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| Chapter VIII. Of the fall of the devil and the angels.
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Chapter VIII.
Of the fall of the devil and the angels.
And so we are clearly
shown that out of that number of them some of the leaders fell, by the
lamentations of Ezekiel and Isaiah, in which we know that the prince of
Tyre or that Lucifer who rose in the morning is lamented with a doleful
plaint: and of him the Lord speaks as follows to Ezekiel: “Son of
man, take up a lamentation over the prince of Tyre, and say to him:
Thus saith the Lord God: Thou wast the seal of resemblance, full of
wisdom, perfect in beauty. Thou wast in the pleasures of the paradise
of God: every precious stone was thy covering: the sardius, the topaz
and the jasper, the chrysolyte and the onyx and the beryl, the sapphire
and the carbuncle and the emerald: gold the work of thy beauty, and thy
pipes were prepared in the day that thou wast created. Thou wast a
cherub stretched out and protecting, and I set thee in the holy
mountain of God, thou hast walked in the midst of the stones of fire.
Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation, until
iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise thy
inner parts were filled with iniquity and thou hast sinned; and I cast
thee out from the mountain of God, and destroyed thee, O covering
cherub, out of the midst of the stones of fire. And thy heart was
lifted up with thy beauty: thou hast lost thy wisdom in thy beauty, I
have cast thee to the ground: I have set thee before the face of kings,
that they might behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the
multitude of thy iniquities and by the iniquity of thy
traffic.”1530
Isaiah also says
of another: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who
didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the ground, that
didst wound the nations? and thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend
into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit
in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most
High.”1531
But Holy
Scripture relates that these fell not alone from that summit of their
station in bliss, as it tells us that the dragon dragged down together
with himself the third part of the stars.1532
One of the Apostles too says still more plainly: “But the angels
who kept not their first estate, but left their own dwelling, He hath
reserved in everlasting chains under darkness to the judgment of the
great day.”1533
This too which
is said to us: “But ye shall die like men and fall like one of
the princes,”1534
what does it
imply but that many princes have fallen? And by these testimonies we
can gather the reason for this diversity; viz., either that they still
retain those differences of rank (which adverse powers are said to
possess, after the manner of holy and heavenly virtues) from the
station of their former rank in which they were severally created, or
else that, though themselves cast down from heavenly places, yet, as a
reward for that wickedness of theirs in which they have graduated in
evil, they claim in perversity these grades and titles of rank among
themselves, by way of copying those virtues which have stood firm
there.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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