35: Satan Rebels

Jesus departed from Jerusalem, and went to the desert beyond Jordan: and his disciples that were seated round him said to Jesus: 'O master, tell us how Satan fell through pride, for we have understood that he fell through disobedience, and because he always tempteth man to do evil.'
    
           Jesus answered: 'God having created a mass of earth, and having left it for twenty-five thousand years without doing aught else; Satan, who was as it were priest and head of the angels, by the great understanding that he possessed, knew that God of that mass of earth was to take one hundred and forty and four thousand signed with the mark of prophecy, and the messenger of God, the soul of which messenger he had created sixty thousand years before aught else. Therefore, being indignant, he instigated the angels, saying: "Look ye, one day God shall will that this earth be revered by us. Wherefore consider that we are spirit, and therefore it is not fitting so to do."
    
         'Many therefore forsook God. Whereupon said God, one day when all the angels were assembled: "Let each one that holds me for his lord straightway do reverence to this earth."
    
          'They that loved God bowed themselves, but Satan, with them that were of his mind, said: "O Lord, we are spirit, and therefore it is not just that we should do reverence to this clay."  Having said this, Satan became horrid and of fearsome look, and his followers became hideous; because for their rebellion God took away from them the beauty wherewith he had endued them in creating them. Whereat the holy angels, when, lifting their heads, they saw how terrible a monster Satan had become, and his followers cast down their face to earth in fear.
    
           'Then said Satan: "O Lord, thou hast unjustly made me hideous but I am content thereat. because I desire to annul all that thou shalt do. And the other devils said: "Call him not Lord, O Lucifer, for thou art Lord."
    
           'Then said God to the followers of Satan: "Repent ye and recognize me as God, your creator."
    
           'They answered: "We repent of having done thee any reverence, for that thou art not just; but Satan is just and innocent, and he is our Lord."
    
           'Then said God: "Depart from me, O ye cursed, for I have no mercy on you."
    
          'And in his departing Satan spat upon that mass of earth, and that spittle the angel Gabriel lifted up with some earth, so that therefore now man has the navel in his belly.'