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 13 THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT SATAN AND HIS DEMONS

The renowned exorcist P. Jose Antonio Fortea in his “Summa Daemoniaca” mentions a large set of questions related to the devil that is important for every Christian to take into account for the spiritual battle to reach heaven. 

Here are 13 things you may not have known about the devil and his demons.

1. - THE ENEMY HAS MANY NAMES 

In the Old Testament, he is called “Satan” which would mean “accuser, foe, adversary.” Also, in the New Testament he is referred to as “Devil,” which comes from the Greek word “diablos” (accuse). Instead the word demon, from the Greek “daimon” (genius), is used to designate evil spiritual beings.

Lucifer is a name that is not in the Holy Scriptures and meaning “morning star” or “the bearer of the light.” Which "remember the sorrow so great that being so beautiful, it falls", says Fr. P. Fortea . However, the presbyter follows the same idea of another renowned exorcist, P. Gabriele Amorth, who considers Lucifer to be the proper name of the second demon in importance in the demonic hierarchy.

2. - THE GREAT TEST 

All the angels when created by God knew that He was their creator, but they went through a test “before the vision of the essence of Divinity.” By comparison, the priest explains that it would be like saying that “they saw God as a light, they heard Him as a majestic and holy voice, but their face continued if they were relieved.”

"In that test some obeyed, others disobeyed. Those who irreversibly disobeyed were transformed into demons. They themselves became what they are. Nobody made them like that.”

3. - THE BATTLE IN HEAVEN WAS INTELLECTUAL 

In that regard, the exorcist indicates that the disobedient angels began to hate God and to see Him as a chain that oppressed their freedom. The battle between Michael and Lucifer, each with his angels, was not with weapons, since they have no body, "the only weapons that can blaze are intellectual arguments", he explains.

“Some became more arrogant, others not so much. Each rebellious angel was being deformed more and more, each into specific sins. Just as, on the contrary, the faithful angels went away sanctifying themselves progressively. Some angels are more sanctified in one virtue than others in another.. the angels were admitted into the divine presence, and the demons were allowed to go away.”

4. - THE REASON FOR THEIR REBELLION 

Only at this point is the book "History of the Angelic World" taken as a reference, also from Fr. Fortea. There it suggests, like a novel, that the test that the angels would have gone through is the revelation that God made to them about creating the material world with humanity, that He would become man to save sinners and that He would be born of a woman, the woman would be the queen of the angels.

Lucifer couldn't handle this idea, he believed he should be birthed by being the Creator's "masterpiece". Later on with other angels they accused God of being wrong and rebelled completely. The angels who obeyed the will of God bowed down to worship their creator, yet without seeing their essence yet.. While the rebels turned away from the love of God.

5. - THEY ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS 

“A demon is a spiritual being of angelic nature condemned eternally.” That is, they have no body, they feel no inclination towards any sin committed with the body, but they can tempt men to sin in such matters. They understand those sins in a purely intellectual way and their faults are only spiritual..

In this sense the exorcist states that Satan “remains a beautiful angel in nature, albeit repugnant in his moral appearance... His personal being has been deformed, but his nature remains and will remain intact no matter what he does. Since both are inseparable, he genuinely is a monster, a deformed being, someone who produces repugnance and aversion

6. - BETWEEN THE DEMONS THERE IS ALSO TIME 

Their time is not material like that of humans, but is a time typical of the spirits, which is called “aeviternity” (“aevum” in Latin) and is the succession of acts of understanding and will in a spiritual being.

The Creator, on the other hand, lives in an eternal present. In Him alone there is no succession of time of any kind. Not a single second has ever passed in Him, not a second before or after. The eternity of God is qualitatively different from the eternity of material time (with a beginning, but without an end) and the eternity of evo (also with a beginning, also without an end)”, points Fr. Fortea .

7. - THEY SUFFER TO CONSIDER GOD 

Every fallen angel “in knowing finds pleasure, but also suffering. You suffer every time that knowledge leads you to consider God. And the devil continually perceives the order and glory of the Creator in all things.. Even in the seemingly most neutral things, he finds the reflection and memory of divine attributes.”

