be on the same level with all Gentile
magicians. He says that the "wonder-workers" among the Christians
"rambled about to play tricks at fairs and markets," that they never
appeared in the circles of the wiser and better sort, but always took
care to intrude themselves among the ignorant and uncultured.[272:4]

"The magicians in Egypt (says he), cast out evil spirits, cure
diseases by a breath, call up the spirits of the dead, make
inanimate things move as if they were alive, and so influence
some uncultured men, that they produce in them whatever sights
and sounds they please. But because they do such things shall
we consider them the sons of God? Or shall we call such things
the tricks of pitiable and wicked men?"[272:5]

He believed that Jesus was like all these other wonder-workers, that is,
simply a _necromancer_, and that he learned his magical arts in
Egypt.[272:6] All philosophers, during the time of the Early Fathers,
answered the claims that Jesus performed miracles, in the same manner.
"They even ventured to call him a _magician_ and a deceiver of the
people," says Justin Martyr,[272:7] and St. Augustine asserted that it
was generally believed that Jesus had been initiated in _magical art_ in
Egypt, and that he had written books concerning magic, one of which was
called "_Magia Jesu Christi_."[272:8] In the Clementine Recognitions,
the charge is brought against Jesus that he did not perform his miracles
as a Jewish prophet, but as a magician, an initiate of the heathen
temples.[272:9]

The casting out of devils was the most frequent and among the most
striking and the oftenest appealed to of the miracles of Jesus; yet, in
the conversation between himself and the Pharisees (Matt. xii. 24-27),
he speaks of it as one that was constantly and habitually performed by
their own _exorcists_; and, so far from insinuating any difference
between the two cases, _expressly puts them on a level_.

One of the best proofs, and most unquestionable, that Jesus was accused
of being a _magician_, or that some of the early Christians believed him
to have been such, may be found in the representations of him performing
miracles. On a _sarcophagus_ to be found in the _Museo Gregoriano_,
which is paneled with bas-reliefs, is to be seen a representation of
Jesus raising Lazarus from the grave. He is represented as a young man,
beardless, and equipped with a _wand_ in the received guise of a
_ne