In which, however, this too ought especially to instruct us, that we should turn aside from evil counsels: that although the author of the deception is smitten with fitting punishment and condemnation, not even he who is seduced lacks punishment, though somewhat lighter than he who was the author of the deception. Which here we see most plainly expressed. For Adam, who was seduced—or rather, to speak in the apostle's words, who was not seduced, but, acquiescing to her who was seduced, seems to have come to a deadly consent—is condemned only to the sweat of his brow and to labor; which, however, is decreed to him not through his own, but through the malediction and sterility of the earth.
But the woman, who was the persuader of this thing, merits the multiplication of groanings and pains and sadness, condemned likewise to the perpetual yoke of subjection. The serpent, however, who was the first instigator of this offense, is punished with a perennial malediction. Wherefore, with the utmost solicitude and circumspection, one must beware of depraved counsels, because, just as they punish their author, so they make the deceived one lack neither sin nor punishment. But this air which is diffused between heaven and earth is so crowded with a density of spirits, in which they flit about not at rest or idle, that quite profitably has divine providence withdrawn them from human sight.
For either, by the terror of their onset or by the horror of their countenances—into which they transform and convert themselves according to their own will, whenever it pleases them—men, being in no way able to behold these with carnal eyes, would be dismayed with intolerable dread and would faint; or certainly they would be rendered worse daily, corrupted by their continual examples and imitation, and through this there would arise between men and the unclean and aerial powers a certain harmful familiarity and a pernicious conjunction, because these disgraceful deeds which are now committed among men are concealed either by the enclosures of walls, or by the interval of places, or by a certain confusion of shame.
which, if they beheld them by a continual and open vision, they would be incited to a greater madness of fury, with no point of time intervening in which they might see them ceasing from these crimes—since indeed no carnal weariness, nor occupation with household affairs, nor solicitude for daily food compels them, as these things compel us sometimes to cease, even most unwillingly, from the intentions we have begun. For it is most certain that these assaults, by which they attack men, they also aim against one another. For they do not cease to exercise likewise, with unwearied strife, discords and conflicts over certain nations that they have taken up on account of a certain native familiarity of wickedness.
which we read most manifestly figured also in the vision of the prophet Daniel, the angel Gabriel narrating thus: fear not, Daniel, for from the first day on which thou didst set thy heart to understand, that thou mightest afflict thyself in the sight of thy God, thy words were heard, and I have come because of thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of the Persians withstood me one and twenty days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to my aid, and I remained there beside the king of the Persians. And I have come to teach thee the things that shall come upon thy people in the last days.
That this prince of the kingdom of the Persians was an adverse power, which favored the Persian nation hostile to the people of God, is by no means to be doubted; and who, to impede the benefit which he saw was to be ministered by the archangel through the resolution of the question for which the prophet had entreated the Lord, opposed himself, lest too swiftly the consolation of the salutary angel should reach Daniel and comfort the people of God, over whom the archangel Gabriel presided.
who, however, says that not even then, because of the vehemence of that assault, could he have reached him, unless Michael the archangel had come to his aid and, meeting the prince of the kingdom of the Persians and interposing and opposing himself to his conflict and defending him from his assault, had made him reach the instruction of the prophet after the twenty-first day. And after a few words, the angel says: dost thou know why I have come to thee? And now I shall return to fight against the prince of the Persians. For when I went forth, the prince of the Greeks appeared, coming. Nevertheless, I will announce to thee what is expressed in the scripture of truth: and there is no one who is my helper in all these things, except Michael your prince. And again:
in that time shall arise Michael, the great prince, who stands for the sons of thy people. We read, therefore, that the prince of the Greeks likewise is called another, who, favoring the nation subject to him, appeared adverse both to the people of Israel and to the nation of the Persians. From which it is clearly perceived that the discords of nations and the conflicts and rivalries which they wage among themselves at the instigation of these, the adverse powers also exercise against one another, and either rejoice at their victory or are tormented at their diminution; and on this account they cannot be concordant among themselves, while each one, on behalf of those over whom he presides, contends against the ruler of another nation with ever-restless emulation.
These, therefore, besides those opinions which we set forth above, we can also for this reason gather by evident reasoning to be called principalities or powers—namely, because they either lord over and preside over diverse nations, or certainly because they exert their principalities over the inferior spirits and demons, of which even the gospels testify, by their own confession, that there are legions. For they cannot be called dominions unless they have those over whom they may exercise the sway of their domination, nor can they be called powers or principalities unless there be those over whom they may claim principalities for themselves. Which we also find most manifestly designated in the gospel by the blaspheming Pharisees: by Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, this man casts out demons.
