The Rationality of the Devil and Job

"Stand firm in the faith," and: "If a spirit of the one exercising authority rises upon you, do not leave your place."

For it is also said that God provides the power, He who will give "and the outcome of being able to lift up."

It should be noted, however, that the earth and the places under heaven are different places; the earth being under heaven, the places under heaven are not necessarily earth. And the devil, rejoicing in the "spiritual things of wickedness" of the demons, encircled those places. These, he says, having come around, he stays beside, which should be understood thus: having come through all these and finding the blessed Job unable to gain anything from us, he stays beside, which is to say: I wish to show my hidden thing to your unchangeable eye, desiring him to ask it of me.

And the Lord said to him: "Pay attention therefore with your mind concerning my servant Job, for there is no man on the earth blameless, true, God-fearing, turning away from every evil thing."

Thus, the Lord said to the devil in the same way as to those who are stumbling toward error, not withdrawing; if it is what God wills the devil to understand, it enters toward his rebuke most difficultly, because God did not cease reasoning. For it should not be ignored whether the conversation of God toward the devil is just; for nothing is just on the part of the one who has arranged all things, but even this is toward the benefit, so that he may be disgraced by the reproach of the righteous and blameless man.

The Lord has called Job "servant" according to both significations; for his servant was according to what was said by the Psalmist: "I am your servant and the son of your maidservant" (Psalm 89:8), and a son from the service and of the genuine slavery of the Spirit, having been made worthy of grace, and he himself saying according to the wise Paul: "the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God" (Romans 8:16). For "he who does righteousness"

"He was born of God." It is also an explicit indication of the devil being rational to say: "Pay attention to your mind" (Job 35:10); for to think is proper to a rational being. Not only is this said about the devil here, but also in: "But you said in your mind: I will ascend to heaven" (Job 35:11), which, as it is said, is a demonstration of him being rational himself.

And if thinking happens through him, it must be sought whether repentance also happens. For after thinking comes thinking and repentance. And just as thinking lies within his will, let it not be that repentance also lies there. But he who does not grant these things, let him not hide, making God the cause of his evil—for if he does not possess reason and mind. And even if he has been led astray by something, he still participates in the nature of those who are thus, in being rational. For even if men are mortal, we say that their participation is not according to mortality, but according to the rational, which exists common to both the immortal and the mortal.

And thinking is not accessible only to the serious or only to the wicked. Just as the use of sensation is common to both the serious and the wicked—where the serious man, planning well, has not used it like the wicked man looking up to heaven and making himself a god—so also thinking: being found in the serious and the wicked, it has been led astray according to its use. "Pay attention, therefore," he says, "to your mind concerning my servant Job, for there is none on earth like him" (Job 35:10). It is not a vain thing to say: "of those on earth." For there are rational things concerning him and on his behalf that happen regarding the earth. For it is not the same to say: "there is none like him" as to say: "there is none on earth like him." For how did he not exceed all those on earth, with the God of all things testifying to him in: "A blameless man, true, God-fearing, turning away from all evil deeds" (Job 1:1)? And he turns away...