Scotus Academicus, Tomus septimus: De Incarnatione Verbi Divini

Note 1. That men after the sin of the first parent are truly held under the power of the devil, as Saint Bernard excellently proves against Abelard, epistle 190, chapter 5, where among other things he reports him as asserting,

that all our Doctors after the Apostles agree in this, that the devil had dominion and power over man, and possessed him by right, namely because man of his own free will, which he had, freely consented to the devil. For they say that if anyone conquers another, the conquered is by right constituted the slave of the victor. Therefore, he says, as the Doctors say, with this necessity was the Son of God made incarnate, that man, who otherwise could not be freed, might by the death of the Innocent be freed by right from the yoke of the devil. But as it seems to us, he says, neither did the devil ever have any right in man, perhaps God permitting it, as a jailer; nor did the Son of God assume flesh in order to free man.

To these Saint Bernard subjoins:

What in these words must be judged more intolerable — blasphemy or arrogance? What more damnable — temerity or impiety? Would it not be more just that a mouth speaking such things be beaten with clubs than refuted by arguments? Does he not deservedly provoke against himself the hands of all, whose hand is against all? All thus, he says; but not I thus. What then art thou? What better dost thou bring? What subtler dost thou find? What more secure dost thou boast has been revealed to thee, which has escaped so many saints and eluded so many wise men? I think this fellow will set before us stolen waters and bread eaten in secret.

Such are the words of Bernard, who after many things proves the Catholic dogma from that passage 2 Timothy 2: Lest ever God give them repentance to know the truth, and they recover themselves from the snares of the devil, by whom they are held captive at his will. To this testimony Bernard adds an excellent gloss in this manner: Thou hearest at his will, and dost thou deny his power? As if he said: those who are detained in prison by another at his will are also truly said to be under his power; for malefactors are not held in prison at the will of the keeper, but at the will of the judge and magistrate. The Lord also calls the devil the prince of this world, John 14: For the prince of this world cometh, and in me he hath not any thing. And Luke 22: This is your hour, and the power of darkness. He calls the power of the devil the power of darkness. Moreover Colossians 1: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness. But what sort of power the devil has over men after sin Bernard does not explain.

Note 2. That Catholic Doctors explain this power of the devil over sinful men variously. For some understand it thus, that men are said to have been delivered over to the demon on account of sin insofar as he punishes them at his will in hell: but that they were freed through Christ on this account, because He bore in Himself the punishments due to the sins of men, so that men, their sin now remitted through the grace of Christ, are not subject to eternal punishments. But this opinion does not seem to depart from the error of Abailard; for thus the devil would only be as it were a turnkey and keeper of a prison, nor would he have power over captive men at his own will; for as to the punishment which the damned undergo in hell, they do not suffer it so at his will that he could free them from it; nor does he detain them in prison at his will so that he could snatch them thence if he wished. Therefore, I judge it truer to say not only that sinful men are reduced under his power on this account, that he holds them shut up as it were in prison and inflicts punishments upon them, but also because through the sin of the first parent they lost not only habitual grace, whereby they would be born as it were in the form of the just, but also the grace of holy thought, whereby they would conquer sin: in this way, deprived of helps, they are subject to the temptations and molestations of demons; to which without doubt they would succumb unless they were strengthened by the grace of Christ to resist, and had strength. Which opinion Saint Augustine proves lib. 13. De Trinitate chapter 12 there, in these words: But the Apostle preaches this more openly to the Ephesians 2: And you, when you were dead in your offences, and sins, wherein sometime you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of this air, of the spirit that now worketh on the children of unbelief, in whom also we all conversed sometime in the desires of our flesh, fulfilling the will of the flesh, and of our own liking, and were by nature children of wrath, even as others: and a few words being interposed, he gathers in this way: Wherefore all men from the beginning are under the prince of the power of the air, who worketh in the children of unbelief: wherein Saint Augustine plainly teaches that men have been delivered over to the power of the prince of the air and of darkness in this, that he works in them the desires of the flesh and perverse affections.

The same Nazianzen indicates not obscurely in that oration 24, not far from the end, where he writes thus: For we were held by the devil, inasmuch as we had been sold under sin, and had exchanged vice for pleasure.

