Christ’s Humility Against the Devil’s Pride

So God, the Creator and Healer of all, knowing that pride is the cause and fountainhead of evils, has taken care to heal opposites with opposites, so that what was ruined by pride might be restored by humility. [a]

The one says, “I will ascend into heaven”; the other, “My soul was brought low even to the ground.” The one says, “And I will be like the Most High”; the other, “Though he was in the form of God, he emptied himself and took the form of a servant, and humbled himself and became obedient to death.” The one says, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”; the other, “Learn from me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.” The one says, “I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go”; the other, “If I say that I do not know him, I will be a liar like you; but I know him and keep his commandments.” The one says, “My rivers are mine, and I made them”; the other, “I can do nothing of myself, but my Father who abides in me, he does the works.” The one says, “All the kingdoms of the world and their glory are mine, and I give them to whomever I wish”; the other, “Though he was rich, he became poor, so that we through his poverty might become rich.” The one says, “As eggs that are left are gathered, so I have gathered all the earth, and there was none that moved a wing or opened its mouth or made the least sound”; the other, “I have become like a solitary pelican; I kept watch and became like a sparrow alone on the roof.” The one says, “I have dried up with the sole of my foot all the rivers shut in by banks”; the other, “Can I not ask my Father, and he will at once give me more than twelve legions of angels?”

If we look at the reason for our original fall and at the foundations of our salvation, and consider by whom and in what way the one began and the other was laid, we may learn, either from the fall of the devil or from the example of Christ, how to avoid so terrible a death from pride.