Chapter 10.—As
Christ is the Mediator of Life, So the Devil is the Mediator of
Death.
13. Therein is our true peace and
firm bond of union with our Creator, that we should be purified and
reconciled through the Mediator of life, as we had been polluted
and alienated, and so had departed from Him, through the mediator
of death. For as the devil through pride led man through pride to
death; so Christ through lowliness led back man through obedience
to life. Since, as the one fell through being lifted up, and cast
down [man] also who consented to him; so the other was raised up
through being abased, and lifted up [man] also who believed in Him.
For because the devil had not himself come thither whither he had
led the way (inasmuch as he bare indeed in his ungodliness the
death of the spirit, but had not undergone the death of the flesh,
because he had not assumed the covering of the flesh), he appeared
to man to be a mighty chief among the legions of devils, through
whom he exercises his reign of deceits; so puffing up man the more,
who is eager for power more than righteousness, through the pride
of elation, or through false philosophy; or else entangling him
through sacrilegious rites, in which, while casting down headlong
by deceit and illusion the minds of the more curious and prouder
sort, he holds him captive also to magical trickery; promising too
the cleansing of the soul, through those initiations which they
call
τελεταί
, by transforming himself into an angel of light,
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through
divers machinations in signs and prodigies of lying.
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2 Cor. xi. 14