Archelaus

“ Is it not accordant with all that is fitting, that you should multiply yourself like the tares, until that same mighty father of yours comes, raising the dead, as he will profess to do, and persecuting almost to hell itself all those who refuse to yield to his bidding, keeping multitudes in check by that terror of arrogance in which he entrenches himself, and employing threatenings against others, and making sport of them by the changing of his countenance and his deceitful dealing? ”

“ As we have heard now from you, as Paul himself also seems to tell us, and, further, as we have learned likewise from the earlier account given in the Gospel, an introduction to preaching, or teaching, or evangelizing, or prophesying, is not, in this life at least, held out on the same terms to any person in times subsequent to the apostle’s: [16] and if the opposite appears ever to be the case, the person can only be held to be a false prophet or a false Christ. ”

“ For we are given to understand beforehand that the devil himself is to be transformed into an angel of light, and that his servants are to make their appearance in similar guise, and that they are to work signs and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, the very elect should be deceived. [5] But who, pray, are you then, to whose lot no such position of kinship has been assigned by your father Satan? [6] For whom have you raised from the dead? What issue of blood do you ever staunch? ”