In the story that Jesus tells, the enemy sows his evil seed and then goes away. He seems confident that the damage he intends will be done. Robert Farrar Capon says that the enemy doesn't have any real power over goodness anyway: The wheat is in the field, the Kingdom is in the world, and there is not one thing he can do about it. But, Capon adds, "he can sucker the forces of goodness into taking up arms against the confusion he has introduced, to do his work for him. That is why he goes away after sowing the weeds. He has no need to hang around. Unable to take positive action anyway - having no real power to muck up the operation - he simply sprinkles around a generous helping of darkness and waits for the children of light to get flustered enough to do the job for him" (Parables of the Kingdom, p. 102).