Truly his will shall be fulfilled swiftly and suddenly, as the Scripture testifies. 1

[Jewish] proselytes have no need of a new covenant, since, as one and the same law binds all who are circumcised, Scripture speaks of them as follows: And the stranger also shall be joined to them and shall adhere to the house of Jacob.

According to Isaiah, in which lament is offered on behalf of the king of Babylon, much can be learned about the origin and beginning of evil. Evil derived its existence from some who had lost their wings by following the one who was first to lose his own wings.

We will show in what follows that these things are not said of someone else but of that tyrant, the one without shame, the enemy of God, as Isaiah says.

Because the Lord Jesus would destroy their staff, that is, their power to oppress, Isaiah said, How has the oppressor ceased and the tax ended? Was his oppressor’s staff destroyed? It befits Christians to be cautious, therefore, and it is right for the people of the Lord to be observant, lest oppressors who had once been repelled by divine grace should rouse themselves again to demand the kind of taxes which are paid with spiritual delinquency.

For greater ease of understanding we translated this phrase as follows: How you have fallen from heaven, Lucifer, who arose in the morning. But if we were to render a literal translation from the Hebrew, it would read, How you have fallen from heaven, howling son of the dawn. Lucifer is also signified with other words. And he who was formerly so glorious that he was compared to a bearer of lightning is now told that he must weep and mourn. Just as Lucifer scatters the darkness, it says, glowing and shining with a golden hue, so also your stepping forth to the peoples and the public seemed like a shining star. But you who spoke with arrogance, who wounded the nations, fell to the earth. I have obtained so great a power that heaven should stand still for me, and the stars above deserve to be thrown under my feet. Nevertheless, the Jews wanted to be understood as the heaven and stars of God, inasmuch as it continues, I will sit in the mount of the covenant, that is, in the temple where the laws of God are hidden, and on the sides of the north, that is, in Jerusalem. For it is written, Mount Zion, the sides of the north.^[1] Nor was his pride satisfied with desire for the heavens, but it would break forth with such madness that he would claim for himself likeness to God.

It is most clearly proved by these words that he who formerly was Lucifer and who arose in the morning has fallen from heaven. For if, as some suppose, he was a being of darkness, why is he said to have formerly been Lucifer or lightbearer? Or how could he rise in the morning who had in him no light at all? . . . So he was light once . . . when his glory was turned into dust.

How can we possibly suppose that what is said in many places by Scripture, especially in Isaiah, about Nebuchadnezzar is said about a human being? For no human being is said to have fallen from heaven or to have been Lucifer or the one who arose every morning.

The Word clearly demonstrates many things in this passage: the lunacy of that spirit, his fall from what was good to what was bad, and the result of his fall. Having pronounced many terrible threats against humanity he realized that they had the possibility of falling into evil by virtue of their own free will. Therefore he turned them from a good state to a bad one, leading the many souls by the lure of desire to every fashion of evil. There was no device he did not attempt. With the myths of the gods and impure stories he tempted his victims with the things they loved and the things that gave them pleasure. . . . Soon, according to the blessed apostle, they no longer pondered the works of God that still illumined the heavens.

Lucifer fell, Lucifer who used to rise at dawn; and he who was raised in a paradise of delight had the well-earned sentence passed upon him: Though you exalt yourself as the eagle, and though you set your nest among the stars, thence will I bring you down, says the Lord.^[1] For he had said in his heart, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will be like the Most High.

It was by a kind of strength that man offended, so as to require to be corrected by weakness: for it was by a certain pride that he offended; so as to require to be chastened by humility. All proud persons call themselves strong people. Therefore have many [others] come from the East and the West and have attained to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.^[1] Therefore, how was it that they so attained? Because they would not be strong. What is meant by would not be strong? They were afraid to presume of their own merits. They did not go about to establish their own righteousness, that they might submit themselves to the righteousness of God.^[2] . . . Behold! you are mortal; and you bear about you a body of flesh that is corrupting away: And you shall fall like one of the princes. You shall die like human beings^[3] and shall fall like the devil. What good does the remedial discipline of mortality do you? The devil is proud, as not having a mortal body, as being an angel. But as for you, who have received a mortal body, and to whom even this does no good, so as to humble you by so great weakness, you shall fall like one of the princes. This then is the first grace of God’s gift, to bring us to the confession of our infirmity, that whatever good we can do, whatever ability we have, we may be that in him; that he that glories, may glory in the Lord.^[4] When I am weak, he says, then am I strong.^[5]

For example, what is said in Isaiah, How he is fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning! and the other statements in that context that speak of the king of Babylon are of course to be understood of the devil. However, the statement that is made in the same place, He that sent orders to all nations is crushed on the earth, does not altogether fitly apply to the head himself.

