Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol I:
IGNATIUS: Chapter XI.—Continuation: audacity...

p. 119

Chapter XI.—Continuation: audacity of Satan.

If, therefore, thou art trodden down under the feet of the Lord, how dost thou tempt Him that cannot be tempted, forgetting that precept of the lawgiver, “Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God?” 1346 Yea, thou even darest, most accursed one, to appropriate the works of God to thyself, and to declare that the dominion over these was delivered to thee. 1347 And thou dost set forth thine own fall as an example to the Lord, and dost promise to give Him what is really His own, if He would fall down and worship thee. 1348 And how didst thou not shudder, O thou spirit more wicked through thy malevolence than all other wicked spirits, to utter such words against the Lord? Through thine appetite 1349 wast thou overcome, and through thy vainglory wast thou brought to dishonour: through avarice and ambition dost thou [now] draw on [others] to ungodliness. Thou, 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 didst rise up against the first-formed of men, and didst drive forth [from obedience to] the commandment [of God] those who had in no respect injured thee; thou who didst raise up against Abel the murderous Cain; thou who didst take arms against Job: dost thou say to the Lord, “If Thou wilt fall down and worship me?” Oh what audacity! Oh what madness! Thou runaway slave, thou incorrigible 1350 slave, dost thou rebel against the good Lord? Dost thou say to so great a Lord, the God of all that either the mind or the senses can perceive, “If Thou wilt fall down and worship me?”

Footnotes

Deut. vi. 16.

Luke iv. 6.

Matt. iv. 9.

Or, “belly.”

Or, “that always needs whipping.”