“And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.”
And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come — the logical conclusion of the divided-kingdom argument: if the Beelzebul accusation were true, Satan's end would have come. But Jesus does not mean Satan's end has come through self-division; he means something more dramatic: Satan's end has come because the strong man has arrived and is binding him. The end that has come is not the result of Satanic self-destruction but of the kingdom's arrival in the person of Jesus. The exorcisms are not Satan fighting Satan; they are the stronger one systematically defeating Satan — which is exactly what the next verse explains.
Church Fathers on Mark 3:26
The meaning of the example is this: The devil is the strong man; his goods are the men into whom he is received; unless therefore a man first conquers the devil, how can he deprive him of his goods, that is, of the men whom he has possessed?
The Lord has also bound the strong man, that is, the devil: which means, He has restrained him from seducing the elect, and entering into his house, the world; He has spoiled his house, and his goods, that is men, because He has snatched them from the snares of the devil, and has united them to His Church.
Or this is meant; that he will not deserve to work out repentance, so as to be accepted, who, understanding who Christ was, declared that He was the prince of the devils.
Read all 6 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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