Sermon 12

In the divine and holy ancient Books, the most deceitful trickery of the Manichaeans lies in wait, as your prudence, dearest Brothers, has sufficiently proven. Yet we continue to offer their deceits for the inspection of your hearts, so that you may not only avoid them as much as lies in your power, but also teach others who are weak and unlearned in the divine readings, to avoid and despise them as each of you is able. "It is written in Job," they say, "Behold, the angels came into the presence of God, and Satan came among them. And God said to Satan: Whence do you come? He answered and said: I come from going around the whole earth." Here, they say, it is shown that Satan not only saw God but also spoke with Him. Yet in the Gospel it says: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. And again, it says: I am the door, no one can come to the Father except through me. Then they add reasoning, saying: If therefore those only who are pure in heart see God, in what way could Satan, with the most filthy and impure heart, see God? Or how could he enter through the door, that is, through Christ? Again, the Apostle, they say, testifies and confirms, saying that neither Princes, nor Powers, nor Virtues knew God."

The accusation of those is proposed.

Indeed, their calumny is presented up to this point with these words, and truly, the question must be discussed by a Christian. But the intention of those propounding this calumny is to similarly draw the unlearned from the most wholesome authority of the Scriptures to believing in them. But first, I would like to ask them where Adimantus has read this from the Apostle – for he is the author of such calumnies – I would therefore want him to say where he has read the Apostle testifying and confirming, as he says, that neither the Princes nor the Powers nor the Virtues knew God, when the Lord also says that the angels of those believing in Him see the face of the Father daily. Unless perhaps what the Apostle Paul said: “We speak wisdom among the perfect, but wisdom not of this age, nor of the princes of this age, who come to naught. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, which is hidden, which God predestined before the ages unto our glory, which none of the princes of this age knew. If they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory.” If he was thinking to write this passage, why did he add Powers and Virtures, which is not said there, and omit “of this age,” which is said there? But if he did this more out of error than malice, I wish it were so. Nevertheless, even if the Apostle had said this way, could not the devil hear the voice of God for this reason? For it is written that he came into the sight of God; it is not written that he himself saw God. For the princes of this age are understood either as proud men elevated by the vain pomp of boastfulness or the devil himself and his angels. For the Lord most openly calls him the prince or magistrate of this age, because by the name of this age sinners are understood, whose hope is only in this world. For as it is said a bad house when the inhabitants are signified, so we say this bad age when we signify those who dwell in this age with their heart, that is, whose conversation is not in heaven. For ours, says the Apostle, is a conversation in heaven. But all sins serve the devil, who by free will wanted to be the prince of sin: therefore he is called the prince of this age. I advise you to impress this rule of understanding in your hearts. With this the Lord will aid in discussing and solving many of the Scriptures, from which they bait traps of their error.

A very brief response to their proposition.

Since it is not written that the devil saw God, but only that he came with the angels into the sight of the Lord and heard His voice, why do these wretched ones strive to calumniate the Scriptures on the vision of God and to pervert the ignorant? Therefore, this proposition of theirs is overcome by the shortest response. For however much they might seek to explain how the devil saw God, we answer: The devil did not see God. They will say: "Then how did he speak with Him?". Here indeed, their blindness of heart must be convicted, not by us, but by blind men. For those who are blind with carnal eyes can daily speak with those whom they cannot see. They ask: "Then how did he come into His presence?". In the same way a blind man is in the presence of one who sees, whom he himself does not see. And indeed, these comparisons, dearest brothers, are spoken so that the wickedness of carnal men may be refuted, so that if possible being thus repelled they might turn their pious hearts to the meekness of learning. For is God contained in a place, whom every angelic and human conscience has present, not only of the good but also of the evil? Yet this is the difference: to good consciences, He is present as a Father, to evil ones as a Judge, for it is written: The Lord examines the righteous and the wicked. Also, it is written: In the thoughts of the wicked is questioning. Nor does God question more vehemently in the ears of the body than in the secret of thought, where He alone hears, He alone is heard. Do not even wicked men, when they speak the truth and are not believed, swear and say: "God is my witness," and say it most truly? Where, I ask, is He a witness? In the tongue, or in the heart? In the sound of the voice, or in the silence of conscience? Why else do they often get angry because they are not believed when they know they speak the truth, except because they cannot open their heart to us where God is a witness?

