Chapter LV

Chapter LV.—The Two Kingdoms.

To this the old man answered: “But why was that prince made who delights in evil? 826 And from what was he made? Or was he not made?” Aquila said: “The treatment of that subject belongs to another time; but that you may not go away altogether without an answer to this, I shall give a few hints on this subject also. God, foreseeing all things before the creation of the world, knowing that the men who were to be would some of them indeed incline to good, but others to the opposite, assigned those who should choose the good to His own government and His own care, and called them His peculiar inheritance; 827 but He gave over the government of those who should turn to evil to those angels who, not by their substance, but by opposition, were unwilling to remain with God, being corrupted by the vice of envy and pride. Those, therefore, he made worthy princes of worthy subjects; yet he so delivered them over to those angels, that they have not the power of doing what they will against them, unless they transgress the bounds assigned to them from the beginning. And this is the bound assigned, that unless one first do the will of the demons, the demons have no power over him.”