"At the beginning of Jesus' ministry, the devil, although striving through every entrance to creep into Jesus' inward parts, was cast out, having finished all his alluring temptation in the wilderness after the baptism (Mt 4:1-11). Being dead in the spirit, he forced no entrance into Him who was alive in the spirit. He betook himself, through eagerness for the death of man in any way whatsoever, to effecting that death which he could. He was permitted to effect it upon that mortal element which the living Mediator had received from us. There in every respect he was conquered.

"Where he received outwardly the power of slaying the Lord in the flesh, there his inward power, by which he held us, was slain. For the bonds of many sins in many deaths were unbound through the one death of One whom no sin had gone before. His death, though not due, the Lord rendered for us, that the death which was due might work us no harm. For He was not stripped of the flesh by obligation of any authority, but He stripped Himself. For undoubtedly He who was able not to die if He did not will it, died because He willed it. So He made a show of principalities and powers, openly triumphing over them in Himself (Col 2:15).

"By His death the one and most real sacrifice was offered up for us, He cleansed, abolished, extinguished whatever fault there was, through which principalities and powers held us fast as of right to pay its penalty. By His own resurrection He also called us whom He predestined to a new life; and whom He called, those He justified; and whom He justified, those He glorified (Rm 8:30). And so the devil, in that very death of the flesh, lost man. And this even though the devil was possessing man as by an absolute right, seduced as he was by his own consent, and over whom he ruled (because the devil himself was impeded by no corruption of flesh and blood), through that frailty of man's mortal body, because of which man was both too poor and too weak. The devil, who was proud in proportion as he was, as it were, both richer and stronger, ruled over man who was, as it were, both clothed in rags and full of troubles. For whither he drove the sinner to fall, himself not following, there he compelled the Redeemer following unswervingly to descend.

"And so the Son of God deigned to become our friend in the fellowship of death. And because he did not so descend, the enemy thought himself to be better and greater than ourselves. For our Redeemer says, 'Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends' (Jn 15:13). Therefore the devil also thought himself superior to the Lord Himself, inasmuch as the Lord in His sufferings yielded to him; for of Him, too, is understood what is read in Ps 8:5, 'For You have made Him a little lower than the angels.'

"He, being Himself put to death, although innocent, by the unjust one acting against us as it were by just right, might by a most just right overcome him. In so doing He led captive the captivity wrought through sin (Eph 4:8), and freed us from a captivity that was just on account of sin, by blotting out the handwriting, and redeeming us who were to be justified although sinners, through His own righteous blood unrighteously poured out."

Augustine, On the Trinity, 4.13