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Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov: Satan dwells morally in a man when the man becomes a doer of the devil’s will...

Satan dwells morally in a man when the man becomes a doer of the devil’s will. 

It was in this way that Satan entered into Judas Iscariot (John 13:27), that is, he controlled his reason and will, and became one with him in spirit. All nonbelievers in Christ were and are in this state, as the holy apostle Paul says to Christians who had been converted to Christianity from paganism:

"And you He made alive, when you were dead through your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of the flesh and the mind, and so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind (Eph. 2:1–3)".

In this state more or less, according to the degree of their sinfulness, are those who have been baptized into Christ but who have become estranged from Him by sin. That is how the holy Fathers understand Christ’s words regarding the return of the devil with seven other more evil spirits to the temple of the soul from which it had been expelled by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:43–45). 

When spirits enter in this way, they can be driven out again by the Prayer of Jesus, accompanied by a life of constant and diligent penitence.

On the Prayer of Jesus 
FROM THE ASCETIC ESSAYS OF 
Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov

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