Summa summae S. Thomae sive compendium theologiae

St. Thomas, q. 63.

You will ask 1° how the angels sinned.

That the angels sinned is certain by faith. For it is said, Job, IV, 18: In his angels he found wickedness. But the difficulty is how an angel sinned, or could have sinned.

I answer that the angel sinned from ignorance or error — not taken specially and strictly for the assent by which someone assents to something false as true, or for the speculative judgment by which someone judges evil to be good; but from error or ignorance taken generally, for an actual inconsideration by which someone does not attend to, nor actually and practically consider, what he could and ought to have considered. The angel therefore did not err by judging something to be good which is not good, but by not considering the higher good to which his own good ought to have been referred. For the angelic intellect proposed to the will its own excellence as good and to be loved, and in this there was no error; but it did not propose it, as it could and ought to have, as to be loved with subjection to the divine rule, and with order to God as its author and supernatural end: in which there is a defect of actual practical consideration, and hence an ignorance or error which is called that of a wrong choice. Now while the angel loved this excellence thus proposed, without subjection and order to God as his supernatural end, he sinned.

You will ask 2° what was the first sin of the angels.

I answer that it was pride¹.

Proof from Scripture. Tob., IV, 14, it is said: In it (pride) all ruin took its beginning. Eccli., X, 15: Pride is the beginning of all sin. Isa., XIV, 12 and 13, it is said of the devil under the figure of the king of Babylon: How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer..., who saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. And Ezech., XXVIII, 17, under the figure of the king of Tyre, it is said of the same Lucifer: Thy heart was lifted up with thy beauty. This will be further evident from the following answer.

You will ask 3° concerning what object the angel was first proud.

I answer. The object concerning which the angel first was proud was both beatitudes, natural as well as supernatural², inasmuch as he desired to remain in natural beatitude, delighting in it as in a perfection and excellence

owed to him by nature, and by which he would uniquely surpass other creatures, and by refusing supernatural beatitude, inasmuch as it was to be obtained through the special grace of God, and was to be common to men inferior to him. And in this he sought a likeness to God, seeking to have in his own domain a singular beatitude owed to him by connatural right, and not from grace and as it were on sufferance: which is proper to God.

Now it must be observed that two acts of pride are not to be distinguished here, one concerning natural beatitude, the other concerning supernatural beatitude; but there is one act and one pride, choosing rather to remain in his own private beatitude, because it was singular and owed to him connaturally by the right of creation, than to have the supernatural beatitude common to others inferior to him, and from the grace of God, as it were on sufferance — which, however, he would not have refused, if he could have had it by the power of nature without grace, and as his own, not to be shared with others: all of which belongs to pride, and is proper to the proud, who prefer to remain in a lower degree than to be raised to a higher one by the help of others.

Proof of the answer from the Fathers. Gregory, bk. XXXIV Moral., ch. 17, says that «the angels lost their participated loftiness, because they desired a private one.» Augustine, bk. XII de Civit., ch. 1: «The evil angels, delighted with their own power, as though they were their own good to themselves, flowed away from the higher good, common to all and beatifying, to what was their own.» Bernard, serm. 17 in Cant., n. 5, speaking of the evil angel: «He contrived to have subjects (namely, men), disdaining companions. They are weaker, he says, and inferior in nature; it is not fitting that they be fellow-citizens, nor equals in glory.» St. Thomas expressly teaches the same here, a. 3, o. Add that a more fitting object for the first pride of the angels cannot be assigned than their last end, both natural and supernatural, inordinately desired.

You will ask 4° whether an angel could have sinned in the instant of his creation.

I answer in the negative³; because the first act of the will in the ange-

-ls, although it was from the eliciting will, was nevertheless from God specially moving and applying it. Therefore it could not have been sinful; for God is not a defective principle, and otherwise the sin would be traced back to him. — Proof of the antecedent. An operation which begins with the being of the thing and is the principle of the rest, such as is the first act of the will in the angels, is from that from which the nature is: thus the motion of the heart in an animal, and the upward motion in fire, are from the generator. But the nature of the angel is from God. Therefore.

Nor does it stand in the way that in the first instant of his creation he could have merited, and indeed did merit: because for merit the freedom of contradiction suffices, which he possessed, as is clear in Christ and in those confirmed in grace; but for sin the freedom of contrariety is required, namely that one be able to do evil and not do it, which freedom the angel then lacked.