De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae
The Reversed Course of the Light-Bearer
Lucifer's fall is portrayed as a reversal of his original course, with the greater his ambition, the swifter his downfall.
O Light-bearer, who once rose in the morning — nay, not a light-bearer [REDACTED] longer, but a bearer [REDACTED] night, or even a bringer of death — your proper course was from the East toward the South, yet you now stretch toward the North in reversed order.✦ The more eagerly you hasten toward the heights, the more swiftly you fall toward your downfall.
The Spiritual North: Pride's Counter-Throne
The author interprets Lucifer's boast of setting his seat toward the North spiritually, as a counterfeit dominion over the reprobate, mimicking God's rule through malice rather than wisdom.
Still, I would like to look more closely, you curious creature, into the purpose behind your curiosity. 'I will set my seat toward the North,' you say.✦ But I do not mean that physical North, and I do not mean a material seat — since you are a spirit, I understand it spiritually. I take the North to designate those men marked out for reprobation, and the seat to mean authority over them. Those whom God's foreknowledge saw as nearer to Him — and therefore more discerning than the rest — yet gleaming with no ray of wisdom, burning with no love of the spirit — you found them, as it were, an empty place, and you seized dominion over them. With the brilliance of your cunning you would flood them, with the surges of your malice you would set them ablaze, so that just as the Most High presided over all the sons of obedience with His wisdom and goodness, so you too, established as king over all the sons of pride, would rule them with your crafty malice and your malicious cunning — and in this way you would be like the Most High.✦
The Blindness of Foreknowledge Denied
The author questions why Lucifer did not foresee his own fall, and concludes it would have been better to share the punishment of the fallen than to rule as prince of darkness.
But I wonder: since you foresaw your dominion in God's foreknowledge, why did you not also foresee your downfall in that same foreknowledge? For if you foresaw it, what madness possessed you — that you wanted to rule amid such misery, that you preferred to preside wretchedly rather than to submit in blessedness? Or would it not have been better to share in the punishment of those radiant beings than to become the prince of this darkness?
The Beam of Pride That Hid the Fall
It is more credible that Lucifer did not foresee his fall, because pride itself blinded him, as a beam in the eye obscures sight.
But it is more likely that you did not foresee it — either because, O impious one, you provoked God, or because, once the principality was seen, a beam of pride immediately grew in your eye, and with that beam interposed, you could not see the fall.✦12
Read the original Latin
O Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris, immo non iam lucifer, sed noctifer, aut etiam mortifer, rectus cursus tuus erat ab Oriente ad Meridiem, et tu praepostero ordine tendis ad Aquilonem? Quanto magis ad alta festinas, tanto celerius ad occasum declinas.
Velim tamen curiosius, o curiose, intentionem tuae curiositatis inquirere. Ponam, inquis, sede meam ad Aquilonem. Nec Aquilonem hunc corporalem, nec sedem hanc, cum sis spiritus, intelligo materialem. Puto autem per Aquilonem, reprobandos homines fuisse designatos, per sedem potestatem in illos. Quos utique in praescientia Dei, quanto ei vicinior, tanto ceteris perspicacior praevidens nullo quidem sapientiae radio coruscantes, nullo spiritus amore ferventes, velut vacuum repereris locum, affectasti super illos dominium, quos quadam tuae astutiae claritate perfunderes, tuae malitiae aestibus inflammares, ut quomodo Altissimus sua sapientia ac bonitate omnibus filiis oboedientiae praeerat, ita et tu super omnes filios superbiae rex constitutus, tua eos astuta malitia ac ac malitiosa astutia regeres, per quod Altissimo similis esses. Sed miror, cum in praescientia Dei tuum praevideris principatum, cur non in eadem praevidisti et praecipitium? Nam si praevidisti, quae insania fuit, ut cum tanta miseria cuperes principari, ut malle misere praeesse, quam feliciter subesse? Aut non expediebat participem esse plagarum illarum luminosarum, quam principem tenebrarum harum?
Sed credibilius est, quod non praevidisti: aut propter quod, o impie, Deum irritasti; aut quia, viso pricipatu, in oculo statim superbiae trabes excrevit, qua interposita casum videre non potuit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Isa.14.12 — How you have fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who laid low the nations!
- ↩Isa.14.13 — And you said in your heart, 'I will ascend to the heavens; above the stars of God I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north." Keep the quotation open into v.14 for continuity.
- ↩Isa.14.14 — I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'" Close the quotation here so the transition to v.15 lands clearly.
- ↩Matt.7.3-Matt.7.5 — Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Matt.7.4 — Or how will you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? Matt.7.5 — You hypocrite, first take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin reads 'pricipatu,' likely a scribal error for 'principatu' (principality/rule). The translation follows the corrected reading.
- 2 ↩The 'beam in the eye' image echoes the Lord's teaching on the speck and the beam (Matt. 7:3–5), applied here to the devil's blindness to his own fall caused by pride.
De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae (On the Steps of Humility and Pride) companion
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