Where the Devil’s Fall Began

The passage in Genesis shows that this was not the beginning of his fall and ruin. For it holds that before their deception he had already been branded with the disgrace of the name of serpent, where it says: “But the serpent was wiser,” or, as the Hebrew copies put it, “more cunning than all the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made.” You see, then, that he had fallen away from his angelic holiness even before he deceived the first man. So he not only deserved to be stamped with the disgrace of this title, but actually surpassed all the other beasts of the earth in the tricks of wickedness. For Holy Scripture would not have described a good angel by such a term, nor would it say of those who still remained in that state of bliss: “But the serpent was wiser than all the beasts of the earth.” This title could not possibly be applied, I will not say to Gabriel or Michael, but it would not even fit any good man. And so the title of serpent and the comparison with beasts most clearly suggest not the dignity of an angel but the infamy of an apostate. [a]

Finally, the occasion of the envy and seduction that led him to deceive man arose from the ground of his earlier fall. He saw that man, who had only lately been formed out of the dust of the ground, was to be called to that glory from which he remembered that he himself, while still one of the princes, had fallen. And so that first fall of his, which was due to pride and earned him the name of serpent, was followed by a second, due to envy. And because this second fall found him still possessing something upright, so that he could enjoy some exchange of conversation and counsel with man, by the Lord’s sentence he was quite rightly cast down to the lowest depth. So he would no longer walk erect as before, looking up on high, but would cling to the ground and creep along, be brought low upon his belly, and feed on the earthly food and works of sins. From then on he would openly declare his hidden hostility, and put between himself and man an enmity that is to our advantage and a discord that is to our profit, so that while men are on their guard against him as a dangerous enemy, he can no longer harm them by a deceptive show of friendship.