Job 1:16

Now, to this point we have come in our discourse, because of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming together unto Jesus, who disagreed in matters relating to the resurrection, but came, as it were, to an agreement for the sake of tempting our Saviour, and asking Him to show them a sign from heaven. For, not satisfied with the wonderful signs shown among the people in the healing of all forms of disease and sickness, and with the rest of the miracles which our Saviour had done in the knowledge of many, they wished Him to show to them also a sign from heaven. And I conjecture that they suspected that the signs upon earth might possibly not be of God; for they did not hesitate indeed to say, “Jesus casts out demons by Beelzebub the prince of the demons;” and it seemed to them that a sign from heaven could not spring from Beelzebub or any other wicked power. …

“ And while they abode in Galilee, Jesus said unto them, The Son of man shall be delivered into the hands of men. ” And these things will appear to be of the same effect as those, “that Jesus began to show unto His disciples that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes.” But it is not so; for it is not the same thing “to show unto the disciples that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes,” and, after suffering, “be killed,” and, after being killed, “be raised up on the third day,” as that which was said to them, when they were in Galilee, which we did not learn before, that the Son of man “would be delivered up;” for the being delivered up was not mentioned above, but now also it is said that “He is to be delivered up into the hands of men.” As for these matters let us inquire by …

26. But it hath been clearly enough intimated, that by the judgment of God these things befell them through the instrumentality of evil angels, in this wicked world, as though it were in Egypt and in the plain of Thanis, where we ought to be humble, until there come that world, wherein we may earn to be exalted out of this humiliation. For even Egypt in the Hebrew tongue doth signify darkness or tribulations, in which tongue, Thanis, as I have observed, is understood to be humble commandment. …

I will state another solution of this question, in order that thou mayest learn, that the Devil does not injure, but their own slothfulness everywhere overthrows those who do not take heed. Let the Devil be allowed to be exceeding wicked, not by nature, but by choice and conviction. For that the Devil is not by nature wicked, learn from his very names. For the Devil, the slanderer that is, is called so from slandering; for he slandered man to God saying “Doth Job reverence thee for nought? but put out thine hand, and touch what he hath, see if he will not blaspheme thee to thy face.” He slandered God again to man saying “Fire fell from heaven and burnt up the sheep.” For he was anxious to persuade him, that this warfare was stirred up from above, out of the heavens, and he set the servant at variance with the master, and the master with his servant; rather he did not set them at variance …

We read in the book of Job how, while the first messenger of evil was yet speaking, there came also another; and in the same book it is written: “is there not a temptation”, or as the Hebrew better gives it, “a warfare to man upon earth?” It is for this end that we labour, it is for this end that we risk our lives in the warfare of this world, that we may be crowned in the world to come. That we should believe this to be true of men is nothing wonderful, for even the Lord Himself was tempted, and of Abraham the scripture bears witness that God tempted him. …