Chapter VII.
On the apostasy of the demons.
Concerning the apostasy of the demons, this must be held: that God made all the Angels good, yet intermediate between Himself, the supreme good, and mutable good, which is the creature; so that if they turned to loving what is above, they would ascend to the state of grace and glory; but if toward the mutable good, which is below, by that very fact they would fall into the evil of guilt and punishment; because there is no "disgrace of sin without the beauty of justice."
The first among the Angels, Lucifer, presuming upon his private good, sought private excellence, wishing to be raised above the others; and therefore he fell together with the rest who consented to him. Falling, moreover, he became impenitent, obstinate and blinded and excluded from the contemplation of God and disordered in operation, striving with all his effort to subvert man through manifold temptation.
Now the reason for understanding the aforesaid is this: since the first principle is supremely good, it makes nothing that is not good; because from the good nothing proceeds except good; yet what is made by it is by that very fact less than it, and therefore cannot be the supreme good. The Angel was therefore created by God good indeed, but not supremely so, yet to be perfected if by affection he tended toward the supreme.
And since through the free choice of the will he could tend toward the supreme good or turn toward his private good, Lucifer, aroused by the consideration of his own beauty and loftiness to love himself and his own private good, presumed upon the loftiness he possessed and sought his own excellence, yet not one that was obtained; and by this, in presuming, he made himself his own principle, glorying in himself; and in seeking, he made himself his own supreme good, resting in himself. But since he was neither the supreme principle nor the supreme good, it was necessary that by his disordered ascent he should fall; and by equal reason, all who consented in this.
And because "there is no disgrace of sin without the beauty of justice," therefore immediately when he fell into sin, together with the rest who adhered to him, he lost the highest place, namely the empyrean, descending to the lowest, namely the murky air or hell, so that the fall into guilt was through free choice, but the fall into punishment was through divine judgment.
And since he had immutability after his choice, therefore he was immediately obstinate in evil, and through this blinded from the true and disordered in operation and weakened in power: therefore his impious will and action, turned away from God, was converted to hatred and envy of man; and the keenness of reason, blinded from the true light, was converted to deceptions through divinations and wiles; and his serviceableness in ministering, removed from true ministry, was converted to temptations; and his power, diminished and constrained, insofar as it is permitted, is converted to working wonders through sudden transmutations, which he effects upon corporeal creation.
And because all these disordered things exist through a will depraved by pride: therefore he turns all these things to the nourishment of his pride, seeking to be worshipped and adored by men after the manner of God. Hence it is that "he does all things evilly"; which nevertheless God justly permits for the present for the punishment of evildoers, but for the praise of the good, as will be made manifest through the final judgment.