Note 3. That a twofold liberation can be distinguished; one indeed proper and strictly taken, the other improper and metaphorical. The former is that by which someone is snatched and freed from captivity by the payment of a price, agreed upon between the redeemer and him who holds the captive; after which manner all captives are ordinarily ransomed: but the other is that by which someone is led out from the yoke of captivity with no price paid. Thus Exodus 15: God is said to have redeemed the people of Israel from the captivity of Egypt: and Deuteronomy 13 Moses uses the same formula of speech to signify that liberty with which the Israelites were favoured when they were led forth with a strong hand and a stretched-out arm out of the land of Egypt. Socinus indeed concedes that Christ redeemed us by this latter kind of redemption, but not by the former: against which heretical dogma stands

First Conclusion. — CHRIST TRULY REDEEMED US FROM THE CAPTIVITY OF THE DEVIL BY HIS DEATH. This is determined in the Council of Trent, session 6: for after the Council showed in its first chapter the weakness of our nature contracted from Adam's sin, and taught that we were made servants of sin and of the devil, chapter 2 says that the advent of Christ was for the redemption of the human race. It is confirmed from the letter of Innocent II to the Archbishops of Sens and Reims, who together with their suffragans in the Council of Sens had condemned the errors of Abaelard; which condemnation the Pontiff himself approves and confirms in these words:

We who although unworthy are seen to sit in the chair of Blessed Peter, to whom it was said by the Lord: and thou, being once converted, confirm thy brethren: the council of our brother Bishops and Cardinals having been taken, have condemned by the authority of the SS. Canons the chapters destined to us by your discretion, and all the perverse dogmas of that Peter together with their author, and have imposed upon him as upon a heretic perpetual silence: we also judge that all the followers and defenders of his error are to be sequestered from the fellowship of the faithful and bound with the chain of excommunication. Given at the Lateran, the 17th of the Kalends of August.

Saint Bernard proves this truth against Abaelard: 1. from Sacred Scripture. For the holy Apostle, 1 to Timothy 1, says thus: For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus: who gave himself a redemption for all. And to the Corinthians 11: This chalice is the New

Testament in my blood, which shall be shed for you unto the remission of sins. And to the Ephesians 1: We have redemption through his blood, the remission of sins, according to the riches of his grace. To these Bernard subjoins, addressing Abaelard: Why, he says, through blood, when he could have done it through speech? To whom Saint Bernard answers: Ask Him Himself: it is permitted me to know that it is so: why it is so is not permitted: doth the clay say to him that fashioned it: why hast thou fashioned me thus? To these can be added that passage to Titus 2: Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity: and to the Hebrews 9: Christ being come an high priest of the good things to come... by his own blood entered once into the holies, having obtained eternal redemption.

He proves secondly, chapter 9, from the fact that the advent of Christ profited not only adults, but also little ones:

Therefore Christ came not only for the cause of instruction, but also of liberation. Will not, he says, the advent of Christ profit them at all — nothing, because they were made partakers of the likeness of his death through baptism; since as yet they cannot, their age preventing, taste or love Christ? Our redemption therefore, he says, is that supreme love in us through the passion of Christ: do little ones therefore have no redemption, because they have not that supreme love? Or just as they have not that whereby they may love, so neither that whereby they may perish, so that regeneration in Christ is not necessary for them, seeing that regeneration from Adam has done them no harm? If this savours with Pelagius, it is foolish. Whatever he may think of these things, it is plain how much he envies the sacrament of human salvation; how much he empties, so far as lies in him, the dispensation of the lofty mystery, because he attributes the whole of salvation to devotion, and nothing to regeneration: who places the glory of our redemption and the summit of salvation not in the power of the cross, not in the price of blood, but in the progress of our manner of life. But for me it were far be it to glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection. And indeed I behold three certain chief things in this work of our salvation: the form of humility, wherein God emptied himself; the measure of charity, which he extended even unto death, and the death of the cross; the sacrament of redemption, wherewith he took away that very death which he endured. The first two of these three without the last are such as if you painted upon emptiness. Truly great, and most necessary, is the example of humility; great, and worthy of all acceptance, the example of charity; but they have no foundation, and therefore no standing, if redemption be wanting.

ABAILARD HAD URGED AGAINST HIM, FOR THE MOST PART, in confirmation of his error, as Saint Bernard relates and refutes in chapter 8; for he said: how does the Apostle say that we are justified, or reconciled to God by the death of His Son, who ought to have been angered against man so much the more, by how much they offended more in crucifying his Son than in transgressing his first precept by the taste of a single fruit?

