The Fathers Of Men

Sunt itaque filiorum Adam patres: Deus, homo, diabolus. Deus propter naturam, homo propter speciem, daibolus propter malitiam. In his ergo quae hominis sunt, esse habent necessitate; in his quae Dei, bona voluntate; in his quae diaboli, malignitate. Si naturam, in qua bonus a bono bene, et ad bonum creatus es, diligis, custodis, et ad id ad quod facta est, dirigis, in his quae Dei patris tui sunt manes, nec a Jerusalem recedis; et super prudentia ac responsis, quibus mille tentationibus carnis, mundi, diaboli, respondes, quae te argute et valde cavillose, dum tentant, interrogant, mirari facis ipsos spiritus nequam, qui tentatores tui sunt. Quod si honorem conditionis tuae naturae non intelligis, quae facta es pulchra inter mulieres, et abis post vestigia gregum, incipiens assimilari jumentis insipientibus; si etiam ipsum bonum, quod in te est, malitia a maligno concepta infeceris, ut sis superbia tumidis, invidia tabidus, ira turbulentus, tristia dejectus, anxius avartitia, gula avidus, luxuria immundus: in his quae patris tui sunt diaboli, manifeste esse convinceris. In his autem, quae hominis patris sunt, propter animale adhuc corpus, necessitatem essendi, vel potius transeundi habentes, victum et vestitum quaeramus: nec nos tentatio apprehendat, nisi humana, quominus his velimus esse contenti. Isaac, Cisterciensis Abbas, Sermo VIII Source: Migne PL 194.1717d-1718b

Those who are the children of Adam have three fathers, God, man and the devil. God for their nature, man for their kind, the devil for their wickedness. The things which are of man are theirs by necessity, the things which are of God by a good will, the things of the devil by wickedness. If you guard the nature in which good from good is created for the good and you direct it to that for which it was made, you will remain in God the Father, you will not leave Jerusalem, and because of your wisdom and replies to those thousand temptations of the flesh, the world, the devil, who dispute with you extremely captiously, you shall astonish the spirits of iniquity who test you while they put you to trial. 1 But if you do not understand the value of your nature given by the Creator, which makes you beautiful among women, and you go after the tracks of the herd, 2 becoming like mindless beasts, 3 and if you defile that good which is in you with wickedness begotten by the wicked one, so that you become swollen with pride, and rotten with envy, and vexed with wrath, and cast down by sorrow, and anxious because of avarice, and greedy with desire, and filthy with lust, then you are manifestly convicted of being in those things which belong to your father the devil. As for those things in which man is our father, while yet in the animal body, let us seek only that food and clothing which our present, or rather passing, needs require, 4 so that content in these things 'No trial shall seize us unless human.' 5 Isaac of Stella, from Sermon 8 1 Lk 2.47 2 Song 1.7 3 Ps 48.13 4 1 Tim 6.8 5 1 Cor 10.13