For we read that they are called both rulers of the darkness and that another is named the prince of this world. Which grades, however, the blessed apostle asserts are to be emptied out in the future, when all things shall have been subjected to Christ, when he shall have delivered up—he says—the kingdom to God and the Father, when he shall have abolished all principality and power and dominion. Which certainly will not be done otherwise than if those over whom, in this age, the powers or dominions or principalities are known to administer shall have been taken away from their sway. For that to the good part the same appellations of orders have been given not without reason or cause, and that they are the names of offices or merits or dignities, is doubtful to no one.
For concerning the office of announcing, angels — that is, messengers — are manifestly so called, and archangels because they are set over the angels themselves, as the property of the name itself teaches; likewise 'dominations' from the fact that they hold dominion over certain ones, 'principalities' also because they have those over whom they are princes, and 'thrones' because they so cleave to God and are so domestic and familiar to him, that the divine majesty rests in them more especially, as in a kind of seat, and in a manner reclines upon them more firmly. But that unclean spirits are ruled by more wicked powers and are subject to them — apart from those testimonies of the Scriptures which we read in the Gospels also, set down in the Lord's reply to the calumniating Pharisees:
'If I by Beelzebub the prince of demons cast out demons' — clear visions too, and the experiences of the saints, teach us many things. For when one of our brethren was making a journey in this wilderness, and the day was already drawing toward evening, finding a certain cave he halted there, wishing to celebrate the evening synaxis in it; and while he chanted the psalms according to custom, the time passed beyond the middle of the night. And when, the solemnity being finished, he had sat down a little to refresh his weary body, suddenly he began to behold innumerable troops of demons flowing together from every side, which, advancing in an endless throng and a very long array, some went before their prince, others followed after.
who at length came, taller in stature than them all and more terrible in aspect, and having set up his throne, when he had seated himself upon a certain most lofty tribunal, he began to examine with diligent scrutiny the deeds of each one. And those who said that they had not yet been able to ensnare their rivals, he ordered to be driven from his sight as sluggish and slothful, with a mark of disgrace and insult, reproaching them with a roar of fury for the span of so much time and the labor vainly spent; but those who reported that they had deceived those assigned to them, he sent forth before all, with highest praises, with exultation and the applause of all, as the bravest of warriors, most glorious as an example to all.
Among whose number, when a certain most wicked spirit came, more joyful as one about to bring a most exalted triumph, he named the name of a well-known monk, asserting that after fifteen years, during which he had continually besieged him, he had at last at length prevailed, so that that very same night he cast him down by the ruin of fornication; for with a certain consecrated virgin he had not only impelled him to incur the crime of defilement, but had even persuaded him to keep her for himself by the right of marriage. Upon whose report, when an immense joy of all had broken out, exalted with the highest praises by the prince of darkness and crowned with great acclamations, he withdrew.
And so, when dawn came on and the whole multitude of demons had vanished from his eyes, the brother, doubting concerning the assertion of the unclean spirit, and rather supposing that by the ingrained deceit of its custom it had wished to delude him and to brand an innocent brother with the crime of incest, being mindful of the evangelical saying — that 'he stood not in the truth, because there is no truth in him: when he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own, because he is a liar and the father of it' — set out for Pelusium, where he knew that the man whom the unclean spirit had asserted to be cast down was dwelling. For that brother was also very well known to him.
And when he had sought him out, he found that on the very night on which that most foul demon had announced his ruin to his cohort or to his prince, having abandoned his former monastery, he had gone to a village and had been carried down by a miserable fall with the very virgin named. Now that two angels cleave to each of us, that is a good one and an evil one, Scripture testifies. And concerning the good ones indeed the Savior says, 'See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you that their angels in heaven always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven.' That also: 'The angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him, and shall deliver them.' And also that which is said in the Acts of the Apostles concerning Peter, that 'it is his angel.'
