9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
"There was a battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon warred, and his angels, and they prevailed not; nor was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast forth, that old serpent: he was cast forth into the earth." This is the beginning of Antichrist yet previously Elias must prophesy, and there must be times of peace. And afterwards, when the three years and six months are completed in the preaching of Elias, he also must be cast down from heaven, where up till that time he had had the power of ascending; and all the apostate angels, as well as Antichrist, must be roused up from hell. Paul the apostle says: "Except there come a falling away first, and the man of sin shall appear, the son of perdition; and the adversary who exalted himself above all which is called God, or which is worshipped."
As though in a continual return to the starting-point, as already described, the vision now plans to describe an earlier beginning which had indeed been partly mentioned previously, as it prepares to tell us about the Antichrist; for the first beginning of the acts of the Antichrist was Satan’s fall from heaven. The Lord, too, says of this, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
What, therefore, does it mean, And war arose in heaven? The divine Scripture says that Satan raised up his neck against God, that is, stretched up an arrogant and stubborn neck against him and planned to revolt. But God, inasmuch as he is naturally good and long-suffering, was forbearing towards him. The divine angels, on the other hand, did not put up with the arrogance of their master, and drove him out of their company. He now says that Michael, one of the great rulers among the angels, made war against Satan and those under him.
And Satan did not prevail in the war against him, nor was there any place of refuge found for him, or any dwelling in heaven, and he was thrown down to the earth. He either actually suffered this, or because he had been stripped of angelic and heavenly rank, he was brought down to an earthly frame of mind.
Then, as though taking vengeance on God because of his fall, as he could not injure God, he injures God’s servants, human beings, and leads them astray and tries to get them to revolt from God, thinking that in this way he would injure the master himself.
They set forth, indeed, the name of Christ Jesus as a sort of lure, but in various ways they introduce the impieties of Simon; and thus they destroy multitudes, wickedly disseminating their own doctrines by the use of a good name, and, through means of its sweetness and beauty, extending to their hearers the bitter and malignant poison of the serpent, the great author of apostasy.
And at that time, indeed, the apostate angel, having effected the disobedience of mankind by means of the serpent, imagined that he escaped the notice of the Lord; wherefore God assigned him the form
But, to come now to Moses, why, I wonder, did he merely at the time when Joshua was battling against Amalek, pray sitting with hands expanded, when, in circumstances so critical, he ought rather, surely, to have commended his prayer by knees bended, and hands beating his breast, and a face prostrate on the ground; except it was that there, where the name of the Lord Jesus was the theme of speech-destined as He was to enter the lists one day singly against the devil-the figure of the cross was also necessary, (that figure) through which Jesus was to win the victory? Why, again, did the same Moses, after the prohibition of any "likeness of anything," set forth a brazen serpent, placed on a "tree," in a hanging posture, for a spectacle of healing to Israel, at the time when, after their idolatry, they were suffering extermination by serpents, except that in this case he was exhibiting the Lord's cross on which the "serpent" the devil was "made a show of," and, for every one hurt by such snakes-that is, his angels -on turning intently from the peccancy of sins to the sacraments of Christ's cross, salvation was outwrought? For he who then gazed upon that (cross) was freed from the bite of the serpents.
A hard and arduous thing enough, surely, is the continence for God's sake of a holy woman after her husband's decease, when Gentiles, in honour of their own Satan, endure sacerdotal offices which involve both virginity and widowhood! At Rome, for instance, they who have to do with the type of that "inextinguishable fire," keeping watch over the omens of their own (future) penalty, in company with the (old) dragon himself, are appointed on the ground of virginity.
The devil, as well as every unclean spirit along with their leader, were expelled from the hearts of the saints to the earth, that is, to persons who are wise only in earthly things and have their entire hope in earthly things.
The wise tend to understand the “earth” here to refer to those earthly things in which by the strength of that curse the devil is known to inhabit. For it says, “Earth you shall eat all the days of your life.” Having been exiled from spiritual realities, he assailed those of the earth who were suitable to his own strengths. This is what it means that he was cast out of heaven and was thrown down to the earth.
This is most proper. For heaven has nothing to do with a base, earthly mind, since darkness has nothing in common with the light. If the term the Satan occurs here with the definite article, it does not suggest that he is someone other than the devil … rather he is named with two names. He is called “devil” because he accuses and slanders the virtues and those who love them, and he has even slandered God himself to people, as he did when he suggested to Adam that God was envious. He is called “Satan” because he opposes himself against the Master and his servants. It is therefore to be noted that the downfall of the devil did not only occur after the cross, as though he were inactive in former times. Rather, as he himself confessed to Anthony, the saying of the psalm is fulfilled in him, “The swords of the enemy have come to their end.” Therefore, his banishment is the abolition of all his evil enterprises along with his total exclusion from heaven and from his rank. The blessed Justin Martyr noted that after the coming of Christ and after the devil’s sentence to Gehenna, the devil especially became a blasphemer, while in former times he did not blaspheme God so brazenly. And so it is accurately said about him, “His heart is hard as stone,” since he is unyielding in his evil. And if the expectation of punishment makes him even more evil, how would punishing either him or his followers in Gehenna through fire wash out the filth of sin? And not attaining to this, how would there be a cessation of punishment against those who think vain thoughts?
And the great dragon was cast out to the earth. The ancient enemy, expelled from the spiritual realm, is confined more tightly to the earthly realm. This is to be cast out of heaven and sent to the earth. To whom it is said: You shall eat dust all the days of your life (Genesis III). On this earth, he is trampled under the feet of the saints, as it is written: You shall tread upon the asp and the basilisk (Psalm XCI).
[AD 304] Victorinus of Pettau on Revelation 12:7-9