Scotus Academicus, Tomus quartus: De Angelis

Name: Scotus Academicus, Tomus quartus: De Angelis
Author: Claude Frassen

Quaestio I: An, et in qua beatitudine creati fuerint Angeli

Note 1. A twofold beatitude can be distinguished in the angels: one Natural, which is the ultimate perfection that the angelic nature can attain for itself by its innate powers through its most excellent operations, namely the cognition and love of God as the Author of nature; the other Supernatural, which is the ultimate perfection of the angelic nature, exceeding all its natural capacity, and which it can attain only by the benefit of divine aid elevating it supernaturally. This latter, moreover, is again twofold: one of the way, the other of the homeland; the former inchoate, the latter consummated; the former which comes about through the knowledge of faith, by which we know God obscurely and in an enigma, and through the infused habit of charity we love him; the latter which consists in the clear vision of God and his perfect fruition, which the blessed souls in heaven enjoy.

Note 2. For the perfect and consummated supernatural beatitude three things are especially required. The first is the clear vision of God, most excellent love, and perfect fruition; for beatitude consists in the attainment and enjoyment of the highest good, which takes place through knowledge and love. The second is the inability to sin; since sin is the greatest misery, it cannot coexist with true and perfect beatitude. Add that it is impossible to behold God intuitively and to love him supremely and not prefer him to all other things that could allure the will and turn it away from God. For that supreme majesty of God is of such excellence that, clearly seen, it seizes the created will into its own most excellent love, and that with every effort and with such necessity that from love of him the will can neither be diverted nor recalled, and consequently one so affected cannot sin. The third is the perpetuity and immutability of the beatific state; otherwise there will be either fear and sadness, if the blessed understand that they will fall from such a state; or error, if they believe they will remain forever; or anxiety and disquiet, if they are in doubt and do not know what the lot of that state will be. All these things, as is evident, are repugnant to true and perfect beatitude, and therefore that state must be perpetual.

Note 3. In resolving this Question, there are chiefly two opposing opinions of Authors. For some hold that the angels were gifted from the very beginning of their creation with the perfect vision of the divine essence, not abiding but transitory, so that at least for some instants of time all the angels, both good and reprobate, enjoyed the delightful fruition of God, which takes place through knowledge and love; and they strive to establish this by very many statements of St. Augustine, to be brought forward in the objections. But the second opinion, entirely opposed to this, is held by nearly all Theologians, who assert that no angels were de facto created in the state of supernatural beatitude, although some, with the Subtle Doctor, judge that they could have been so created.

Three things therefore are chiefly to be resolved here: First, that all the angels were created in natural beatitude. Second, that none of them was gifted with supernatural beatitude in the first instant of their formation. Third, that nevertheless they could have obtained that supernatural beatitude from the very beginning of their creation, had God so willed.

First conclusion. — All the angels were created in the state of natural beatitude. So hold all the Scholastic Doctors with the Subtle Doctor in dist. 3. q. 9. n. 8., where he proves that there was granted to the angels the species representative of the divine essence, by which they knew God distinctly.

Indeed, he says, it is possible to have distinct cognition even though abstractive; for abstractive cognition is divided into confused and distinct, according to one or another manner of knowing: and it does not seem unfitting to posit that such a species representing the divine essence was given to the angelic intellect from the beginning: so that although it is not natural to the intellect in such a way that this intellect could acquire it from its natural powers, nor yet that it could have it from the action of any object acting naturally, because it cannot have it from the presence of any finite object moving it, except the divine essence alone, which causes nothing else of itself by natural causation naturally; nevertheless, just as the perfections given to the angel in his first creation, although they do not necessarily follow his nature, would be called natural, distinguishing them against those merely supernatural, namely of grace and glory: so that perfection given to the angelic intellect, by which the divine essence would be present to him distinctly though abstractively, can be called natural, and belong to the natu> ral cognition of the angel, so that whatever the angel knows of God by the power of this species, he knows in some way naturally, and in some way not naturally, inasmuch as it is not the principle of an act either of grace or of glory; not naturally, however, inasmuch as he could not attain it from natural powers, nor by any natural action.

By these words the Doctor openly teaches that there was given to the angel a species representing God abstractively, not only confusedly but also distinctly, and which was at once natural and supernatural: natural, I say, insofar as everything that is not of the order of grace or glory is called natural; but supernatural, because it would be infused by God alone, nor could the angelic intellect acquire it. — But that it is probable that that species was granted to the angels from the beginning of their creation he proves first because a distinct knowledge of God of some sort seems to have been granted to man before the Fall, which he could not have had without such a species: therefore, since the cognition and natural beatitude of the angels is more excellent than man's, that species seems much more to have been granted to the angels. He proves secondly from the fact that St. Augustine grants that there was in the angels the cognition of creatures in the Word, or morning knowledge, before evening knowledge was granted them, which is the cognition of things in their proper genus; for he says in book 4. Super Genesim cap. 30:

Then night pertains to day, not day to night: when the lofty and holy angels refer to the honor and love of the Creator what they knew of creature in the Creator himself, in whom they contemplate the eternal reasons by which it was created, which by their most harmonious contemplation are one day, which the Lord made: to which the Church, delivered from this pilgrimage, is joined, that we too may exult and rejoice in him;

from which words the Doctor infers that this cognition in the Word naturally preceded the cognition of creatures in their proper genus. But, he says, then the angels were in the state of innocence, and not blessed, because there was some little delay of time between their creation and their fall: there was therefore some morning cognition of the angels, namely of creatures existing in the Word, in natural matters, or at least of angels not yet blessed. But this distinct cognition could not be had without an impressed species: therefore it is likely that that species was granted to the angels, by which they might know God distinctly.

It is further proved. The angels, both good and bad, received from the beginning of their creation whatever pertains to the integrity of their own nature, and also to their natural perfection: therefore they were created in natural felicity. The antecedent is evident, since, as the works of God are perfect, and he has brought to completion all things that he made from himself with all their numbers, he does not seem to have denied anything to the angelic nature, most excellent of all, that would conduce to its perfect and natural beatitude. — Moreover, the angels had from the beginning cognition and perfect love of God as the Author of nature: since they were gifted with the perfect power of understanding and loving, they were able to know and love the object intelligible and lovable above all, which is God: but beatitude consists in that twofold operation of intellect and will; for that is the ultimate perfection which the angelic nature can attain by its innate powers: therefore the angels were created by God in natural beatitude.

You will say. If the angels had been created in natural beatitude, they would certainly have remained in it, for inamissibility belongs to the nature of beatitude: but the apostate angels do not have natural beatitude, for they are affected with the greatest sadness and punishment: therefore they were not created in natural beatitude. It is confirmed. Natural beatitude consists especially in the love of God as the Author of nature: but that love does not abide in the demons, for they pursue God with the utmost hatred: therefore they were not blessed.

I answer. by denying the major: for although natural beatitude is inamissible with respect to an angel constituted in pure naturals; nevertheless an angel raised to the supernatural order can lose it per accidens and indirectly, by sinning directly against the supernatural precepts. Nor does it matter that St. Dionysius said that natural things remained intact in the demons: for he must be understood of natural things considered in their physical being, such as substance, powers, intelligible species, and the like; but not of natural things that have something of morality mixed in, of which kind are practical cognition and the rectitude of the will toward the ultimate end; for these, at least in some respect, were destroyed in the angels by sin. In a similar way the answer must be given to the confirmation: for although the demons did not persevere in that love of God as the Author of nature, they are no less to be said to have had it from the beginning of their formation, while they were still wayfarers.

Second conclusion. — The angels were not de facto created in supernatural beatitude. This is the Doctor's teaching in dist. 5. qu. 2. n. 3., where, inquiring whether the good angels were de facto blessed in the first instant, and the damned ones condemned, or miserable, he answers first concerning the wicked, that they were not blessed in the first instant, and proves it: Because then, he says, they would not have been certain about their beatitude; for thus afterwards they would not have fallen: but if they were not certain about beatitude, they were not blessed. Similarly, as St. Augustine says in book 4. super Genesim, God did not distinguish the good from the wicked before they were separated from one another: therefore those who are now wicked were not blessed in the first instant, because they were created uniform, both good and wicked; in the same way, he adds, it is evident concerning the good. St. Thomas and all his disciples concur.

The Conclusion is therefore proved. first indeed concerning the wicked angels: If the demons had been so blessed, and had seen God clearly in the first instant of their creation, or somewhat after their formation, then either they would have been deprived of this vision on account of supervening sin, or from the mere good pleasure of God, who offered himself to be seen clearly by them for a little while, and afterward hid himself by his own will: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first: because, as we said in the second note, the clear vision of God excludes all sin: nor yet the second, for the gifts of God are without repentance, says the Apostle, Rom. 11.; and therefore he does not withdraw his benefits from creatures unless moved to do so by their ingratitude. Moreover, even if that clear vision of God had been granted to the angels in the first instant of their creation, the demons would not on that account have been called blessed because of the lack of impeccability and permanence in that happy state: for security and innocence, at least consequently, are required for the state of beatitude. — The same is evident concerning the good angels, that namely they did not see God in the first instant of their creation: both because the reason is the same concerning the good as concerning the wicked, nor was there any distinction between them in creation itself; but only while they were on the way, since, as the Doctor praised above says in n. 14., all the angels were uniform in their creation, but the good were distinguished from the wicked on the way: whence he concludes that on the way there were three delays: the first, in which they were uniform in grace, (if we wish to say that the wicked had grace) or at least uniform in nature; the second delay, in which, still existing on the way, they were unlike, namely so that these merited ultimately, and those demerited ultimately. The third delay was the final necessary distinction of one from the other.

But the Conclusion is proved. at once concerning the good and the wicked: If the angels had seen God clearly in the first instant of their creation, then neither would any have freely stood firm after the wicked fell; nor would they have had the faculty of meriting or demeriting: but this is absurd: therefore also that from which it follows. The major is evident; for the clear vision of God renders the seer impeccable, at least extrinsically, and it is of such efficacy on account of the supreme goodness and beauty of the object that it necessarily attracts the seer to the knowledge and love of itself, and therefore if the angels had seen God clearly from the first instant of their creation, they would not thereafter have been free to merit or demerit. — The minor is therefore proved. from the Holy Fathers affirming that all the angels had the liberty of cleaving to God, or of turning themselves away from him, and that the holy ones freely stood firm in the love of God, while the wicked fell away from him. Thus teaches above all St. Augustine, book De Correptione, et gratia cap. 10., saying: God so ordered the life of angels and men that in it he might first show what free will could do, then what the benefit of God could do. By which words St. Augustine makes all the angels equal, not only among themselves, but also with the first man; and consequently, as man and the angels who fell were created without the vision of God, so it must be said of the other holy angels. Whence he subjoins concerning those holy angels: By free will (helped surely by grace) they stood in truth, and they merited to know it most certainly, that their fall would never come. — St. Damascene subscribes, book 2. cap. 3., and also St. Gregor. homil. 7. in Ezechiel., where he says:

when the angelic nature was created, it received the free choice whether it wished to persist in humility and remain in the sight of almighty God; or whether it would slide into pride and fall from beatitude: but because, while others fell, the holy angels persevered in their beatitude, they received this as a gift, that now they could not fall at all.

Nor does it matter that he inserts the word persevered in beatitude; for he does not wish the holy angels previously to have had consummated beatitude, but only inchoate, or not in fact, but in hope. Or because, persevering in the beatitude and natural love of God, they obtained the supernatural, whereas the demons had lost both. — Now this truth St. Prosper explains best of all, book 1. De Vita Contemplativa cap. 3.

It was, he says, by the will of the holy angels that, while the wicked fell of their own accord, they themselves remained in their dignity: and by divine and just judgment it was brought about that the will they had of remaining with their God became a voluntary permanence and a happy necessity. And therefore, because they never sinned nor can now sin, having been made once partakers of that contemplative life, they behold inexpressibly the Author of their beatitude: and made happy for eternity by the merit of their stability, they are secure about their remaining.

You will say 1. The holy Fathers constantly affirm that all the angels were beatified from the beginning: therefore this must truly be so judged. The antecedent is proved from St. Augustine in many places, especially book 4. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 24. where he asserts that all the angels were created with morning knowledge: but this is beatific:

ergo they did not have this fullness of beatitude; but because they did not know their future misery, they enjoyed a lesser yet still a beatitude without any defect; for if they had known their future fall and eternal punishment, they certainly could not have been blest, whom the fear of so great an evil would already then have compelled to be miserable.

And immediately he adds:

So also He made man with free will; and although ignorant of his future fall, yet on that account blest, because he felt that not to die and not to become miserable was within his own power. In which upright state and without defect, if he had willed to remain in it by free will, without doubt he would have received, without any experience of death and unhappiness, on the merit of that permanence, the fullness of the beatitude of perseverance, by which the holy angels are blest... But because he did not will to remain, certainly his is the fault, whose would have been the merit if he had willed to remain, as the holy angels did, who while others fell through free will, stood themselves through the same free will, and merited to receive the due reward of that permanence, namely so great a fullness of beatitude that it is most certain to them that they shall always remain in it.

Where you see him attributing to the angels at their creation no other beatitude than that granted to man at the beginning of his formation, namely the state of sanctifying grace with liberty to persevere in it, and that without any commotion and disturbance, but with the highest internal and external concord and tranquillity of the movements of soul and body. Lest anyone should think, however, that St. Augustine placed the faculty of persevering in that happy state solely in the use of free will, he straightway adds:

But if this aid had been wanting to the angel, or to man as soon as they were made — since such a nature was not made that it could remain, if it willed, without divine aid — they would assuredly not have fallen by their own fault, since the aid was wanting without which they could not remain.

In the same place he says they were blest with that beatitude which we hope for: but this is supernatural: which indeed he confirms in lib. 12. Confess. cap. 9. where, expounding those words, In principio Deus creavit caelum, he interprets it of the intellectual heaven, that is, the angelic nature, which he says was made a partaker of eternity, and cleaving to God from the moment it was made, and raised above all mutability and the shifting vicissitude of times by the sweetness of its most happy contemplation. — Moreover he plainly teaches in lib. De Ecclesiasticis dogmatibus cap. 9. that the holy angels persevere in that beatitude in which they were created. — Thirdly, finally lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, cap. 9. he says the good angels were never pilgrims from the Lord. A great part is theirs, he says, and the more blessed in that they never went on pilgrimage. But to be a pilgrim from the Lord is the same as to walk by faith, according to that saying of St. Paul 2. Ad Corinth. 2. While we are in the body we are pilgrims from the Lord. To this subscribes St. Bernard serm. 13. and 17. super Cantica, where he says the devil before his fall saw the Word, and things in the Word; for he asserts in sermon 17: But it could have happened, if it be not thought incredible, that one full of wisdom and perfect in beauty could have foreknown men even as future, and as about to enter into an equal glory: but if he foreknew, doubtless he saw it in the Word of God, and envied them with his spite. — I deny the antecedent. and to the first authority I answer that St. Augustine sometimes understands by morning knowledge the beatific vision, sometimes the supernatural knowledge and of faith, which compared with natural knowledge can be called morning knowledge, though obscure. Or I say that he sometimes uses morning knowledge for that abstractive knowledge of God which the angels had through the species divinely impressed upon them, and that immediately from the beginning of their creation, as we taught above with the Doctor dist. 3. q. 9. n. 9. There he says the angel had from the beginning an intelligible species distinctly representing the divine essence through abstractive knowledge of God himself, which knowledge was morning knowledge,

because according to St. Augustine 4. super Genes. c. 23. those six days were not in the succession of time, but in the angelic knowledge of creatures having a natural order: so that the angel naturally first knew the creature in the Word, secondly in its proper genus, and not standing there returned to the Word praising Him for His work: and in that same Word again he naturally saw the reason of the following creature. So that when God said let there be light, the angel saw himself in the eternal Word: when light was made, and when evening was made, he saw himself in his proper genus: and when evening was made and morning, day one, he rose from himself into the praise of God, in whom he saw the second creature: so that that vision was the terminus of the preceding day, inasmuch as from the knowledge of the first creature in the Word he rose to the knowledge of the Word, nay rather the rest of all creatures in the first Artificer and Workman. Thus does St. Augustine distinguish each day up to the seventh day, whose morning was the last creature in the Word, and which was not followed by evening, and which was the beginning of the following day inasmuch as he saw that creature in its proper genus. — Nor does it matter, says the Doctor there, that St. Aug. c. 22. of the same book called that knowledge of things in the Word beatific; for it can be proved from his words that this knowledge, which is very commonly called morning knowledge, is natural, and not precisely beatific: because according to St. Augustine, this order existed in the angelic knowledge of creature after creature, that the angelic knowledge of creatures in the Word naturally preceded their knowledge in the proper genus: but when the creatures were made in the proper genus, the angel could at once have knowledge of them in the proper genus: therefore all these knowledges in the Word naturally preceded the knowledge of the creatures in the proper genus: therefore all of them, according to him, were produced simultaneously: therefore that knowledge in the Word naturally preceded their production in the proper genus. But then the angels were in the state of innocence, and not blest, because some little interval occurred between their creation and their fall: therefore there was some morning knowledge of the angels, namely of creatures existing in the Word in natural things, or at least not beatific: and thus it seems that one must posit a distinct knowledge of the standing angel in natural knowledge, or in grace, because otherwise, with only the cause precisely known, he could not know creatures and their ordered effects before knowing them in the proper genus. For the reason of knowing a thing confusedly is not the reason of knowing it distinctly, and its ordered effects.

This is the Doctor's teaching. — To the testimonies of the same St. Augustine adduced in the second place, I answer that he is not speaking of that most perfect and consummated beatitude which the angels now enjoy, but only of the general and inchoate beatitude which consists in the knowledge and love of charity of God, especially when joined with innocence, and the power and facility of being without every evil if one wills: after which manner St. Augustine explains himself lib. De Correptione et gratia c. 10. where, after saying that the saints are secure concerning their state, he speaks thus:

But the devil and his angels, although they were blest before they fell, although they knew not that they would fall into misery; there was nevertheless still something to be added to their beatitude, if they had stood in the truth by free will, until they received that fullness of supreme beatitude as the reward of that permanence: that is, that by the great abundance of the charity of God through the Holy Spirit they could in no wise fall any further, and would know this of themselves most certainly.

— To the third head of authority, however, I say that St. Augustine must be understood, not of the pilgrimage of the way simply, which takes place through faith, but of the pilgrimage of sin, of which St. Peter speaks Epistola 1. c. 4. Be not pilgrims in fervor, which is unto temptation for you. Or I say that he wishes the angels not to have been pilgrims, either because in a most brief time after their creation they obtained their beatitude: and thus for a brief time they walked by faith, but a little is reckoned as nothing: or because they were always in the empyrean heaven, from which we are removed afar: or because through sin they never departed from God: or finally because they had no misery as men have. — To St. Bernard, however, I answer that he spoke not assertively but doubtingly, for he says if it be not thought incredible, which words denote that in this matter he remained in doubt.

You will say 2. Sacred Scripture clearly signifies that at least the supreme angel was endowed with heavenly beatitude; for Ezechiel 28. addresses the first angel, the transgressor, in the person of the King of Tyre thus: Thou the seal of likeness, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, thou wast in the delights of paradise: but the delights of paradise are beatific love, and joy in the divine vision: therefore the first angel while yet a wayfarer possessed heavenly beatitude. — I deny the major. for by the delights of paradise, which Lucifer is said at one time to have enjoyed, is not understood the clear and intuitive vision of the divine essence itself, but love of God through charity, and knowledge through faith, as well as all the charismatic graces with which Lucifer had been illumined together with the other angels at the beginning of his creation, and which he lost through sin: or certain lower delights are understood, namely the dwelling in the empyrean heaven, which is a most pleasant place, and a paradise full of delights, in which Lucifer was placed with the other angels, and from which he was cast down through sin.

You will say 3. If all the angels were not endowed with heavenly beatitude from the beginning of their creation, chiefly because they ought first to have been free in order to be able to merit it: but this reason does not stand in the way, seeing that Christ the Lord, although blest in the first instant of His conception according to His soul, was none the less able to merit, therefore the state of beatitude does not impede merit. — I distinguish the minor. merit can coexist with the state of beatitude when it has no danger of sinning annexed to it, I concede: when it has, I deny: but Christ did not merit with the danger of sinning and the liberty unto sin, which supremely repugns the beatific vision, and which was not in Him from the beginning of the creation of His soul: but Christ merited only, either with the liberty unto the multiplication of acts, none of which determinately was necessary for fulfilling the command prescribed to Him, which nevertheless He fulfilled by each single act: or with the liberty of obtaining from the Father a dispensation from the command if He had willed; or finally with the liberty as to various circumstances and diverse motives, which were not commanded together with the acts prescribed to Him. Add that the angels are not to be compared in this respect with Christ the Lord, but rather with men: so that just as men were first wayfarers before comprehensors, and ordained adults first, so that through their own free cooperation they might be able to merit beatitude, namely the clear vision of God through acts of faith, comprehension through acts of hope, and through the charity of the way tend toward the charity of the homeland: so also were the angels ordered; and therefore beatitude does not seem to have been granted them from the beginning: for the fitting order required that they should at least for some instant previously be under grace, and in capacity of meriting, before having merited and received the reward.

Third conclusion. — The angels could have been created in the state of beatitude, if God had so ordered. This is the doctrine of the Doctor, dist. 5. q. n. 5., where he says:

I say, that the Good could have been blest in the first instant. The reason of this is that beatitude cannot be present in any creature capable of beatitude except from God: therefore for whatever instant beatitude is possible to be given by God, and to be present in a creature capable of it, for that instant it is simply possible: but for whatever instant God could give it, as well in the first as in the second or third instant: and the good angel was capable for whatever instant, because by nature he is the image of God, by which he is capable of God, and he had that nature full and perfect in natural things; wherefore, etc.

By which words the Doctor openly affirms that the angels could truly have been blest in the first instant of their formation; and that, either without their cooperation, as was the most holy soul of Christ the Lord, which independently of its cooperation and of any act of free will, but from the sole good pleasure of God, as soon as it was formed obtained beatitude and the clear and intuitive vision of God; or so that they received that beatitude offered to them by God with the free acceptance of their will, only the order of nature being observed between that act and beatitude; after the manner observed between contrition and grace, infused by virtue of the latter as of a last disposition: whether, however, they could also merit it in the first instant, will be said below. Nor, as regards what has been said, does any difficulty seem to require discussion. — The Doctor subjoins that the angels could also have been miserable in the first instant of their creation with the misery of punishment, which does not presuppose guilt; Because, he says, no contradiction appears in that in the first instant some punishment had been infused into the angelic nature; and forthwith it could also have been given immediately by God for that first instant just as beatitude: no contradiction, I say, or repugnance, can be assigned in this respect; for if there were any, it would be chiefly either physical or moral. But not physical, because every physical opposition which would exist in the first instant between the angel and punishment ought equally to exist in the subsequent instants: but no such opposition existed in the subsequent instants, inasmuch as many angels were condemned to eternal punishments. Not moral either, because if there were any, it would be chiefly because it would displease God to punish so gravely without guilt, namely with the punishment which the damned in fact suffer, since this seems supremely to repugn the divine goodness; but from this head it would not repugn, because since God is the Lord of the life and death of the creature, He can at His pleasure change its state. This the Doctor confirms by the authority of St. Augustine 3. De lib. arb. who says: If God had from the beginning made man in punishment, God would not on this account be to be blamed nor unjust: therefore neither would it displease Him to ordain the same of an angel. Wherefore no repugnance appears why God could not condemn some creature to punishments without guilt, as we shall more fully demonstrate when treating of the state of pure nature, in which God could create man and condemn him to punishments, where likewise will be solved whatever may be objected against this truth.

Quaestio II: An, et qualem gratiam habuerint Angeli

Note 1. By the name of grace we are here to understand not only that divine gift or benefit which is not owed by the force of creation alone or of the nature of a thing, but that quality of the supernatural order by which the rational creature is rectified, completed, and elevated so that it can produce some supernatural act pleasing to God, or be established in a supernatural state. For indeed, as the Seraphic Doctor says in 2. dist. 4. q. 2. ad tertium:

The name of grace is used in three ways: for in one way grace is spoken of commonly, insofar as it comprehends whatever is superadded to natural things; natural things, I say, which belong to the essential constitution of a thing; thus one is said to have by grace a good intellect, to read well, to sing well, and other things of this kind. In another way it is called what is superadded to free will, effecting and disposing rectitude; thus natural virtues, such as innocence, humility, and piety can be called grace. In the third way, what is superadded as rectifying, completing, and elevating, and this is called sanctifying grace, because it makes man acceptable to God, because it makes him conformable to Him.

But it is of grace in this latter acceptation that we are speaking at present.

Note 2. Grace seems necessary for the angels in many ways, but especially in four ways: First indeed they had need of the grace of predestination, since supernatural beatitude is naturally unde both to angels and to men, it was a benefit of grace, and a gift not owed to nature, that God out of His good pleasure ordered the angels to a supernatural end; nor did He abandon them in the state of pure nature. Hence the Council of Vienne, in the Clementine Ad nostrum, De haereticis, rightly defined that intellectual nature (that is, angels as well as men) is not naturally blessed: and in the censure of Pius V. and Gregory XIII.¹ against Michael Baius, it is established that man even in his state of integrity, and the angels, ought to have been elevated through supernatural gifts, that they might merit eternal life. — Second, they had need of preventing and concomitant grace, since God predestined the angels to attain beatitude through fitting means, that is, through their own free and moral acts: but fitting means must be proportioned to the end: wherefore since beatitude is of the supernatural order, in order that the angels might dispose themselves toward it, there was need for them of preventing grace, or the special help of illumination and pious motion, by which God precedes the intellect and will for the exercise of such free acts of actual conversion to God: and also concomitant grace, physically cooperating in the very exercise of the free act of supernatural consent to the vocation, as St. Augustine teaches lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, cap. 9. affirming that exciting and cooperating grace was necessary to the holy angels that they might adhere to God with chaste love. — Third, in order that they might be holy and just, they had need of sanctifying, or habitual grace, which implies the special indwelling of the Holy Spirit: for Sanctification, says St. Basil lib. De Spiritu sancto cap. 16., is not without the Spirit: nor are the virtues of the heavens holy of their own nature; and St. Augustine, praised above, teaches that what Paul says ad Romanos 5., The charity of God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us, is to be understood of angels equally with men. — Fourthly finally, in order that the good angels, while the evil ones were falling, might stand fast in grace, and resist those soliciting them to rebellion, they had need of the grace of perseverance, as St. Fulgentius teaches book De Fide cap. 3.; and in lib. 2. ad Thrasimundum cap. 3. he says that the same grace operates in man that he may rise again, which operated in the angel lest he fall, which Bede also teaches on Psalm 32., expounding the words: By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm, etc., where he says that the heavenly armies, the Cherubim and Seraphim, when the Devil transgressed, persevered, not from themselves, but from the Lord the Father and His Word they had it: and not a part of their strength, but all their strength is of the spirit of His mouth. Here, however, the discussion concerns only habitual and sanctifying grace, namely whether the angels had it in the first instant of creation.

Note 3. Concerning the resolution of the present difficulty there are chiefly two Sentences of the authors.

For there were some, says the Seraphic Doctor in the place praised above, saying that all the angels were created in gratuitous sanctifying gifts, and the reason that moved them was this: on the part of God indeed perfect liberality, and on the part of the creature fitness: for since from the instant of creation they were clean vessels and receptacles, and God is prompt to impart His grace unless He meet an obstacle on the part of the receiver, God did not leave those vessels empty for a moment; but as soon as He created them He illumined them with grace, and such receptacles ought to go forth from the hand of God as would be immediately prompt unto good use. Whence as some probably conjecture that God made trees full of fruits, and other things in the noblest and most perfect state: so also He adorned the nature of the angel with grace from its creation, which grace was to be perpetuated in the first good use without victory, and to be lost forever upon the first disorder.

This is one position, and it seems sufficiently consonant with the authorities of the Holy Fathers. This sentence, however, St. Thomas teaches quaest. 2. art. 3.

— There were also others, who said that the angels did not have sanctifying grace from the instant of creation, but afterwards: and the reason that moved them is the disposition of the angelic nature, which is borne toward what it desires without retardation. Wherefore just as by their conversion to evil they were converted so profoundly that they could not return; so, indeed much more, by their conversion to good, or by their hability, had they had grace, they would have adhered to the good so totally that they would never have fallen. Whence it does not seem probable in any way that Lucifer had grace, and if he himself did not have it, though he was exalted among the others, it is argued a fortiori that the others did not have it from their origin. The Master seems to accept this position, and the Doctors commonly hold it, and thus they agree with this one as more probable and more common.

So the Seraphic Doctor; so also teach Hugh of St. Victor lib. 1. De Sacramentis par. 5. c. 29., Henry of Ghent 1. quaest. 10. — From these it is clear that he in this matter is entirely being probabilist, nor does he openly teach either sentence. Such also was the Subtle Doctor, who judges both sentences probable, dist. 5. q. 1., where he asserts only that all the angels were at some time in grace: but whether they were created in sanctifying grace, or in pure naturals, so that sanctifying grace was afterwards bestowed upon them, he does not determine: but he says num. 7. only, that to posit the angels as created in pure naturals, one must then posit four delays, so that all in the first delay were in pure naturals; in the second all were in grace, and the good merited, and the evil demerited: in the third the good persevered in good, and the evil in evil; in the fourth both these and those were in their term; and this last way of four delays saves more states in them, and more affirmative authorities. But if this plurality of delays does not please, because it has no evident necessity, it is probable to posit at least three delays, in the first of which, he says num. 6., all were created in grace, and were uniform; in the second they were non-uniform, namely the good merited, and the evil demerited; in the third all were in their term, namely the good in beatitude, and the evil in punishment. So the Doctor. These things premised, four things here above all are to be resolved: first, that all the angels, whether good or evil, at some time had sanctifying grace: second, that it is more probable that they were created in sanctifying grace: third, that those who were of superior nature received more abundant grace.

First conclusion. — It is certain that all the angels were at some time devoid of all guilt, and stood in the state of sanctifying grace. This is now common among the Theologians, and is proved first: if some of the angels at some time did not have sanctifying grace, especially Lucifer with his rebellious followers: but it is not so: therefore, etc. The major stands, for since the good angels were not created in the state of supernatural beatitude, as was proved above, but obtained it by their own merits, as will appear below, there is no doubt that they stood for some time in habitual and sanctifying grace, in which state they could merit that beatitude.

Proof of the minor. From Sacred Scripture: First indeed from Isaiah 14.: How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? etc. where although literally the speech is about Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon, yet in the mystical sense the Fathers understand Lucifer, the prince of the rebellious angels, not only Origen lib. periarchon cap. 2. and Tertullian lib. 5. adversus Marcionem cap. 17., but also Athanasius lib. De Passione Christi: Jerome on cap. 14. of Isaiah, Ambrose on Psalm 118., and likewise Augustine lib. 3. De Doctrina Christiana cap. 37. And although these words intimate the fall of Lucifer from heaven, in which heaven he was created together with the other angels, nevertheless so grave an interrogation and admiration seems to signify a fall not only from the material heaven, but from a certain eminent dignity and excellence, not indeed natural, which he did not lose, but supernatural, and of grace, by which through sin he was stripped.

Secondly the same minor is proved. From Ezekiel 28.: Thou sealest up the likeness of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, thou wast in the delights of the paradise of God; every precious stone was thy covering... thou walkedst in the midst of the stones of fire, perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation, until iniquity was found in thee. Which words although they were said literally of the King of Tyre, yet they are understood everywhere by the holy Fathers of the demon, the prince of the rebellious angels, Ambrose lib. De Paradiso cap. 2., Jerome on this passage of Ezekiel, Augustine lib. 11. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 20., Cyril lib. 3. in Ioannem cap. 29., and the more recent Interpreters, who commonly weigh first those words, thou sealest up the likeness of God, namely with singular excellence. Whence Gregory lib. 32. Moralia cap. 18.: What gift had he not, if he was the seal of the likeness of God? Secondly by those words, in the midst of the stones of fire, they understand the holy angels blazing and aflame with charity, as St. Augustine lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, cap. 15. And accordingly that Lucifer placed in their midst like a King attended by courtiers, when he walks among them, blazed with the same fire. Thirdly those words, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, and perfect in thy ways, until iniquity was found in thee, probably signify a supernatural perfection and justice, from which the demon fell; for natural gifts are not usually so greatly exaggerated in Scripture.

Thirdly the same minor is proved. From Jude cap. 6.: The angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the great day. For although some more recent Interpreters explain this text of the princes ruling in the land of promise, whom they say were reserved unto eternal judgment because they kept not the principality entrusted to them, the royal dignity granted by God; nevertheless the more common and truer interpretation is of the demons, who are known to have been deprived of principality, not indeed natural, nor of the sciences and similar natural gifts, according to which there is a natural subordination among the evil angels. Nor were they excluded from Heaven and deprived of the right of inhabitants of the celestial dwelling except on account of sin, and the loss of supernatural grace, to which glory is owed by hereditary right.

This same truth is proved from the holy Fathers, very many of whom affirm that the angels once had grace, which the demons lost through sin. So St. Cyprian lib. De zelo, et livore at the beginning, where he affirms that the demon was once acceptable and dear to God: and Basil Epistola 141., in which disputing about the Holy Spirit, he shows thus that he was not of the same nature and condition as the angels:

But neither wilt thou ever dare to say that his substance is mutable, if thou lookest to the nature of the contrary Virtue, which fell from Heaven like lightning, and dropped away from true life, for the reason that it had adventitious virtue, and following an evil life underwent mutation. Therefore when it had departed from unity, and cast away angelic dignity, it was named devil from its manners: after that former and blessed habit was extinguished, and the opposing force kindled against him.

The same St. Jerome teaches on Hosea 3.: And they love the grape-gleanings of grapes, where he adds: Which wines they have not, and have lost pristine grace, like the demons, who having fallen from their proper dignity, possessing things of ancient grace, are dry. But best of all St. Augustine, who although he seems doubtful in several places, elsewhere affirms it, as lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, cap. 9. about the middle, where he says that God created the angels, at once founding their nature in them and bestowing grace. Whence, he says:

Without a good will, that is, the love of God, the holy angels must never be believed to have been; but those who although created good yet became evil, became so by their own evil will, which a good nature did not cause, unless when it voluntarily fell away from good; and the cause of the evil is not the good, but the defect from the good: either they received a lesser grace of divine love than those who persevered in the same: or if both were created good equally, when these fell by evil will, those, further helped, arrived at that fullness of beatitude whence they were made most certain that they would never fall.

Also favorable is the First Council of Braga Canon 7., whose words are these: If anyone says that the devil was not previously a good angel made by God, let him be anathema.

You will say. He who nowhere had charity must be said not to have had grace. For everyone, says St. John epistola prima cap. 3., who loveth not, abideth in death: but the demons nowhere had charity. — It is proved first, from Pope John in the epistle to Isaac of Syracuse, where concerning the demon he says: He grieves enough, and blushes, that the charity which he could not have in heaven he cannot hold men constant of muddy nature in the earth: but men hold in earth the charity by which they are justified before God: therefore the demons could not have it in the heavens. — Then St. Gregory lib. 32. Moralia cap. 23., weighing that text of Ezekiel c. 28., Gold the work of thy beauty, and thy holes were prepared in the day thou wast created; by gold he understands the wisdom of the demon: by holes truly the capacity of charity, by which, he says, if he had wished to be filled, standing firm with the angels like stones set in the ornament of a King, he could have adhered. Whence he concludes: He had therefore holes, but through the vice of pride they were not filled with the gold of charity. Which sentiment Rupert certainly follows lib. 1. De operibus Trinitatis c. 28., where concerning the demon he says:

It is hard here to assert that he was not perfect, but harder to affirm that he ever had in himself the love of the Creator without which there is no perfection of the ways. For even if the aforesaid Prophet said: gold the work of thy beauty, and thy holes were prepared in the day thou wast created, still he neither said this, nor signifies it in any way, that he received in his holes the chain of gold; namely because since he is a rational creature, he certainly had wit, intellect, and memory, by which quasi-holes, the spirit of the love of God, which is the best gold, he proudly refused to receive when he ought to have received it.

From these it stands that the devil never had the love of the Creator, and consequently not grace either, which either is charity or is indivisibly joined to charity.

I deny the minor. and to its first proof I say with the canonical Gloss that those words of Pope John are to be understood of final perseverance in charity, which the devil could not have: not that he truly could not have received it, but because he was unwilling to retain it once received, and therefore he grieves most that men obtain it and keep it steadfastly. Or I say that the particle nequivit signifies the impotence of having after the fall, that is, of recovering charity, either on account of his obfirmation in the evil purpose, or on account of the defect of vocation to supernatural penance, without which it cannot be recovered. Whence also in certain exemplars, in place of the past-tense verb nequivit, the present nequit is read. Or finally I say that the demon grieves that he could not, not absolutely or antecedently, but consequently on account of the inconstancy and vice of his own will, have persevering charity, which he sees many men, constant although of muddy nature, and far frailer, firmly hold. — To St. Gregory I say that he must be understood of charity not simply, but increased through merits, as the word filled also indicates; or even of charity consummated through beatitude and glory, and then he speaks of the proximate capacity for that consummated charity, which capacity is not through nature alone, but through the charity of the wayfarer. That however it should be thus understood is clear from this, because otherwise he would contradict himself, for c. 18. of the same book, weighing these words of Ezekiel: Perfect thou walkedst in the midst of the stones of fire, he interprets those words of Lucifer, whom he testifies was founded in charity: Because, he says, among the choirs of angels, kindled with the fire of charity, he shone bright with the glory of his condition. Similarly Rupert could be expounded: or it must be said that he followed the contrary opinion, which is now disapproved by the Theologians.

You will say 2. Whoever sinned from the beginning of his formation, and did not repent, did not have sanctifying grace: but such is the case of the demon, as is proved first from John 3.: Whoever committeth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. And cap. 8. Christ addressing the Jews opposing Himself said: You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you wish to do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth; that is, he did not exist, for the word stand is more frequently used in Scripture for to be, or to exist; thus 2. ad Corinth. 3.: By the mouth of two or three every word shall stand, that is, shall be: therefore it follows that the devil nowhere had sanctifying grace.

I deny the minor. and to the first context I say that its sense is, either that the devil sinned from the beginning of the world taken morally, and not mathematically, that is, a little after his formation: or that thereafter he sinned pertinaciously and continuously, from the moment he once began to sin. To the latter text truly I say that indeed the devil, morally speaking, is guilty of homicide from the beginning of the world, inasmuch as he not only impelled Cain to the fratricide of Abel, but also through his envy death entered into the world on account of the sin committed through temptation of the first Parent; wherefore Christ rightly said to the Jews attempting to put Him to death that they were of their father the devil, because they imitated the cruelty of the devil. Therefore it is not thence gathered that the demons nowhere had sanctifying grace, nay rather the contrary is drawn from the latter words; since the devil is said not to have stood in the truth, for although the word sto sometimes signifies the same as existo in Scripture, it more frequently designates stability and permanence in something begun, or in some good begun, especially in this place. Which is certainly confirmed by Job 4.: Behold they that serve him are not stable, and in his angels he found pravity: for the demons are said not to have been stable, because they did not persevere in the grace which they received: which Christ surely signifies by saying that the devil stood not in the truth; here however truth signifies innocence and sanctity, just as also in 4. Regum cap. 20., where Ezechias said, Remember that I have walked before thee in truth.

Second conclusion. — It is more probable that all the angels received sanctifying grace in the first instant of their creation. This likewise is now the more common opinion among the Theologians, and is proved First from Ezekiel 28.: Perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation, until iniquity was found in thee. This truth St. August. expressly teaches lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, cap. 9. where, after he had said, as we related in the preceding Conclusion, that God created the angels, at once founding their nature in them and bestowing grace: concerning the good angels he subjoins: Whence without a good will, that is, the love of God, the holy angels must never be believed to have been. But concerning the evil ones:

Those who, though created good, became evil either received a lesser grace of divine love than those who persevered in the same; or if both were created equally good, when the latter fell by an evil will, the former were further helped and attained that fullness of beatitude from which they were made most certain they would never fall.

