CHAPTER I.

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Exodus 8.
Egyptian Frogs.

What else should be said of the frogs brought out of the rivers of Egypt, with which the land was covered, when Aaron—at God's command—stretched out his staff over the rivers and lakes? It becomes clearer than the midday sun that the magicians' frogs were, by the same reasoning, merely imaginary. This is because creating such a massive swarm of frogs would have required the act of creation, Genesis 1. a task unique to God alone, which has never been granted to any creature, much less to Satan or his followers. Creation belongs to God alone. This has remained the singular prerogative of God from the beginning, a dignity He has never deigned to share with any other. Furthermore, if the magicians had produced real frogs out of the water onto the land, they surely should have been able to remove this entire race of frogs by the same art. For it would have been much easier to drive those seen back into their natural and native place—namely, the rivers and lakes—than to first summon them from where they were not visible into houses, inner rooms, bedchambers, beds, ovens, and cellars. These are places foreign, and indeed most hostile, to such animals, where they were bound to die; whereas in the waters, as in a designated nursery, they live freely. At the very least, it would have been easiest for the magicians to take away the life they seemed to have given. Or what power to harm or accomplish anything can we believe the magicians possessed, if they could not even injure the frogs, or drive them away with the very incantations by which they were thought to have been brought forth? They were so utterly unable to do this that King Pharaoh, his former pride set aside, was forced to urge his adversaries Aaron and Moses to pray to God to drive the frogs away from him and his people. This was indeed done, and on the appointed day the frogs were exterminated from the houses; as their dead bodies were gathered into heaps, the whole region stank. Thus Pharaoh, even against his will, was forced to give incomparable honor to the Lord God; as were the magicians themselves, in whose hands such power did not reside at all. For when God no longer permitted these illusions original: "praestigias," Weyer’s technical term for demonic deceptions that trick the senses., the magicians tried in vain to imitate Aaron and Moses in producing gnats original: "cyniphes," referring to the stinging insects or lice of the third plague. or lice, which infest both men and beasts. Having failed, they confessed before Pharaoh: "This is the finger of God." It was as if they were saying: "It is the finger or power of God which truly generates and creates out of dust, or even out of nothing, whatever He wills according to His judgment, and whenever it pleases Him. But that which you saw fabricated by us is the finger of Satan, who can never truly procreate anything, but can only deceitfully display a phantastic image of things. Therefore, we his followers have imitated the truth of the ministers of the Almighty God with illusions, by which we have until now mocked you and your people, while the true God looked on original: "conniuente," implying God "winked" or permitted it for a time. because of your unbelief and hardness of heart. But now that hour of permission ceases, so that there is no longer a place left for the mockeries of the demon, and we are compelled to bear witness to the truth of the living God." Thus, those who previously detracted from God with their impostures now acknowledge His hand; those who previously obscured His glory with their deceits now proclaim it. They would not have glorified the living God so greatly afterward if they had not first been hindered and tried their art in vain. Nor would God have had such a just opportunity to punish the stubborn, had He not first permitted the illusions and then blocked them, in order to make Himself and His power known, showing it to be far different from—and diametrically opposed to—that which the Egyptian idolaters and magicians had hallowed until then in contempt of the true God. Justin Martyr, in his Explanations of Questions Proposed to Christians, in Question 26, asserts that the miracles of Pharaoh’s magicians were not real, but were the works of demons performed by the fascination of the eyes of the onlookers. This same point is read in the Decretals A collection of canon laws., in the second part, chapter 26, question 5, titled "The Bishops." Furthermore, Avitus Alcimus, the Bishop of Vienne...