Ezekiel 28:11

The Lord speaks as follows to Ezekiel: "Son of man, take up a lament over the prince of Tyre, and say to him: Thus says the Lord God: You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. You experienced the pleasures of God's paradise. Every precious stone was your covering: sardius, topaz and jasper, chrysolite and onyx and beryl, sapphire and carbuncle and emerald. Gold was the work of your beauty, and your pipes were prepared in the day that you were created. You were a cherub stretched out and protecting, and I set you in God's holy mountain. You have walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were perfect in your ways from the day of your creation, until iniquity was found in you. By the multitude of your actions your inner parts were filled with iniquity and you have sinned; and I cast you out from the mountain of God, and destroyed you, O covering cherub, out of the midst of the stones of fire. And your heart was lifted up with your beauty. You have lost your wisdom in your beauty; I have cast you to the ground. I have set you before the face of kings that they might behold you. You have defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities and by the iniquity of your actions."

We now find in the prophet Ezekiel two prophecies addressed to the prince of Tyre, the first of which might appear, before one had heard the second, to be spoken of some man who was prince of the Tyrians. For the present, therefore, we shall take nothing from the first one. But since the second is most evidently of such a kind that it cannot possibly refer to a man but must be understood of some higher power that fell from higher places and was cast down to lower and worse ones, we shall conclude that as an illustration that most clearly proves that these opposing and wicked powers were not so formed and created by nature but came from better conditions and changed for the worse; and [we shall conclude] that the blessed powers also are not of such a nature as to be unable to admit qualities the opposite of their own, supposing one of them should desire to do so and should become negligent and fail to guard with the utmost caution the blessedness of his condition. For when he who is called "prince of Tyre" is said to have been "among the holy ones" and "without stain" and set "in the paradise of God," "adorned with a crown of honor and beauty," how, I ask, can we suppose such a being to have been inferior to any of the holy ones? He is described as having been "a crown of honor and beauty" and as having walked "in the paradise of God" "without stain." How then can anyone possibly suppose that such a being was not one of those holy and blessed powers that, dwelling as they do in a state of blessedness, we must believe are endowed with no other honor than this?… Who is there that, hearing such sayings as this, "You were a signet of likeness and a crown of honor in the delights of the paradise of God," or this, "from the time you were created with the cherubim, I placed you on the holy mount of God," could possibly weaken their meaning to such an extent as to suppose them spoken of a human being, even of a saint, not to mention the prince of Tyre? Or what "fiery stones" can he think of, "in the midst" of which any person could have lived? Or who could be regarded as "stainless" from the very day he was created and yet at some later time could have acts of unrighteousness found in him and be said to be "cast forth into the earth"? This certainly indicates that the prophecy is spoken of one who, not being on the earth, was "cast forth into the earth," whose holy…