— Secondly Basil on Psalm 32.:

Nothing is holy without the presence of the Holy Spirit; for the Word, maker of all things, created the angels out of nothing so that they might be, but the Holy Spirit at the same time bestowed sanctification upon them: for they were not created in an infantile stature and then gradually exercised and perfected so as to be held worthy of the reception of the spirit; but in their very constitution, and as it were by a certain sprinkling of their substance, they had holiness infused together.

Which he likewise teaches afterwards of the evil angels. — Thirdly Gregory, book 27. Moralia, chapter 23. The Angelic virtues, which remained fixed in the love of God, received in this gift of retribution that they remain in the contemplation of the Creator without end of felicity, and in that wherein they were created they subsist with eternal stability. It is proved by reason: for the angels were not created in a lesser perfection than the first man: but all Theologians confess that our first Parent was created in original justice. First because this seems to be intimated by Trent, session 5., where it says: Adam lost through sin the justice and sanctity in which he had been constituted. — Secondly because it openly teaches Anacletus Pope, epistle 1., saying: Man is said to have been created to the image of God because in his creation he had grace and the other virtues. Thirdly because Scripture testifies to it not obscurely, while Ecclesiastes 7. says God made man upright, for uprightness in Scripture signifies grace and sanctity. — Finally, because the children who would have been born of Adam, had he persevered in the state of innocence, would have had grace as it were congenital: therefore Adam himself also, who was their head and exemplar, had it from the beginning of his condition. — Then, God is more prone to pity than to condemn: but he created the angels in such a state that they could immediately demerit, and consequently be condemned: therefore he ought also to have brought them forth in a state in which they could merit, and forthwith in the state of sanctifying grace, which is the principle of merit. — Finally, God from the beginning created all the angels for a supernatural end, and with the most fitting providence for attaining it: but fitting providence demands that to each thing there be granted the necessary means for reaching the end due to it: therefore since sanctifying grace is most necessary for meriting beatitude, it was congruous that God should grant it to all the angels immediately from the beginning. Congruous, I say, for I confess that for persuading this truth no demonstrative reason can be supplied, since the matter depends upon the free will of God...

You will object 1. That passage of chapter 4. of Job, for where we read that God found wickedness in the angels, the Hebrew has, he set not praise or light in his angels: but grace and justice are called light and splendor in the sacred letters, according to that of 1 Peter 2. He called them into his admirable light: and St Paul often calls the just children of light, saying: You were sometimes darkness, but now light in the Lord. — It is confirmed from this, that St Augustine, book 1. De Genesi ad litt., chapter 9. says: The angelic creature was first made formless and called heaven; then formed and called light: therefore the angel did not obtain sanctifying grace from the beginning.

I answer. that even if the aforesaid text of Job be interpreted concerning praise or light, it does not thereby prejudice the truth of the Conclusion, since it signified that the angels did not have praise or light consummated and perfect, such as the blessed angels have, wherefore by the same chapter 38. they are called the morning stars praising God. — But to Saint Augustine I say that indeed he appears more hesitant and doubtful in deciding this truth; nevertheless, since, as we said above, elsewhere he teaches the same truth steadfastly, he must be benignly interpreted, lest he appear self-contradictory. I say therefore that when he affirms the angels to have been first formless before formed, he understands either a priority of nature alone, not of time; or — which I judge more probable — he speaks of formlessness through the absence of the beatific vision and of the light of glory, which preceded beatitude in duration.

You will say 2. If all the angels had been created in sanctifying grace, none of them could have fallen: but the consequent is false: therefore also the antecedent. The minor is evident, for the demons fell. Moreover the inference of the major is proved: if they had been created in sanctifying grace, they would also have been supernaturally converted to God, for God does not usually bestow sanctifying grace upon persons using their own will unless consenting and willing to have it, and consequently converted to God: but if the angels had once been converted to God, they could never have turned away from him; both because the will of the angels either cannot at all be changed from what it has once chosen, or is changed only with the greatest difficulty, and therefore demands to be confirmed at once in its election; and because if in the first instant they had been converted to God through grace, they would have merited beatitude: therefore in the second instant they would have received it as the reward of their merit, and thus could not have fallen.

I deny the major. and to its proof I say that although the angels are not moved so easily as men from what they have once chosen, yet of themselves they are not utterly immobile in their election: therefore even if an angel in his first operation had been converted to God through sanctifying grace, still he could withdraw from that conversion, since indeed he was free and still in the state of the way; and moreover, because a new occasion of sinning presented itself to him, as Saint Gregory Nazianzen teaches in oration 38., where, after saying concerning the fall of the angels: I would wish to say of them that they are immobile toward evil, having only agitation toward good, as encompassing God and drawing from him the first illuminations: he adds: Yet that I may judge and call them not wholly immobile but hard to move, I am persuaded by that Lucifer who from brightness was made darkness on account of pride and so named, and the rebellious Powers subjected to him, which by flight from the good wrought vice and contracted it upon us.

You will say 3. Grace is a medium between nature and glory: therefore the angels ought to have been first created in the state of pure nature, afterwards gifted with grace, and then to have merited beatitude.

I deny the consequence. for if it proved anything it would also establish that the first man was not created in grace. Add that the reason laid down in the antecedent is of little moment, for it is far better for a rational creature always to have stood in the grace of God, although in the instant immediately following its reception it would not receive beatitude, than to have been for some time in the state of pure nature; for the state of pure nature does not denote perfection as the state of grace does. Then greater power and liberality of God appears in granting grace together with nature at once than if he first conferred nature and afterward grace; nor does any reason appear why God should have deferred conferring grace upon the angels, especially since, as Saint Basil taught above, the angels were not created infants, that is, they had no need of the course of time to receive sanctification and illumination.

You will say 4. It was more congruous to confer grace after nature, since by conferring both at once grace would seem connatural: therefore it is more probable that God did not confer both at once.

I deny the antecedent. for although grace was conferred upon the angels together with nature, there was no danger thenceforth of confusing the two, especially since the angels could know, at least through faith, that the help granted them depended on the mere liberality of God and utterly exceeded their natural powers: for this knowledge contributed most to proving their constancy and humility.

Finally you will say. God works nothing in vain: but grace conferred upon the angels in the first instant would have been conferred in vain, seeing that as yet they could not deliberate, nor consequently operate by means of grace. Then grace would have been futile in the demons, since they derived no fruit of good work or merit from it. Finally the angel would have known himself created in grace, and thereupon to be a Son of God, and consequently he would not so easily have willed to lose so great a dignity: therefore it seems more probable that sanctifying grace was not granted to them.

I deny the consequence. and to the first argument I say that grace was not futile in the first instant, since it contributed most to the perfection of the angels, and moreover with it they could deliberate sufficiently and operate, as we shall prove in the last Conclusion. To the second I say that although the demons received no fruit of grace, yet it was not granted them in vain; since it was a medium for attaining the end due, and contributed to demonstrating that sweet and right providence of God who wills all men to be saved and supplies every means necessary to salvation. To the third I say that although the angel knew himself a Son of God and constituted in grace, yet by his liberty he could lose that dignity, acting namely against the inclination and institution of grace; since grace does not compel the will, but according to its free condition assists and advances it toward supernatural acts.

Third conclusion. — God bestowed an unequal grace upon the angels according to the greater or lesser natural perfection of each. This is common among Theologians, and is proved by the authority of the holy Fathers: for above all St Ambrose, book 1. De Spiritu sancto, c. 7. teaches that a more abundant grace was conferred upon the angels than upon men on account of the greater and more excellent dignity of their condition:

If they think, he says, that there is no spiritual holiness in the angels, but some other grace proper to their nature, these will certainly judge the angels inferior to men. For although they themselves confess that they dare not attribute to the angels the Holy Spirit, nor can they deny that the Holy Spirit is infused into men — for sanctification is the gift and boon of the Spirit — there will be found men certainly who have a better sanctification, and are to be preferred to the angels: but when the angels descend to the aid of men, it must be understood that the creature superior is that of the angels, which receives more spiritual grace, yet that the gift of the Author is the same both toward us and toward them.

In which words St Ambrose confesses that for this reason a more abundant grace was conferred upon the angels than upon men, because they are of a more excellent nature; but since the angels also differ among themselves in excellence of nature, by the same reasoning it follows that a more abundant grace was conferred upon them according to the perfection of each one's nature. — This very thing Saint Basil teaches, book De Spiritu sancto, chapter 16., saying: The powers of the heavens are not holy of their own nature, but according to the proportion in which they surpass one another they have from the Spirit the measure of sanctification. Nearly the same opinion Damascenus holds, book 2., c. 3.; for he says: Through the Word all the angels were created, and through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit all received the measures of perfection; yet so that each according to his dignity and rank is a partaker of light and grace. And they seem to have taken their opinion from St Dionysius in the book De Coelesti Hierarchia, where he says that the angels more perfect in nature are nearer to God, both in office and in the splendors of glory and grace: which he professes to have learned from his teacher Paul, chapter 6.; and accordingly there he says: The first Hierarchy, as it is more perfect than the rest, is joined with greater nearness to the foremost splendors of God. And c. 7.: Deservedly that first heavenly function is performed by the most exalted Spirits, since it is the order higher and more sacred than all; and in this manner he philosophizes about the others in the following chapters. — And although these Fathers do not speak expressly of the first instant of creation, yet, says Suarez, book 5., chapter 10., without doubt they hold the same proportionally concerning it: both on the part of God, because it seems consonant with his wisdom that those whom he created better in nature he placed in higher seats of glory, and consequently also anticipated with greater graces; and on the part of the angels themselves, because the more perfect they are in nature, the more vehemently and with greater effort do they operate through grace and dispose themselves to it. But this assertion is not without difficulty, that it may appear,

You will say 1. If God had conferred grace upon the angels according to the perfection of nature, it would follow that Lucifer in the first instant of creation was more holy than the other angels; but this seems absurd: therefore, etc. The inference of the major is evident, for Lucifer was the most perfect of all the angels in natural things. The minor also stands, for it is hardly credible that God preferred that angel in holiness to the others whom he knew would not be placed in glory with them. It is confirmed: the inferior cannot be the measure of the superior: but nature is inferior to grace: therefore it cannot be the measure of its conferral.

I deny the minor. for it is not inconvenient that, if Lucifer was more perfect than all the angels in nature, he also stood holier than they and had more abundant grace than the other inferior angels, since God does not confer grace according to the foreknowledge of the future event, but according to the present disposition: nor does greater grace always infer greater conformity to it, as is found by the example of Judas, for he received more graces than most saints; yet he perished, while these are saved unto eternity.

To the confirmation. I distinguish the major: the inferior cannot be the principal or formal rule of the superior, I concede; occasional or instrumental, I deny. To the minor I say that the angelic nature is the measure of grace and of its distribution among the angels, not indeed as the principal and formal rule: for the primary rule of the distribution of grace, both among the angels and among men, is the divine will itself dividing to each as it wills, as the Apostle says, 1 Corinthians 12. Nevertheless the angelic nature itself can be an occasional rule, insofar namely as God, about to distribute grace to the angels out of pure liberality, wisely willed to distribute it according to the proportion of natural perfections, so that those who were more excellent in the natural order might excel also in the supernatural.

You will say 2. God does not observe that proportion in distributing graces according to the dignity and excellence of nature with respect to men: therefore neither ought he to observe it with respect to the angels. The antecedent is evident: for we see many men more outstanding than others in intellect and the other faculties of the soul whom God nevertheless neither gifts with more abundant grace nor elects or calls to discharge divine offices; nay rather, says the Apostle, 1 Corinthians 1.: Not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, but God has chosen the foolish things of the world, etc. The consequence also stands by parity of reason, since no reason appears why God ought to behave otherwise toward the angels in distributing graces than toward men, especially since that benefit is utterly undebted to both natures.

I deny the consequence. for although no reason appears to us why God should so behave toward the angels rather than toward men, the matter itself ought not on that account be less certain to us, especially since the reason of all God's counsels does not shine forth to us. Just as it is no less certain that God did not apprehend the angels but the seed of Abraham to be hypostatically united with himself, although no other reason for that preference was supplied than the divine will itself, which adopted the nature it willed at its pleasure: so also it pleased him to elect men to various degrees of grace according to his own will; but it pleased him to distribute grace to the angels keeping proportion to their innate excellence, namely on account of the reasons of congruity premised in the Conclusion; and above all this stands because of the authority of the holy Fathers asserting the same. Therefore it is not lawful to argue from men to angels, or conversely: and perhaps God willed to grant grace to men and angels in this twofold diverse mode, that he might show himself the liberal donor of grace, since he distributes it to whomsoever he wills and in whatever manner.

You will say 3. If the innate excellences of the angels were the reasons why more ample grace was infused into them, it would follow that, with equal grace, one angel would merit more than another: but the consequent is false: therefore the antecedent. The inference of the major is proved; for this reason one angel obtained more ample grace, namely because he had a more excellent nature and more vigorous faculties, and therefore disposed himself more nobly and efficaciously to receive that grace: therefore by parity, if one angel with equal grace applies greater effort in fulfilling the divine mandate prescribed to him than another, he will also have more excellent merit: not on account of grace, which is supposed equal: therefore on account of the greater effort, and hence that exuberance of merit must be refunded to the purely natural powers.

— The Theologians commonly deny the inference of the major; for, they say, the reason of more ample merit must be drawn from the side of grace, and consequently, with equal grace, if two powers were performing some work, one of which acted more vigorously than the other, it would not on that account have more abundant, but altogether equal merit with the other.

— But since the Scotists reject this answer, contending that even with equal light of glory God is seen more clearly by a keener and more vigorous intellect, therefore I deny the minor, and to its proof I say that that amplitude of merit greater in one than in another is not to be refunded to the powers of nature alone, but to the faculty elevated by grace, just as we similarly said in treating of the principle of the inequality of the light of glory.

Quaestio III: An, et quomodo Angeli gratiam sanctificantem, et suam beatitudinem ex propria operatione, et merito fuerint assecuti

Note 1. From the Seraphic Doctor, book 5 of the Compendium of Theology, chapter 11:

Merit is the efficacy of a good work for obtaining what is not had, or for having more justly what is had: hence through merit something not owed becomes owed, and the very debt becomes more deeply owed. Just as a King gives a horse which the soldier has not merited; but by his use of the horse he merits that same horse already given. Now merit in general is distinguished threefold, namely, of congruity, of dignity, and of condignity. The merit of congruity is that by which the subject is disposed so as to be able to receive grace according to the standard of divine Justice; this is called the disposition of the matter, namely when someone does what is in him. The merit of dignity denotes the fitness of the agent for attaining what he merits. The merit of condignity denotes an equality of merit to the reward: I say equality, however, not arithmetical, but geometrical, that is, not of quantity, but of proportion; and this is evident, because God always remunerates above merit, just as he punishes short of what sin deserves. Hence there is not between merit and reward an equal quantity, but a proportion, because with God there is no commutative justice, justice of the marketplace, whereby one loaf of bread is given for one denarius, or a cubit of cloth for a solidus; distributive justice, however, is the principle by which gifts are distributed according to proportion to merits, and that is what obtains with God. Hence the Apostle, first to the Corinthians 3: Every one shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. Whence the Seraphic Doctor infers that no one merits for himself first grace by the merit of dignity or by the merit of condignity, but only by the merit of congruity. Similarly, one existing in charity cannot merit for another first grace by the merit of condignity, but by the merit of dignity and by the merit of congruity. But one existing in grace can merit for himself an increase of grace from condignity, and consequently by the merit of dignity, and by the merit of congruity.

Note 2. From the same author, there, chapter 13:

that meritorious works are wholly from grace, and wholly from free will, though principally from grace, because grace is compared to free will as the rider to the horse: for just as the rider directs the horse, so grace directs free will in the exercise of the virtues: for we can do evil by ourselves, but not good. Moreover, toward the efficacy of meriting, three things avail. First is the difficulty of the work, which appears in martyrdom. Second, the promptness of the will; for, says the Apostle, second to the Corinthians 5: God loves a cheerful giver. Third is the magnitude of charity, for charity itself is the weight of the sanctuary, according to which all things that were in the temple were weighed: as we read in Leviticus 27. — Again, for any work to be meritorious, three things are required. First, that the work itself be done in charity, because works done outside charity are dead, like an extinguished coal. Second, that it be done from charity: for many things are done in charity which nevertheless are not meritorious, from the fact that they are not done from charity, that is, because they are not referred to their due end. Third, that the work itself be referable to a good: for evil deeds cannot be done with a good intention, otherwise there would follow the absurdity that the same work would be meritorious and demeritorious.

— Finally, three things are attended to in merit on the part of man, namely the subject, that is, the soul; the principle, that is, free will; and the intention of the end: to which three things correspond on the part of God, namely grace, virtue, and charity: grace indeed makes the subject pleasing to God: virtue enables free will: but charity directs the intention to the due end.

Note 3. From the same author, there, chapter 15:

that good works are meritorious of three things, namely eternal life, increase of grace, remission of punishment. The first corresponds to the root of the work, namely charity, and this is the substantial reward of eternal life; the accidental reward, however, corresponds to the genus of the work, as does also increase of grace, because for works that are excellent and supererogatory we merit a greater increase of grace than for other works; remission of punishment, however, corresponds to the painfulness of the work, because the more painful works are, the more they are meritorious of remission of punishment.

So the Seraphic Doctor.

But it must be known, that I am not here instituting a discussion about the merit of remission of punishment, since indeed God did not spare the Angels who sinned, nor granted them time for repenting and the grace of pardon; therefore only the following remains here to be examined. First, whether the Angels disposed themselves by their own works, with actual grace, to receiving sanctifying grace. Second, whether the holy Angels truly merited their beatitude by their good works. Third, by which virtues above all they attained it.

First conclusion. — It is more probable that all the Angels received sanctifying grace through the cooperation, and as it were disposition, of their own will. This is the more common view among Theologians, and S. Thomas plainly teaches it in the first part, question 62, article 2, as do all his disciples. And although the Subtle Doctor determines nothing expressly about that truth, he nevertheless sufficiently indicates it, dist. 5, question 1, number 5, where, referring various modes of speaking about the duration and state of the way of the Angels, he says: That four periods can be assigned: in the first all the Angels were in natural things: in the second all in grace: in the third the good stood firm, and merited in grace, while the wicked fell away, in the fourth both these and those were in the term. Although he does not judge that assertion the more probable, as he explains below, judging truer that the Angels were all created in sanctifying grace: nevertheless he does not disapprove it, but esteems it probable.

The conclusion is urged, first: sanctified angels were sanctified in a nobler manner, such as befitted a rational creature: but sanctification which takes place through one's own disposition is far nobler and more excellent than that which takes place through the pure mercy and liberality of God: because, other things being equal, it is always of its kind more perfect to have something from oneself than from another alone, and to be at least in part the cause of one's own perfection, than to be utterly dependent on another for it: but whoever prepares himself for habitual grace by his own act is at least in part the cause of his own sanctification, since he concurs with the actual aid toward receiving that habitual and sanctifying grace. Hence Theologians commonly distinguish a twofold sanctification; one of adults, who are sanctified according to their own act: the other of infants, who are not sanctified by their own act of faith, but according to the faith of parents, or of the Church: and they confess the first sanctification to be more perfect than the second, for the reason that act is more perfect than habit: for habit is ordered to act; and therefore it was more perfect in the Angels to be sanctified through their own disposition than through the simple concession of God.

Add, that whoever disposes himself to habitual, or sanctifying, grace obtains it from God, and merits it at least de congruo, and somewhat stirs up and allures God to confer that grace upon him, and thereby is in some manner the cause of his own sanctifying grace, for he concurs with the actual supernatural aid toward thus earning it.

Second, adult men do not receive sanctifying grace except through their own disposition mediating, because they have the use of liberty, which infants lack, in whom that preceding disposition is not required: but the Angels were created with the perfect use of free will: For, says S. Basil on Psalm 32, they were not created in an infantile stature and then gradually exercised; but from the beginning of their production they were endowed with perfect knowledge and liberty: therefore it is more likely that they did not receive sanctifying grace otherwise than through their own disposition and consent. — It is confirmed, because free causes can no less act as soon as they have everything required for acting than natural or necessary causes can: but a natural cause which in the first instant of its formation has everything required for acting acts in that same instant, as is clear of the Sun, and of any other luminous body, which illuminates immediately upon existing: therefore by equal reason a free cause can act in the first instant in which it is, if in that instant it has everything required for acting freely. Yet the Angels could have had everything necessary for acting in the first instant of their formation, both on the part of God and on their own part. On the part of God, namely the actual supernatural aid, by which their will would be moved toward God and would tend toward him with an affection of piety: on their own part, namely full knowledge and the complete power of the will, by which they could concur with the divine aid offered to them either to elicit a supernatural act or not to elicit it: therefore from the beginning they had everything necessary by which they could freely dispose themselves to receiving sanctifying grace.

Third, finally, through the reception of sanctifying grace friendship is entered into between God and the creature, indeed even a certain spiritual marriage is contracted: but friendship is founded on the consent of those who love, and for contracting marriage the consent of each party is required: therefore sanctifying grace is not communicated to an intellectual creature possessing the use of liberty unless its consent be present.

Add, that it is fitting that God should not advance to that supernatural state those whom he adopts as sons, once they are adults and free, except as free, that is, willingly and freely consenting, and this is more consonant with rational and free nature, and with the entering of friendship, which it is fitting be entered into by mutual consent of the parties: in which manner too God conducts himself with men already adult and free, according to that saying, Turn to me, and I will turn to you: which law with respect to us is certain and universal, according to the Tridentine Council, session 6, chapter 5.

You will say 1. Christ the Lord, according to his humanity, was made a little lower than the angels: but to him was given the habit of grace from the instant of his conception, without his own disposition, and from that habit came forth the first act elicited by him: therefore the same judgment must be made about the Angels.

I deny the parity, for the first habitual grace of Christ was as it were resulting from the grace of union, and thus he had it in a nobler manner than through his own disposition. Moreover, the Grace of Christ was consummated from the beginning, and its first acts were vision and beatific enjoyment, which could not be dispositions to grace, but rather its fruits.

You will say 2. God created other things perfect together with their fruits, e.g., trees, and without any disposition on the part of those things: therefore much more did he create the Angels together with their fruits, that is, with habitual grace and inherent justice, without their preceding disposition.

I answer. other things are not able, through dispositions of their own, to receive higher perfections, as Angels and adult men can.

You will say 3. A more perfect mode of acting ought to have been granted to the Angels from the beginning, for it is consonant with the divine operation and with angelic dignity: but it is nobler and more perfect to act from a supernatural habit than without its concurrence: therefore it was nobler for the Angels first to act from the habit of sanctifying grace than through actual aid, and therefore they could not dispose themselves to the reception of that habitual grace.

I distinguish the major. to act from a habit, other things being equal, is better and more connatural than to act without the concurrence of that habit, I concede: when other things are not equal, I deny: for it can happen that it is more fitting to act without a habit than with its concurrence: and so it is in the case at hand; for it was nobler for the Angels to dispose themselves to their own sanctification, and to be in some degree the cause of their own justice, and through their own consent to accept the friendship and espousal of God, than to receive this otherwise: therefore it must be judged that it was so done.

You will say 4. The Angels had sanctifying grace concreated with themselves: therefore they could not dispose themselves to it. The antecedent is clear from what was said in the previous Question: the consequence is proved: disposition precedes form, since it prepares the subject to receive it: but something concreated cannot presuppose anything prior in the subject that would be dispositional to its reception: therefore since sanctifying grace was concreated with the Angels, they could not dispose themselves to it.

I deny the consequence, and I distinguish the major of that proof: disposition precedes form, in the order of nature, I concede: of time, I deny: since, as is clear even in physical things, the last being of disposition is the first being of substantial form; and the act of contrition, which is a disposition to sanctifying grace, is simultaneous with the sanctifying grace itself, although in nature it precedes it: therefore by similarity the Angels, with the supernatural aid granted to them from the beginning, in the same instant in which they were created, could turn themselves to God by an act of love, by which they accepted, as it were by a certain disposition, all those things which were then shown to them by that magnificent Artificer of all things, both in natural and in supernatural matters: and they gave thanks to him for the immense benefits bestowed on them.

You will insist. If the Angels elicited some act, by the actual aid granted to them, by which they disposed themselves to habitual grace, it follows that simultaneously in time they had two acts, one indeed elicited by the will with the concurrence of that actual grace, the other truly with the concurrence of habitual grace: but one and the same faculty cannot elicit two acts simultaneously: therefore neither did the Angels have those two acts simultaneously. The sequela of the major is proved: First we assert that they elicited an act with the actual supernatural aid, by which they would dispose themselves to habitual grace; but they also ought to have elicited another act from that habitual grace concreated with them, otherwise that habit would have been idle in the Angels for some time, which appears absurd: therefore, etc.

I answer. granting the major, I distinguish the minor: one and the same faculty cannot elicit simultaneously two total acts, and non-subordinated ones, I concede: partial, and mutually subordinated ones, I deny: for just as the Sun, e.g., by the same illumination makes level both the Moon and, through her mediation, bathes the air with light at night: so the same will can tend simultaneously toward God by two acts, precisely when one stands in the manner of a disposition to the other.

Second conclusion. — The Angels in fact merited beatitude, and that earlier in time than they attained it. Thus

the Doctor, dist. 5, question 1, n. 3, where he reports and impugns the opinion of the Master, who says the Angels did not merit that beatitude before they received it, but after they received it: just as a soldier is said to merit a horse by works not yet done but to be done. Which opinion, says the Doctor, is absurd; for if anyone were said to merit because of foreseen works, it would follow that grace is not grace; for from the fact, he says, that someone is foreseen to use well a thing once received, he does not merit to receive it. For then man could merit first grace, because he is foreseen by God giving it to make good use of it, and then grace would not be grace, because it would be from merits, though not posited in effect, yet foreseen: therefore the Angel did not merit beatitude, if he had it only because of the foreseen good use of his in serving concerning the elect. Then he adds: Therefore he holds that the Angels merited their beatitude before they received it.

Now the Doctor proves the first part of the Conclusion thus: Every nature attains its perfection through its proper operation: but the perfection and end of every rational creature is beatitude, which is natural to God alone: therefore the Angel ought to attain it by his proper action. But an end to be attained through operation is either to be made through it, or to be earned through it, or, as the Doctor speaks, every operation leading into an end is either factive of the end, when namely the end does not exceed the power of the agent acting for the end, as medication with respect to health: or meritorious of the end, when namely the end exceeds the power of the agent acting for the end, and then the end is awaited from the gift of another: but beatitude exceeds every created nature: therefore both the Angel and man cannot attain it by an effective operation, but only by a meritorious one.

Proof 2. The angelic nature is as capable of meriting its beatitude as man: therefore by the reason that men do not attain beatitude except through their own merit, the Angels likewise ought to earn it. The consequence is clear: both because, other things being equal, the Angels are more apt for meriting with God than men; and because if glory is not given to men, whose nature is weaker and more infirm, without merit, by equal reason it does not seem it should be conceded to the Angels without merit; finally because Apoc. 21: The measure of a man, which is an angel: that is, as certain interpreters explain, it bears the same ratio toward men as it bore toward the Angels in their ordination to beatitude, because certainly in attaining beatitude men and angels are measured by the same measure or rule: therefore since in men the measure of attaining beatitude is merit, by equal reason it must be said that the Angels attained beatitude by their proper merit.

It is confirmed. This truth by the authority of the holy Fathers, especially S. Augustine, book On Correction and Grace chapter 11, where, speaking of the state of the first man, to whom God had granted an aid by which he could, if he willed, hold fast perseveringly to the good, he says:

but because he did not will to remain, it is certainly his fault, whereas it would have been his merit, had he willed to remain: as the holy angels did, who, while others fell through free will, through free will stood fast themselves, and merited to receive the reward of that abode, namely so great a fullness of beatitude that it is most certain to them that they will always remain in it.

Therefore S. Augustine confesses that the holy Angels truly earned their beatitude.

The Doctor also proves the second part, namely that the Angels merited glory earlier in time than they attained it: a will cannot be simultaneously and at once in that state in which it wills an object mutably and contingently, and also immutably and necessarily: but if the Angels received beatitude at the same time at which they merited it, it would follow that they willed the same object mutably and immutably, contingently and necessarily; therefore they cannot merit and obtain beatitude in the same instant of time. The major is clear: for two acts entirely opposed cannot proceed simultaneously from the same faculty. The minor is proved: in order to merit, one must be in such a state as not to be so determined to an act as to lack liberty not only essential, but of contradiction, of having such an act or not having it, or rather one must be indifferent to eliciting the act or not eliciting it: but when the will is in the beatific state it no longer has such indifference, since through the beatific vision it is so determined and drawn to loving God that it cannot cease from eliciting that act; therefore if in the same instant in which it merited it had beatitude, it would follow that it could simultaneously mutably and immutably, contingently and necessarily tend toward God by an act of love; which since it is absurd, it is likewise absurd that they should simultaneously merit beatitude and receive it.

Then, the state of beatitude excludes all merit, otherwise men could in fact merit in Heaven; nor would the state of the wayfarer necessarily be desired for meriting: but the consequent is against the common opinion of Theologians, who require the state of the way, not of the homeland, for merit: therefore merit cannot exist simultaneously with beatitude, and accordingly it must precede it in time.

Finally, the disposition to a form and the way to a term must be prior to the form and the term when, by their own special rationale they have a certain incompatibility on account of which they cannot subsist together: but the merit of the angels is a way and disposition to beatitude, which cannot subsist together with it; because the merit of the angels presupposes faith, and knowledge, and the state of the way: both of which beatitude excludes; therefore they cannot subsist together: and consequently merit must precede beatitude in time.

You will say 1. The angels merit something on account of the services rendered to men: but that merit exists together with its reward, otherwise they would await it; yet such expectation would disturb their happy state: for from Prov. 13. Hope that is deferred afflicts the soul: now what they merit can be nothing other than beatitude, and hence merit and beatitude can subsist together, and consequently the angels could at once merit beatitude and possess it.

The Doctor distinguishes the major. By those services the angels merit essential beatitude — he denies it; accidental beatitude — he concedes it; and although they did not previously have this accidental beatitude, and can desire and long for it, yet no distress follows in them on that account, since all of it is excluded by essential beatitude.

You will say 2. A greater reward supposes greater merit; but the angels have a greater reward and ampler beatitude than very many elected men: therefore they must likewise have greater merit: but they could not have had greater merit before receiving their beatitude than very many holy men who, living through a long time, amassed many merits: therefore it is necessary that the angels merit glory through subsequent works, and consequently their merit subsists together with beatitude.

— The Doctor distinguishes the major: a greater reward requires greater merit intensively — he concedes it; extensively — he denies it; that is, it requires a meritorious work which is more excellent and more perfect by reason, namely, either of a more excellent principle or of a more intense act of charity and love, but it does not require more meritorious works as to number. And likewise, with the minor distinguished, the consequence must be denied: for the merit of the angels, though accomplished in a brief time, could nevertheless far exceed intensively the merits of men multiplied over many years.

You will insist. Merit carries with it difficulty: but there was no difficulty in the angels in pursuing good: therefore either no merit at all belongs to them, or at least less perfect than in men, who suffer the greatest difficulty in the pursuit of good.

— The Doctor distinguishes the minor: there was not in the angels difficulty in pursuing good from a sensible inclination to the opposite — he concedes it; from the proportion of the object toward which they had to tend — he denies it; for it must be known, he says, that difficulty sometimes arises in some work from an inclination of the will to the opposite: sometimes difficulty arises in a work because of that about which one works, which exceeds the nature of the worker. And in this way the attainment of beatitude was difficult and praiseworthy in the angels, but not in the first way, because they were not inclined to the opposite. But it is altogether likely that the angels suffered great difficulty in adhering to God with love and service: for this denotes the great struggle begun between the utterly hostile angels and the faithful ones; it also signifies the fall of so many angels, who probably would not have fallen so, nor strayed from God, unless they had suffered some difficulty in adherence to Him. Finally, if the argument proved anything, it would have to be said that even the angels could in no wise merit by works effecting the attainment of beatitude, since that state removes all difficulty, especially concerning the love of God, whom, beholding face to face, they acknowledge as supremely lovable.

Third conclusion. — The angels merited their beatitude chiefly through acts of the theological virtues, faith, hope, and charity.

Proof of the Conclusion. First indeed from faith, for from Habakkuk 2. The just lives by faith, and as the Apostle adds to the Hebrews 11. without faith it is impossible to please God. But the angels, in order to merit, had to be just and pleasing to God: therefore also to have faith: no less was it necessary for the angels to be justified through faith and to arrive at vision than for men; but men cannot be justified without faith, nor arrive at vision apart from faith; since, as the Apostle says to the Hebrews chapter 11. Faith is the substance of things to be hoped for. Whence he concludes in the same place: he who approaches God must believe that He is, and is a rewarder to those who seek Him: therefore, etc. Finally, vision answers to faith by a special reason, as the reward specially proportioned to it. Hence that saying of the Psalmist can be accommodated to the blessed, as we have heard through faith on the way, so we see through manifest revelation, in the city of the Lord of hosts. To these add, that the angels had charity, for charity is either identical with grace or inseparable from it: but charity necessarily presupposes faith, and hence it was necessary that the angels possessed infused faith.

— Hence I judge it truer to say that it was revealed to the angels, and that they knew through faith, first, God as the Author of grace and the ultimate end and the object of supernatural beatitude, for as we said above from the Apostle, he who approaches God, etc. That these words must be understood equally of angels as of men, St. Thomas teaches 2. 2. qu. 5. art. 1. Second, they explicitly knew the mystery of the Trinity. For, as Thalassius says, t. 5. Biblioth. Patrum sentence 59., the sanctification and deification both of angels and of men is the holy consubstantial knowledge of the Trinity. It can also be urged, because the knowledge of the way of the angels ought to correspond to the knowledge of the homeland: for faith is the disposition most suited by which rational creatures are gradually advanced to beatific knowledge: but supernatural beatitude consists chiefly in the knowledge of the mystery of the Trinity: therefore, etc. Third, I also hold it more probable that the mystery of the Incarnation was revealed equally to them: both because such revelation and knowledge pertained not only to the perfection of the angels themselves; but also was highly fitting to the honor and majesty of Christ, and this St. Paul indicates, Hebrews 1., saying: And when again He brings the First-begotten into the world, He says: and let all the angels of God adore Him: which precept befitted to be given also to the angels as wayfarers, not only toward the Son as God, but also as God made man; for since the mystery of the Incarnation is known by the blessed angels as one of the chief mysteries, and since the knowledge of the way of the angels ought to correspond to the knowledge of the homeland, it was fitting that they know that mystery on the way.

You will say. St. Paul to the Ephesians 3. and 1. to Timothy 3., signifying that the mystery of the Incarnation was hidden from eternity in God, and that through the Church the Gospel was made known to the Principalities and Powers in heavenly places; whence those questions of the angels, Who is this King of glory? Psal. 23. Who is this that comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra? Isai. 63. therefore, etc.

— Poncius answers, from the same Apostle to the Hebrews 1., that it is established that the angels before every peace and the preaching of the Church recognized the mystery of the Incarnation from its beginning, and adored Christ the Lord at the very point of His Conception or Nativity. Therefore the other passages of his are to be understood of the knowledge of the Incarnation, not simply, but secundum quid, namely either according to the intuitive knowledge of the same already put into execution, or according to its extension to all nations opened to the angels experimentally at least by the preaching of Paul and of the Church, or according to the abrogation of the legal rites and other circumstances of the thing presented and exhibited. Those questions, moreover, are either those of the Prophets, or rather of the angels, not ignorant, but wondering. For neither is it true, as some affirm, that certain ones indeed knew beforehand, but others were ignorant, namely those who asked at the Ascension of Christ; for Paul to the Hebrews 1. affirms that all the angels adored Christ the first-begotten of God when He was brought into the world. It is confirmed by this, that St. Dionysius, chapter 1. of the Celestial

Hierarchy, affirms that all the angels were instructed in all the mysteries which they announced to men, but especially those which concerned Christ. Whence he adds: I see that the divine mystery of the humanity of Jesus was first made known to the angels, then through them the benefit of knowledge came to us. To him accords St. Augustine, book 1. De Civit. cap. 32., while he says: From the beginning of the human race the mystery of the Incarnation was announced and prefigured through the ministry of the angels; he supposes, therefore, that it was foreknown by the angels: and hence the aforesaid words of St. Paul cannot be taken with such rigor as to exclude all prior knowledge held by the angels of the mystery of the incarnate Word of Christ to be adored; especially as regards the angels of the higher order: for the Doctor Subtilis, dist. 19. num. 2., does not wish the knowledge of that mystery to have been made known to the angels of the lower orders, as will appear in qu. 1. of the following Article.

You will say 2. Angelic knowledge was evident: but knowledge held through faith is not evident: therefore that knowledge was not through faith. The major is proved: the angels evidently knew that God was revealing to them those mysteries whose knowledge they received; whence rightly St. Bonaventure in 3. dist. 28. art. 2. quaest. 3. teaches that the angels, from their first condition, had some knowledge of the articles pertaining to the Trinity, which nevertheless does not deserve to be called faith; nay rather, knowledge of contemplation on account of the absence of enigma.

— I distinguish the major: that knowledge was evident on the side of the attesting and revealing party, because the angels evidently knew that the revelation, or manifestation, of the mysteries was being made by God — I concede it; on the side of the thing revealed — I deny it. And likewise, with the minor distinguished, I deny the consequence: for evidence on the side of the attesting party does not absolutely repugn to faith. For we recognize men speaking to us, and yet we believe their words. Similarly it happened in the angels, who indeed knew God speaking to them, but what He related and manifested they did not know evidently.

What we have said of faith must be said with stronger reason of angelic hope and charity: for it is established that the good angels, at the time of that struggle which they waged against the hostile ones in Heaven, both loved God and reposed their hope in Him; indeed, for the sake of defending His glory they fought, which certainly could not have been done unless they burned with the greatest love of Him, and had awaited opportune help from Him against that immense troop of rebellious angels.

You will ask. What was the duration of the way of the angels?

The Doctor answers, dist. 5. qu. 1. num. 5. and following: that various opinions of Doctors were to be determined in this matter: for first St. Thomas, 1. par. qu. 65. art. 5., teaches that there were only two delays of the angels, one in which they were created in grace and merited, another in which the good received the essential reward of beatitude, but the evil eternal punishment. Indeed the Master of the Sentences holds that three delays of duration are to be posited, which he explains thus, wishing that in the first the angels, created blessed, were in pure natural things, in the second delay the evil sinned, the just merited; in the third all were at the term, the good indeed in beatitude, but the evil in torments. Likewise there are other opinions of ancient theologians. But almost all more recent theologians now agree with the Subtle Doctor that only three little delays of the angelic way are to be admitted, which they call instants, even though they are not necessary indivisibles, as are the instants of our time:

The first instant was that of their creation, in which all received both nature and sanctifying grace co-created with themselves, and adhered to their Creator through chaste love, and hence by love merited in that same instant; but not all stood in merit.

The second instant was that in which the distinction was made between the good and the evil: the good persevering in merit, the evil slipping into hostility and sin.

The third instant was that in which that distinction was completed, the good having been beatified, but the evil damned.

Or, as the Doctor speaks, qu. 2. num. 15.: The first delay, in which they were uniform in grace, if we wish to say that the evil had grace, or at least uniform in nature. The second delay, in which, still existing on the way, they were unformed, in that these merited ultimately, and those demerited ultimately. The third delay was the necessary formal distinction of one from the other.

It is probable also that in the second delay, in which they were unformed on the way, there were many little delays, because the evil sinned in many species of sin, namely pride, hatred, and envy: and those acts were elicited in ordered fashion, and not in the same instant.

