PRIMA VISIO, cap. VIII
The Angels' Fatal Pride
A multitude of angels, dazzled by their own brightness, forgot their Creator and resolved to exalt themselves above God.
But there was a certain innumerable multitude of angels who wanted to be from themselves, because when they saw their own great and glorious brightness shining in the highest, they led their Creator into oblivion. And before they had even begun to praise him, they reckoned among themselves that the splendor of their honor was so great that no one could resist them, and so they wanted to obscure God. For when they saw that they could never bring him to an end in his miracles, they abhorred him, and although they ought to have praised him, through a deceitful opinion they said that in their great brightness they would choose another god.1
The Fall into Darkness
The rebellious angels fell into darkness and powerlessness, and Lucifer, once adorned with all creaturely splendor, was cast out into lightless horror by divine justice.
And so they fell into darkness, reduced to such impossibility that they can do nothing in any creature except what is permitted to them by their Creator. For when God had adorned the first angel, who is called Lucifer, with all the ornaments of creatures, which he had given to all creatures, in such a way that even his whole host would have its splendor from there, he himself, going into the opposite, became more horrible than all the horrors, because the holy Divinity, in his zeal, cast him out into a place that is without light.2
The Soul's True Radiance
When a person turns to imitate the Creator, they are drawn out of brutish irrationality and begin to shine with the radiance of their rational nature.
When someone turns to imitate their Creator, as if pulled out of a kind of brute irrationality, they begin to shine with the radiance of their rational nature.
Read the original Latin
Quaedam autem innumerabilis multitudo angelorum erat qui a se ipsis esse voluerunt, quoniam cum claritatem suam magnam et gloriosam in maxima coruscatione viderent, Creatorem suum in oblivionem duxerunt. Et priusquam etiam eum laudare incoepissent, in semetipsis computabant quod fulgor honoris eorum tantus esset, ut nullus eis resistere valeret; quapropter et Deum obfuscare volebant. Nam cum viderent quod eum in miraculis suis nunquam ad finem perducere possent, ipsum abhorruerunt, et cum eum laudare deberent, per fallacem opinionem dicebant quod in magna claritate sua alium deum eligerent. Unde in tenebras ceciderunt, ad tantam impossibilitatem redacti, ut in nulla creatura quidquam facere possint, nisi quantum eis a Creatore suo permittitur. Cum enim Deus primum angelum, qui Lucifer dictus est, cum omnibus ornamentis creaturarum quae omnibus creaturis dederat, ita ornasset, ut etiam totum agmen ejus inde splendorem haberet, ipse in contrarium vadens, horribilior cunctis horribilibus factus est, quoniam sancta Divinitas in zelo suo illum in locum qui sine luce est ejecit.
Quod homo ad imitationem Creatoris sui se dirigens, quasi ex quadam bestiali irrationabilitate abstractus, fulgore rationalis naturae radiare incipiat.
Notes
- 1 ↩The second 'cum' (token 16) is rendered concessive ('although') rather than temporal, following the candidate gloss difficulty note and the adversative sense of the passage.
- 2 ↩The first 'cum' (token 0) is temporal ('when'), 'enim' is explanatory ('For'), and the second 'cum' (token 9) is taken as prepositional ('with all ornaments') governing the ablative, following the candidate gloss difficulty note. 'Divinitas' is rendered as 'Divinity' rather than 'Godhead' to stay close to the surface form while preserving theological weight.
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