Now Nebuchad-nezzar said, I will ascend to heaven and exalt my throne above the stars of God and sit in the lofty mountains that are in the borders of the north. Isaiah said concerning him: Because your heart has thus exalted you, therefore you shall be brought down to Sheol, and all that look upon you shall be astonished at you.

Read in the letter of James how much evil the tongue can cause. The tongue knows no middle way; either it is a great evil or a great good; a great good when it acknowledges that Christ is God, a great evil when it denies that Christ is God. Let no one, therefore, harbor the illusion and claim: I have not committed sin in act; if I sinned, I sinned with my tongue. What more monstrous sin is there than blasphemy against God? Yet it is the tongue that is sinning. Why did the devil fall? Because he committed theft? Because he committed murder? Because he committed adultery? These are certainly evils, but the devil did not fall because of any of these; he fell because of his tongue. What was it that he said? I will scale the heavens; above the stars I will set up my throne; I will be like the Most High! Monks surely, then, have no right to think they are safe and say: We are in the monastery, and so we do not commit serious offenses; I do not commit adultery; I do not steal; I am not a murderer; I am not guilty of parricide; and so of all the rest of the big vices. But the devilish sins are those of the tongue. It is outrageous to detract from my brother; I am killing my brother with my tongue, for, Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.^[1]

Listen to what Solomon says: Death and life are in the power of the tongue.^[2] In the power of the tongue, do you see how much evil there is in the tongue? It has power, for what does he say? In the power of the tongue.

How injurious to the servants of God can be the proud one who exalts himself against God and says, I will ascend into heaven and seat my throne above the stars of heaven; I will sit on the highest mountain above the tall mountains of the north; I will ascend above the clouds; and I will be like the Most High. It is no wonder, then, that the stubborn of spirit who will not yield to God is also able to oppress humanity. How will he preserve the confidence and faith of others who, through arrogant sacrilege and fantasy, promotes himself to equality with the omnipotent Lord? How does one who fails to liberate prisoners slander him who alone made void all the earth, caused kings to tremble, destroyed cities and laid waste the entire earth? We must be careful, therefore, that he not destroy the walls guarding our souls, or compromise our mind’s defenses or seat his throne above the stars. He seats his throne above the stars when he deceives the elect and when he oppresses the just, whose works shine like the stars in heaven.

When the Lord Jesus redeemed the human race through his obedience, he reformed justice. The serpent, however, introduced sin through his disobedience, a sin which we are now able to identify as pride, the author of which is the devil, whom the prophet portrayed as saying, I will seat my throne above the clouds and I will be like the Most High. Yet he who was so wicked that he would not honor the Lord our God taught his disciples to be even worse. Thus, whereas the devil exalted himself to the degree that he desired to be similar and equal to the Most High, his disciple is signified by the apostle who would become so indignant as to judge himself already similar and equal to God. For it is written, The man of iniquity and the son of perdition will be revealed, who opposes and extols himself above everything which is called god.^[1] He presumes that he is equal to the teacher, or, in this case, even superior. The Lord said to his disciples, You will do greater things than these,^[2] to indicate that whereas the serpent acquired more for himself than he gave to others, Christ would give his disciples more to accomplish than even he had done on earth, for he wanted to triumph in his disciples and to deceive the prince of the world.

The one says, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; the other, Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.^[1] The one says, I know not the Lord and will not let Israel go;^[2] the other, If I say that I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him and keep his commandments.^[3] The one says, My rivers are mine, and I made them;^[4] the other, I can do nothing of myself, but my Father who abides in me, he does the works.^[5] The one says, All the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them are mine, and to whomsoever I will, I give them;^[6] the other, Though he were rich, yet he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich.^[7] The one says, As eggs are gathered together which are left, so have I gathered all the earth, and there was none that moved the wing or opened the mouth, or made the least noise;^[8] the other, I am become like a solitary pelican; I watched and became as a sparrow alone upon the roof.^[9] The one says, I have dried up with the sole of my foot all the rivers shut up in banks;^[10] the other, Cannot I ask my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?^[11] If we look at the reason of our original fall and the foundations of our salvation, and [if we] consider by whom and in what way the latter were laid and the former originated, we may learn, either through the fall of the devil or through the example of Christ, how to avoid so terrible a death from pride.

