I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
Read Chapter 14
Ambrose of Milan
AD 397
When the Lord Jesus redeemed the human race through his obedience, he reformed justice. The serpent, however, introduced sin through his disobedience, a sin which we are now able to identify as pride, the author of which is the devil, whom the prophet portrayed as saying, “I will seat my throne above the clouds and I will be like the Most High.” Yet he who was so wicked that he would not honor the Lord our God taught his disciples to be even worse. Thus, whereas the devil exalted himself to the degree that he desired to be similar and equal to the Most High, his disciple is signified by the apostle who would become so indignant as to judge himself already similar and equal to God. For it is written, “The man of iniquity and the son of perdition will be revealed, who opposes and extols himself above everything which is called god.” He presumes that he is equal to the teacher, or, in this case, even superior. The Lord said to his disciples, “You will do greater things than these,” to ind...
How injurious to the servants of God can be the proud one who exalts himself against God and says, “I will ascend into heaven and seat my throne above the stars of heaven; I will sit on the highest mountain above the tall mountains of the north; I will ascend above the clouds; and I will be like the Most High.” It is no wonder, then, that the stubborn of spirit who will not yield to God is also able to oppress humanity. How will he preserve the confidence and faith of others who, through arrogant sacrilege and fantasy, promotes himself to equality with the omnipotent Lord? How does one who fails to liberate prisoners slander him who alone made void all the earth, caused kings to tremble, destroyed cities and laid waste the entire earth? We must be careful, therefore, that he not destroy the walls guarding our souls, or compromise our mind’s defenses or seat his throne above the stars. He seats his throne above the stars when he deceives the elect and when he oppresses the just, whose w...
Now Nebuchadnezzar said, “I will ascend to heaven and exalt my throne above the stars of God and sit in the lofty mountains that are in the borders of the north.” Isaiah said concerning him: “Because your heart has thus exalted you, therefore you shall be brought down to Sheol, and all that look upon you shall be astonished at you.” - "Demonstration 5.4"
“He deemed it no robbery to be God’s equal, yet he emptied himself and took on the form of a slave.” This was by no means robbery! Who was the robber, then? Adam. And the primordial robber? The being who seduced Adam. How, then, did the devil seize what did not belong to him? “I will set my throne in the north; I shall be like the Most High,” he said. He grabbed for himself something not given to him; that was robbery. The devil tried to usurp what had not been granted to him and thereby lost what he had been given. Then from the cup of his own pride he offered a drink to the humans he was trying to seduce, saying, “Taste it, and you will be like gods.” They too wanted to make a grab at divinity, and they lost their happiness. The devil robbed and paid for it; but Christ declares, “I was discharging a debt, though I had committed no robbery.”
As the Lord approached his passion, he testified, “Now the prince of this world (that is, the devil) is coming, and he will find nothing in me (t...
And again: “I shall set my seat to the north, and I will be like the Most High.” So he is rightly termed a calumniator, for while performing cruel deeds he always lays accusations against the devoted. Scripture elsewhere says of him, “He shall humble the oppressor, and he shall continue with the sun.” So they most justly ask that the humble be not betrayed to the proud, the ingenuous to the liar, the pious to the ungrateful, for the persons whom those persecutors cannot seduce they treat with more savage violence. - "Exposition of the Psalms 118.122"
The devil regarded himself as great when he said, “I will set my throne at the north, and I will be like the Most High.” Even today proud people count themselves greater than all others. But no one can be truly called great except God alone, for nothing can be remotely compared with his power; he is subject to no change but continues always in the glory of his nature. - "Exposition of the Psalms 85.10"
Read in the letter of James how much evil the tongue can cause. The tongue knows no middle way; either it is a great evil or a great good; a great good when it acknowledges that Christ is God, a great evil when it denies that Christ is God. Let no one, therefore, harbor the illusion and claim: I have not committed sin in act; if I sinned, I sinned with my tongue. What more monstrous sin is there than blasphemy against God? Yet it is the tongue that is sinning. Why did the devil fall? Because he committed theft? Because he committed murder? Because he committed adultery? These are certainly evils, but the devil did not fall because of any of these; he fell because of his tongue. What was it that he said? “I will scale the heavens; above the stars I will set up my throne; I will be like the Most High!” Monks surely, then, have no right to think they are safe and say: We are in the monastery, and so we do not commit serious offenses; I do not commit adultery; I do not steal; I am not a mu...
And because he “loved the words of ruin,” with which he had said, “I will ascend into heaven,” and the “deceitful tongue,” with which he had said of himself, “I will be like the Most High,” and of Adam and Eve, “You shall be as gods,” therefore “shall God destroy him forever and pluck him out and remove him from his dwelling place and his root out of the land of the living.” Then “the just,” when they see his ruin, “shall fear, and shall laugh at him and say” (what may also be most justly aimed at those who trust that they can obtain the highest good without the protection and assistance of God): “Behold the man that did not make God his helper but trusted in the abundance of his riches and prevailed in his vanity.” - "On the Institutes 12.4"
The one says, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”; the other, “Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart.” The one says, “I know not the Lord and will not let Israel go”; the other, “If I say that I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him and keep his commandments.” The one says, “My rivers are mine, and I made them”; the other, “I can do nothing of myself, but my Father who abides in me, he does the works.” The one says, “All the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them are mine, and to whomsoever I will, I give them”; the other, “Though he were rich, yet he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich.” The one says, “As eggs are gathered together which are left, so have I gathered all the earth, and there was none that moved the wing or opened the mouth, or made the least noise”; the other, “I am become like a solitary pelican; I watched and became as a sparrow alone upon the roof.” The one says, “I have dried up with the sole ...
There were some who dared in the opinion of the multitude to immortalize themselves and, notwithstanding that the very sense of sight bore witness to their mortality, were ambitious to be called gods and were honored as such; to what a length of impiety would not many people have proceeded, if death had not gone on teaching all humanity the morality and corruptibility of our nature? Hear, for instance, what the prophet says of a barbarian king, when seized with this frenzy: “I will exalt,” he says, “my throne above the stars of heaven; and I will be like unto the Most High.” - "Homilies Concerning the Statues 11.4"
