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| Why the Wicked One is Appointed Over the Wicked by the Righteous God.
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Chapter IX.—Why the Wicked
One is Appointed Over the Wicked by the Righteous God.
When Peter said this, Lazarus, who also was one of
his followers, said: “Explain to us the harmony, how it can
be reasonable that the wicked one should be appointed by the righteous
God to be the punisher of the impious, and yet should himself
afterwards be sent into lower darkness along with his angels and with
sinners: for I remember that the Teacher Himself said
this.”1514
And Peter
said: “I indeed allow that the evil one does no evil,
inasmuch as he is accomplishing the law given to him. And
although he has an evil disposition, yet through fear of God he does
nothing unjustly; but, accusing the teachers of truth so as to entrap
the unwary, he is himself named the accuser (the devil). But the
statement of our unerring Teacher, that he and his angels, along with
the deluded sinners, shall go into lower darkness, admits of the
following explanation. The evil one, having obtained the
lot1515
| 1515 We have adopted an
emendation of Wieseler’s. | of rejoicing in darkness according to his
composition, delights to go down to the darkness of Tartarus along with
angels who are his fellow-slaves; for darkness is dear to fire.
But the souls of men, being drops of pure light, are absorbed by the
substance fire, which is of a different class; and not possessing a
nature capable of dying, they are punished according to their
deserts. But if he who is the leader of men1516
| 1516 Wieseler’s
emendation. | into vice is not sent into darkness, as not
rejoicing in it, then his composition, which rejoices in evils, cannot
be changed by another combination into the disposition for good.
And thus he will be adjudged to be with the good,1517
| 1517 We have changed
ἀγαθός into ἀγαθοῖς. | all the more because, having obtained a
composition which rejoices in evils, through fear of God he has done
nothing contrary to the decrees of the law of God. And did not
the Scripture by a mysterious hint1518
| 1518 An emendation of
Weiseler’s. | point out
by the statement1519
that the rod of
the high priest Aaron became a serpent, and was again converted into a
rod, that a change in the composition of the wicked one would
afterwards take place?”
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