Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 37 part 23/28

Now he is called the beginning of the Lord's handiwork, in that God made him to be mocked by His angels — not because God first created him, or created him evil from the beginning, but because, since God foreknew that he would of his own will become evil in order to harm the good, He created him so that through him He Himself might do good to the good. For this is the meaning of the words 'that he may be mocked by His angels': in this way he is mocked, when his temptations, by which he strives to corrupt the saints, profit them instead, so that the malice in which he himself willed to be becomes — against his will — useful to the servants of God, who, foreseeing this, formed him.

He is therefore the beginning appointed for mocking, because even wicked men — the vessels of that same devil and, as it were, the body of that head, whom God nonetheless created, foreseeing that they would be evil, yet for the benefit of the saints — are likewise mocked, since even when they wish to do harm, the saints gain from comparison with them watchfulness, and pious humility under God, and an understanding of grace, and training to endure the wicked, and a testing that they may love their enemies. But he is the beginning of the handiwork who is thus mocked, because he precedes these men both in antiquity of time and in primacy of malice.

This God does to him through the holy angels by that work of providence whereby He administers the natures He has created, subjecting namely the evil angels to the good angels, so that the wickedness of the evil may prevail not as far as it strives but only as far as it is permitted; and this not only of the evil angels but also of evil men, until at last even this righteousness — by which men now live by faith and which is now patiently exercised in them — shall be turned into judgment, so that they too may be able to judge not only the twelve tribes of Israel but even the angels.

When, therefore, it is thought that the devil never stood in the truth, never led a blessed life with the angels, but fell from the very beginning of his creation, this is not to be so understood as though he were reckoned not to have been corrupted by his own will but to have been created evil by the good God; otherwise he would not be said to have fallen from the beginning, for he did not fall if he was made such. Rather, once made, he immediately turned himself away from the light of truth, swollen with pride and corrupted by delight in his own power. Hence he did not taste the sweetness of the blessed and angelic life — a sweetness he did not despise after receiving it, but by refusing to receive it he deserted and lost it. Accordingly, he could not be foreknowing of his own fall, since wisdom is the fruit of piety.

But he, at once impious and consequently blind in mind, fell not from what he had already received, but from what he would have received had he been willing to submit to God; and precisely because he was unwilling, he both fell from what he was to receive and did not escape the power of Him under whom he refused to be, and it came to pass in him, by the weight of his deserts, that he can neither delight in the light of righteousness nor be freed from its sentence. This, therefore, is what is said against him through the prophet Isaiah: 'How has Lucifer, who rose in the morning, fallen from heaven? He who sent to all the nations is crushed to the earth. But you said in your mind:'

'I will ascend into heaven, above the stars of heaven I will set my throne; I will sit upon the lofty mountain above the high mountains that are to the north; I will ascend above the clouds, I will be like the Most High. But now you shall descend into hell' — and the rest, which, spoken under the figure of a king, as it were of Babylon, are understood to be directed against the devil, apply for the most part to his body, which he gathers even from the human race, and especially against those who cleave to him through pride by apostatizing from the commandments of God. For just as one who was the devil is called a man, as in the Gospel, 'An enemy, a man, did this,' so one who was a man is called the devil, as again in the Gospel, 'Have I not chosen you twelve? And one of you is a devil.'

And just as the body of Christ, which is the Church, is called Christ — as in the passage, 'You are the seed of Abraham,' when a little before he had said, 'To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He does not say, And to seeds, as of many, but as of one: And to your seed, which is Christ'; and again, 'For as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ' — in the same way also the body of the devil, whose head is the devil, that is, the very multitude of the impious, and most of all of those who fall away from Christ or from the Church as from heaven, is called the devil; and against this body many things are said figuratively which apply not so much to the head as to the body and its members.

