2 Corinthians 11:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

By their works, as Christ said (Mt 7:20). This compels the Apostle to compare his own merits with their evil works, so that the illegitimate teachers may be exposed by such comparison. Again, when he is about to praise himself, he first exposes them. He does this to show the necessity that makes him touch upon this subject, so that no one can reproach him for speaking about himself.

Otherwise, someone who thinks good angels are among his friends may in fact have evil demons as seeming friends. In them he suffers enemies all the more harmful because they are more cunning and crafty. Such is the power of goodness and moral purity that every, or almost every, human nature regards it with respect. It does not reach such a degree of moral corruption as to lose every sense of propriety. Therefore the cunning of demons succeeds in deception only by disguising itself, in one case or another, as angels of light. We know this from our Scriptures. What is the power of darkness if not the power of the devil and his angels? When they were angels of light, they did not use their freedom of will to stand in the truth. Having fallen, they became darkness. I am not teaching you this; I am trying to remind you of what you know. Therefore the human race was subjected to the power of darkness through the fall of the first man, whom this power seduced into sin. Through him we all fell.

They call night day, death salvation, despair hope, faithlessness faith, and antichrist Christ. Thus they treacherously destroy righteousness by a lying appearance of righteousness. This is what happens, my beloved brothers, when we do not return to the source of truth, when we do not look to the Head, and when we do not hold fast to the teaching of our heavenly Teacher.

Therefore we need divine grace, a sober mind, and watchful eyes. Otherwise, through ignorance, we may eat tares instead of wheat and suffer harm. We may meet a wolf, taking him for a sheep, and become food for the evil-working devil, having considered him a good angel.

But, they will say, how is it evident that the devil is accustomed to use testimonies of Holy Scripture? Read the Gospel. There it is written: "Then the devil takes Him," that is, the Lord Savior, "and sets Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and says to Him: If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, He shall command His angels concerning You, to guard You in all Your ways, and on their hands they shall bear You up, lest You strike Your foot against a stone" (Mt 4:5-6; Ps 90:11-12). What will he not do to poor men, when he attacked the Lord Himself with testimony from the Scriptures? "If," he says, "You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down." Why? "For it is written," he says.

We must especially notice and remember the instruction contained in this passage. Knowing this example from the authority of the Gospel, when we see some people bringing apostolic or prophetic sayings against the catholic faith, we should not doubt at all that the devil speaks through their mouths. As the head then spoke to the Head, so now the members speak to the members: the members of the devil to the members of Christ, the treacherous to the faithful, the impious to the pious, heretics to the Orthodox.

What exactly do they say? "If you are a son of God, throw yourself down." That is, if you wish to be a son of God and inherit the kingdom of heaven, then "throw yourself down." Cast yourself down from the heights of the Church, which is also the temple of God. Leave her teaching and tradition. If someone asks any heretic who suggests this to him, "By what do you prove, and on what basis do you teach that I must leave the ancient universal faith of the Catholic Church?" he will immediately answer. "For it is written." At once he will present you with a thousand examples and a thousand proofs from the Law, the Psalms, the Apostles, and the Prophets. By interpreting them in a new and evil manner, he casts the wretched soul from the catholic ark into the abyss of heresy.

As for the promises that the devil then pointed to, heretics are astonishingly skilled at deceiving simple people with them. They dare to promise and teach that in their church, that is, in the gathering of their agreement, a great, special, indeed some particular grace of God is given. Thus everyone belonging to it, without any labor, zeal, or effort, even without asking, seeking, or knocking, enjoys such favor from God that, being borne on angels' hands and guarded by angels' protection, he can never "strike his foot against a stone" and can never be deceived.

What, then, someone will say, should Orthodox people, sons of the Mother Church, do when the devil and his disciples use divine utterances, sayings, and promises? Among them some are false apostles, others false prophets and false teachers, and all in general are heretics. How are they to distinguish truth from falsehood in view of the sayings of Holy Scripture? They must do as, according to the tradition of holy and learned men, we said at the beginning of this treatise. Namely, they must make sure that Holy Scripture is interpreted according to the traditions of the whole Church and according to the indications of catholic dogmatic teaching.

Within the catholic and apostolic Church itself, they must necessarily follow universality, antiquity, and agreement. Thus, if ever a part rises against the whole, novelty against antiquity, or the erroneous dissent of one person, or of a minority, against the agreement of all or at least the decisive majority of the Orthodox, they must prefer the incorruptness of universality to the error of a part. In the question of universality itself, they must prefer the piety of antiquity to the vileness of novelty. Finally, in the question of antiquity itself, they must prefer to the rashness of one person, or of a very limited number, above all the common definitions of some Ecumenical Council, if such exist on the given matter. If they do not exist, then they must prefer what is nearest to them, that is, the mutually concordant judgments of the majority of the great teachers. If, with God's help, we observe this faithfully, soundly, and diligently, then without great difficulty we shall discern every criminal error of newly appearing heretics.

It must be noted, however, that we are obliged with the greatest zeal to investigate and follow these concordant judgments of the ancient holy Fathers, not with regard to every minor question in Holy Scripture, but chiefly only concerning the rule of faith. On the other hand, not all heresies, and not always, must be refuted by this method, but only new and recent ones, appearing for the first time. As for ancient and long-established heresies, we have not the slightest need to approach them by this road. However ancient the vileness of such heresies or schisms may be, we must either strike them, if necessary, only by the authority of Holy Scripture, or flee from them without hesitation as already stricken by the teaching and condemned by the Ecumenical Councils of the Orthodox pastors of the Church. The end. And glory to our God!