However, the exorcist states that "the devil is not always suffering at every moment. A lot of times you just think. He only suffers at certain moments, when he remembers God, when he becomes aware of his miserable state, of his separation from God

8. - THEY DO NOT KNOW THE FUTURE, NOR CAN THEY READ THE THOUGHTS 

Demons do not see the future, but with their intelligence far superior to that of humans they can infer from their causes some things that will happen. They don't know what one will decide because "human freedom is the great factor of indetermination in their predictions," says Fr. Fortea.

“Demons can tempt us but they can’t read our thoughts. Although given their great intelligence they can guess what we think. By being more intelligent than we are, they infer far more things and more safely with very few external signs than we would infer. But we must always remember that they are out of our soul, only God can read our soul

9. - BEWARE OF TEMPTATIONS 

“The devil may introduce thoughts, images, or memories to us, but he cannot introduce himself to our will. We may be tempted, but in the end we do what we want. “Not all the powers of hell can force someone to commit even the smallest sin,” claims the priest.

Similarly he points out that “if one is tempted and prays, the temptation disappears. Temptation is incompatible with prayer. Prayer first creates a barrier against temptation because our will and intelligence are focused on God. And if we insist a little more, the devil can’t resist it and flees.”

10. - THEY HATE THE ASCETICS MORE 

Exorcist Fortea confidently states that of all the Christians that are in the Church, the devil hates the most is the one that is devoted to asceticism (discipline, fasting, meditation, prayer, sacrifices, etc. to achieve the virtue ).

"The devil hates much more the ascetic than the ecclesiastical hierarchy or the exorcists themselves. The Exorcist casts out one, two, a dozen demons... The man who mortifies himself breaks in a much more powerfully the demonic influence in this world by the mere fact of bearing upon his body and spirit the everyday passion of his crucified life

11. - THE MEANING OF THE CROSS FOR DEMONS 

The priest describes that “each and every one of the demons were there, surrounding the Cross, contemplating with delight their triumph.” However, they couldn’t imagine that it was the greatest victory of the Kingdom of Heaven that left them “speechless” with the Resurrection.

“God the Father had not spared the Passion nor his own Son... The Passion on the Cross was palpable proof that Divine Justice was not tragedy in vain. It was at that moment when all the demons became fully aware that their condemnation would not have any pardon for centuries and centuries.”

"That's why they were contemplating the Cross with the joy of their evil victory, they came to understand that for them it would be forever the terrible memory of Divine Justice. And that is why above all, the demons hate the image of the cross more than the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary or the image of any other saint or the representation of another sacred mystery.”

12. - OBJECTS THAT TORMENT THE DEMONS 

“The Church with the power it has received from Christ can attach a spiritual effect to an object,” explains Fr. Fortea . He recounts that at one time there was no water during an exorcism and he blessed the contents of a lemonade bottle, but the effect it had was much smaller.

“After a few minutes I ordered in the name of Jesus the demon to tell me why that was so. He resisted, but in the end he said that water was a symbol of purity and cleanliness. Well, he said that that other blessed liquid also had some effect on him, but less.”

Other objects that torment the demons are the relics of the saints and the cross. Likewise, religious images also torment them, more if they are blessed, and with greater strength "if in the blessing expressly asked God to repel demons".

13. - 666 ISN'T THE NUMBER OF SATAN BUT A MAN 

The exorcist claims that identifying the biblical figure of the Antichrist with that of the devil is a mistake because the "666" mentioned in the Revelation is the number of a human being.

Therefore he is a man who spreads hate, war and evil. "Nero, Napoleon, and especially Hitler, are the figure and sketch of the ultimate and perfect Antichrist," he says.

"It is also very clear to us the figure of the Antichrist is his very name Anti-Christ. That is, it's about the anti-Christ figure. Christ was a man, so was the Antichrist. Christ spread love peace mercy The Antichrist will spread hate, war, vengeance.”

SOURCE

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