(4) It is
fitting also that I be such a person in order that I say, I call upon faithlessness;
and I call upon faithlessness with the Serpent, with the Devil. The
Serpent once made an agreement with Eve, She was friendly to him and the
Serpent to the woman, but God made it his business since he is good to destroy
this agreement and to break up this evil friendship. And as the good God he
says, I will put enmity between you and between the woman, and between your
seed and between her seed. Thus we should prudently listen how God makes an
enmity with such a one, in order that he might make a friendship with
Christ. For it is not possible to be friend at the same time with opposites,
and just as no one can serve two masters, so no one can be a friend to
God and to mammon, a friend both to Christ and to the Serpent. But
it must happen that to make a friendship with Christ is to make an enmity with
the Serpent, and to generate a friendship wit the Serpent is to generate an
enmity with Christ. (Origen, Homilies on Jeremiah and 1 Kings 28 [trans.
John Clark Smith; The Fathers of the Church 97; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic
University of America Press, 1998], 236-37)
