Seeing, then, that such are the words of the prophet, who is there that on hearing, You were a seal of a similitude, and a crown of comeliness among the delights of paradise, or that From the day when you were created with the cherubim, I placed you in the holy mount of God, can so enfeeble the meaning as to suppose that this language is used of some man or saint, not to say the prince of Tyre? Or what fiery stones can he imagine in the midst of which any man could live? Or who could be supposed to be stainless from the very day of his creation, and wickedness being afterwards discovered in him, it be said of him then that he was cast forth upon the earth? For the meaning of this is, that He who was not yet on the earth is said to be cast forth upon it: whose holy places also are said to be polluted. We have shown, then, that what we have quoted regarding the prince of Tyre from the prophet Ezekiel refers to an adverse power, and by it it is most clearly proved that that power was formerly holy and happy; from which state of happiness it fell from the time that iniquity was found in it, and was hurled to the earth, and was not such by nature and creation. (Book I, Chapter 5, Part 4)

I do not discount or dismiss Origen's reading of Ezekiel 28.

But I can also read it as a description and warning for each of us: born beautiful and choosing corruption.

Each of us could choose - this very moment - to know the delights of paradise.

Most of us do not. I have not. Instead we wander from choice to choice, failing to claim our divine inheritance.

We have freely chosen earth over heaven.