The Fall Of Angels

Magister: Putasne bonos angelos similiter potuisse peccare, antequam mali caderent? Discipulus: Puto; sed ratione comprehendere vellem. Magister: Hoc certum habes quia si non potuerunt peccare, non potestate sed necessitate servaverunt iustitiam. Quare non magis meruerunt gratiam a Deo, quia steterunt, aliis cadentibus, quam quia servaverunt rationalitatem, quam perdere nequiverunt. Sed nec iusti recte, si bene consideres, dicerentur. Discipulus: Sic monstrat ratio. Magister: Illi ergo qui ceciderunt, si non peccassent cum possent, tanto meliores essent quam isti, quanto et vere essent iusti et gratiam a Deo mererentur. Unde sequitur quia aut electi homines maiores et meliores erunt angelis bonis, aut reprobi angeli perfecte non restaurabuntur, quoniam non tales erunt homines, qui pro illis assumentur, quales illi futuri erant. Discipulus: Haec duo penitus neganda existimo. Magister: Potuerunt igitur boni angeli peccare, ante casum malorum nec aliter, quam sicut ostensum est de illis qui peccaverunt. Discipulus: Aliter esse posse non video. Magister: Illi itaque angeli, qui magis voluerunt iustitiam quam habebant, quam illud plus quod non habebant, bonum quod quasi propter iustitiam, quantum ad voluntatem pertinuit, perdiderunt; iustitia retribuente, acceperunt et de illo, quod habebant, in vera securitate permanserunt. Quapropter adeo sunt provecti, ut sint adepti quidquid potuerunt velle; nec iam videant quid plus velle possint: et propter hoc peccare nequeunt. Illi vero angeli qui maluerunt illud plus, quod nondum Deus illis dare volebat, quam stare in iustitia, in qua facti erant, eadem iustitia iudicante, et illud propter quod illam contempserunt nequaquam obtinuerunt; et quod tenebant bonum amiserunt. Sic ergo distincti sunt angeli, ut adhaerentes iustitiae nullum velle bonum possint, quo non gaudeant; et deserentes illam, nullum velle queant, quo non careant. Discipulus: Nihil pulchrius, aut iustius hac distinctione. Sed si posses dicere, vellem audire cuiusmodi commodum illud fuit, quod et boni angeli iuste volendo sic profecerunt, et mali iniuste concupiscendo sic defecerunt. Magister: Quid illud fuerit non video; sed quidquid fuerit, sufficit scire quia fuit aliquid, ad quod crescere potuerunt; quod non acceperunt, quando creati sunt, ut ad aliud suo merito proficerent. Sanctus Anselmus Cantuariensis, De Casu Diaboli, Caput V-VI Source: Migne PL 158.334a-335a

Teacher: Do you think that the good angels were likewise able to sin before the fall of the evil? Pupil: I think so, but I wish to understand it rationally. Teacher: You are certain that if they were unable to sin, they maintained righteousness not by their own power but by necessity. Whence they would have no more merited grace from God because they had stood while the others fell, than because they preserved rationality, which they were unable to lose. But they would not rightly be called just, if you carefully consider the matter. Pupil: So reason shows. Teacher: Therefore they who fell, if they had not sinned when they were able to do so, then they would have been so much better than the good ones as much as they were truly righteous and merited grace from God. Thus it follows that the men who are elect would be better and greater than the good angels, or else the number of reprobate angels would not be perfectly restored, because the men who would assume their places would not be such as they would have become. Pupil: Both alternatives must be completely denied. Teacher: Therefore the good angels were able to sin before the fall of the evil ones, as was shown about the angels who did sin. Pupil: I do not see how it can be otherwise. Teacher: Thus those angels who preferred the righteousness which they did have to something more which they did not have, a good which as on account of righteousness, as much as it pertained to the will, they lost, received it through the reward of righteousness because of the good which they had and in which they remained truly secure. Whence they were promoted to that which they obtained whatever they were able to will, and they saw no more they could want, and on account of this they were not able to sin. But those angels who preferred that more which God do not yet wish to give them than standing in the righteousness in which they had been created, by the judgement of this righteousness did not obtain that because of which they scorned righteousness, and they lost the good they had possessed. So the angels were separated, so that those who adherered to righteousness are not able to will any good in which they do not delight, and those who deserted justice are able to will no good of which they are not deprived. Pupil: Nothing is more fair or just than this distinction. But, if you are able to say, I would like to hear what sort of benefit it was which the good angels thus gained by justly not willing, and which the evil angels by desiring unjustly thus lost. Teacher: I do not know what it was; but whatever it was, it is enough to know that it was something toward which they were able to grow, and which they did not receive when they were created, so that they might obtain it by their own merit. Saint Anselm of Canterbury, On The Fall Of The Devil, Chap 5-6