7
September 2020
The Malignity and
Folly of Satan
And
indeed, before the cross was erected, he (Satan) was eager that it should be
so; and he "wrought" [for this end] "in the children of
disobedience." He wrought in Judas, in the Pharisees, in the Sadducees, in
the old, in the young, and in the priests. But when it was just about to be
erected, he was troubled, and infused repentance into the traitor, and pointed
him to a rope to hang himself with, and taught him [to die by] strangulation.
He terrified also the silly woman, disturbing her by dreams; and he, who had
tried every means to have the cross prepared, now endeavoured to put a stop to
its erection; not that he was influenced by repentance on account of the
greatness of his crime (for in that case he would not be utterly depraved), but
because he perceived his own destruction [to be at hand]. For the cross of
Christ was the beginning of his condemnation the beginning of his death, the
beginning of his destruction. Wherefore, also, he works in some that they
should deny the cross, be ashamed of the passion, call the death an appearance,
mutilate and explain away the birth of the Virgin, and calumniate the [human]
nature s itself as being abominable. He fights along with the Jews to a denial
of the cross, and with the Gentiles to the calumniating of Mary, who are
heretical in holding that Christ possessed a mere phantasmal body. For the
leader of all wickedness assumes manifold forms, beguiler of men as he is,
inconsistent, and even contradicting himself, projecting one course and then
following another. For he is wise to do evil, but as to what good may be he is
totally ignorant. And indeed he is full of ignorance, on account of his
voluntary want of reason: for how can he be deemed anything else who does not
perceive reason when it lies at his very feet?
St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch
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