— I said, however, that those instants were not wholly indivisible, especially the first and second. For as regards the first, it must have been virtually divisible corresponding to some duration of our time: for it would be gratuitously feigned that the perverse angels fell immediately after the first instant, wholly indivisible: nor does it seem likely that that chaste love, in which all were co-created, persevered in only one indivisible instant and was immediately extinguished; indeed the contrary seems suggested by Ezekiel graphically delineating Lucifer under the person of the King of Tyre, saying: In the midst of the fiery stones you walked, perfect in your ways: which indicates that he stood for some time in chaste love, and as it were made progress in it through the continuation of that love and the plurality of good works. Whence much less true appears what very many Thomists teach, that after the first indivisible instant all the good were beatified, but the evil damned, because as many instants would have to be posited for the way of the demons as there were operations really distinct among themselves and succeeding one another, by which their way was finally terminated: for the Thomists suppose that the instants of discrete time, in which the way of the angels lasted, are multiplied according to the number of operations succeeding one another: but the demons exercised three kinds of operations: for in the first instant of creation they elicited a meritorious act, afterward mortally sinful, which was followed by damnation: which three operations are utterly incompossible: for the first was actual conversion to God as the ultimate end: the second was actual aversion from the same; the third, however, necessarily ought to be distinguished together from the second; for supreme delight and supreme sorrow are incompossible with respect to the same subject: but the angel, in that instant in which he sinned, had supreme delight and complacency in his natural perfection: therefore in the same instant he could not have supreme sorrow, and hence that third instant must be distinguished from the second.

Likewise the second instant of the way had some continuation of time, in which the good were occupied with increasing merits, and with combat or resistance against the sinning ones and their sins. For in the angels, most prompt to act through grace and nature, although a long delay through some duration of time was not necessary; nevertheless it was fitting that they be able to extend their duration by their merits, and thus merit an ampler beatitude if they wished: just as theologians teach that if man had remained innocent, neither he nor his posterity would have been carried straightway into Heaven, but would have dwelt on earth for a long time, that by multiplying the fruit of good works they might obtain in Heaven a more abundant glory and beatitude.

Add that the common opinion concerning the sin of Lucifer inducing the others by his instigation to the fellowship of hostility urges the same prolonged delay of duration: for it was not likely that all the rebel angels adhered to him in the same indivisible moment; indeed it appears more credible that some at times resisted, and at length, pressed by his solicitation, declined to his side.

But the third instant, of the completed distinction of the good angels from the evil through the glorification of the former and the damnation of the latter, was indeed indivisible, by that reason that it closed and terminated the way; yet it is to last forever.

* For long ago that insane comment of Origen was proscribed, by which he supposed that the angels were not yet endowed with perpetual and unloseable innocence and felicity: but that they still fluctuated between sin and holiness, misery and beatitude, just as we do; whence in the homily on Numbers 20., On the angels deputed to the guardianship of men, he writes: For, he says, the angels will come to judgment with us, and will stand for us before the throne of justice, lest perhaps any one of them should have been the cause that we offended, lest perhaps they expended less work and labor toward us, that they might recall us from the stain of sins. He confirms and repeats the same with proofs in homily 13. on Luke, and thus concludes: Moreover it frequently happens that while we labor they do not fulfill their own office, and are at fault. But the homily on the same Gospel 3. says not the angels of all men see the face of the Father who is in heaven, but only of those who have given their name to the Church, and afterward says: For how, if salvation is procured for men through their care and industry, do they attend the face of the Father always: but if through their negligence man has perished, they are not ignorant of the peril of their loss. And shortly after: It is ignominy for an angel if a man believed just shall have sinned: that, on the contrary, it is glory for an angel if even the least believed in the Church shall have been saved. For they shall sometime see the face of the Father who is in heaven, when others shall not see: for according to their merit the angels are, either always, or never, or little, or more, contemplating the face of God, O angels. — But that doctrine of Origen has long since been proscribed by the holy Fathers of the Church and by the whole assembly of theologians, judged among the errors of Origen. *

You will ask 2. How long did the way of the angels last?

I answer. the matter to be quite uncertain; for certain ones think the angels had the terminus of their way on the very first day of the world, when God divided the light from the darkness, as if in that mystical distinction there was outlined and designated the distinction of the good angels from the evil. There are those who think this happened on the second day, when God, creating the firmament, divided the waters which are above the firmament from those which are below it, as if by this division was foreshadowed the separation of the holy angels from the demons.

The others think that no angels had yet fallen by the sixth day of the world, since God saw all things that He had made, and they were very good, and hence no creatures deformed and infected by sin seemed then to exist.

— But all these opinions are led by lighter and uncertain arguments: since Moses outlines in those days of the world the formation of corporeal things; and thus the most holy Prophet relates the division of the light and of the waters as corporeal, as nature itself demonstrates, and not perchance anything then concerning that distinction of the good angels from the evil; so likewise it teaches that God approved all things that He had made for the integrity and adornment of the whole Universe: but whether in those words He also comprehended the formation of spiritual creatures is quite uncertain.

— Nevertheless all theologians agree that the way of the angels was not drawn out so long, but was very brief: both on account of the perfection of the angelic powers, which most easily fulfill their works, especially since those Spirits, most expeditious for understanding and willing, have no opposing impediments nor corporeal organs: then on account of the immense aids divinely conferred upon them, by which their intellect was irradiated and their will stimulated to operation; add that the magnitude of acquiring the reward requires neither long duration of time nor multitude and plurality of good works: for, as the Doctor speaks, dist. 5. qu. 1. num. 4., for a great reward there is not required a multitude of merits, but much more is required one intense merit than a hundred thousand remitted ones. But in the angels there was a very intense movement of merit during that little delay in which they merited, so much so perhaps that no man according to the common law could have so intense an act of merit as they had.

Quaestio I: An omnes omnino Angeli ad hominum obsequia interdum deputentur

Note 1. All the angels, besides their distribution into three Hierarchies and nine Orders, are commonly divided into Assistants, and Ministrants, which division is taken from Daniel 7.¹ Thousands of thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand assisted him: from which oracle the Doctors infer that there are more assisting angels, as it were the Princes of the heavenly court, than ministrant ones; for the Prophet designates the assisting ones in a greater number than the ministrant ones. Hence some conjecture that not all the angels are deputed by God from heaven to earth to men: but only those who are of the last hierarchy, while the rest assist God, ever present in heaven, and never appear to men; whether this is true is to be determined here.

Note 2. According to the Doctor, in 2. dist. 10. qu. unica, num. 2., a twofold Mission of the angels can be distinguished: one exterior, sensible, and immediate; the other interior, insensible, and mediate. The former is that by which the angels are sent by God to men, insofar as they either insinuate the divine will into them, or stimulate and enkindle their affection toward divine love, or illustrate and illuminate their intellect — not only by imparting divine light to them, but also by suggesting to them the truths entrusted to themselves: the latter, however, is that by which the higher angels are sent to the lower ones, so that they may instruct them concerning the divine mysteries and the divine will, insofar as they themselves may be able to teach the same things to men: According to the common process, and order, says the Doctor, the great mysteries of God are revealed to the higher angels, before the lower ones: and so the higher ones are sent to the lower ones by speaking, and illuminating them interiorly: and those lower ones are sent exteriorly, to announce or explain those revealed things to men: and so not all are commonly sent abroad. Whether, however, at least extraordinarily, all the angels are sent by God to men for the sake of announcing certain great mysteries, or transacting affairs, or conferring benefits, is to be resolved here.

Note 3. Although all the Scholastic Doctors agree that the angels are sometimes sent by God to men, so that they may illuminate their intellect and inflame their affection; yet very many disagree among themselves in assigning the mode of that illumination and inflammation; for the Seraphic Doctor says, dist. 11. art. 2. par. 2:

our souls can be illuminated by the blessed angels through their revelations in three ways; In one way, he says, so that the angel is understood to illuminate the interior portion after the manner of an irradiating light: In another way, so that he is understood to illuminate after the manner of a mirror that bears [the image]: In a third way, so that he is understood to illuminate after the manner of a tongue expressing with liveliness. All these modes, although they are in some way intelligible, since the angel is a light, and a mirror, and has also the office of spiritual interpretation or speech, can be maintained; the third mode, however, is more intelligible. For it does not appear very well how the angel irradiates, nor how he offers himself to the sight of the soul; but this is sufficiently intelligible, how the soul can suggest what it has conceived: and just as the Doctor > when he speaks outwardly, and prepares the way for understanding, and a living and efficacious speech has entrance into our intellect with a certain liveliness, while it sounds outwardly in the ear of the body, by reason of which a man also hears more willingly a good cleric, whose speech is efficacious, and living: since it has something of the latent energy of the act of a living voice, as Jerome says: so also in this way it is to be understood, that the angel can do this interiorly, and thus illuminate, not by infusing light, nor only by offering himself as an object or mirror, but also by exciting with liveliness, just as the Doctor does outwardly, and in an even more efficacious way.

These things having been thus premised, three points are to be resolved. First, whether the angels are truly sent by God from heaven to earth for the homage of men: Second, whether not only those from the last Hierarchy, but also from the other two higher ones are sometimes thus deputed: Third, what is the principal, and ordinary effect of that angelic mission.

First conclusion. — The angels are truly sometimes sent to men. This is of faith, and is proved by various texts of Scripture: Exodus 23. Behold I will send my Angel, who may go before thee in the way. Luke 1.² The Angel Gabriel was sent. Acts 12. Now I know in very deed that the Lord hath sent his Angel, and hath delivered me out of the hand of Herod.

The Seraphic Doctor proves this Conclusion in the place cited above, q. 1. from the fact that this mission most highly befits divine charity, which is manifested through that mission; and angelic charity, which through it helps us; and our own, which, since it is weak, is fostered, nourished, and excited through angelic homage. This mission, I say, accords with divine charity, because in this the divine goodness is manifested, how greatly it loves our salvation, while it directs and sends the noblest Spirits, who are joined to it by intimate charity, to procure our salvation. And it befits also angelic charity; for since it belongs to ardent charity to desire most greatly the salvation of others, on account of which the Lord says, as Isaiah also said, cap. 6., Behold me, Lord, send me: and the angels are able to help us, for the reason that they see us to stand in need of their help, and the evil angels to assail us unceasingly; therefore, that they be sent to us, the law of angelic charity requires. This also befits human charity, which, since it is small as long as we are in the way, needs to be fostered, and nourished, and excited. And since the angels are fellow-citizens of men, because they are not joined to them by a likeness of nature which excites to love, it was fitting that they be joined by the homage of beneficence.

You will say 1. A man sends a messenger in vain, where he himself is present, and can do better by himself: therefore since God is most present to us, and can do all things by himself, he sends an Angel to us in vain: but God undertakes nothing in vain: therefore he does not send an Angel either.

— The Seraphic Doctor answers, that although God is present, nevertheless on account of the blindness and darkness of our intellect in which we are, we know him as absent. And because those Spirits, on account of the clarity of the light, and the perfection of beatitude, always see God face to face, and are present to him, just as those who are in the King's chamber make known the will of the King to those who are in the King's army, and are sent for this purpose by their Lord: so it is to be understood in the matter at hand. Nor does this avail: The Lord can do it by himself: therefore he should not send a messenger for this. For he who presides can do many things by himself, which he nevertheless enjoins upon a servant, or messenger, so that a seemly and fitting order of actions may be preserved in the ministry.

You will say 2. God sent the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to restore our salvation: therefore for procuring it the mission of the angels is not necessary. — The Seraphic Doctor denies the consequence: for although the Son, and the Holy Spirit, truly restored our salvation most sufficiently through their mission to us, since we are nevertheless endowed with freedom, and our will is sluggish, and does not cooperate well with grace, it therefore needs to be excited: and for this no one is more suitable than an angel: and therefore it is fitting that he be sent to us, not on account of any need in the procuring of our salvation on the part of the Son, or the Holy Spirit, but on account of the negligence of cooperation on our part.

You will say 3. The blessed angel has his seat in the empyrean heaven, as in a place congruent, and most suitable, to himself, and consequently desires to be there: therefore if he is sent outside the empyrean heaven, his desire is frustrated, and thus he will not be perfectly blessed: but this consequence is absurd: therefore also that from which it follows. — He answers the same, that a place is not owed to the Angel on account of his necessity, or need, but only on account of a certain congruity. But this congruity can be compensated, and then it posits no imperfection or indecency through his own absence: and so it is in the matter at hand. For the Angel delights more in fulfilling the will of his Lord, and in pleasing God by helping man, than he delights in being in the empyrean.

You will ask 1. Whether God also sometimes sends the evil angels to men. I affirm it; for Scripture signifies this expressly. For we read in 3. Kings, last chapter, that, addressing the demon, who had it in mind to ask permission that he might deceive Achab: And the Spirit went forth before the Lord, and said: I will deceive him: to whom the Lord said: wherein? And he said: I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. Since therefore that angel offered himself for deceiving, it follows that he is evil, and that he was sent by God, as is signified by the following words: Thou shalt deceive, and shalt prevail: go forth, and do so. Therefore the evil ones are sometimes sent to men. Gregory explains this very point insistently in lib. 2. Moralium, where, speaking of the good angels, and the evil ones, he says: Just as from the good angels the aid of piety is bestowed upon those laboring in this life: so these, unknowingly serving his hidden justice, strive to execute the ministry of reprobation: for not they alone minister to God, the good ones who help, but also the evil ones, who test; not only those who lift up those returning from fault, but also those who burden those wishing to return. Nor does it matter, that the perverse angels intend the seduction of men and the perdition of souls: for although, says our Alensis, q. 41. membro 2., the intention of the devil himself is contrary to the divine intention, insofar as the one is good, and the other evil, nevertheless the Lord uses the temptation of the devil for good; for the temptation by which the Devil tempted Job, as far as concerned the will of the devil, was for seducing: but the Lord ordered it to good, so that the patience of Job might be proved. The mission of the Lord therefore regards the ordination of power to tempting, which is under divine power, not in relation to the will of God; but God orders his evil will to good.

You will ask 2. Whether the lower angels are sometimes sent by the higher ones to men. I affirm it, and S. Gregory proves it in the Moralia from those words of Zacharias the Prophet, where the Prophet says, that the Angel, who spoke in me, went forth, and another Angel went forth to meet him, and said to him: speak to this young man, saying: Jerusalem shall be inhabited without walls. From which it is gathered, that one angel sends [another], whence he says: In the sight of the Creator the angelic ministries are ordered, so that, seeing their Maker, they may rejoice for the common happiness of beatitude: while for the disposition of dignity some minister to others. The Angel sends an Angel to the Prophet, and teaches and chooses what he contemplates in common with himself concerning God, because he excels in the more excellent science by the power of knowledge, and in the more eminent grace by the summit of power. Thus S. Gregory. From which it is manifestly gathered, that one angel is sometimes sent by another.

It is confirmed. because it is likely that when God wishes to reveal something to the lower angels, he reveals it first to the higher ones, generally speaking, and through these as mediators to the lower ones: therefore the higher ones are sent to illuminate the lower ones: but the lower ones likewise illuminate others lower than themselves, until one arrives at the last order, from which some are likely sent to illuminate men.

You will say. That although the higher ones illuminate the lower ones, it nevertheless does not follow from this, that they are sent, because for the mission here in question local motion is required: but that the higher ones illuminate the lower ones, it is not necessary that they be moved locally, otherwise they could not illuminate those nearest to themselves. — I answer, perhaps the higher angelic choirs are so distant from the lower ones, that they cannot illuminate them without being moved locally. Then it could be said, that any mission whatsoever does not necessarily import local motion, but the ordination of the Angel to illuminate another, so that that Angel is said to be sent to another, whom God commands to instruct another, whether meanwhile this is done with, or without local motion.

Second conclusion. — Not only the lower angels, but also each of the higher ones are sometimes deputed by God to men. Thus the Doctor in the place cited above, num. 2., where he says: It seems that the supreme ones, or some of the supreme ones, are sometimes sent abroad.

And the Conclusion is proved from Sacred Scripture, chiefly from that passage of Isaiah 6. where we read: The Seraphim stood upon it: the one had six wings, and the other had six wings, and he immediately adds: And one of the Seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs off the altar, and he touched my mouth. But the Seraphim are of the higher order, as was proved above, and the holy Damascene indicates, lib. 2. c. 4., where, referring to the teaching of S. Dionysius, he says: The first order of angels is that which always stands around God, and is joined to him assiduously, and without the intervention of any thing: namely the six-winged Seraphim. Likewise Gen. 3. we read, that God placed before the paradise of pleasure Cherubim, and a flaming sword, turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life. We said, however, above, that the Cherubim are of the second order of angels, who are nearer to God, whence also 4. Kings 19., O Lord God, King of Israel, who sittest upon Cherubim, thou art the only God of Israel. — The same thing is also evinced from that passage of Daniel 10.³ Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me: and below: there is none that helps me, but Michael your prince. Hence the Church in the office of the angels prays: We beseech that Michael, the angel of peace, be sent from heaven to this hall. And again: Michael the Archangel, come to the help of the people of God. But indeed Michael, one of the first, is believed to be, if not the first, of the Seraphim, as Pantaleon the Deacon judges, in hom. De S. Michaele, in Surius, 29. Septembris, as also S. Basil, hom. 1. De Angelis, where we read these words: Michael, Leader of the supernal Spirits, who art set above all the Spirits in dignity, and honors, I beseech thee. Laurence Justinian holds the same, saying in a sermon on S. Michael: In the first spiritual conflict Michael was set above the other holy Spirits, just as Lucifer above the evil ones. This can also be strengthened by reason; for in the angelic war, which was at the beginning of the world, Michael was the leader of the good, who roused them to obey God, just as Lucifer led his companions into defection.

It is confirmed. it is likely that the mind of the Church is to venerate the supreme of all the angels more than the rest: because this can also be deservedly presumed to be more in accord with the divine will: but the Church venerates Michael most highly, as it professes in the office of the angels, and dedicates temples to him above the others: therefore she holds that he is the supreme of the Seraphim.

It does not, however, escape me, that S. Thomas, in 2. dist. 1., asserts that Michael is of the order of the Principalities, and understands literally the words of Daniel cap. 10. where Michael is called, One of the chief princes: which opinion Toletus follows in his commentary on the first chapter of Luke, and Pererius lib. 12. on Daniel: there are also not wanting those who place him among the Powers, because it belongs to that order to vanquish, and drive away demons, in which the greatest power is attributed to Michael, Apoc. 12. Which opinion the Church seems to favor in the office of S. Michael himself, saying: whenever something of marvelous power is done, Michael is said to be sent. But the more probable opinion has now prevailed, that he is the supreme among the Seraphim, and so the prince of all the angels whatsoever; and since he is sent to us, it must be certain that not only the lower, but also the higher angels are sometimes delegated by God to men.

Finally, S. Paul teaches this very point excellently, where without any exception he testifies that all the angels are sent by God, and take up and fulfill the ministries committed to them: Are they not all, he says to the Hebrews 1., ministering spirits, sent to minister for them, who shall receive the inheritance of salvation? which words most expressly confirm the truth of the conclusion; especially if one attends to the whole series of S. Paul's discourse: for he intends to prove that Christ excels all created things; especially the angels, who surpass all other created things: Being made, he says, so much better than the angels, as he hath inherited a more excellent name than they, namely that he is called the Son of God, and sits at his right hand, as equal to the Father: whence he adds: to which of the angels hath he said at any time: sit on my right hand, until I make thy enemies thy footstool? which prerogatives of dignity, in order that the Apostle may evince that they do not befit the angels, he adds: they are all ministering spirits, etc. which reason would certainly appear weak, and entirely null, unless it comprised all the angels without any exception of dignity, or order; for if the highest orders be excepted, Christ could indeed be seen to excel the angels, and Archangels, or certain others; not, however, the Cherubim, and Seraphim, who would neither be sent by God with the rest, nor come into the role of ministering. Wherefore what Paul says of the angels in that place pertains to all, even the supreme angels. It must therefore be certain, that all the angels, even the higher ones, are sometimes deputed by God to us.

The same truth is proved by the holy Fathers, especially St. Athanasius in his Second Oration against the Arians, where he demonstrates that the Son of God is truly God, from the fact that He is superior to the angels, who are sent to minister. And the angels who attend God above and below offer themselves as ministers; but of the Son it says: and let all his angels adore him. These last words, taken from the Apostle, denote absolutely all the angels, even the superior ones; indeed not only the lowest angels but also all the princely angels have been commanded to venerate Christ.

Most explicit too is the passage of Chrysostom, Hom. 8. on Gen., where he proves that those words, Let us make man, are not referred to the angels, as the Hebrews think, because the angels are not principals of the divine mysteries but ministers: It is not, he says, granted to the angels that they be partakers of counsel, but that they stand by and perform ministry; that you may learn this, hear Isaiah, most eloquent of speakers, speaking of the superior powers of the angels: I saw Cherubim standing at the right hand of God, and Seraphim.

Gregory Nazianzen agrees in Oration 34. Having enumerated both the highest and the lowest orders of angels, he at once says universally: They are the ministers of the divine will, traversing every place, present everywhere to all with ready alacrity of ministry and with the agility of their nature, some holding one part of the world, others assigned to any other part or to the whole universe.

I pass over very many other Fathers affirming the same thing, and I will bring forward for each one St. Bernard, who, addressing Lucifer in a sermon on St. Benedict, says: The Cherubim, says the Prophet, stood, and did not sit: why have you labored, that now you sit! All are ministering spirits sent in ministry for the sake of those who shall inherit salvation, and will you sit? And in his First Sermon on St. Michael, having said that although Michael is among the superior angels, yet he keeps watch over us and comes to our aid, he adds: Nor should this seem anything incredible, seeing that the Creator Himself, and King of the angels, came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.

The same truth the Subtle Doctor proves in the place cited, from the fact that Gabriel, sent to the Blessed Virgin, was one of the supreme angels, since he knew the mystery of the Incarnation, which was hidden (as he thinks) from many inferior angels.

For, he says, many angels did not know of the Incarnation before the time of the Incarnation or of the Passion of Christ, as is clear from that passage of Isaiah 63., where in the person of the inferior angels there is asked: Who is this that cometh from Edom with dyed garments? etc.; and from that verse of the Psalm: Who is this King of glory? and the Lord answered, strong and mighty, etc. It appears also from the Apostle to the Ephesians 3.: and that the Principalities and Powers may be made known through the Church, etc., where Jerome's gloss says that the angelic powers or dignities did not fully know the aforementioned mystery of the Incarnation until the Passion of Christ had been completed and the preaching of the Apostles had been spread among the Gentiles; which nevertheless up to that time was not hidden from the greater angels, according to Augustine's gloss in the same place, who says: It is established, moreover, that the angel sent to the blessed Virgin was not ignorant of this message: therefore he to whom this was revealed was of the superior angels, and not of the lower ones, from whom that sacred mystery was hidden.

Thus the Doctor.

You will say. St. Dionysius, chapter 13. De Coelesti Hierarchia, judges that the supreme angels never descend to these lowest ministries: and as for the fact that one of the Seraphim is read to have descended to purify Isaiah, he explains it thus, that no one of the highest order undertook this office, but some interior angel, upon whom the name proper to the Seraphim is imposed, because he was performing the function proper to that order when he burned the Prophet's lips with a burning coal. This interpretation St. Gregory the Great also embraces in his commentary on the first chapter of Hebrews, and proves it from the fact that sometimes angels too are called by the name of God when, acting in His stead, they carry out works of greater moment: therefore these Fathers judge that the superior angels are not sent to us. — I answer indeed that such was their opinion; but in this matter they do not seem to be heeded, especially since Sacred Scripture quite clearly establishes our opinion, and the other Fathers side with us, as has been said above.

I add that that exposition of St. Dionysius seems to conflict with the very words of the Prophet: Seraphim stood over it: six wings to one, and six wings to the other, of the Seraphim who were represented by those images: for just as the Prophet says: I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, so he says he saw Seraphim attending Him: therefore just as the former words are understood of God Himself represented in that imaginary vision, so the latter are understood of true Seraphim attending God and praising Him. Add what Suarez says, lib. 6. c. 10., that in no other place of Scripture is mention made of the Seraphim except in that one, as Jerome notes there: therefore if there Seraphim does not signify the proper order, but generally an ascending angel, we shall have no mention in Scripture of that order, nor anything whence we might prove it; for what is said in Psalm 103.: Who makest thy angels spirits, and thy ministers a burning fire, although expounded by some concerning the Seraphim, as if the sense were that God makes even the supreme angels, burning within themselves like a flame of fire, His ministers; yet the true sense is that David speaks of all the angels, whom he calls a flame of fire, either because they burn with charity, or because they have the power of spiritually burning and inflaming men, as Augustine, Theodoret, and Gregory hom. 31. on the Gospel expound there. Hence the argument is rather strengthened; for since all the angels are ministers of God and by a general designation a flame of fire, if for this reason alone they are called Seraphim by Isaiah, no place remains from which from the name Seraphim we could prove a proper order of Seraphim.

You will say 2. The angels, as we said in the first Note, are customarily divided into assistants and ministrants: but that division would be null if all were chosen for ministry: therefore it must necessarily be granted that the superior angels, who are said to assist God, are deputed to ministries. — It is confirmed from St. Gregory, lib. 17. Moral., where, explaining those words of Daniel: Thousands of thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before him, he writes thus: To assist is one thing, to minister another: those Powers undoubtedly assist which do not go forth to announce certain things to men; but those minister who come to fulfill the offices of messengers; and yet even these do not depart from the innermost things by contemplation: and because more minister than those who principally assist, the number of the assistants is shown as it were definite, but that of the ministers infinite.

— I distinguish the major: the angels are divided into assistants and ministrants according to the ordinary disposition of divine providence, I concede; according to the extraordinary, and as regards extraordinary works, I deny.

Ordinarily indeed only the inferior angels are deputed to guardianship and custody. Nevertheless at times even the superior ones are sent forth; which certainly is clear from the testimony of Scripture, which teaches that certain angels who are expressly said to stand before God are sent from heaven to earth and discharge various embassies and ministries: such was Raphael, who confesses himself to be one of the seven who stand before God, and yet, being sent to Tobias, refused not even the lowest services of servants; thus Gabriel presented himself to Zacharias the Priest in the temple: I am, he says, Gabriel, who stand before God: the same angel, at the command of another, stood by Daniel and foretold to him things to come: while Michael, one of the chief princes, is nevertheless read in the same Daniel to come to bring aid, and in the canonical Epistle of Jude to have contended with the devil about the body of Moses: for of the Seraphim, who are held to be the highest of all, it is sufficiently clear from Isaiah that they are sent and work various functions. Likewise the Cherub placed before the paradise of pleasure is reported by Moses. But that which Dionysius writes, following the opinion of some, namely that they were not of the orders of the Seraphim or Cherubim, but of an inferior order, acting in the place of the greater, seems not at all consistent, and very many ancients cry out against it, who think that those called by the names of these belong to their orders; I shall be content with the testimony of Jerome alone out of them all, who speaks thus of the Seraphim: A certain Greek exceedingly learned in the Scriptures explained that the Seraphim are certain powers in heaven which, assisting before the tribunal of God, praise Him, and are sent into diverse ministries, especially those concerned with those who need purification and deserve to be cleansed by punishments in some measure on account of former sins.

Third conclusion. — The ordinary and principal effect of the mission of angels to men is the purification of the soul, the illumination of the intellect, and the kindling of the affection. Thus the Seraphic Doctor dist. 10. art. 2. qu. 1. et 2. And this truth he himself sets forth luminously, whoever may be the author of the Compendium Theologicae Veritatis, whether he himself or another drawn from him, lib. 2. cap. 18., where he says:

St. Dionysius attributes three acts to the angel, namely to purge, to illuminate, and to perfect: therefore the angels purge by removing phantasms, which impede the illumination which the angel intends to effect in us. Whence they remove three things from the soul, namely ignorance, and the clouds of phantasies, and false opinions of philosophical reasons contrary to revelation. But they illuminate the soul in a threefold way, namely as regards sense, as is clear when something is manifested in an assumed body; likewise as regards imagination, namely when they transmit into diverse phantasms the fumes which are raised through the animal spirit to the brain; and this power the devil also has; likewise as regards the intellect, and such illumination alone is perfect. Now the angel does not illuminate the intellect by effecting a new cognition in the soul, because he cannot imprint a new species in the intellect, nor give the habit of new light, nor can he turn its intention whither he wills, because this is against the nature of free will. For these three things are required that our intellect understand something, namely the species whereby it is known, and the light in which it is known, and the intention whereby the intellect is turned upon the species. But the angel illuminates our intellect by exciting and disposing, and by transferring the divine light into us: for he effects, as has been said, a transmutation of species in the phantasy, composing and dividing according to the exigency of the thing which he wishes to reveal. Likewise he irradiates the light of his own intellect upon those species, that they may move our intellect, and thus they can see more things and subtler ones in a doubled light. Likewise he excites the intention of the soul by some motion, that it may turn itself upon those phantasms, abstracting itself from others: and he perfects, that is, promotes to better things.

He teaches the same as regards the kindling of the affection, while proving, after premising, that the human intellect can be kindled in a threefold way: namely by effecting, or by exciting and aiding, or by moving.

In the first mode, God alone can inflame the affection, namely by effect. In the second mode, the thing desired itself inflames the affection, namely by exciting and aiding. In the third mode the angel can set our affection ablaze by moving. Of these we have examples in natural things: because in the first mode fire kindles wood; in the second mode wood kindles fire; and in the third mode, he who puts wood to the fire kindles the fire. But there is a difference between sending a thought, setting ablaze, and illuminating the mind: because to send a thought is, as Bede says, to create and make a thought within; but to set ablaze is to inflame a thought already made; while to illuminate is to give a revelation of some hidden intelligible thing.

Note however 1., with the Subtle Doctor in 2. dist. 11. n. 4., that the angels, in illuminating the human intellect, cannot in any way cause any actual intellection or intelligible species as total causes. The reason, he says, is not from any impotence on the part of the angel, because he is sufficiently in first act and can cause in another angel the act in second act: but the reason is from our intellect, which in this state is passive determined to a determinate active cause, namely to phantasms and the agent intellect: and therefore it is prevented from being able to receive immediately an impression from any intelligible act without a phantasm; because phantasms in this state stand to our intellect as sensibles to sense, namely in this respect, that just as sense is not impressed first except by a sensible outside, so neither is our intellect impressed in the first impression except by a phantasm. From these he infers that no angel can naturally ravish a man into ecstasy by intellection or intellectual vision, and that every rapture effected by the power of the devil takes place first and directly toward some vehement imagination, which is accompanied, or can be accompanied, by an intellectual cognition of the same object; and that this imagination can be so vehement as to distract a man from attention to any other object; and finally that the rapture of a man to which a man can dispose himself by habituation is also toward considering something imaginable. Although perhaps God may sometimes ravish the soul accustomed to withdraw itself from all other objects to the consideration of some single good object, e.g. the passion of Christ, or the glory of Paradise, from that consideration to a consideration purely intellectual independent of phantasms, namely such as the soul would have outside the body.

Note 2. from the same place ibidem n. 5., as Poncius explains him, that an angel cannot produce in man any cognition independent of phantasms, nor even one dependent as a total or partial cause immediately concurring effectively to that cognition; he could nevertheless teach a man; which opinion is common, and is proved: because just as a man teaches a man by proposing signs ordered among themselves in such a way that he can know what he did not know before, so also an angel can do; because in an assumed body he could speak as well as a man, and because he knows better the natures of things, he could lead more easily and more quickly to knowledge than a man. Next, the angel can excite those species which one has, in that order whereby they can determine him to knowing something previously unknown, and by doing this he would teach and instruct. Again, he could propose the very things themselves according to such a reason that from them one could know something which he previously did not know; and thus also he would teach, wherein there is no difficulty. — Whether, however, an angel could teach a man more quickly by using signs instituted at pleasure than he could be taught by another man, the Doctor thinks would be marvelous; For it would seem marvelous, he says, if sight could be changed more quickly by many sensibles or visibles, from which the species necessary for one great argumentation of man would be abstracted, than he himself or a man could use those signs instituted at pleasure representing those objects. Yet this ought not only to seem marvelous, but even impossible, if we speak of a cognition which would require the proposition of varied things; but I do not doubt that he can teach more quickly by showing the very thing itself, one or another aspect of its nature, than a man could by speaking.

Note 3. from the same place ibidem n. 6., that an angel cannot produce a new phantasm in the phantasy of a man except through the mediation of the object naturally causative of it; and the reason is, because he cannot produce a vision of whiteness with the eye without the concurrence of the whiteness itself, nor consequently can he produce its visible species without the whiteness, as all confess; and certainly that power would be granted to him gratuitously: therefore equally he cannot produce an act of phantasy, or the species required for such an act, without the concurrence of the object: given, however, the concurrence of the object, the concurrence of the faculty itself suffices, and thus the angel ought to have no immediate concurrence to the act or the species. Therefore he can concur only in the manner of one proposing the object, or its species, and also in the manner of one removing an impediment.

Quaestio II: An, et qualiter Angeli sancti ad hominum custodiam deputentur

Note 1. That although God, just as He produced all things through Himself immediately, likewise governs, directs, preserves all things by His particular providence, and orders and leads them to certain ends due to Him; nevertheless He does not intend, nor effect, the execution of this providence, which we call governance or direction, alone and immediately; but sometimes makes use of certain creatures for preserving and moderating others. For He judged it consonant with His divine goodness not only to make creatures partakers of Himself, but He willed also to impart to them the power of acting and of communicating themselves to others, insofar as they could somewhat imitate and share in the divine goodness and its manner of communication. Therefore He influences some creatures upon others, as through the Sun He diffuses light and splendor upon other bodies, and as St. Augustine says lib. 3. De Trinitate, cap. 4.:

Just as grosser and lower bodies are ruled in a certain order by subtler and more powerful ones: so all bodies are governed by the spirit of life, and irrational spirits of life by the rational spirit of life, and the apostate spirit by the pious and just spirit, and that one by God Himself... For nothing is done visibly and sensibly that is not either commanded or permitted from the inner, invisible, and intelligible court of the supreme Emperor.

Note 2. That there are chiefly two ways of guarding a thing: The first is when there are removed and eliminated from it all the causes or occasions which can harm it, and can take away its good, whether already acquired, or impede its acquisition. The second is when its good is promoted, namely by rousing the thing itself to a more perfect state, or by helping it attain that state through internal powers superadded, or through an inwardly inspired greater knowledge of that good, from which an ardent desire for its attainment may be kindled. Thus the good Shepherd is said to guard His sheep, not only by removing from them the wolf and everything harmful: but also by providing with watchful care richer and better pastures and other advantages for them. Whether however the angels guard us in both these ways must be determined here.

Note 3. That the angels keep watch over us and serve us especially on account of three things, as the Seraphic Doctor observes, or whoever is the other author of the Compendium Theologicae veritatis lib. 2. cap. 18., namely, on account of the reparation of their ruin, because men to be saved shall enter into the place of the fallen angels. Also on account of the accumulation of accidental merit, which is increased in them until the day of Judgment. Also on account of the demonstration of their love toward us. As we shall demonstrate more fully below.

These points premised, three things must be determined here: First, whether the angels are truly appointed to the guardianship of men. Second, whether every man has assigned to him a special angel guardian. Third, whether even the other creatures are endowed with a guardian angel.

Although this truth plainly appears from very many texts of Holy Scripture; nevertheless Calvin, 1. 1. Instit. c. 14. sect. 7., lest he leave any Catholic dogma untouched, first called into doubt whether an angel has been constituted and designated by God for each individual man for their guardianship. Then, becoming bolder, in his comment. on Genes. chap. 32 he flatly denies that individual guardian angels are given to individual men, and says that those affirming this wickedly diminish the grace of God; and he feigns no doubt that the devil attempted by this cunning to diminish our confidence in some measure. That we may refute this error, let

First conclusion. — It is of faith that the holy Angels are appointed by the ineffable providence of God to the guardianship of men who are wayfarers.

Proof 1. From Scripture, indeed above all from those words of Psalm 33, The Angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him, and shall deliver them; or as St. Jerome translates from the Hebrew, The Angel of the Lord shall surround those who fear him round about. Or as another version has it, The Angel of the Lord encamps round about those who fear him. After the manner indeed of commanders, who establish and order their camps near a fortress or city, that they may defend it from enemies. Hence Salmeron translates from the Greek, The Angel pitched his camp with battle lines arrayed round about those who fear him. Namely, that he may drive back the assaults of bad angels on every side. Hence St. Basil on the same words of the Psalm, Just as, he says, the walls of a city drawn round about repel on every side the thrusting hostile attacks: so the angel fortifies you in front, guards you behind: and leaves nothing unguarded on either side. The royal Psalmist describes and sets forth more clearly this angelic protection and guardianship in Psalm 90 in these words: God hath given his angels charge over thee, that they keep thee in all thy ways, in their hands they shall bear thee up, etc.: and although S. Ambrose, Luc. 4, and Augustine interpret that Psalm literally of Christ, referring to those words of the Psalmist, nevertheless other holy Fathers and Doctors judge with S. Jerome that there the discourse is general concerning all men, especially the Just: since the beginning of the Psalm designates all the Just in these words: He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High. Wherefore S. Bernard, expounding the aforesaid words wondrously in the Psalm Qui habitat, says: A wonderful dignity, and truly great love of charity; let us consider, brethren, whom, for whom, concerning what, what He commanded. Then he weighs each of those four things, and

First, whom? and how great is He who gave such a command, namely God, who is great and exceedingly to be praised, and whose greatness hath no end. — Second, to whom did He give command? To the angels themselves, assuredly creatures most noble, most powerful, most wise: so lofty, so blessed, and adhering to Him so closely and familiarly, truly His domestics. — Third, concerning whom did God command? Concerning man assuredly; whence the same Bernard exclaims with David: Lord what is man, that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest him? As though man were not rottenness, and the son of man ashes. Yet Thou settest Thy heart upon him, Thou bearest solicitude for him, Thou hast care of him, nor dost Thou merely send him Thine Only-begotten, nay Thou sendest Thy Spirit, Thou promisest Thy countenance: but meanwhile, lest anything be lacking in the heavens for works of solicitude for us, Thou sendest those blessed Spirits for our sake into ministry, Thou appointest them to our guardianship, and biddest them become our Teachers.

I add, what is more admirable than that the most beautiful nobles of the starry Court, the honored ones of the Triad, the Palatine heaven-dwellers? Those magnificent Genii, noble in the adornment of all graces, those enjoying divine honors and made blessed, should fly down to men, join themselves most benignly to them, protect and embrace them with the greatest humanity? Men, I say, impious toward God, children of wrath, stained with many crimes, beasts in cruelty, cattle in senselessness, ungrateful toward those very guardians? For the angels are the Olympian Dynasts and the purple-clad ones of the Empyrean house, in favor with Augustus the maker and Lord of the orb of the earth. Prefects of the Universe, and Overseers of all created things, to whom God ruling within us, the supreme Emperor, has given the care and providence of men and of all things that are under Heaven, says Justin Martyr Apol. 1. — Fourthly finally there occurs for consideration from S. Bernard: what did God command His angels concerning us? Namely that they keep us in all our ways, namely in all the lanes, streets, and squares in which like the Spouse of the Canticles we seek God: in all journeys, places, affairs, and exercises, seeing that in all things the stone of offense, the rock of scandal, and the snare of temptation is cast by the enemy.

This same truth is confirmed by many oracles drawn from the New Testament; but above all from that of Matthew 18, where Christ speaking under the name of the little ones, that is, the humble, concerning the faithful, says: See that you despise not one of these little ones: for I say to you, that their angels in Heaven always see the face of my Father who is in Heaven. As though He would say, they are not to be despised, especially because they are of such great merit with God that He did not disdain to grant them the guardianship of angels: for, says Euthymius on these words, Those whom angels serve ought not to be despised, if not on account of their virtue, at least on account of their Guardians. Whence S. Hilarius: That man is dangerously despised whose desires and petitions are conveyed to God by the ministry of angels. It is confirmed from that saying of Paul to the Hebrews: All are ministering spirits, sent to minister for them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation.