And so Lucifer, who rose in the morning and fell, can be understood as the class of apostates either from Christ or from the Church, which turns to darkness having lost the light it bore, just as those who turn to God pass from darkness to light — that is, those who were darkness become light. Likewise, under the figure of the prince of Tyre, the words spoken through the prophet Ezekiel are understood to be directed against the devil: 'You are the seal of likeness and the crown of comeliness; you were in the delights of God's paradise. You were adorned with every precious stone' — and the rest, which apply not so much to that prince, the spirit of wickedness himself, as to his body. For paradise is called the Church, as it is read in the Song of Songs:

'A garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, a well of living water, a paradise with the fruit of orchards.' From it there fell away either openly and by bodily separation all the heretics, or secretly and spiritually — though they seem to be bodily within it — all who have turned back to their own vomit, after they had walked a little while in the way of righteousness following the remission of all their sins; in whom the last things have become worse than the first, and for whom it were better not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

This most wicked generation the Lord describes when He says that an unclean spirit goes out of a man and returns with seven others and enters the house which it had already found swept, so that the last state of that man is worse than the first. For to such a kind of men, which has already become the body of the devil, these words can be fitted: 'From the day you were created together with the cherub' — that is, with the seat of God, which is interpreted 'multiplied knowledge' — 'and I set you upon the holy mountain of God,' that is, in the Church — whence comes the saying:

'And He heard me from His holy mountain' — 'you were in the midst of the fiery stones,' that is, of the saints fervent in spirit, of living stones, 'you walked without fault in your days, from the day you were created, until iniquities were found in you.' These things can be treated more carefully, so that perhaps they may show not only that this understanding can be found in these words, but that no other is possible at all.

But since this is a long matter and demands another discourse devoted to that question alone, let it now suffice to embrace these alternatives: either that from the very beginning of his creation the devil fell by impious pride from the beatitude which he would have attained had he willed it; or that there are other angels of a lower ministry in this world, among whom, according to a certain unforeseeing beatitude of theirs, he had lived, and from whose fellowship — together with his own angels subject to him, as though an archangel — he fell through proud impiety (if this can in any way be maintained, which would be a wonder if it can); or at any rate that a reason must be sought how all the holy angels, if the devil once lived among them equally blessed with his angels, did not yet themselves possess a sure

foreknowledge of their own perpetual felicity, but received it after his fall; or by what desert, before his sin, the devil with his associates was set apart from the other angels, so that he was ignorant of his own coming fall, while they were certain of their own perseverance — provided nonetheless that we in no way doubt that the sinful angels have been thrust down, as into the prison of this misty air around the earth, and, according to apostolic faith, are being kept to be punished at the judgment; and that in that heavenly beatitude of the holy angels life eternal is not uncertain, nor will it be uncertain for us, according to the mercy and grace and most faithful promise of God, when after the resurrection and the changing of these bodies of ours we shall have been joined to them.

For to this hope we live, and by the grace of His promise we are renewed. But whatever can be said about the devil — why God created him, since He foreknew that he would be such, and why the Almighty does not turn his will to good — is according to those things which we have discussed when we inquired similarly concerning evil men, whether it be understood, or believed, or whether something better can be found. By Him therefore, whose power over all things He has created is supreme, through the holy angels — by whom the devil is mocked when even his malevolence is made to serve the Church of God — he was not permitted to tempt the woman except through the serpent, nor the man except through the woman.

But in the serpent he himself spoke, using it as an instrument and moving its nature in the manner in which he could move it and it could be moved, so as to produce the sounds of words and bodily signs by which the woman might understand the will of the persuader. In the woman herself, however, since she was a rational creature who could use her own movement to form words, he did not himself speak, but his working and persuasion — although by a hidden prompting he assisted inwardly what he had wrought outwardly through the serpent. Indeed, if he had acted by that hidden prompting alone, more secretly, as he acted in Judas that he might betray Christ, he could have accomplished it in a soul clothed with a proud love of its own power.

But, as I have already said, the devil has the will to tempt, yet has it not in his power either to do so or in what manner to do so. Because, therefore, he was permitted, he tempted; and in the manner in which he was permitted, so he tempted; but to which kind of men what he was doing would profit, he neither knew nor willed, and in that very thing he was mocked by the angels. The serpent, therefore, did not understand the sounds of the words that were made through it to the woman. For its soul is not to be believed to have been changed into a rational nature, since not even men themselves, whose nature is rational, know what they are saying when a demon speaks in them through that affliction for which an exorcist is required.

how much less would that serpent have understood the sounds of the words which the devil made through it and out of it in that manner — a serpent which would not understand a man speaking, if it heard him while free from any diabolical affliction! For as to what serpents are thought to hear and understand the words of the Marsi, so that they often dart out of their lairs at their incantations, there too a diabolical power operates — that the providence may everywhere be recognized which by natural order subjects one thing to another, and which even permits certain things to evil wills by a most wise power, so that this rather comes into practice, that serpents are moved by the songs of men more than any other kind of living creatures. For this too is no small testimony that human nature was originally seduced by the conversation of the serpent.

