The Nature of the World and the Devil

For it is ungraspable and unreachable; He named this glory so that you would not demand a definition but rather worship. First, Ezekiel calls the essence of God 'glory' after having seen God seated in visions, and he adds: this is the likeness of the Lord's glory. This is what God says He is interpreting elsewhere: 'I will multiply myself and be made like something in the hands of prophets.' That which Ezekiel called glory, God says is the 'I am'. And Paul says: 'who is the radiance of His glory'—of what glory?—'and the character of His substance.' Thus, here too, it is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh, and the Father of glory according to nature.

And of every name being named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. For in this age we name thrones, principalities, lordships, authorities, powers, angels, archangels; but since there are ten thousand hosts of invisible powers unknown to us and therefore unnamable, after the resurrection they shall be known and shall receive, along with knowledge, also the designation from us; therefore He said: 'and in the age to come.' Ephesians 1:22–23 And He gave him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of the One who fills all things. Through this He showed that the body of Christ says it is the fullness of God, that is, the church. And why 'fullness'? Because it has been filled by God; for just as, He says, He fills all things in all, so also He is filled in the church according to the fact that it is the body of Christ. Therefore, the church is the body of Christ and the fullness of God. Of the One filling all things in all. For He is in heaven, that is, working not as in earth, and He is in earth, not working as in heaven, and in angels, in the sun, but in each according to its own nature; for the Scripture says, concerning those from whom we receive...

Concerning God, not from the things of which He is; for this is incomprehensible. The world is said to be twofold: the creative constitution and the evil system of men.

Now he has distinguished things for the lawless, calling the evil and sin of men an age, and the arrangement of all things a world, just as he says to the Galatians: so that we might be delivered from this present evil age (Galatians 4:5). He speaks of this present age. Thus he named the common apostasy and wandering of men an age, of which even those now having believed in Christ were once a part.

According to the ruler of the authority of the air of the spirit. The apostle clearly demonstrates through this that the devil was not an angel from heaven, but an evil airy spirit. Even if the Lord says: I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18), he does not demonstrate the place from which he fell, but because lightning falls sharply from above, he compared the sharpness of the diabolical fall to lightning, saying: just as lightning is carried sharply from heaven, so I saw his sharp fall.

Of the one now working. He made it manifest that the devil does not always have strength, but the weakness of men has become strength to him. Doing the desires of the flesh and of the minds. From this it is shown that the flesh does not oppose the soul; for it agreed toward sin (Ephesians 2:3). And we were children by nature of wrath. Just as sons of hell, so also children of wrath.

Since he said 'having been created' (Ephesians 2:10), he says: the creation is a habitation. And that which led to good works, so that you might build yourself up in the remainder.

He did not say 'nearer' than those believing from the circumcision (Ephesians 2:13), but 'near'. Having broken the middle wall of the partition (Ephesians 2:14), not the partition itself, but the middle wall. And what is the partition? I will take away his partition and