inquiries, to the
scorn of the heathen, many of whom where wiser than to hearken to
any such fond impostures.

[35] Bingham's _Origines Ecclesiasticae_, xvi.

St. Augustin complains that Satan's instruments, professing the
exercise of these arts, were used to 'set the name of Christ
before their ligatures, and enchantments, and other devices, to
seduce Christians to take the venomous bait under the covert of a
sweet and honey potion, that the bitter might be hid under the
sweet, and make men drink it without discerning to their
destruction.' The heretics of the primitive, as well as of the
middle, ages were accused of working miracles, and propagating
their accursed doctrines by magical or infernal art. Tertullian,
and after him Eusebius, denounce the arch-heretic Simon Magus for
performing his spurious miracles in that way: and Irenaeus had
declared of the heretic Marcus, that when he would consecrate the
eucharist in a cup of wine and water, by one of his juggling
tricks, he made it appear of a purple and red colour, as if by a
long prayer of invocation, that it might be thought the grace
from above distilled the blood into the cup by his invocation. A
correspondent of Cyprian, the celebrated African bishop,
describes a woman who pretended 'to be inspired by the Holy
Ghost, but was really acted on by a diabolical spirit, by which
she counterfeited ecstasies, and pretended to prophesy, and
wrought many wonderful and strange things, and boasted she would
cause the earth to move. Not that the devil [he is cautious to
affirm] has so great a power either to move the earth or shake
the elements by his command; but the wicked spirit, foreseeing
and understanding that there will be an earthquake, pretends to
do that which he foresees will shortly come to pass. And by these
lies and boastings, the devil subdued the minds of many to obey
and follow him whithersoever he would lead them. And he made that
woman walk barefoot through the snow in the depth of winter, and
feel no trouble nor harm by running about in that fashion. But at
last, after having played many such pranks, one of the exorcists
of the Church discovered her to be a cheat, and showed that to be
a wicked spirit which before was thought to be the Holy
Ghost.'[36]

[36] _Origines Ecclesiasticae_, xvi. The exorcists were a
recognised and respectable order in the Church. See id. iii.
for an account of the _Energumenoi_ or demoniacs. The lawyer
Ulpian