Apologetics -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600; Celsus (Platonic philosopher), active 180; Theology -- History -- Early Church, ca. 30-600
Let us now look also to the New Testament, where Satan approaches the
Saviour, and tempts Him: wherein also it is stated that evil spirits and
unclean demons, which had taken possession of very many, were expelled
by the Saviour from the bodies of the sufferers, who are said also to be
made free by Him. Even Judas, too, when the devil had already put it in
his heart to betray Christ, afterwards received Satan wholly into him;
for it is written, that after the sop “Satan entered into him.”[615] And
the Apostle Paul teaches us that we ought not to give place to the
devil; but “put on,” he says, “the armour of God, that ye may be able to
resist the wiles of the devil:”[616] pointing out that the saints have
to “_wrestle_ not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places.”[617] Nay, he says that the
Saviour even was crucified by the princes of this world, who shall come
to nought,[618] whose wisdom also, he says, he does not speak. By all
this, therefore, holy Scripture teaches us that there are certain
invisible enemies that fight against us, and against whom it commands us
to arm ourselves. Whence, also, the more simple among the believers in
the Lord Christ are of opinion, that all the sins which men have
committed are caused by the persistent efforts of these opposing powers
exerted upon the minds of sinners, because in that invisible struggle
these powers are found to be superior [to man]. For if, for example,
there were no devil, no single human being[619] would go astray.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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