Saint Bernard answers, that in one and the same act there could both displease the iniquity of the malignant, and please the piety of him suffering.

ABAILARD PRESSED ON: But if that sin of Adam had been so great that it could not be expiated except by the death of Christ, what expiation will that very homicide itself have, which was committed in Christ? Saint Bernard answers, that it is undone by that very blood which they shed, by the intercession of Him whom they slew.

ABAILARD KEPT URGING: Did the death of the innocent Son please God the Father so greatly, that through Him He should be reconciled to us, who committed this sin by sinning, on account of which the innocent Lord was slain; nor would this become any less a great sin, though He could pardon that far lighter one?

Saint Bernard answers:

Not the death, but the will of him dying willingly pleased, expunging death by that death, working salvation, restoring innocence, triumphing over principality and power, spoiling the nether world, enriching those above, making peace as to the things that are in heaven, and the things that are on earth, renewing all things. And since so precious a death was to be voluntarily undertaken against sin, yet it could not come about except through sin — God being delighted indeed not at all, yet using well the wickedness of criminals — He condemned death by death, and sin out of sin. And the greater their iniquity, so much the more holy the will of this one, and the more powerful unto salvation; inasmuch as through so great an intervening power that ancient great sin of necessity yielded to this one, committed against Christ, as the lesser to the greater. Nor is this victory ascribed to sin or to sinners, but to Him who used sin well, who mightily terrified sinners, and turned into the use of piety whatever cruelty of the impious dared against Him. And truly the blood, which was shed, was so powerful unto forgiveness that it blotted out even that greatest sin itself, by which it was brought about that it was shed, and thereby left no doubt whatsoever concerning the blotting out of that former one as being the lighter.

HE STILL INSISTED: To whom does it not seem cruel and unjust, that anyone should demand the blood of an innocent man as some sort of price, or that the killing of an innocent should please him in any way — much less that God should have held the death of the Son so acceptable, that through it He was reconciled to the whole world? Ans. St. Bern.: God the Father did not require the blood of the Son, and yet He accepted it when offered, thirsting not for blood but for salvation, because salvation was in the blood. Salvation plainly, and not, as this fellow savours and writes, the extension of charity alone. For thus he concludes all his calumnies and invectives, which he vomited forth against God so impiously as unskilfully, as to say that the whole of what God appeared in the flesh accomplished was our instruction by the Word, and by His example; or, as he afterwards says, instruction; and that the whole of what He suffered and died was the showing forth, or commendation, of His charity toward us.

Such are the words of Saint Bernard.

Second Conclusion. — CHRIST REDEEMED US FROM THE CAPTIVITY OF THE DEVIL, AND FROM THE VENGEANCE OF GOD, BY A REDEMPTION PROPERLY SO CALLED.

This likewise is de fide against the impious and blasphemous dogma of the Socinians; and

Proof: To redeem someone properly is to free a captive from the hands of him who holds him, a price being paid to that one: but Christ freed us captives — that is, guilty of the wrath of God on account of sins, and enslaved to Satan — from the wrath of God and from the power of Satan by His death, as it were a true price paid for us; for (Socinus himself confessing) a price is called not money only, but whatever is paid so that he who holds captives may be satisfied: therefore Christ properly redeemed us. Socinus admits the major. The Scripture hands down and confirms the minor with all those texts of Scripture praised in the first Conclusion, to which may be added that

of Matthew 20: The Son of man is not come to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a redemption for many.

SOCINUS OBJECTS: In Sacred Scripture the word redeem is for the most part used only metaphorically, namely in the same sense as liberate or claim for oneself, even though no payment of a true price intervenes, as is clear from all those texts of Scripture, Exodus 15 v. 13, Deuteronomy 1 and 9 v. 26, 2 Kings 7 v. 23, Psalm 77 v. 16, wherein God is said to have redeemed the people from Egyptian servitude: there indeed redemption is taken only metaphorically, namely for liberation without any price paid: therefore all those texts of Scripture, whereby it is signified that Christ's death redeemed us, are to be understood in the same way.