But concerning both kinds the book of the Shepherd teaches most fully. And if we consider also him who sought out blessed Job, we are most clearly instructed that it was he who, though always lying in wait for him, could never incite him to sin, and therefore begged power from the Lord, as one who was overcome not by Job's own strength, but by the defense of the Lord, who always protected him. Concerning Judas also it is said, 'and let the devil stand at his right hand.' Concerning the differences of demons, moreover, we have received much knowledge also through those two philosophers, who once, by magical arts, had frequently experienced either their feebleness or their strength and savage wickedness.
For these two, despising blessed Antony as an unskilled and unlettered man, and wishing — if they could do him no further harm — at least to drive him from his cell by magical illusions and the machinations of demons, sent most wicked spirits against him, being drawn to this assault by the bite of envy, because the greatest crowds of men gathered to him daily as to a servant of God.
And when — with him now pressing upon his breast and forehead the sign of the cross, now bending down in humble supplication to his prayer — the most cruel demons did not dare even to approach him at all, and returned to those who had dispatched them without any effect; and when they again sent others more vehement in wickedness, and these likewise spent their strength in vain and returned fruitlessly; and when yet more powerful ones, again dispatched against the soldier of Christ the victor, nonetheless availed nothing whatsoever — those philosophers achieved this by such and so great snares, sought out by all their magic: that through these they most evidently proved that great power resides in the Christian profession, since those shades so savage and so mighty, which they reckoned could, if directed against them, blot out the sun and moon, were able not only to do this man no harm at all, but not even for a single instant to drive him from his monastery.
And when, out of this astonishment, coming at once to abbot Antony, they disclosed the greatness of their assaults and their causes and the snares of their hidden envy, they straightway begged to be made Christians. And when the day of the assault they had betrayed was inquired of them, he asserted that he had then been assailed by most bitter goads of thoughts. By which experiment blessed Antony proved and defined the opinion which we set forth yesterday in the conference: that in no way can demons invade anyone's mind or body, nor have any power of rushing at all into anyone's soul, unless they have first stripped it of all holy thoughts and rendered it empty and bare of spiritual contemplation.
It must be known, however, that unclean spirits obey men in two ways. For either they are subjected, by divine grace and power, to the sanctity of the faithful; or, soothed by the sacrifices of the impious or by certain incantations, they fawn upon them as familiars. Deceived by this latter opinion, the Pharisees too supposed that even the Lord the Savior commanded the demons by this art, saying, 'By Beelzebub the prince of demons he casts out demons' — namely, according to that custom whereby they knew their own magicians and sorcerers, through the invocation of his name and the rite of sacrifices by which they know he is delighted and rejoices, to hold him as their familiar and to have power even over the demons subject to him. GERMANUS:
Since the reading of Genesis was brought into our midst a little while ago by the dispensation of God, which opportunely reminded us — so that what we always longed to learn we may now fittingly inquire into — we desire to know also what is to be thought concerning those apostate angels, who are said to have mingled with the daughters of men: whether this can, according to the letter, befit a spiritual nature. That testimony of the Gospel too, which you spoke of a little while ago concerning the devil, 'that he is a liar and the father of it,' we likewise desire to hear: who is to be understood as his father? SERENUS: You have brought forward together two questions of no small weight, to which, as far as I am able, I will respond in the same order in which you proposed them.
By no means is it to be believed that spiritual natures can copulate carnally with women. But if at any time this could happen according to the letter, why would not this very thing now also occur, at least rarely, and we behold some born, likewise from women, without seed or the intercourse of a man, by the conception of demons? — especially since it is well established that they are exceedingly delighted by the filth of lusts, which without doubt they would prefer to exercise through themselves rather than through men, if it could in any way be accomplished. Ecclesiastes too pronounces this very thing: 'What is it that has been? The same that is. And what is it that has been done? The same that shall be. And there is nothing new under the sun, that one may speak and say:'
'Behold, this is new. It has already been in the ages which were before us.' But thus is the question of this proposition resolved. After the slaying of just Abel, lest the whole race of men should take its beginning from a fratricide and impious man, in the place of the slain brother Seth is born, who should succeed not only to posterity but also to his brother's justice and piety. His progeny, following the justice of the father, remained ever divided from the society and union of that kindred which descended from the sacrilegious Cain, as the distinction of the genealogy also manifestly declares, saying thus:
'Adam begot Seth, Seth begot Enos, Enos begot Cainan, and Cainan begot Malaleel, and Malaleel begot Jared, Jared begot Enoch, Enoch begot Mathusala, Mathusala begot Lamech, Lamech begot Noe.' Likewise the genealogy of Cain is described, thus divided: 'Cain begot Enoch, Enoch begot Cainan, Cainan begot Malaleel, Malaleel begot Mathusala, Mathusala begot Lamech, Lamech begot Jobel and Jubal.' And so that generation which descended from the offspring of just Seth, continually intermingled with its own line and kindred, endured through a long age in the sanctity of the fathers and forefathers, in no way indeed infected by the sacrileges and malice of that most wicked offspring, which retained implanted within itself the germ of impiety as though by ancestral tradition.
