faithful shall be under obligation to conform thereto. My Church
is eternal, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Thou art
infallible. Nothing is changed."

And the successor of the apostles felt flooded with rapture. He
prostrated himself, and with his forehead touching the floor, replied:

"O Lord, my God, I recognise Thy voice! Thy breath has been wafted like
balm to my heart. Blessed be Thy name. Thy will be done on Earth, as it
is in Heaven. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

And Satan found pleasure in praise and in the exercise of his grace; he
loved to hear his wisdom and his power belauded. He listened with joy to
the canticles of the cherubim who celebrated his good deeds, and he
took no pleasure in listening to Nectaire's flute, because it celebrated
nature's self, yielded to the insect and to the blade of grass their
share of power and love, and counselled happiness and freedom. Satan,
whose flesh had crept, in days gone by, at the idea that suffering
prevailed in the world, now felt himself inaccessible to pity. He
regarded suffering and death as the happy results of omnipotence and
sovereign kindness. And the savour of the blood of victims rose upward
towards him like sweet incense. He fell to condemning intelligence and
to hating curiosity. He himself refused to learn anything more, for fear
that in acquiring fresh knowledge he might let it be seen that he had
not known everything at the very outset. He took pleasure in mystery,
and believing that he would seem less great by being understood, he
affected to be unintelligible. Dense fumes of Theology filled his brain.
One day, following the example of his predecessor, he conceived the
notion of proclaiming himself one god in three persons. Seeing Arcade
smile as this proclamation was made, he drove him from his presence.
Istar and Zita had long since returned to earth. Thus centuries passed
like seconds. Now, one day, from the altitude of his throne, he plunged
his gaze into the depths of the pit and saw Ialdabaoth in the Gehenna
where he himself had long lain enchained. Amid the everlasting gloom
Ialdabaoth still retained his lofty mien. Blackened and shattered,
terrible and sublime, he glanced upwards at the palace of the King of
Heaven with a look of proud disdain, then turned away his head. And the
new god, as he looked upon his foe, beheld the light of intelligence and
love pass across his sorrow-stricken counten