The Anti-Socinian Author denies the consequence, and deservedly indeed; for it is not permitted to argue from particulars to every particular or universal. Add that between the corporal liberation of the Jewish people from Egypt and that spiritual one which was made through the death of Christ there is great dissimilarity; for that liberation of the Israelites could be effected by God's power alone, without any price paid, because that captivity was unjust: this could not be effected except by a price paid on account of the unchangeable justice and truth of God. On account of the truth, I say, because God had said to man: if thou sin, thou shalt die the death: therefore, that the truth of this divine oracle might be fulfilled, death had to intervene — either of the thing itself, or of another, who should deliver him from this sentence. Likewise on account of justice: both because Scripture testifies that it is God's right that those who sin be worthy of death, according to that passage to Romans 1: Who, when they had known the justice of God, understood not that they who do such things are worthy of death; and because, as Saint Bernard says, praised above, chapter 5, the devil had not only power over men, but just power, which he explains thus:

Moreover, he says, although we call it the just power of the devil, yet not also his will. Hence not the devil who invaded: not man who deserved: but the just Lord who exposed himself: for it is not from power but from will that anyone is called just or unjust. This right therefore of the devil over man, though not acquired by right but wickedly usurped, was yet justly permitted. And thus man was held justly, yet so that that justice was neither in man nor in the devil, but in God. Whence he concludes in the following chapter: justly therefore was man condemned, but also mercifully freed. Yet so mercifully, that a certain justice was not wanting in that very liberation: since this too belonged to the mercy of the Liberator, that it befitted the remedies of liberation rather to use justice against the invader than power. For what of himself could he effect, that man, once having lost his justice, should recover it, a servant of sin, conquered by the devil? There was assigned to him therefore another's, who lacked his own; and it is itself thus: the prince of this world came, and found nothing in the Saviour: and when nevertheless he laid violent hands on the innocent, he most justly held what he lost when He, who owed nothing to death, accepting the wrong of death, rightfully loosed him who was guilty both of the debt of death and of the dominion of the devil. For with what justice would that be exacted of man a second time? Of man indeed, who did not owe: of man, who has paid. For, if one, says the Apostle, died for all, then all were dead: that evidently the satisfaction of one may be imputed to all, just as that one bore the sins of all: nor let another be found who has done all, another who has satisfied: nay rather head and body are one Christ. Therefore the head satisfied for the members, Christ for his own bowels; and when according to the Gospel of Paul, whereby the lie of Peter (Abailard) is convicted, he died for us and vivified us together with himself, forgiving us all offences, blotting out the handwriting of the decree that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he took the same out of the way, fastening it to the cross, despoiling principalities and powers.

Such are the words of Saint Bernard. To these add, that the spiritual redemption wrought through Christ is so described that all things required for a proper redemption concur in it. Indeed, with Socinus himself confessing, in a true redemption there is first required a captive, which is the human race. Then, one holding the captive, which is at once the wrath and justice of God, and the devil. There is required moreover a Redeemer, which is Christ. Lastly, a price is desired, which is the death and blood of Christ. Therefore however much the word I redeem in other texts of Scripture is taken improperly and metaphorically of simple liberation, it is necessary to understand it properly when it explains Christ's redemption.

OBJECTS 2. Holy Stephen, Acts 7, calls Moses a redeemer: but he redeemed with no price given: therefore thus also Christ. Confirmation: the antitype ought to be conformable to its type: but Moses and the liberation effected through him were a type of Christ and of salvation gained through him: therefore as Moses redeemed the Israelites with no price paid, so also must Christ be said to have redeemed us. Moreover, Zachary in the canticle Luke 1 compares the redemption wrought through Christ with that wrought through Moses; for he says: He hath wrought redemption of his people, which words exactly answer those of Psalm 111: He hath sent redemption to his people, where the speech is about the Egyptian liberation: therefore the redemption wrought through Christ is only liberation without price, like the liberation wrought through Moses.

I answer to the argument, denying the consequence, since from a particular there is no consequence. Add that there is dissimilarity between both redemptions, of Moses and of Christ. For Moses was redeemer only from Pharaonic tyranny, for the execution of which authority and divine power alone were needed: but Christ redeemed us from the wrath of God, Romans 5:9, and from the power of darkness, of the devil, and of death, Colossians 1 v. 13, Hebrews 2 vv. 14-15; and that through His own blood, the Apostle witnessing there: In whom we have redemption through his blood.

