PARS TERTIA, cap. IV
The Living Wind of the Spirit
The angelic spirits are stirred by the living Spirit of God like a wind and burning torches, resounding with the fullness of all praises and turning their voices toward God's righteous judgments.
They are all moved by a wind, flying like burning torches, because the living Spirit of God, burning in truth, stirs these angelic spirits toward his zeal against their enemies. It is also full of voices that resound like the sound of the sea, because it holds the fullness and perfection of all praises, by which both angelic and human creation are poured out in praise of God. And, as you see, this same wind stretches its voices out in its zeal, because the Spirit of God turns the voices of the uprightness of his judgments toward vengeance on the condemned.
Fire Against the Fallen
The blessed spirits pour the fire of vengeance upon the faithless enemies of God, who are reduced to nothing like an unwritten parchment, and their dark effort collapses like thick smoke.
And through that same darkness it sent fire into the blackness of the cloud spoken of earlier, so that it blazed into blackness without flame, when the blessed spirits, seeing the downfall of the lost angels, pressed forward to the honor of God. They poured down the fire of vengeance upon the most wicked faithlessness of the intention of those same enemies of theirs, burning fiercely — not for their correction, but for their greater condemnation, seething without any light of salvation, unwilling to offer their Creator the honor owed him. For because they wanted to exist without the radiance of the praise of their Creator, they were counted as nothing, like an unwritten parchment, empty, bearing no honor of the writing. But soon it blew into that very blackness and made it vanish and collapse like a thick smoke, because that same zeal, through the blessed spirits, reduced the effort of the condemned to nothing, and weakened and beat down the one trying to rise up.
The Unceasing Praise of the Good Angels
The multitudes of good angels gaze upon God and praise his mysteries without ceasing, proclaiming the divine nature with voices beyond all created measure, yet never grasping it fully, so they ever bring forth something new.
For the multitudes of good angels look toward God, and with the full symphony of praises they know him, and with wondrous distinctness they praise his mysteries, which always have been and are in him, and they can never leave off from this, because they are weighed down by no earthly body. They tell of the divine nature, too, with living sounds of excellent voices — voices that are beyond the number of grains of sand in the sea, beyond the number of all the fruits that sprout in the earth, and beyond the number of sounds that are uttered through every living creature; and beyond every brilliance that shines through the sun, the moon, and the stars upon the waters, and beyond all the sounds of the sky that arise from the blasts of the winds, which raise up and sustain the four elements. But in all these voices of their praises, the blessed spirits cannot grasp the divine nature with any limit. And so they themselves always bring forth something new in their voices.
The Casting Down of the Wicked
The zeal of the blessed spirits drives the fallen cloud into a boundless depth, crushing the wicked spirits so they can no longer rebel against God, though they still assail humanity through their worst suggestions.
This same zeal also cast that falling cloud — collapsing from the south wind backward — from the aforementioned mountain toward the north into a boundless depth, so that from then on it would not be able to raise itself up, except that it sometimes sends a mist over the earth. By this it is shown that through the power of the holiness of the angels, the zeal of the blessed spirits drove back the already wavering intention of the wicked spirits — away from the place of blessedness, from the gaze of the ever-living One looking back upon them — into the wretchedness of perdition and unfailing calamity, when it crushed them to such utter brokenness that from then on they could not rebel against God, even though through their worst suggestions they do not neglect to assail people.
The Two Orders of Blessed Spirits
Some blessed spirits remain in heaven standing before the Creator, while others go out as angels to serve humanity, and every rational creature ought to seek the Creator's glory rather than its own.
Some part of the blessed spirits remains in heaven with the hidden things, always standing before the face of their Creator and rarely sent out to external duties; but another part, reckoned under the name of angels, is always going out to various tasks, appearing to humans whenever it's necessary; and every rational creature ought always to seek not its own glory but the Creator's.
Read the original Latin
Qui et omnes a quodam vento, ut ardentes lampades, volante moventur, quia angelicos spiritus istos Spiritus Dei vivens et in veritate ardens, ad zelum suum contra inimicos suos movet. Qui etiam plenus vocum est, quae ut sonus maris sonant, quoniam plenitudinem et perfectionem omnium laudum habet, quibus et angelica et humana creatura ad laudem Dei infunditur. Et, ut vides, ventus idem voces suas in zelo suo extendit, quia Spiritus Dei voces rectitudinis judiciorum suorum ad vindictam reproborum convertit. Atque per ipsam in praefatam nigredinem praedictae nubis ignem misit, unde illa in nigredinem sine flamma exarsit, cum beati spiritus incoeptionem perditorum angelorum videntes ad honorem Dei properabant. Ignem quoque ultionis super pessimam infidelitatem intentionis eorumdem inimicorum suorum ardenter fundebant, illis non ad correctionem, sed ad majorem exsecrationem absque omni luce salutis aestuantibus, nec Creatori suo debitum honorem exhibere volentibus. Nam quia sine fulgore laudis Creatoris sui esse volebant, pro nihilo computati sunt, quemadmodum pergamenum non scriptum vacuum est, honorem scripturae non habens. Sed et mox in illam flavit, eamque ut densum fumum evanescere et corruere fecit, quoniam idem zelus per beatos spiritus conatum reproborum adnihilavit, sursumque ascendere volentem, attenuavit et depressit. Multitudines enim bonorum angelorum in Deum aspiciunt, atque cum omni symphonia laudum eum cognoscunt, et cum mirifica singularitate mysteria ipsius, quae semper in eo fuerunt et sunt, laudant, et nequaquam hoc omittere possunt, quia nullo terreno corpore gravantur.
Divinitatem quoque cum viventibus sonis excellentium vocum enarrant, quae super numerum arenae maris sunt, superque numerum cunctorum fructuum qui in terra germinantur, atque super numerum sonorum qui per omnia animalia proferuntur, et super omnem fulgorem qui per solem et lunam et stellas in aquis fulget, et super omnes sonos aetheris qui per flatus ventorum, qui quatuor elementa elevant et sustinent, fiunt. Sed in omnibus his vocibus laudum suarum beati spiritus divinitatem nullo fine capere possunt. Quapropter et ipsi in vocibus suis novitatem semper faciunt. Praefatus quoque zelus sic illam corruentem ab austro retro supradictum montem ad aquilonem in quamdam infinitam profunditatem projecit, ita ut se deinceps erigere non valeat, praeter quod nebulam quamdam aliquando super terram mittit. In quo ostenditur quod ipse per virtutem sanctitatis angelorum, intentionem malignorum spirituum jam vacillantem, a loco beatitudinis retro aspectu semper viventis ad infelicitatem perditionis, et indeficientis calamitatis repulit, cum illos ad tantam contritionem redegit, ut deinceps rebellare Deo non possint, quamvis pessimis suggestionibus suis homines attentare non negligant.
Quod aliqua pars beatorum spirituum arcana in coelo manens, et vultui sui Creatoris semper assistens, raro ad exteriora mittatur, aliqua vero quae angelorum nomine censetur, ad diversa officia semper exiens, cum necesse est, hominibus appareat; et quod omnis rationalis creatura non suam, sed Creatoris gloriam semper debeat quaerere.
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