I’ve never understood certain sectors of Christianity and their fascination (dare I say "obsession") with the demonic. They insist that priests need to preach “fire and brimstone,” that we need “more homilies on sin and hell,” and that people need to be reminded of the power of the devil so that they learn to fear him.
To me that’s always come across as a sick fascination and a morbid insistence.
Personally, I
think that many people are already living some form of their own personal
hell. They don't need constant reminders of hell's reality, but simply a poignant reminder that opens their eyes to the hell already manifest in their own lives, and the devious nature of hells minions.
A lot of folks in this particular sector of Christianity in general, and Catholicism in particular, have a very wrong understanding of the nature of the devils and their so-called "power." Sadly I think this wrong understanding is rather widespread.
So how should we understand the devils and their role in our spiritual warfare?
In his wonderful Life of Saint Anthony, as contained in the Syriac collection Paradise of the Holy Fathers, Saint Athanasius has some remarkable insights on the nature of the devils and their so-called "power" that I think are very relevant for our own times. (cf. pgs. 32-41 of PHF for reference)
In this post I won't quote from the Life of Saint Anthony just yet. But I will be alluding to it. I'll pull out specific quotes and dig into them deeper in future posts.
First: Why the devils hate you?
Saint Athanasius starts this section of his biography of Saint Anthony by explaining why the devils hate man, and why they are always seeking to trip us up.
The devils, he reminds us, were once angels of light — because God doesn’t create anything evil. These angels rebelled against God’s will, and were thus cast from heaven.
When cast from heaven, they came to mingle among men in the created world in order to trip us up. Why? The simple answer Saint Athanasius gives is envy.
Look at that again. The devils hate us and seek to trip us up (turn us from God) because they envy us!
The devils are envious of
mankind because we are destined for the very heavenly glory that they themselves lost. We are destined for that
very place they were cast out of, and they don’t want to see us sitting on the thrones of glory they themselves rejected.
Second: Are the devils powerful?
Saint Athanasius (and later the other Desert Fathers) is insistent that the devils are powerless: They can do nothing on their own.
If they’re given any power over us to tempt us (or better put, to test us [because love must undergo tests in order to be proven true]), that power is given over to them by God, and is restrained by God so that they're unable to harm us in the depths of our hearts. They're also restrained by the duration of the test — i.e. God doesn't allow them to tempt/test us indefinitely.
The devils can make a lot of noise and stir up a lot of confusion in order to cause fear in us, but ultimately they can’t harm us unless we allow them to. This is a major point that Saint Athanasius repeats over and over to drive it home: It’s us who give the devils power over us.
How do we do that?
Saint Athanasius doesn’t go into that, but look at the way the temptation in the Garden of Eden took place. Adam and Eve listened to (i.e. internalized) the voice of the devil and failed to turn to the Lord and call upon His Name for help.
So, if we want to avoid putting ourselves in the devil's power, we simply need to keep our eyes "focused on God's love" (something we pray weekly in the Maronite Liturgy of the Hours).
Third: How to drive devils away.
The means for driving the devils away are very simple (simplicity [which is being child-like in our relationship with God, not “simplistic” as in ignorant] is a central theme for the Desert Fathers).
Pray
Turn to God and call upon His Name for help… unlike Adam and Eve who failed to do this. As Christians seeking to grow closer to the Lord, we should be committed to regular daily prayer.
Fast
"Fasting is a weapon for fighters" we pray in Morning Prayer during Lent in the Maronite tradition.
Prayer and fasting are the keys Saint Athanasius gives us for driving the devils away. In this he's simply repeating Christ's own words that some devil's can only be driven out by prayer and fasting (cf. certain translations of Matthew 17:21).
Over the centuries the Church has expanded this a bit. In addition to prayer and fasting, the Church teaches that we should also receive the Eucharist frequently, and go to Confession regularly.
In teaching this, the Church is simply making more explicit the insights already present in the Desert Fathers. For the Desert Fathers, the key purpose of the spiritual life is “repentance” — which they understood to be a turning away from sin and toward God. As Saint Isaac (the Syrian) of Nineveh famously said:
"This life has been given to you for repentance. Do not squander it on vain pursuits."
Sacramental Confession as the primary manifestation of our personal repentance, is one of the main things the Fathers point out as being central to the spiritual life.
As you read through the stories of the Desert Fathers, it'll quickly become clear that they took participation in the Eucharist (often referred to as the "Offering" or the "Mysteries") and other Church services for granted — alluding to both in their various stories and sayings.
What's the point? We don’t have to do anything extraordinary to fight off the devils. We simply stay close to the Lord through prayer, fasting, receiving the Eucharist, going to Confession, and striving to grow in “righteousness” or virtue.
Fourth: How the devils try to deceive us.
Saint Athanasius goes over several ways that the devils try to trip us up.
One is by creating delusions through false prophecies. Saint Athanasius has a remarkable demonstration of why we can’t take these false prophecies as anything wondrous even when they prove true.
Another way they try to trip us up is by sowing the seeds of discontent with our vocation — stirring up what I call the “if only’s” in our minds: "If only I’d married so-and-so instead." "If only I’d become a monk instead of getting married." "If only I’d gotten married instead of become a priest." The devils often make the claim that we could’ve lived righteousness just as much, or even more, in some other vocation than the one we’ve committed ourselves to.
A third way they try to trip us up is by stirring despair in us
by reminding us of our past sins and trying to get us to focus on those sins
instead of on God’s love. This is the subtle pride that whispers to us, “God could never forgive you for xyz.”
But always keep in mind, Saint Athanasius is constantly at pains to remind us that the devil is powerless.
In closing this post out I'll share something I once heard a priest say. "The devil is a chained dog. He can’t hurt you in any way unless you get close enough for him to harm you. Otherwise, all he can do is bark and make a bunch of noise.
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