The City of God

assured of the eternity of their blessedness after the perdition of the others; unless, possibly, someone may say that the words of the Lord about the devil, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,”470 are to be understood as if he was not only a murderer from the beginning of the human race, when man, whom he could kill by his deceit, was made, but also that he did not abide in the truth from the time of his own creation, and was accordingly never blessed with the holy angels, but refused to submit to his Creator, and proudly exulted as if in a private lordship of his own, and was thus deceived and deceiving. For the dominion of the Almighty cannot be eluded; and he who will not piously submit himself to things as they are, proudly feigns, and mocks himself with a state of things that does not exist; so that what the blessed Apostle John says thus becomes intelligible: “The devil sinneth from the beginning,”471⁠—that is, from the time he was created he refused righteousness which none but a will piously subject to God can enjoy. Whoever adopts this opinion at least disagrees with those heretics the Manichees, and with any other pestilential sect that may suppose that the devil has derived from some adverse evil principle a nature proper to himself. These persons are so befooled by error, that, although they acknowledge with ourselves the authority of the gospels, they do not notice that the Lord did not say, “The devil was naturally a stranger to the truth,” but “The devil abode not in the truth,” by which He meant us to understand that he had fallen from the truth, in which, if he had abode, he would have become a partaker of it, and have remained in blessedness along with the holy angels.472

XIV

An explanation of what is said of the devil, that he did not abide in the truth, because the truth was not in him.

Moreover, as if we had been inquiring why the devil did not abide in the truth, our Lord subjoins the reason, saying, “because the truth is not in him.” Now, it would be in him had he abode in it. But the phraseology is unusual. For, as the words stand, “He abode not in the truth, because the truth is not in him,” it seems as if the truth’s not being in him were the cause of his not abiding in it; whereas his not abiding in the truth is rather the cause of its not being in him. The same form of speech is found in the psalm: “I have called upon Thee, for Thou hast heard me, O God,”473 where we should expect it to be said, Thou hast heard me, O God, for I have called upon Thee. But when he had said, “I have called,” then, as if someone were seeking proof of this, he demonstrates the effectual earnestness of his prayer by the effect of God’s hearing it; as if he had said, The proof that I have prayed is that Thou hast heard me.

XV

How we are to understand the words, “The devil sinneth from the beginning.”

As for what John says about the devil, “The devil sinneth from the beginning,”474 they475 who suppose it is meant hereby that the devil was made with a sinful nature, misunderstand it; for if sin be natural, it is not sin at all. And how do they answer the prophetic proofs⁠—either what Isaiah says when he represents the devil under the person of the king of Babylon, “How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!”476 or what Ezekiel says, “Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering,”477 where it is meant that he was some time without sin; for a little after it is still more explicitly said, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways?” And if these passages cannot well be otherwise interpreted, we must understand by this one also, “He abode not in the truth,” that he was once in the truth, but did not remain in it. And from this passage, “The devil sinneth from the beginning,” it is not to be supposed that he sinned from the beginning of his created existence, but from the beginning of his sin, when by his pride he had once commenced to sin. There is a passage, too, in the Book of Job, of which the devil is the subject: “This is the beginning of the creation of God, which He made to be a sport to His angels,”478 which agrees with the psalm, where it is said, “There is that dragon which Thou hast made to be a sport therein.”479 But these passages are not to lead us to suppose that the devil was originally created to be the sport of the angels, but that he was doomed to this punishment after his sin. His beginning, then, is the handiwork of God; for there is no nature, even among the least, and lowest, and last of the beasts, which was not the work of Him from whom has proceeded all measure, all form, all order, without which nothing can be planned or conceived. How much more, then, is this angelic nature, which surpasses in dignity all else that He has made, the handiwork of the Most High!

XVI

Of the ranks and differences of the creatures, estimated by their utility, or according to the natural gradations of being.

For, among those beings which exist, and which are not of God the Creator’s essence, those which have life are ranked above those which have none; those that have the power of generation, or