To the first confirmation I say, that the reason ought not be the same between type and antitype; for although they agree analogically in many things, nevertheless they must differ in very many. Christ and Moses indeed agree in that each was mediator, each redeemer; but they differ in respect of person, office, and deeds, since Moses was mere man, and a servant of God; Christ man, and Son of God: Moses a typical and temporal mediator of the Old Testament; Christ the mediator signified and eternal, of both Old and New Testament, especially of the New on account of the apparition and consummation of redemption in the New: Moses a liberator from Egypt; Christ a redeemer from the wrath of God, malediction, sin, death: Moses a redeemer without death and his own blood: Christ a redeemer through His own death and blood: Moses the bestower of the promised land; Christ of the inheritance and of life eternal. Far different therefore is the redemption of Moses and of Christ.

To the second confirmation I deny the antecedent: whether or not

Zachary looked to the passage of the Psalm and to the type of the Egyptian liberation, he preaches the redemption wrought through Christ to be none other than that which the SS. Apostols declare to have been accomplished through His blood and death; which sort was in no wise the liberation through Moses.

OBJECTS 3. A redemption properly so called ought to be made by him who holds the captive: but Christ redeemed us not from a captivator, or holder of captives: therefore His redemption is not properly so called. He proves the minor first, because Titus 2 v. 11 we are said to be redeemed from our iniquities through Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity; and 1 Peter 1 v. 18 the faithful are said to be redeemed from the vain conversation of the paternal tradition; and 1 Thessalonians we are said to be delivered from wrath, that is, from the punishment due to the impious: but these redemptions are not proper liberations from captivity: therefore we are said to be redeemed through Christ not properly, but only improperly.

I answer first, that the major can be denied: for redemption properly so called is said to be made not only by him who principally holds captives, but also by him who does so less principally; likewise from the captivity itself and all its adjuncts, namely from the prison, from chains, and from the squalor of the prison, from servitude and hostile tyranny, from bonds, from torture, from fear of death, finally from death itself, which often awaits captives unless redemption be made: but Scripture testifies we have been redeemed from all these through Christ. For what was our captivity, except alienation and rejection from God on account of sin, and enslavement under the power of the demon? Christ redeemed us from this by His death, by meriting reconciliation with God for us: For if, says the Apostle to Romans 5, when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled shall we be saved by his life. The filth of the prison and the snares wherewith the devil held us captive — what were they but our sins, iniquities, and vain conversation, from which Christ freed us? Finally, from servitude, tyranny, and the fear of our enemies — the devil, hell, and death — we are said to be delivered through the death of Christ, Hebrews 2.

I answer secondly by denying the minor: for it is false that we were not held as captives by iniquities, by our vain conversation, and by the wrath of God, or indignation on account of sins: since the wrath of God signifies not only punishment and penalty, but also God's very indignation: but we were truly held captive by all these: for captives are detained not only by a judge, or by a lictor or torturer; but also by the prison, by bonds, by the indignation and sentence of the judge. But of all these, as was said just above, we were subject. Hence Hebrews 2 v. 15 we are said to be delivered through Christ from the fear of death: and Osee 13 v. 14 from death itself: and Romans 5 from the wrath of God, that is, from avenging justice: yet we are not said to be redeemed from God, because through redemption we ought not to have been snatched away from God as from an evil, but reconciled to Him as to the highest good, from whom we had been alienated through sin: but we are said to be delivered from His avenging justice, which Romans 1 v. 18 according to the Greek edition is called the wrath of God: which is certainly confirmed, because Galatians 3 v. 13 it is said that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: therefore He redeemed us also from the avenging justice of God: for what else is the execration of the law than the sentence of damnation justly pronounced by God in the law against sinners?

SOCINUS PRESSES ON: The execration of the law does not signify the justice of God, to whom satisfaction was to be made, but the penalty of execration enacted by the law; from which penalty we have been redeemed: but we are not redeemed from that penalty through true redemption, because it would be ridiculous to say that a price for that penalty has been paid, but we are only said to be redeemed from it because we have been exempted from it: therefore, etc.

