uccessive days rendered
testimony to Paul and Silas, saying that they were "_the servants of
the Most High, and that they announced to men the way of salvation_."
Was it the devil who inspired her with these words, to destroy the
fruit of the preaching of the Apostles, by making the people believe
that they acted in concert with the spirit of evil? Or was it the
Spirit of God which put these words into the mouth of this young girl,
as he put into the mouth of Balaam prophecies concerning the Messiah?
There is reason to believe that she spoke through the inspiration of
the evil spirit, since St. Paul imposed silence on her, and expelled
the spirit of Python, by which she had been possessed, and which had
inspired the predictions she uttered, and the knowledge of hidden
things. In what way soever we may explain it, it will always follow
that magic is not a chimera, that this maiden was possessed by an evil
spirit, and that she predicted and revealed things hidden and to come,
and brought her _masters considerable gain by soothsaying_; for those
who consulted her would, doubtless, not have been so foolish as to pay
for these predictions, had they not experienced the truth of them by
their success and by the event.

From all this united testimony, it results that magic, enchantments,
sorcery, divination, the interpretation of dreams, auguries, oracles,
and the magical figures which announced things to come, are very real,
since they are so severely condemned by God, and that He wills that
those who practice them should be punished with death.

Footnotes:

[115] _Vide_ Bodin Preface.

[116] Gen. xxxi. 19.

[117] Josh. xxiv. 2-4.

[118] Hosea ii. 4, &c. Zech. v. 2.

[119] Zech. x. 2. Ezek. xxi. 21.

[120] Gen. xliv. 15.

[121] Gen. xliv. 5.

[122] Exod. vii. 10-12. Exod. viii. 19.

[123] Exod. xxii. 18.

[124] Numb. xxii., xxiii.

[125] Judg. xvii. 1, 2.

[126] Judg. viii. 27.

[127] 2 Kings i. 2, 2.

[128] 1 Sam. xxviii. 7, _et seq._

[129] 2 Kings xxi. 16.

[130] 2 Kings xxii. 24.

[131] Dan. iv. 6, 7.

[132] Matt. x. 25; xii. 24, 25.

[133] Luke xi. 15, 18, 19.

[134] Acts viii. 11; xiii. 6.

[135] Acts xix. 19.

[136] Psalm lvii.

[137] Ecclus. xii. 13.

[138] Acts xvi. 16, 17.

CHAPTER VIII.

OBJECTIONS TO THE REALITY OF MAGIC.

I shall not fail to be told that all these testimonies from Scripture
do not prove the reality of magic, sorcery, divination, and the rest;