The devil showed the same ignorance during the
time of Christ’s baptism inthe Jordan River.
After he heard the voice coming from the heavens,
“This is My beloved Son” (Mt. 3:17), he said to Christ,
“If you are the Son of God, throw Yourself down” (Mt. 4:6). If the devil had known that he was speaking to God, he would not have attempted to scare Him by ordering Him to fall down
[from the roof of the Temple]; because for God
there is no height or depth.
St. Mark the Evangelist relates that the demons
spokein this manner:
“What have we to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth?
” (Mk. 1:24).
He does not address Christ as the Creator of man but as a citizen of Nazareth. “Since you are a visible being,” says the devil, “you should act accordingly. We see a human, but we feel as if we are being expelled by God. The lashes we are receiving do not seem to be coming from an inhabitant of Nazareth but rather from someone who has descended from Heaven.
Reveal to us your nature through your works.”
“What have we to do with You, Jesus, Son of God?” (Mt. 8:29).
What are you saying, O devil?
You have the audacity to question,“You have
come now?”
Him Who created time and appointed the day of Judgment?
Alas! The devil is unaware that He Who has come is the eternal God, Who confirms His arrival in the form of a servant. He is unaware that the Lord and
God of all is wearing the [human] cloak, which he received from David.
The devil belittles Christ based on what he sees, but he is simultaneously invisibly thrashed by the power of Christ’s Divinity. This is why he rants using phrases containing both impudence and supplication.
“What have we to do with You, Jesus?
I implore You, do not torment me” (Mk. 5:7).
The demons suffer prior the Last Judgment because they are commanded to stop afflicting human beings:
“For He ordered the unclean spirit, ‘come out of the man’” (Mk. 5:8).
Furthermore, Christ the Master, desiring to
demonstrate to everyone present His incomprehensible Divine Providence for people even when they are immersed in terrible suffering, asks, “What is your name? And he [the demon] answered saying, ‘My name is Legion: for we are many’” (Mk. 5:9).
Christ did not ask because He was unaware of his name, but rather to reveal to us how many murderous demons had taken hold of the human body, and that, despite all this , they were never able to put him to death. A multitude of demons that launched an onslaught on a single person, with the intention of putting him to death, were incapable of vanquishing him.
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Many and various are the demons' plots against humans. However, the help God provides to humans is incomparably greater. Indeed! If God did not defend us with His divine protection, the entire human race would have ceased to exist a long time ago due to the demons' onslaughts.
Truly! When have the demons ever allowed an opportunity to pass without creating temptations for man? When did they ever pause preparing traps for human beings or planning calamities for us?
Of course, the devil is not evil by nature, but he chose to incline toward wickedness. The Creator had appointed him to rule over the air, as St. Paul,
the beholder of heavenly mysteries revealed to us:
“According to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience”(Eph. 2:2).
However, when he desired to rise above his
appointed position and when he subsequently
lost his honorary distinction and was displaced from his throne on account of his high-minded arrogance, he turned his malice toward human beings, in order to manifest his vengefulness toward the Creator. Since he was unable to strike back at God directly, he devised a different plan of attack: he decided to instruct God's creations to revolt against Him. Thus, as soon as the first man was created in the image of the Creator, the devil advised him to oppose God:
“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will become gods, knowing good and evil”(Gen. 3:5).
In following, when the human race began to multiply, he imparted thoughts of idolatry to man,
who became so darkened that he began to worship the creation instead of the Creator.
However, the demons were not content with deceiving humans in this way or even with receiving worship from them. They proceeded to harm and forcefully take up residence within
people.
Even so, God did not leave his creature helpless. He ceaselessly used various methods to heal man, and ultimately set in motion His wise plan of
Dispensation in Christ to trigger the downfall
of the demons.
This is clearly seen in the Gospel, where Christ censures the oppression of the demons and makes manifest God’s help to people.
“And when He stepped out on the land, there met Him a certain man from the city who had demons
for a long time. And he wore no clothes, nor did he live in a house, but in the tombs”(Lk. 8:27).
This is the hostility the demons have toward humans. They desire to destroy everyone, but
they are deeply distressed since they cannot harm
everyone.
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