I answer, that the execration of the law is taken in two ways, namely actively and passively. And indeed passively it signifies the penalty of execration enacted by the law, as Socinus wishes; but actively it is the voice, or sentence, of the law condemning with execration, or the law itself execrating sinners. But what is the voice of the law except the voice of God? And the law execrating, except God execrating, that is, except God angry? And the wrath of God, except justice? Therefore the execration of the law actively signifies the justice of God. Although indeed the Apostle asserts that we have been redeemed from both execrations, both active and passive, through Christ; nevertheless he speaks first of the execration of the law as it is the sentence of the law, or the voice of God execrating; secondarily indeed, as it is the penalty of execration. For there, verse 10, he says: For whosoever are of the works of the law are under a curse: for it is written: Cursed is every one that abideth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them: therefore Socinus contends falsely and unskilfully that the Apostle, by the execration of the law, signifies not the justice of God, from which we are said to be redeemed, but only the penalty of sin.

OBJECTS 4. In a true redemption all these conditions concur: 1. there is some captive: 2. there is some one holding the captive: 3. there is one ransoming the captive from the holder: finally, there is a price, which is paid over to the holder. In the redemption of Christ not all these conditions concur: there is indeed a captive, namely the human race: there is a holder, namely sin, the devil, the world, and what follows upon sin, the guilt of eternal death: there is a ransomer, God, or Christ, through whom God effected our liberation: and there is also a price, Christ Himself, or the life of Christ: but the last condition is wanting, that the price is not paid over to the holder, namely to sin, the devil, etc. Therefore it is not a true redemption.

Or more briefly: in a true redemption the price is received by him who holds the captive: in the redemption of Christ the devil did not receive the price: therefore it answers not at all to a true redemption.

The Anti-Socinian answers, that even if the conclusion were granted — that spiritual and eternal redemption does not exactly answer to all the conditions of external corporal redemption — nevertheless the blasphemy of the ignorant heretic would not stand: seeing that the captivity of spirit and of body, and thus also their redemption, must needs differ in many respects, as we said above. Therefore the major, although it may be true concerning external redemption, can nevertheless be denied concerning spiritual. But whatever may be said of the major, we deny the minor as false in many ways. First, it is false that he who holds us captive — whether alone or chiefly — is the devil, sin, the world, death; for He who first thrust down sinners and holds them in the prison of damnation by His own right is God Himself: but those things which the heretic names hold us not first but secondarily, nor by their own right but by another's — that is, God's — the devil indeed as lictor and apparitor of the judge God, sin as snares, the world as death, as prison tortures. That however we are captives of God first and by right is proved by arguments and testimonies of Scripture.

By arguments indeed: first, because God, Monarch and Judge of all, alone has power to cast body and soul into hell.

Secondly, we are guilty of injury to the divine majesty through sin: To thee only have I sinned: therefore we have been cast off by the divine majesty. Thirdly, we are by nature children of the wrath of God: the wrath of God is revealed from heaven: the wrath of God abideth over unbelievers: therefore we expiate the wrath of God as Judge. Fourthly, we ask not of Satan, but of God, that sins be forgiven us, that is, that the bonds of eternal damnation be loosed: therefore we are bound constrained first not by Satan only, but by God as judge. This very thing also the Scriptural testimonies confirm; for Romans 11: God hath concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy on all. Likewise 2 Peter 2: It is God who spared not the angels that sinned, but dragged them down by infernal ropes into tartarus, delivered over to be tormented. How much more men sinning did He deliver over to the power of Satan as of a torturer? The same the parable confirms of the angry king delivering the wicked servant to the torturer. Matthew 18 and 1. For that king is God: and Christ Matthew 25, commanding fraternal forgiveness while we are on the way, lest the judge deliver us to the apparitor, and we be cast into prison. From which it is plain that we are captives through sin by the ordination of God, as of an offended King and judge, first, and by the right of supreme power; but of Satan and sin secondarily, as of a torturer, or of the bonds wherewith God has handed us over by just judgment. Those passages of Scripture indeed which attribute power to Satan over us, 2 Timothy 2:26, Colossians 1:13, etc., speak only of secondary power, which demons have received from God as judge over sinful men, as tyrants; of which Christ says: Thou shouldst not have any power against me, unless it were given thee from above. For God is He who alone hath power over all plagues, Apocalypse 16:9, without whose nod Satan can neither invade then, Matthew 8:31. Blaspheming therefore, the heretic errs, transferring the supreme right of God to the devil.