Jerome on Devil

“Job was dear to God, perfect and upright before Him; Job 2:3 yet hear what he says of the devil: His strength is in the loins, and his force is in the navel. The terms are chosen for decency's sake, but the reproductive organs of the two sexes are meant. Thus, the descendant of David, who, according to the promise is to sit upon his throne, is said to come from his loins. And the seventy-five souls descended from Jacob who entered Egypt are said to come out of his thigh. Genesis 46:26 So, also, when his thigh shrank after the Lord had wrestled with him, Genesis 32:24-25 he ceased to beget children. The Israelites, again, are told to celebrate the passover with loins girded and mortified. Exodus 12:11 God says to Job: Gird up your loins as a man. Job 38:3 John wears a leathern girdle. Matthew 3:4 The apostles must gird their loins to carry the lamps of the Gospel. Luke 12:35 When Ezekiel tells us how Jerusalem is found in the plain of wandering, covered with blood, he uses the words: Your navel has not been cut. Ezekiel 16:4-6 In his assaults on men, therefore, the devil's strength is in the loins; in his attacks on women his force is in the navel.”

“Our adversary the devil goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter 5:8 You make darkness, David says, and it is night: wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. The young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God. The devil looks not for unbelievers, for those who are without, whose flesh the Assyrian king roasted in the furnace. Jeremiah 29:22 It is the church of Christ that he makes haste to spoil. According to Habakkuk, His food is of the choicest. A Job is the victim of his machinations, and after devouring Judas he seeks power to sift the [other] apostles. Luke 22:31 The Saviour came not to send peace upon the earth but a sword. Matthew 10:34 Lucifer fell, Lucifer who used to rise at dawn; Isaiah 14:12 and he who was bred up in a paradise of delight had the well-earned sentence passed upon him, Though thou exalt yourself as the eagle, and though thou set your nest among the stars, thence will I bring you down, says the Lord. Obadiah 4 For he had said in his heart, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will be like the Most High. Isaiah 14:13-14 Wherefore God says every day to the angels, as they descend the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream, Genesis 28:12 I have said you are Gods and all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men and fall like one of the princes. The devil fell first, and since God stands in the congregation of the Gods and judges among the Gods, the apostle writes to those who are ceasing to be Gods — Whereas there is among you envying and strife, are you not carnal and walk as men? 1 Corinthians 3:3”