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200 ST. AUGUSTINE 79. WHY DID PHARAOH'S MAGICIANS PERFORM CERTAIN MIRACLES IN THE MANNER OF MOSES THE SERVANT OF GOD?1 (1) Every soul, to some degree, exercises an authority belonging to it in virtue ofa certain private law, and, to some degree, is constrained and ruled by universal laws analogous to public laws. 2 Therefore, since each and every visible thing in this world has an angelic power set over it, as divine Scripture declares, in respect to that thing in its charge the angelic power acts in one way by a sort of private law and is compelled to act in another way before the public, as it were. For the whole is more powerful than the part, because what [the angelic power] does there privately, it is permitted to do only to the degree that the universal law permits. But each and every soul is the purer in piety when, having received less pleasure in its own private domain, it contemplates all the more the universal law and obeys it willingly and devotedly, for the universal law is the divine Wisdom. But the more each soul finds enjoyment in its own private domain, and, by a disregard for the God who presides over all souls for their benefit and salvation, desires to "play God"3 in respect to itself or others where possible, loving4 its own power over itself or others rather than God's power over all, the more foul it is, and the more is it forced in punishment to be subject to the divine laws, as ifto public Ex 7-8. See Mutzenbecher, pp. xliv-xlvi, for a discussion of the authenticity of this Q. There are several problems about the Q., but Mutzenbecher argues conclusively that the Q. he're translated is indeed Augustine's and that there is no convincing manuscript evidence that the length or the content of the Q. should be otherwise than it is here. 2 On "private law" and "public laws," see Berger, p. 532 (ius priUlltum), and p. 546 (leges publicae). Augq.stine employs the analogy of private law and public law throughout this entire Q. Hence, while it is often tempting, for the sake of a bit more elegance and smoothness, to translate priUlltum and publicum by "personal" and "universal" respectively , I have retained, with few exceptions, the words private and public in order to preserve the analogy as much as possible in translation. 3 uult esse pro Deo. 4 diligens. See above, Q. 35, n. 5. QUESTION 79 201 laws. Accordingly, likewise, the more the human soul in its abandonment of God takes delight in self-esteeem or in its own power, the more is it subject to powers of the kind that find enjoyment in themselves and covet being honored as gods by men. To these powers the divine law often allows through that private law, for those who have deserved subservience to them, the performing of even miraculous feats-feats to be displayed among those things over which these powers have been appointed at the lowest level of authority, but nonetheless, a level subject to a high degree of order. But where the divine law commands in the manner of public law, it obviously prevails over private freedom, although even private freedom itself would be nothing apart from the permission of the universal divine power. Consequently it happens that the holy servants of God, when it is useful for them to have this gift, in accord with the public and, as it were, imperial law, i.e., the power of the most high God, have command .,ver the lowest powers in order to perform certain visible miracles. For it is God himself who rules in them, whose temple they are, and whom they, having despised their own priyate power, love most fervently. However, in magical imprecation, in order to make the deception attractive so as to subjugate to· themselves those [magicians] to whom they grant such things, [the lowest powers] give effect to their prayers and rituals, and they dispense through that private law what they are allowed to dispense to those who honor them and serve them and keep certain covenants with them in their mystery rites. And when the magicians appear to have command, they frighten their inferiors with the names of more elevated [power-s], and exhibit to those looking on with wonder some visible effects which, due to the weakness of the flesh, seem momentous to men unable...

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