HISTORY OF MAGIC.

When one acts equitably and in a true manner, there is no sin.

Injustice is the death of the moral being, just as falsehood is the poison of intelligence.

The spirit of falsehood is therefore a spirit of death.

Those who listen to it are poisoned by it and are its dupes.

But if it were necessary to take its absolute personification seriously, it would itself be absolutely dead and absolutely deceived, that is to say, the affirmation of its existence would imply an evident contradiction.

Jesus said: "The devil is a liar as well as his father." original: "Le diable est menteur ainsi que son père." A reference to John 8:44.

Who is the father of the devil?

It is the one who gives him a personal existence by living according to his inspirations; the man who makes himself a devil is the father of the incarnate evil spirit.

But there is a daring, impious, and monstrous conception.

A traditional conception like the pride of the Pharisees.

A hybrid creation that has given a seeming reason against the magnificence of Christianity to the petty philosophy of the 18th century.

It is the false Lucifer of the heterodox legend; it is that angel proud enough to believe himself God, brave enough to buy independence at the price of an eternity of tortures, beautiful enough to have been able to worship himself in full divine light; strong enough to still reign in darkness and pain, and to make a throne of his inextinguishable pyre, it is the Satan of the republican and heretic Milton, it is this supposed hero of the dark eternities

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INTRODUCTION.

slandered with ugliness, decked out with horns and claws that would rather suit his implacable tormentor.

It is this devil king of evil, as if evil were a kingdom!

This devil more intelligent than the men of genius who feared his deceptions.

This black light, this darkness that sees. This power that God did not want, and that a fallen creature could not create.

This prince of anarchy served by a hierarchy of pure spirits.

This banished one of God who would be everywhere like God is on earth, more visible, more present to the greatest number, better served than God himself!

This defeated one to whom the victor would give his children to devour!

This artisan of the sins of the flesh to whom flesh is nothing, and who could consequently be nothing to the flesh, if one does not suppose him creator and master of it like God!

An immense lie realized, personified, eternal!

A death that cannot die!

A blasphemy that the word of God will never silence!

A poisoner of souls that God would tolerate through a contradiction of his power, or that he would keep as the Roman emperors had kept Locusta a notorious professional poisoner in the Roman Empire, among the instruments of his reign!

A tortured one always living to curse his judge and to be right against him since he will never repent!