Abstract: This article connects Maugis the thief with the contemporaneous scholarly discourse seeking to legitimise magic from the point of view of orthodox Christianity. The practices of the hero relate principally to the notorious arts and natural magic. At the same time, several incoherencies in the fiction illustrate the difficulty of conceiving of a form of magic which does not taint the character with the suspicion of demonolatry, which indicates the contradictory nature of intellectual speculations on this subject.
