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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.
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