Compendium of Witches (Compendium Maleficarum)

Whether this Magic has certain true effects.

Chapter III.

b ch. 4, On Divine Names. c p. 2, ann. l. Exod. 7.

Whoever asserts that all effects of magic are true, or believes that all are prestidigitatory, is a radish, not a man. A colloquial insult of the time, meaning a fool or a dullard. The demon often deceives because he is the father of lies, and he dazzles the eyes or deludes other senses with empty images presented; nor does God rarely hinder, so that what he himself would want and could truly do for the sake of the magicians, he does not do. When he perceives this, he flees to illusions so that his own impotence might not be detected. However, when God permits, and the demon wishes to produce a true effect, if it does not exceed his powers, nothing at all prevents him from producing a true effect, for then he applies active things to passive things, and natural causes generate a true effect. This is proven by Saint Dionysius the Areopagite early Christian theologian when he asserts that the Devil, by sinning, did not lose his natural gifts, from which it follows that he possesses very powerful natural forces, with long and manifold experience, so that he can truly produce the effect he desires. However, the works of magicians, since they are illusionary, are not true but apparent, and this is proven by Glycas Michael Glykas, Byzantine historian when he speaks of the magicians of Egypt, who seemed to do what Moses Biblical prophet was doing, and he uses these words: "They indeed changed their rods into serpents, but the rod of Moses [swallowed] their rods."