For the demons rejoice that this power is given them: to move serpents at the incantation of men, so that in whatever way they may deceive those they can. And they are permitted this for the commemoration of that first deed, so that they may have a certain familiarity with this kind of creature. Furthermore, that very first deed was permitted for this end: that through the nature of the serpent there might be signified to the human race — for whose instruction it was fitting that these deeds be recorded — the likeness of every diabolical temptation; which will become apparent when the divine sentence begins to be pronounced upon the serpent.

Accordingly, the serpent is said to be 'most prudent of all the beasts' — that is, most cunning — on account of the cunning of the devil, which in it and through it was working guile, just as a tongue is called prudent or cunning which a prudent or cunning man moves to persuade something prudently and cunningly. For this force or virtue is not that of the bodily member called the tongue, but assuredly of the mind that uses it. So too the pen of the scribes is called lying; for to be a liar pertains only to a living and perceiving being. But the pen is called lying because through it the liar lyingly works — just as if this serpent too were called lying, because the devil used it lyingly, as it were, for a pen.

I have thought this worth noting, lest anyone, supposing that irrational animals possess human understanding, or are suddenly changed into a rational animal, be led astray into that ridiculous and harmful opinion of the transmigration of souls — of men into beasts, or of beasts into men. So then the serpent spoke to man just as the she-ass on which Balaam sat spoke to a man, except that the one was a diabolical work, the other an angelic one. For good and evil angels have certain similar works, as did Moses and the magicians of Pharaoh.

But in these things the good angels are the more powerful, and the evil angels cannot do even any such works except what God permits through the good angels, so that it may be requited to each according to his heart, or according to the grace of God — both justly and kindly, through the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. The serpent therefore said to the woman: 'Why has God said, You shall not eat of every tree of paradise?' And the woman said to the serpent: 'Of the fruit of the tree which is in paradise we shall eat; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'

Therefore the serpent first questioned, and the woman answered this, so that the transgression might be inexcusable, and it could in no way be said that the woman had forgotten what God had commanded — although even forgetfulness of a command, especially of one so essential, would pertain to the very great fault of a damnable negligence. Yet her transgression is more evident, since the command is retained in memory and, as it were, God is despised while present and standing by in it. Hence it was necessary, when it was said in the psalm, 'and to those who keep His commandments in memory,' to add, 'that they may do them.' For many keep them in memory in order to despise them, by the greater sin of transgression, where there is no excuse of forgetfulness. The serpent therefore said to the woman: 'You shall not die the death.'

'For God knew that on the day you eat of it your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.' When would the woman have believed by these words that they had been divinely forbidden from a good and useful thing, unless there were already present in her mind that love of her own power and a certain proud presumption about herself, which through that temptation was to be convicted and humbled? Finally, not content with the words of the serpent, she considered the tree and saw that it was good for food and fair to the sight; and not believing that she could die from it, I think, because she supposed that God had said it for the sake of some signification: 'If you eat, you shall die the death.'

And so she took of its fruit and ate, and gave also to her husband with her — perhaps even with some persuasive word, which Scripture, keeping silent, leaves to be understood. Or perhaps the man no longer needed to be persuaded, when he saw that she had not died from that food. So then they ate, and the eyes of both were opened. To what end but to lusting after one another, to the punishment of sin conceived in the death of the flesh itself, so that it was now a body not merely animal — which, had they preserved obedience, could have been changed without death into a better and spiritual condition — but already a body of death, in which the law in the members warred against the law of the mind?