This same truth is proven by the testimony of the holy Fathers, first indeed by Dionysius, who in chap. 9. De Caelesti Hierarchia, said specially of the third, or lowest Hierarchy of angels that it presides over human orders, that they may be referred to God and converted. Hermas also, another disciple of S. Paul, as is related in the book called Ecclesia, division 3, writes that he was guarded and preserved through a good angel named Hegri from a certain great beast which had appeared in the form of a Net, from whose mouth fiery locusts were issuing. Clement of Alexandria lib. 6. Stromatum near the end: Divine power, he says, supplies good things through angels, whether they appear, etc. Origen hom. 8. on Genesis: Angels have the care of our souls, and what from infancy we commit to them as to Tutors and Curators. The same lib. 3. Periarchon, cap. 2. Judith, a heroine most illustrious, openly confesses and proclaims her angel as director of her journey, defender and preserver of her chastity among the barbarous and impure hands of the profane, and keeper of her salvation.

To these accedes S. Cyril writing lib. 4. contra Iulianum:

Through the benefit of his tutelary angel, Elias fleeing the furies of Jezabel even into the desert, and sleeping under the juniper tree, is first aroused and refreshed with bread and water: secondly too he is aroused, refreshed, and admonished concerning the great journey which yet remained for him to accomplish.

There accedes Chrysostom, who proves from the same and similar passages of Scripture that each one of us has a guardian angel; for he writes: Each one of the faithful has an angel. For from the beginning each of celebrated and approved men had an angel; as Jacob said: The angel who feeds me, and who delivered me from my youth.

And the same again, homil. de Ascens. Domini: That you may know that angels are everywhere present, hear what Paul, providing for feminine modesty, says: Women ought to have a veil over the head because of the angels. And again Jacob says: The angel who delivered me from my youth. And those who were with the Apostles say to Rhoda: It is his angel. — So far S. Chrysostom, who leaning on the Scriptures we have adduced confidently asserted that a singular angel is designated for each of us.

Nazianz. carm. 6. De substantiis separatis, De ministrantibus Angelis thus says: One half of the world prone to obedience sustains the globe, and by its aid preserves it, etc.

Gregory of Nyssa lib. De Vita Moysis:

There is, he says, a saying claiming faith for itself from the tradition of the Elders, that after our nature fell into sin, God provided for this fall of ours, and by no means left us destitute of His care: but employed a certain angel from among those allotted a nature exempt from body for the protection and defense of each one. But on the contrary, the corrupter of nature strives against us with equal contrivance, and bringing destruction upon human life joined to him is a certain perverse and malicious demon. Moreover man, placed between the two, is rendered stronger by his own impulse to bring either one to a definite goal and purpose contrary to the purpose of the other.

Ambrose lib. De Viduis after the middle: The angels are to be besought for us, who have been given to us for protection: and on Psalm 37, How far off stand, he says, those who have been attributed for our aid? And Psal. 43. on him who commits salvations to Jacob: Salvation, he says, lies in the ministries of angels, who are deputed to the protection of men.

The Seraphic Doctor urges this truth dist. 11. art. 1. qu. 1. with a triple reason;

It was fitting, he says, for fallen man to be entrusted to angelic guardianship: both because it befits the height of divine power: then because it befits the order of wisdom; and then also because it befits the sweetness of mercy. For the height of power befits it from a double cause; one is, because God wills to be honored not only in Himself, but also in His servants: whence it does not suffice the height of divine power that angels minister to Himself, but also for the manifestation of His excellent power He exacts this from them, that they minister even to His creatures: the other reason is, because since God has the devil and his demons as adversaries, it is more fitting that He Himself conquer them through His own ministers, that thereby the power of the hand of God be shown, because He is not only powerful in Himself, but also in His servants; and lest the Lord of hosts be undeservedly so called. But the order of wisdom similarly befits it; for this is the order which the divine law executes and conserves in its works, that it lead the lowest through means to the highest; therefore since the angel, both by reason of the immortality of nature, and also by reason of grace perfected, holds the middle between God and fallen man, it was fitting that God aid and guard man through an angel. The sweetness also of divine mercy befits it, which opened its bosom to fallen man, and did not fail him in anything pertaining to the promotion of his salvation; and therefore since man having fallen was sold to do evil, it ministered to him the price of the blood of His Son, by which he is redeemed, that he might do good; and because he has an adversary assailing him, it gave him a minister guarding, or a guardian aiding; that so from no side might human misery remain without the aid and benefit of divine mercy. There was fitting therefore, from this triple reason, that angelic guardianship be given to fallen man.

William of Paris proves and confirms this same truth in a marvelous manner in the second part De Universo c. 108.

First indeed because, he says, natural piety and love exist among men toward one another, and a natural love of honorableness and comeliness of life, through which every father of a family intends this, that the morals of his household be composed outwardly and its life adorned. Piety and love also show themselves, moving and reproving men from vices and sins by which the morals of men are disfigured and life disturbed: and no one has yet doubted that this is both good and pleasing to God most high. How much more strongly therefore does this natural piety and love exist in the Saints and most blessed Angels, and so much greater than in men, how much more expeditious and superior is their nobility for these and all other good things than are men themselves in the misery of the present life. If therefore human nature in that depression and misery of men does not suffer good men to abstain from the correction and governance of men, which is possible: how much more will the most noble nature of those good angels, from incomparably greater piety and love, not allow most miserable men to lack their counsels, and aids, and all other things pertaining to their governance? — Secondly, if natural piety and love have such power among men that, as I said before, some counsel others, some aid others, and bestow upon others the office of governance; how much more will piety and love be able to do this, so that the blessed and holy Angels are unwilling to fail men in such misery and desolation? — Thirdly, if justice is that which neither makes miserable nor abandons the miserable, therefore there will be no justice of the saints and blessed angels, if they do not exercise care for men. — Fourthly, if power over men is given to men, and Rulers of men are set over them, and men do this publicly and privately against disturbers: how much more strongly are Rulers and Defenders necessary to them against evil spirits, which are most hostile, most harmful to men? If therefore it is the care of the Creator, namely of God most high, that all should have Rulers and Defenders, whether Kings and Princes against the assailers and disturbers of men: how much more strongly is it the care of the same blessed Creator that there be for them rulers and defenders against spiritual assailers and disturbers, namely evil spirits, where they so much more need such governance and care, how much greater are spiritual goods and evils than bodily and temporal ones. — Fifthly, since the universal governance of God most high is ordered, and He suffers nothing beyond His own governance, permits nothing to lack due governance, He has subjected each single thing according to its mode and order to congruent rulers: but it is manifest that men exist neither wholly congruent nor sufficient rulers for men, especially since in the greater and better part of their governance they fail, namely against the princes of the spiritual militia; for against them they are incomparably less able by their own strength or wisdom than the care of the governance of men requires. Therefore that the governance of God most high be perfect, by which the whole universe needs to be ruled, it is necessary that there be for men rulers wiser and stronger and in all ways better; especially on account of the infestations and disturbances which come to men and human affairs from spirits; especially since it is manifest through the governance of Rectors, that is, of those ruling, that men can resist neither the cunning nor the power of evil spirits; otherwise, what else would become of men? Except that given to evil spirits like animals of slaughter without Shepherds and Guardians they would be delivered up for prey and devouring, which the goodness and benignity of the blessed Creator suffers in no way. Thus William.

This truth was also manifest to the pagan Philosophers; whether they drew it from the Jews teaching, or from the sacred Books, or received it through tradition from their ancestors. On which matter Apuleius thus writes in the book De Deo Socratis:

From this sublimer multitude of demons, Plato asserts, individuals singly assigned to individual men in the conducting of life as witnesses and guardians: who, conspicuous to no one, are always present, witnesses not only of all deeds but even of thoughts. And when life has been lived out and return is to be made, that same one who was bestowed upon us seizes and drags straightway his own charge as it were to judgment, and there stands forth to plead the cause; if anything is contrived falsely, he rebuts it; if anything true is said, he confirms it; in short the verdict is rendered by his testimony.

Hence he adds that wholesome admonition:

Wherefore you all who listen with me as interpreter to this divine sentiment of Plato, form your minds toward whatsoever you would do or meditate in such a way that you know that before these guardians nothing at all is secret, neither within the soul nor without: since he curiously partakes of all things, sees all things, understands all things, and dwells in those most hidden recesses of minds with the voice of conscience.

— Afterwards he subjoins the example of Socrates in honoring this angel in these words:

This thoroughly guardian, singular prefect, domestic watcher, inseparable arbiter, inseparable witness, disapprover of the greater evils, approver of goods, if rightly attended to, diligently known, religiously cultivated, as it was cultivated by Socrates with justice and innocence, a looker-out in uncertain things, a forewarner in doubtful ones, a wayfarer in perilous ones, a helper of the needy, who can for you both in dreams, then in signs, then even perhaps face to face when use demands, turn away evils, prosper goods. And soon: Socrates knew and worshipped this his God most excellently perfectly.

— That moreover the ancients worshipped genii with the highest religion Censorinus thus declares, cap. 3:

Therefore to the Genius especially we sacrifice yearly through every age. Although not only this one, but besides there are several other gods supporting the life of men, each according to his portion, which books of indigitamenta sufficiently taught whoever wished to know them; but all these represent once in each man the effect of their divinities, wherefore they are not summoned throughout the whole space of life by new Religious rites. But the Genius has been appointed our observer in such a way that he withdraws not even for a point of time farther away, but accompanies us from the womb of our mother, when received, to the last day of life.

You will say 1. Angelic guardianship detracts from man's liberty, and from the excellence of his merits: therefore it does not seem to be admitted. The antecedent is proved: man cannot be compelled to evil by free will, nor be violently acted upon: therefore of himself he is sufficient to resist his adversaries: in vain, then, are Angels deputed to his guardianship, or else that angelic guardianship detracts something from the glory of his liberty. Moreover, the greater the glory of the victor, the fewer the aids with which he triumphs over his adversary. Therefore it would be more glorious for man to conquer the devil by himself, than with an Angel assisting and fighting alongside him: and thereupon that very angelic guardianship detracts something from his glory, just as from his liberty.

I deny the antecedent, as to both parts; for although perhaps man, strengthened by the aid and benefit of grace through free will, would suffice of himself to resist those who oppose him, and to win a splendid triumph over them: nevertheless, since his struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against Principalities and Powers, and against the spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places, and since he himself is weak and infirm, he would more often be conquered by them than conquer them, unless he had holy Angels fighting alongside him against the evil Angels. For neither, says Peter Damian in his Epistle to Alexander II, supreme Pontiff, could human frailty resist the cunning of so subtle and practiced an enemy, unless angelic virtue drove him back from the temptations of the Elect. Therefore it is far better and more glorious for him to conquer enemies so formidable with the aid of angels, than to be conquered without aid.

You will say 2. From that oracle of Christ the Lord, Luke 22, He who sits at table is greater than he who serves: therefore, if an Angel serves man by guarding him, it follows that man is superior to the Angel: but the consequence is false: therefore so is the antecedent. Moreover, if an Angel guards man, either he has this from nature, or from grace: if from nature, it follows that demons too ought to be reckoned guardians of men, for their natural gifts remained intact in them: if from grace, since one soul surpasses another in grace, he ought to be deputed to the guardianship of that one.

I deny both consequences, and to the antecedent of the first, I say that it is indeed true of the ministry of subjection, but not of the ministry of presidency: but an Angel, in guarding man, ministers to him by presiding over him, and by ruling and teaching him, as a pedagogue a little child; not by serving and obeying, as a servant his lord. To the antecedent of the second consequence, I say that the Angel has from both nature and grace that he can guard man: from nature indeed, because he is stronger and more powerful than man: but from grace, because he is more excellent and firmer: therefore on both counts it belongs to him to rule and protect man.

You will say 3. To God alone does it belong to guard man: therefore not to an Angel. The antecedent is proved; both because God is said in Scripture to be the guardian of men; thus Job 7, What shall I do to thee, O guardian of men? And in Psalm 120, Behold, he who guards Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep... The Lord guards you from all evil; may the Lord guard your soul. The Lord guards your going in and your coming out. And also because guardianship is ordered to preserving man, lest he fall into the captivity of the devil: but it belongs to the same one to preserve in liberty as to liberate and redeem from captivity: therefore since to redeem from captivity belongs to God alone, to guard and preserve in liberty also belongs to him alone.

I deny the antecedent, and to its first proof I say with the Seraphic Doctor praised above at 5, that the perfection of divine guardianship does not exclude the utility of angelic guardianship. For just as God, for the manifestation of his goodness and the manifestation of the wisdom of his order, communicated to creatures the power to act, and to produce other creatures effectively, himself nevertheless producing and cooperating; so he gave the Angels the power to guard man, yet he himself never ceases from the guardianship of his servants, because such a power of guarding befitted the dignity of angelic grace and nature: therefore divine guardiansship does not hinder angelic: nay, the divine contributes to the perfection of the angelic; and the angelic to the commendation and manifestation of the divine.

To the second proof, I deny the parity, with the same Seraphic Doctor: for to redeem is to quicken the dead; but to confer life in the first instance, and to restore it anew when lost, belongs to God alone: to guard, however, signifies only some external act of beneficence, which can be conferred by a more excellent nature and a more powerful virtue: therefore it is no wonder if the Angels, who could not free man from the captivity of the demon, can nevertheless guard and preserve him, lest he again rush headlong into it through sin.

Second conclusion. — To each and every man, whether little ones or adults, whether faithful or infidels, predestined or reprobate, sinners or just, individual guardian Angels are deputed.

This is most widely received among Catholics against Calvin, book 1 of the Institutes, chapter 14, where he most mendaciously affirms that it is uncertain whether individual Angels are assigned to individual men: and on Psalm 90 he adds that it is a false invention. St. Basil gathers this truth from Sacred Scripture in book 3 against Eunomius:

But that an Angel is present to each of the faithful, as it were some Pedagogue and Pastor governing his life, let no one contradict who remembers the Lord's words saying: Despise not one of these little ones, for their Angels always see the face of my Father who is in Heaven. And the Psalmist says: The Angel of the Lord shall encamp round about them that fear him. And: The Angel who delivered me from my youth, and so forth of that kind.

With these passages of Scripture Basil establishes the common dogma of Catholics against Calvin. Hilary subscribes to him, who, weighing the same passage, says: Great is the dignity of souls, that each one should have an Angel delegated to guard it from the beginning of its birth. First he says pointedly "each one," for not one Angel guards several men: then because an Angel cannot be guardian at once in several places, and it can often happen that two men distant in place need the local presence and assistance of their Angel: whence if there were one and the same Angel, he could not suitably help both: then because this more greatly commends the magnificence and liberality of God: finally, because it is likely that in the lowest Hierarchy there are more Angels than there are men actually and in fact existing, and thereupon it does not appear necessary that one Angel guard several men.

The Conclusion is proved moreover; and that first concerning infants and little ones. For this St. Jerome first teaches expressly, saying: Above this, each soul from the beginning of its birth has an Angel deputed to it. Although some, as St. Thomas 1. p. q. 113. a. 5. ad 3, expound these words of birth not in the womb, but outside the womb; because, they say, when the child is in the womb it is like a part and fruit of the mother; whence just as he who guards the body, or the tree, also guards a part of the body, and the fruit joined to the tree, so the Angel guarding the mother also guards the child as long as it is in her womb; nevertheless nearly all now agree that that deputation of the Angel is made at once when the soul is infused into the body. And this St. Anselm taught openly in the Elucidarium, writing: Each soul, when it is sent into the body, is entrusted to an Angel: but the soul is infused at conception: therefore at conception an Angel is deputed to its guardianship.

* Tertullian had anticipated this in the book De Anima, chapter 37, where he writes: but the whole apparatus of man's sowing, framing, and fashioning in the womb is molded by some power ministering to the divine will, whatever reason it has had allotted to exercise. By which words he signifies not only that an Angel is destined for each man when formed in the womb, but even while being formed by God: which truth he declares was known even to the pagans; for he adds, estimating thus: Even the Roman superstition fashioned a Goddess Alemona to feed the fetus in the womb, and Nona and Decima from the more solicitous months; and Partula, who governs the birth, and Lucina truly, who brings it forth into the light. We believe the Angels to discharge the divine offices.

He thought, therefore, that Angels were destined by divine Providence to watch over children being formed in the maternal womb and being brought to birth, and to discharge those offices which the ancient Romans raved were exhibited by fabricated divinities, whose madness St. Augustine pursues and elegantly mocks lib. 4. De Civit. Dei, cap. 11, where he assails the teachers of the gentiles because they ascribed to Jupiter, whom they called the supreme God, those tasks which were attributed to plebeian divinities.

He himself, he says, should preside under the name Liber, over the seeds of men, and under the name Libera, over those of women. He himself should be Diespiter who brings the birth to the day, he himself should be the Goddess Mena whom they set over the monthly courses of women. He himself should be Lucina, who is invoked by women in labor. He himself should bring help to the newborn, receiving them into the bosom of the earth, and be called Ops. He himself should open the mouth in the cry, and be called the god Vaticanus. He himself should lift from the earth, and be called the goddess Levana. He himself should guard the cradle, and be called the goddess Cunina, etc.

— Origen explains this matter thus, tractate 5 on Matthew:

Further you ask, of these little ones, the Angels who preside over them, when they begin to have care of them: whether from the time when they were born in Christ through the laver of regeneration, as then newborn infants, and no longer subject to a certain adverse power; or from the time of their carnal birth, according to the foreknowledge of God and his preordination, those whom he foreknew and predestined, that they might be conformed to the glory of Christ. You see, that whoever has carefully weighed both, it belongs to him to affirm which of the two is true, and to bring forward the Scripture consenting to one of the two. For on each side much can be said, nevertheless let us bring forward from the many a little something. Those who wish that as soon as anyone has been born he should receive an Angel set over him, of those who have been foreknown by God, use the voice of the Apostle saying: who separated me from my mother's womb, that he might reveal his Son in me; as if from that time he has need of an Angel ruling him, because he was separated according to the foreknowledge of God. Likewise in the Epistle of Jude it is written thus: In God the Father beloved, and in Jesus Christ preserved and called. By whom preserved, unless by the Angels to whom they had been handed over, that they might be preserved, and rescued from all evil, who were held as foreknown and preordained? Further he will bring forward also that which is said in the psalms: From my mother's womb you are my protector; so that God may be the protector of the foreknown, through Angels deputed for this very ministry. So also he will take that: You took me from my mother's womb; likewise: upon you was I cast from the womb; and a thousand others of this kind having the same sense, etc.

* — Moreover this truth is urged by reason: first, because as soon as the little one is formed, he begins to be man the wayfarer: whence although physically he is as it were a part of the mother, nevertheless in the order of the salvation of the soul, he is a distinct person; whence he is capable of original sin, even if the mother is holy; and by the grace of God he is capable of merit, as is seen in John the Baptist. Likewise, it is credible that a demon is at once joined to him, who may procure to harm and injure him specially: therefore also an Angel ought from then to be deputed to him, that he may ward off the demon, and from then guard against other impediments, both corporal and spiritual. Nor does it stand in the way that the guardian Angel of the mother could take up this care: because it pertains to him only as long as it is necessary for the good of the mother. But it can redound to the utility of the son alone, and his own Angel will have it with a special and more proper affection. And sometimes the mother, not attending to her Angel, can attempt something harmful to the child, which the Angel guardian of the child will be able to impede. Finally, this providence is more generous; and therefore I gladly adhere to this part.

— But how, and for what cause this angelic guardianship is made toward the little one, whether existing in the womb or outside the mother's womb, Alensis teaches, qu. 41. memb. 4. art. 3.

But the reason of this guardianship is taken, he says, both on the part of the Angel guarding, and on the part of the man guarded. On the part of the Angel, the reason is merit, for he merits an accidental reward from such guardianship. On the part of the little one the reason is taken, both on the part of the body, namely that the good Angel guards the body of the little one from the vexation of the adverse power: and on the part of the soul, and this in two ways; because the reason is taken of the soul in itself, and from the conjunction of the soul to the body. On the part of the soul in itself, because as soon as the soul is created, it is convertible to good or to evil, and can profit, not then, but afterward: and therefore a guardian Angel is given to it, not for this time, that is, not that it then make it profit, or withdraw it from evil, but that he order it, and dispose it, and fit it for this, that it may profit afterward, when the time will be of using reason. But on the part of the soul as it is joined to the body, the reason of guardianship can be taken in the little one, because the soul, as soon as it is united to the body, is corrupted with a vitious corruption; thence it contracts corruption: whence the soul, as soon as it is joined to the body, suddenly proceeds into another habilitation, either to evil or to good; although such habilitation is not known, and to such habilitation the good Angel helps and orders, who is given to it as guardian: as perhaps that corruption, which it contracted from the body, helped to habilitate to evil,

You will say. Little ones cannot fail through fault, nor profit into the better through a good work, since they lack the use of reason: therefore angelic guardianship is fruitless for them.

I distinguish the antecedent; they cannot profit for that time, and as long as they do not obtain the use of reason, I concede: they cannot profit for the future time, when they will be endowed with the perfect use of reason, I deny; as Alensis expounded above.

The Conclusion is proved similarly as to the remaining parts: namely, that all adults whatsoever, whether predestined or reprobate, whether sinners or just, have a special Angel deputed to them for guardianship. And indeed first it is clear concerning the reprobate; both because there is conceded to them sufficient aid for salvation: but angelic guardianship is not outside the latitude of such sufficient aid: therefore it must be conceded to them. The major is clear: the minor is proved: God permits the reprobate to be tempted by the demon; and consequently he ought to afford them protection and sufficient defense: but this he supplies through guardian Angels: therefore he ought not to have denied it to them: And also because although this guardianship have no effect of merit of eternal life; nevertheless through it they are recalled from many evils, which without doubt they would perpetrate, unless the good Angel withdrew them. And because God permits the predestined to have demons lying in wait for their salvation: therefore by equal right he ought to concede angelic guardianship to the reprobate, that they may watch over their salvation by every way they can. Finally, because this guardianship redounds to the good of the predestined; for through it the demons instigating reprobate men are held off, lest they harm the Elect as much as they desire.

— By these can be solved and explained St. Paul, when he asserts in Hebrews 1, that Angels are sent in ministry for the sake of those who shall inherit salvation: for thus the ministries of the Angels concerning the reprobate redound to the good of those who shall inherit salvation: for by the aforesaid words St. Paul wished to signify, that the end of the angelic ministry universally is the salvation of men, and therefore it is exercised concerning men, although the fruit is chiefly completed in those who are saved effectively.

This same truth holds concerning sinners of every kind: And indeed, says the Seraphic Doctor, dist. 11. qu. 1,

The good Angel is no more sparing in preserving in good, than the evil Angel is in precipitating into evil: but the evil Angel, however good a man may be, does not cease to assail him even until death: therefore it seems that neither does the good Angel cease to guard even an evil man however wicked, even until death: And because the worse anyone is, the more prone he is to evil, and the more prone to evil, the more he needs one to draw him back: therefore since the Angel deputed to guardianship is ordered to this, that he draw back from evil, it seems that he ought not desert a man however great a sinner: Finally, because of no one is one to despair, while he still exists as wayfarer: therefore however obstinate anyone may be in sin, there always shines forth some hope of his salvation: therefore as the physician deserts no sick man, unless he has first lost all hope of restoring his health: so neither ought the Angels, physicians of souls, to desert anyone, as long as any hope of salvation flourishes.

But this flourishes as long as man exists as wayfarer: therefore the guardian Angel ought to desert no one before death.

You will say 1. Very many of the holy Fathers affirm that not all men, but only the just, have guardian Angels. Thus Didymus indicates, in Damascenus book 4. Parallel. c. 7. saying: Upright and holy men have lucid Angels as guardians: but the wicked, dark ones. The same Evagrius indicates in the same, writing: The sponsors of Knowledge and Wisdom join many Angels to you: but the impious and scandalous man is disjoined even from that angel who was given to him from boyhood. This very thing St. Basil signifies on Psalm 33. where he teaches that Angels assist only the faithful and pious, but desert sinners: To everyone believing in the Lord, he says, an Angel assists, unless perhaps we drive him away ourselves by wicked deeds: for as smoke drives bees in flight, and a bad odor repels doves: so a fetid sin repels the Angel, the tearful guardian of our life. And in the Commentaries on Isaiah, expounding those words of the Prophet, and I will take away the hedge thereof, he interprets of the guardianship of the Angels, writing: It can also happen that the Angel, since each one of us has a holy one, who encamps round about them that fear the Lord, when caught in sins, becomes liable to this plague which he threatens, and is deprived of the gift, that is, the guardianship of the holy virtues. It can be confirmed from those words of Jeremiah 51. We have cured Babylon, but she is not healed: let us leave her alone.

I answer, The holy Fathers can be expounded thus, that they wish the Angels to guard only pious men, and to desert sinners, not because they have no care of these at all, but because they sometimes relax the actual operation and exercise of guarding on account of the incapacity or resistance of men. But they do not wish that they desert him entirely, nor any longer have any care of him, for we read the contrary in Exodus 23. where God, promising the Jewish people a guardian Angel, adds: he will not dismiss you when you have sinned. And this very thing is urged by reason: since the demon does not cease from tempting the just on account of his outstanding works of justice, so neither will the holy Angel desert the sinner: for, as Ambrose said on that Psalm 38. I was dumb and was humbled, etc., the Angel is round about man, lest anyone harm him; the Angel does not depart, unless commanded by the Lord. Moreover this care was given to the Angel independently of the faith or grace of the wayfarer man; therefore just as the Angels guard those men who never had either grace or faith: so also those who lost them. Finally, God does not desert these sinners as to sufficient internal and external aids: therefore neither can the Angels desert them on account of sins, since this is not consonant with the will of God; therefore the Angel does not entirely desert the sinner: but he bears himself toward him remissively, and perhaps with lesser solicitude, on account of his continual resistance toward him.

Hence it also sometimes happens that the guardian Angel seems in a certain way to abandon, or assist more remissly, the just man, that this may at last redound to his greater good; thus Ambrose on those words of Psalm 35. They who were near me stood afar off.

Let not the mystical affection of piety recoil, he says, as if it were said of the Angels, who present themselves to those who fear the Lord, that they may snatch them from temptations, which they cannot bear: how then do they stand afar off, who are attributed for help? But they do not separate themselves, but he who is pressed by temptations thinks them far away, whom he desires to be nearer at hand, and judges them to dissemble, while they await the time of helping by the nod of him above them, who commanded his athlete to contend the longer, that he might conquer the more gloriously.

Corollary. — From these gather, that every hardened sinner is not without a guardian Angel, nay, that even Antichrist himself will not be without one, as Alensis, St. Bonaventure, and St. Thomas teach; and this is gathered from this, that God wills all men to be saved, and excepts no one, but comprehends all, even the worst; and consequently Antichrist himself also. Reason also favors it, for he who proposes to anyone an end, ought to provide the means for obtaining it; but eternal life is proposed to all men however impious, and angelic guardianship is a means for obtaining and acquiring it: therefore, etc. and consequently it will not be denied to Antichrist. Add that just as the evil Angels always lie in wait, so on the contrary the good, with the charity with which they burn, will to aid continually, and in this they imitate God, the fountain of mercy and charity. — Nor is it to be said, that guardian Angels desert men however great sinners, as long as they are in this life. For just as common supernatural aid is denied to no wayfarer entirely, so neither, while he is on the way, is he entirely destitute of the guardianship of the Angels. But as on account of the sins of men certain particular and more efficacious aids are sometimes denied to them, which God is not bound to give, so the guardianship of the Angels is denied as to certain special effects.

We must know, says Alexander of Hales, that the effect of angelic guardianship over souls is manifold: one is that the soul may advance in the good of grace; another that it may not fall into the evil of guilt; a third is that, if it falls, it may afterwards rise again; or that it may not fall so often, or into so great an evil. Hence he concludes: we say therefore that Antichrist will have angelic guardianship, not for the first effects, that is, the Guardian Angel will not have those effects with regard to him, but only the last, namely, that he may not fall as often as he would fall without a Guardian Angel. For no wayfarer, inasmuch as he is a wayfarer, is lacking in the mercy of God, which consists in giving a Guardian Angel.

— Yet John Altestaing of Mindelheim, in his Vocabulario Theologico, holds that a good angel will first be assigned to Antichrist as guardian; but when he shall be so obstinate in sin that he will call himself God and exalt himself above everything that is called God or is worshipped, as the Apostle says, then at last the angel will wholly forsake him, and will not thereafter have him under protection.

* It does not escape me that Origen denies that good angels are destined by God to the guardianship of wicked and lost men; for in tract. 5. in Matth., after writing that it is uncertain whether angels are destined by God to the guardianship of men from their formation in the womb, or only from their regeneration through baptism, he adds:

But whoever wishes an angel helper to be given to men from the time when, through the laver of regeneration, they have become infants newly born in Christ, will say that it is not credible that a holy angel should preside over the senseless and unbelieving, those erring and serving various and unclean desires, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another, fornicators and adulterers, sometimes even abusers of themselves with men, robbers and drunkards and plunderers: lest he be defiled by such acts of the man to whom he has been given as guardian. But a man indeed, in the time of his unbelief and his sins, because born of unbelievers, is under the angels of Satan and malignant spirits and unclean demons. But when they have received the faith, then Christ, who is the Redeemer, who redeems by the price of his blood the believer in God from wicked lords, hands him over to a holy angel, on account of its purity always beholding the face of the Father.

Yet he teaches the contrary elsewhere, namely in tomo 13. in Matth. and hom. 35 in Lucam, where he teaches that angels are designated for individual men. *

Collect 2. That Christ the Lord had no Guardian Angel:

because, as the Seraphic Doctor says at dist. 11. quaest. 3, Christ had no need of the guardianship of an angel, nor did it become him; he had no need, he says, because his adversary could neither oppress by violence the Body united to the Divinity, nor seduce by cunning an intellect fully illumined by the Word, nor allure by blandishments an affection confirmed by the fullness of grace: therefore Christ had no need of a good angel, neither for the defense of his Body, nor for the instruction of his operation, nor for the incitement of his affection. But not only did he not need angelic guardianship, but neither did it even befit him. For guardianship, in the guardian with respect to the one guarded, implies a certain presidency: and since the angels were subject to Christ the Lord, not set over him; therefore no office of presidency ought to be committed to those angels with respect to Christ, and for this reason no angel ought to have been deputed to guard Christ, but rather a multitude of angels ought to have been deputed to his ministry.

It is confirmed, by the fact that we need a Guardian Angel chiefly for three causes: first, that he may teach and instruct us lest we be deceived; second, that he may admonish and exhort us to act well; third, that he may remove occasions and dangers of sinning: but Christ needed none of these: first, because he was endowed with greater knowledge than all the angels; second, because, being full of grace, he could stir himself up to act well; third, because he was intrinsically impeccable by reason of the hypostatic union, grace, and glory: he therefore who keeps Israel, nay rather who is the Keeper of all, had no need of a Guardian Angel.

You will say. Angels were delegated to the guardianship of Christ: therefore he truly had Guardian Angels. The antecedent is proved from that Psal. 90. Angelis suis Deus mandavit de te, ut custodiant te, etc. which Psalm very many of the Holy Fathers testify to have been written of Christ. — Moreover, to console the sorrowful and to strengthen the failing is the office and function of a guarding angel; but we read Luc. 22. that while the soul of Christ was sorrowful even unto death, the Angel of the Lord stood by him, strengthening him; therefore Christ had a Guardian Angel. — Finally, Christ according to his human nature was made a little lower than the angels: therefore, like other men, he needed their ministry and guardianship.

I deny all these consequences, and to the first antecedent I say that although some of the Holy Fathers interpret those words of the Psalm of Christ, nevertheless the others contend that they were written by David not of Christ, but of any just man whatsoever. Add that if they are taken of Christ, they can be understood not of the guardianship of Christ against the demons, whose conqueror he was; for he had no need of the aid of the angels in order to conquer them, but only of a certain external ministry which they rendered. Hence we read Matthew 4. that when the devil had been vanquished, angels came and ministered unto him, namely Christ.

To the second antecedent, I say with the aforesaid Alexander of Hales at art. 2. that comfort is twofold, one authoritative, the other ministerial; the former imports authority, the latter sounds of friendship and reverence: in the former way a lord consoles a servant, namely by bestowing upon him favors and benefits; in the latter way a servant can console the Lord by supplying him with certain things exciting him to mitigate pain. Thus, as S. Damascenus says lib. De Fide cap. 3. the Angel strengthened Christ the Lord, not indeed by proposing to him anything of which he was unaware, but only by representing to him what had been decreed by the Divine Father to be brought about; whence there arose supreme glory to God and salvation to men.

To the third, I say that although Christ is said to have been made lower than the angels by reason of his passible human nature, yet he was never so made lower as to need their protection and governance: for in every state, even of passion and death, he remained the supreme Lord of the angels, and commanded them at his nod.

Collect 3. That the Most Blessed Virgin, although illumined by graces and attended by virtues, because she was not intrinsically impeccable, but only extrinsically through special protection, and insofar as she was confirmed in grace, all Theologians hold with S. Bernard 17. to have had a Guardian Angel, whom they judge to have been S. Gabriel, who, as S. Ambrosius writes, consoled her in her straits, and disclosed to her divine commands and mysteries. Andreas Cretensis moreover writes that she had not only the Angel Gabriel as Guardian, but that, as she was Queen of heaven and Lady of the angels, she was surrounded by many troops of them, which angelic host S. Gabriel governed and ordered, as Gregorius Nicomediensis says in the oration de Maria in templo praesentata. And this seems to have been foretold in Canticles 7. where the Sunamitis, who bore the likeness of the most holy Virgin, is called terrible as an army set in array: for the choirs of camps are the hosts of the heavenly Citizens, and the celestial legions, which protected and comforted that most holy Virgin.

Collect finally, That Guardian Angels were also deputed to the First Parents in the state of innocence, as Alexander of Hales teaches, and likewise the Seraphic Doctor: both because God is more prone to pity and to succor than to condemn: therefore if in the state of innocent nature he permitted an evil angel to infest and tempt man, with stronger right he ought to delegate to him a Guardian Angel, who might fight along with him against the assailing devil; especially since he wrote Ecclesiast. 23. Against evil is good, and against life death, and so look upon all the works of the Most High, one against one, and two against two. And also because Guardian Angels are deputed to us for this reason, that through their aid we may be recalled from evil: but man in the state of innocence needed to be removed from evil, seeing he could sin: therefore he needed angelic guardianship for that. Finally, the same good angel is deputed to man in guardianship, that he may defend him from oppression against violence, says the Seraphic Doctor qu. 2, that he may instruct and direct him against deceit, and exhort and lead him on to good against blandishments: since therefore in the state of innocence of the First Parents the devil could seduce the reason by cunning, lead the will to evil by blandishments, and crush the virtues by a kind of violence, seeing he was stronger and more cunning than innocent man, and more pertinacious in his purpose of malice; therefore it was fitting that angelic guardianship be granted to innocent man, that he might be able to resist so formidable an enemy.

Third conclusion. — Angels are deputed not only to men, but also to other things, as Rulers, Administrators, and Guardians.

This truth is proved, first indeed by the authority of the Holy Fathers, above all S. Augustini, who lib. 83. qu. 79. says: Every visible thing has an angelic power set over it. Which sentiment certainly can be confirmed from Scripture; for Apocalypse 14. it is said: Et alius Angelus exivit de altari qui habebat potestatem super ignem: and cap. 15: Audivi Angelum aquarum dicentem: iustus es Domine, etc., where Arethas says: Hence we know that angelic powers are set over creatures: this one indeed over the waters, that one over fire, and another over some other particular creature. Hence Origenes 8. in Ieremiam teaches that angels preside over all things, both earth and water, and air and fire, that is, the principal elements, and in this order come down to all animals, to every plant, to the very stars of Heaven. The same Homilia 23. says:

The celestial powers have undertaken the ministries of this world, that one may preside over the germinations of the earth or of trees, another over rivers and fountains, another over winds, another over the seas, another over earthly animals, or over each thing born of the earth; and that in each of these there are ineffable Sacraments of the divine dispensation, all things being ordered in their place, and each office discharged by its proper power.

— *And lib. 8. contra Celsum, answering his assertion in which he contended that demons preside over all the parts of the world and over their dispensation, he writes:

But we say that without the protection of invisible husbandmen, so to speak, and other administrators, who provide not only for the produce of the earth but also for water and air, the earth would not bear those things which are said to be ruled by nature, the water in springs and rivers would not of itself spring forth and flow, the air would not be preserved incorrupt, nor impart life to breathing things; yet we do not say that those invisible administrators are demons. And if anything must be said boldly, if demons have any part in these matters, we must attribute to them famine, the barrenness of trees and vines, immoderate heats, corruption of the air for bringing ruin upon fruits, and sometimes bringing death upon living things and pestilence upon men. Of all these demons are the authors... We do not receive from demons the several things necessary for sustenance, especially we who have learned to use them decently, nor do they banquet with demons who enjoy the fruits, wine, the produce of trees, waters, air, but rather with the divine Angels, to whom the care of all these things has been entrusted... Therefore when we eat, drink, breathe to the glory of God, and do the other things on the same account, we do not banquet with that demon, but with the Angels of God, because every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. But it would not have been fitting, nor would it have been lawful, for these things to be consecrated, if they had been entrusted to the care of demons.*

But especially the holy angels are deputed to the guardianship of Provinces, Churches, and Communities. For that particular angels are dispatched for the guardianship of Kingdoms, we gather quite plainly from Daniel 10. where Daniel addressing Gabriel says:

Princeps Regni Persarum restitit mihi viginti et uno diebus, et ecce Michael unus de Principibus primis venit in adiutorium mihi, et ego remansi ibi cum Principe Regni Persarum; and further on: Nunc revertar ut proelier adversus Principem Persarum; Cum ergo egrederer, apparuit Princeps Graecorum veniens, etc.

In which words mention is made of angels destined to the guardianship of the Jews, Persians, and Greeks, as S. Dionysius interprets c. 9. De Caelesti Hierarchia; and Theodorus lib. 5. De Divino decreto cap. 7; Hieron. on those words, and Gregorius lib. 17. Moral. All of whom hold that mention is there made of holy angels, among whom although there is no battle nor discord, but all enjoy perfect peace, according to that Job. 25. Qui facit concordiam in Sublimibus suis; nevertheless without prejudice to peace and charity, they fought for one another before

God by their prayers: Gabriel indeed, acting on behalf of the Jews, besought God to release the Israelites from captivity, inasmuch as he had promised that such captivity would last no longer than seventy years, which time had now almost elapsed. But the other two angels assigned to the guardianship of the Persians and Greeks earnestly entreated God to prolong the sojourn of the Jews among the Greeks and Persians; because very many of the unbelieving Jews, enlightened by doctrine, rejected the worship of idols and venerated the true God: and thus they fought against one another by prayers, because what God had decreed to keep silent was not yet known to them: whence after S. Michael, who was superior to those three Princes, had manifested to them the divine will, then above all they were of one accord.

— This truth is confirmed from that chapter 2. and 30. of Deuteronomy, where we read: Quando dividebat Altissimus gentes, quando separabat filios Adam, constituit terminos populorum, iuxta numerum filiorum Israel. The Seventy Interpreters render: Iuxta numerum Angelorum Dei. Hence Origenes Hom. 35. in Lucam concludes from that passage: that Princes, that is, Angels, were appointed from the beginning of the divided earth. So also Theodoretus on that chapter of Daniel, when he had said: Singulis Angelis uniuscuiusque nostrum creditam esse curam, ut custodiant, et tueantur, et a pravis daemonum insidiis nos liberent: concludes from Matth. 18. cap.: Archangelis vero illud munus impositum, ut Gentium sint praefecti, sicut beatus Moyses docuit, with whose words blessed Daniel likewise agrees, when he speaks himself of the Prince of the kingdom of the Persians: and again a little later of the Prince of the Greeks.

This same all the Holy Fathers attest, and above all Clem. Alex. lib. 6. Strom. where he says: Per Gentes, et Civitates divisae sunt Angelorum praefecturae: and lib. 7. Iussu divino, et antiquo per Gentes sunt distributi Angeli. This same S. Basilius teaches lib. 3. adversus Eunomium, where he affirms: Singulis fidelium adesse comites Angelos, sive Gentibus alios praeesse; and the more excellent a whole nation is by some singular man, by so much the more excellent in dignity is the angel set over the nation than him to whose care any single person is committed. Similarly Epiphanius haeresi 51. Regna, inquit, et Gentes sub Angelis posita sunt. The same the other Holy Fathers teach everywhere.

