From this the Manichaean objects that the malice of the devil has no beginning, and thus it seems that there are two principles: one of good and another of evil.
I respond: It must be said that this passage is explained in five ways.
In one way thus: he was a murderer from the beginning, because just as the Word was in the beginning, because he had no beginning.
But this is heretical and is refuted by the text: for it does not say in the beginning, but from the beginning.
Another exposition is that from his very beginning he was made evil, as the Psalm seems to say: This dragon which you formed to sport with him.
And this is heretical, because just as it is impossible that the supremely hot should make cold, so too that the supremely good should make evil; and that verse of the Psalm and similar passages are to be understood after the fact.
The third exposition is this: he was a murderer from the beginning, that is, immediately after the beginning, because the interval between creation and the fall was brief; and therefore it is added : He did not stand in the truth, because he did not persevere.
The fourth exposition is this: a murderer from the beginning not his own, but of the human race; hence Augustine: "Man could not have been killed unless man had been made."
The fifth is this, that a murderer from the beginning, because in the same instant he began to exist from God and to be evil from himself, just as our soul, which is infused into the body.
The first two are heretical; the next two are catholic; the last is doubtful and tending toward the heretical, although it is not heretical; and therefore it is not commonly held.
71. Question IV. Likewise, an objection is raised concerning what he says, that the devil is the father of lies.
Therefore, since every sin is a lie, it seems that there is one principle of sin.
I respond: It must be said that one should not posit a first evil that is first in the genus of being, as though it were not from another; but one should posit a first evil before which no other evil preceded; and this is indeed the origin of subsequent evils, not always by efficient causation, but by occasion and by suggestion. Therefore he says: He is a liar and the father of it, namely of lying.
72. Question V. Likewise, it is asked concerning what he says: He who is of God.
Some have drawn strength for the error that good spirits are from God materially.
It is answered to them that it is erroneous to say that God is the matter of anything, since he is most simple.
But then an objection is raised: because if from denotes there an origin and efficient cause, and we are all from God, then we all hear the word of God.
Likewise, did not they themselves hear?
I respond: As has been said above, from denotes origin not with respect to primary being, but with respect to secondary being, which is the being of grace and of guilt, and this indeed according to conformity and imitation. Whence the meaning is: he who is from God, through conformity of will, hears the words of God, with the ear of the heart, not of the body, because in that way even the wicked hear.
73. Question VI. Likewise it is asked concerning this, why the Jews hurled these two reproaches at Christ rather than others. They had some reason why they would speak these insults in particular.
It must be said that it seemed to them that Christ in the observance of the Law did certain things and passed over others, such as the Sabbath and things of this kind. And because the Samaritans did this, since they partly observed and partly did not, therefore they called him a Samaritan.
Likewise, the Lord in his teaching said certain things that were very wise and sometimes certain things that seemed to them very improbable, because they did not understand him; therefore it seemed to them that he spoke as a man out of his mind. And therefore, because a demon induces alienation of mind, they said that he had a demon.
74. Question VII. Likewise it is asked: since two things had been objected against him, why did the Lord respond only to one?
Gregory responds that "he denied the one and by his silence consented to the other. For Samaritan is interpreted as guardian, and he himself was the guardian, of whom the Psalm says: Unless the Lord guard the city, " etc.
It is answered in another way that it was certain that he was born of the Jews; therefore it was not necessary for him to respond, because it was evidently false.