57. Because then, the Saviour of us all had completed the conflict which was opposed to these (spirits), He went up thence, clothed (as it were) with victory, entered upon the life common to men, and delivered their souls: having relieved them from the bonds of the Demons: and, having revealed to His Disciples those other secret things, -- as well as these which he performed in opposition to the enemies that are unseen, -- He thus spoke, and He established (it), "Be of good courage, I have overcome the world⁸¹." The manner too of His victory, He taught by those things which He said to His Disciples in parables (viz.): "No man can enter the house of a strong man and spoil his goods, unless he first bind the. strong man; and then he shall spoil his house⁸²." He therefore bound the strong man, and drove out the whole race of Demons. And forthwith, He (so) wrought on the souls of those who were His, that He freed them from the bitter state, slavery, and errror, of a multiplicity of Gods. This His first conflict however against the Demons, was completed at the outset of His manifestation among men. But the last (His crucifixion), was the commencement of His sovereignty over Death.

For it was right that He, -- who was superior to (that which was) no God, and to the error of Demons, and, had been attached to GOD THE WORD, -- should receive the honour compatible with this His deed (viz.) the victory over Death. For the Demons, which had assembled together against Him, with their Head, and with the spirits residing above the earth in the air, (and) invisible to mortal eyes, turned their backs (in flight) in His first conflict (with them) ; directing their view to the second, and waiting for His last egress, and departure by death, from the world, which they expected would be like that of other men. For, they had no notion that the mortal nature could ever exist, which should be superior to death ; or, that Death was (not) the common king of all those, who had once experienced the birth of mortals. They thought too, that this was, of all evils, that which no man could either avoid, or evade. But, immediately after the signal mark of His first victory over the Demons, He engaged also in conflict with Death. And⁸³, just as one wishing to shew that some vessel was incombustible and its nature superior to fire, could in no other way establish this astonishing fact, except by placing the one which he held in his hand in the fire, and then taking it out of the fire, safe and sound; so also THE WORD OF GOD, the life-giver of all, willing to make it known that the mortal Vessel, of which He had availed Himself for the redemption of man, was superior to death, and, to shew that He made it to participate in His own life, conducted the matter both well and virtuously as it was most convenient. He left the body for a short time, and consigned mortality to death, for the rebuking of its (sinful) nature ; and again,

He soon raised up the same from death, for the purpose of proving that the Divine power, which was by Him, --  that eternal life, (I say) which was preached by Him, --  was superior to every kind of death.