— Similarly the Theological Doctors hold, not without reason, that if angels preside over nations and peoples, much more over Churches, temples, and religious communities. Of Churches indeed there stands the testimony of Apoc. 1. cap., where to the seven Churches so many presiding angels are named, as Origenes interprets Hom. 20. in Numeros: Secundum ea, quae Ioannes in Apoc. scripsit, he says, an angel presides generally over each Church. And Hom. 13. in Lucam he says that in each Church two Bishops preside, one visible, the other invisible.

*Therefore, he says, angels are present also in our assembly, not only generally for every Church, but also severally, of whom the Savior: Angeli eorum semper vident faciem Patris mei qui in Caelis est. Here there is a twofold Church, one of men, the other of angels. If we speak according to reason and according to the will of the Scriptures, the angels rejoice and pray with us. And because the angels are present in the Church, in that alone which rejoices and is Christ's, therefore praying women are bidden to have a veil upon their head because of the angels, namely those who assist the saints and rejoice in the Church.

This same* Ambrosius confirms lib. 2. in Lucam, where he says: Non solum Episcopus ad tuendum gregem Dominus ordinavit, sed etiam Angelos destinavit. Greg. Naz. subscribes oratione 32. Nec enim, inquit, mihi dubium est, quin alii aliarum Ecclesiarum Praesides, ac Patroni sint, quemadmodum in Apocalypsi Ioannes me docet. — Hence it is no wonder if very many most holy men, Prelates of Churches, had angels as guardians of their own Churches laboring even sensibly in their ministries: nor ought it equally to be called into doubt what most Histories relate, namely that holy Angels have often appeared in Temples to whose guardianship they were destined. Thus in Prato spirituali cap. 4. we read that Leontinus Abbot of the Monastery of Laura saw standing at the corner of the altar an Angel, who said to him: Ex quo sanctificatum est altare istud, ego ei iugiter adstare iussus sum. Lanspergius relates similar things of S. Geltrude Virgin, etc. — But that they are present above all for guarding the communities of Religious, our Le Petit proves by many arguments cap. 17. sect. 1. De SS. Angelis; especially from the fact that religious emulate the angelic life; for the angels love their fellow-citizens, and take the greatest care of their table-companions.

* APPENDIX.

To these must be added the opinion of the ancient Philosophers disapproved by the Theologians, namely that to each individual man a twofold angel is assigned by God, one good, the other bad, of which the former meditates the salvation of men, the latter their ruin and destruction. Which opinion Origenes had imbibed, as appears from lib. 1. in epist. ad Romanos; and likewise homil. 23. in Iosue, and 35. in Lucam; and also lib. 3. De principiis, cap. 2. Nay, he joins to individual men not merely a single Angel or a single demon, but whole cohorts of Angels and demons, homil. 1. in Ps. 36: Nunquam enim, inquit, solus est iustus, sed ne unius quidem, aut duorum vel trium tantummodo Angelorum societate subnixus est, sed exercitus ei virtutum coelestium praesto est. Which he does not restrict to the conferring of spiritual goods, but extends also to corporeal ones, homil. 20. in Ios. It is evident therefore that there are many powers within us, to which the care either of our souls or of our bodies has been entrusted. In defending this he uses a certain apocryphal writing, which you might suspect to be the book of Enoch, homil. 35. in Luc. Legimus, inquit, si tamen cui placet huiusmodi scripturam recipere, iustitiae et iniquitatis Angelos super Abrahae salute disceptantes, dum utraeque turmae suo eum coetui volunt vindicare. He brings forward besides, for the confirmation of these, the example of that demoniac of whom mention is made Luc. 8. v. 30; and Marc. 5. v. 9.¹ For when the demon who tormented that wretched man was asked by Christ questioning him what name he bore, he answered: Legio, by which word he signified that so many infesting demons were present to that man as combatants are wont to be numbered in a military legion. Whence Origenes gathers that by vice one demon presides over each man as dominator and prince, to whom several inferior demons serve as subordinates for propagating that vice. But when a man labors under many vices at once, then he is besieged and infested by many demons at once. — Now that doctrine concerning a twofold attendant angel, good and bad, which he confirms from the book of Hermes entitled Pastore, and from the epistle of S. Barnabae, he seems to have drawn from the Platonists. For Theodoretus, Serm. 3. de curandis Graecorum affectionibus brought forth these words from Plato, libro 10. Legum:

But when you say that the soul governing and implanted in all things that move everywhere governs also the heavens, that soul must necessarily be said to govern them. What then? One or many? I will answer for you: Let us suppose not fewer than two, the one which confers goods, and the other which can effect contraries.

The same was the opinion of the followers of Plato concerning the many genii assigned to individual men. For Porphyrius assigns various demons or genii to each man, of which one has the regimen and care of the body, another of the soul, another of the mind. Nay, he pronounces that far more demons are present to each man, in such wise namely that one cares for the health of the newborn, another for his beauty, others for a certain aptitude in these things, and each of them presides over them equally. To whom Iamblicus answers by denying: that one demon does not preside merely over some part of us, but is present to the whole at once, leads the whole, just as he is attributed by the whole orders that are in the world. Again Porphyrius introduces contrariety as belonging to the ruling demons, for he makes some good, others bad, although, as Iamblicus testifies, nowhere do evil spirits obtain the lot of prefecture, nor are they distributed over against the good with equal authority or number. Many however more eminent, striving against the Monas of Iamblicus, attribute three guardians or demons to each man at his birth: the first of which they call Sacred, which, according to the doctrine of the Egyptians, descends neither from the fixed stars nor from the wandering ones, but from the superior heaven, namely from the empyrean, through God himself the president of demons, and is assigned to the rational soul; and they say that the office of this one is to direct the life of the soul, always to exhibit good thoughts to the mind, and to act within us unceasingly by illuminating, although we do not always perceive him, but when we have been purified and live tranquilly, then he is perceived by us, and speaks as it were with us, and strives unceasingly to bring us to sacred perfection. The second is named Genius, insofar as he is a begotten demon, who descends from the disposition of the world and the circuits of the stars, which are involved in generation. The third indeed they will have to be the demon of birth presiding over profession and mastership, whom they hand down as infused from the stars, furnishing the manners of the soul and the way to worldly dignities and honors. And indeed they assert this to have been found out and approved by experience, that if the profession accord with our nature, and a demon of profession like to us and concordant with the Genius be present, the life becomes more tranquil, happy and prosperous. But if we are engaged in a profession contrary to or unlike the nature of the Genius, life is rendered laborious for us, and disturbed by actions at variance, etc. These are their teachings, in which there are some things savoring of paganism.*

Quaestio III: Quaenam beneficia per suam custodiam nobis impendant Angeli, quaeve ob eam eis rependat Deus, nosque eis rependere debeamus

Note 1. This was Origen's paradox, for he thought that the guardian angels of men obtain the vision of God on no other condition than if they lead to salvation those committed to their faith. For that reason, he says in homilies 28. and 35. on Luke,

The angels are anxious about us, knowing > that if they have governed us well, and led us on even unto salvation, they themselves too may have the confidence of seeing the face of the Father: For just as, if salvation is procured for men through their care and diligence, they attend always upon the face of the Father: so if through their negligence a man perishes, they are not unaware that it is a matter of their own peril as well. And just as a good Bishop, and the best Dispenser of the Church knows it to be a matter of his own merit and virtue if the sheep of the flock entrusted to him have been guarded; so understand it also of the angels. It is a disgrace to an angel if a man entrusted to him has been just, and has sinned: while conversely it is glory to an angel if the least one in the Church entrusted to him has at least been faithful. For they shall see not sometimes, but always the face of the Father who is in Heaven, while others shall not see it always. For according to the merit of those whose angels they are, the angels will contemplate the face of God either always or never, or little, or more.

But homily 20. on Numbers also taught the same thing, that angels are blamed, as Pedagogues, if those committed to their care have turned aside from their office. The Apocalypse proves this by its testimony: where one angel is said to preside over each Church, who, it says, is either praised for the benefits of the people, or even blamed for its offenses. The error of Origen, long since lulled to sleep and extinguished, Calvin raised up again, for our Fevardentius in his Theomachia Calvinistica lib. 9. cap. 19. reports Calvin saying in lib. 3. of the Institutes cap. 14., that the angels cannot satisfy the justice of God; because, as the same Calvin wrote in serm. 16. on Job, If God deal with the angels by supreme right, he will find what he desires in them; constant and perpetual firmness will not stand in them. And further on: God does not find solid truth in the angels, but folly, vanity, and inconstancy. Below, however, he declares himself to be speaking of the angels who persevered in obedience to God and behold his face. But

Note 2. This error was long since proscribed by the Holy Fathers, who teach most constantly that the good angels, though they could previously sin, by not sinning in the way merited that they be no longer able to sin. Thus teaches Augustine in the Enchiridion 57: Fulgentius, De Fide ad Petrum cap. 23. Gregory lib. 34. Mor. c. 4. And this truth is gathered especially from the words of Christ, by which he taught us to pray to God in this manner, Thy will be done as in Heaven, and on earth; for by these words we ask that we fulfill the will of the Father on earth, as the angels fulfill it in Heaven. Nor indeed could Christ have spoken those words except on account of the angels; since at that time there were no creatures in Heaven except the angels alone: therefore he supposes that the divine will is being fulfilled by the angels most faithfully, and most perfectly; and forthwith that they cannot sin. Add what David preaches of the angels Psal. 102. Bless the Lord, all his angels, mighty in strength, doing his word. Whence he adds, as it were by Antonomasia: His ministers, who do his will. Finally, if in order for anyone to enter the heavenly Jerusalem he had to be pure from every stain, according to that word of the Apocalypse 21. 27.¹ There shall not enter into it anything defiled; much more must he who is forever gifted with the vision of God be forever innocent: since David says to God Psal. 5. The wicked shall not dwell near thee, nor shall the unjust remain before thy eyes; whereas the angels remain always with God, since Christ says of them: Their angels always see the face of the Father. It follows, therefore, that they can in no way sin, nor lose their beatitude. Vain, then, and utterly erroneous is the conceit of thinking that because men fall into sin, the angels are to be blamed and punished, as if they had not guarded those entrusted to them with the vigilance that befitted them. There remains, therefore, only to examine whether they receive anything of reward from God on account of the care of their guardianship bestowed upon us: and that it may be done more plainly,

Note 3. Beatitudes are customarily distinguished as twofold, namely essential, and accidental: For there is, says the Seraphic Doctor dist. 11. art. 2. quaest. 2, a twofold joy in the Blessed: the first, in which the substantial reward consists, and this is joy over the uncreated good, which the angel has of God, and in God; namely, enjoying God through union with him, and love. Another is accidental joy, which the angel has over created good, whether his own or another's: of which indeed Scripture often makes mention: as Psalm. 149. where it is said; The Saints shall exult in glory, they shall rejoice in their beds. And Luke 15. There shall be joy in Heaven over one sinner doing penance. To this also belongs the judicial power which Christ voluntarily promises to the poor; nay, even that hundredfold which the same Lord promises in Matthew 19., besides eternal life, to those who have left all things for his sake. To that accidental glory also belong the aureole of Virgins, Martyrs, and Doctors, and similar things, which are common to the angels in their own manner, and with due proportion. For although aureolae properly do not befit them, because they are not capable of Virginity or Martyrdom, nevertheless they have other proportionate objects over which they can rejoice accidentally.

— It must further be known that by the name of accidental beatitude we here do not understand those things which infallibly follow of themselves upon the vision, love, and joy of God, either universally, or in each individual Blessed one according to his own measure; such as, e.g., the memory of past good works together with the joy arising from it, likewise the honor and glory of the Blessed among themselves and before God; just as the glory of the rising bodies, in respect of the beatitude of the soul, is also numbered among the accidental beatitudes.

Of this genus, then, of accidental beatitude we do not speak at present; for although it is found also in the angels, yet it is not receptive of increase; because this accidental beatitude follows essential beatitude infallibly, whether from the nature of the thing, or from the divine ordination; and therefore since the former is not receptive of increase, neither can the latter grow.

— Here, therefore, the discourse is only about that accidental beatitude which consists in a certain act of the intellect and will regarding created objects, which does not follow upon essential beatitude; but is granted by the particular favor of God, such as the revelations through the Word concerning the effects of grace and contingent futures, which the angels did not know from the beginning of beatitude. Of the same kind are joys and other affections regarding things thus known, such as that joy over a sinner doing penance. Glory, therefore, and the joy resulting from these is called accidental beatitude; because it not only surrounds the essential, but is also separable from it after the manner of an accident.

These things thus premised, three things remain to be determined: First, what benefits the holy angels bestow upon us through their guardianship. Second, what sort of beatitude God renders to them on account of that guardianship. Third, what offices of gratitude and veneration we ought to render back to those most faithful guardians.

First conclusion. — There are six principal benefits which the holy angels bestow upon us through their guardianship.

This Conclusion is gathered from the Seraphic Doctor in 2. dist. 11. art. 2. quaest. 1. ad 7. where, having said:

it must be believed that the angels who guard us strive in many ways to promote us toward good, and to withdraw us from evil, although the dullness of our spirit does not perceive this: on account of which many become proud, many become ungrateful, and frequently attribute to themselves what is from the angelic benefit, and thereby become less worthy to be helped by the angels: it is therefore most useful to know and understand the effects of angelic guardianship: twelve effects are accustomed to be assigned by the Masters: yet all of these can be reduced to six principal ones.

The first is to rebuke for faults. Thus Judges 2.

And an Angel of the Lord ascended from Galgal to the place of weepers, and said: I brought you out of Egypt, and led you into the land for which I swore to your fathers, and promised that I would never make void my covenant with you: Only thus far, that you should not strike a compact with the inhabitants of this land, but should overthrow their altars: and you would not hear my voice: Why have you done this? etc.:

Nay, sometimes it happens that they even send punishments upon the men whom they guard: for certain punishments of this life proceed from the pure vindictive justice of God, and are called chastisements: others are ordained from the mercy of God, and are called medicinal punishments: punishments of the former kind God sends through demons, according to that word of Psalm 77. He sends upon them the wrath of his indignation.... sendings through evil angels: For God makes use of evil angels, says St. August. on these words, not only to punish the wicked, as in King Achab whom a Spirit of deceit, by the will of God, seduced that he might fall in battle: but also to prove and manifest the good, as he did in Job.

Punishments of the latter kind God sometimes also sends through good angels, as the same August. teaches, lib. 9. De Civit. Dei, cap. 5. where he says, The holy angels punish without anger those whom they receive under the eternal law as deserving punishment, and succor the wretched without compassion of mercy. This same truth is gathered quite openly from Holy Scripture; for according to the more common opinion of Interpreters God executes at times the office of punishing sinful men through holy angels: for holy were the Angels sent to overturn Sodom Genesis 19. Holy was the Angel who stretched out his hand over the Israelites, to exterminate them on account of the sin of David. Whence with better right God sometimes chastises a just man with medicinal punishments through a good angel; since this punishment is a work of mercy, and pertains especially to the office of a Pedagogue or guardian; both that the guarded person may pay the punishment owed to divine justice on account of his negligences, and that by these tribulations and afflictions he may merit eternal life and increase his merit.

The second effect is to absolve from the bonds of sins, of which matter that angel gave an example who, Acts 12.² stood by Peter when cast into bonds by Herod, and loosed the chains from his hands, and restored him to his former liberty. Which loosing of sins, indeed, the angels perform neither effectively nor authoritatively, but only dispositively, while namely, says Cresolius lib. 3. Mystag. c. 3., they exhibit to men defiled by sin the state they ought to mourn, with a light implanted from heaven, in such wise that the minds of men see the turpitude of crimes, and, as it were, the monstrous image full of horror and contempt, and behold set before their eyes the pestilence, the cruel ruin, the fatal calamity, and eternal damnation, if suddenly they should be snatched from the dwelling of the body in that state.

Whence it comes about that sinners perceive the wrathfulness of the Divine Majesty, the secret judgments dreadful to the human race, that sword painted in the divine oracles: like lightning polished and vibrating, that eye penetrating all things and irradiating the hidden thoughts of the mind: the insuperable power, the strong hand, which no man's force or cunning escapes as it exacts punishments. Then the angel casting more sweetly the ray of his light upon the mind of the sinful man shows him clearly the infamy of his crime, the stain of his soul, the inexplicable folly of men rejoicing in their own evil, the indignity of an ungrateful mind: moreover he demonstrates the power and strength of divine grace, which wickedness destroys, and which when destroyed makes man the mockery of the demon, the spoil of hell, an exile from Heaven: he sets also before the eyes of conscience the joy of a good conscience, which surpasses every bodily pleasure clearly in spiritual gladness and delight. These and similar things our guardian angel sometimes impresses upon us, that he may remove us from, or recall us from, the foul state of sins.

The third effect is to coerce the demons lest they urge us too heavily with temptations, or implant so many depraved thoughts, or subject occasions of sinning: for, as Granadensis says in the sermon on St. Michael,

As long as we militate in the body, wicked spirits do not fail, who are inciters to evil: so also angels do not fail, who are exhorters to good, who namely hold out to us light for the knowledge of truth, who show the way by which one goes to Heaven; who defend us from enemies, who withdraw us from crimes, and always lead us to what is honorable.

Therefore as those always suggest evils, so on the contrary these always counsel honorable things, and repress the forces and venom of the devil who opposes us. Therefore as we read of the holy Angel Raphael with Tobias, that he seized the demon and bound it in the desert of upper Egypt: so our guardian angels are a terror to the demons themselves, our enemies, and restrain their fury with the greatest power; for they are those sixty valiant ones of the mightiest of Israel, who surround the bed of mystical Solomon, namely the faithful soul, the triclinium, and sanctuary of Christ the Lord: For strong, says St. Athanasius lib. qq. q. 22., are the angels of God, who go around the perfect man, and walk about him, that namely they may guard and preserve him from the incursions and encounters of demons.

The fourth effect is to remove obstacles to virtue, and to pave an easy way to its attainment: which indeed is signified in Exodus, where we read that the Angel struck the firstborn of Egypt: since to their guardianship belongs especially to take away impediments to spiritual progress: for in the way of virtue not to advance is to fall behind; hence with reason the Royal Bard sang of the guardian angel: In their hands they shall bear you up, lest perhaps you dash your foot against a stone. Whence St. Augustine in the Soliloquy cap. 27:

The holy angels walk with us in all our ways, enter and go out with us, attentively considering how piously, how honorably we converse in the midst of a wicked nation: with how much zeal and desire we seek your kingdom and its justice; with how much fear and trembling we serve, and exult to you in the gladness of our heart.

They help the laboring, protect the resting, encourage the fighting, crown the conquering, etc. Whence St. Bernard admonishes in serm. 2. on the aforesaid Psalm: Our holy guardians are faithful, they are prudent, they are powerful; why do we tremble? Only let us follow them, let us adhere to them, that we may dwell in the protection of the God of Heaven.

The fifth effect is to offer to God the prayers of those whom they guard, as long as they live this mortal life on earth, and to be present to them in the instant of death, so as to lead their souls, if they be free from any debt and fault, to Heaven. And this is gathered from Tobias 12. I offered your prayer to the Lord; expending which words St. Augustine says in sermon 3. De Natali Domini: Offering our vows, and good works to God, namely alms, fastings, and finally other things, as is clear of Raphael, who offered to God not only the prayers of Tobias, but also his alms, and other good works which he exercised around the dead, whom he buried. Whence in Acts the Angel says: Your prayers and your alms ascended into memory in the sight of God; as if to say: I offered them to God.

Moreover, when they offer prayers and announce desires, they also allege reasons to God that he may hear us, and join their prayers to ours; and the more fervent they are, and the more ardent and purer the desires, the more willingly do they announce and offer them to God: and this they accomplish with the greatest eloquence, as we gather from what is found in Job cap. 33.³ If, he says, there shall be for him an Angel speaking, one of thousands, announcing the equity of the man. Pagninus, and the Royal edition render "eloquent"; for as Orators are wont to use a well-composed and premeditated speech, that they may lead those whom they address to what they intend; so there is no doubt that the angels, when they offer our prayers to God, accomplish this with the greatest eloquence, that God may deign to hear them.

— The same is urged by St. Bernard from those words of the Psalmist 67. The Princes went before joined with them singing psalms: We believe, he says, that the holy angels stand by those praying, offering to God the prayers and vows of men. To which also pertains the vision of Jacob, of which we read in Genesis cap. 28.: And he saw in sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top of it touching Heaven; the angels also of God ascending and descending by it, etc.

Expounding which passage Origen lib. 5. Contra Celsum, says: *

We confess indeed that there are certain ministering spirits, going to and fro as God frequently sends them, to those men upon whom awaits the inheritance of salvation, and these now ascend to the purest heavenly places, and purer even above the heavens, about to offer the prayers of men; now again descend to men, carrying back thence something else for the use of each one, as each is worthy of the benefit.

Similarly St. Augustine lib. 2. Medit. cap. 3:

The angels are said to offer our prayers and vows to God, not because they teach God, who knows all things before they come to be, as well as after they have been made; but because they consult his will concerning these things, and what they have known to be completed by God's command, that they report back to us evidentially, or hiddenly.

Whence he says to men: When you have prayed your prayer I offered it to God. Similarly we also pray, not that we may teach God, as if he knew not what we wish, and wherein we have need, but rational creature has need to refer temporal causes to eternal truth, either by asking what be done toward itself, or by consulting what be done.

— Similar things Tertullianus has, lib. De oratione, cap. 12.; he writes, inveighing against those who approach to make adoration to God without due religion, modesty and attention. Since indeed, he says, it is irreverent to sit in the sight, and opposite to the gaze of him whom you would reverence and venerate as much as possible: how much more irreverent, then, is this act done in the sight of the living God while the angel of prayer still stands by, unless we reproach God because our prayer has wearied us. Where he calls the angel of prayer either because he himself presides over our prayers, or because he receives them themselves and offers them to God most powerful.

On which matter St. Augustine must be heard, serm. 7. de tempore, where he writes thus: We consider how sweet it is, when our vows, such as I have said, the angels who are guardians of our life, have offered before the sight of the divine Majesty. Luc. 1. The whole multitude of the people was praying outside, at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an Angel of the Lord standing at the right hand of the altar of incense. Act. 10. Cornelius the centurion saw in vision manifestly, as it were at the ninth hour of the day, an Angel of God entering in unto him and saying to him etc: Your prayers and your alms ascended into memory in the sight of God. And in Soliloq. c. 27: They love, he says, their fellow-citizens, through whom they await that the breach of their fall be restored. Therefore* with great care and vigilant zeal they are present to us, solicitous, running to and fro between us and thee, O Lord; bearing back our groans and sighs to thee, that they may obtain for us an easy propitiation of thy benignity, and bear back to us the desired blessing of thy grace.

— This same truth St. Hilarius declares excellently on Matthew c. 18. The angels, he says, of the little ones preside over the prayers of the faithful. That angels preside is absolute authority. Therefore the angels daily offer to God the prayers of those to be saved through Christ. Therefore dangerously is he despised whose desires and petitions are conveyed to the eternal and invisible God by the ambitious servitude and ministry of angels.

— *This same truth was discovered by the ethnic Philosophers. For Appuleius writes in the book De Deo Socratis:

Moreover there are certain middle divine powers, between the highest aether and the lowest lands, in this intervening space of air, through which both our desires and our merits pass to the Gods. These they name by the Greek word δαίμονας, carriers between mortals and dwellers in heaven, hence of prayers, thence of gifts.

— Finally the same is urged from these words Apoc. 8. And the smoke of the censers ascended from the prayers of the Saints, from the hand of the Angel before God: by which he signifies how great force prayers and good works receive, when they are offered by the angels. For just as incense and aromatics, unless placed upon coals, smell but little; but when cast upon fire, breathe fragrance far and wide; not otherwise our prayers and works, which perhaps of themselves would avail but little, yet when they are intermixed with the prayers of the angels, and join their commendations to those, and so are offered by them to God, receive great value from the offerers. Which indeed St. Thomas explains luminously 2. 2. q. 83. art. 1. where he says, by their prayers and merits our prayers obtain effect, and our good works are accepted by His divine majesty.

— *Hence the Patriarch Jacob in a mystical sleep saw a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and on it angels ascending and descending: ascending indeed to God, so that they might offer to Him the prayers and petitions and good works of men; but descending from God to men, so that they might bestow divine benefits upon them; which S. Augustine admirably explains in his commentary on psalm 44: *The Angels of God, he says, ascend and descend upon the son of man, because above is he to whom they ascend in heart, that is, his head, and below is the son of man, that is, his body. One ascends to the head, and descends to the members.

— But they who during this mortal life assist us with such great charity do not fail even our souls when loosened from their bodies. For if they depart from this life altogether pure, without stain or wrinkle of venial fault, or the guilt of any punishment, they are led by their guardian Angels up to Heaven, and sometimes at the same time by others besides, according to their varied merits and the disposition of divine Providence. But if they need some purgation, the holy Angels lead them down to the place of Purgatory, and there visit them and console them.

This is gathered above all from Luke 16., where Christ the Lord says of the Beggar: And it came to pass that the Beggar died, and was carried by the Angels into Abraham's bosom. Where Chrysostom in his special Homily says: He was carried, he says, on the shoulders of the Angels, lest he should labor even by walking: Would one Angel suffice to carry him? but therefore several come, that they may make a choir of joy. Each of the Angels rejoices to touch such a burden; they are gladly weighed down with such loads, that they may bring men to the kingdoms of Heaven.

Sixthly, finally, the effect is the consolation of mourners. Thus we read Genes. 16.⁴ that an Angel consoled Agar fleeing from the face of the Lord, and said to her: Return to thy mistress, and humble thyself under her hand: and thus he wiped away her grief and sorrow while she was a fugitive in the wilderness. It is established also of Gedeon, to console whom God sent an Angel, who saluted him honorably, saying: The Lord be with thee, O most valiant of men, that he might revive him who was faint-hearted, and detain him who was thinking of flight. Thus the Angel Raphael consoled Tobias when he said to him, speaking of his son whom he was undertaking to conduct on his journey, Tobias 5.: I will bring thy son safe, and restore him. Thus on the return, when he presented his son to him safe and sound, he refreshed him with no lesser consolation. Thus one Angel appeared to Elias, pouring over his spirit, spent with bitterness, the heavenly dew of consolation, and restoring the strength of his body, worn out by the fatigue of the journey and the hunger of famine, by offering him the hearth-cake.

Sacred Scripture supplies many other proofs of angelic consolation, whereby it is established that the benefits of the holy Angels toward us are immense, which they bestow upon us with so much the greater affection because not only do they obey the divine commands in this matter, but they also burn with most ardent charity toward us:

For neither, says Blosius in the Sayings of the Fathers, did any mother ever keep watch over her only beloved son, to govern, guard, and protect him, as these most blessed Spirits keep vigil for our salvation, and especially each man's own Angel specially deputed by the Lord for our guardianship; for night and day, in every place and time, in all our causes and necessities, he stands by us with the utmost fidelity, nor ever withdraws from us even for a moment.

Truly, since those heavenly Spirits see and know how admirably, immensely, and ardently both our Lord and theirs pursues us with love, so also do they themselves embrace us with such affection as can be worthily expressed by none.

— All these things holy Bernard clearly declares in sermon 1. De sancto Michaële;

this is, most beloved, the threefold cord, whereby the supereminent charity of the Angels is drawn down from the lofty habitation of Heaven to console, to visit, to help us: for God's sake, for our sake, for their own sake. For God's sake indeed, whose > such great bowels of mercy toward us they too imitate as is fitting. For our sake, in whom surely they compassionate their own likeness. For their own sake, whose orders they await with all desire to be filled up from among us. For in the mouth of little ones, who now feed on milk and not yet on solid food, that praise of the divine majesty is to be perfected, of which the Angelic Spirits, possessing the firstfruits, enjoy blessed delight without doubt: but they await us with so much the more eagerness as they are stirred by the expectation and manifestation of its consummation.

Second conclusion. — Guardian angels, on account of the heavenly benefits lavished upon us through their services, receive from God an increase of accidental joy: so commonly teach the Scholastic Doctors, together with our Alensis 2. part. quaest. 41. membro 6. and the Seraphic Doctor dist. 11. art. 2., where, after he had reported two opinions on this matter — of which the first affirmed that in the blessed angels, from the salvation of men, there grows essential joy together with accidental joy, not only extensively but also intensively, because the Followers of this opinion held that the angels were not yet perfectly blessed, although confirmed in grace — while the second contended that neither joy, essential as well as accidental, grows intensively, but only extensively, just as their charity is not now greater than it was from the beginning, although they now love more persons than then — he concludes at last and establishes the third opinion, namely that in the angels the reward, and essential joy, is by no means increased:

because, he says, as regards that, they are perfectly blessed: but the joy, in which the accidental reward consists, increases not only extensively but also intensively, both in respect of their own good and in respect of what is joined to it; because while ministering to others they perform good works, in which they merit the accidental reward, and they also lead their fellow citizens to beatitude, over whom without doubt they rejoice and exult: and this third position seems the more probable, and according to it the answer to the opposing parts is clear: for the arguments showing that from our beatification there accrues to the angels joy conclude only about accidental joy, which is concerned with created good, in which nevertheless the essential increase of the reward does not consist.

Gabriel embraces and teaches the same opinion, art. 3. dubio 2., and affirms that the angels, as regards that accidental joy, are not in the term but in the way; because before it is given they lack it, whence they can merit it, and therefore it is granted them by God on account of merit.

— Yet I can scarcely be brought to believe that the angels are still in some part Wayfarers, and able to some extent to merit a new reward. For in order that anyone be in the state of meriting, it is not enough that he lack some thing; but beyond this it is necessary that he be in a way destined for meriting by divine ordination; which way, regularly, in angels and men, is the state of faith, opposed to the intuitive vision of God.

Adde. that that accidental joy can sufficiently be understood to be granted to the angels by God without their meriting it; for the angels receive that joy anew either from the new presence of objects, and without any special revelation or illumination on the part of God or of the Superior Angels, as they rejoice over one sinner doing penance, because they can know his penitence by their proper knowledge: whence since they love men with the highest charity, so they rejoice over their salvation; for, says Augustine cap. 27. Soliloquiorum:

As often as we act well, the angels rejoice, and the demons are saddened: as often as we decline from good, we make glad the devil, and defraud thine angels of their joy; for there is joy to them over one sinner doing penance; but to the devil over one just man abandoning penitence.

In this manner, however, the angels obtain joy without any merit of their own. — Or it can be said that the increase of that joy proceeds from this, that something new is revealed to the angels in order to their ministries; as when the Incarnation was revealed to Gabriel the Archangel, to be carried out at such a time and in such a manner that he might announce it to the Virgin; and then too he had no need of any new merit for receiving that joy; since it proceeded from that new revelation made to him. Or finally it can be conceived that that new joy is granted to an angel on account of a new revelation made to him, pertaining to his ministry, as when it is revealed to him that a man entrusted to his guardianship is about to perform such a penitence at such a time, or about to perform such or other meritorious works. In this manner, however, that joy likewise does not come on account of any special merit of the angel; but only on account of the divine revelation and the conversion of the sinner; and therefore the merit of the angel does not seem necessary for attaining that accidental beatitude. More truly, therefore, I judge it must be said that the increase of that beatific joy, or that accidental beatitude, proceeds both on the part of God liberally granting that joy to the angel, and also on the part of the angels, who on account of the supreme charity with which they pursue men are steeped in surpassing gladness, and conceive immense joy, as often as they see them strive and keep vigil for their salvation.

Rogabis. How does the angel stand toward the man deputed to his guardianship, whom he knows, God revealing it, to be about to be damned?

Our Alensis answers, membro 6. art. 2.:

That although to some angel the damnation of him to whom he is deputed is revealed: nevertheless the quantity of the damnation is not revealed to him, namely how great his damnation is going to be: for this is among the most secret things of God. Hence although he may know by revelation that he is to be damned; and know that he will accomplish nothing as regards him so far as being saved: nevertheless because he does not know how great his damnation is going to be, therefore he does not know whether he will accomplish anything as regards him in this, that his punishment, or damnation, be less. Hence he still applies care concerning him, nor does he abandon him altogether; nor does this disagree with the divine will. Hence although he does not act concerning him so as to draw him to salvation; nevertheless he acts so as to withdraw him from a greater damnation, which namely he would incur unless the angel guarded him.

Third conclusion. — We must repay three things above all to our most holy tutelary angels in gratitude of soul; namely veneration, love, and invocation. So S. Bernardus serm. 12.*:

He himself, God, commanded these very ones, who obey Him out of such great charity, and succor us in such great necessity, that they must not be ungrateful; let us therefore be devout, let us be grateful to such great guardians, let us love them again, let us honor them as much as we can, as much as we ought; yet let both love and honor be rendered wholly to Him, from whom is all things to them as well as to us, whence we can honor, or love, whence we deserve to be loved and honored.

But how great a reverence we owe to the holy angels, the same mellifluous Doctor admirably explains on Psalm 90., sermon 12., where among other things he admonishes thus: In whatsoever lodging, in whatsoever corner, have reverence for thy angel: dare not thou, in his presence, what thou wouldst not dare before me seeing.

And in the first sermon on Saint Michaël he inculcates that we must hold the greatest reverence toward those most loving Tutelaries:

Consider how much solicitude we need, most beloved, that we may show ourselves worthy of their company, and that we may converse in that manner in the sight of the angels, lest perhaps we offend the sacred gaze. For you, if ever the angels provoked by our sins and negligences shall have judged us unworthy of their presence and visitation, so that already we must needs lament with the Prophet and say: my friends and my neighbors drew near and stood against me; and they who were near me stood afar off; and they exerted violence who sought my soul; too far removed are they whose presence could protect us and drive back the enemy.

But if we have so necessary a familiarity of angelic condescension, their offense must be avoided by us, and this exercised chiefly in those things wherein we know they take delight. For there are many things that please them, and that delight them to find in us: as sobriety, chastity, voluntary poverty, frequent groans toward heaven, and prayers with tears and intention of heart: yet above all these things, the angels of peace require of us unity and peace.

— How great gratitude we owe equally to those most blessed Guardians Bernard himself declares in the prefaced Sermon 12. on Psalm 90., where, after he had said: They are present therefore, and present to themselves, not only with themselves but also for themselves: they are present that they may profit: what shall I render to the Lord for all things that he hath rendered to me? he adds: Let us therefore be devout, let us be grateful to such great Guardians, let us love them again, let us honor them, as much as we can, as much as we ought: and the sequel, which he has cited above.

— Finally, they are to be invoked by our invocations and prayers as often as spiritual and corporal straits press upon us. For so did the most holy Patriarchs: above all indeed Jacob, who blessing the sons of Joseph said Genes. 48.: The angel who delivered me from all evils, bless these boys, by which words it is established that he invokes the angel as his protector. The same we read cap. 5. Job, where Eliphaz reproaching Job says: Call therefore, if there be any that answereth, and turn to some one of the Saints: where by the name of Saints he understands the blessed angels, as S. Augustine interprets in his Annotations on Job, who also thinks that that passage: Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, is said of the angels, according to what is said in the same Job chapter 33.: If there shall be an angel speaking for him, one of thousands, he shall pity him, and say, Deliver him, that he go not down into corruption. Which certainly is confirmed by that passage Oseae 12. where we read of Jacob the Patriarch that he prevailed over the angel, and was strengthened, he wept, and prayed to him: for so is explained that struggle which the same Patriarch had throughout the whole night with the angel Genes. 32. But when the angel asked him to let him go at dawn, he answered: I will not let thee go except thou bless me.

The same truth the holy Fathers teach, above all indeed saint Chrysostomus in his Liturgy, thus as he writes: Prince of the celestial militia, Michael, we ask thee now unworthy, that thou fortify us by thy intercessions. And more clearly lib. De Incomprehensibili Dei natura, speaking of the angels he says:

They pray for the human race, as if they said: For these we pray thee, Lord, whom thou hast loved so much that for their salvation thou didst undergo death, didst breathe forth thy soul on the cross; for these we supplicate, for whom thou thyself didst bestow thy blood; for these we pray, for whom thou didst immolate thy body, etc.

The same the Church performs, which in the sacred Canon of the Mass after the consecration prescribed these words to be pronounced by the Priest: Supplices te rogamus, omnipotens Deus, iube haec perferri per manus sancti Angeli tui in sublime altare tuum, in conspectu divinae maiestatis tuae. And that this plainly happened to a certain Priest of his time, the Blessed Climacus relates in the Speculo exemplorum, writing that when a certain Priest of his time had pronounced the aforesaid words while celebrating, immediately a great multitude of celestial spirits was present visibly, among whom one more illustrious in appearance and more sublime in majesty was seen to take the sacramental Host, and to present it to the divine gaze, then, when offered, with all the other angels congratulating with supreme reverence, to deposit it again upon the altar for the consummation of the sacrifice.

Hence saint Bernardus, in the sermon de triplici genere bonorum, devoutly admonishes: From the holy angels, he says, aid must be sought, that with hidden sighs and frequent tears they offer our prayers to that supereminent majesty, may bear back grace; because they are ministering spirits sent for us, that we may take possession of the inheritance of salvation. Which he certainly confirms in sermon 12. on Psalm. Qui habitat: As often therefore the gravest temptation is seen to press, and violent tribulation to impend, invoke thy Guardian Angel, thy Doctor, thy Helper in opportunities and tribulations, cry out to him, and say, Lord save us: we perish.

Thence it is no wonder if our Seraphic Father Franciscus, as S. Bonaventura says in his life, was joined to those angelic spirits with so great a bond of love, and venerated them so much, that out of devotion to them, from the assumption of the glorious Virgin, persisting he fasted forty days; but to the blessed Michael the Archangel, because he had the office of representing souls, he was more devoted with spiritual love, on account of the fervent zeal he had for the salvation of all to be saved.

Dices. Sanctus Paulus ad Coloss. 2. forbade every religious cult of angels, writing thus: Let no man seduce you, willing in humility and religion of angels, walking in the things which he hath not seen, in vain puffed up by the sense of his flesh. Whence Theodoretus, expounding these words of the following chapter, in which Paul exhorts: All things whatsoever you do in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; following this law, he says, the Synod of Laodicea, that it might bring a remedy to that old disease, decreed that supplication was not to be made to angels, nor was our Lord Jesus Christ to be abandoned: therefore, say the Calvinists, angels are not to be invoked.

— Nego consequentiam. for neither do the words of saint Paul and of the Council of Laodicea convey this sense: for what the Apostle wished, saint Chrysost. Homil. 6. in idem cap. explains openly: What, he says, do these words altogether mean? He answers: There were some saying: We ought not to have access to God through Christ, but through the angels; for that surpasses our capacity. Hence the Apostle everywhere strives to inculcate those things which he had said of Christ: Through the blood of his cross we are reconciled, and he suffered for us. Which same thing Theophylactus has: they asserted, he says, that it was unworthy of the majesty of the Only-begotten to bring us to the Father; and greater than for human weakness: Whence, they say, it is more consonant to reason to say that the angels served for our reconciliation. Against this cult of the angels they inveighed, and persuaded the simpler sort, that they should apply their mind to these, as to those who had saved us. Nor does Theodoretus shrink from this interpretation, for he says, These things pertain to the heresy of certain men: who, as if led by humility, since they assert that God invisible to all cannot be touched nor comprehended, hold that divine benevolence must be conciliated for themselves through the angels: he adds however that they had been accustomed to Jewish rites, and had boasted that the law was handed down through angels, and therefore seemed worthy of cult and veneration. Hence he subjoins, This disease, he says, lingered long in Phrygia and Pisidia: on whose account, a Synod held at Laodicea, a town of Phrygia, willed by law that angels be prayed to; even today oratories of saint Michael may be seen among them and their neighbors. By which it is clear that it was not Theodoretus' mind, as he willed that through the Synod of Laodicea the cult of angels had been proscribed, but only that those condemned heretics, who, Christ despised, employed angels as if principal and sole intercessors with God, as the last words in the objection set forth relate.

