All this proves the malice, envy, and fraud of the devil against the saints, on the one side; and on the other, the weakness and uselessness of his efforts against the true servants of God, and that it is but too true he often appears in a visible form.
In the histories of the saints we sometimes see that he hides himself under the form of a woman, to tempt pious hermits and lead them into evil; sometimes in the form of a traveler, a priest, a monk, or an angel of light,[[107]] to mislead simple minded people, and cause them to err; for everything suits his purpose, provided he can exercise his malice and hatred against men.
When Satan appeared before the Lord in the midst of his holy angels, and asked permission of God to tempt Job,[[108]] and try his patience through everything that was dearest to that holy man, he doubtless presented himself in his natural state, simply as a spirit, but full of rage against the saints, and in all the deformity of his sin and rebellion.
But when he says, in the Books of Kings, that he will be a lying spirit in the mouth of false prophets,[[109]] and that God allows him to put in force his ill-will, we must not imagine that he shows himself corporeally to the eyes of the false prophets of King Ahab; he only inspired the falsehood in their minds—they believed it, and persuaded the king of the same. Amongst the visible appearances of Satan may be placed mortalities, wars, tempests, public and private calamities, which God sends upon nations, provinces, cities, and families, whom the Almighty causes to feel the terrible effects of his wrath and just vengeance. Thus the exterminating angel kills the first-born of the Egyptians.[[110]] The same angel strikes with death the inhabitants of the guilty cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.[[111]] He does the same with Onan, who committed an abominable action.[[112]] The wicked man seeks only division and quarrels, says the sage; and the cruel angel shall be sent against him.[[113]] And the Psalmist, speaking of the plagues which the Lord inflicted upon Egypt, says that he sent evil angels among them.
When David, in a spirit of vanity, caused his people to be numbered, God showed him an angel hovering over Jerusalem, ready to smite and destroy it. I do not say decidedly whether it was a good or a bad angel, since it is certain that sometimes the Lord employs good angels to execute his vengeance against the wicked. But it is thought that it was the devil who slew eighty-five thousand men of the army of Sennacherib. And in the Apocalypse, those are also evil angels who pour out on the earth the phials of wrath, and caused all the scourges set down in that holy book.
We shall also place amongst the appearances and works of Satan false Christs, false prophets, Pagan oracles, magicians, sorcerers, and sorceresses, those who are inspired by the spirit of Python, the obsession and possession of demons, those who pretend to predict the future, and whose predictions are sometimes fulfilled; those who make compacts with the devil to discover treasures and enrich themselves; those who make use of charms; evocations by means of magic; enchantment; the being devoted to death by a vow; the deceptions of idolatrous priests, who feigned that their gods ate and drank and had commerce with women—all these can only be the work of Satan, and must be ranked with what the Scripture calls the depths of Satan.[[114]] We shall say something on this subject in the course of the treatise.
Footnotes:
[[88]] Gen. iii. 1, 23.
[[89]] Rev. xii. 9.
[[90]] Bel and the Dragon.