Annotation CLXVI
”In the beginning was the Word.” — John 1:1
The imprisonment of souls.
Origen, in the first tome on John, in the exposition of the present clause, hands down that the soul of the devil, and the souls of the Sun and of the other stars, [were] bound to bodies on account of their fall into sins. His words run thus: “It must necessarily be known — since the saints were passing a life devoid of all matter and body in beatitude — whether he who was called the dragon, after he fell from the pure life, worthy
was fit to be bound, before all [others], in matter and body — so that for this cause the divine oracle [Scripture, speaking] through wind and clouds says [of him], “this is the beginning of the fashioning of the Lord, made to be mocked by his angels.”1 It could indeed be that the dragon was not altogether the beginning of the Lord’s fashioning: but since many [things] were made, that they might be mocked by the angels, it behooved that this one be the beginning of such [beings] — because certain [beings] could be [present] in a body [but] not in this manner. For indeed the soul of the Sun is in a body, and [so is] every creature, of which the Apostle says:2 “Every creature groans, and is in labor even until now.” And perhaps that [saying] of the same [Apostle] is understood of the same [matter]. Read Annotation 182 of book 5.