From St. Isaiah the Solitary (in the Philokalia): If you find yourself hating your fellow men and resist this hatred, and you see that it grows weak and withdraws, do not rejoice in your heart; for this withrawal is a trick of the evil spirits. They are preparing a second attack worse than the first; they have left their troops behind the city and ordered them to remain there. If you go out to attack them, they will flee before you in weakness. But if your heart is then elated because you have driven them away, and you leave the city, some of them will attack you from the rear while the rest will stand their ground in front of youl and your wretched soul will be caught between them with no means of escape. The city is prayer. Resistence is rebuttal through Christ Jesus. The foundation is incensive power.
St. Isaiah is talking here about hatred of our fellow men, but this advice seems appliicable to all kinds of demonic attack and temptation. There are some technical terms in this little treatise, namely at the end. First there is "rebuttal". Here is how my little Philokalia glossary defines it, being a translation of "antilogia" or "antirrisis": the repulsing of a demon or demonic thought at the moment of provocation... or, in a more general sense, the bridling of evil thoughts. The second technical term is "incensive power". This is in reference to one of the three Platonic divisions of the soul. The three divisions are (1) the Appetitive, (2) the Intellective, and (3) the Spiritive or Incensive. The idea is that each can be bent to negative or positive action. The spiritive or incensive part of the soul can be exercised in the hatred of sin and vice, and directed against the temptations of the devil his demons.
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