As soon as Lucifer was permitted to proceed
in these matters and arise from the consternation in which
he remained for some time, he set about proposing to his
fellow-demons new plans of his pride. For this purpose he
called them all together and placing himself in an elevated
position, he spoke to them: "To you, who have for so many
ages followed and still follow my standards for the
vengeance of my wrongs, is known the injury which I have
now sustained at the hands of this Mangod, and how for
thirty-three years He has led me about in deceit, hiding
his Divinity and concealing the operations of his soul, and
how He has now triumphed over us by the very Death which we
have brought upon Him.Before He
assumed flesh I hated Him and refused to acknowledge Him as
being more worthy than I to be adored by the rest of
creation. Although on account of this resistance I was cast
out from heaven with you and was degraded to this
abominable condition so unworthy of my greatness and former
beauty, I am even more tormented to see myself thus
vanquished and oppressed by this Man and by his Mother.
From the day on which the first man was created I have
sleeplessly sought to find Them and destroy Them; or if I
should not be able to desroy Them, I at least wished to
bring destruction upon all his creatures and induce them
not to acknowledge Him as their God, and that none of them
should ever draw any benefit from his works. This has been
my intent, to this all my solicitude and efforts were
directed. But in vain, since He has overcome me by his
humility and poverty, crushed me by his patience, and at
last has despoiled me of the sovereignty of the world by
his Passion and frightful Death. This causes me such an
excruciating pain, that, even if I succeeded in hurling Him
from the right hand of his Father, where he sits
triumphant, and if I should draw all the souls redeemed
down into this hell, my wrath would not be satiated or my
fury placated."
"Is it possible
that the human nature, so inferior to my own, shall be
exalted above all the creatures! That it should be so loved
and favored, as to be united to the Creator in the person
of the eternal Word! That He should first make war upon me
before executing this work, and afterwards overwhelm me
with such confusion! From the beginning I have held this
humanity as my greatest enemy; it has always filled me with
intolerable abhorrence. O men, so favored and gifted by
your God, whom I abhor, and so ardently loved by Him! How
shall I hinder your good fortune? How shall I bring upon
you my unhappiness, since I cannot destroy the existence
you have received? What shall we now begin, O my followers?
How shall we restore our reign? How shall we recover our
power over men? How shall we overcome them? For if men from
now on shall not be most senseless and ungrateful, if they
are not worse disposed than we ourselves toward this
Godman, who has redeemed them with so much love, it is
clear that all of them will eagerly follow Him; none will
take notice of our deceits; they will abhor the honors
which we insidiously offer them, and will love contempt;
they will seek the mortifications of the flesh and will
discover the danger of carnal pleasure and ease; they will
despise riches and treasures, and love the poverty so much
honored by their Master; and all that we can offer to their
appetites they will abhor in imitation of their true
Redeemer. Thus will our reign be destroyed, since no one
will be added to our number in this place of confusion and
torments; all will reach the happiness which we have lost,
all will humiliate themselves to the dust and suffer with
patience; and my wrath and haughtiness will avail me
nothing."
"Ah, woe is me, what
torment does this mistake cause me! When I tempted Him in
the desert, the only result was to afford Him a chance to
leave the example of this victory, by following which, men
can overcome me so much the more easily. My persecutions
only brought out more clearly his doctrine of humility and
patience. In persuading Judas to betray Him, and the Jews
to subject Him to the deadly torture of the Cross, I merely
hastened my ruin and the salvation of men, while the
doctrine I sought to blot out was only the more firmly
implanted. How could One who is God humiliate Himself to
such an extent? How could He bear so much from men who are
evil? How could I myself have been led to assist so much in
making this salvation so copious and wonderful? O how
Godlike is the power of that Man which could torment and
weaken me so? And how can this Woman, his Mother and my
Enemy, be so mighty and invincible in her opposition to me?
New is such power in a mere creature, and no doubt She
derived it from the divine Word, whom She clothed in human
flesh. Through this Woman the Almighty has ceaselessly
waged war against me, though I have hated Her in my pride
from the moment I recognized Her in Her image or heavenly
sign. But if my proud indignation is ot to be assuaged, I
benefit nothing by my perpetual war against this Redeemer,
against his Mother and against men. Now then, ye demons who
follow me, now is the time to give way to our wrath against
God. Come all of ye to take counsel what we are to do; for
I desire to hear your opinions."
Some of the principal
demons gave their answers to this dreadful proposal,
encouraging Lucifer by suggesting diverse schemes for
hindering the fruit of the Redemption among men. They all
agreed that it was not possible to injure the person of
Christ, to diminish the immense value of his merits, to
destroy the efficacy of the Sacraments, to falsify or
abolish the doctrine which Christ had preached; yet they
resolved that, in accordance with the new order of
assistance and favor established by God for the salvation
of men, they should now seek new ways of hindering and
preventing the work of God by so much the greater deceits
and temptations. In reference to these plans some of the
astute and malicious demons said: "It is true, that men now
have at their disposal a new and very powerful doctrine and
law, new and efficacious Sacraments, a new Model and
Instructor of virtues, a powerful Intercessor and Advocate
in this Woman; yet the natural inclinations and passions of
the flesh remain just the same, and the sensible and
delectable creatures have not changed their nature. Let us
then, making use of this situation with increased
astuteness, foil as far as in us lies the effects of what
this Godman has wrought for men. Let us begin strenuous
warfare against mankind by suggesting new attractions,
exciting them to follow their passions in forgetfulness of
all else. Thus men, being taken up with these dangerous
things, cannot attend to the contrary."
