How Little It Is That the Devil Can Do against Us

if will help us not a little towards keeping up our courage and fortitude in temptations, to consider the weakness of our enemies and how little the devil can do against us, Since he cannot make us fall into any sin if we do not want to. St. Bernard says very well: “Look and observe, my brethren, how weak our enemy is, since he can only overcome him who wishes to be overcome—non vincit nisi volentem.” If a soldier going to war and to fight against the enemy knew for certain that if he only willed it he would be victorious and that victory was in his hand, what satisfaction would he conceive, being certain of victory, as he is certain that he wishes to win and not be beaten. In this way, then, it is open to us to wage our warfare with the devil, we being certain that he cannot overcome us if we ourselves do not wish to be overcome. St. Jerome remarks this very well on those words that the devil spoke to Christ our Redeemer, when he set Him on the pinnacle of the Temple and tempted Him, urging Him to throw Himself down from thence. St. Jerome says: “This is the voice of the devil, who desires that all should throw themselves down and fall into the abyss. The devil can urge you to throw yourself down, but he cannot throw you down if you do not wish it”—Persuadere potest, praecipitare non potest. “Throw yourself down,” says the fiend when he tempts you; “throw yourself into hell.” Say to him: “You throw yourself down—you know the way; I have no mind for the plunge.” If, then, you have no mind for it, he cannot throw you down; if you have no mind to go to hell, he cannot take you there. There was once a man walking in much affliction, quite prostrate and worn out with a temptation of the devil inwardly saying to him, “Hang yourself.” He opened his grief to a religious, who said to him: “Brother, must not that be by your will? Say then to him, ‘I will not,’ and come and tell me next week how things go.” Thereby he got rid of the temptation, and came back to thank the confessor who had given him that remedy. This, then, is the means that we are now prescribing.

This agrees well with what St. Augustine says: “My brethren, before the coming of Christ the devil went about loose; but when He came into the world, He tied up the devil, who had played the strong man therein (Matt. xii.

29).” So St. John said in the Apocalypse: I saw an angel coming down from heaven, who held the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand; and he seized the dragon, the old serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up there, and sealed up the door upon him, that he might no more deceive the nations, until the thousand years should be accomplished; and after that he must be untied for a little while (Apoc. xx. 1-3). St. Augustine says on this passage that tying up the devil means not letting him do all the evil that he could and would, if let, in the way of tempting and deceiving men in a thousand subtle ways. When Antichrist comes, they will give him somewhat more liberty, but at present he is tied up fast. But you will say: “If he is tied up, how does he succeed in doing so much mischief?” “It is true,” says St. Augustine, “that he succeeds in doing much mischief, but that is among the careless and negligent; for the devil is tied up like a dog in chains, and cannot bite anyone except him who chooses to go up to him. He can bark and provoke and solicit to evil; but he cannot bite or do evil except to one who chooses to approach him”—Latrare potest; sollicitare potest; mordere omnino non potest nisi volentem. Now as he would be a fool, and you would laugh at and make game of the man, who let himself be bitten by a dog strongly made fast on a chain, so, says St. Augustine, they deserve to be laughed at and derided who let themselves be bitten and overcome by the devil, since he is tied and chained up tight like a mad dog, and can do no mischief except to those who choose to come near him. If you are bitten, you have brought it on yourself, since you have gone up to him for him to bite you. Seeing that he cannot get at you, nor make you fall into any fault unless you choose, so you may well make game of him. St. Augustine explains to this effect that verse of the psalm: That dragon that thou hast created, Lord, for us to make game of him (Psalm ciii. 26). Have you not seen how they make game of a dog or of a bear that is tied up, and how boys make of him a sport and pastime? So, then, you may make game of the devil when he brings up against you his temptations, and call him dog, and say to him: “Get away, you wretch; you are tied up; you cannot bite, nor do any more than bark.”

When the devils appeared to the blessed St. Anthony in various horrible shapes of wild beasts—lions, tigers, bulls, - Serpents, and scorpions, surrounding him and threatening him with their claws and teeth, roaring and hissing dreadfully as though they would swallow him up—the saint made game of them and said to them: “If you had any power, any one of you would be a match for one man; but because you are weak, you arrange to come in a great rabble to frighten me with that. If the Lord has given you any power over me, here I am, eat me up; but if you have none, why labor in vain?” So we should do; for since God has become man, the devil has no power, as he himself confessed to St. Anthony, who answered him: ‘Thanks be to God for that, for though you are the father of lies, in this you speak the truth.” For Christ Himself tells us: Have courage and confidence, for I have come and delivered the world from the dominion and power of the devil—confidite, ego vict mundum (John xvi. 33). Infinite thanks be given to God, who has given us this victory through Christ (1 Cor. xv. 57).