But what he mentions, that in those regions there are frequent oratories sacred to S. Michaël, does not pertain to condemning them, such as they were then celebrated with popular cult: but that it may be an indication that those peoples were most inclined to the veneration of the angels, because frequent oratories of saint Michael were in those places, which had been instituted long before; not indeed that superstitious honor was there paid to the angels, as those heretics afterward did, but that it might become manifest that the holy angels were held by the faithful in supreme veneration from the very beginnings of the Church itself.

But that such was also the judgment of Laodicea, it is clear from Canone 37. in which we read the constitution:

That Christians ought not to leave the Church of God, and go and name angels, and make Congregations, which are known to be forbidden. If anyone therefore be found serving this occult idolatry, let him be anathema, because he has left our Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, and delivered himself over to idolatry.

By which words it is perspicuous that every cult and invocation of angels is not prohibited; but only that one which pertains to the contempt of our Lord Jesus Christ, as those humble cultores of angels were doing. Moreover, that the veneration of the angels, and especially of saint Michaël, had grown widespread in the age of Theodoretus, and that frequent oratories in his honor had been instituted throughout the whole East, Sozomenus, contemporary of Theodoretus, testifies lib. 2. c. 3., where he reports the Michaëlia, that is, basilicas and oratories dedicated to saint Michaël, and the immense miracles wrought in them, whence Nicephorus lib. 7. cap. ult. By these things therefore it is established how slight are the grounds by which the Calvinists are led to upbraid us with the cult of angels.

Articulus III: De Angelorum peccatis, et poenis

Surely it is a wonder how the celestial gold has been obscured, how the finest color has been changed, how those precious stones have been scattered by which the heavenly Jerusalem was to be restored and made whole: I mean those rebellious angels, rebels against God, who, having emulated the divine equality together with their

Prince Lucifer, stripped of all the charisms with which they had been enriched from the beginning of their creation, fell from the sublime heights of the heavens into the depth of hell by an eternal and irrevocable fall. But it would be superfluous to discuss their nature in particular here, since it is not other than that of the holy Angels, as was declared openly enough in the first disputation at the beginning of this Treatise. Yet in addition I wish to warn the Reader here at the threshold that some of the holy Fathers of the Church have taught that the demons obtained a nature other than that of the holy Angels.

For first, most contend that they were clothed from the beginning with body and flesh. Thus especially was Justin Martyr of opinion, who, when he had said that God subjected earthly things to men, but attributed the providence of men and of all other things to the Angels, adds:

The Angels, moreover, having overstepped this order, were taken captive by intercourse with women, and begot sons, whom we call Demons: and moreover they afterward subjected the human race to themselves, partly by magical writings, partly by the terrors and punishments which they inflicted; partly by the institution of sacrifices, incense-offerings, and libations, of which they began to be in need, after they had subjected themselves like slaves to the perturbations of the passions.

By which words, although he signifies that all Angels are clothed with body, he nevertheless openly declares that the nature of the demons is other than that of the rest. His disciple Tatian holds the same in lib. contra Graecos, teaching that the demons are not endowed with flesh, but with very subtle bodies: The demons, he says, are not all endowed with flesh, but there is in them a spiritual concretion, as of fire and air: moreover, by those alone who are united to the Spirit of God can the bodies of the demons be perceived, etc.

— Origen approves the same opinion in lib. 3. contra Celsum, and moreover affirms that the demons are gluttons, and flit about the sacrifices and the blood and the vapors of the sacrifices; but that the good Angels are of a differing nature and purpose from all those demons who dwell on the earth.

Saint Basil teaches the same, or whoever is the Author of the commentary on the first chapter of Isaiah, where we read that for the demons, because of a nature appetitive of pleasures and subject to perturbations, the sacrifices, dissolving into vapor, bring a certain pleasure and use; that the blood, evaporated by burning and in this way rarefied, is taken up into their substance: for they are nourished wholly and in every part by vapors, not by chewing or by the office of the stomach, but just as the hair of all animals, and the nails, and other things of that kind receive nourishment into their whole substance. For this reason they seek after vapors, and vehemently crave the smoke of incense as their nutriment.

Chrysostom also subscribes, in Oration 2. on Saint Babylas: The demons, he says, when they are worshipped with vapor, smoke, and shed blood, run up like dogs devouring blood, and greedy to lick; but when there is no one who provides these things to them, they are killed as it were by a kind of famine.

Jerome also does not dissent, writing thus in Epistle 146. to Damasus: Such is the multitude of demons, which is fed through handmade idols on the blood of cattle and on victims.

— From this very argument Tertullian, in cap. 22. of the Apologeticum, demonstrates that the demons are unclean spirits: Which, he says, must be understood to arise from their feedings on blood and smoke and the putrid funeral pyres of cattle, and from their own most impure tongues.

Finally, Eusebius, in lib. 5. De Praeparatione Evangelica, confirms the same truth, affirming that the demons therefore lead men to frequent sacrifices and to venerate images, so that they may be fattened by the vapor of the offered victims. These, therefore, he says,

dwelling about the earth and its furrow, and wandering through that thick and gloomy terrestrial air, and banished into a dark and earthly habitation …, roaming about the sepulchres and monuments of the dead and all sordid and impure matter, delight in blood and gore, in the bodies of animals of every kind, and in the breath of the vapors and incense that flow from the earth.

— Nor does the opinion of Saint Augustine seem to have been other, although he appears wholly uncertain in determining whether the demons were formed from airy or from some other matter, for in 3. De Genesi ad litteram he writes thus: And these, he says, demons, are airy animals, since they thrive by the nature of airy bodies: and therefore they are not dissolved by death, because in them the element prevails which is more apt for acting than for suffering, etc. And a little after:

In which part perhaps (namely the highest and most pure part of the air) if the transgressors were before their transgression, together with their prince, now the devil, then the Archangel: for some of ours do not think that they were celestial or supercelestial Angels: it is no wonder if after sin they were thrust down into this darkness, etc.

Soon after: But if those transgressors, before they transgressed, bore celestial bodies, neither is this a wonder, if they were changed as a punishment into an airy quality, so that they may now suffer something from fire, that is, from the element of a higher nature.

But that opinion concerning a substantial change, which the aforesaid Fathers suppose to have been made in the Angels by their sinning, long prevailed among the Greeks; for in the Council of Florence we read that they said that the devil, and those who with him fell from the glory of God, almost received flesh,

and those who were devoid of matter have been made material in part: therefore they also run to material bodies, and rest in bodies: of which sort was he who said, Matth. 8. If you cast us out, Lord, permit us to enter into the herd of swine: and he permitted them, and the herd rushed into the precipice, and for that reason they also desire to dwell in human bodies; for in them they rest. Behold how in part they are carnal, and are to be afflicted with punishment, and the matter which they received will be burned up in fire for eternity. But the Angels are wholly devoid of matter, as those who can no longer fall; nor is there any matter in them.

But this opinion is utterly absurd, since in the first disputation of this Treatise we have sufficiently demonstrated that all Angels are wholly devoid of matter and body, and that the demons at the beginning obtained the same nature as the holy Angels, nor did they depart from it by sinning; wherefore, lest we retrace courses already trodden, I have judged that I should abstain from a repeated refutation of this opinion.

We undertake here, therefore, only to inquire into and resolve what the evil of the rebellious Angels was, and how great; and since the Angels generally incurred a twofold evil by sinning, and by turning themselves away from God, the unchangeable good, so that they turned themselves to their own good, namely the evil of guilt and of punishment; concerning both we shall have to treat in the following Questions, of which the First will disclose whether and in what way the Angels were able to sin: the Second, what the primary and capital sin of the Angels was: the Third, whether that sin is altogether inexpiable, and the demons are so obstinate in evil that they can in no way repent: the Fourth, what their punishment is, and in what way they are tormented by God, the avenger of crimes.

Quaestio I: An, et qualiter Angeli peccare potuerint

Three things above all come to be determined in the present Question: First, whether created angels could have been entirely impeccable; Second, whether they could have sinned in the first instant of their creation; Third, whether they sinned led by some necessity, or by fully free will; and so that these may be resolved more clearly,

Note 1. That no pure creature does in fact exist, or ever existed, impeccable by its nature, and intrinsically so; for every intellectual creature is either angelic or human; but it is certain that both were defiled by sin. Whence it is deservedly said in Job 4: Behold those who serve him are not steadfast, and he found perversity in his angels: how much more those who dwell in houses of clay! As if he would say, says S. Gregory there;

if those Spirits which are weighed down by no infirmity of flesh cannot be immutable, with what rashness do men think that they can remain steadfastly in good, whom, as to that in which intellect lifts them to the highest things, the burdening infirmity of flesh impedes, so that through the vice of corruption they have within themselves that from which they may grow old away from their inner newness!

The only difficulty, therefore, is whether by the absolute power of God there could be formed some rational creature which of itself, and by its nature, would be altogether indefectible.

For the resolution of which difficulty, two most opposed opinions obtain; the First of which contends that it is not repugnant for some rational creature to be impeccable from within. So thinks Ocham in book 1. dist. 44. q. unica art. 1., where he supposes that a man far more essentially perfect than the one who was created could exist, and consequently that such a one could have been produced impeccable by his nature. But there are those who derive the manner of this impeccability from the fact that they think some creature could be produced to whom the beatific vision would be connatural, which, they say, makes a man impeccable by his nature. There are also those who wish the manner of this impeccability to be deduced from the fact that it is not repugnant for a rational creature to be produced by God not free, but determined by necessity to one thing, and consequently unable to sin; since since it could not naturally be determined to evil, it follows that it would be formally determined to good by its nature. The Second opinion, however, denies that a creature can be produced which is intrinsically impeccable, both in natural matter and in supernatural, so that whether left to its nature, or raised to the supernatural order, it could sin.

Note 2. In truth the Angel was not a sinner in the first instant of his creation, since, as we taught above, all Angels were created in the state of sanctifying grace, whence in the Lateran Council under Innocent III it is determined that the devil, and the other demons were indeed created good in nature by God, but made themselves evil by their own act. And in the Fourth Council of Carthage cap. 4., among the other dogmas of faith to be asked of him who is created Bishop, one is whether he believes that the devil was made evil not by condition, but by will. Hence Origen homily on Ezechiel: The Serpent, he says of the devil, was not always a serpent; first indeed created good by God, but made a demon by the own perversity of his will. To this S. Chrysostom accords on the patience of Job: The devil, he says, was not made a devil from the beginning, but an Angel was created. To these accords saint Augustine in many places, especially book 1. De nuptiis et concupiscentiis cap. 23.: The devil, he says, is an unclean spirit, certainly because he is a spirit by nature, unclean by vice: that he is a spirit, is good; and evil, that he is unclean: of which two the former is from God, this from himself. Whence in the book De Civit. c. 13. he says: Nor is even the nature of the devil itself evil, insofar as it is nature; but perversity makes it evil.

— This truth also can be strengthened by reason: for if the demons had been created evil, they would not seem worthy of punishment on account of such evil; for in those things which are from nature, no one is to be judged worthy either of reward or of punishment: then because it would follow that God is the principal Author of such malice: (for indeed he who gives the form gives naturally the consequences consequent upon the form: but that formal malice would follow upon such a nature, as is supposed: therefore it would proceed principally from the Author of such a nature:) then finally because God himself in Genesis 1. approved all the works founded by him as perfect, and good: For God saw all things that he had made, and they were very good. Add that for the assertion of this truth the words of the Apostle Jude suffice, saying: The angels who did not keep their principality, but left their own habitation, have been reserved unto the judgment of the great day in everlasting chains under darkness. They are not, therefore, evil by nature, but have been made so by their own will.

It remains, therefore, to determine whether the Angels in the first instant of their creation could truly have sinned. The Thomists deny this with the Angelic Doctor, prima parte q. 63. art. 5. The Subtle Doctor, however, affirms it in book 2. dist. 5. q. 2. n. 13.

Note 3. That since the Angels could not have been good without free will and its right use with the aid of grace, God not only founded the Angels endowed with liberty, but also infused into them grace whereby they might persevere in good if they willed, so that according to S. Augustine lib. 12. De Civit. Dei, cap. 9. he simultaneously founded in them nature and infused grace. For there was not, as we said, reason why the conferring of grace should be deferred, which was necessary to them for attaining the end for which they were created, and toward which they ought to tend. Yet that grace, although it brought them great light of intellect, nevertheless did not so determine the will to good that they would will and do only what it was just for them to will and do. Therefore it was given to them to persevere if they willed, but not to will to persevere: which would plainly have followed, if God had operated in them and willed to bring it to completion. S. Augustine explains this excellently in the book De correptione et gratia cap. 10.:

Most wholesomely, he says, we confess*, what we believe most rightly, that God, the Lord of all things, who created all things very good, and foresaw that evils would arise from goods, and knew that it pertains more to his most omnipotent goodness even to bring good out of evils, than not to permit evils to be: so ordered the life of angels and men, that in it he might first show what free will could do, then what the benefit of his grace and the judgment of justice could do. Finally certain angels, whose prince is he who is called the devil, were made fugitives from the Lord God by free will: yet fleeing, they could not escape his goodness, by which they were blessed, > nor his judgment, by which they were made most miserable. The rest, however, stood in the truth by that same free will.

By which words S. Augustine openly teaches that all Angels, both good and evil, were from the beginning endowed with the fullest liberty, and that the evil ones were turned away from God most freely: but that the good ones stood in truth and observance by their own will strengthened and illumined by actual grace. Whether, however, the demons went astray by some persuading and morally impelling cause to sin, will here have to be determined.

First conclusion. — In truth no rational creature can be produced which by its nature, and intrinsically, is impeccable. So the Doctor in book 2. dist. 23. q. unica num. 6., where he says: I say therefore, to the question, that such a nature cannot be made, or will, which is impeccable by nature: because the authorities of the Saints are express on this point.

He proves the conclusion, therefore, first by the authority of S. Jerome, Epistle 118. near the end, where, weighing those words of Ps. 142. No living being shall be justified in thy sight, he says:

He does not say every man, but every living being, that is, not the Evangelist, not the Apostle, not the Prophet: I ascend to greater things, not the Thrones, not the Dominations, not the Powers, nor the rest of the Virtues: God alone is he into whom sin does not fall; the rest, since they are of free will, can bend their will in either direction.

S. Augustine teaches the same opinion in book 3. contra Maximinum cap. 12., where from those words of 1. to Timothy 6. in which it is said of God, Who alone has immortality, he concludes that God also alone has impeccability; for men and angels die in some way by sinning: And all, he says, who have not sinned, could have sinned, and to whatever rational creature it is granted that it cannot sin, this is not of its proper nature, but of the grace of God. — S. Gregory declares the matter expressly in book 5. Moral. cap. 27. The Angelic nature, he says, even if by contemplating its Author in adhering to him it remains immutably in its state; yet by that very fact that it is a creature, it has within itself vicissitude of mutability. But S. Anselm defines the matter most evidently of all in book 2. Cur Deus homo cap. 10., where to the Disciple asking him why God could not make a creature impeccable by nature, he answers: Because he could not make it God: therefore (the Doctor subjoins) no creature can be impeccable unless it be God, or assumed by the Word.

The Doctor proves the same truth by a twofold argument; the first of which he forms thus: every will which can appetate its own advantage, and rightly not appetate it, can sin: but there is no created will, nor creatable, which cannot appetate its own advantage, and rightly not appetate it: therefore likewise there is none which is not defectible. The major stands: for by that very fact that the will, in appetating its own advantage, can omit the affect of justice and rectitude, or not appetate that advantage on account of an honest end prescribed by God, it can sin; for sin is nothing else than the lack of rectitude due to an act. The Doctor proves the minor: every will in which those two things are not necessarily joined, namely, to appetate advantage, and to appetate it rightly: can appetate that good advantage rightly, and not rightly: but in no created will can those be necessarily joined; namely, that in appetating its own good advantage, it necessarily appetates it rightly: for no will besides the divine appetates rightly formally from the fact that it appetates: therefore, etc. The Major is plain: for if those two things are not necessarily connected, namely, to appetate advantage, and to appetate it rightly, it is evident that the will will be able to appetate advantage good for itself, and not appetate it rightly. The Doctor proves the Minor: every created will, just as it can appetate advantage for itself, so can it appetate it in a manner not fitting to itself according to the divine ordination; for it could will that advantage in such a way that it would appear to itself to be a greater advantage: so it could appetate and will supreme beatitude, the supreme and greatest of all; because it is better to have supreme beatitude than to have it in a remiss degree: but that appetitus would not be conformable to the divine ordination: because by the prescription of God beatitude must be commensurated to merits: therefore there is no created will which cannot of itself will something against the will of God; and accordingly there is none which cannot sin. — He confirms it: every will which is not its own rule, nor is necessarily conformis to its rule, can fall short of its rectitude: but every created will, if left to its nature, neither is its own rule, nor conformis to its rule: therefore, etc. The major stands: for surely every will which neither is its own rule, nor is conformis to its rule, will without doubt be able to be difform to it; and therefore will not be right, nor accordingly have due rectitude in its acts, and hence will sin: since sin, as we soon said, is nothing else than the lack of due rectitude in acts freely elicited by the will. The minor also is evident; for no created will can be its own rule, since it necessarily has a will superior to itself, namely the divine, on which it depends, and by which it must be regulated: nor is it necessarily conformis to it; inasmuch as it is supposed free, and therefore can will something against the divine will, or at least will in another manner, and another thing on account of an end: therefore, etc.

Proof 2. Every will which is not satiated by love of any object, and which has not necessarily, but by proposal, the infinite good by which it can be satiated, can whenever it pleases cease from any object whatsoever which it loves, and love some objects not in order to that infinite satiating good: but no created will is of itself satiated by love of any object; nor does it have proposed to it necessarily the infinite good always by which alone it can be satiated: therefore every created will can when it pleases cease from love of any object whatsoever which it loves, and love some objects without relation of them to the infinite satiating object: but every will which can do this can sin; because it can cease from love of some object, even when it would be commanded: therefore every created will can sin, and consequently none is of itself impeccable. He notes also that by this reasoning the second and third proof of Alexander of Hales can be confirmed.

This conclusion could be proven further; because to that extent a non-sinnable rational will could be given; either because it would be determined by its nature to pursue any good proposed, such that it would not be free to it to cease from pursuit: or because it would be determined to honest good as such, such that it could not pursue any good other than honest good, although from those very honest goods it could by its freedom choose this before that, just as the will of the Blessed is de facto determined.

But neither of these can be said. Not the first, because then the will would not be free: and moreover, because if it were determined to any good proposed, it ought also to be determined in the same manner to flee any evil proposed: but this is inconvenient: because it would follow that the intellect ought not to have the power of proposing simultaneously good, and evil, nor two goods toward which the will could not tend simultaneously, or two evils; since, inasmuch as the will would be determined to one, the other would be proposed in vain simultaneously, and such a faculty of the intellect would be given in vain. Nor yet the second; because it is absurd that there be any appetite which cannot tend toward any good of its own: but it is impossible that there could be any created will which could not have a good other than the honest: for it is impossible that there be any vital power which does not have some delectable object: therefore it is impossible that it be determined solely to honest good intrinsically by its own nature.

You will say 1. God can make a body which cannot be disordered from its motion, as is the heaven, which naturally cannot be moved otherwise than it is in fact moved: therefore he can make a spirit which cannot be disordered from its motion, and consequently it will be impeccable. — The Doctor answers, denying the antecedent, if we speak of a body according to its intrinsic nature: for without doubt any body whatsoever can be impeded from any motion, at least divinely, and moved by a motion wholly distinct, and opposed. Then, although the antecedent were true, the consequence can be denied: for there is the difference that such a body, since it is devoid of liberty, and cannot be partaker of fault as the will is, could not even be disordered in its motion by a culpable disorder: but not so the will, which since it is endowed with free will, and can have motion not only about one object but also about another, does not need necessarily to have one over the other, and consequently if only motion toward one of them, as toward honest good, be a right and ordered motion of it, it will be able to be disordered from that motion by having another motion toward advantageous good not honest, which motion is inordinate.

You will say 2. God can make some will which tends necessarily toward some good, for instance toward an end; therefore he will be able to make it that such a will tend toward everything ordered to that end: therefore, etc. The antecedent is plain through Aug. book 13. De Trinit. cap. 3., who says, That all will beatitude necessarily. The consequence is proven, because with the same necessity by which something tends toward an end, it tends toward those things which are toward the end. — The Doctor answers, first according to his principles, that a created will does not tend necessarily toward the end shown to it; neither in particular, nor in universal: therefore he denies the antecedent with its proof. — He answers secondly according to the common opinion, granting the antecedent, denying the consequence: for the account is different concerning the last end, and the means ordered to it; for in the last end, since it is infinite good, there is most perfect goodness attracting the will to love of it, but there is not such an account of good in the means ordered to it. The Doctor adds that although such a will would tend necessarily toward the end, it would not thence follow that it ought to tend toward the means in the due mode, and consequently it does not thence follow that it cannot sin.

You will say 3. To be able to sin according to S. Anselm is not liberty nor a part of it: therefore true liberty can exist without the power of sinning: and accordingly God will be able to produce some will altogether impeccable.

The Doctor answers first, explaining S. Anselm, and distinguishing the antecedent: to be able to sin, that is, to be able to produce that act by which one is sinful, or the privation in which the formal account of the sin itself is supposed to consist, grants the antecedent: to be able to sin, that is, to be able to produce the sin itself in that instant in which one is sinful, denies the antecedent: and similarly he distinguishes the first consequence, and denies the second consequence.

The Doctor answers secondly, distinguishing the antecedent otherwise: to be able to sin is not so of the essence of liberty even created, that the concept of liberty cannot be had without the concept of such a power, grants: because one can consider the power as able to choose one good over another at its pleasure, and this concept is of it as it is free, and sufficiently distinctive of it from natural power: to be able to sin is not of the essence of created liberty of itself, such that it would not belong by its intrinsic nature to any created free power: denies the antecedent.

You will say 4. God can make a will impeccable by grace, and glory, as is plain in the Blessed, and those confirmed in grace: therefore also by nature: because God can communicate to some creature every finite perfection altogether, identifying it really to her: but that perfection which the state of beatitude has, of confirmation in grace, by reason of which the will becomes impeccable, is a finite perfection: therefore he can identify it to the will: but the will to which it were identified would without doubt be as impeccable as the will of the Blessed, and of one confirmed in grace.

It is confirmed. that what does not repugn to some creature can be co-created with it, and consequently can be connatural to it: but grace, and charity are not opposed to rational creature: therefore they can be connatural to it.

I answer first. by denying the major: for, as we said in the Disputation on the Beatific Vision, there is no creatable spiritual substance to which the beatific Vision would be connatural. The same must be said of grace and charity, and shortly afterwards the confirmation too must be denied.

The Doctor answers secondly. by denying the consequence together with the major of his proof: for God cannot bring it about that any substance, e.g., should have formal heat identified with itself, or that any created intellect should have intellection or the beatific Vision: hence although He could make an intellect more perfect to infinity, yet He could never make it so that any finite thing would really be grace, or that an intellect would be intellection.

You will say 5. A created will is impeccable in the first instant of its creation: because for that instant it has the natural rectitude given to it by God, and a natural motion, and consequently one naturally and necessarily right: but God can conserve a creature for any other instant in the same state in which it was first formed: therefore it could always be impeccable of itself.

The Doctor answers first. by denying the antecedent, whose falsity will be evident from the following Conclusion. The Doctor answers secondly. according to the doctrine of St. Thomas, by denying that that creature ought to be conserved in subsequent instants in the same state in which it was in the first, because for other instants it connaturally requires having operations imputable to itself from itself, and not necessarily imputable to God: but in the first instant all its operations are necessarily imputed to God; consequently, according to that opinion, it cannot have an evil operation for the first instant.

You will say finally. It does not imply a contradiction that a created will be determined necessarily to following the dictate of reason, and therefore God can produce such a will: for whatever does not imply a contradiction can be done by God: but a will following the dictate of reason necessarily is impeccable of itself: therefore, etc. The minor is evident. The major is proved: the voluntary appetite can be determined to the dictate of reason whether right or erroneous, just as the sensitive appetite is determined to the dictate of formal or virtual sense: therefore there can be an appetite determined to the dictate of reason, such that it could not go against the dictate of reason, and yet could freely tend toward diverse objects according to the dictate of reason; namely, when reason dictated several goods and did not prefer one to another, then the will could freely choose one of these and let go another, nor would it sin in this; since indeed it would not act against the dictate of reason.

I deny the major. and to its proof I say that in that case neither the will nor the dictate of reason would have the perfect ratio of will and dictate; just as, for example, if God concurred with someone's intellect only for understanding goods, and not for understanding evils; then the will would necessarily will goods and not evils: yet that determination of the will would not be from within, but from without; but the present question concerns the determination of the will from within.

Second conclusion. — The angel was able to sin in the first instant. So the Doctor in 2. dist. 5. q. 2. num. 13. I hold, therefore, he says, that he could in the first instant have a perfect volitive power, and was not limited to right operation: for he did not have in the second instant any more determining principle than in the first: therefore, etc.

This reasoning of the Doctor can be elucidated thus: a power which can have a perfect operation, and is not limited nor determined necessarily to right operation, can have a non-right operation: but the angel in the first instant of his creation had a perfect volitive power; and therefore he could have a perfect volition; and he was not limited nor determined to right operation: therefore in that instant he could operate non-rightly, and consequently sin. The consequence is most good, with an evident major. I prove the minor: because the will of the angel in the first instant did not have any greater determination than in the second; since it has nothing real and intrinsic in the first which it does not have in the second: therefore, etc.

Secondly. The will in the first instant of creation, prior in nature to sinning, could have all the conditions required for acting and eliciting a sinful act: therefore it truly could sin for that instant. The antecedent is proved: no other conditions are desired for sinning than knowledge of the object under the ratio of a good that is useful or delectable, and prohibited, and the negation of every impediment: but all those things can be in the first instant. Proof: those things which are in the second instant can be in the first apart from the respect to pre-existing being. but that respect contributes nothing at all to the matter: therefore what is required for sinning in the second instant can be in the first.

Proof 3. The angel in the first instant could merit and have everything required for meriting: indeed, as the Thomists confess, they in fact merited: therefore also to sin and to have all the prerequisites for sinning: both because the reason is entirely the same; and because if he could not sin, he could not merit, since whatever prevents him from being able to sin prevents him from being able to merit: indeed more is required for meriting than for demeriting: for to merit is a certain perfect good, but to demerit is an evil: whereas good comes from an integral cause, and evil from any defect whatsoever.

It is confirmed. Hence if the angel had not had in the first instant what was necessary for sinning, it would be because he would not have been perfectly and completely free: but he was sufficiently free so as to be able to sin. Proof: in order that the angel in the instant of his creation could have sinned, it suffices that he was free with the liberty of contradiction and of exercise: but he had at least this liberty in the first instant of creation: therefore he could have sinned in it. Proof of the major: the angel in the first instant of his creation was bound by divine precept to elicit an act of love of God above all things: but since he was free as to exercise with respect to the aforementioned love, he could then not love, or omit that love, especially since God could then deny him efficacious help for eliciting it: for the conferral of this help was not owed to him, but entirely liberal and gratuitous: therefore then the angel could sin at least by the sin of omission: for to be able to sin by the sin of omission is to be able not to elicit the act to which one is bound by precept, or to be able to omit that act.

The Thomists reply with Cajetan. That the angel in the first instant could not omit the act: because, the precept remaining on the part of God concerning the eliciting of such an act by the angel, e.g., that conversion be made to God, there was impressed upon him by the Author of nature a judgment: which indeed could only be a true practical judgment about doing what is commanded by God: and accordingly the will could not act contrariwise, nor cease from the act; and yet was no less free on that account. This they explain by the example of Christ the Lord, who with respect to the act falling under precept was free as to exercise: and yet could not sin: whence although he could elicit that act with antecedent power, and in the divided sense, nevertheless not with consequent power, and in the composite sense. They add that the angels in the first instant could incur the omission of the act, but not the sin of omission: because although they could omit such an act, insofar as omission is a pure negation of the opposite act, nevertheless not as it is the privation of the said act, as of something owed and commanded by God.

Against this, first. this response supposes as certain that a pure culpable omission is not possible, which nevertheless is disputed among theologians: very many of whom affirm that the simple omission of that precept which one is bound to fulfill is sinful: since indeed at that time when the precept obliges to loving God, e.g., or to hearing the sacred rite on Sunday, one can, by reason of some culpable negligence, be merely negatively disposed regarding that act, so that he elicits no act of will by which he positively wills not to love God or to be present at the sacred rite; which negligence will be altogether culpable, seeing that for omission to be a sin it is enough that the negligence be voluntary; moreover, for the negligence to be voluntary in this way it suffices that the will can and is bound to avoid it, by exciting the intellect to an act of solicitude opposed to it, and yet does not avoid it: but for this an act of will is not necessary whereby the negligence itself is willed: for St. Thomas, 2. quaest. 54. says, That negligence arises from a certain remission of the will, through which it happens that reason is not solicitous to perceive those things which it ought, or in the manner in which it ought. And consequently for culpable negligence no act of will is required whereby it be willed.

Then, if the will of the angel could not suspend such an act of conversion to God, it follows that it was necessitated to positing it: therefore in positing that act the angelic will was not free, nor was that act voluntary, and consequently it could not be meritorious: but this consequent they themselves, the Adversaries, deny as false; wherefore they must confess that that act was free, and shortly afterwards could have become sinful through the omission of its production. But as to the example of Christ the Lord, which they adduce in confirmation of their response, I say it is not to the purpose, seeing that Christ the Lord could not sin either in the first or in any other instant of his life: both because he was the first and prince of those confirmed in grace: and because he was gifted with the intuitive vision of God: and finally because he had his humanity united hypostatically to the Word: but the angel in the first instant of his creation enjoyed none of these privileges: therefore from the privileges of Christ, and from his impeccability, the impeccability of the angel in the first instant is not rightly inferred.

You will say 1. If the angel were to sin in the first instant of his creation, such a sin would be attributed specially to God as Author and Mover; but it implies an absurdity for sin to be attributed to God: therefore also that the angel sins in the first instant of creation. The minor is evident. The major is proved: the first operation, which begins with the very being of a thing, is attributed to the productive cause of the thing itself; for on this account the motion of heavy and light bodies to their natural place, or center, is said to inhere in them from the generator, because that motion begins with their being; for immediately they are moved and exist, especially if they are produced outside their natural place. Secondly, the same is suggested by the example of the leg (shin), which if it be born curved and immediately begin to limp, that limping is traced back to the weakness of the generating principle. Thirdly, on this account the motion of the heart in animals is attributed to the generator, because it begins together with the animals themselves. But the reason of all these is, because the operation which begins with the being of the produced thing is like a certain corollary following upon its nature, and so ought to proceed from the Agent and Author of that being; whence that common saying: he who gives being gives also the consequences of being. They confirm it from this, that an operation proceeding from a nature according to the inclination accepted from the Author of nature ought to be attributed to the Author of that nature; for to be moved upward is inherent in fire from the generator, because it is according to the inclination which it has from the generator toward the place above: but an operation, which begins simultaneously with the being of a thing, proceeds from a nature according to the inclination accepted from the Author of nature: therefore it ought to be attributed to the Author of that nature. They prove the minor: when a thing begins to be, it has no other inclination and disposition besides that which it receives from the Author of nature: therefore if in that instant it operates, it is necessary that it operate according to the inclination instilled into it by the Author of nature. — The Doctor denies the major in the place cited above n. 4. First, because according to St. Augustine, book 11. De Civitate Dei c. 3. Those who say the angels were evil from the beginning do not agree with the Manichaeans, who posited that one god was evil was the immediate cause of evil, and another the immediate cause of good: but they would have to hold this if the angels in the first instant of their formation could not be evil and sinners without their sin being thrown back upon God: therefore from St. Aug., even if the angels had sinned in the first instant of their creation, their sin for that reason would not have to be attributed to God. Secondly, the defect of a secondary cause in acting, for whatever instant in which it acts, is not to be attributed to God, but to the secondary cause itself, although it cannot act except with the concurrence of God himself; but the defect which would inhere in the sinful act of the angel sinning in the first instant would be the defect of the angel himself: therefore it would have to be ascribed not to God but to the angels themselves. Thirdly, to that extent would angelic sin in the first instant be thrown back upon God as into the cause of that sin, inasmuch as God for that instant would produce the will, and infuse into it all the principles through whose mediation it could sin, as well as the conditions without which it would not sin: namely, the application of objects, and motion: but if on this account God would have to be called the author of sin, by equal right all sins committed in subsequent instants would have to be thrown back upon him: since it is the very same one who formed the will that sins, and physically concurs with it toward the sinful act, as well as with the object moving it, and with the other causes inducing the sinful act: therefore much more would he have to be called the author of the sin committed in those subsequent instants: which, however, since to assert it is an execrable blasphemy, by equal right neither would he have to be called the author of the sin that occurs in the first instant. Finally, this argument the Doctor turns back upon the Adversaries themselves n. 8. namely, that if the angels could not sin in the first instant without their whole sin being thrown back upon God as its unique author; neither could they merit in that instant; because, they say, the angel could not demerit in the first instant for this reason, that every operation which he has in the first instant is of God producing it, and consequently not his own: but a sinful operation ought to be his own proper act: but a meritorious operation ought no less to be his own proper act than a sinful one: therefore if the operation which he has in the first instant is of God, and consequently not proper to him; it follows that it cannot be meritorious; which since the Adversaries do not admit, neither ought they to admit the other. From these things, therefore, it is established that the major of that argument is false, upon which the opinion of the Adversaries chiefly relies. Whence formally: I deny the antecedent of that proof, and to its first confirmation I say, that the motion of heavy and light bodies is attributed to the generator no otherwise than because he gives them being; for the descent of a produced stone in the middle of the air, e.g., which in the first instant of its formation would fall to the earth, would be no different from its descent during subsequent instants: whence just as the descent in subsequent instants is attributed to the generator no otherwise than because by producing the stone he instilled into it that heaviness which is the immediate principle of that descent: so it would not be unfitting that, by parity of reason, the evil operation of the will be attributed to God both in the first and in subsequent instants solely from this, that he instilled into the rational creature a free will, which will is the immediate and per se principle of the sinful act. It is confirmed. because according to the adversaries, just as the descent of the stone in the first instant is attributed to the generative cause, so it is attributed to the same in other instants: therefore if the same holds of the descent of the stone and of the evil operation of the will, as that operation would be ascribed to God in the first instant, so also in other instants: especially if there were no other causes besides the will from which it might arise in subsequent instants: which since it is absurd, as even the Adversaries confess, they must admit that that example is not to the purpose. Nor does the example of the leg help more: for I concede that its curvature ought to be ascribed to the generative cause, and not to the leg itself; but I deny that the same must be said of all the perfections or imperfections which the creature could acquire for itself by its own proper operation in the first instant of production; for the disparity is very great; because the leg itself does not have the power of producing curvature in itself, and on that account that curvature must be referred back to another cause; but the will has the power of producing in itself an evil operation; and therefore recourse must not be had to another cause. Add that the rectitude of the other leg does not proceed efficiently from the leg itself, but from the generative cause and other circumstances: therefore if there ought to be parity between the limping leg and the will sinning in the first instant; there ought also to be some parity between the leg walking rightly and the will operating well in the first instant: and accordingly just as the rectitude of the leg does not proceed from the leg itself, so neither in the first instant could good operations proceed from the will, which no theologian will admit. The same must be said a pari of the other things they bring forward.

You will say 2. The angel does not have the first willing from himself, but from another: but the angel cannot sin by a willing had from another, and not from himself: therefore his first volition cannot be sinful. The major is proved from St. Anselm, De casu diaboli cap. 13. where he says: If he has the first willing from himself, then either he wills it willingly, or unwillingly: If willingly, therefore that is not the first willing; If unwillingly, the same follows, because before that willing he willed it not: therefore he willed it not to be: therefore he willed something. Therefore the sin which would be in the first instant could not be from the will; and consequently it would have to be from God: which since it cannot come to pass, it follows that the will of the angel cannot be sinful in the first instant.

The Doctor denies the major n. 5. For just as the angel can have the second willing from himself, so he could have the first willing from himself: otherwise there would follow a process to infinity: for, says the Doctor,

I ask from whom he first had willing. Either from himself, through another volition, or without another volition. If without another volition, therefore the will can have from itself a first volition without another: If through another, therefore it must have that other through another, and that again through still another, and thus there will necessarily be a process to infinity.

Whence, as to the authority of St. Anselm, the Doctor says that by the volition which ought to precede the first willing of the angel, St. Anselm understands the will itself in act, which the angel must have from God, on the supposition that he himself could not produce it in himself: which supposition perhaps Anselm makes for the sake of argument. But it is certain that a volition cannot be produced except by a preceding will, and therefore volition must presuppose a will. But if St. Anselm meant something else, he would have to be denied in this matter, seeing that that opinion does not square with philosophical and theological principles. — But to his discourse I respond that the angel has the first willing not through another willing or nilling, but through the very first willing itself: just as a pari the efficient cause has its first action not through another action, or negation of action, but through the very first action itself, whatever it may be. Add that, if the angel could not sin in the first instant because he could not have the first willing from himself; it would follow also that he could not sin in subsequent instants. For I ask from whom in other instants he would have that first sinful willing. If from himself, therefore the same can be said of the first instant: if from another: therefore since, the adversaries say, the first volition which he has in the first instant cannot be sinful, because it is from another, the same follows in any other instant whatsoever.

You will say 3. If the angel were to sin in the first instant, he would sin necessarily; and thus he would sin and not sin: but this is absurd: therefore, etc. The consequence of the major is clear: because if he sinned in the first instant, he could not not-sin: therefore he sinned necessarily, and accordingly since sin must be free, it follows that he sinned, as is supposed, and that he did not sin, because he sinned not freely, but necessarily. But this consequence is proved, namely that if he sinned, he sinned necessarily: because if he could not-sin, it would be either by power before the act, or by power with the act. Not the first, because the angel was not before that instant which is supposed to be the first of his formation. Not even the second, because in the very first instant in which he sinned he could not not-sin; and therefore by that power he could not not-sin: therefore he sinned necessarily. —

The Doctor denies the first consequence n. 6. To whose proof he says, that the will of the angel sinning in the first instant truly could not-sin by power before the act; not indeed by priority of time, but of nature; because the will itself of itself, as conceived prior to the sinful act which it produces, is indifferent and capable of producing or not producing that act; but that it is not necessary that a cause or faculty precede its effect or operation by priority of time, but that priority of nature suffices for both, the Doctor demonstrates: because otherwise there would follow, first, that God himself could not freely will anything from eternity; likewise that a rational creature could not will freely in the first instant, and accordingly it would follow that the angels could not have merited in the first instant of their formation; which nevertheless the adversaries do not admit.

You will say 4. The angel in the first instant could not have deliberation sufficient for sinning: therefore neither could he sin in it. The antecedent is proved: for deliberating several cognitions are desired; for one must perceive various objects and detect in them a varied ratio of amiability or aversion, so that the will pursue one rather than another: but in the first instant the angel could not have various cognitions: therefore neither deliberate. —

The Doctor denies the antecedent n. 7. and likewise the minor of its proof: because for sinning no other cognition is required than that by which the object is known to be a good by useful or delectable goodness; or that it be prohibited: but it is certain that the angel could have such a cognition for the first instant as easily as for any subsequent instant whatsoever. Add that greater deliberation is not required for sinning than for meriting: therefore since in the first instant the angel could have sufficient deliberation for meriting, he could also have sufficient deliberation for sinning.

You will say 5. No one can sin unless he be a debtor of justice: but in the first instant the angel was not a debtor of justice; because according to St. Anselm cited above c. 12. and 14. the angel in the first instant did not receive justice: therefore he could not sin. The major stands, because justice and sin are opposed as habit and disposition: therefore sin privates justice: but it cannot private justice unless justice be owed, and consequently unless the sinner ought to have justice. —

The Doctor denies the major n. 11. and to its proof he says, that if the angel in that first instant was not a debtor of justice, because he did not receive it, it would follow, he says, that one existing always in mortal sin would never be a debtor of justice, because he never received it: therefore of this justice the argument has no force: similarly not of acquired justice either, for that can be admitted in the elicited acts of justice: nor would he who never was just be morally bound to act justly, if he were not a debtor of justice; because he never received it.