As long, therefore, as that distinction of their lineage persisted among them, that seed of Seth, as proceeding from the best root, were on account of the merit of sanctity called 'angels of God,' or — as various copies contain — 'sons of God'; and, on the contrary, those others, on account of the impiety either of their own or of their fathers, and their earthly works, are named 'sons of men.'
Since, therefore, this useful and holy division existed among them up to that time, afterward the sons of Seth, who were the sons of God, seeing the daughters of those who were born of the progeny of Cain, kindled with desire for their beauty, took wives for themselves from among them. These women, pouring into their husbands the wickedness of their own parents, straightway corrupted them from that inborn sanctity and paternal simplicity. To whom that utterance was quite fittingly directed: 'I have said: You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High. But you shall die like men,'
'and shall fall like one of the princes.' And they fell away from that true discipline of natural philosophy handed down to them by their elders — the discipline which that first man, who followed immediately upon the establishment of all natures, was able clearly to attain and to transmit to his posterity by sure reasoning.
Inasmuch as he had beheld the infancy of the world itself, still tender and, as it were, quivering and raw; and into whom was poured, by that divine inbreathing, not only such fullness of wisdom but also the grace of prophecy, so that, still the new inhabitant of this world, he imposed names upon all living creatures, and not only distinguished the furies and venom of every kind of beast and serpent, but also apportioned the virtues of herbs and the natures of trees and stones and the vicissitudes of seasons not yet experienced — so that he could effectually say: 'The Lord has given me true knowledge of the things that are:'
'that I may know the arrangement of the world and the powers of the elements, the beginning and the end and the midst of times, the changes of their vicissitudes and the divisions of the seasons, the courses of the years and the dispositions of the stars, the natures of animals and the rages of beasts, the force of the winds and the thoughts of men, the differences of plants and the virtues of roots; and whatsoever things are hidden and manifest, I have come to know.' This knowledge, therefore, of all natures, the seed of Seth received by paternal tradition through the successions of the generations; and, as long as it endured divided from the sacrilegious offspring, just as it had holily received it, so also it exercised it, whether for the worship of God or for the benefit of the common life.
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eamueroimpiaegenerationifuissetadmixtum, adresprofanasacnoxiasquaepiedidiceratinstinctuquoquedaemonumderiuauitcuriosasqueexeamaleficiorumartesatquepraestigiasacmagicassuperstitionesaudaciterinstituit, docensposterossuos, utsacroillocultudiuininuminisderelictouelelementahaecuelignemuelaeriosdaemonasuenerarenturetcolerent. haecigiturquamdiximuscuriosarumrerumnotitiaquomodoindiluuiononperieritacsuperuenientibussaeculisinnotuerit, licethocminimeabsolutiopropositaequaestionisexposcat, tamen, quianosoccasiohuiusexpositionisadmonuit, praestringendumbreuiterputo.
But when it had been mingled with the impious generation, at the instigation of demons it diverted to profane and harmful uses what it had piously learned, and boldly established from it the curious arts of sorceries and illusions and magical superstitions, teaching its posterity that, having forsaken that sacred worship of the divine Godhead, they should venerate and serve either these elements, or fire, or the airy demons. This knowledge of curious things, then, of which we have spoken — how it did not perish in the flood and became known to the succeeding ages — although the solution of the proposed question by no means requires it, nevertheless, since the occasion of this exposition has prompted us, I think it must be briefly touched upon.
For, as the ancient traditions relate, Ham the son of Noe, who had been instructed in those superstitions and in sacrilegious and profane arts, knowing that he could by no means carry any memorial book concerning these into the ark — into which he was about to enter together with his just father and his holy brothers — engraved the wicked arts and profane devices upon plates of various metals, which of course could not be corrupted by the inundation of the waters, and upon the hardest stones. And after the flood was over, seeking them out with the same curiosity with which he had concealed them, he transmitted to posterity a seed-plot of sacrileges and perpetual wickedness.
