to enact a most severe law against magic and
magicians, under which the main offender might be burned alive.
But here, too, it should be noted that a distinction between the
two sorts of magic was recognised, for Constantine shortly
afterward found it necessary to issue a proclamation stating
that his intention was only to prohibit deadly and malignant
magic; that he had no intention of prohibiting magic used to
cure diseases and to protect the crops from hail and tempests.
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