surdities and cheatery; others followed in the
same line of thought, and the whole theory, except among the very lowest
classes, seemed dying out.

But with the development of Christian theology came a change. The idea
of the active interference of Satan in magic, which had come into the
Hebrew mind with especial force from Persia during the captivity of
Israel, had passed from the Hebrew Scriptures into Christianity, and
had been made still stronger by various statements in the New Testament.
Theologians laid stress especially upon the famous utterances of the
Psalmist that "all the gods of the heathen are devils," and of St.
Paul that "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice
to devils"; and it was widely held that these devils were naturally
indignant at their dethronement and anxious to wreak vengeance upon
Christianity. Magicians were held to be active agents of these dethroned
gods, and this persuasion was strengthened by sundry old practitioners
in the art of magic--impostors who pretended to supernatural powers, and
who made use of old rites and phrases inherited from paganism.

Hence it was that as soon as Christianity came into power it more than
renewed the old severities against the forbidden art, and one of the
first acts of the Emperor Constantine after his conversion was to enact
a most severe law against magic and magicians, under which the main
offender might be burned alive. But here, too, it should be noted that
a distinction between the two sorts of magic was recognised, for
Constantine shortly afterward found it necessary to issue a proclamation
stating that his intention was only to prohibit deadly and malignant
magic; that he had no intention of prohibiting magic used to cure
diseases and to protect the crops from hail and tempests. But as new
emperors came to the throne who had not in them that old leaven of
paganism which to the last influenced Constantine, and as theology
obtained a firmer hold, severity against magic increased. Toleration of
it, even in its milder forms, was more and more denied. Black magic and
white were classed together.

This severity went on increasing and threatened the simplest efforts in
physics and chemistry; even the science of mathematics was looked upon
with dread. By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the older theology
having arrived at the climax of its development in Europe, terror of
magic and witchcraft took complete possession of the popu