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| Another Cavil Met, I.e., the Devil Who Instigated Man to Sin Himself the Creature of God. Nay, the Primeval Cherub Only Was God's Work. The Devilish Nature Superadded by Wilfulness. In Man's Recovery the Devil is Vanquished in a Conflict on His Own Ground.
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Chapter X.—Another Cavil Met, I.e., the Devil Who Instigated
Man to Sin Himself the Creature of God. Nay, the Primeval Cherub Only
Was God’s Work. The Devilish Nature Superadded by Wilfulness. In
Man’s Recovery the Devil is Vanquished in a Conflict on His Own
Ground.
If, however, you choose to transfer the
account2831
of evil from man to
the devil as the instigator of sin, and in this way, too, throw the
blame on the Creator, inasmuch as He created the devil,—for He
maketh those spiritual beings, the angels—then it will follow
that2832
what was made, that is to say, the angel,
will belong to Him who made it; while that which was not made by God,
even the devil, or accuser,2833
cannot but have
been made by itself; and this by false detraction2834
| 2834 Deferendo, in
reference to the word delator, our author’s synonyme for
διάβολος. | from God: first, how that God had forbidden
them to eat of every tree; then, with the pretence that they should not
die if they ate; thirdly, as if God grudged them the property of
divinity. Now, whence originated this malice of lying and deceit
towards man, and slandering of God? Most certainly not from God, who
made the angel good after the fashion of His good works. Indeed,
before he became the devil, he stands forth the wisest of creatures;
and2835
wisdom is no2836
evil. If you turn to the prophecy of Ezekiel, you will at once perceive
that this angel was both by creation good and by choice corrupt. For in
the person of the prince of Tyre it is said in reference to the devil:
“Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man,
take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus
saith the Lord God: Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, perfect in
beauty” (this belongs to him as the highest of the angels, the
archangel, the wisest of all); “amidst the delights of the
paradise of thy God wast thou born” (for it was there, where God
had made the angels in a shape which resembled the figure of animals).
“Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz,
and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the
emerald, and the carbuncle; and with gold hast thou filled thy barns
and thy treasuries. From the day when thou wast created, when I set
thee, a cherub, upon the holy mountain of God, thou wast in the midst
of stones of fire, thou wast irreproachable in thy days, from the day
of thy creation, until thine iniquities were discovered. By the
abundance of thy merchandise thou hast filled thy
storehouses, and thou hast sinned,” etc.2837
This description, it is manifest, properly belongs to the transgression
of the angel, and not to the prince’s: for none among human
beings was either born in the paradise of God, not even Adam himself,
who was rather translated thither; nor placed with a cherub upon
God’s holy mountain, that is to say, in the heights of heaven,
from which the Lord testifies that Satan fell; nor detained amongst the
stones of fire, and the flashing rays of burning constellations, whence
Satan was cast down like lightning.2838
No, it is none
else than the very author of sin who was denoted in the person of a
sinful man: he was once irreproachable, at the time of his creation,
formed for good by God, as by the good Creator of irreproachable
creatures, and adorned with every angelic glory, and associated with
God, good with the Good; but afterwards of his own accord removed to
evil. From the day when thine iniquities,2839
| 2839 Læsuræ
="injuries.” ᾽Αδικήματα
ἔν σοι—Iniquitates in
te.”—Hieron. | says he, were
discovered,—attributing to him those injuries wherewith he
injured man when he was expelled from his allegiance to God,—even
from that time did he sin, when he propagated his sin, and thereby
plied “the abundance of his merchandise,” that is, of his
Wickedness, even the tale2840
of his
transgressions, because he was himself as a spirit no less (than man)
created, with the faculty of free-will. For God would in nothing
fail to endow a being who was to be next to Himself with a liberty of
this kind. Nevertheless, by precondemning him, God testified that
he had departed from the condition2841
of his created
nature, through his own lusting after the wickedness which was
spontaneously conceived within him; and at the same time, by conceding
a permission for the operation of his designs, He acted consistently
with the purpose of His own goodness, deferring the devil’s
destruction for the self-same reason as He postponed the restitution of
man. For He afforded room for a conflict, wherein man might crush his
enemy with the same freedom of his will as had made him succumb to him
(proving that the fault was all his own, not God’s), and so
worthily recover his salvation by a victory; wherein also the devil
might receive a more bitter punishment, through being vanquished by him
whom he had previously injured; and wherein God might be discovered to
be so much the more good, as waiting2842
for man to
return from his present life to a more glorious paradise, with a right
to pluck of the tree of life.2843
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