I do not think that Paul could have said to the Corinthians, “Your wrestling is not against flesh and blood.” For to them he writes, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is human. God is faithful, and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able” (1 Cor 10:13).
Indeed, I suppose that wrestling against flesh and blood is what is called human temptation. It is when the flesh lusts against the spirit and urges us to do its works: fornication, uncleanness, incontinence, idolatry, enmities, strife, jealousy, sin, disputes, dissensions, divisions, factions, drunkenness, disorder, and the like (Gal 5:19-21).
It is not human temptation, or wrestling against flesh and blood, when Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. He then tries to persuade us to honor him as an angel of light. Or he does something similar, using every effort, false signs, prophecies, and every unrighteous deception.
For when the enemy ensnares someone, to deceive him and to speak in him, “Thus says the Lord,” he does not deceive him as flesh and blood does, or as human temptation does. He deceives him as a principality, a power, a ruler of darkness (Eph 6:12), and as spiritual wickedness.
Therefore let us give him no place. Even if the spirit of one having authority comes upon us, let us give him no place, as it is written.
But someone may say that the Apostle’s words, “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers,” and what follows, were spoken so that we might learn this. The vices which we regard as caused by the flesh do not arise from flesh and blood. Rather, they are smeared upon us by certain unclean spirits.
For there are demons that serve erotic passion and passionate songs, as the prophet also suggests when he says, “They have been led astray by the spirit of fornication” (Hos 4:12).
Moreover, they say that there are certain barbarous names for them, as those acknowledge whom the common people call evildoers, or sorcerers. There are incantations, prayers, various colors, and different kinds of metals and foods. In these, demons supposedly abide when summoned and, as they say, drag away miserable souls.
Others among them provoke anger, rage, and wars. Still others rule hostile actions and stir up hatred among men.
Therefore, since the Apostle wished to teach us that these kinds of vices do not arise in us from bodily nature, but through the incitement of demons, he says, “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of this world’s darkness, against spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places.”
For this reason we have now presented examples of those miserable people who submit to magical devices, though they are forbidden to do so. We have done this to refute the opinion of those who think that all vicious deeds arise from flesh and blood, and that demons have no power to stir us to sin.
In our judgment Jacob also had such a struggle, namely, not against flesh and blood. He remained alone, and a man came forward to wrestle with him. This man helped him and strengthened him against another, who fought with him until sweat.
At the same time, observe that Jacob wrestled through the whole night, according to the customs of those who wrestle, lest those who think thus seem quite ridiculous (Gen 32:24-28). For what great matter would it be if, as they say, Jacob had conquered or been conquered?
According to the rational and fitting struggle of the patriarch, we must believe that he had the struggle possessed by those who can say, “Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood.”
I need not disclose the sanctuary of this passage. If I live, it must be discussed more fully in its own place. But we ask, with reference to the Hebrew Questions on Genesis, where Paul the Apostle read this in the Old Testament, or on what basis he set before all what is least of all written.
We may surmise that the Apostle understood in a loftier sense what is written about battles and single combat in the books of the Law, Joshua, Judges, Kings, and Chronicles. Examples include David and Goliath, the sons of Israel, the Philistines, and other nations.
Under bodily warfare he understood spiritual warfare. In this warfare the participants were either conquered or gained victory. In the satraps of each country he saw an indication of higher powers. In the rulers of each nation he saw images of those whom he now calls rulers of the world and of darkness.
In the image of evil men he indicated spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places.
It seems to you that the Apostle says the following, though in other words: Ephesians, what you read about Israel’s wars against other nations, such as Egyptians, Edomites, Ammonites, and the rest, appears, if you wish to know the truth, to concern flesh and blood.
Yet all these things concern them in a figurative sense (1 Cor 10). They were written for our sake, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
Therefore we must understand that our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against certain spiritual and invisible powers. It is against the rulers of this darkness, which surrounds this world and spreads error among unbelieving men.
It is also against the spirits of wickedness that dwell in the heavenly places. This does not mean that demons pass their life in the heavens. Rather, the air above us has received this name, that is, the heavens.
For this reason the birds that fly through the air are called heavenly. Elsewhere, speaking of those who fly in this air, the Apostle says, “In which you also once walked, according to the age of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the sons of disobedience” (Eph 2:2).
The common opinion of all teachers is that this air, which separates heaven and earth and is called empty, is filled with hostile powers.
