 |
| St. George and the Temple Idols |
...continued from part four.
9. The Undeniable Influence of Evil Spirits on People
After the fall of the evil spirits from Heaven to the sub-celestial or aerial realm (Eph. 2:2, 6:12), the world of the celestials became completely inaccessible to them, and therefore all their malicious attention is directed exclusively to the earth near them, in order to sow, grow and strengthen evil among people here. Evil, therefore, is the urgent need of the devil, who thinks of nothing but evil, desires nothing but evil, finds peace or pleasure in nothing but evil activity. The Kingdom of good, as the Kingdom of God, is hateful to him, and therefore he tries, through people or spirits subject to him, to put up barriers in every possible way to the spread of the concept of good; he tries to destroy the Kingdom of God on earth (2 Cor. 4:4). According to the Lord Himself, the devil is His enemy: for in the field where the Lord sowed wheat, the devil sowed tares (Matt. 13:24–25).
In his enmity towards God, the devil tore people away from Him even in Paradise, and it happened that “man,” as Gregory the Theologian says, “created for the glory of God, through the envy of the devil by the tasting of sin, to his misfortune, departed from God. Having removed people from God, the devil directed all his efforts to keeping people in his power, and for this he always tried to turn people’s hearts away from God. If people had a desire to return to God, then the devil in every way hindered these desires, thus keeping people in his power. In order to attract people under his power, the devil took advantage of their misdirected desire to find God and deceived them, according to his desire; leading them like blind men seeking a way, he scattered them along various rapids and cast them into the abyss of death and destruction.” This abyss, before the appearance of Christianity, was idolatry. "The pagans, when they offer sacrifices, offer them to demons, and not to God" (1 Cor. 10:20), writes the Holy Apostle Paul. The truth of these words of the Apostle Paul is confirmed by history.
In the story of the sufferings of the Holy Great Martyr George the Trophy-Bearer, it is said that after many the torments of Saint George, Emperor Diocletian, among other things, said to him: "If you wish to submit to me, all those torments that you have endured, I will atone for with many honors." The Saint said: "If you allow me, Emperor, let us go to the temple and look at the gods that you worship." The emperor joyfully went to the temple of Apollo with his entire retinue and people, taking Saint George with him. When they had entered the temple and prepared the sacrifice, the Saint, approaching the idol of Apollo and raising his hand to it, asked the lifeless, as if alive, "Is it you who want to accept a sacrifice from me as god?" Having said this, the Saint blessed the idol with the sign of the cross. The demon who lived in this idol answered: "No, I am not a god. There is only one God, Whom you preach, and we, from among the angels who serve Him, have become apostates and, possessed by envy, deceive people." The Saint again said to him: "How dare you remain here when I, the servant of truth, have come?" After these words, a certain mournful voice came from the idols, and then they all suddenly fell and broke.
Saint Athanasius the Great testifies that “demons misled the minds of people with various apparitions, dwelling in springs and rivers, trees or stones, and frightened ignorant mortals with phantoms.”
And about how demons treat the sacrifices brought to them, Saint John Chrysostom says in the "Homily On Babylas" (against Julian and the pagans). Having told the circumstances that gave rise to the construction of the temple of Apollo in Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, Chrysostom says that the devil, taking advantage of a fabulous tradition, placed a demon in the temple to deceive and destroy people. The demon, present in the idol, gave prophecies by which the errors of the pagans were supported. The relics of the Holy Martyr Babylas were transferred to Daphne, and the demon first fell silent, and then completely left the temple. "Such is the custom of demons," adds the Holy Father, "when people render them divine worship with the stench and smoke of blood, then they, like bloodthirsty and insatiable dogs, remain in those places for food and enjoyment. But when no one brings them such sacrifices, then they perish as if from hunger. As long as sacrifices are made, as long as vile mysteries are performed, until then the demons are present and have fun."
The devil deceives people through the magicians. The Apostle Paul calls the sorcerer Elymas “full of all deceit and all wickedness, a son of the devil, an enemy of all righteousness” (Acts 13:10). Taking the form of a bright angel for the sake of convenience in achieving his goals (2 Cor. 11:14), the devil excites ungodly thoughts and desires in people, as evidenced by the story in the Book of Acts about Ananias and Sapphira. “Why,” says Apostle Peter to Ananias, “have you allowed Satan to fill your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3)? The devil sometimes acts on the body, producing physical suffering in it. “There was given to me,” says the Apostle Paul, “a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted” (2 Cor. 12:7). On this basis, everything that is evil in the world, according to the teaching of the Holy Apostles, is the work of the devil. “Whoever commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning,” says the Holy Evangelist John (1 John 3:8), and the Holy Apostle Paul calls seduction onto the path of sin “seduction after Satan” (1 Tim. 5:15). The devil is credited with blinding all those who do not accept the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4); they appear to have fallen into the net of the devil, who has caught them at his will (2 Tim. 2:26). Holy Scripture calls those who do not love their brethren "children of the devil" (1 John 3:10). Even the circumstances that prevented the Apostle Paul from visiting Thessaloniki are recognized as having occurred under the influence of Satan (1 Thess. 2:18).
The Fathers and Teachers of the Church saw the cause of all the Church's misfortunes - external persecutions and internal heresies and schisms - in the machinations of Satan and his servants. Minucius Felix says: "I will turn to the very source of lies and error, from which all this darkness arose; I will try to penetrate deeper into it and show it more clearly. There are lying spirits who have lost their heavenly purity. These spirits have lost the purity of their nature, defiling themselves with vices, and to console themselves in misfortune - themselves already lost, do not cease to destroy others; themselves corrupted - try to spread a fatal error, and alienated from God - they strive to remove everyone from God, introducing false religions and all kinds of errors among people. These unclean spirits are demons; they inspire soothsayers who utter prophecies mixed with lies. They are deceived and deceive, sometimes not knowing the truth, sometimes knowing it but not revealing it, but obscuring it, so as not to destroy themselves. They turn people away from God and from Heaven, disturb human life, cause anxiety to everyone, secretly settling in the bodies of people; they produce diseases, bring fear to the minds." Saint Irenaeus says: "Satan made man ungrateful to his Creator, darkened the love that man has for God, and blinded his mind, so that he would think unworthily of God, comparing himself and placing himself on an equal footing with God."
Let us also cite the characteristic words of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria about the influence that the devil has on people. “Our adversary the devil, envious of the great blessings that we are to receive, walks around us and watches carefully in order to steal away the seeds of the Word that are in us. For this reason, the Lord, impressing His commandments on us with a warning, says: 'Take heed that you be not deceived, for many will come in My name, saying, I Am He; and The Time Is At Hand. Go not therefore out after them' (Luke 21:8). Without a doubt, something great is granted to us by the Word: we are granted to avoid the deception that could be produced by the outward appearance of objects... If the great demon... immediately revealed himself, then everyone would drive him away like a serpent, like a dragon seeking to devour whomever he can. For this reason he hides himself... in order to deceive people with a false appearance and to chain the deceived ones. As someone who wants to enslave other people's children, in the absence of their parents, assumes the likeness of these parents. By means of this trick, having deceived the sons who are burning with love for their parents, he leads them far away and destroys the unfortunate ones: likewise the impious demon... does not dare to show himself to anyone as he is; knowing how much people love the truth, he takes on the mask of truth." These words of the Holy Father speak not only of the undeniable influence of the devil on people, but also of the cunning with which the spirit of malice pours out poison into his followers.
The influence of evil spirits on people is also evidenced by the experience of those who monitor their spiritual life. Here is what Father John of Kronstadt writes: “A person is sometimes too irritable and angry, not by himself, but with the most zealous assistance of the devil. Just watch yourself or others during irritability and anger, when you or someone else would like to destroy a person who is hostile to you, truly or imaginarily; compare the calm, meekness and kindness of your character or the person you observed that follows (sometimes soon after, through the action of the Guardian Angel) with the opposite state that just passed, and you will say to yourself: 'No, this, it seems, is not at all the person who was angry and furious recently before this, this is a person from whom the demons have come out.' There is not a shadow of the former anger and former senselessness in him. Some reject the existence of evil spirits: such phenomena in people's lives should clearly testify to their existence. If every phenomenon has a corresponding cause, and the tree is known by its fruits, then who will not see in a madly malicious person an evil spirit acting within him, which cannot manifest itself otherwise than in such a worthy manner, often not corresponding to the character of the malicious person and his subsequent actions. He who in the outpouring of human malice does not see the action of the leader and creator of malice, belongs to the number of those who have ears, but do not hear, and who have a mind, but do not understand... After all, every person subject to irritability and breathing malice, himself clearly feels in his chest the presence of a hostile evil force, forcing him to act as if involuntarily, the opposite of how he would like to act according to reason and desire."
Thus, the influence of evil spirits on people is undeniable and extends, according to the Savior, to the point that the devil dwells in the sinner as in his own house; and not only does he dwell there himself, but he brings even more evil spirits (Matt. 12:43–45). Now let us imagine, what can the owner do with his house? Anything; the devil does the same with the sinful soul. The Savior testified to the great dependence of the sinner on the devil in another place. “You,” He says to the unrepentant Jews, “are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do” (John 8:44) – the comparison here is very strong. As a son receives his being from his father, so the sinner receives his spiritual being from the devil, who also educates his son in evil. The Holy Apostle Paul also very clearly depicts the dependence of the sinner on the devil. He calls the sinner as one caught alive by the devil in his will and commands the believers to pray for such a one, "that God shall grant him repentance to the knowledge of the truth, and he shall escape from the devil's snare" (2 Tim. 2:25-26). Just as the bird is entirely in the hands of the catcher, so the sinner is in the hands of the devil. But while the bird feels its captivity and struggles in the net to break through it, the sinner does not even notice his captivity, and therefore does not try to free himself from it.
But are there any possessed people in our time, like those whom the Lord deigned to heal during His earthly life? Father John of Kronstadt answers this question thus: “There were possessed people before, and there are now; only now, in the new grace, demons act more secretly and cunningly than in those old times, when their power and authority over people had not yet been solemnly crushed, and they had much more scope in the world. And now, however, there are very, very many possessed people. Who among us does not know the current kind of possessed people or mad drunkards ... there is another kind of possessed people: these are evil, irritable, angry people ... there is the madness of the stingy ... there is the madness of carnal passion, as well as many other kinds and types of possession. But I have also seen real demoniacs, in whom demons entered by the inscrutable will of God and produced mental insanity in them, uttering terrible blasphemies and foul language. I saw how terribly they threw one unfortunate man from corner to corner, forced him to climb the wall, etc.” (See the book of Abbot Mark: “Evil Spirits”, St. Petersburg, 1899).
10. Over Whom Do Demons Have Power?
The Holy Martyr Tryphon healed illnesses and cast out demons in his youth. The Roman Emperor Gordian, from whose daughter the Holy Martyr Tryphon cast out a demon, wished to see the cast out demon with his own eyes. The Holy Martyr Tryphon actually summoned the demon, and everyone saw him in the form of a black dog with fiery eyes.
The Holy Martyr Tryphon asked the demon: “Who sent you to the maiden?” The demon answered: “The Father, the chief of all evil, who sits in hades.” Martyr Tryphon: “Who gave you such authority?” The demon: “We have no authority over those who know God and believe in the Only Begotten Son of God; only by God’s permission do we inflict light temptations on them; but we have full authority over those who do not believe in God, who walk in their lusts and do what pleases us; and the deeds that please us are: idolatry, blasphemy, adultery, envy, murder, pride, etc. These people are entangled in sins, as in nets; they are our friends, and the same fate awaits them as our own” (February 1).
PART SIX
9. The Undeniable Influence of Evil Spirits on People
After the fall of the evil spirits from Heaven to the sub-celestial or aerial realm (Eph. 2:2, 6:12), the world of the celestials became completely inaccessible to them, and therefore all their malicious attention is directed exclusively to the earth near them, in order to sow, grow and strengthen evil among people here. Evil, therefore, is the urgent need of the devil, who thinks of nothing but evil, desires nothing but evil, finds peace or pleasure in nothing but evil activity. The Kingdom of good, as the Kingdom of God, is hateful to him, and therefore he tries, through people or spirits subject to him, to put up barriers in every possible way to the spread of the concept of good; he tries to destroy the Kingdom of God on earth (2 Cor. 4:4). According to the Lord Himself, the devil is His enemy: for in the field where the Lord sowed wheat, the devil sowed tares (Matt. 13:24–25).
In his enmity towards God, the devil tore people away from Him even in Paradise, and it happened that “man,” as Gregory the Theologian says, “created for the glory of God, through the envy of the devil by the tasting of sin, to his misfortune, departed from God. Having removed people from God, the devil directed all his efforts to keeping people in his power, and for this he always tried to turn people’s hearts away from God. If people had a desire to return to God, then the devil in every way hindered these desires, thus keeping people in his power. In order to attract people under his power, the devil took advantage of their misdirected desire to find God and deceived them, according to his desire; leading them like blind men seeking a way, he scattered them along various rapids and cast them into the abyss of death and destruction.” This abyss, before the appearance of Christianity, was idolatry. "The pagans, when they offer sacrifices, offer them to demons, and not to God" (1 Cor. 10:20), writes the Holy Apostle Paul. The truth of these words of the Apostle Paul is confirmed by history.
In the story of the sufferings of the Holy Great Martyr George the Trophy-Bearer, it is said that after many the torments of Saint George, Emperor Diocletian, among other things, said to him: "If you wish to submit to me, all those torments that you have endured, I will atone for with many honors." The Saint said: "If you allow me, Emperor, let us go to the temple and look at the gods that you worship." The emperor joyfully went to the temple of Apollo with his entire retinue and people, taking Saint George with him. When they had entered the temple and prepared the sacrifice, the Saint, approaching the idol of Apollo and raising his hand to it, asked the lifeless, as if alive, "Is it you who want to accept a sacrifice from me as god?" Having said this, the Saint blessed the idol with the sign of the cross. The demon who lived in this idol answered: "No, I am not a god. There is only one God, Whom you preach, and we, from among the angels who serve Him, have become apostates and, possessed by envy, deceive people." The Saint again said to him: "How dare you remain here when I, the servant of truth, have come?" After these words, a certain mournful voice came from the idols, and then they all suddenly fell and broke.
Saint Athanasius the Great testifies that “demons misled the minds of people with various apparitions, dwelling in springs and rivers, trees or stones, and frightened ignorant mortals with phantoms.”
And about how demons treat the sacrifices brought to them, Saint John Chrysostom says in the "Homily On Babylas" (against Julian and the pagans). Having told the circumstances that gave rise to the construction of the temple of Apollo in Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, Chrysostom says that the devil, taking advantage of a fabulous tradition, placed a demon in the temple to deceive and destroy people. The demon, present in the idol, gave prophecies by which the errors of the pagans were supported. The relics of the Holy Martyr Babylas were transferred to Daphne, and the demon first fell silent, and then completely left the temple. "Such is the custom of demons," adds the Holy Father, "when people render them divine worship with the stench and smoke of blood, then they, like bloodthirsty and insatiable dogs, remain in those places for food and enjoyment. But when no one brings them such sacrifices, then they perish as if from hunger. As long as sacrifices are made, as long as vile mysteries are performed, until then the demons are present and have fun."
The devil deceives people through the magicians. The Apostle Paul calls the sorcerer Elymas “full of all deceit and all wickedness, a son of the devil, an enemy of all righteousness” (Acts 13:10). Taking the form of a bright angel for the sake of convenience in achieving his goals (2 Cor. 11:14), the devil excites ungodly thoughts and desires in people, as evidenced by the story in the Book of Acts about Ananias and Sapphira. “Why,” says Apostle Peter to Ananias, “have you allowed Satan to fill your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3)? The devil sometimes acts on the body, producing physical suffering in it. “There was given to me,” says the Apostle Paul, “a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted” (2 Cor. 12:7). On this basis, everything that is evil in the world, according to the teaching of the Holy Apostles, is the work of the devil. “Whoever commits sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning,” says the Holy Evangelist John (1 John 3:8), and the Holy Apostle Paul calls seduction onto the path of sin “seduction after Satan” (1 Tim. 5:15). The devil is credited with blinding all those who do not accept the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4); they appear to have fallen into the net of the devil, who has caught them at his will (2 Tim. 2:26). Holy Scripture calls those who do not love their brethren "children of the devil" (1 John 3:10). Even the circumstances that prevented the Apostle Paul from visiting Thessaloniki are recognized as having occurred under the influence of Satan (1 Thess. 2:18).
The Fathers and Teachers of the Church saw the cause of all the Church's misfortunes - external persecutions and internal heresies and schisms - in the machinations of Satan and his servants. Minucius Felix says: "I will turn to the very source of lies and error, from which all this darkness arose; I will try to penetrate deeper into it and show it more clearly. There are lying spirits who have lost their heavenly purity. These spirits have lost the purity of their nature, defiling themselves with vices, and to console themselves in misfortune - themselves already lost, do not cease to destroy others; themselves corrupted - try to spread a fatal error, and alienated from God - they strive to remove everyone from God, introducing false religions and all kinds of errors among people. These unclean spirits are demons; they inspire soothsayers who utter prophecies mixed with lies. They are deceived and deceive, sometimes not knowing the truth, sometimes knowing it but not revealing it, but obscuring it, so as not to destroy themselves. They turn people away from God and from Heaven, disturb human life, cause anxiety to everyone, secretly settling in the bodies of people; they produce diseases, bring fear to the minds." Saint Irenaeus says: "Satan made man ungrateful to his Creator, darkened the love that man has for God, and blinded his mind, so that he would think unworthily of God, comparing himself and placing himself on an equal footing with God."
Let us also cite the characteristic words of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria about the influence that the devil has on people. “Our adversary the devil, envious of the great blessings that we are to receive, walks around us and watches carefully in order to steal away the seeds of the Word that are in us. For this reason, the Lord, impressing His commandments on us with a warning, says: 'Take heed that you be not deceived, for many will come in My name, saying, I Am He; and The Time Is At Hand. Go not therefore out after them' (Luke 21:8). Without a doubt, something great is granted to us by the Word: we are granted to avoid the deception that could be produced by the outward appearance of objects... If the great demon... immediately revealed himself, then everyone would drive him away like a serpent, like a dragon seeking to devour whomever he can. For this reason he hides himself... in order to deceive people with a false appearance and to chain the deceived ones. As someone who wants to enslave other people's children, in the absence of their parents, assumes the likeness of these parents. By means of this trick, having deceived the sons who are burning with love for their parents, he leads them far away and destroys the unfortunate ones: likewise the impious demon... does not dare to show himself to anyone as he is; knowing how much people love the truth, he takes on the mask of truth." These words of the Holy Father speak not only of the undeniable influence of the devil on people, but also of the cunning with which the spirit of malice pours out poison into his followers.
The influence of evil spirits on people is also evidenced by the experience of those who monitor their spiritual life. Here is what Father John of Kronstadt writes: “A person is sometimes too irritable and angry, not by himself, but with the most zealous assistance of the devil. Just watch yourself or others during irritability and anger, when you or someone else would like to destroy a person who is hostile to you, truly or imaginarily; compare the calm, meekness and kindness of your character or the person you observed that follows (sometimes soon after, through the action of the Guardian Angel) with the opposite state that just passed, and you will say to yourself: 'No, this, it seems, is not at all the person who was angry and furious recently before this, this is a person from whom the demons have come out.' There is not a shadow of the former anger and former senselessness in him. Some reject the existence of evil spirits: such phenomena in people's lives should clearly testify to their existence. If every phenomenon has a corresponding cause, and the tree is known by its fruits, then who will not see in a madly malicious person an evil spirit acting within him, which cannot manifest itself otherwise than in such a worthy manner, often not corresponding to the character of the malicious person and his subsequent actions. He who in the outpouring of human malice does not see the action of the leader and creator of malice, belongs to the number of those who have ears, but do not hear, and who have a mind, but do not understand... After all, every person subject to irritability and breathing malice, himself clearly feels in his chest the presence of a hostile evil force, forcing him to act as if involuntarily, the opposite of how he would like to act according to reason and desire."
Thus, the influence of evil spirits on people is undeniable and extends, according to the Savior, to the point that the devil dwells in the sinner as in his own house; and not only does he dwell there himself, but he brings even more evil spirits (Matt. 12:43–45). Now let us imagine, what can the owner do with his house? Anything; the devil does the same with the sinful soul. The Savior testified to the great dependence of the sinner on the devil in another place. “You,” He says to the unrepentant Jews, “are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do” (John 8:44) – the comparison here is very strong. As a son receives his being from his father, so the sinner receives his spiritual being from the devil, who also educates his son in evil. The Holy Apostle Paul also very clearly depicts the dependence of the sinner on the devil. He calls the sinner as one caught alive by the devil in his will and commands the believers to pray for such a one, "that God shall grant him repentance to the knowledge of the truth, and he shall escape from the devil's snare" (2 Tim. 2:25-26). Just as the bird is entirely in the hands of the catcher, so the sinner is in the hands of the devil. But while the bird feels its captivity and struggles in the net to break through it, the sinner does not even notice his captivity, and therefore does not try to free himself from it.
But are there any possessed people in our time, like those whom the Lord deigned to heal during His earthly life? Father John of Kronstadt answers this question thus: “There were possessed people before, and there are now; only now, in the new grace, demons act more secretly and cunningly than in those old times, when their power and authority over people had not yet been solemnly crushed, and they had much more scope in the world. And now, however, there are very, very many possessed people. Who among us does not know the current kind of possessed people or mad drunkards ... there is another kind of possessed people: these are evil, irritable, angry people ... there is the madness of the stingy ... there is the madness of carnal passion, as well as many other kinds and types of possession. But I have also seen real demoniacs, in whom demons entered by the inscrutable will of God and produced mental insanity in them, uttering terrible blasphemies and foul language. I saw how terribly they threw one unfortunate man from corner to corner, forced him to climb the wall, etc.” (See the book of Abbot Mark: “Evil Spirits”, St. Petersburg, 1899).
10. Over Whom Do Demons Have Power?
The Holy Martyr Tryphon healed illnesses and cast out demons in his youth. The Roman Emperor Gordian, from whose daughter the Holy Martyr Tryphon cast out a demon, wished to see the cast out demon with his own eyes. The Holy Martyr Tryphon actually summoned the demon, and everyone saw him in the form of a black dog with fiery eyes.
The Holy Martyr Tryphon asked the demon: “Who sent you to the maiden?” The demon answered: “The Father, the chief of all evil, who sits in hades.” Martyr Tryphon: “Who gave you such authority?” The demon: “We have no authority over those who know God and believe in the Only Begotten Son of God; only by God’s permission do we inflict light temptations on them; but we have full authority over those who do not believe in God, who walk in their lusts and do what pleases us; and the deeds that please us are: idolatry, blasphemy, adultery, envy, murder, pride, etc. These people are entangled in sins, as in nets; they are our friends, and the same fate awaits them as our own” (February 1).
PART SIX