And although the demons at the beginning of their creation were able to sin, it is certain nevertheless that they in truth did not sin in that prior instant. For they stood in grace for some time, but did not persevere in it long; for Christ the Lord says, John VIII. 44: He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth. Whence St. Jude says the demons did not keep their principality. They had, therefore, a principality, that is, grace, by which they could have persevered in the received gifts and divine charisms, if they had willed. But their own perversity was the reason that they quickly lacked both holiness and felicity, to which they were ordered. *

Third conclusion. — Lucifer induced the other angels to sin, and was the cause of their rebellion and fall.

This is the more common opinion of the theologians, which the Seraphic Doctor hands down in book 2, dist. 5, art. 2, quaest. 1 and 2. For in the first Question he speaks thus:

It must be noted that the pride of the demons was conformed to the head, the prince of the whole militia, namely of darkness: for the devil himself, attending to the strength, excellence, and pre-eminence of his natural gifts, wished to preside and to rest upon his own authority, that is, without merits and without ministry. But the demons subject to him did not dare to desire so much, but considering the strength of their natural gifts, they wished to rest under his shadow, so that they would not minister, but might enjoy under him a certain voluntary liberty, which they saw they could not have under the divine dominion. Now the angels knew they were made to attain the blessedness of quietude, and to acquire it through merits and ministries: therefore they sinned by pride, because without merits they wished to be blessed, and to rest without ministry, and to fulfill their own will without limit; and all this is to be proud; although it is not a pride so great as was that of desiring to excel over all and be subject to none.

— But in the second Question he explains how the first angel's sin had a certain pre-eminence above the sins of the other angels.

For there was there an order, he says, both with respect to degree, and with respect to occasion, and with respect to duration. With respect to degree, because that of Lucifer was greater: > with respect to occasion, because he furnished the example to others: with respect to duration, because just as it was necessary for Lucifer, before sinning, to have knowledge in time beforehand, since he could not in the same instant have the cognition which is required for sin together with a disordered affection: so in the lesser angels they say there was a delay in sinning, and when they sinned by looking at what the angel willed, and thereafter by looking at his own advantage.

But the Conclusion is proved from various passages of Scripture: first indeed S. Jerome gathers from Ezechiel 31.: All the trees of pleasure, which were in Paradise, emulated him,¹ that the congregation of the damned angels fell through the suggestion of Lucifer. For to emulate is nothing else than to imitate; and so if those words are applied metaphorically to the angels, they signify very well that the inferiors imitated Lucifer by sinning. S. Aug., from Matthew 25.: Depart, you cursed, into eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. But the devil, he says, is called the one who was the cause or incentive of sinning to others: therefore one of those angels was a devil among the sinning angels: and consequently he who said, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, was a devil among the angels. — But it is proved especially from Apocalypse 12., where it is said:

There was a great battle in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon: and the dragon fought and his angels, and they prevailed not, nor was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, the old serpent, the devil, Satan, who seduces the whole world:

therefore there was someone who first sinned among all the sinners, and induced others to sin and seduced them. The antecedent is proved: there was some ancient dragon among the sinners: therefore there was some first sinner. The inference is evident, because if all had sinned at once, none would have been older than another.

To these is added that a seducer ought to precede the seduced, and first be baited with the deadly virus before he pours it into others. — All those texts of Scripture confirm these points, in which various names are attributed to the prince of the demons, from which it is easy to gather that he preceded others in rebellion, and was the author to them of perfidy and of rebellion against God. For whoever he was, he is called by antonomasia the devil, and Satan, and perhaps is named by his proper name Beelzebub, prince of the demons. Hence Matthew 25.: those who will hold the left hand at the last judgment will be banished into eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels. Likewise John 12. v. 31., he is called the prince of the world. And 1. Corinth. 2. v. 7., the prince of this world. Wherefore Christ the Lord, John 8. v. 44., speaking of the devil as of one singular individual, says: He was a murderer and a liar from the beginning. Whence one may gather among the demons the same thing that existed among those before the ruin, a difference of order and dignity, whether it arose from the dissimilar and unequal excellence of nature, or from the ordination of God, or from voluntary submission, whereby those falling away from God subjected themselves to that apostate angel as their chief, and suffered themselves to be reduced into order. — Origen confirms this in the preface to the books periarchon, or On First Principles, where he writes: about the devil and his angels, and the contrary powers, the ecclesiastical preaching has decreed that they exist indeed, but what they are, or how they are, it has not explained clearly enough. Among very many, however, this opinion prevails, that an angel was that devil, and after he became such, when he had persuaded very many of the angels to decline with him, who even now are called his angels. *

This same truth the holy Fathers teach, both Greek and Latin; the Greeks indeed, and especially Caesarius, brother of Gregory Nazianzen, in Dialogue 1.: The author of evil, he says, the devil, turned toward malice, drawing with him many of the angels to defection, changed not by nature but by will, led them on by suggestion; who received an appellation suited to his deed. Likewise saint Chrysostom on Psalm 14.: One citizen there, he says, like a lodger, stirred up sedition, and was cast out as an alien, and estranged from God, and with him the demons, who followed him. Damascene has similar things, lib. 2. cap. 4.: The prince of the wicked angels, he says, exalted himself against his maker God, and conceived the mind of rebelling against him. And he subjoins below: Together with him was torn away, and joined herself to him as companion, and fell with him at once, an innumerable multitude of angels subjected to him. — Such is the concordant opinion of the holy Latin Fathers; for S. Ambrose expressly says in Epist. 55. to Demetrias that the devil, because power and dignity, which he had received from his Creator, pleased him, was cast down from heavenly loftiness together with those angels whom he had drawn into the consent of his impiety. Arnobius Junior signifies the same, lib. 2. De Deo trino, et uno, saying: First of all the angels he sinned in his heart, from which time the kinds of all presumptions began then to spring up, when, following the example of no one, he gave from himself the beginning of sinning. Finally S. Bernard indicates the same in the Tractate De grad. humilitatis, speaking of Lucifer: You alone desiring to sit, you harass, as much as in you lies, the concord of brethren, the peace of the whole celestial homeland, the very quietude of the Trinity. Whither does your curiosity lead you, wretch, that by a singular presumption you do not doubt to give scandal to your fellow-citizens, injury to your King? For while he says that Lucifer alone gave scandal to others and disturbed the peace, he indicates certainly that he moved sedition against God. Whence below he says: Lucifer wished to dominate over all the sons of pride, whom he strove to enkindle for the uses of his own malice.

You will say 1. All the good angels were converted to God at once, no other angel suggesting it, nor furnishing the motive and example of that conversion: therefore equally all the wicked turned away from God, with no one suggesting it. — I answer, that the antecedent can be denied: for in whatever way Lucifer furnished to the other rebellious angels the cause of disobedience, on account of which it is said that the dragon fought and his angels; in the same way S. Michael was the exemplar and incentive of fidelity in observance toward God for the other angels subject to him, since it is read Apoc. 12.:² that Michael fought and his angels. — I answer secondly, by denying the parity: for the good angels, through sanctifying grace and through the evident knowledge of their dependence upon God, had sufficient motive and incentive whereby to tend toward God in faithful observance: but the wicked had in themselves no such motive for rebelling; and therefore it is likely that they were excited to rebellion by Lucifer.

You will say 2, with William of Paris, 2. par. De Universo: all the angels sinned through pride: therefore all, not induced by another, but per se and by their own excellence, abstracted and enticed by love, proudly desired something. Secondly: Lucifer could neither persuade them by reasons, nor induce them by error or deception; because he knew they could not be deceived in the knowledge and due esteem of the Creator; nor could he entice them by promises or other objects of concupiscence; because they needed nothing which they could expect from him; nor could they even be deceived in this. Thirdly he adds, because if the sin of the inferior angels had been of rebellion against God, to which they had been induced by Lucifer, Lucifer alone would not have dared to rebel against God unless he had foreknown the wills of the inferiors to be inclined to rebellion against God; just as in human kingdoms no vassal, however powerful, dares to rise up against the King unless the consent of many comes in, and contracts for rebellion precede among them: therefore similarly among the angels it would have been necessary that Lucifer, recognizing the wills of the others, be invited by them to rebellion, or at least that they come together among themselves and treat of rebellion. Fourthly, because all the angels sinned at once with Lucifer: therefore they were not induced by him to sin. —

I deny all the consequences. and to the first reason I say, that although all the angels sinned through pride, nevertheless it does not follow from that that they were not induced to it; for Lucifer first grew proud on account of his excellence: then, expounding to each angel his own excellence, he stimulated them equally to take complacency in him and to grow proud. —

To the second reason. I say that the sin of the angels had some inconsideration annexed to it; for being excessively complacent about their own natural beatitude, they did not render thanks to God for the gifts and excellencies which they had received in the first instant of their creation: for perhaps they were held by some commandment to continue that supernatural and meritorious act which they had begun in the first instant; and Lucifer, too greatly complacent in his natural beatitude, not only did not continue the act begun, but showing it to the inferior angels, and as it were observing that they took complacency in their own natural beatitude, not only he but the others also ceased from such an act; and thus they sinned with the sin of elation and pride. Wherefore when Lucifer solicited others to the evil of pride, he proposed to them no evil on the part of the object, but only in the mode of acting. For he proposed to them the excellence of their own nature, extolling natural felicity and beatitude, with no mention made of supernatural beatitude and felicity; and then, too greatly complacent in such natural beatitude, they referred neither themselves nor their goods to the supernatural, in which there was a certain mode of elation and pride. —

To the third reason. I deny likewise the consequence, for Lucifer and his angels were not rebelling against God as wishing to inflict violence upon him, or attempting to conquer and overcome him by force and strength; after which manner of rebellion secret communication of counsels, or seditious contract and negotiation, usually precedes among men; especially because against God this mode of rebellion was not possible, since no thought can lie hidden from him, which the angels did not ignore. Therefore they rebelled against God by affection alone, which Lucifer could have from his own resources and without the counsel, treatment, or communication of others: and thence he could induce others to a similar or proportionate affection by his own judgment and deliberation, without previous knowledge of their will, determination, or counsel, with only the hope of drawing them into his own opinion and spiritual rebellion. —

Finally to the fourth reason. I say that all the angels sinned at once with Lucifer; because truly the delay between the sin of Lucifer and of the other angels was brief: for suddenly, and in almost imperceptible time, as soon as they perceived the will of the first angel, they at once consented and adhered to it; for if Lucifer had sinned previously with any long priority of time before the remaining angels, since from that sin deformity would have arisen through the stripping away and lack of all supernatural gifts, with which Lucifer himself had been illuminated at the beginning of his creation, and since divine justice had taken notice of him; the other angels observing that, there is no doubt that they would not have consented, nor stood by his side. — From these Alensis infers, quaest. 98. n. 6., that the sin of Lucifer was far graver than that of the others, on a twofold head; first, because the appetite's lust in him was greater. Secondly, because he had before himself no exemplar, since he sinned in imitation of no sinner, but he himself was the inventor and principle of the whole sin.

You will ask first. — How many angels fell, at the instigation of Lucifer? William, bishop of Paris, answers in the book De Universo, part 3. cap. 8., that the opinion of the theologians of his age was that a third part fell:

A third part of the angels fell, the christian theologians, he says, suppose that the tenth order fell, understanding thus not according to the plain letter, because there never was a tenth order, but according to equality, that is to say, because as many fell as one order contains. They fell, I say, according to them, in such wise that from each of the orders some fell, from all of which taken together the sum of one is completed; wherefore it is manifest that with that intention of order there cannot be twelve orders of malignant spirits, since according to this position of christian sages only a tenth part of the celestial spirits fell, and depraved from natural goodness degenerated into malignity.

Such are his words. Weighing these words, Antonius Rusca, lib. 5. De inferno et statu damnatorum, infers from them this:

Since therefore, he says, according to the mind of this author, there are as many legions in each order of abstract substances as there are angels in one legion; and the number of a legion be six thousand six hundred sixty-six; it appears evidently, if we say that the multitude of the sinning demons rises to the number of a whole order of angels, that six thousand six hundred sixty-six legions of wicked angels fell, which constitute the number 44.435.556.

— But just as these things are brought forward gratuitously and without any foundation, so several judge more probable that only a third part of the angels fell from sanctifying grace, or innocence, and the state of felicity, resting on this conjecture, that Apocalypse XII. 3. says the great dragon, that is, the devil, drew with his tail a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. Yet although it be conceded that by that great dragon the devil is to be understood, nevertheless it would not follow that the discourse is there about his first sin and that of his companions. For it is probable that by those words is signified the pernicious power of the demons, because twisting a notable number of the doctors and bishops of the Church, whom God established in his Church for the instruction and illumination of others, away from the profession of truth and sincere piety, he dragged them over into the parts of error and wickedness. Nor indeed can those words, if they are taken according to the literal sense, be understood of the fallen angels themselves; otherwise hell, and not earth, would have to be held as the dwelling and retreat of the devils; for it is expressly said that the dragon cast the third part of the stars of heaven not into hell, but into the earth. — Therefore it is certain that very many angels transgressed, since their prince was that demon who called himself the legion of the wretched man of whom mention is made Marc. 5. v. 9.; Luc. 8. v. 30.; asked by Christ what his name was, he answered: My name is legion, for we are many. How many precisely there are, no one can determine with certainty, since it is settled neither from sacred Scripture nor from tradition. Nevertheless it is probable that more angels stood in truth, or faithful service, than revolted; for, says S. Thomas, 1. part. quaest. 63. art. 3., sin is against the natural inclination; but things done against nature happen in the fewer; for nature attains its effect either always or in the majority.

You will ask secondly. — Whether the demons preserve among themselves the same order which they held before their fall?

I answer. that the demons properly preserve no order among themselves; for as S. Job testifies, in hell there is no order, but everlasting horror inhabiteth. Nevertheless, since the transgression of these angels inflicted on them no prejudice in natural things, they also preserve among themselves a certain natural pre-eminence as before; so that those who had been constituted of a more excellent nature obtain a certain superiority over the others, corresponding, as it were, to the orders of the holy spirits, although they are diametrically opposed to them. Hence William of Paris says in the place cited above, they must be designated by contrary names, namely antiseraphim, anticherubim, etc.:

Antiseraphim are called those who burn with a greater hatred of the Creator; anticherubim, those who excel the rest in greater cunning; antithroni, those who devote their utmost effort to perverting the paths of judgments and the corruption of judges or tribunals, and who undertook for themselves, or received from the prince of malice, that most pestilential office of acting so wickedly; and you will understand antidominationes, antiprincipatus, antipotestates in opposition to the office of the holy orders. And after these manners antivirtutes, those who bear or counsel the monsters of vices and stupendous weaknesses; thus antiarchangels, who suggest to men the greater deceits, which are properly called crimes. This therefore is the ordering of the Church of the malignant, and of the synagogue of Satan, according to the prophetic words both in Hebrew and of the christian law. This is that most ridiculous ape, ignominious with horrifying deformity, in whose likeness the princes of the malignant spirits glory against the glorious Church of God, as if that likeness were a likeness of the true name, and not rather a dissimilitude of manifest distance and discrepancy; as if precisely to such a throng of the damned and adjudged to eternal torments there belonged any praise and glory, whereas in truth it has any praise or glory only insofar as someone presides over them to torment them; but this is not there, since their very prince is not only in the same damnation, but even in so much the greater, inasmuch as he is known to be more criminal than all the others.

Such are the words of Guiltelmus. — Nevertheless he adds in cap. 15. that the demons, subject to the just judgment of God, are subjected to a certain prince among them, as to a most cruel tyrant, in vengeance for their rebellion against the Creator, whose most sweet yoke they had cast off. For no punishment, he says, is more just for so iniquitous an excellence than the most vile trampling, whereby they are most wickedly oppressed by their most vile prince. But they obey their prince not from humility or obedience, of which there is none among them, but from hatred and anger against the Creator and men; whence it comes about that they aid one another in tempting and assailing men, as sometimes happens among men who, although they burn with mutual hatred, nevertheless agree in the ruin of a third. — So great an enmity do the demons disagree among themselves, with such hatred do they rage, that they do not feel even the least spark of natural love:

for just as, says Guillelmus, it appears in men, that anger and hatred, pride, envy, and other most pestilential passions of this kind so impede natural love, and as it were suffocate it, that scarcely from it does it send forth into act a small spark or the thinnest scintilla of good desire; so you need not wonder if the vehemence of the malignity of such spirits does not permit them to will or desire any good toward one another, nor even to think of it, especially since malignity so occupies and possesses them that almost nothing remains to them, if nevertheless it has left them anything of good affection. And this very thing is manifest to you in men whom anger violently agitates, who while they rage against those with whom they are angry, prevail to think neither of themselves nor of those others, that they are men, nor of the justice or judgments of the Creator. Yet most truly of these it was said in prophetic discourse, that there is no fear of God before their eyes, likewise neither love. Nor is it a wonder if all good affections are lulled to sleep, or even extinguished in them, because with so great perversity they are alienated from their natural goodness, that they could hate the very fountain of goodness, namely the blessed Creator, and still can, as it was said in prophetic discourse: the pride of those who hate you ascends always. But if anyone should ask whether they are moved by any piety or compassion toward one another, since they know the miseries and torments of the others, and by which they are tormented at present, and by which they are to be crucified in the future judgment; nothing else seems to me to be answered in this, except what one of them is said to have answered of himself in a certain apparition, namely, that he never had piety. You now know by manifold experience, that the passions which I have named to you either lull to sleep or utterly extinguish good affections in those whom they have seized, as is manifest to you in the case of envy: namely, that it permits no love of the envious man toward him whom he envies, unless someone should call love itself the natural power of loving, which although it remains radically in them, is so wounded and so impeded that its due fruit can neither be born nor go forth from it. Moreover this power of theirs has the strongest impediment, the torments which they suffer.

Quaestio II: Quodnam, et quale fuerit primarium, et capitale diaboli peccatum

And although Sacred Scripture says nothing distinctly about the first sin of the demons, yet from it the Princes of Theology have taken the occasion for establishing various opinions on this matter. For there are more sins that can be

thought possible, which the utterly hostile Angels could have committed from the beginning of their rebellion; for instance, the sin of presumption regarding their own powers and excellences; of envy toward men; of hatred of God; likewise a certain disordered desire of beatitude, insofar as it is precisely a certain delightful good; and finally of excessive complacency in their own perfections, which the Subtle Doctor calls the sin of luxury; just as, he says, the sin by which someone takes disordered delight in the speculation of a Geometrical conclusion is reduced to luxury.

But which of all these was the primary and capital one, the Authors disagree among themselves; indeed they are split chiefly into two parties, of whom some will, with our Alensis, 2. part q. 98. membr. 2., S. Bonaventure in 2. dist. 5. art. 1. q. 1., and S. Thomas 1. p. q. 63. art. 1., that the first sin of the Angels was nothing other than pride properly so called. But others contend, with the Subtle Doctor, that the first sin of the Angel was disordered love of self, and a certain pride of luxury improperly so called, or rather spiritual, by which the Angels, taking excessive complacency in their gifts, disorderedly coveted the delightful spiritual good, namely their natural beatitude. For just as disordered desire of a bodily delightful good constitutes the species of luxury; so a disordered appetite of a spiritual good supremely delightful effects the species of spiritual luxury. Which of these opinions, then, is the truer is to be resolved here.

Note 2. The holy Fathers held various views on the first sin of the devil; for a fourfold diversity of their opinion on this matter can be distinguished. First, all those who thought the Angels endowed with bodies judge that their sin was of such a kind, that when they had been set over the governing of this world by God, captivated by the beauty of women, they had intercourse with them in lust, and on account of their impurity and crime were cast out from Heaven and the fellowship of God; for so they thought that passage of Genesis 6. was to be interpreted: The Sons of God, or as other codices have it, the Angels of God, seeing the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves wives from all whom they chose. Thus in the first place judged Justin in the Apologeticus, praised by us at the beginning of the present Article. Clement of Alexandria subscribed in the fifth book of the Stromata, where he says that the Angels, captivated by the beauty of women, disclosed to them certain secret and hidden things: Those Angels, he says, to whom the heavenly lot had fallen, having slipped down into pleasures, announced secrets to women, and whatever came to their knowledge, etc. The same Tertullian taught in the book De idololatria cap. 9., affirming that the demons, deserters of God, lovers of women, taught men the vain curiosity of astrology. And in the book De habitu muliebri, he asserts that the demons were the teachers and inventors of all those things which women proudly assume for their adornment: Properly, he says, and as it were peculiarly they furnished that instrument of womanly glory; the gleam of gemstones with which necklaces are varied, and rings of gold with which the arms are bound: and dyes of rouge with which faces are crowned: and that very black powder with which the beginnings of the eyes are drawn out. Hence in the book De Virginibus velandis, he admonishes that the heads of women are to be veiled, as the Apostle teaches 1. ad Corinth. 11., on account of the Angels: Whom, he says, we read fell from God and from Heaven on account of their desire for women... Therefore so dangerous a face must be veiled, so long as it hurls scandal even toward Heaven. But what is marvelous, holy Ambrose went over into the same opinion, who in lib. 1.¹ De Virginibus says: How glorious, he says, that Angels on account of their intemperance fell from Heaven into the world, while a Virgin on account of her chastity passed from the world into Heaven! — Nor are they lacking who think the Angels first fell through envy; which they indeed explain threefold, for some will that he envied man, because he had been made and fashioned to the image of God. Thus Gregory of Nyssa in the Catechesis cap. 6.: Now man, he says, was that animal in which the beauty of the divine intelligible nature was tempered with a certain inexplicable power; which the daemon bore unworthily, nor did he judge tolerable that he who had received the care of earthly things, that a substance should be fashioned out of the nature subject to him, which would be fashioned to the likeness of that most excellent dignity. The same holds Cyprian in the book De zelo, et livore, and also August. in the book De Genesi ad litteram, cap. 11. But Lactantius thought the daemon envied the Son of God, whom the Father had brought forth as a Spirit like himself, endowed with the virtues of God the Father. Finally Bernard in Sermon 17. on the Canticles, thinks he envied the incarnation of the Word, and the God-man, as we have already declared once and again from that very source. — There are also very many who think the first and capital sin of the daemon was pride; these indeed we shall cite and refute in the objections; but the rest teach that that sin was nothing other than excessive love of self, and disordered complacency in their own gifts. Therefore it is established that the opinion of the SS. Fathers is not concordant on this matter; and so it is lawful for us to embrace either party.

Note 3. With the Subtle Doctor in 2. dist. 6. quaest. 2., all acts of the will are adequately divided into nolition and volition; so that there is no act of the will, neither good nor evil, except the act by which it pursues the fitting or good, which act is called volition, or to will; or the act by which it flees the unfitting, or evil, which act is called nolition, or to not will. The Doctor notes besides that between each act there is this order, that nolition cannot first be had before volition; for I flee from nothing, he says, except because it cannot stand together with something which I accept as fitting; which words are not to be so used, as if no nolition whatever could be had absolutely without a prior act of volition; for it does not appear why someone could not refuse a molestation or torment proposed to him without any formal volition whatever of the delight, or of the fitting good opposed; but the Doctor only wills that no one can refuse the unfitting under the formal reason of the unfitting, and insofar as it is opposed to the fitting good and impedes its attainment, unless because he first wills that fitting good. — He admonishes besides that the act of volition is distinguished into love of friendship, by which we love someone for himself; and of concupiscence, by which we will something for someone, or as he himself says: Twofold is the willing, which can be named of friendship, and of concupiscence; and the willing of friendship may be said to be of that object to which I will the good; and the willing of concupiscence of that object which I will to someone beloved. Which indeed is not to be taken thus, as if the love of friendship were precisely the volition by which one loves a person without willing a good to him; while the other, namely of concupiscence, were the volition by which one wills only the good of the beloved person; for the love of friendship is also the act by which I will the good of the person whom I love; for I would not truly love her if I did not wish a good to her; but by the love of friendship the Doctor understands that by which one wills a good to someone on account of his love, dilection alone, without being moved to it by the love of another; but the love of concupiscence is the volition by which one wills a good to someone on account of the love he has toward another: thus e. g. while one loves his neighbor because he loves God, who commands the love of the neighbor and commands that good be done to him, that volition by which he wills a good to the neighbor can be called love of concupiscence; since he does not will the good to him precisely because he loves him, but only on account of the love he has toward God, who commands that the good be procured for the neighbor.

Finally the Doctor observes in the same place. that the love of concupiscence of these two presupposes the love of friendship: For since, he says, the beloved is with respect to the coveted as the end, to which I will the good; for on account of the beloved I covet for him the good which I will to him; and since the end of the will has the first reason of the object willed; it is evident that the willing of friendship precedes the willing of concupiscence.

These things thus prenoted, three things remain to be determined in this Question: First, whether the primary and capital sin of the Angel was disordered love of friendship of self; Second, what he desired by disordered love of concupiscence; Third, whether each of those loves, of friendship and of concupiscence, was pride properly so called, or rather spiritual luxury.

First conclusion. — The first sin of the Angel was disordered love of friendship of himself. So the Subtle Doctor in the place praised above, num. 4., where he says, that absolutely the first disordered act of the will of the Angel was the first willing of friendship of his will, which willed the good:

but this object was not God, because he could not love God disorderedly from intention with the love of friendship; for God is such an amable, that from the sole reason of himself, as object, he gives the complete reason of goodness to the act perfectly intense; nor is it likely that he loved something other than himself too intensely with the actual love of friendship; both because the natural inclination inclined more to himself, than to any other created thing to be so loved; and because it does not seem that he so understood any other created thing as himself; therefore the first disordered act was the act of friendship with respect to himself.

These things the Doctor, by which he openly indicates the first sin of the Angel to have been disordered love of friendship of himself; which indeed thus

He proves: The first sin of the Angel was disordered love of self: but it was not love of concupiscence, insofar as that is distinguished from love of friendship: therefore it was truly disordered love of friendship. The minor stands; for the love by which the Angel loved himself was not that by which he loved himself on account of the love of another, since it is not likely that he loved any other creature either before, or more, than himself. Nor did he love himself on account of God; for that love would not have been disordered: but that love by which he loved himself, and not on account of the love of another, is truly love of friendship; and consequently that love by which the Angel disorderedly loved himself was not love of concupiscence, insofar as that is distinguished from love of friendship.

But the Doctor proves the minor. First indeed by the authority of S. Augustine lib. 12. De Civit. c. 6., where, having said that the cause of the beatitude of the holy Angels is that they adhere to him who is supreme, he adds: But when the cause of the misery of the evil Angels is sought, it deservedly occurs that, averted from him who is supreme, they turned to themselves. But this adhesion, or conversion, is made primarily through love; and therefore he judges S. Augustine that the first sin of the Angel was disordered love of self. He repeats the same, and explains it more evidently, lib. 14. cap. ult., where he asserts that two loves made two cities: The city of God, the love of God even to contempt of self; the city of the devil, the love of self even to contempt of God. Therefore the first root of the city of the devil, says the Doctor, was disordered love of friendship of self, which root germinated even to contempt of God, in which that malice was consummated. He teaches the same besides lib. 11. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 15., where he says: The Angel sinned by loving, not money, but his own power; and therefore perverted love of self deprived the swollen spirit of holy fellowship.

— The Doctor confirms the same major by reason: the first sin of the Angel was either volition or nolition: if volition, chiefly either that by which he took disordered complacency in himself, or that by which he willed some good undue to himself: if the first, it plainly stands that that volition was disordered love of self. If the second, either that volition presupposed another, by which he took disordered complacency in himself; for no one wills a good to another, unless he first loves him, and thus that first volition of complacency in himself was necessarily the first sin: or it did not presuppose, and thus the volition itself was disordered love of self; since the volition by which one wills a good to himself, and not on account of the love of another person, is either love of his own, or presupposes love of his own. If it be said that it was nolition, which however no one has hitherto affirmed, since all teach that the first sin of the Angel was of commission, and not of omission alone; nevertheless even if there had been some nolition, it must necessarily have presupposed volition, or must not have presupposed: if it presupposed, that presupposed volition would have been disordered love of his own; if it did not presuppose, that nolition was love of his own either formally or equivalently: because when one does not will evil to himself, and that not on account of the love of another person, he is doubtless to be judged to will that evil not to himself on account of the love of himself.

Therefore the demons, elated and inflated from the contemplation of their own excellence, their will began to swell with disordered love of self, and with a perverse affectation of loftiness they began to abandon and turn away from God, to whom they ought to have been subject and to adhere, indeed even to struggle against him and to rival his supreme divinity and majesty. For if there is so great a force of flattery, that it persuades even things most manifestly false and incredible, in him who offers himself to be deceived; of what virtue must that be thought, by which from the very heart or intellect it fabricates for each one an unbelievable false persuasion, when the same one is to himself both orator and judge, and both deceiver and deceived? But from this disordered love pride issued forth: this in turn gave birth to envy in them. For, as S. Augustine rightly notes lib. 2. De Genesi ad litt., envy follows pride, it does not precede it. For envy is not the cause of pride, but pride the cause of envying. Since therefore pride is love of one's own excellence: but envy hatred of the happiness of another, what is born from thence is sufficiently in view. For each one, loving his own excellence, envies either equals, that they be made equal to him: or inferiors, lest they be made equal to him: or superiors, that he not be made equal to them. Therefore by priding one is envious, not by envying is each one proud. The progress of which the same one describes excellently in the commentary on Ps. 121:

He who willed to have from himself the same thing, that as it were he might be the same to himself, fell. The Angel fell and became a devil. He proffered pride to man: envy cast down with him him who stood. They willed to be the same thing to themselves; they willed to rule themselves, to lord over themselves. Averted therefore from him who is supreme, they turned to themselves and willed to become for themselves a principle.

Therefore from unexpected, from disordered complacency in their own gifts and prerogatives the will began to deviate, and to effervesce into pride; whence, aspiring to the divine equality, it emulated that dominion of his over men, which that it might obtain, he set about to cast them down from the received sanctity and innocence. *

You will say. Love of friendship is that by which the Angel does not covet any good distinct from himself: but he takes complacency only in his intrinsic perfections: but that love cannot have any malice joined to itself: therefore it could not be the first sin of the Angel. The major stands: the minor is proved: that love cannot be evil whose object is not evil; nor does it have any circumstance by which it be deordered or infected: but that love, by which the Angel loved himself, had a good object, namely the gifts of the Angel, as well natural as supernatural; nor does it seem to have had any infecting or deordering circumstance. For if any could be assigned, chiefly some greater intensio of the love itself than ought to be: but whenever an act according to its substance is good, and has a good object, its intensio does not seem able to be evil: therefore such love could not be evil, nor consequently could it be the first sin of the Angel.

I answer 1. by denying the major: for love of friendship according to the Subtle Doctor, as we declared in the third Notable, is not only that by which one wills to himself some intrinsic good, but also that by which one can will some extrinsic good distinct from himself, not on account of the love of another, but on account of the love of self. Hence although the Angel could not sin by taking too much complacency in his intrinsic perfections, and loving them most intensely; it would not follow thence that his love of friendship could not be disordered; since by this love he could will to himself some extrinsic goods which he ought not to will: but this love, since it did not presuppose another love, it would not follow thence that it was not love of friendship; since according to the Subtle Doctor, love of friendship is not distinguished from love of concupiscence in this, that by the former the Angel wills only an intrinsic good to himself, while by the latter he covets an extrinsic good for himself, as not so rightly interpreted it Suarez lib. 1. num. 9. cap. 14. For according to the opinion of the Doctor, by the love of friendship the Angel could also will to himself some external good, distinct from himself.

I answer 2. by denying the minor; for it is false that love of intrinsic perfections cannot be evil, and disordered, by reason of a greater intensio than it ought to have; for each one is held to love God above himself, and more than all things; and consequently he can sin as often as he can elicit a greater love toward himself than toward God: but someone also, without coveting to himself external and distinct goods, can elicit a greater love toward himself than toward God; and therefore that love of himself can be evil.

But it is more likely, that the first sin of the Angel was the very disordered love of himself, not by which he willed some extrinsic goods to himself; for the Doctor in num. 15. seems to suppose, that the Angel sinned by love of concupiscence, desiring those extrinsic goods; and straightway he indicates that the love of friendship, by which he first sinned, was some disordered love by which he took too much complacency in himself: and this appears consonant to reason; both because the Angel had no less perfect knowledge of himself than of other things; and therefore it is likely that the very knowledge of his perfections led his will to excessive complacency in himself: and because from thence it is easily conceived how that disordered love of himself stimulated him to commit the other sins: and finally because S. Augustine, praised by us above, seems plainly to feel this very thing, affirming that the Angel was therefore segregated from the fellowship of the Saints because, loving his own power, he took complacency in himself with perverted love.

But that an axe be laid to the forest of objections which the Thomists elicit and germinate from the premise, I compose this syllogism: he who constitutes his beatitude in a creature, by finally enjoying it in willing it, sins gravely; but the Angel thus willed to enjoy himself: for, having seen his own natural excellence, he so loved it that he altogether wished to enjoy it, and to be finally delighted in it, as if he himself were sufficient to himself for beatitude. Therefore he sinned gravely; for this act of complacency is perverse and depraved, and contrary to right reason, and offensive to God, who is the last end of all, and in whose fruition alone beatitude consists. *

Second conclusion. — The Angel sinned by love of concupiscence, chiefly by disorderedly desiring supernatural beatitude.

So the Doctor in the same qu. 2. num. 5. It seems, he says, to be said, that they first immoderately coveted beatitude for themselves. But although he does not openly explain of which beatitude, whether natural or supernatural, he speaks, yet I judge it must more truly be said that he is to be understood of the supernatural: both because that is what is accustomed to be called absolutely, simply beatitude by the Scholastics: and because the Doctor there speaks of the beatitude which the Angel did not have: but he did not lack natural beatitude, and straightway he did not chiefly sin by disorderedly desiring it, although nevertheless he could have sinned in desiring it disorderedly, namely by desiring it with independence from God, or by making so much of it that he would not tend to supernatural beatitude, although he knew himself to have been created and ordered by God for procuring it.

But the Doctor proves the Conclusion: first indeed by a reason drawn from S. Anselm De casu diaboli cap. 4. The first disordered act of concupiscence of the Angel either proceeded from the affect of justice, or from the affect of the advantageous, that is, it proceeded from the will, either according as it has an inclination to the honest good, which can justly, and according to the dictate of right reason, be desired and acquired: or according as it has an inclination to the advantageous good. Not the first: for what is loved and coveted justly and according to reason is not disorderedly loved: Therefore the second. But it is likely that the will acting, and desiring something from the affect of the advantageous against the prescription of justice, is first exercised about the greatest advantageous good of all those which are manifested to it: but this greatest advantageous good is supernatural beatitude itself: therefore the first disordered concupiscence of the angelic will, the advantageous goods not being had, was chiefly exercised about supernatural beatitude. The major stands, the minor is proved: as often as the will in desiring the advantageous good follows no other rule than the impulse of the disordered appetite of the same advantageous good; since that appetite is natural; and a natural agent bursts forth into its act with its whole striving, and with all its forces; the consequence is, that that immoderate appetite of the angelic will stimulated it with all its forces to willing, and desiring the advantageous good; and straightway impelled it to the greatest advantageous good among those which were proposed and manifested to it; but such advantageous and greatest good was supernatural beatitude: therefore, etc.

Some Thomists reply. that this reason proves nothing; because, they say, the first appetite of the advantageous in the Angel could be about some particular delightful thing: but it is not necessary that it be exercised about the supremely delightful, or advantageous.

On the contrary. the will of the Angel was not regulated except by the disordered and immoderate appetite of the advantageous: but, as such, it tended with all its forces, and with the highest affect, to that which seemed to itself most advantageous: for the appetite impels with all its forces to the advantageous good, and therefore impels to the greatest advantageous good; for natural agents, such as that appetite of the advantageous was, burst forth with their whole impetus into acts, unless impeded; but there was nothing there impeding: for if anything could have repressed that impulse, chiefly the affect of justice, and the dictate of right reason; but neither was present there, and therefore there was nothing by which that impulse was restrained; and consequently it was borne with its whole striving to the advantageous good proposed to it, and straightway it desired the greatest advantageous good, which is supernatural beatitude.

He proves secondly. The first disordered concupiscence of the Angel was some act of volition: therefore it was exercised about an honest, useful, or delightful good. Not about the honest, otherwise it would be honest and ordered: nor about the useful, because concupiscence, and love of the useful good, presupposes concupiscence, and love of the good for the sake of which that seems useful to be attained: therefore that volition was exercised about a delightful good: but it is more likely that it was exercised about the greatest delightful good, such as beatitude; for although that is also an honest good, and can be desired honestly, nevertheless because it is also a most delightful good, it could be desired disorderedly: namely, either by desiring it with such ardor, that there was grief that it would not be so quickly conferred by God, and therefore he wished to possess it otherwise than God had ordained: or also he wished to possess it independently of God.

He proves thirdly. Every appetite most desires that which is proposed to it as most fitting and delightful; for thus the appetite, which is borne to the visible, most desires that which is perceived by the eye as the visible more delighting: therefore since the will of the Angel has no sensitive appetite, by which it is moved to desire sensible things, it most desires that which is proposed by the intellect as the supreme delightful good: but such is supernatural beatitude: therefore the angelic appetite tends most to it: but it is likely that the disordered appetite of the Angel was borne about that which it most desired: therefore it was borne about supernatural beatitude.

He proves fourthly. That is first desired by a will not regulated by the affect of justice, but of the advantageous, which would be desired although other desirable things were not, and which, if the others were absent, would be desired no less: but such is the delightful object: therefore it is borne by its first appetite to the delightful object: but if it be borne to the delightful object by its first appetite, it is likely that it is borne to the greatest delightful good: therefore, etc. The major seems manifest, because the will, destitute of the affect, and rule of justice, altogether follows its advantageous, and wills no disadvantage: since we will and desire the disadvantageous only by the affect of justice, as is evident in martyrs, and penitents. The minor also appears true; for a good however excellent, if it were saddening and not delightful, it is certain that it would not be desired by the appetite of the advantageous.

Finally the Conclusion is proved. It is most certain that the Angel had some act about supernatural beatitude: for he knew it as possible to himself, and knew the means by which he could attain it; otherwise he would not have been a perfect wayfarer: therefore either that act was ordered, and thus he did not sin, but merited; or it was a neutral act, that is, neither good nor evil, neither ordered nor disordered, which no Theologian admits; or it was disordered: but it was not ordered, nor neutral; therefore it is necessary that it was disordered; and consequently that it was sin. But that it was the first sin stands from this, that since that object was most delightful, and the power was led and impelled by the natural appetite to the good, it necessarily seems to follow that the first act of concupiscence of that will was about supernatural beatitude.

The aforesaid reasons are confirmed and explained by the same Doctor num. 6. where he admonishes that it is to be observed, that every cognitive power has an appetite corresponding to itself: whence since the soul has a cognitive power, namely the intellect, it has also an appetite corresponding to itself, which resides in the will; which, although it be free, nevertheless is most conformed to the natural appetite in acting; and therefore, says the Doctor, in men according to the diversity of complexions, there is the dominion of the sensitive appetites, and since every cognitive power has its own appetite, then according to the diversity of complexions there is a diversity of dominion in the diverse cognoscitives, and in their appetitives: in each one, I say, the will according to the dominion of the sensitive appetite is most inclined to its act. And therefore some, following the first inclination without the rule of justice, are first inclined to luxury, some first to pride: therefore the will in acting follows the natural appetite for the most part. But although the will separated from all sense, and sensitive appetite, cannot be inclined to some sensible object; nevertheless since it is a natural power, it has a natural inclination to the object most fitting to itself, insofar as it is a natural power; but that is beatitude; because the same is the object of the appetitive, and cognitive faculty. Since therefore beatitude is the greatest object of the intellective virtue, it will also be the supreme, and most motive object of the intellective appetite, which is the will; and consequently although the will be a free power, nevertheless since in acting it follows the natural appetite, unless it be regulated and restrained by the affect of justice, and the dictate of reason, the consequence is, that with its whole conatus it first covets the first delightful object, not orderly; therefore disorderedly; and straightway the first disordered affect of that angelic will desiring was about beatitude. So the Doctor.