Many are the ways in which God speaks.

There are many ways in which God speaks to us. He sometimes speaks through some instrument, such as through the codex of the divine Scriptures. He speaks through some element of the world, as He spoke to the Magi through a star. For what is speech, if not the signification of will? He speaks through lot, as He spoke when appointing Matthias to the place of Judas. He speaks through the human soul, as through the Prophet. He speaks through an angel, as we accept He spoke to some of the Patriarchs, Prophets, and Apostles. He speaks through some vocal and sounding creature, as we read and hold that voices were made from heaven, though none saw with their eyes. Finally, to man himself, not externally through his ears or eyes, but inwardly in the soul, God speaks in not just one way, but either in dreams, as He spoke to Laban the Syrian so that he would not harm his servant Jacob in any way, and to Pharaoh regarding the seven years of abundance and the same number of barren years. Or with the spirit of man taken up, which the Greeks call "ecstasy," as it was shown to Peter while praying that a vessel filled with symbols of the future gentiles was descended from heaven. Or in the mind itself, when one understands the Majesty or will, as Peter himself realized what the Lord wanted him to do through that very vision, by pondering it within himself. For none can recognize this unless a certain silent cry of truth sounds within them. God also speaks in the conscience of the good and the wicked. For no one can rightly approve what is done well or condemn what is sinful unless in the silence of the heart, a voice of truth either praises or rebukes. But truth is God: who, when speaking to humans in so many ways, both to the good and the bad—although not all to whom He speaks in such ways can perceive His substance and nature—who among men can, by supposing or pondering, gather in how many and which ways the same Truth speaks to angels, whether to the good who, contemplating and enjoying Him through wonderful love, delight in His ineffable form and beauty, or to the wicked who, corrupted by their pride and placed by Truth in lower realms, can hear His voice in certain hidden ways, though they are not worthy to see His face?

The devil was able to hear the voice of God speaking.

Wherefore, most beloved Brothers, faithful children of God and true-born sons of the catholic mother, let no one deceive you with poisoned foods, even if you still need to be nourished with milk. Now walk perseveringly by the faith of truth, so that at the certain and appropriate time you may be able to come to the vision of its Truth. For as the Apostle says: While we remain in the body, we are away from the Lord; for we walk by faith, not by sight. But the Christian faith leads to the vision of the Father. Hence the Lord says: No one comes to the Father except through me. Therefore, it is vain for these people to ask how the devil could come to God through Christ. For the devil cannot reach that happiness of contemplation, to which the Christian faith leads those who are pure in heart. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the devil could not hear the voice of God speaking, just as many men who did not believe in Christ could hear the voice of God speaking from heaven: I have both glorified it and will glorify it again, when the Lord had said: Father, glorify your Son.

What the sight of God is.

But that which is written, that the devil came into the presence of God, is not written because anyone can ever flee from the sight of God, to whose eyes all things are subjected, and to whom the depth of any heart is open, but because these events happened in the secrecy of creation, which the Scripture has narrated. Therefore, it is written: "And behold, the angels came into the presence of God," although they never depart from the sight of God. For wherever they are sent, there also is present the sight of God. But that is properly called the sight of God, which human sight cannot penetrate, such as the secrets of the conscience. Therefore, when we reproach a liar, we do not say he spoke in the sight of God, because he did not speak that which God sees in his mind, where human sight cannot direct itself. Because these things were conducted so secretly that they could not be indicated to men through the Holy Scriptures unless revealed by the Holy Spirit, it is narrated that they came into the presence of God and were conducted there.