Acting upon this counsel they
redistributed the spheres of work among themselves, in
order that each squadron of demons might, with a
specialized astuteness, tempt men to different vices. They
resolved to continue to propagate idolatry in the world, so
that men might not come to the knowledge of the true God
and the Redemption. Wherever idolatry would fail, they
concluded to establish sects and heresies, for which they
would select the most perverse and depraved of the human
race as leaders and teachers of error. Then and there was
concocted among these malignant spirits the sect of
Mahomet, the heresies of Arius, Pelagius, Nestorius, and
whatever other heresies have been started in the world from
the first ages of the Church until now, together with those
which they have in readiness, but which it is neither
necessary nor proper to mention here. Lucifer showed
himself content with these infernal counsels as being
opposed to divine truth and destructive of the very
foundation of man's rescue, namely divine faith. He
lavished flattering praise and high offices upon those
demons, who showed themselves willing and who undertook to
find the impious originators of these errors.
Some of the devils charged themselves
with perverting the inclinations of children at their
conception and birth; others to induce parents to be
negligent in the education and instruction of their
children, either through an inordinate love or adversion,
and to cause a hatred of parents among the children. Some
offered to create hatred between husbands and wives, to
place them in the way of adultery, or to think little of
the fidelity promised to their conjugal partners. All
agreed to sow among men the seeds of discord, hatred and
vengeance, proud and sensual thoughts, desires of riches or
honors, and by suggesting sophistical reasons against all
the virtues Christ has taught; above all they intended to
weaken the remembrance of his Passion and Death, of the
means of salvation, and of the eternal pains of hell. By
these means the demons hoped to burden all the powers and
the faculties of men with solicitude for earthly affairs
and sensual pleasures, leaving them little time for
spiritual thoughts and their own salvation.
Lucifer heard these different
suggestions of the demons, and answering them, he said, "I
am much beholden to you for your opinions: I approve of
them and adopt them all; it will be easy to put them into
practice with those, who do not profess the law given by
this Redeemer to men, though with those who accept and
embrace these laws, it will be a difficult enterprise. But
against this law and against those that follow it, I intend
to direct all my wrath and fury and I shall most bitterly
persecute those who hear the doctrine of this Redeemer and
become his disciples; against these must our most
relentless battle be waged to the end of the world. In this
new Church I must strive to sow my cockle (Matth. 14,25),
the ambitions, the avarice, the sensuality, and the deadly
hatreds, with all the other vices, of which I am the head.
For if once these sins multiply and increase among the
faithful, they will, with their concomitant malice and
ingratitude, irritate God and justly deprive men of the
helps of grace left to them by the merits of the Redeemer.
If once they have thus despoiled themselves of these means
of salvation, we shall have assured victory over
them.
We must also exert
ourselves to weaken piety and all that is spiritual and
divine; so that they do not realize the power of the
Sacraments and receive them in mortal sin, or at least
without fervor and devotion. For since these Sacraments are
spiritual, it is necessary to receive them with
well-disposed will, in order to reap their fruits. If once
they despise the medicine, they shall languish in their
sickness and be less able to withstand our temptations;
they will not see through our deceits, they will let the
memory of their Redeemer and of the intercession of his
Mother slip from their minds. Thus will their foul
ingratitude make them unworthy of grace and so irritate
their God and Savior, as to deprive them of his helps. In
all this I wish, that all of you assist me strenuousy,
losing neither time nor occasion for executing my
commands."
Lucifer and his
demons spent nearly a full year after the death of Christ
in conferring and considering among themselves the state of
the world up to that time and the changes wrought by Christ
our God and Master through his Death and after having
manifested the light of his faith by so many miracles,
blessings and examples of holy men. If all these labors had
not sufficed to draw all men to the way of salvation, it
can be easily understood, that Lucifer should have
prevailed and that his wrath should be so great, as to
cause us justly to say with saint John: "Woe to the earth,
for satan is come down to you full of wrath and fury!" But
alas! that truths so infallible and so much to be dreaded
and avoided by men, should in our days be blotted from the
minds of mortals to the irreparable danger of the whole
world! Our enemy is astute, cruel and watchful: we sleepy,
lukewarm and careless! What wonder that Lucifer has
entrenched himself so firmly in the world, when so many
listen to him, accept and follow his deceits, so few resist
him, and entirely forget the eternal death, which he so
furiously and maliciously seeks to draw upon them? I
beseech those, who read this, not to forget this dreadful
danger. If they are not convinced of this danger through
the evil condition of the world and through the evils each
one experiences himself, let them at least learn of this
danger by the vast and powerful remedies and helps, which
the Savior thought it necessary to leave behind in his
Church. For he would not have provided such antidotes if
our ailment and danger of eternal death were not so great
and formidable.