You will say 1. From St. Augustine lib. 13. De Trinitate, cap. 5. beatitude is desired by all; but what is desired by all uniformly is natural; therefore beatitude is desired naturally: but natural desire is always right, because it is from God: hence the will, conformable to natural desire, is always right; for what is conformable to what is right is right: therefore in desiring beatitude no one can sin; and so the first sin of the angel's love of concupiscence was not a disordered desire of beatitude.

The Subtle Doctor denies this, n. 10. Since indeed volition is free, and can have the character of evil, even though it were consonant with a natural inclination, that is, with the volition of such an object toward which there would be a natural inclination, it follows from that, that although the will may tend toward an object toward which it tends naturally, its affection can nonetheless be disordered no less; for inclination toward anything delectable, e.g., is natural, and yet it is certain that desires for many delectables are disordered and evil: it is not true, then, that an elicited act of will conformed to a right natural inclination is always right and ordered: because the will, as it is free and elicits an act concerning its object, is bound to conform itself to justice, and to the higher rule, which commands and ordains that that natural desire be regulated and moderated according to the dictate of right reason, and the precepts of the rule of justice.

You will say 2. No intellect errs about first principles: therefore neither can the will err about the last end, such as beatitude. The antecedent is Aristotle's, Metaphysics book 2, text 1. The consequence is proved from the same author, Physics book 2, text 5, where he says: As the principle stands in speculative matters, so the end stands in practical, or operative matters.

The Doctor answers, n. 11, denying the consequence; and he offers the reason for the disparity, namely that first principles determine the intellect toward a right act; but the end does not always determine the will toward a right act: rather the will of itself can have either an evil or a good act concerning the end, at its own choice; since indeed the intellect is a natural power, and operates naturally, therefore it cannot fail to assent to the principles proposed to it, but it assents to them insofar as their truth is manifested to it more and more: it is otherwise, however, with the will, since indeed it is free, and therefore can moderate its own desire lest it dominate it, and prevail in eliciting its acts — nay more, lest the act be elicited absolutely; for it can turn the intellect away from thinking about that delectable object concerning which it itself is occupied.

You will say 3. If the angels who fell from friendship sinned out of appetite and affection for the advantageous, namely by desiring beatitude inasmuch as it was a good advantageous to them; it follows also that the obedient angels sinned in the same way; but that consequent is absurd: therefore also that whence it follows. The sequel of the major is clear, seeing that according to St. Anselm, book De Concordia, chaps. 26 and 13, the will cannot not will what is advantageous: therefore since all, both good and bad, had the affection for the advantageous, and especially for the highest advantage, such as beatitude; it follows that if sin be in that affection, even the good angels sinned.

The Doctor answers, n. 12, denying the sequel; because although the good had as great a natural inclination toward beatitude inasmuch as it is an advantageous good as the bad had — nay, perhaps a greater, namely they had a more excellent nature; because that inclination, says the Doctor, is according to natural perfection: nevertheless, because the good acted from an affection of justice in desiring beatitude, they also tempered their affection concerning it, and regulated it according to the dictate of reason and the rules of the Superior, whence they desired it in an honest and due manner: For, says the Doctor, they did not use the will according to its imperfect character, insofar namely as it is merely an intellectual appetite, acting, namely, in such manner as befitted an intellectual appetite to act; but they used the will according to its perfect character, which is liberty, willing, namely, with the will in that manner in which it befits one to act freely insofar as he acts freely: but this was according to the rule of the superior will determining, and this justly. — But to the proof of the sequel, I deny that the will cannot not will an advantageous good; for daily it happens that we do not will advantageous goods, for the reason that we know them to be forbidden us. Or I say, that although perhaps the will could not not will an advantageous good, especially the highest, such as beatitude, nevertheless the angel's will could will it inordinately, or orderly; orderly, namely, if it willed to obtain it only when, and how God had ordained, or if it desired to have it only so that it might love God with a more excellent love.

— Now it could desire it inordinately:

and that in three ways, says the Doctor, n. 9.: either as to intensity, for instance by willing it with a greater effort than befits it; or as to acceleration, for instance by willing it for himself sooner than befits him; or as to cause, for instance by willing it for himself otherwise than suits him; e.g., without merits, or perhaps in other ways, concerning all of which it is not necessary to take care here.

In some one of these modes it is probable that his will transgressed, namely either by desiring for himself beatitude inasmuch as it is a good for him more than by loving that good in itself: or by desiring that good, that the beatific object be his own good as good for him, more than by desiring it to belong to another, namely to his God: and herein is the supreme perversity of the will, which is to use things to be enjoyed, and to enjoy things to be used, according to St. Augustine, book 83 Questions, q. 30. Or secondly he could desire to have it at once, whereas God wills it to be had after a brief delay of the way. Or thirdly, by desiring to have it from natural resources, not having it graciously, whereas God wills it to be had from merits. Therefore free will ought to have moderated the affection as to those circumstances which right reason shows forth: because beatitude ought to be less desired for oneself than for God, and it ought to be desired for the time for which God willed: and from merits, for which God willed it to be desired: therefore if in any of these modes he followed the affection for the advantageous, not moderating it through justice — that is, through infused justice, if he had it, or acquired, or innate, whether natural, which is liberty itself — he sinned.

But what the objects of the angels' appetites were will be resolved at the end of this Question. Whether, however, each of those disordered loves of the angel, both of friendship and of concupiscence, is pride properly so called, or rather should be reduced to spiritual lust, will be opened up

Third conclusion. — The disordered love of the angel, both of friendship and of concupiscence, was pride: not formally, and properly so called. But radically, and improperly so called.

This seems to be the genuine opinion of the Subtle Doctor in the aforesaid q. 2, n. 14, where, having premised the opinion of St. Thomas and others who say that that disordered love of the angel was pride properly so called, he concludes: Therefore I say that his first sin was not pride properly so called: but on account of the deformity which they import, they seem rather to be reduced to lust: as the sin whereby anyone takes disordered pleasure in speculation upon a geometrical conclusion is called calumny.

In which words two things are especially to be noted: First, that the Doctor does not absolutely deny that love to be pride, according to some extension of the term pride, but only that it is not pride properly so called. Second, that he did not say that love was formally lust, but that if it must be referred to any one of the seven capital crimes, it is more fittingly referred to lust than to pride. That however that disordered angelic love was not pride properly so called.

It is proved 1. The first sin of the angel was immoderate complacency in his own perfections: but pride properly so called is not such immoderate complacency, says St. Augustine, lib. 11, cap. 15. For what is pride, but the appetite of perverse height? Now the appetite of height is not formally love of self, but follows from it: because no one can desire immoderately his own excellence and beatitude except because he loves himself inordinately: therefore the first sin of the angel was not formally pride. Next, disordered love of friendship toward self is not formally pride: therefore neither disordered love of self: for the same account seems to hold. Finally, pride properly so called is the disordered appetite of excellence with respect to others: whence St. Augustine lib. 19. De Civit. Dei, cap. 12. says: Pride imitates God perversely: for he hates equality with his fellows under him, but he wishes to impose his dominion upon his fellows in place of him: by which words he signifies that the formal character of pride consists in the appetite of excellence, as bearing a relation of dominion over others: but that affection of dominion cannot be the primary sin of the angel: for it was because he wished to dominate above the others that he inordinately loved himself; which disordered love was indeed the root and origin of pride, but not pride itself formally: therefore, etc.

First the Thomists object various contexts of Scripture, by which they contend it is signified that the first sin of the angel was pride formally so called. Above all that of Isaiah 11, where the sin of the prince of the demons is described allegorically in the person of the King of the Assyrians in these words: Thy pride has been cast down to hell: how have you fallen from Heaven, Lucifer, who said in your heart: I shall ascend into Heaven? etc., which words are manifest indications of pride. Second, that of Ezekiel 28, where under the person of the King of Tyre the sin of the devil is described, and among other things it is said of him: Iniquity was found in you. And what that iniquity was he declares, saying: Your heart was lifted up in your beauty, etc. Now elevation of heart is pride, or an effect of pride properly so called. They add that of Ecclesiasticus 10, Pride is the beginning of every sin. Whence St. Augustine lib. 14. De Civit. Dei, cap. 13. adds: What else could the beginning of an evil will have been but pride?

— They confirm it from Tobias, where Tobias the father says to his son: Never permit pride to rule in your mind, or in your word, for in it all perdition took its beginning: now all perdition of men, indeed even of angels, took its beginning from the sin of the prince of the demons: therefore that one's sin was pride.

— They strive to prove this same thing by various oracles of the holy Fathers: above all St. Ambrose, or another Author, Epistle to Demetrias, Epist. 33.

This pride, he says, took its origin from the devil; who, since he had received his life from the Creator, pleased himself in his power, and dignity, and compared this with the glory of his Author, and together with the angels whom he had drawn into consent to his impiety he was cast down from heavenly sublimity. Therefore accordingly, both in the fall of the devil and in the transgression of man, the beginning of sin is pride, which is fittingly also called avarice, because both appellations signify that appetite which both covets to exceed its own measure; and does not deign to be rich unless from his own goods. As though he possessed this likeness to God, that he himself should be to himself the fountain of his goods, himself the abundance for himself.

— St. Athanasius consents in his Oration on Virginity; Satan, he says, was not cast down from heaven on account of fornication or adultery or theft: but pride precipitated him into the lower parts of the abyss. Jerome subscribes on chapter 16 of Ezekiel, where he calls pride the proper, and first sin of the devil.

St. Augustine teaches this same thing in many places, especially lib. 14. De Civit. Dei, cap. 13. where he says:

Of an evil will, what could it be but pride? Pride is the beginning of every sin: but what is pride, but the appetite of perverse height? For perverse height is, the principle which he ought to adhere to being deserted, to become and be in some sort a principle for oneself. This happens when one pleases himself too much: but he so pleases himself when he falls short of that unchangeable good, which ought to please him more than he pleases himself.

Fulgentius subscribes, lib. ad Monimum, cap. 17.

If the beginning of sin is sought, he says, nothing else is found but pride: for Scripture says, Pride is the beginning of every sin; which therefore then took its beginning, when the Angel, elated against God, and prostrated by that very elation through concupiscence, which is the root of all evils, wishing to usurp what was not given to him by God, departed from God, and fell, in which, had he stood, he would not have fallen.

Finally Bernard, lib. De modo bene vivendi, serm. 37. Pride, he says, is the root of all evils. It cast down the angels, laid low the mighty, hurled down the proud. Hence pride is commonly called the sin of the demons, and Job 41² calls Lucifer king over all the children of pride. It is established, therefore, both from Scripture and from the oracles of the holy Fathers, that pride was the first, and capital sin of the demons.

The Doctor denies the consequence, n. 17, and in answer to the authorities of Scripture and the holy Fathers replies, that presumption was simply the first sin of the angel, not inasmuch, he says, as it is the first species of pride properly taken: but inasmuch as it signifies excessive complacency, and disordered love of self, the sin of complacency, and presumption, which was the root of pride, as St. Augustine explains, and opens up more clearly, lib. De Genesi ad litteram, chap. 15³ where he says: That the Devil loved his own power, and by a perverted love of himself, turgid spirit deprived of holy fellowship. And chap. 23. certainly he immediately turned himself away from the light of truth, swollen with pride, and corrupted by delight in his own power.

Therefore the aforesaid authorities both of Scripture and of the holy Fathers can be explained thus: First, that they signify the first sin of the devil to have been pride, not formal, and properly so called, but radical and effective, namely inasmuch as that disordered love of himself led the Angel to presume of himself, to affect divine preeminence and dominion, and finally to despise being subject to God. Or that the pride of the devil was the cause of the whole sin, which the devil derived from the first Parent upon the whole human race, as St. Augustine explains on Psalm 121: The Angel, he says, fell, and became the devil: he offered pride to man: he cast down with himself by envy him who stood: these wished not to be the same, but wished to dominate.

Finally I say with the Seraphic Doctor, in 2 dist. 5, art. 1, q. 1, that the sin of the devil must be considered as to a threefold state: namely, as to its initiation, consummation, and confirmation: it was initiated in complacency and presumption; for as soon as he saw his own beauty, he presumed: it was consummated in ambition, because presuming of himself, he desired what was wholly above him, and to which he could not attain: but it was confirmed in envy, and the aversion of hatred: because from the moment he could not obtain what he desired, therefore he began to envy, and to go against it with an affection of hatred, and herein it was confirmed, because this wholly separated him from God, and set up a perfect obstacle, just as charity perfectly joins to God.

You will say 2. According to St. John, all that is in the world is either the concupiscence of the flesh, or the concupiscence of the eyes, or the pride of life: but the first sin of the angel was not the concupiscence of the flesh, or of the eyes: therefore it was the pride of life.

The Doctor denies the consequence, because that division comprehends only the ordinary sins of men, not indeed those of angels. But if the sin of angels must be reduced to some one of those three members, it is rather to be referred to the concupiscence of the eyes than to the other two members: for as, says the Doctor, in us immoderate appetites of some visible beautiful thing pertain to the concupiscence of the eyes: so also in angels the immoderate appetite of the delectable must pertain to the concupiscence of the eyes.

You will say 3. The sin of the angels must be reduced to some one of the seven capital vices: but it can be conveniently referred to none other than to pride: therefore it must be pride properly so called.

The Doctor answers first, n. 17, denying the major: for that division of sins into seven genera is neither adequate, nor even congruous: which he proves best; because if the division of sins is made according to the number of evil habits opposed to the seven virtues, namely the three Theological and four Moral virtues, certainly it is not good, because seven distinct sins separate from those seven would have to be assigned; for infidelity, and presumption would have to be numbered among them, and some others of those seven omitted. But if the division of sins is not taken thus, but as they oppose good acts, by which the ten precepts of the decalogue are observed, there would have to be ten sins. Whence he concludes, that that division ought not to be admitted as adequate, nor as comprehending all genera of sins, nor even perhaps all roots of sins; since, he says, infidelity, and despair are opposed to hope, and are graver sins than the sin of gluttony, or sloth, yet they are not comprehended properly, and directly under those members: hence he infers, that this division is of sins which occur ordinarily, and which are the roots, and occasions of many sins.

He answers secondly by denying the consequence, because that division is not adequate; nor must every sin be some one of those formally and properly: for there are many sins which belong to those seven only reductively.

He answers thirdly by denying the minor; for if the sin of the angels is traced back reductively to one of those seven, it will rather belong to lust than to pride; just as, says the Doctor, every disordered appetite for a pleasurable good is traced back to the concupiscence of the eyes.

You will insist. The disordered affection for pleasure is found not only in lust but also in gluttony and other similar vices of intemperance: therefore, given that the first sin of the angel consisted in a disordered affection of pleasure concerning his own excellence, it should be called spiritual gluttony no less than spiritual lust.

He answers 1. That even if the consequence were true, it would not conflict with the Doctor's opinion: for the Doctor does not contend that the angel's disordered complacency should be traced rather to lust than to gluttony; but that it could be traced rather to lust than to pride.

He answers 2. Yet it is to be traced more fittingly to lust than to any other sin; for since lust is concerned with an object more pleasurable than gluttony, and that pleasure conceived disorderly by the angel concerning his own excellence and perfection was supreme—otherwise it would not have moved the angel to commit so many grave sins—it follows that it ought to be reduced to lust more than to other sins, inasmuch as he had a greater proportion of excess in pleasure with lust than with any other sin whatsoever.

Hence the Subtle Doctor rightly reduces this excessive complacency of the prevaricating angel in his own gifts and preeminences to the species of spiritual lust, and explains it by the example of the pleasure of a geometrical demonstration devised by some mathematician; yet with this difference: that the pleasure from the discovery of a new geometrical demonstration is neither unclean, nor darkens the mind, nor dulls reason, as spiritual or sensual lust does when in that complacency someone places his beatitude therein.

You will ask. Whether the demons truly desired equality with God, that is, to be gods?

I answer. Truly they desired equality with God considered in itself. So the Doctor in dist. 6, q. 1, n. 2, where, after attacking the opinion and arguments of St. Thomas, who teaches that the excellent object desired by the angel when he first sinned through the love of concupiscence was not every kind of equality with God in nature, the Doctor concludes: the question can be answered otherwise: namely, that the angel could desire the equality of God; and he proves this by a fourfold argument. But first our answer must be established here by the authority both of Scripture and of the holy Fathers.

For first, from Scripture it is deduced that Lucifer in fact desired this equality: therefore he truly could desire it. The antecedent is proved from Isaiah 14, where Lucifer says: I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the Most High; for although the words there concern likeness, which can be less than equality, nevertheless likeness without perfect equality is not. Add that if the preceding words be considered, they seem to denote and demand perfect similitude.

Ezekiel too sings of him, chapter 28, verse 2, where under the type and inscription of the king of Tyre he represents the pride and fall of Lucifer and of his allied enemy angels: Your heart was lifted up, and you said: I am God; and verse 12: You are the seal of similitude, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, etc.; and verse 17: Your heart was lifted up in your beauty, namely even to the desire for divinity.

Hence Michael, who first of the faithful angels resisted the proud Lucifer, is so called—that is, Who is like God?—because, reproaching Lucifer's audacity, he hurled those words against him like thunderbolts.

To this also pertains what St. Paul said of Christ the Lord, Philippians 2: He did not think it robbery to be equal with God, as if to say that he wished to claim divinity and the same equality and majesty with the eternal Father not by theft or arrogance, as Lucifer and his proud companions attempted, but he vindicated it to himself by the right of his eternal nativity and procession from the Father.

Nor slight evidence of this desire for divinity appears in the character of that temptation which Satan employed to ensnare the primeval woman when he said: You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil, Gen. 3, v. 5. For if, as St. James rightly infers, chapter 1, v. 13, God, being incapable of tempting to evils, himself tempts no one, it is a sign of one who wishes to entice another to some sin either that he has fallen into that sin or that he is prone to it; we may gather that Satan was already guilty before that sin—the one into whose fellowship he strove to draw the first men—namely of affecting similitude with God.

Hence the Master of the Sentences, dist. 6, citing Isidore:

Lucifer, he says, after he was created, weighing the eminence of his nature and the depth of his knowledge, grew proud against his Creator to such a degree that he even willed to make himself equal with God, as is said in Isaiah: I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will be like the Most High.

Indeed he wished to be like God, not by imitation, but by equality of power. *

The holy Fathers teach the same: above all St. Ambrose, epistle 33, where he says: Because he was pleased with the power and dignity he had received, and compared himself with the author of his glory, he was cast down from celestial sublimity. The Author of Scholia on Psalm 118 indicates this more clearly: He, he says, so exalted himself that he wished to be made equal to the Most High. St. Chrysostom subscribes, homily 3 On the Words of Isaiah: He hoped for, he says, the equality of God, a thing which expelled him from heaven. St. Augustine concedes it in De Civitate Dei, book 14, chapter 11, where he says that Lucifer rejoiced, as it were, with a kind of tyrannical haughtiness in having subjects rather than chose to be subject. As if to say that Lucifer coveted equality with God in authority and power, since he wished to preside over all others and to be subject to none.

Nazianzen clearly indicates the matter, oration 17, where he expounds the elation of Lucifer in these words: He said, he declares, that it was unworthy and intolerable for him, since he was divine, not also to be thought God; which he elegantly expressed in verse in the poem On things endowed with mind, where among other things he writes:

Wherefore Lucifer first, his sound mind swelling (for the surpassing honor he enjoyed gave hope of God's own regal throne and glory) fell, losing all his splendor, vile and wretched; while craving to be God, engulfed entire in earth's dark gloom he sank.

But the Doctor proves this answer. First indeed: the will, according to the act of the love of friendship and the act of the love of concupiscence, has all being for its object, such that just as it can love any being whatever with the love of friendship, so it can pursue it with the love of concupiscence: but the equality of God according to essence is some good desirable in itself: therefore, since the angel could love himself with the love of concupiscence, he could desire for himself every desirable good, and consequently could desire the equality of God.

He proves secondly, and confirms the former argument: if anything impeded the angel from being able to affect that equality, it would be above all because it is not only impossible in itself but also apprehended by the angel as impossible—for it is absurd to assert that he was so blinded by malice that he did not recognize that divine equality to be altogether impossible for a creature; yet that impossibility does not prevent the angel from having been able to desire the Divinity itself: therefore, etc. The Adversaries concede the major; but the Doctor proves the minor, first indeed by the authority of Aristotle, book 3, Ethics, chapter 2, who says: Choice indeed is not of impossibles. But will is of impossibles, for instance immortality. Moreover, the damned hate God, according to Psalm 73: The pride of those who hate you ascends always; but one who hates wills the object of his hatred not to exist: therefore the damned wish God not to exist: but this is impossible: therefore something impossible can be desired.

The Doctor confirms these points in the same place, number 2; because, he says, the willing sin can will God not to exist; indeed it can even will the eminence of divinity to be in another. Therefore it can will it to be in itself as in another, and thus it can will for itself the eminence of God or divinity.

To these is added the most ardent ardor of the love of God and charity with which the holiest men sometimes burn, and which St. Augustine himself expressed in these words: Lord, if you were Augustine, and I could be God, I would rather have you than myself be God. Moreover, the just often wish that it were better to love God with an infinite love, and penitents desire that they had never sinned: but these things, as is evident, are impossible: therefore the will can will what the intellect judges impossible.

The Thomists distinguish a twofold impossible: one indeed per se and absolute; the other per accidens and ex suppositione. The first is that which from its very terms involves contradiction, as that man should be a stone: for this is deservedly said to be impossible absolutely and simply, because it is not so with respect to this or that place, time, or cause, but with respect to all things absolutely. The second, however, is that which involves contradiction not from its very terms or from the nature of the thing, but from some hypothesis only: as, for example, that Peter has not sinned. For this does not conflict absolutely, since Peter could have not sinned; but it conflicts now by hypothesis, that he has sinned, because by reason of time it is impossible that he did not sin after he sinned.

Between these two impossibles, however, they establish this difference: that the impossible per se, whatever supposition be made and condition added, has no entity or goodness from which it follows that it cannot be desired—not only by efficacious election tending to execution, but not even by simple willing, that is, by an inefficacious act of will, even under the condition: if it were possible. But the impossible per accidens, although, as it stands under that position of impossibility, and in the composite sense of it, is not possible, nor consequently has any aspect of good and fittingness; nevertheless taken in itself, and by purely precissive abstraction abstracted from such supposition and impossibility—or in the divided sense of it—has per se some possibility and goodness: and so considered, although it cannot be formally willed by an act of election, because election tends to execution, yet it can be willed by a simple act of will, which is called velleity: because, since this act does not tend to execution, it can terminate in the object in itself, abstracting from particular circumstances; hence for this reason a sinner ineffectually wills that he had not sinned, although by supposition that he has sinned, it is impossible. Thus Gonet after Cajetan.

With these things premised, they answer that the impossible per se and absolute can in no way be desired, but well indeed the impossible per accidens: therefore, they say, since divine equality is impossible for a creature, it can by no means be desired by an angel.

Against this. The impossible per accidens, according to them, can be desired: therefore also the impossible per se. The consequence is evident; for to desire an apprehended good as impossible it makes no difference whether it is impossible per se or per accidens, since the apprehender knows that neither can ever be obtained by himself: therefore, if the impossible per se is undesirable precisely because it can in no way be obtained by the desirer, by parity of reason the impossible per accidens will be undesirable, since the desirer knows he shall never attain such a good. Thus the penitent who wishes he had not sinned knows this to be impossible, even by divine power, since God is deprived of this alone, that things which have been done cannot become undone. Again, the damned, as has been said, desire God not to exist, and yet that he not exist is simply impossible.

Finally their very answer does not stand with the doctrine of St. Thomas: for he teaches, q. 16, De Malo, art. 3, ad primum, and I-II, q. 13, art. 5, ad primum, that there is a twofold act of will: one indeed efficacious and complete; the other inefficacious and incomplete. Whence he adds in the latter place:

Complete will is only of the possible, which is a good for the one willing; but incomplete will is of the impossible, which according to some is called velleity, namely because someone would will it if it were possible; but election names the act of will already determined to that which is here to be done, and therefore it is in no way except of possibles.

therefore St. Thomas admits that will also can be of impossibles.

It is confirmed. This attack, and the prior arguments of the Doctor, are again confirmed by the Doctor from St. Augustine, book 83 Questions, q. 30, where he teaches that the will can use things to be enjoyed, and enjoy things to be used: therefore created will can enjoy itself; but it cannot enjoy except the highest good: therefore it can covet for itself the highest good, wherein together with itself it may enjoy: but this highest good is equality with God: therefore created will can desire equality with God, not indeed by an efficacious desire, but at least by an inefficacious one. For, as the Doctor observes in the same place n. 8, there is a twofold act of willing, or volition: for, he says, one volition is efficacious, another is a volition of complacency; e.g., two sick men, one of whom hopes to have his health restored, while the other despairs, both long for and will health, but differently; for the first wills health because he hopes it will be restored, and therefore he seeks and applies means conducive to its restoration; but the second, because he does not hope to attain health, neither seeks nor applies such means. The first volition is called efficacious; the second is called inefficacious, or complacency merely. The first is concerned only with the possible; the second, however, is occupied also with the impossible. This, he says, suffices for merit and demerit, because although it be impossible, yet one can consent to it with full consent: and by that volition the angel could desire divine equality. But of the first volition, which is efficacious, I say that the angel could not desire it; yet by simple volition he could covet for himself so great a good, and with such desire as he would have coveted it, if it had been possible.

The Thomists object first, that the angel's sin was not from passion, nor from ignorance, because passion and ignorance are a punishment of sin; and therefore he sinned only from choice: but choice is not of impossible things: therefore he did not sin by desiring for himself a divine equality impossible to him.

The Doctor distinguishes the minor: the choice that is an efficacious willing, by which means are applied to the attainment of an end, he concedes; choice insofar as it means only complacency, and the appetite of the will, by which it would freely will something proposed to it under the aspect of good, whether impossible, cannot be directed toward an impossible good by one desiring it, he denies. For it was proven above that in truth an inefficacious will can be occupied with impossibles.

You will insist. the choice by which the angel sinned ought to have been demeritorious: but that inefficacious volition, or velleity, cannot be a merit, or demerit: therefore by this the angel could not sin.

I deny the minor. for who would deny that to be a meritorious act, and of the most perfect charity, by which St. Augustine, speaking with God, used to say: if I could be God, I would rather that you than I be God? yet this act is of simple complacency, and velleity, and is even about an impossible thing: therefore some velleity can be meritorious. Moreover, an act is meritorious when someone, after he has sinned, thinks of himself as if he had not sinned, and delights in this, and would will that he had in no way sinned, and were in the former state of innocence, that he might serve God with greater affection and acceptance; yet this act is of simple affection, which they call velleity. Similarly, in this simple affection there can be most grave sin: as if someone hating God not only wished that God did not exist, but also desired that some evil should befall him; in which kind of sin I do not doubt that the demons and the damned are occupied.

You will say 2. that the angel be equal to God is impossible, and therefore it is a non-being: but a non-being is not appetible, for something is appetible insofar as it is good, but a non-being cannot be good: nor consequently appetible: therefore the angel could not desire equality with God.

I answer first. that if anything proved this argument, it would also establish that the impossible per accidens cannot be desired, which the Thomists nevertheless deny, for both the impossible per se and the impossible per accidens are non-being.

He answers second by distinguishing the major: it is not some one being, having in itself a possible goodness, I concede; it is not some multiple being including two things, one of which is good absolutely, and would be good also respectively to the other, if it could be joined with it, I deny: and so although the angelic will cannot desire the equality of God with an absolute volition, by which it would be borne toward it as toward one possible object, because it is not proposed to it by the intellect: nevertheless it can with a comparative volition be borne toward that divine equality as to be desired, inasmuch as it would be good for it, if it could attain it.

You will say 3. The angelic will cannot desire the equality of God, unless it is proposed to it by the intellect: but it cannot be proposed by the intellect: for it would be proposed either by an erring intellect, or by a non-erring intellect. Not the first, because since he had not yet sinned, he had no error in the intellect, otherwise the punishment would have preceded the fault: for that error could not have been in the angel, except by way of an inflicted punishment. Nor the second, because a non-erring intellect cannot propose anything false to the will: but it is false that the angel can be equal to God: therefore, etc.

The Doctor denies the minor, toward whose proof he says that that equality can be proposed by a non-erring intellect: For the equality of God, he says, can be apprehended without error, because it is in someone without fault, because the Son of God is equal to the Father, and that can be apprehended. Then the angel could apprehend that equality to be good for him, if it were possible: and supposing such an apprehension, and judgment, the will could desire that equality: certainly we apprehend the equality of God without error, and also judge that if that equality were possible for the angel, as it is possible and in fact belongs to the Son of God, that in truth the angel would be far more perfect than he now is, however great a perfection he now has; therefore much more can the angel apprehend that equality, and form such a judgment.

They object 4. No one can desire his non-existence, from St. Augustine book 3 De libero arbitrio: but if the angel desired the equality of God, consequently he would desire himself not to be an angel, because the angel being God is his very not being an angel; for the angel to be is for the creature to be subject to God: therefore the angel cannot desire himself to be equal to God. It is confirmed from that passage of St. Anselm in the book De similitudinibus c. 6. where he says: For if anyone should wish to be like another in his own person, he would wish himself not to be, which he cannot will.

The Doctor answers first, that although perhaps someone cannot directly will his own non-existence, nevertheless he can will it indirectly, namely by willing something from which, once posited, his non-existence would follow: thus, he says, anyone sinning mortally wills something in which he does not will God to be underlying, and in this he wills consequentially his own non-existence, because he cannot be, unless God underlie him.

He answers second by denying the minor: because although the destruction of himself would follow from equality with God, nevertheless it is not necessary that one willing equality will formally, and explicitly his own non-being, or its own destruction: for it does not follow, he says, that if someone wills the antecedent, he wills also the consequent, when the consequent can be understood without the antecedent: just as, for example, someone can desire the episcopate, not willing the priesthood: but in the present case the consequent is not necessarily connected with the antecedent: for it does not follow absolutely, that if the angel wills equality with God, he also wills his own destruction; for he could desire equality with God on the supposition, impossible indeed, that that equality would not entail the destruction of the angel.

To St. Anselm the Doctor responds, that he is speaking of an ordered will; but no one, he says, can in an ordered way will himself not to be, because an ordered will is not willing something, and not willing that which necessarily follows upon it, whether that be intrinsic to it or not: but these things are not true of an inordinate will.

You will insist. The angel knew himself to be a created being, and by participation; he knew equally that no being by participation could be of the same nature with a being by essence, and therefore he knew perfectly that he could not wish for divine equality without wishing himself not to be.

I deny the consequence, for although the angel knew himself to be a being by participation, nevertheless he could apprehend that divine equality as some good appetible; and thereupon he could desire it for himself; not indeed with an efficacious appetite, but with an inefficacious one: whence he could be displeased that he was subject to God and inferior to him, and could wish for independence with respect to God, and superiority with respect to the other angels; which, as is apparent, is to will equality with God according to nature.

You will press. That which wholly repugns and contradicts natural reason, and from which it utterly recoils, can in no way be desired: but for a creature to be equal to God wholly repugns to natural reason: therefore etc.

I answer. that in that hypothesis two things are to be distinguished, namely that which in that object seems unpleasing and worthy of horror, and that which is found in it amiable; for the good and its excellence is loved; but the disproportion with the one enjoying it, or coveting it, is abhorred. But this horror is tempered and taken away by the heat of the one desiring, for those burning and glowing with love toward the thing loved and coveted do not suffer themselves to be torn from it on any account: and against every dictate of reason they struggle, and they contrive and devise many things, even desiring base and obscene things, however much natural reason may protest: whence it happens that love, boiling over, scarcely retains judgment. Therefore the will of the demon, already exceeding the bounds of its inordinate self-love and complacency, and as it were raging madly, could desire divinity, however much natural reason suggested that it was repugnant to it.

You will insist again. That which involves a manifest contradiction cannot be represented as amiable nor desirable by any reason, even one exorbitant and deviant: but the equality of a creature with its Creator involves a contradiction: for it is the conjunction of a creature with a non-creature, namely with God: therefore etc.

I answer first, that the conjunction of a creature with the Creator does not repugn by means of the hypostatic union, as appears in the mystery of the Incarnation. Then I say that the angel in that simple desire of divinity did not attend to its impossibility or contradiction, but only to the excellence of the coveted good, which was represented as desirable, prescinding from whether it would be possible or impossible to acquire. For a spiritual creature is borne toward a good in one way by appetite, and in another by fruition. For that looks to the effect of the will, but this tends to the effect and to the application of the means conducing to the attainment of that good. The former is a simple complacency, inefficacious with respect to the fruition and attainment of the good, although in itself it is vehement and glowing: the latter is an efficacious application of the will toward the end to be obtained. The former can stand together with contradiction and the impossibility of attaining the object: the latter cannot, since it tends efficaciously to the attainment of the object by applying fitting means.

You will say at last. * Someone can desire to be God without any sin: therefore although the angel coveted divine equality, on that account he is not judged to have sinned. The antecedent is proved: someone could desire to become God, that is, that like God he might be immune from sin, and that he might love God as much as God is in himself lovable: but that appetite would not be sinful: nay truly it would be pious, and innocent: therefore the appetite for the equality of God is not culpable: nor therefore was it the first sin of the angel's concupiscent love.

I deny the antecedent, and I distinguish the minor of its proof: that appetite is not culpable, if it be hypothetical and conditional, I concede: if absolute, I deny. * Therefore a pious man could have this affection conditionally, namely if this were possible, and without any prejudice to the Divinity: but the angel who coveted the Divinity did not have a like affection; rather he affected it absolutely, as is to be gathered from the words both of Isaiah and of Ezekiel cited by us above.

You will ask 2. Whether also the angels coveted the hypostatic union, and in truth envied man for being assumed to it?

I answer 1. That in truth the angels sinned through envy, as St. Augustine admirably teaches in book 11 De Genesi ad litteram cap. 14.

Some, he says, say that he himself fell from his supernal seats because he envied man, who was made to the image of God. Moreover this envying follows pride, it does not precede it. For envying is not the cause of pride, but pride the cause of envying. Therefore since pride is the love of one's own excellence, but envy the hatred of another's happiness: what is born from that is sufficiently manifest. For by loving his own excellence, each one envies either equals, that they be made equal to him, or inferiors, lest they be made equal to himself, or superiors, that he is not made equal to them. Therefore each one is envious by being proud, not proud by being envious.

St. Bernard subscribes in sermon 17. Therefore in Heaven she conceived grief, and in Paradise she gave birth to iniquity, the offspring of malice, the mother of death, and the parent of all miseries, Pride.

I answer 2. That in fact the devil inordinately desired beatitude, and therefore envied human nature; as St. Bernard teaches in various places, especially in sermon 17. on the Canticles:

but it could have happened, he says, if it nevertheless not be thought incredible, that one full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, could have foreknown that men would be future, and indeed would advance to an equal glory; but if he foreknew it, he without doubt saw it in the Word of God, and in his envy he envied it, and he schemed to have subjects, disdaining companions. They are weaker, he says, and inferior by nature: it is not fitting that they be partners, nor equals in glory. And below, addressing the devil himself, he says: You, wretched one, place your seat in the north, a cloudy and cold region, and behold there are raised up from the dust the needy, and from the dung the poor, that they may sit with Princes, and hold the throne of glory, and you grieve that this be fulfilled: The poor and needy shall praise your name.

Although there St. Bernard makes no express mention of the devil's envy toward the incarnation of Christ, nevertheless not a light foundation can be drawn from it a fortiori. For if from the fact that Lucifer foreknew that men were going to advance to an equal glory, St. Bernard gathers that it is credible that Lucifer grieved, and sinned through envy toward men; much more indeed can it be believed, if Lucifer foreknew that some man was going to be far more excellent than himself, not only in glory, but also in the grace of union, and in the majesty of the divine Person: that he was therefore indignant, and grieved vehemently, and wasted away with envy.

I answer 3. That it also seems probable, that he inordinately coveted the hypostatic union. For we are not accustomed to envy others goods, except those which we wish for ourselves, when we do not have them: and then it is not more to be believed of the malice of the devil, that he envied that dignity to men, than that he inordinately coveted it for himself. Whence as many of the Fathers, or Doctors as say that the devil envied man his dignity, can be cited for this assertion; because either they directly mean the dignity of the hypostatic union, or if they speak expressly of another, certainly from the fact that he envied any other dignity whatsoever, it is gathered as most verisimilar that he envied this one also, which is the greatest of all.

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Monitum I: Monitum editoris

Praefatio I: In secundum librum Sententiarum praefatio

Tractatus I: De Angelorum natura, operationibus, et praecellentiis

Disputatio I: De Angelorum existentia, natura, et ordine

Articulus I: De Angelorum existentia

Quaestio I: An revera constet Angelos existere

Quaestio II: An, et quo tempore, et loco creati fuerint Angeli

Articulus II: De natura, et substantia Angelica

Quaestio I: An Angeli sint omnino incorporei, et prorsus immateriales

Quaestio II: An, et quomodo Angeli sint incorruptibiles, et immortales

Quaestio III: An, et quomodo Angeli ab anima rationali distinguantur

Articulus III: De numero, et ordine Angelorum

Quaestio I: An certo cognosci possit multiplex Angelorum numerus

Quaestio II: An inter Angelos plures sint specie, et solo numero distincti

Quaestio III: Quid, et quot sint Angelorum hierarchiae, et ordines

Disputatio II: De facultatibus, et operationibus Angelorum

Articulus I: De intellectu, et cognitione Angelorum

Quaestio I: Quis, et qualis sit intellectus Angelicus

Quaestio II: An, et qualiter Angeli res intelligant per earum species

Quaestio III: Quodnam sit obiectum cognitionis Angelicae

Quaestio IV: An, et quomodo Angeli sibi invicem loquantur

Quaestio V: An, et qualiter unus Angelus alterum illuminare possit

Articulus II: De voluntate Angelica

Quaestio I: An Angelica voluntas revera sit libera, et mutabilis

Quaestio II: An, et qualiter Angelus Deum, seipsum, et alia diligat

Articulus III: De potentia motrice, et executiva Angelorum

§ I: De loco Angelorum

Quaestio I: An, et per quid Angeli constituantur in loco

Quaestio II: Qualiter Angeli existant in loco

§ II: De motu Angelorum

Quaestio I: An, et per quid Angeli localiter moveri dicantur

Quaestio II: Qualis, et quotuplex distingui possit motus Angelicus

Quaestio III: An Angelus possit transire de uno loco ad alium, non transeundo per spatium intermedium

Quaestio IV: An, et quae sit Angelorum durationis mensura

§ III: De activitate Angelorum erga corpora

Quaestio I: An, et qualiter Angeli soleant in assumptis corporibus apparere

Quaestio II: An, et quas Angeli operationes vitae edere possint in corporibus assumptis

Disputatio III: De Angelorum gratia, merito, et demerito

Articulus I: De gratia Angelis concessa

Quaestio I: An, et in qua beatitudine creati fuerint Angeli

Quaestio II: An, et qualem gratiam habuerint Angeli

Quaestio III: An, et quomodo Angeli gratiam sanctificantem, et suam beatitudinem ex propria operatione, et merito fuerint assecuti

Articulus II: De officiis sanctorum Angelorum erga homines, et obsequiis hominum erga Angelos

Quaestio I: An omnes omnino Angeli ad hominum obsequia interdum deputentur

Quaestio II: An, et qualiter Angeli sancti ad hominum custodiam deputentur

Quaestio III: Quaenam beneficia per suam custodiam nobis impendant Angeli, quaeve ob eam eis rependat Deus, nosque eis rependere debeamus

Articulus III: De Angelorum peccatis, et poenis

Quaestio I: An, et qualiter Angeli peccare potuerint

Quaestio II: Quodnam, et quale fuerit primarium, et capitale diaboli peccatum

Quaestio III: An voluntas daemonum ita sit in malo obfirmata, ut nec possit aliquatenus resipiscere, nec bonum aliquod operari

Quaestio IV: An, et quali poena daemones crucientur

Appendix I: Appendix. De infestatione, et cruenta daemonum in humanum genus saevitia