A Liar and the Father of the Lie

But as for what troubled you about the devil, that “he is a liar, and his father,” as if the Lord seemed to declare that both he and his father were liars, it is quite ridiculous to imagine this even in passing. For, as we said a little while ago, spirit does not beget spirit, just as soul cannot procreate soul, though we do not doubt that the structure of the flesh is formed from man’s seed. The apostle clearly distinguishes, in the case of both substances, flesh and spirit, what should be credited to whom as its author. He says: “Moreover, we have had fathers of our flesh as instructors, and we respected them; shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live?” What could show more clearly than this distinction that he set down men as the fathers of our flesh, but always taught that God alone was the Father of souls? Yet even in the actual forming of this body, only a serving role must be credited to men, while the chief part of its formation belongs to God, the Creator of all. As David says: “Your hands have made me and fashioned me.” And the blessed Job: “Have you not milked me like milk and curdled me like cheese? You have put me together with bones and sinews.” And the Lord says to Jeremiah: “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” [a]

But Ecclesiastes very clearly and accurately sums up the nature of each substance and its beginning. He examines the source from which each arose and considers the end toward which each is heading, and he also rules on the parting of this body and soul. He speaks as follows: “Before the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” What could be said more plainly? He declares that the matter of the flesh, which he called dust because it springs from the seed of man and seems to be sown by his service, must return again to the earth, since it was taken from the earth. And he points out that the spirit, which is not begotten by intercourse between the sexes but belongs to God alone in a special way, returns to its Creator. This is also clearly implied in that breathing of God through which Adam first received his life. So from these passages we clearly infer that no one can be called the Father of spirits but God alone, who makes them out of nothing whenever he pleases, while men can only be called the fathers of our flesh.

So the devil too, since he was created a spirit, an angel, and good, had no one as his Father but God his Maker. But when he had become puffed up with pride and had said in his heart, “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High,” he became a liar and “did not stand in the truth.” He brought forth a lie out of his own storehouse of wickedness, and so became not only a liar but also the father of the lie itself. By that lie, when he promised man divinity and said, “You will be like gods,” he did not stand in the truth, but from the beginning became a murderer, both by bringing Adam into a state of mortality and by killing Abel by his brother’s hand, at his prompting.

But already the coming of dawn is bringing our discussion to a close. It has taken up nearly two whole nights, and our brief and simple words have brought the little boat of this conference out of the deep sea of questions into a safe harbor of silence. In that deep, the further the breath of the divine Spirit drives us in, the wider and more boundless the space that keeps opening up, reaching beyond the sight of our eyes. As Solomon says: “It will become much further from us than it was, and a great depth; who will find it out?” So let us pray the Lord that both his fear and his love, which cannot fail, may remain steadfast in us, make us wise in all things, and always keep us unharmed from the darts of the devil. For with these guards it is impossible for anyone to fall into the snares of death. But there is this difference between the perfect and the imperfect. In the perfect, love is steadfast and, so to speak, riper, and it lasts more surely, and so makes them persevere in holiness more steadily and more easily. In the imperfect its hold is weaker and it grows cold more easily, and so it quickly and more often lets them be caught in the snares of sin.

When we heard this, the words of this conference so fired us that as we left the old man’s cell we longed, with a keener eagerness of soul than when we first came, to carry out his teaching.