And because he loved the words of ruin,^[1] with which he had said, I will ascend into heaven, and the deceitful tongue, with which he had said of himself, I will be like the Most High, and of Adam and Eve, You shall be as gods, therefore shall God destroy him forever and pluck him out and remove him from his dwelling place and his root out of the land of the living. Then the just, when they see his ruin, shall fear, and shall laugh at him and say (what may also be most justly aimed at those who trust that they can obtain the highest good without the protection and assistance of God): Behold the man that did not make God his helper but trusted in the abundance of his riches and prevailed in his vanity.^[2]

There were some who dared in the opinion of the multitude to immortalize themselves and, notwithstanding that the very sense of sight bore witness to their mortality, were ambitious to be called gods and were honored as such; to what a length of impiety would not many people have proceeded, if death had not gone on teaching all humanity the morality and corruptibility of our nature? Hear, for instance, what the prophet says of a barbarian king, when seized with this frenzy: I will exalt, he says, my throne above the stars of heaven; and I will be like unto the Most High.

He deemed it no robbery to be God’s equal, yet he emptied himself and took on the form of a slave.^[1] This was by no means robbery! Who was the robber, then? Adam. And the primordial robber? The being who seduced Adam. How, then, did the devil seize what did not belong to him? I will set my throne in the north; I shall be like the Most High, he said. He grabbed for himself something not given to him; that was robbery. The devil tried to usurp what had not been granted to him and thereby lost what he had been given. Then from the cup of his own pride he offered a drink to the humans he was trying to seduce, saying, Taste it, and you will be like gods.^[2] They too wanted to make a grab at divinity, and they lost their happiness. The devil robbed and paid for it; but Christ declares, I was discharging a debt, though I had committed no robbery.^[3]

As the Lord approached his passion, he testified, Now the prince of this world (that is, the devil) is coming, and he will find nothing in me (that means, he will find no justification for killing me). But so that the world may know that I am doing my Father’s will, rise, let us leave here.^[4] And he went out to his passion, to pay back where he had committed no robbery. What else does his statement mean—he will find nothing in me? He will find no fault. Had the devil found anything missing from his house? Let the devil pursue any robbers he may find; he will find nothing in me.

The devil regarded himself as great when he said, I will set my throne at the north, and I will be like the Most High. Even today proud people count themselves greater than all others. But no one can be truly called great except God alone, for nothing can be remotely compared with his power; he is subject to no change but continues always in the glory of his nature.

And again: I shall set my seat to the north, and I will be like the Most High. So he is rightly termed a calumniator, for while performing cruel deeds he always lays accusations against the devoted. Scripture elsewhere says of him, He shall humble the oppressor, and he shall continue with the sun.^[1] So they most justly ask that the humble be not betrayed to the proud, the ingenuous to the liar, the pious to the ungrateful, for the persons whom those persecutors cannot seduce they treat with more savage violence.

God’s warning is twofold, one directed toward the submissive and the other toward obstinate minds. As was said about the submissive: I will punish their crimes with a rod and their sins with a whip, but I will not remove my mercy from them or deceive them in my truth.^[1] But the wrath of God’s rebuke upon obstinate sinners is unbearable, as Isaiah testifies: The descendants of the evil will never be named. Prepare their sons to be killed for the iniquity of their fathers. They will not rise, or inherit the earth or fill the face of the world with children. ‘And I will rise against them,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘and I will destroy the name of Babylon and its seed and offspring,’ said the Lord.

For their part they plotted to hand him [Joseph] over to death, distress, slavery and the worst of evil fates; but God who is skillful in devising good used the wickedness of the plotters for the credit of him whom they had plotted to sell. Lest anyone think that these things happened through some coincidence or reversal of circumstances, by the very men who opposed and hindered them God brings about the events that they tried to prevent, using Joseph’s enemies as servants for his credit. From this you may learn that what God has planned no one will scatter, and no one will turn aside his lofty hand, so that when people plot against you, you may not fall or be annoyed but may keep in mind that the plot leads to good at the end, if only you endure nobly whatever happens to you.

What God has reared up and wishes to remain, no one can tear down. In the same way, what he has destroyed and wishes to stay destroyed, no one can rebuild.

But because this Leviathan is called in another place not merely a serpent but also a flying serpent, because he rules over unclean spirits or reprobate people, as Isaiah says, Out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a flying serpent, we must attentively observe how a basilisk destroys, that by the doings of the basilisk, his malice may be more plainly made known to us. For a basilisk does not destroy with its bite but consumes with its breath. It often also infects the air with its breath and withers with the mere blast of its nostrils whatever it has touched, even when placed at a distance.