The Seeds of Sin

We must now take note, in keeping with what Scripture says, of how the opposing powers — or the devil himself — struggle against the human race, urging people on and driving them into sin. First, in the book of Genesis, the serpent is described as having led Eve astray. About that serpent there is a passage in the work called The Ascension of Moses, a short book that the apostle Jude mentions in his letter: there the archangel Michael, arguing with the devil about the body of Moses, says that the serpent was moved by the devil and so was the cause of Adam and Eve’s transgression. [a]

Some also make a question of this: who was the angel who spoke from heaven to Abraham and said, “Now I know that you fear God, and for my sake you have not spared your beloved son, the one you loved”? He is plainly described as an angel, and it is he who says that he now knows Abraham fears God and has not spared his beloved son, just as Scripture states — and yet he did not say that Abraham had done this on God’s account, but on his own, that is, on the account of the one speaking. We must also work out who it is that the book of Exodus says wanted to kill Moses as he was setting out for Egypt; and after that, who the one is who is called the destroying angel; and who the one in the book of Leviticus is who is called Apopompaios, that is, the Averter, about whom Scripture says, “One lot for the Lord, and one lot for Apopompaios, that is, for the Averter.”

In the first book of Kingdoms, too, an evil spirit is said to choke Saul; and in the third book the prophet Micaiah says: “I saw the Lord of Israel sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him, on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, ‘Who will deceive Ahab king of Israel, so that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this, and another said that. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will deceive him.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You will deceive him, and you will succeed as well; go out and do it quickly.’ And now, therefore, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all your prophets: the Lord has spoken evil concerning you.” This last quotation shows clearly that a certain spirit, of his own will and choice, chose to deceive Ahab and to work a lie, so that the Lord might lead the king astray to his death — for he deserved to suffer it.

In the first book of Chronicles it is also said, “The devil, Satan, stood up against Israel and provoked David to number the people.” In the Psalms, moreover, an evil angel is said to wear certain people down. In the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon says, “If the spirit of the ruler rises up against you, do not leave your place, for soundness will hold back many transgressions.” In Zechariah we read that the devil stood at Joshua’s right hand and opposed him. Isaiah says that the sword of the Lord rises against the dragon, the crooked serpent. And what shall I say of Ezekiel, who in his second vision prophesies quite unmistakably to the prince of Tyre about an opposing power, and who says as well that the dragon lives in the rivers of Egypt? Indeed, what else is the whole book written about Job taken up with, if not the doings of the devil — who asks that power be given him over everything Job owns, and over his sons, and even over Job’s own body? And yet the devil is defeated by Job’s endurance. In that book the Lord, by his answers, has passed on a great deal about the power of the dragon that opposes us. Such, then, are the statements made in the Old Testament, so far as we can call them to mind at present, about hostile powers — powers either named in Scripture or said to oppose the human race and afterward to be punished.

Now let us look at the New Testament as well, where Satan comes to the Savior and tempts him, and where it is stated that evil spirits and unclean demons had taken possession of a great many people and were driven by the Savior out of the bodies of those who suffered under them, who are said to have been set free by him. Judas, too: once the devil had already put it into his heart to betray Christ, he afterward received Satan into himself entirely, for it is written that after the piece of bread “Satan entered into him.” And the apostle Paul teaches us that we ought not to give the devil room, but “put on,” he says, “the armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the devil’s tricks” — pointing out that the saints have to “wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in the high places.” He says, further, that the Savior himself was crucified by the rulers of this world, who are coming to nothing, and whose wisdom, he says, he does not speak.

By all of this, then, holy Scripture teaches us that there are invisible enemies fighting against us, and that we are commanded to arm ourselves against them. And this is why the simpler believers in the Lord Christ hold the opinion that every sin people commit is caused by the constant pressure of these opposing powers upon the minds of sinners, since in that invisible struggle the powers turn out to be the stronger. For if, say, there were no devil, then no human being at all would go astray.

We, however, who see the reason of the thing more clearly, do not hold that opinion, because we take into account the sins that plainly arise as a necessary result of the way our bodies are made. Are we really to suppose that the devil is the cause of our feeling hunger or thirst? Nobody, I think, will risk claiming that. And if he is not the cause of our feeling hunger and thirst, what is different about the point at which a person reaches the age of puberty and that time of life stirs up the promptings of the natural heat? It must follow that, just as the devil is not the cause of our hunger and thirst, so neither is he the cause of the appetite that naturally arises at maturity, that is, the desire for sexual intercourse. And it is certain that this cause is not always set in motion by the devil in such a way that we would have to suppose bodies would have no desire for intercourse of that kind if the devil did not exist. [m]

Let us consider, next, this. If, as we have already shown, human beings want food not from a suggestion of the devil but by a kind of natural instinct, then, supposing there were no devil, would human experience be capable of such restraint in eating as never to go past the proper limits — so that no one would either eat other than the case required, or more than reason allowed, and people, keeping due measure and moderation in the matter of eating, would never go wrong? I do not think, in fact, that people could keep such great moderation, even with no prompting from the devil to push them on, without some individual going beyond due limits and restraint in eating, until he had learned not to by long habit and experience. What, then, is the state of the case? In eating and drinking it was possible for us to go wrong even without any prompting from the devil, if we happened to be less temperate or less careful than we ought to be. Are we to suppose, then, that in our appetite for sexual intercourse, or in the restraining of our natural desires, our condition is not something similar? I am of the opinion, in fact, that the same line of reasoning must be understood to apply to the other natural movements as well: greed, or anger, or grief, or generally all those that through the fault of intemperance go beyond the natural bounds of moderation.

