Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily IX/Chapter 21

by Anonymous

Chapter XXI.—The Demons Subject to the Believer.

“For, in like manner as the soldiers who are put under one of Cæsar’s captains know to honour him who has received authority on account of him who gave it, so that the commanders say to this one, Come, and he comes, and to another, Go, and he goes; so also he who has given himself to God, being faithful, is heard when he only speaks to demons and diseases; and the demons give place, though they be much stronger than they who command them.  For with unspeakable power God subjects the mind of every one to whom He pleases.  For as many captains, with whole camps and cities, fear Cæsar, who is but a man, every one’s heart being eager to honour the image of all^[1] for the will of God, all things being enslaved by fear, do not know the cause; so also all disease-producing spirits, being awed in some natural way, honour and flee from him who has had recourse to God, and who carries right faith as His image in his heart.

Footnotes

1. I prefer here the common text to any of the proposed emendations, and suppose that the author represents Cæsar, though but one man, as the image or personification of the whole empire.