Читать книгу Dæmonologia Sacra; or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations. In Three Parts онлайн

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2. Secondly, But the proof is more full and direct, from those appellations and titles which the Scripture and the experience of men have put upon him; his usual name, Δαίμων, quasi Δαήμων, which—in Mat. viii. 31; Mark v. 12; Rev. xvi. 14—we translate devil, properly signifieth one that is wise, knowing, or skilful. And however the wickedness of that spirit hath so far dishonoured this word, that it is always, as some think, used to signify ‘unclean spirits;’ yet still it carries an evidence of their nature in reference to knowledge, that though they are wicked creatures, yet are they wise and knowing. It is said, Gen. iii. 1, ‘The serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field;’ which, though it be true literally of the serpent, whose wisdom and subtlety naturalists have abundantly noted, yet that expression hath an eye upon Satan, who was the principal agent; and the serpent there is called subtle, as influenced by Satan, whose instrument he was:92 which we may believe, not only upon the credit of Austin and Lyra, but more securely upon the testimony of other scriptures, which name him ‘the old serpent,’ Rev. xvii. 9, and impute all that craft in the management of that temptation to a particular remarkable skill and subtlety of Satan. ‘The serpent beguiled Eve through subtlety,’ 2 Cor. xi. 3; and, if Beza conjecture right, the appellation Δαίμων do so fitly suit this history of the tree of knowledge, that the title of knowledge seems to be given him for this singular masterpiece of craft.