I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

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a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before
the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood
this, for if they had known they would not have crucified the
Lord of glory. But as it is written, "What eye has not seen, nor
ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, God has prepared
for those who love him." (1 Cor. 2:7-9)
God permitted Satan to reign for a time over humanity, foresee-
ing that at the appointed time God would overcome him on the
Cross. The divine wisdom knew that thanks to this death the vic-
tim mechanism would be neutralized. Satan would be completely
unable to elude this trap; he would participate in God's plan un-
awares. The Greek Fathers, in treating Satan as the victim of a kind
of divine ruse, suggest aspects of revelation now obscured because
the anthropology of the Cross remains obscure.
Satan himself has thus placed the truth at the disposal of human-
kind; he has made it possible to overturn his own lie; he has rendered
the truth of God universally understandable.
The idea of Satan duped by the Cross is therefore not magical at
all and in no way offends the dignity of God. The trick that traps
Satan does not include the least bit of either violence or dishonesty
on God's part. It is not really a ruse or trick; it is rather the inability
of the prince of this world to understand the divine love. If Satan
does not see God, it is because he is violent contagion itself. The
devil is extremely clever concerning everything having to do with
rivalistic conflicts, with scandals and their outcome in persecution,
but he is blind to all reality other than that. Satan turns bad con-
tagion into something I hope not to do myself, a totalitarian and
infallible theory that makes the theoretician deaf and blind to the
love of God for humankind and to the love that human beings share
with God, however imperfectly.
Satan himself transforms his own mechanism into a trap, and he
falls into it headlong. God does not act treacherously, even toward
Satan, but allows himself to be crucified for the salvation of human-
kind, something beyond Satan's conception. The prince of this world
depended too heavily on the extraordinary power of concealment
of the victim mechanism.
The Gospels themselves draw our attention to the loss of mythic
unanimity everywhere Jesus comes and intervenes. John in partic-
ular points out on numerous occasions how the witnesses become
divided after Jesus speaks and acts. Each time, the people around
Jesus quarrel, and far from unifying them, his message precipitates
disharmony and division. In the Crucifixion especially, this divi-
sion plays a primary role. Without it there would not be a Gospel
revelation; the single victim mechanism would not be truthfully rep-
resented. It would be, as in the myths, transformed and concealed
as just and legitimate action.
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