Note 2244 — Chapter XXIII · THE FUSION OF PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN THOUGHT IN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES

Cumont says (Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, p. 188): “But the ancients expressly distinguished ‘magic,’ which was always under suspicion and disapproved of, from the legitimate and honorable art for which the name ‘theurgy’ was invented.” This distinction was made by Porphyry and others, and is alluded to by Augustine in the City of God, but it is to be noted that Firmicus does not use the word “theurgy.” Cumont also states (p. 179) that in the last period of paganism the name philosopher was finally applied to all adepts in occult science. But in Firmicus, while magic and philosophy are associated in two passages, there are five other allusions to magic and three separate mentions of philosophers.