Dist. 6, Art. 1, Q. 1
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/6/q/bon-sent-II-d6-a1-q1
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### ARTICLE I.

*Of what order the evil angels fell from.*

### QUESTION I.

*Whether Lucifer was of the supreme order of Angels.*

It is asked, therefore, first, of what order Lucifer was. And that he was of the supreme [order], this is shown.

1. Job, fortieth [chapter]: *He is the beginning of the ways of God;* but not by the order of nature: therefore by the order of dignity: therefore he was preeminent among the other creatures, therefore also among the Angels.

2. Likewise, Gregory in the thirty-second [book] of the *Morals*, treating that [text] of Ezekiel: *Thou Cherub, stretched out and protecting* etc.: «Because by comparison with his own brightness he is believed to have overshadowed the brightness of the rest, therefore he himself is called *stretched out and protecting*»; he speaks of Lucifer: therefore etc. And in the same place *again:* «Set over the other hosts of Angels, he transcended their brightness, and by comparison with them he was the brighter». And *again* in the same book: «Those hosts of the lofty height of the supernal virtues, planted in the verdure of eternal joy, although they were created exalted, yet are neither set above this one nor made equal [to him]».

3. Likewise, *by reason.* Lucifer desired to be set over all and believed that he could obtain that he should be subject to none; but this is not probable, unless he had seen that he excelled all: therefore he was of the supreme order.

4. Likewise, his sin was the greatest among the sins of all the Angels, indeed of all creatures; but a vice is so much the greater, the nobler the nature [in which it is]: therefore if he had the greatest sin of all the others, therefore as regards nature he was greater than the rest.

BUT ON THE CONTRARY: 1. In Ezekiel, twenty-eighth [chapter], it is said to Lucifer: *Thou Cherub,* as Gregory expounds; but the supreme order is not the order of the Cherubim, but of the Seraphim, as Dionysius holds: therefore he was not of the supreme order.

2. Likewise, Damascene in the second book, fourth chapter: «From these angelic virtues, which were set over the terrestrial order, that is, of the order which is concerned with earthly things, and to whom the guardianship of the earth had been committed by God, he was turned away by the choice of his own free will»: therefore Lucifer, according to Damascene, was of the lowest order.

3. Likewise, *by reason* it seems [so], because if he was supreme, therefore he was the more deiform, therefore the more unapt for sin: therefore he did not sin, or if he sinned, not so profoundly as the others, as it seems.

4. Likewise, if [he was] supreme among all the Angels, therefore nobler among all creatures: therefore the more loved by God, who loves all things which he made: therefore, since it would have been most easy for the Lord to preserve him, it does not seem probable that he permitted him to fall.

CONCLUSION.

*Lucifer was preeminent among the Angels and of the supreme order.*

I RESPOND: It must be said that, as the authorities of sacred Scripture and of the Saints testify, Lucifer was exceedingly excellent, and if he had stood [firm], he would have been placed in the supreme order, since for this he had the fitness on the part of nature. For as will be clear below, the distinction of the orders *consummated* comes on the part of grace, but the *disposition* on the part of nature. — Hence the reasons brought forward for this are to be conceded.

1. To that which is objected, that he is called Cherub; it must be said that Seraphim is interpreted *burning*, and this is through charity; but the Angel, although from his condition he had the *fullness of knowledge*, yet did not have the *burning of charity* except from grace. And because Cherubim is said [to be] *fullness of knowledge*, but Seraphim *the burning of charity*; hence it is that he is called Cherub, not Seraph; and this not because he was of the order of the Cherubim, but because he had a habit befitting that order, not in like manner a habit befitting the order of the Seraphim, although he was prepared for that.

2. To that which is objected, that he was set over the terrestrial order; it must be said that Damascene says this as regards the *administrative* power, because the rest were subject to him as regards the act of ministry. And because the act of ministry belongs to all in some manner from nature, as will be clear below, because *they are all ministering spirits*; therefore from this it is not had that the Angel was of the lowest order, but rather he could be of the supreme [order] and preside over the ministry of earthly things.

But then there is a question: since in the Angel there was the *contemplative* power, why does he describe him rather by the *administrative*? And it must be said that the *contemplative* power is regarded in comparison with what is above, but the *administrative* in comparison with what is below. And since the Angel took the occasion of sinning from considering his own presidency in respect of inferiors; therefore he describes him according to that power. Hence Augustine says that the Angel's consideration in sinning was in a manner contrary to the consideration of the centurion, who said in Matthew, eighth [chapter]: *I am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers.* The Angel on the contrary first considered the soldiers and ministers subject to himself; therefore he was lifted up into pride.

3. To that which is objected, that [he was] less apt for sinning; it must be said that it is true; nevertheless the will in all the Angels was free and changeable, and therefore without any proneness it could be inclined whither it willed; and hence it is that he sinned the more grievously. Hence to sin there does not necessarily concur proneness, but changeableness; nor is sin intensified by proneness, but rather by the dignity of nature and of gifts and by the profundity of conversion. And because he was higher, therefore he fell more profoundly; and because [he was] stronger, therefore he turned himself to evil the more strongly and inseparably.

4. To that which is objected last, that it seems incredible that God would let his most noble creature so perish; it must be said that in this is shown the wondrous justice of God, which so keeps justice that it in no way breaks the order it has instituted; it so hates sin that for sin it casts away those whom it reputed most dear. Hence I believe that so notable a monstrous spectacle of divine severity in the most noble Angel and in the first man — both of whom he fashioned and adorned with his own hands — God has set before us weak ones and shown, that we may learn how much God hates sin, and especially pride, since for one motion of the heart the most noble of all creatures is damned eternally and without hope of pardon, and for one eating of the apple both Adam himself and the whole posterity, even to the end of the world, is subjected to mortality and to manifold penalty; and unless *the Lord had left us seed, we should have been as Sodom*. From these things a most efficacious argument is left, that *it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.* For if God did not spare the most noble Angel in his pride, what will become of vilest and most abject ash, exalting itself on high, when it ought to lie in ash and in sackcloth, indeed in the very dunghill?

SCHOLION.

I. The opinion which St. Bonaventure here expounds is almost common, yet not altogether certain. St. John Damascene (arg. 2 ad oppositum) seems to have thought otherwise (cf. Richard of Mediavilla, loc. cit.), to whose opinion it is not to be prejudicial, says St. Thomas in the *Summa* (loc. cit.), although he judges St. Bonaventure's opinion to be more probable. — For practice, the excellent doctrine in the solution to [argument] 1 is to be noted.

II. The following question of this article is treated specially only by Alexander of Hales, *Summa* p. II, q. 99, m. 3; Peter of Tarentaise, here q. 1, a. 2; Richard of Mediavilla, here a. 1, q. 2. Others resolve it in few words according to probability and in the same sense as St. Bonaventure, as St. Thomas, *Summa* 1, q. 63, a. 9, ad 3.

III. On this question: Alexander of Hales, loc. cit. q. 98, m. 1, a. 1, 2. — Scotus, apud H. of Montefortino, t. II, p. 1, q. 63, a. 7 f. — St. Thomas, here the single question, a. 1; *Summa* 1, q. 63, a. 7. — Bl. Albert, on this and the following question, here a. 1; *Summa* p. II, tr. 5, q. 20, m. 1. — Peter of Tarentaise, here q. 1, a. 1. — Richard of Mediavilla, here a. 1, q. 1. — Giles of Rome, here q. 1, a. 1. — Durandus, here q. 1. — Dionysius the Carthusian, on this and the following question, here q. 1.