The answer
St. John Chrysostom says, “What then? some one will say, did he not inflict injury on Adam, and upset him, and cast him out of paradise? No: he did it not, but the cause was the listlessness of him who was injured, and his want of temperance and vigilance. For he who applied such powerful and manifold devices and yet was not able to subdue Job, how could he by inferior means have mastered Adam, had not Adam betrayed himself through his own listlessness? What then? Has not he been injured who has been exposed to slander, and suffered confiscation of his property, having been deprived of all his goods, and is thrown out of his patrimony, and struggles with extreme poverty? No! he has not been injured, but has even profited, if he be sober. For, tell me, what harm did this do the apostles? Were they not continually struggling with hunger, and thirst and nakedness? And this was the very reason why they were so illustrious, and distinguished, and won for themselves much help from God.”641
“We are alarmed by nothing. If we wish to overpower the devil, we must know that our own skill will not benefit us at all, and that all things are from the grace of God.”642
“We have said lately, that he [the Devil] does not overcome by force, nor by tyranny, nor through compulsion, nor through violence; since if this were so, he would have destroyed all men. And in testimony of this we brought forward the swine, against which the Demons were unable to venture anything, before the permission of the Master (Matt. 8:31).”643
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
639 See Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty, Divine Love (Arabic) Books 1–8, second edition, revised and updated (Sporting, Alexandria: St. George’s Coptic Orthodox Church, 2010), Book 1: pp. 267–304.
641 St. John Chrysostom, A Treatise to Prove That No One Can Harm the Man Who Does Not Injure Himself 4 (NPNF I/9:273).
642 St. John Chrysostom, Ad. Pop. (PG 49:66, 67).
643 St. John Chrysostom, Three Homilies on the Power of Man to Resist the Devil 2.1 (NPNF I/9:187) amended.