There are, therefore, plain reasons for holding this: that as in good things a person’s own resolve is by itself too weak to accomplish any good — for it is by God’s help that it is brought to completion in everything — so also in things of the opposite kind we receive certain first elements, and, so to speak, seeds of sins, from the very things we use in accordance with nature. But when we have indulged them beyond what is proper, and have not resisted the first movements toward intemperance, then the hostile power seizes the occasion of this first transgression, urges us on and presses us hard in every way, trying to spread our sins over a wider field, and supplying us human beings with occasions and beginnings of sins, which these hostile powers spread far and wide and, if they can, past every limit.

So when people at first want money a little, greed begins to grow as the passion grows, and at last the fall into avarice takes place. And after this, once blindness of mind has followed the passion, and the hostile powers by their suggestions drive the mind on, money is no longer merely wanted: it is stolen, and got by force, or even by the shedding of human blood. Finally, there is a piece of confirming evidence that vices on such a scale come from demons, and it is easy to see. Those who are crushed either by uncontrolled love, or by anger they cannot govern, or by excessive grief, suffer no less than those who are physically tormented by devils. For it is recorded in certain histories that some have gone mad from a state of love, others from a state of anger, quite a few from a state of grief, and even from a state of excessive joy. This comes about, I think, because those opposing powers, that is, those demons, having found a lodging in minds already laid open to them by intemperance, have taken complete possession of their senses — especially where no feeling for the glory of virtue has roused them to resist.

That there are, however, certain sins which do not come from the opposing powers, but take their beginning from the natural movements of the body, the apostle Paul plainly declares in this passage: “The flesh has cravings against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are opposed to one another, so that you cannot do the things that you want.” If, then, the flesh has cravings against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, we sometimes have to wrestle against flesh and blood — that is, as being human, walking according to the flesh, and not capable of being tempted by anything greater than human temptations. For it is said of us: “No temptation has taken hold of you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able to bear.” [p]

For just as the presidents of the public games do not let the competitors into the ring at random or by chance, but only after a careful examination, matching this one with that by an entirely fair weighing of size or age — boys, for instance, with boys, and men with men who are close to them in age or strength — so also we must understand how God’s providence goes about it. On entirely fair principles it arranges all who go down into the struggles of this human life, according to the nature of each one’s own power, which is known only to him who alone sees the hearts of people. So one person fights against one temptation of the flesh, another against a second; one is exposed to its influence for such a length of time, another only for such; one is tempted by the flesh to this or that indulgence, another to one of a different kind; one has to resist this or that hostile power, another has to fight two or three at once; or at one time this hostile influence, at another that; at one particular date having to resist one enemy, and at another a different one; after certain acts being exposed to one set of enemies, and after others to a second.

And notice whether something of this sort is not indicated by the apostle’s words, “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you are able” — that is, each one is tempted in proportion to the amount of his strength, or of his power to resist. Now although we have said that it is by the just judgment of God that everyone is tempted according to the amount of his strength, we are not on that account to suppose that the one who is tempted must by all means come off the winner in the struggle — any more than a man who fights in the ring, though he is matched with his opponent on a fair principle of arrangement, will necessarily turn out the conqueror. But unless the powers of the two combatants are equal, the victor’s prize will not be justly won, nor will blame justly fall on the one who is beaten; for he does allow us to be tempted, but not “beyond what we are able.” It is in proportion to our strength that we are tempted. And it is not written that in temptation he will also make a way out so that we should bear it, but a way out so that we should be able to bear it.

But it depends on us whether we use this power he has given us with energy or feebly. For there is no doubt that under every temptation we have a power of endurance, if we make proper use of the strength that is granted us. But possessing the power to conquer is not the same thing as being victorious, as the apostle himself has shown in very careful language when he says, “God will make a way out, so that you may be able to bear it” — not, so that you will bear it. For many do not sustain temptation, but are overcome by it. Now God enables us not to sustain temptation — otherwise there would seem to be no struggle at all — but to have the power of sustaining it.

But this power that is given us to enable us to conquer may be used, according to our freedom of choice, either diligently, and then we come off winners, or lazily, and then we are beaten. For if such a power were given us in full, so that we must by all means come off winners and never be beaten, what reason for a struggle would be left to a man who cannot be overcome? Or what merit is there in a victory where the power of fighting back and winning has been taken away? But if the possibility of conquering is given equally to all of us, and if it lies in our own power how we use that possibility, either diligently or lazily, then the one who is beaten will be justly blamed and the victor deservedly praised. Now from these points, which we have discussed as well as we could, it is, I think, clearly evident that there are certain transgressions we by no means commit under pressure from malignant powers, while there are others to which they urge us on by their prompting, toward excessive and immoderate indulgence. From which it follows that we have to inquire how those opposing powers produce these promptings within us.