HKB
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Often appears with: the passions and the emotions · the fear of death · sin, guilt, and repentance · sin and death enter creation · scripture and its interpretation · scriptural authority · religious persecution and toleration · rank, class, and social order · pride as motive · participation in divine attributes · naming principles · language, naming, and meaning
Usually: argument (2) · reverence (2) · narrative (1) · ambition and its cost (1) · the fall of the great (1) · curiosity (1) · detachment (1)
“And know not that I called, and drew them thither, My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth Which Man’s polluting sin with taint hath shed On what was pure; til, crammed and gorged, nigh burst With sucked and glutted offal, at one sling Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son, Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave, at last, Through Chaos hurled, obstruct the mouth of Hell For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.” John Milton, Paradise Lost · insight
“But if the motive for sinning be considered, we find that it existed in the higher angels more than in the lower. For, as has been said (A. 2), the demons' sin was pride; and the motive of pride is excellence, which was greater in the higher spirits.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
“in the names of the angelic orders it is necessary to observe that the proper name of each order expresses its property.” Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) · insight
Sin and Death take separate paths to destroy and spread corruption in the world; meanwhile God’s angels prepare to renew and purify creation, and heavenly worship praises divine righteousness and the coming restoration.
This said, they both betook them several ways, Both to destroy, or unimmortal make All kinds, and for destruction to mature Sooner or later; which the Almighty seeing, From his transcendent seat the Saints among, To those bright Orders uttered thus his voice. See, with what heat these dogs of Hell advance To waste and havock yonder world, which I So fair and good created; and had still Kept in that state, had not the…
In answering whether the highest angel who sinned was the highest of all, Thomas weighs likelihood to sin versus motive (pride), concluding the motive makes the chief sinner the highest.
in Ev.) says that the chief angel who sinned, "being set over all the hosts of angels, surpassed them in brightness, and was by comparison the most illustrious among them." *I answer that,* Two things have to be considered in sin, namely, the proneness to sin, and the motive for sinning. If, then, in the angels we consider the proneness to sin, it seems that the higher angels were less likely to sin than the lower. …
Aquinas argues that Scripture’s names for angelic orders fit each order’s proper property, distinguishing naming by property, excess, or participation, so each order’s name reflects what it adequately signifies.
Whether the Orders of the Angels Are Properly Named? Objection 1: It would seem that the orders of the angels are not properly named. For all the heavenly spirits are called angels and heavenly virtues. But common names should not be appropriated to individuals. Therefore the orders of the angels and virtues are ineptly named. Obj. 2: Further, it belongs to God alone to be Lord, according to the words, "Know ye tha…