Saint John Chrysostom, in the second homily on poor Lazarus and the rich man, relates what happened in his time: "Demons say, 'I am the soul of such-and-such a monk.' Of course, I do not believe this precisely because demons say it. They deceive those who attend to them. For this reason Paul commanded the demon to be silent, although it spoke the truth, so that it would not turn this truth into an occasion, later mix falsehood with it, and draw trust to itself. The devil said, 'These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation' (Acts 16:17). The Apostle, being grieved by this, commanded the inquisitive spirit to come out of the girl. And what evil did the spirit say when it said, 'These men are servants of the Most High God'? But since most of the ignorant cannot judge soundly concerning what demons say, the Apostle decisively rejected every trust in them. 'You belong to the number of the rejected,' the Apostle says to the demon. 'You have no right to speak freely. Be silent, be mute. It is not your task to preach; this is entrusted to the Apostles. Why do you seize what is not yours? Be silent, rejected one.' So also Christ, when the demons said to Him, 'We know who You are' (Mk 1:24; Lk 4:34), very strictly forbade them. By this He prescribed a law for us, that under no pretext should we trust a demon, even if it says something true. Knowing this, we must decisively believe the demon in nothing. If it says even something true, let us flee and turn away from it. We must learn sound and saving knowledge not from demons, but from Divine Scripture."

Further in this homily Chrysostom says that the souls of both the righteous and sinners are immediately after death led from this world into the other: some to receive crowns, others to punishments. The soul of poor Lazarus was immediately after death carried by Angels to the bosom of Abraham, and the soul of the rich man was cast down into the flame of Hades. In the twenty-eighth homily on Matthew, Chrysostom relates that in his time certain possessed persons said, "I am the soul of such-and-such a person." "In truth this is falsehood and deception of the devil," the great hierarch adds. "It is not the soul of the dead person crying this out, but a demon pretending in order to deceive the hearers."

Demons do not know the future, which is known to God alone and to those rational creatures of His to whom God wills to reveal it. Yet as intelligent and experienced people foresee and anticipate future events from events that have occurred or are occurring, so cunning and much-experienced evil spirits can sometimes suppose with certainty and foretell the future. Often they err. Very often they lie and lead people into perplexity and doubt by obscure predictions. Sometimes they can foretell an event already appointed in the world of spirits, but not yet carried out among men. Thus, before temptations befell righteous Job, permission for these temptations had already been decided in the counsel of God and was known to the fallen spirits (Job ch. 1). Thus, before the king entered the campaign, the destruction in battle of Ahab king of Israel had been decided at God's judgment, was known to the holy heavenly powers and to the rejected angels, and was handed over to an evil spirit for execution (3 Kgs 22:19-23). Thus the devil foretold to Saint John, Archbishop of Novgorod, the temptation that he later brought upon him.

There were cases when holy Angels appeared even to sinners. But this happened by a special dispensation of God and extremely rarely. Thus a holy Angel appeared to a false prophet and magician, that is, to a man who was in especially close communion with demons (Num 22). Exceptional cases, by the special dispensation of God, must have no influence on the general rule for all. The general rule for all people is this: in no way trust spirits when they appear sensibly. Do not enter into conversation with them. Pay no attention to them. Recognize their appearance as a very great and very dangerous temptation. During this temptation one must direct the mind and heart to God with prayer for mercy and deliverance from temptation. The desire to see spirits, and curiosity to learn something about them and from them, is a sign of the greatest folly and of complete ignorance of the moral and practical traditions of the Orthodox Church. Knowledge of spirits is acquired in a completely different way from what the inexperienced and imprudent investigator supposes. Open communion with spirits is the greatest calamity for the inexperienced, or it becomes the source of the greatest calamities.

I do it to remove every right from covetous false apostles, who deceive you, to boast that they are like me. "For such false apostles are deceitful workers, disguising themselves as Apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself disguises himself as an angel of light." And "you, being wise men," he says ironically, "gladly endure fools. You endure it if someone enslaves you, devours you, takes from you, exalts himself, or strikes you in the face. To my shame I say that we were too weak for that." He says this to their mutual shame: to his own, ironically, and to theirs, as a rebuke. The Apostle speaks as though saying: nothing can be done; I must confess that I was incapable of the deeds just listed. In general, among you I did not possess those showy qualities with which the false apostles tried to shine. Clearly they dazzled you by them. Yet how can you not be ashamed that you cannot distinguish true dignity from false? How could you forget all that revealed in me a true Apostle of Christ?

How then are they to be known? By their works, as Christ the Lord said" (Mt 7:20). "Therefore, if one must wonder, one must wonder at Satan, not at his ministers. For when their teacher dares everything, it is no wonder that his disciples follow him in this. Whom does the Apostle call an angel of light? An angel who has boldness to converse with God and who stands before Him. But there are also angels of darkness, ministers of the devil, dark and savage. The devil has deceived many in this way, that is, by disguising himself as an angel of light, not by becoming an angel of light. In exactly the same way, these men wear the mask of Apostles, but do not possess apostolic power."