The devil could hear the voice of God, but he could not see Him.

However, that the devil was in the midst of the angels, if you understand good angels, understand the devil in their midst as the accused stands in the midst of guards to be heard by the judge. For the scripture does not declare what kind of angels those were. But if it was in the midst of evil angels, what is surprising about the leader and guide being surrounded by the crowd of his servants? But if you accept that which is said in the sight of God, so that those come into the sight of God, who are not only seen by Him but also see Him, then it is to be understood that the devil was in their midst, but that nevertheless he did not see God whom they saw, so that God would have spoken to the devil through one of the holy angels. Yet it is not written in the book except: God said. Just as even in public matters, although the judge speaks many things through a herald, the judge's name is inserted when the records are written, but not the herald's. However, just as some man unworthy of prophetic vision can nevertheless stand in the midst of Prophets, so that he only hears what the Lord says through them, but does not see what they see, so could the devil be in the midst of the holy angels who see God, through whom he would hear the voice of God, whom he himself could not see.

The impudence of the Manichaeans.

And indeed you perceive that the machinations of the Manicheans, as far as this question is concerned, have been resolved in many ways, so that you no longer think, dearest Brothers, that the devil truly has spoken with God in such a way that he could have seen the face of truth, which pure hearts gaze upon, or that he could have come to that contemplation of blessedness to which no one is permitted to come except through the Lord Jesus Christ. However, I am greatly astonished at the impudence of these people who wish to accuse us regarding the vision of the divine substance, and they lie about what is not written in our Scriptures, claiming that the devil has seen God. They attempt to create so much envy from this that anyone who shudders and judges it unworthy that the devil has seen God may be turned away from the authority of the divine Scriptures by suspicious ignorance, not understanding what is written, while they themselves do not deny that our Lord Jesus Christ is God, and they falsely claim that He has appeared to men without the assumption of a human body.

Certain angels had real bodies.

When, therefore, the devil dared to tempt the Lord, when he saw him, what did he see? If he saw his body, therefore the Lord had a body, which the lost do not want to confess. But if he did not have a body, then the divine substance itself was subject to the eyes of the devil. Which only those who are pure in heart see, as they themselves commemorate to us from the Gospel, O impertinent blindness of heretics! Why do you falsely accuse our Scriptures, that the devil saw God, and by denying the body of Christ, you are convicted of wanting to reveal the divine substance of him to the eyes of the devil? Or perhaps, as they are accustomed to say, he did not have a human body, but yet showed himself as if he had one? Who then thinks more truly and rightly, you insane ones, who believe that God spoke with the devil, or who believe that God not only spoke with the devil but also lied to the devil? For Scripture remembers that certain angels appeared to human eyes. But surely the Lord subjected bodily creation to their power in such a way that he adapted it to them according to their will. Whence, although they were not born of a woman, they had a true body, which they converted from any form into any form according to the reason of their ministry and duty, yet from true into true. For not even the Lord himself, when he converted water into wine, can we say that the water was false or the wine was false.

Our Lord assumed a true body.

Therefore, every body, whose nature and order are changeable, according to the will of the most omnipotent Creator, whatever species it may have been changed into, still does not depart from its truth in its own kind, because with whatever variety it is changed, it does not cease to be a body and a true body. But since they [the heretics] imagine that all corporeal nature is not from the omnipotent Creator God, but from some sort of darkness, we ask them, from where did our Lord Jesus Christ assume a body? For if they say that he did not assume any body, what was that which appeared to human and bodily eyes? Either it was the lie of a phantom, which is execrable to believe; or if they contend that his own divine substance presented himself to human eyes without an assumption of a body, and even the devil saw this, then what of the proclamations in this contentious question: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”? But if they perhaps say that the divine and proper substance of the Lord is not such as it is with the Father, as he wished to show himself on earth by assuming no body, what else did they wretchedly believe but that it is changeable with respect to places and times? For they do not wish to read or easily understand what is said through the Prophet: “You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail.” And what is written of divine Wisdom in the letters of Wisdom concerning itself: “Remaining in itself, it renews all things.”

