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🎧 Epistles of Ignatius
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Chapter 11: Continuation: Boldness of Satan.

IF: therefore, you are trampled under the feet of the Lord, how do you tempt Him who cannot be tempted, forgetting that commandment of the lawgiver, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God?” Yes, you even dare, most accursed one, to claim the works of God as your own, and to declare that the dominion over them was given to you. And you set forth your own fall as an example to the Lord and promise to give Him what is really His own if He would bow down and worship you.

And how do you not shudder, you spirit more wicked through your malevolence than all other wicked spirits, to speak such words against the Lord? Through your appetite, you were overcome, and through your vainglory, you were brought to dishonor: through avarice and ambition, you now lead others to ungodliness. You, O Belial, dragon, apostate, crooked serpent, rebel against God, outcast from Christ, alien from the Holy Spirit, exile from the ranks of the angels, reviler of the laws of God, enemy of all that is lawful, who rose up against the first-formed of men, and drove forth from obedience to the commandment of God those who had in no way injured you; you who raised up against Abel the murderous Cain; you who took arms against Job: do you say to the Lord, “If You will bow down and worship me?” Oh, what audacity! Oh, what madness! You runaway slave, you incorrigible slave, do you rebel against the good Lord? Do you say to so great a Lord, the God of all that either the mind or the senses can perceive, “If You will bow down and worship me?”

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