By this reasoning, therefore, that popular opinion, by which men believe that angels handed down either sorceries or various arts to men, has in truth been fulfilled. From those, then, as we have said — the sons of Seth and the daughters of Cain — more wicked sons were procreated, who were the most robust of hunters, most violent and most savage men, who, on account of the enormity of their bodies or of their cruelty and malice, were called giants. For these first began to ravage their neighbors and to practice plunderings among men, exacting their livelihood by spoil rather than being content with the sweat of work and toil; and their crimes had grown to such a point that the world could not be expiated otherwise than by the inundation of the flood.
Thus, therefore, when the sons of Seth had, at the instigation of lust, transgressed that commandment which from the beginning of this world had been very long guarded by natural instinct, it became necessary that it be afterward restored through the letter of the law: 'You shall not give your daughter as wife to his son, nor take of their daughters for your son, because they will seduce your hearts, so that you depart from your God and follow their gods and serve them.' GERMANUS: The crime of transgression could deservedly have been ascribed to them from this presumption of marriage, if that precept had been given to them. But since the observance of that separation had not yet been fixed by any ordinance, how ought the mingling of races to have been imputed to them as a fault, which had been forbidden by no commandment?
For the law is wont to condemn not past crimes, but future ones. SERENUS: God, when creating man, implanted in him by nature the whole knowledge of the law. And if this had been kept by man according to the purpose of the Lord as it had begun, it would surely not have been necessary that any other be given than the one he afterward promulgated in letters; for it was superfluous that a remedy be offered from without which still flourished implanted within. But because this, as we have said, had already been utterly corrupted by the license and habit of sinning, the severe strictness of the Mosaic law was set in place as its executor and avenger — and, that I may speak in the very words of Scripture, as its 'helper' — so that at least by the fear of present punishment they might not wholly extinguish the good of natural knowledge, according to the sentence of the prophet who says:
'He gave the law for a help.' This law also, according to the Apostle, is described as having been given as a pedagogue, as to little children, instructing them, that is, and guarding them, lest by a kind of forgetfulness they should depart from that discipline in which they had been instituted by nature. For that all knowledge of the law was infused into man from the beginning of creation is hence manifestly proved: that we know all the saints observed the commandments of the law, without the reading of the letter, before the law — indeed, before the flood. For how could Abel, no law yet commanding it, have known that he ought to offer to God a sacrifice from the firstlings of his sheep and from their fat, unless he had been taught by nature through the law implanted in him?
How had Noe distinguished what animal was clean or unclean, no legal commandment yet drawing the distinction, unless he had been instructed by natural knowledge? Whence did Enoch learn to walk with God, having received no illumination of the law from anyone? Where had Shem and Japheth read, 'You shall not uncover the shame of your father,' so that, walking backward, they might veil the shameful parts of their father? Whence, being admonished, did Abraham abstain from the spoils of the enemies which were offered to him, lest he should receive the recompense of his labor, or pay tithes to the priest Melchizedek — which are prescribed by the Mosaic law?
Whence did that same Abraham, whence did Lot, offer in humble supplication to passers-by and to strangers the rights of hospitality and the washing of feet, no evangelical commandment yet shining forth? Whence did Job attain such devotion of faith, such purity of chastity, such knowledge of humility, meekness, mercy, and kindness, as we now see fulfilled not even by those who hold the Gospels by memory? Which of the saints do we read to have failed to observe any commandment of the law before the law? Which of them did not keep, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord'? Which of them did not fulfill:
'You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any likeness of those things which are in heaven, or of those which are on earth, or of those which are in the waters under the earth'? Which of them did not observe, 'Honor your father and your mother,' or those things which follow in the Decalogue: 'You shall not kill, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife,' and other things much greater than these, whereby they anticipated the commandments not only of the law but even of the Gospel?
Thus, therefore, we understand that from the beginning God created all things perfect, and that there was nothing that needed to be added to his primary ordination, as though it were improvident and imperfect, had all things remained in that state and disposition in which they were created by him. And therefore we prove that God, by just judgment, took vengeance upon those who sinned before the law — indeed, before the flood — because, having transgressed the natural law, they deserved to be punished without any excuse. Nor shall we fall into that blasphemous calumny of those who, ignorant of this reasoning, disparage the God of the Old Testament and, detracting from our faith and sneering, reply: