Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VI/Archelaus/Acts of Disputation/Chapter XXXIII

by Archelaus

33. The judges said: He has given demonstration enough of the origin of the devil. And as both sides admit that there will be a judgment, it is necessarily involved in that admission that every individual is shown to have free-will; and since this is brought clearly out, there can be no doubt that every individual, in the exercise of his own proper power of will, may shape his course in whatever direction he pleases.^[1] Manes said: If (only) the good is from (your) God, as you allege, then you make Jesus Himself a liar.^[2] Archelaus said: In the first place, admit that the account of what we have adduced is true, and then I will give you proof about the “father of him.”^[3] Manes said: If you prove to me that his father is a liar, and yet show me that for all that you ascribe no such (evil) notion to God, then credit will be given you on all points. Archelaus said: Surely when a full account of the devil has once been presented, and the dispensation set forth, any one now, with an ordinarily vigorous understanding, might simply, by turning the matter carefully over in his own mind, get an idea of who this is that is here called the father of the devil. But though you give yourself out to be the Paraclete, you come very far short of the ordinary sagacity of men. Wherefore, as you have betrayed your ignorance, I shall tell you what is meant by this expression, the “father of the devil.” Manes said: I say so^[4]…; and he added: Every one who is the founder or maker of anything may be called the father, parent, of that which he has made. Archelaus said: Well, I am verily astonished that you have made so correct an admission in reply to what I have said, and have not concealed either your intelligent apprehension of the affirmation, or the real nature of the same. Now, from this learn who is this father of the devil. When he fell from the kingdom of heaven, he came to dwell upon earth, and there he remained, ever watching and seeking out some one to whom he might attach himself, and whom, through an alliance with himself, he might also make a partner in his own wickedness. Now as long, indeed, as man was not yet existent, the devil was never called either a murderer or a liar together with his father. But subsequently, when man had once been made, and when further he had been deceived by the devil’s lies and craftiness, and when the devil had also introduced himself into the body of the serpent, which was the most sagacious of all the beasts, then from that time the devil was called a liar together with his father, and then^[5] also the curse was made to rest not only on himself, but also on his father. Accordingly, when the serpent had received him, and had indeed admitted him wholly into its own being, it was, as it were, rendered pregnant, for it bore the burden of the devil’s vast wickedness; and it was like one with child, and under the strain of parturition, as it sought to eject the agitations^[6] of his malignant suggestions. For the serpent, grudging the glory of the first man, made its way into paradise; and harbouring these pains of parturition in itself,^[7] it began to produce mendacious addresses, and to generate death for the men who had been fashioned by God, and who had received the gift of life. The devil, however, was not able to manifest himself completely through the serpent; but he reserved his perfection for a time, in order that he might demonstrate it through Cain, by whom he was generated completely. And thus through the serpent, on the one hand, he displayed his hypocrisies and deceits to Eve; while through Cain, on the other hand, he effected the beginning of murder, introducing himself into the firstlings of the “fruits,” which that man administered so badly. From this the devil has been called a murderer from the beginning, and also a liar, because he deceived the parties to whom he said, “Ye shall be as gods;”^[8] for those very persons whom he falsely declared destined to be gods were afterwards cast out of paradise. Wherefore the serpent which conceived him in its womb, and bore him, and brought him forth to the light of day, is constituted the devil’s first father; and Cain is made his second father, who through the conception of iniquities produced pains and parricide: for truly the taking of life was the perpetrating of iniquity, unrighteousness, and impiety all together. Furthermore, all who receive him, and do his lusts, are constituted his brothers. Pharaoh is his father in perfection. Every impious man is made his father. Judas became his father, since he conceived him indeed, though he miscarried: for he did not present a perfect parturition there, since it was really a greater person who was assailed through Judas; and consequently, as I say, it proved an abortion. For just as the woman receives the man’s seed, and thereby also becomes sensible of a daily growth within her, so also did Judas make daily advances in evil, the occasions for that being furnished him like seed by the wicked one. And the first seed of evil in him, indeed, was the lust of money; and its increment was theft, for he purloined the moneys which were deposited in the bag. Its offspring, moreover, consisted of less vexations, and compacts with the Pharisees, and the scandalous bargain for a price; yet it was the abortion, and not the birth, that was witnessed in the horrid noose by which he met his death. And exactly in the same way shall it stand also with you: if you bring the wicked one to light in your own deeds, and do his lusts, you have conceived him, and will be called his father; but, on the other hand, if you cherish penitence, and deliver yourself of your burden, you will be like one that brings to the birth.^[9] For, as in school exercises, if one gets the subject-matter from the master, and then creates and produces the whole body of an oration by himself, he is said to be the author of the compositions to which he has thus given birth;^[10] so he who has taken in any little leaven of evil from the prime evil, is of necessity called the father and procreator of that wicked one, who from the beginning has resisted the truth. The case may be the same, indeed, with those who devote themselves to virtue; for I have heard the most valiant men say to God, “For Thy fear, O Lord, we have conceived in the womb, and we have been in pain, and have brought forth the spirit of salvation.”^[11] And so those, too, who conceive in respect of the fear of the wicked one, and bring forth the spirit of iniquity, must needs be called the fathers of the same. Thus, on the one hand, they are called sons of that wicked one, so long as they are still yielding obedience to his service; but, on the other hand, they are called fathers if they have attained to the perfection of iniquity. For it is with this view that our Lord says to the Pharisees, “Ye are of your father the devil,”^[12] thereby making them his sons, as long as they appeared still to be perturbed^[13] by him, and meditated in their hearts evil for good toward the righteous. Accordingly, while they deliberated in such a spirit with their own hearts, and while their wicked devices were made chargeable upon^[14] themselves, Judas, as the head of all the evil, and as the person who carried out their iniquitous counsels to their consummation, was constituted the father of the crime, having received at their hands the recompense of thirty pieces of silver for his impious cruelty. For “after the sop Satan entered into him”^[15] completely. But, as we have said, when his womb was enlarged, and the time of his travail came on, he delivered himself only of an abortive burden in the conception of unrighteousness, and consequently he could not be called the father in perfection, except only at that very time when the conception was still in the womb; and afterwards, when he betook himself to the hangman’s rope, he showed that he had not brought it to a complete birth, because remorse^[16] followed.

