Section 37

“Let this also be a sign for you: whenever the soul remains in fear, the enemies are present. The demons do not remove the fear caused by their presence, as the great archangel Gabriel did for Mary and Zechariah and as the angel did for the women at the tomb.

“Instead, when the demons see people afraid, they increase their apparitions so as to terrify them still more. Finally they attack and mock them, saying, ‘Fall down and worship.’ In this way they deceived the Greeks, and in this way they were falsely regarded as gods.

“But the Lord did not allow us to be deceived by the devil. Whenever the devil attempted such deceptions against him, the Lord rebuked him, saying, ‘Get behind me, Satan, for it is written: You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve.’

“So let us despise the deceiver more and more. What the Lord said, he did for our sake, so that when the demons hear the same words from us, they may flee because of the Lord who rebuked them with those words.