Even magic come’s from God’s will; Angels: Day 125

The magicians of Pharaoh, says St. Augustine, were able to duplicate some of the plagues by magic. But their magic had its limits. Nothing can be done, even by magic, without God’s will.

Now, a weak judgment might ask why miracles like these can also be done by magic—for the wise men of Pharaoh also made serpents, and did other similar things.

Yet it is still more wonderful that the power of those magicians, though it could make serpents, completely failed when it came to very small flies. Gnats, the third plague that struck the proud people of Egypt, are very short-lived little flies, but the magicians certainly failed to make them, saying, “This is the finger of God” (Exod. 8:19).

This tells us that not even those angels and powers of the air who sinned, who have been thrown down from their homes in the lofty ethereal purity to the lowest darkness as their own special prison, who give the magic arts whatever power they have, can do anything except by power given from above.

–St. Augustine, On the Trinity, 3.7

IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .

How does it change my view of the world to know that even the wicked angels get their power only from God?

CLOSING PRAYER

Lord, turn me away from dealings with demons and every wicked thing, and let me devote my whole life to you.

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