For they had not been made with closed eyes, nor did they wander about blind and groping in the paradise of delights, so as to touch even the forbidden tree in ignorance and to handle the prohibited fruit without knowing. But how were the animals and birds brought to Adam, that he might see what he would call them, if he did not see? And how was the woman herself brought to the man when she was made, so that of her whom he did not see he might say, 'This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,' and the rest? Finally, how did the woman see that the tree was good for food, and that it pleased the eyes to look upon, and that it was fair to know, if their eyes were closed? Nor yet, on account of the transferred meaning of a single word, is the whole to be taken figuratively.

For let it be considered in what sense the serpent said, 'Your eyes shall be opened.' This the writer of the book narrated that he said; but in what signification or meaning he said it, he left to the reader to consider. But that which is written, 'And their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked,' is written just as are all the things that are narrated as done; nor yet on that account ought they to lead us into an allegorical narrative.

For neither did the Evangelist, as narrator, insert anyone's figurative sayings from that person's own mouth, rather than narrate from his own person the things that had been done, when he said of those two, one of whom was Cleophas, that, when the Lord had broken bread for them, their eyes were opened and they knew Him whom they had not recognized along the way — not indeed walking with closed eyes, but being unable to recognize Him. As, therefore, there, so also in this place the narrative is not figurative, although Scripture used a transferred word, so as to say that eyes were opened which even before were open — opened, that is, to gaze upon something and to consider what they had never before noticed.

For when bold curiosity was stirred to transgress the command, greedy to experience hidden things — what would follow upon touching the forbidden — and delighting with a harmful liberty to break the reins of the prohibition, judging it more probable that the death they had feared would not follow (for such indeed must the fruit on that tree be believed to have been, of which kind of fruit they had already, on other trees, tasted harmlessly) — they believed rather that God could easily pardon those who sinned, than they patiently endured not to know what it was, or why He had forbidden them to take food from it.

As soon, therefore, as they transgressed the command, being utterly stripped inwardly of the grace which by a certain swelling pride and proud love of their own power they had offended, they cast their eyes upon their own members and desired them with that movement which they had not known. To this, then, their eyes were opened, to which they had not before been open, although to other things they were open. This death occurred on the day on which was done what God had forbidden.

For, that marvelous condition being lost, the body itself — a condition which was furnished even by the tree of life through a mystical power, by which they could neither be assailed by disease nor changed by age, so that this might already be signified in their flesh, though still animal and to be changed for the better afterwards, through the eating of the tree of life, which comes to pass in the angels through participation in eternity out of that very spiritual nourishment of wisdom, whose sacrament that tree was, so that they should not be changed for the worse — this condition, then, being lost, their body took on a diseased and death-bearing quality, which is present also in the flesh of cattle, and through this also that same movement by which the appetite for coupling arises in beasts, so that things being born might succeed things dying; yet even so, in that very punishment, the rational soul, as a token of its own nobility, blushed at the bestial movement in the members of its flesh and struck into it a shame — not only because it felt this there where it had never before felt any such thing, but also because that shameful movement came from the transgression of the command.

For there it felt with what grace it had before been clothed, when in its nakedness it suffered nothing unseemly. There was fulfilled: 'Lord, in Your will You gave strength to my beauty. But You turned away Your face, and I was troubled.' At length, in that trouble, they ran to fig leaves, sewed themselves aprons, and, because they had deserted the things to be gloried in, covered the things to be ashamed of. Nor do I think that they conceived anything in those leaves as fitting for the covering of members now itching; but by a hidden prompting they were driven by that trouble to this, so that even such a signification of their own punishment might be made by those who knew it not — a signification which would convict the sinner by the deed and instruct the reader by the writing.

'And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise toward evening.' For at that hour it had now befallen such men to be visited, who had fallen away from the light of truth. But perhaps before, God spoke with them inwardly, by ways either utterable or unutterable, just as He also speaks with the angels, illuminating their minds by that very unchangeable truth, where the understanding is to know at once even things that through time do not come to pass at once. Perhaps, I say, He so spoke with them, even though not with so great a participation of divine wisdom as the angels receive, yet according to the human measure, however much less, but by the same kind of visitation and speech;

perhaps also by that means which comes to pass through a creature, whether in an ecstasy of the spirit through bodily images, or through the very senses of the body when some form is presented, whether to be seen or to be heard — as in His angels God is wont to be seen, or to sound through a cloud. Now, however, that they heard the voice of God walking in paradise toward evening was done only visibly through a creature, lest that invisible substance, wholly present everywhere, which is of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, be believed to have appeared to their bodily senses by a local and temporal movement. 'And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord in the midst of the tree that is in paradise.'

