The
Devil, Brother of the Word?
The
Moorish writer Lucius Caecilius Firmianus, best known under his nickname of
Lactantius, who lived in the second half of the third and early part of the
fourth-centuries, has no great authority as theologian, but in his Patrologia,
Tixéront says of him: “his was a calm, considered peace-loving nature, he was a
sincere Christian who unobtrusively did his duty.”
In
his big apologetic work we find a truly astounding statement, (Divinae Institutiones,
II, 9), the origin of which we are not very sure of. According to Lactantius,
Lucifer would have been nothing less than the brother of the Logos, of the Word,
i.e., of the Second Person of the Trinity. Here is his amazing statement:
“Begore creating the world, God produced a spirit
like Himself, replete with the virtues of the Father. Later he made another, in
whom the mark of divine origin was erased, because this one was besmirched by
the poison of jealousy and turned therefore from good to evil. . . . He was
jealous of his older Brother who, remaining united with the Father, insured his
affection unto Himself. This being who from good became bad is called Devil by
the Greeks.”
The
first born spirit, filled with every divine virtue and beloved by God above all
other spirits, can easily be recognized as the Word, that is, the Son. But
Lactantius’ story leads one to think that the other Spirit, also endowed with every
grace, was the second son of the Father: the future Satan would be, no less,
the younger brother of the future Christ. And Satan would not have become jealous
of men, as St. Cyprian, St. Irenaeus and St. Gregory of Nyssa argued, but
jealous of his own brother. Cain’s jealousy of Abel would have been prefigured
in heaven at the beginning of time, in Lucifer’s jealousy of the Logos.
Lactantius’
extraordinary opinion has not, to my knowledge, been accepted and restated by
any Christian theologian. Perhaps, in his thinking, it sprang from the exaggeration
of a doctrine, then and later quite widely diffused, according to which Lucifer
was the most luminous and perfect of the angels, therefore the nearest to God and,
perhaps, the first to have been created. But the highest of the angels is still
very far, both in nature and essence, from the one and triune God.
It
is curious that a sincere and learned Christian could teach, in the fourth
century, that Satan was not only the first of the Archangels but actually the
brother of God. (Giovanni Papini, The Devil: Notes for a Future Diabology
[trans. Adrienne Foulke; London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1955], 61-62)
