Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/849

 DEVIL

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DEVIL

or intellectual seem to present an almost insuperable difficulty in the case of the angels. This may cer- tainly be said of the sin which by many of the best authorities is regarded as being actually the great offence of Lucifer, to wit, the desire of independence of God and equality with God. It is true that this seems to be asserted in the passage of Isaias (xiv, 13). And it is naturally suggested by the idea of rebellion against an earthly sovereign, wherein the chief of the rebels very commonly covets the kingly throne. At the same time the high rank which Lucifer is generally supposed to have held in the hierarchy of angels might seem to make this offence more likely in his case, for, as history shows, it is the subject who stantls near- est the throne who is most open to temptations of am- bition. But this analogy is not a little misleading. For the exaltation of the subject may bring his power so near that of his sovereign that he may well be able to assert his independence or to usurp the throne; and even where this is not actually the case he may at any rate contemplate the possibility of a successful rebellion. Moreover, the powers and dignities of an earthly prince may be compatible with much ignor- ance and folly. But it is obviously otherwise in the case of the angels. For, whatever gifts and powers may be conferred on the highest of the heavenly princes, he will still be removed by an infinite distance from the plenitude of God's power and majesty, so that a successful rebellion against that power or any ecjuality with that majesty would be an absolute im- possibility. And what is more, the highest of the angels, by reason of their greater intellectual illumina- tion, must have the clearest knowledge of this utter impossibility of attaining to equality with God. This difficulty is clearly [lut by the Disciple in St. Anselm's dialogue " De Casu Diaboli" (cap. iv); for the saint felt that the angelic intellect, at any rate, must see the force of the "ontological argximent" (see Ontology). "If", he asks, "God cannot be thought of except as sole, and as of such an essence that nothing can be thought of like to Him [then] how could the Devil have wished for what could not be thought of? — He surely was not so dull of understanding as to be ignor- ant of the inconceivability of any other entity like to God" (Si Deus cogitari non potest, nisi ita solus, ut nihil illi simile cogitari possit, quomodo diabolus potuit velle quod non potuit cogitari? Non enim ita obtusa; mentis erat, ut nihil aliud simile Deo cogitari posse nesciret). The Devil, that is to say, was not so obtuse as not to know that it was impossible to con- ceive of anything like (i. e. equal) to God. And what he could not think he could not will. St. Anselm's answer is that there need be no question of absolute equality; yet to will anything against the Divine will is to seek to have that independence which belongs to God alone, and in this respect to be equal to God. In the same sense St. Thomas (I, Q. Ixiii, a. 3) answers the question, whether the Devil desired to be "as God". If by this we mean equality with God, then the Devil could not desire it, since he knew this to be impossible, and he was not blinded by pa.ssion or evil habit .so as to choose that which is impossible, as may happen with men. And even if it were possible for a creature to become God, an angel could not desire this, since, by becoming equal with God he would cease to be an angel, and no creature can desire its own destruction or an essential change in its being. These arguments arc combated by Scotus (In II lib. Sent., dist. vi, Q. i.), who distinguishes between efficacious volition and the volition of complaisance, and maintains tha'. by the latter act an angel could desire that which is im- possible. In the same way he urges that, though a creature cannot directly will its own destruction, it can do this conserjurnl/r, i. e. it can will something from which this w-ould follow.

Although St. Thomas regards the desire of equality with God as something impossible, he teaches never-

theless (loc. cit.) that Satan sinned by desiring to be " as God", according to the passage in the prophet (Isaias, xiv), and he understands this to mean likene-ss, not equality. But here again there is need of a distinc- tion. For men and angels have a certain likeness to Ciod in their natural perfections, which are but a re- flection of his surpassing beauty, and yet a further likeness is given them by supernatural grace and glory. Was it either of these likenesses that the devil desired? And if it be so, how could it be a sin? For was not this the end for which men and angels were created? Certainly, as St. Thomas teaches, not every desire of likeness with God would be sinful, since all may rightly desire that manner of likeness which is appointed them by the will of their Creator. There is sin only where the desire is inordinate, as in seeking something contrary to the Divine will, or in seeking the appointed likeness in a WTong way. The sin of Satan in this matter may have consisted in desiring to attain supernatural beatitude by his natural powers or, what may seem yet stranger, in seeking his beati- tude in the natural perfections and rejecting the supernatural. In either case, as St. Thomas considers, this first sin of Satan was the sin of pride. Scotus, however (loc. cit., Q. ii), teaches that this sin was not pride properly so called, but should rather be described as a species of spiritual lust.

Although nothing definite can be known as to the precise nature of the probation of the angels and the manner in which many of them fell, many theologians have conjectured, with some show of probability, that the mystery of the Divine Incarnation was revealed to them, that they saw that a nature lower than their own was to be hypostatically united to the Person of God the Son, and that all the hierarchy of heaven must bow in adoration before the majesty of the In- carnate Word; and this, it is supposed, was the occa- sion of the pride of Lucifer (cf. Suarez, De Angelis, lib. VII, xiii). As might be expected, the advocates of this view seek support in certain passages of Scriptiu-e, notably in the words of the Psalmist as they are cited in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "And again, when he bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, he saith: And let all the angels of fiod adore Him" (Heb., i, 6; Ps. xcvi, 7). And if the twelfth chapter of the Apoca- lypse may be taken to refer, at least in a secondary sense, to the original fall of the angels, it may seem somewhat significant that it opens with the vision of the Woman and her Child. But this interpretation is by no means certain, for the text in Hebrews, i, may be referred to the second coming of Christ, and much the same may be said of the passage in the Apocalypse.

It would .seem that this account of the trial of the angels is more in accordance with what is known as the Seotist doctrine on the motives of the Incarnation than with the Thomist view, that the Incarnation was occasioned by the sin of our first parents. For since the sin itself was committed at the instigation of Satan, it presupposes the fall of the angels. How, then, could Satan's probation consist in the fore- knowledge of that which would, ex hypothesi, only come to pass in the event of his fall ? In the same way it would seem that the aforesaid theory is incompati- ble with another opinion held by some old theologians, to wit, that men were created to fill up the gaps in the ranks of the angels, Fo"- ;'.--v nirain suppo.ses that if no anc"'" h -'. smned no men would i.:"'C bc"i mad", and in corusequence there would have been no imion of the Divine Person with a nature lower than the angels.

As might be expected from the attention they had bestowed on the question of the intellectual powers of the angels, the medieval theologians had much to say on the time of their probation. The angelic mind was conceived of as acting instantaneously, not, like the mind of man, pa.ssing by discursive reasoning from premises to conclusions. It was pure intelligence as distinguished from reason. Hence it would seem that