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13. Therein is our true peace and firm bond of union with our
Creator, that we should be purified and reconciled through the
Mediator of life, as we had been polluted and alienated, and so had
departed from Him, through the mediator of death. For as the devil
through pride led man through pride to death; so Christ through
lowliness led back man through obedience to life. Since, as the one
fell through being lifted up, and cast down [man] also who consented
to him; so the other was raised up through being abased, and lifted up
[man] also who believed in Him. For because the devil had not
himself come thither whither he had led the way (inasmuch as he bare
indeed in his ungodliness the death of the spirit, but had not
undergone the death of the flesh, because he had not assumed the
covering of the flesh), he appeared to man to be a mighty chief among
the legions of devils, through whom he exercises his reign of deceits;
so puffing up man the more, who is eager for power more than
righteousness, through the pride of elation, or through false
philosophy; or else entangling him through sacrilegious rites, in
which, while casting down headlong by deceit and illusion the minds of
the more curious and prouder sort, he holds him captive also to magical
trickery; promising too the cleansing of the soul, through those
initiations which they call teletai, by transforming himself into an
angel of light, through divers machinations in signs and prodigies of
lying.
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