After this we must consider from whom the principalities, powers, rulers of the world’s darkness, and spiritual beings of wickedness received authority to be such. Someone may say that the devil, the apostate, entrusted different ministries to his companions, and that God was not the author of this distribution of ministries for evil.
The diligent reader may set against such a person the well-known passage of Scripture: “For there is no authority except from God” (Rom 13:1). If this is said of men, it makes still more sense with respect to those who have a higher and subtler nature.
Whoever thinks thus is not thereby subject to the charge of blasphemy. For each, by his own will, received different ministries as his lot.
In cities, as we see, those who have committed some criminal or shameful deed are assigned to feed wild beasts, quarry marble, clean filth in places where it is gathered, lead gladiators and fighters in the circus, or shed the blood of criminals.
So also demons, by their free will, received as their lot the domains of snares, deception, crimes, treachery, and the other vices. They became rulers of darkness because they did not wish to be princes of light.
Thus, when these rulers of the world and of darkness set an obstacle before someone in battle and make him fall, they immediately bind him to their world and darkness, over which they rule.
Therefore we must labor with greater strength. We have once heard, “I chose you out of this world, and you are no longer of this world. If you were of the world, the world would love what is its own” (Jn 15:19). We must not return to the world or be subject to it.
The world must be crucified to us, and we to the world. The Master of light, Jesus Christ, must join us to His own world and grant that we be under the authority of the Father. We must be torn away from the power of spiritual wickedness and from the region of the heaven that is to pass away and cannot be called the throne of God.
Indeed, it would be impious to believe that the spiritual beings of wickedness in the heavenly places possessed that heaven of which God says, “Heaven is My throne” (Isa 66:1).
Therefore whoever understands how much happens to us in this world, whether we are present or absent, will see what the darkness is of which the Apostle speaks. We cannot see this either because of our corruptible and earthly body, with which the soul is enveloped, or because a subtler nature is not accessible to fleshly eyes.
Either this whole earthly life is called darkness, because “the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (Jn 1:5), or the earthly body, the body of death and of our lowliness, darkens, covers, and blinds the light of the soul and mind.
Let us also note that, apart from this passage, we nowhere meet in either the Old or the New Testament the word κοσμοκράτορας, that is, rulers of the world. The Apostle Paul himself composed this word, so that, by necessity, when addressing the Ephesians, he might give a new name to new and invisible realities.
Further, concerning the phrase “in the heavenly places,” since it seems to have a twofold meaning, we must say that it may refer to everything that has been said. The sense would then be this: our wrestling is not against powers in the heavenly places, and rulers of this darkness in the heavenly places, and spiritual beings of wickedness in the heavenly places.
It would not mean only, “against spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places.” This is especially so if we understand, as was explained above, that the aerial regions are called heavens when birds are mentioned.
It is also customary to say that rain comes down from heaven, not because it comes down from that place precisely. For the philosophers maintain that clouds are not more than two thousand paces from the earth. From these clouds rain pours down, both fine and heavy.
In this same sense it is reported that, at the flood, the torrents of heaven were opened.
Yet the worse someone is, the nearer he is to earthly places, and the grosser and heavier is the nature he possesses. Since the earth and the air surrounding us have their own corporeality, some maintain the following about souls freed from bodies.
If, in the present life, they have been refined and compressed into a subtle body, as though by the saw of discipline and virtuous struggles, they will not dwell in gross material spaces. They will be near to God, who is incorporeal.
But if they are such that it may be said of them, “Sons of men, how long will you be heavy,” or “fat of heart” (Ps 4:3), then by the weight of their fatness they will be dragged down to lower places and burdened with corporeal thickness.
After this we must also consider whether on this earth and in the air there will be some grosser place, which very many call Hades. Those who are called the lower ones, inferi, will dwell there.
But in the present passage it is untimely to discuss who they are, or what means and distinction they have in relation to those who are called spiritual beings of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Finally, from the Apostle’s presentation of a twofold wrestling, we must grasp more clearly the difference between wrestling against flesh and blood and wrestling against the rulers of this darkness and spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places.
When he wishes to show human temptations, that is, the wrestling of flesh and blood, he speaks with disdain or contempt: “Who shall separate us from the love of God? Shall affliction, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”
This accords with what is written: “For Thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter” (Ps 43:22). “But in all these things we have overcome through Him who loved us” (Rom 8:35-36).
THEOSIS