Porphyry and Black Magic

In the De abstinentia (ii, 41, 5) Porphyry is the first philosopher to give an exact definition of goeteia or black magic saying: "All black magic is accomplished through the opposite sort [i.e. evil] daemons.This paper will be presented in two parts: in the first part, there is the description about the difference between Magic—the sacred science of the Persian Magi (De abstinentia iv, 16, 1)—, and the black magic (De abstinentia ii, 41, 5); in the second part, using Porphyry's definition of black magic and other philological data, it's shown that Porphyry was not merely a philosopher interested in black magic in a theoretical manner, but also a practicing sorcerer