Against Celsus 6.41

After this, as though he had forgotten that his task is to write against Christians, he says that a certain Dionysius, an Egyptian musician, who had met him, told him about magic that it has power over the uneducated and those of corrupt character, but can do nothing against those who have studied philosophy, since they have taken care to live a healthy life. If our task now were to discuss magic, we would have added a little on this to what we said about it above. But since we must say what is more to the point against Celsus's treatise, we say about magic that anyone who wishes to examine whether philosophers too can be caught by it or not should read what Moeragenes wrote in his memoirs of Apollonius of Tyana, the magician and philosopher. In them Moeragenes, who was not a Christian but a philosopher, said that some philosophers of no mean standing were caught by the magic of Apollonius, having come to him as to a sorcerer; among them, I believe, he told of the famous Euphrates and a certain Epicurean. But we affirm, having learned it by experience too, that those who, according to Christianity, worship the God over all through Jesus, live according to his gospel, and use the prayers commanded, continually and as they ought, night and day, are caught neither by magic nor by demons. For truly “the angel of the Lord will encamp around those who fear him and will deliver them” from every evil; and “the angels” of the little ones in the Church, who are appointed to watch over them, are said “always” to see “the face of the Father in heaven,” whatever the face is and whatever the seeing is.