Among the angelic powers the chief of the terrestrial order,
the one to whom God had entrusted the task of looking after the earth,
was not evil by nature, he had not received any trace of evil from his
Creator. He was good.
However, he did not maintain the light and the honor that God had given
him. By a deliberate act of his own free will he rebelled against the Creator.
He turned his face away from goodness and fell into evil. Evil in fact
is merely the absence of good, as darkness is the absence of light.
A host of angels placed under his command followed him in the fall.
Despite their angelic nature, they also freely plunged from goodness down
to evil and became wicked.
The devils cannot do anything against us without God's permission. But
with God's permission they are powerful. All wickedness, all the passions
are inspired by them. But listen: God allows them to suggest sin to a person,
but they cannot force him to do it. \Ve ourselves are responsible for accepting
or rejecting their seductive suggestions.
- The Orthodox Faith, 2, 4
The
devil's strategy
.
by
Ambrose of Milan (337-397 AD)
The devil demonstrates simultaneously his weakness and his wickedness.
He is unable to harm anyone who does not harm himself. In fact, anyone
who denies heaven and chooses the earth is, as it were, rushing towards
a precipice, even though running of his own accord.
The devil, however, starts working as soon as he sees someone living
up to faith's commitments, someone who has a reputation for virtue, who
does good works.
He tries to worm vanity into him, to make it possible for him to be
puffed up with pride, become presumptuous, lose trust in prayer and not
attribute
to God the good that he does but to take all the credit himself.
- On the
Gospel of St Luke 4, 25
We
conquer the enemy by
conquering
ourselves
by
Leo the Great (400-461 AD)
In the days of Saul and David, it was when the
Israelites fell into sin that the Lord allowed the Philistines to oppress
them. In order to regain the ascendancy over their enemies, the people
were ordered to fast. The Israelites understood very well that they deserved
all they had to endure at the hands of the Philistines because they had
neglected God's commands and given themselves over to evil practices. It
was no use for them to try to win their freedom by taking up arms; they
first had to get rid of their sins. And so they began to discipline themselves
and to conquer the desires of the flesh in order to be able to conquer
their opponents. When they fasted their oppressors gave way before them,
whereas when they indulged all their appetites the enemy held them in subjection.
It is the same with us today. We have our own
struggles and conflicts, and we can win by using the same tactics. The
Israelites were attacked by human beings; we are attacked by spiritual
enemies. We can conquer by bringing our lives into line with God's will
for us; then our enemies will give way before us. It is not their power
but our lack of self-discipline that makes them a threat to us, and we
shall weaken them by overcoming ourselves.
We must ask God's help in this warfare, because
our only means of conquering the enemy is to conquer ourselves. How often
we come into conflict with our own lower nature, with those unspiritual,
unregenerate attitudes that scripture calls the flesh! What the flesh wants
is opposed to what the spirit wants, and what the spirit wants is opposed
to what the flesh wants. If the desires of the flesh are the stronger,
then our spiritual faculties will be dragged down to the level of our lower
nature and will be enslaved where they ought to be masters. But if we are
determined to serve the Lord and find our joy in his gifts, if we trample
underfoot our instinctive tendency to gratify ourselves and refuse to allow
sin to rule in our mortal bodies, then our spirit will be in control and
no strategy of the Evil One will be able to overthrow us. True peace and
freedom can only be ours when the flesh is ruled by the spirit and the
spirit is guided by the will of God.
- Sermons
on Lent
