Luck includes some good, not well known, later passages from the neo-Platonist Plotinus, the theurgists Proclus and Maximus of Ephesus, and the Christian bishop Sophronius. He appropriately notes in closing that the Roman Catholic church still requires two attested miracles for canonization as Saint. Little evidence survives from the losing, elided side. Eventually, Augustine refashioned the Hebrew angels to serve as the useful good demons that paganism had once enjoyed. They were too useful to suppress utterly.
Patristic sources describe monkish battles against demonic monkey-business.
He generously defends, ca. At this time, the church showed more forebearance than the state and even granted asylum for some persecuted practitioners. Recognizing the interference of wicked spirits diminishes human guilt and alleviates brutal secular penalties. Interpretatio Christiana infected the Church Triumphant to the point where St. Hilarion sprinkles horses and starting gates in order that Christian chariots should win. She well explores how Christianity convinced itself to recycle the wonderful demons of its pagan and late Israelite heritage.