Does Apuleius for his part mean to suggest a distinction between _magia_ and _magica maleficia_, and to hint, as he did not do in the _Metamorphoses_, that there is a good as well as a bad magic? He cannot be said to maintain any such distinction consistently; often in the _Apology_ _magia_ alone as well as _maleficium_ is used in a bad sense. But he does suggest such a thought and once voices it quite explicitly.[1075] “If,” he says, “as I have read in many authors, _magus_ in the Persian language corresponds to the word _sacerdos_ in ours, what crime, pray, is it to be a priest and duly know and understand and cherish the rules of ceremonial, the sacred customs, the laws of religion?” Plato describes magic as part of the education of the young Persian prince by the four wisest and best men of the realm, one of whom instructs him in the magic of Zoroaster which is the worship of the gods. “Do you hear, you who rashly charge me with magic, that this art is acceptable to the immortal gods, consists in celebrating and reverencing them, is pious and prophetic, and long since was held by Zoroaster and Oromazes, its authors, to be noble and divine?”[1076] In common speech, however, Apuleius recognizes that a magician is one “who by his power of addressing the immortal gods is able to accomplish whatever he will by an almost incredible force of incantations.” But anyone who believes that another man possesses such a power as this should be afraid to accuse him, says Apuleius, who thinks by this ingenious dilemma to prove the insincerity of his accusers. Nevertheless he presently mentions that Mercury, Venus, Luna, and Trivia are the deities usually summoned in the ceremonies of the magicians.[1077] [Sidenote: Magic and religion.] It will be noted that Apuleius connects magic with the gods and religion more in the _Apology_ than in the _Metamorphoses_. There his emphasis was on the natural materials employed by the witches and their almost scientific laboratories. But in the _Apology_ both Persian _Magi_ and common magicians are associated with the worship or invocation of the gods, and it is theologians rather than natural philosophers who incur suspicion of magic. [Sidenote: Magic and science.]