Chapter 3 (64)
Distinction XX | 85 him. And yet God did not hold back his mercies in anger,' nor did he dismiss man from the law of his own power, when he allowed him to be in the power of the devil, since the devil himself is not separated either from the power of God, or from his goodness. For he would not subsist by any kind of life at all, except through him who gives life to all things. And so God did not abandon man so as not to show himself to him as God, and among penal evils, he also granted many good things to bad men. Remission of sin, granted by the blood of Christ, at last rescued man from the devil—the same man whom the commission of sins had made subject to the devil—, so that in this way the devil should be overcome by righteousness, not by power.'"
Chapter 3 (64) 1. BY WHAT RIGHTEOUSNESS WAS THE DEVIL OVERCOME. "But by what righteousness? Jesus Christ's. And how was he conquered by it? Because, although he found in Jesus nothing worthy of death,' yet he killed him.
And so it is entirely just that those debtors whom he held bound should be set free, if they believe in him whom he killed without any debt.'" "But God did not will to overcome the devil by power because the devil, by the vice of his own perversity, is a lover of power and a forsaker and assailant of righteousness; men imitate him all the more in this as they pursue power, neglecting or even hating righteousness, and as they either rejoice in the attainment of power, or are inflamed by the lust for it. And so it pleased God to rescue man, overcoming the devil not by power, but by righteousness, so that man might learn to imitate God in this."' "But afterwards, at the resurrection, power followed, because he who had died was alive again, never to die again."
2. QUESTION. "But would the devil not have been overcome by a most just right, if Christ had willed to deal with him by power alone? Surely, but Christ held back what he could have done, in order that he might first do what was fitting."' And so he freed man by the righteousness of his humility, whom he might most equitably have freed by power alone.
Ps. 76, 10.
°Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 13 cc12-13 nn16-17.
ICP ke 23. 15; *Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 13 c14 n18.
Ibid., bk 13 c13 nl17.
'TIbid., bk 13 cl14 nl18.
"Ibid.