The Manichaeans worship the sun as if it were a god.

According to their sense, if anyone says to them: "Why do you marvel if God also changed the form of His divinity, so that he who is the devil with the most sordid heart could see Him, just as it appears to you about Christ God?" I do not know what they would respond. For they never dared to say that the Father and the Son are not of one substance. And if they were to say that the Son is of another substance, it could be replied to them: "From where then do you know whether the old Scripture mentions the devil speaking with the Father or with the Son?" Then we ask: "Does the devil see this sun, or does he not? If he sees, how then is the sun God, whom the devil sees? If he does not see, yet evil men see him, how then is God whom those see who are not pure of heart? Or if he too was changed so that he might be seen and is not what he appears to be, what if you then show one thing but are another, so you could imitate the sun not only worship it?" And yet if you ask them whether the divine substance is changeable or unchangeable, they cannot but say unchangeable, not taught by reason but confused by shame. Therefore, it remains that they are forced to confess that our Lord Jesus Christ took on a body from elsewhere so that He might appear to human eyes. And if they confess this, I ask from where He took it. If they say from this world, I ask from what part of the world is the body? Immediately they respond to me: "From the people of darkness." O wondrous madness! Why then, wretched ones, do you fear the womb of the Virgin in the body of the Savior but do not fear the people of demons?

The Lord preferred to take a body from a woman.

We indeed profess that the entire nature of the body comes from God the omnipotent Creator. And therefore, wherever our Lord assumed the body, He would take it from His creation. But He preferred from a woman. Truly, He came to liberate human creation, which had fallen through a woman. Hence, wishing to bring both sexes into hope of renewal and restoration, He chose the male sex from which He would be born, and the female sex through which He would be born. But you who shudder at the chaste womb of the virgin, choose, I pray you, from where the Lord should have assumed a body. You say that every body is the substance of the race of darkness. Therefore, as I said, choose from where the Son of God ought to assume a body. Or have you lost the light of response, because darkness meets you wherever you turn your eyes? "But," they say, "mortal flesh seems more impure.” Recite to them the Apostle: “All things are pure to the pure." And recite to them the Apostle: "To the impure and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and conscience are polluted." If, however, they do not say "more impure" but "weaker," we plainly agree. And therefore Christ is our strength, because He was not changed by our weakness. Here I recognize the voice of the Prophet: "You will change them, and they will be changed; but you are the same, and your years will not fail." Not only did the weakness of the flesh not change Him for the worse, but it was itself changed for the better by Him. This bodily sun, which they think not to be a body - to the point that those who falsely boast about spiritual discussions do not understand what a body is - this bodily sun, simply because it is a heavenly body, illuminates the earth and is not darkened by it; dries up water and is not wetted by it; dissolves ice, and is not chilled by it; hardens mud, and is not softened by it. And our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of the Father, through whom all things were made, the Power and Wisdom of God, present everywhere, hidden everywhere, whole everywhere, enclosed nowhere, reaching from end to end mightily and disposing all things sweetly, do the unfortunate fear that He could not assume a man in such a way as to give life to mortals and not be destroyed by them, to sanctify the flesh and not be polluted by it, to dissolve death and not be bound by it, to change man in Himself and not be changed into man? Compelled to dispute one thing from another, on account of some wavering and dangerous weakness of faith. But regarding the proposed question, although that Scripture, from which they preferred to plot rather than to be enlightened, does not prove that God was seen by the devil, still let them see how the race of darkness could have seen the divine substance, when before the battle which they say mixed good and evil, the divine substance had not yet assumed any body so as to be seen by its enemy. Therefore, let them recognize that they vainly wish to overthrow the foundations of the Catholic faith, when they cannot prop up their ruinous fables with any response strong enough to withstand.