Part II, Chapter III, Section 3, Article 1: The Fallen Angels or Demons

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part II, Chapter III, §3, Article 1 (pp. 340–344)

Section 3: The Apostasy of a Number of the Angels

Article 1: The Fallen Angels or Demons

1. The Existence of Evil Spirits

The Fall of the Angels was unlike that of man. The human race apostatized as a whole, because all men were virtually contained in Adam and consequently all contracted original sin through him. The fallen Angels sinned as individuals, each of his own accord, and thereby rendered themselves guilty of actual sin.

The existence of evil spirits is an obvious inference from the revealed truth that a portion of the angelic host, who were all originally created in the state of sanctifying grace, rebelled against God and were cast into hell. “Diabolus et alii daemones a Deo quidem natura creati sunt boni, sed ipsi per se facti sunt mali,” says the Fourth Council of the Lateran.¹ Our Lord Himself says: “I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven.”² St. John in the Apocalypse gives a graphic description of his fall: “Cauda eius [scil. draconis] trahebat tertiam partem stellarum coeli et misit eas in terram. … Draco … proiectus est in terram et angeli eius cum illo missi sunt” — And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth. … And the dragon … was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.³ On the strength of this text certain mystically inclined theologians estimated the proportion of the fallen angels to those that remained faithful as 1:3. Whether this estimate be correct or no, we may safely assume that the number of the faithful Angels exceeded those who fell away.

The Bible consistently distinguishes between the “Devil,” or “Satan,” in the singular, and “demons,” in the plural number. Satan is described as the seducer, the demons as his victims. While the latter are designated by the indefinite terms “demons” (daemones, δαίμονες, δαιμόνια), or “unclean spirits” (spiritus impuri s. nequam, πνεύματα ἀκάθαρτα ἢ πονηρίας), their leader, “the prince of demons,”⁴ is called by the proper name of “Satan” (σατάν or σατανᾶς, שָׂטָן, i.e., an adversary) or “Devil” (diabolus, διάβολος, i.e., slanderer or accuser, from διαβάλλειν, to traduce), and by such quasi-proper names as Asmodeus,⁵ Azazel,⁶ Beelzebub⁷ and Belial.⁸ The name Lucifer does not occur in the Bible.⁹ Nor is there any Scriptural warrant for speaking of “devils” in the plural number. There is but one Devil, though there are many demons or evil spirits. It is the teaching of Holy Scripture that the kingdom of Christ is opposed by a kingdom of evil ruled by the prince of this world, who is the father of lies, Leviathan or the “great dragon … that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world.”¹⁰

From the psychological point of view it is a reasonable assumption that the apostasy of the Angels was instigated by one of their own number, most likely by the one who ranked highest both in natural and supernatural endowment,¹¹ and that consequently the kingdom of evil originated at the very summit of creation and thence spread over heaven and earth.

What was the nature of the sin committed by the fallen angels? Fathers and theologians quite generally hold that it was pride; but they are not agreed as to its underlying motive. Some think the pride of the fallen angels was inspired by envy because of the great things which God had in store for the human race (elevation to the state of grace, the Hypostatic Union, Mary the Queen of Angels, and so forth). Others believe the inordinate desire of these angels to be like God prompted them to rise in mutiny against their Sovereign.¹²

2. The Punishment of the Fallen Angels

It is an article of faith that the fallen angels in punishment for their crime were forthwith shorn of grace and cast into hell, where they have no hope of redemption. Sacred Scripture teaches this expressly. Cfr. 2 Pet. II, 4: “Deus angelis peccantibus non pepercit, sed rudentibus inferni detractos in tartarum tradidit cruciandos” — God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes, to the lower hell, unto torments. Epistle of St. Jude 6: “Angelos vero, qui non servaverunt suum principatum, sed dereliquerunt suum domicilium, in iudicium magni diei vinculis aeternis sub caligine reservavit” — And 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. The phrase “reserved unto the judgment of the great day” does not mean that the evil spirits have any chance of redemption, but merely indicates that their punishment will not be complete till after the Last Judgment, when they shall cease to harass men.

The much-discussed theory that a time will come when all free creatures, demons and lost souls included, shall share in the grace of salvation (ἀποκατάστασις πάντων),¹³ was rejected as heretical in the first of the famous anathemas pronounced at the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 543. Christ Himself implicitly condemned it when He spoke of the final judgment: “Discedite a me, maledicti, in ignem aeternum, qui paratus est diabolo et angelis eius” — Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels.¹⁴

It is the almost unanimous opinion of theologians¹⁵ that, unlike man, the fallen angels were granted no time for repentance.

Notes

Note on this transcription: several Greek and Hebrew terms naming Satan and the demons (δαίμονες, πνεύματα ἀκάθαρτα ἢ πονηρίας, σατανᾶς/שָׂטָן, διάβολος/διαβάλλειν, ἀποκατάστασις πάντων, and the Hebrew behind “Michael”) were reconstructed from garbled OCR with good confidence, matching the glosses given alongside them in the source. This article was otherwise textually clean.