When God turns away His face inwardly and man becomes troubled, let us not marvel that these things happen which are like madness, through excessive shame and fear, that hidden prompting also not resting, so that unknowingly they might do things which would signify something to posterity, who would one day know — for whose sake these things were recorded. 'And the Lord God called Adam and said to him: Adam, where are you?' It is the voice of one rebuking, not of one ignorant. And this indeed pertains to some signification, that as the command was given to the man, through whom it should reach the woman, so the man is questioned first; for the command came from the Lord through the man to the woman, but the sin from the devil through the woman to the man.

These things are full of mystical significations — not for those in whom they were done, but through the most powerful wisdom of God who works about them. But we do not now unlock the things signified; we defend the things done. 'Adam therefore answered: I heard Your voice in paradise, and I was afraid because I am naked, and I hid myself.' It is quite probable that God was wont to appear to those first men in human form, through a creature suited to such action; yet He never permitted them to notice their nakedness, lifting up their attention to things on high, until after the sin they felt in their members the shameful movement by the penal law of the members. Thus, then, were they affected as men are wont to be affected under the eyes of men;

and such an affection, arising from the punishment of sin, was to wish to hide from Him whom nothing can hide from, and to conceal the flesh from Him who is the inspector of the heart. But what wonder, if, proudly wishing to be as gods, they became vain in their thoughts and their foolish heart was darkened? For they said that they were wise in their abundance, and, He turning away His face, they became fools. For that which now shamed them before themselves, whence they had made themselves aprons, they far more vehemently dreaded to be seen — even thus girded — by Him who, as though by a familiar accommodation, brought to them, that they might be seen, as it were human eyes through a visible creature.

For if He so appeared in order that men might speak with Him as with a man — just as Abraham did at the oak of Mamre — that very near friendship burdened them with shame after the sin, which had given them confidence before the sin; nor did they now dare to expose to such eyes that nakedness which displeased even their own. The Lord, therefore, willing now to punish the sinners, questioned, by the standard of justice, more than that punishment for which they were already compelled to blush, said: 'Who told you that you are naked, unless you have eaten of the tree from which alone I had commanded you not to eat?'

For hence death, conceived on account of God's sentence, who had so threatened, caused the members to be noticed concupiscently — where their eyes are said to have been opened — and there followed that which shamed them. 'And Adam said: The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.' Pride! Did he say, 'I have sinned'? He has the deformity of confusion and has not the humility of confession. To this end these things were recorded, because these very questionings were surely made to this end, that they might be written both truthfully and usefully — for if falsely, then surely not usefully — so that we might notice with what disease of pride men labor today, striving to refer to the Creator anything evil they have done, while they wish to be credited with anything good they have done.

'The woman,' he says, 'whom You gave to be with me' — that is, whom You gave that she should be with me — 'she gave me of the tree, and I ate': as though she were given for this, that she should not rather obey the man, and both obey God. 'And the Lord God said to the woman: Why have you done this? And the woman said: The serpent seduced me, and I ate.' Neither does she confess her sin, but refers it to another — of unequal sex, of equal pride. Yet from these was born, and did not imitate them, but was plainly exercised by many evils, he who said and shall say until the end of the age: 'I said, Lord, have mercy on me; heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.' How much better were these too so! But the Lord had not yet bowed down the necks of sinners.

There remained labors, sorrows, deaths, and all the tribulation of the age, and the grace of God, by which in due time He succors men, whom, being afflicted, He taught not to presume upon themselves. 'The serpent,' he says, 'seduced me, and I ate': as though anyone's persuasion ought to be preferred to the command of God. 'And the Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, cursed are you above all cattle and above all the beasts that are upon the earth. Upon your breast and your belly you shall go, and you shall eat earth all the days of your life. And I will put enmities between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. She shall watch for your head, and you shall watch for her heel.'