VISIO QUARTA, cap. XIII
The First Angel's Radiant Splendor
The original brilliance of the first lost angel is recalled as a host of sparks shining in divine splendor, illuminating the world.
A countless host of sparks was present in the splendor of all his adornments when the first lost angel shone brightly, so that the world is illuminated through that light.
The Prideful Turn Against God
The first angel, refusing to serve, resolves to work from his own power, and his retinue conspires to set their throne against the Most High, planning to sow error among God's ministers.
But when he perceived that in all his splendor he ought to serve God, he withdrew from love of him and directed himself toward darkness, and within himself he said: 'It is very glorious to me that I should work from my own self and produce my own works, just as I see God does.'1 To him his entire retinue agreed, saying: 'We will set the throne of our Lord toward the north, against the Most High.'2 And among themselves they deliberated that when they wished to spread error and schism among God's ministers, their lord would be of as great power and magnificence as the Most High himself.
The Thunder of Divine Judgment
God's eternal eyes blaze and thunder as He casts down the first transgressor and his army through angelic ministries.
Then the eyes of unique eternity were inflamed, and it thundered with a great thunder, and through the ministries of angels it cast down the first transgressor with all his army.3
The Angelic Chorus of Justice
The angels cry out against the unjust presumption of equating any creature with God, and declare that the rebel will go to ruin for wishing to be like his Creator.
And the angels of God cried out with a voice of thunder: 'What unjust presumption, that to God our Creator, who is from himself, anyone can be equated at all?' Because you, who come from his commandment, held this estimation within yourself — that you wished to be like him — you will go to ruin.4
The Fall into Darkness
The rebel and all who clung to him plummet like lead into darkness, unable to perceive the works of the God against whom they warred.
He immediately fell backward into the place of the aforementioned darkness, like a violent weight of lead, along with the rest who clung to him, because he wished to be a warrior against God — whose works he did not see shining into the darkness.5
God's Eternal Counsel for Mankind
God, knowing from eternity that man would exist, made him in His image to resist the devil and recapitulate all creation in soul, bone, and flesh.
Because God, having from eternity in the secret of his counsel that man himself would come to be, made man — who would always resist the devil unable to grasp this mystery, and would take his place — in his own image and likeness; and in him, compacted of soul, bones, and flesh, he also recapitulated all the creatures of the greater world.✦✦
Read the original Latin
Innumerabilis quidem turba scintillarum, quae primo perdito angelo aderant, in fulgore omnium ornamentorum ejus resplenduit, ut mundus per lucem illustratur. At cum ille sensit quia in omni ornatu suo Deo servire deberet, ab amore ipsius secessit, atque in tenebras tetendit, et intra se dixit: Valde gloriosum mihi est ut a me ipso operer, et opera faciam, quemadmodum Deum facere video. Cui omnis comitatus ipsius consensit dicens: Thronum Domini nostri ad aquilonem contra Altissimum ponemus. Atque intra se deliberabant, quod cum ministris Dei errorem et schisma semper facere vellent, quia dominus ipsorum tantae potentiae, tantaeque magnificentiae foret, quantae Altissimus illorum. Tunc oculi unicae aeternitatis inflammati sunt, et ipsa in magno tonitruo insonuit, atque per ministeria angelorum primum trangressorem cum omni exercitu suo dejecit. Et angeli Dei in voce tonitrui clamabant: « Quae iniqua praesumptio Deo creatori nostro, qui a se ipso est, aequari potest? Quia autem tu qui ex praecepto ipsius es, hanc aestimationem in te habuisti, ut ei similis esse velles, in ruinam ibis. » Qui statim cum caeteris sibi adhaerentibus in locum praedictarum tenebrarum quasi vehemens plumbum retrorsum corruit, quoniam contra Deum praeliator esse voluit, cujus opera in tenebras lucere non vidit.
Quia Deus in arcano consilii sui ab aeterno habens quod homo ipse fieret, hominem qui semper diabolo mysterium hoc deprehendere non valenti repugnaret, et ejus locum obtineret, ad imaginem et similitudinem suam fecerit, in quo etiam anima ossibus et carne compacto omnes majoris mundi creaturas ecapitulavit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.1.26 — Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
- ↩Eph.1.10 — as a plan for the fullness of time, to bring all things together in Christ—things in heaven and things on earth.
Notes
- 1 ↩The fallen angel's inner monologue captures the root of pride: the desire to be a self-originating source of action, mirroring God's creative independence without dependence on him.
- 2 ↩Cf. Isaiah 14:13 — 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High' — the paradigmatic rebel-throne declaration.
- 3 ↩'Oculi unicae aeternitatis' — the eyes of the one eternal God — personifies divine judgment as a burning gaze of the eternal One.
- 4 ↩'Ex praecepto ipsius es' — you exist by his commandment — underscores that the creature's entire being is contingent on God's will, making the desire to be like God not merely ambitious but ontologically absurd.
- 5 ↩'Quasi vehemens plumbum retrorsum corruit' — the simile of falling like heavy lead conveys the swift, irreversible gravity of divine judgment.
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