Who Am I?

Four Hundred Texts on Love (Fourth Century) 30

Posted: April 7th, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: St. Maximos the Confessor | Tags: , | Comments Off on Four Hundred Texts on Love (Fourth Century) 30

64. When through his guile the devil pillages the knowledge of God inherent in nature and arrogates it to himself, he is a thief, because he is attempting to transfer devotion from God to himself. This he does by diverting the intellect from its contemplation of the spiritual essences of created things and by limiting its scope merely to their superficial visible aspects. Then, after perverting the soul’s natural functions, he speciously impels it to practice what is contrary to nature: by means of what appears to be good he persuasively attaches its desire to what is evil, and by swearing falsely on the name of the Lord he leads the soul thus persuaded towards things other than those he has promised. He is a thief because he arrogates the spiritual knowledge of nature to himself; he is a perjurer because he persuades the soul to labor to no purpose for what is contrary to nature.

As I’ve reflected elsewhere, God created all things good. Evil is a distortion of a good and to a degree free creation and is therefore contrary to nature. This is a distinction between Christianity and many religions and it should not be overlooked.