De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae
Revelations and the Danger of Curiosity
The author raises the question of whether revelations feed curiosity, introducing the theme of curiosity as a spiritual danger.
But what about revelations — do they feed curiosity?
The Fallen Angel's Foreknowledge
The author digresses to show that the reprobate angel could foresee his dominion over reprobate men but could not foreknow his own damnation.
The occasion for weaving these things in by way of digression came from there, when I wished to show that the reprobate angel, before his own fall, could have foreseen the dominion over reprobate men that he afterward received — yet still he could not have foreknown his own damnation.1
Curiosity as the First Step of Pride
The author concludes that curiosity rightly claims the first place among the steps of pride and is the beginning of all sin, warning that unchecked curiosity quickly leads to fickleness of mind.
Now, quite a few minor questions have been raised about this point rather than resolved, so let this be the whole summary of the little disputation: he fell from the truth through curiosity, because he first looked curiously at what he desired illicitly and hoped for presumptuously.2 Rightly, then, in the steps of pride, curiosity claims the first place for itself — and it has also been found to be the beginning of all sin.3 But unless this is restrained sooner, it will quickly slip into fickleness of mind, which is the second step.
Read the original Latin
Sed quid de revelationibus ad curiositatem? De quibus, ut haec per excessum intermiscerem, inde sumpta occasio est, cum ostendere vellem, reprobum Angelum ante casum suum sic potuisse praevidere illam quam post accepit, in reprobos homines dominationem, ut tamen suam non praesciret damnationem. De quo etiam nonnullis quaestiunculis motis magis quam solutis, totius disputatiunculae haec summa sit: quod per curiositatem a veritate ceciderit, quia prius spectavit curiose, quod affectavit illicite, speravit paesumptuose. Iure igitur in gradibus superbiae primum curiositas vindicat sibi, quae etiam inventa est initium omnis esse peccati. Sed nisi haec citius cohibeatur, in levitatem animi, quae secundus gradus est, cito delabitur.
Notes
- 1 ↩The sentence engages the speculative question of what the fallen angel knew before and after his fall. The double ut-clause structure (purpose/result) is rendered with 'could have foreseen… yet still he could not have foreknown' to preserve the contrast between foreseeing the dominion and not foreknowing his own damnation.
- 2 ↩The threefold causal chain — spectavit curiose, affectavit illicite, speravit praesumptuose — is rendered as a sequence of escalating interior disorder leading to the fall.
- 3 ↩The claim that curiosity is 'the beginning of all sin' echoes traditional theological teaching (cf. Ecclus 3:24, Vulgate: nimiam curiositatem quis scrutabitur?), but no direct quotation is marked. Treated as theological assertion, not resolved allusion.
De gradibus humilitatis et superbiae (On the Steps of Humility and Pride) companion
Humility is climbed one day at a time
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