Footnotes

1. This appears to be general sense of the very corrupt passage, “Quo videntur ostenso nulli dubium est unusquisque in quamcunque elegerit partem propria usus arbitrii potestate.” In Migne it is amended thus: “Quo evidenter ostenso, nulli dubium est, quod unusquisque in quamcunque elegerit partem, propria usus fuerit arbitrii potestate.”
2. Adopting the emendation, “si a Deo bonus, ut asseris, mendacem esse dixisti Jesum.” In the Codex Casinensis it stands thus: “sic a Deo bonus ut as mendacem esse dixisti Jesus.” But Routh would substitute “si a Deo diabolus” = if the devil is from God.
3. The argumentation throughout this passage seems to rest on the fact that, in support of the dogma of the evil deity, Manes perverted, among other passages, our Lord’s words in John viii. 44, as if they were not only “Ye are of your father the devil” but possibly also, “Ye are of the father of the devil;” and again, “He is a liar, and the father of him is the same.” Thus what Manes urges against Archelaus is this: If only what is good proceeds from the Deity, and if He is the Supreme Good Himself, you make out Jesus to have spoken falsely, when in John’s Gospel He uses expressions which imply that the devil’s father is a liar, and also the Creator of the lying devil.
4. There are some words deficient in this sentence. The text reads, “Manes dixit:…dico: et adjecit, Omnis qui conditor est vel Creator aliquorum pater eorum…condiderit appellatur.” It is proposed to supply jam before dico, and quæ before condiderit.
5. Reading et effectum for the ut effectum of the codex.
6. Or it may be “cogitations,” reading cogitata for agitata.
7. Conceptis in se doloribus.
8. Gen. iii. 5.
9. The text gives parturies. Routh suggests parturiens. The sense then might be, But if you repent, you will also deliver yourself of your burden like one who brings to the birth.
10. Reading Domine for Dominum, which is given in the text.
11. The quotation may refer to Isa. xxvi. 18. [A curious version.]
12. John viii. 44.
13. Conturbari.
14. Translatis in se.
15. John xiii. 27.
16. Pœnitentia. [2 Cor. vii. 10.]