Chapter XIII
"The Enemy is overcome by the blessed Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ "
AND after this, before God shewed any words, He suffered me for a convenient time to give heed to Him and all that I had seen, and all intellect that was in it, as the simplicity of the soul might take it. Then He, without voice and opening of lips, formed in my soul these words: Herewith is the Fiend overcome. These words said our Lord, meaning His blessed Passion as He shewed it before.
On this shewed our Lord that the Passion of Him is the overcoming of the Fiend. God shewed that the Fiend has now the same malice that he had before the Incarnation. And as sore he travails, and as continually he sees that all souls of salvation escape him, worshipfully, by the virtue of Christ's precious Passion. And that is his sorrow, and evil is he ashamed: for all that God suffers him to do turns for us to joy and for him to shame and woe. And he has as much sorrow when God gives him leave to work, as when he works not: and that is for that he may never do as ill as he would: for his might is all taken into God's hand.
But in God there may be no wrath, as to my sight: for our good Lord endlessly has regard to His own worship and to the profit of all that shall be saved. With might and right He withstands the Reproved, the which of malice and wickedness busy them to contrive and to do against God's will. Also I saw our Lord scorn his malice and set at nothing his evil might; and He wills that we do so. For this sight I laughed mightily, and that made them to laugh that were about me, and their laughing was a pleasure to me. I thought that I would that all my fellow-Christians had seen as I saw, and then would they all laugh with me. But I saw not Christ laugh. For I understood that we may laugh in comforting of ourselves and joying in God for that the devil is overcome. And when I saw Him scorn his malice, it was by leading of my understanding into our Lord: that is to say, it was an inward shewing of verity, without changing of look. For, as to my sight, it is a worshipful property of God's that He is ever the same.
And after this I fell into a graveness, and said: I see three things: I see game, scorn, and earnest. I see a game, in that the Fiend is overcome; I see scorn, in that God scorns him, and he shall be scorned; and I see earnest, in that he is overcome by the blissful Passion and Death of our Lord Jesus Christ that was done in earnest and with sober travail.
When I said, he is scorned, - I meant that God scorns him, that is to say, because He sees him now as he shall do without end. For in this word God shewed that the Fiend is condemned. And this meant I when I said: he shall be scorned: he shall be scorned at the Day of Judgement, generally of all that shall be saved, to whose consolation he has great ill-will. For then he shall see that all the woe and tribulation that he has done to them shall be turned to increase of their joy, without end; and all the pain and tribulation that he would have brought them to shall endlessly go with him to hell.
THE SIXTH REVELATION