De Moor IX:24: The Time of the Angelic Fall

The time of this Fall is uncertain.  However, that some delay came between the Creation of Angels, which is the work of God, and the defection, which is the act of the Demons, is asserted not without reason; lest, if their very first operation be thought to be vicious, the cause of the sin should appear to be fastened to their Creator God, as the proximate efficient:  TURRETIN observes this with others, Theologiæ Elencticæ, locus IX, question V, § 2, against certain Scholastics, who maintain that this happened in the first instant of their Creation, or immediately after the first instant of their Creation:  the former are refuted by Lombard, Sentences,[1] book II, distinction III, pages 179-181; and by Thomas Aquinas, Summæ, part I, question LXIII, article V, page 117, with Thomas himself making common cause with the latter, article VI, page 118:  compare ZANCHI, opera, tome 3, part I, book IV, chapter II, column 169b; VOETIUS, Disputationum theologicarum, part I, page 919, number VI; HEIDEGGER’S Corpus Theologiæ Christianæ, locus VIII, § 16, 45, tome I; SALDENUS’ Otia Theologica, book III, Exercitation VIII, § 2.

But it is not permissible to say that the Demons defected before the end of the Hexameron, to which, nevertheless, tend those things that MARCKIUS sets forth out of COCCEIUS, Exercitationibus Textualibus XXXV, Part I, § 4, according to which already at the time of the foundation of the world, when the Good Angels were shouting for joy,[2] the Fall of the Demons had to have happened:  see COCCEIUS on John 8:44, § 83, opera, tome 4, page 170.  Which, as it is asserted without any proof added, so it, no less than the preceding comment of the Scholastics, is convicted of manifest falsehood from the Goodness of all created things at the end of the Hexameron, expressly mentioned in Genesis 1:31.  While, that the Johannine expression ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς, from the beginning, aptly admits some latitude, we have already evinced in § 22.

That much less were the Angels fallen before that Beginning of Moses, our AUTHOR observes against the insistence of the Socinians, seeing that they did not yet exist at that time; compare what things were observed in § 4.  Thus Volkelius nevertheless concludes, de Vera Religione, book II, chapter II, § 3, supposing, that, if in the time of the Hexameron the Demons were both created and fallen before Man, the Fall followed their Creation very quickly:  but that the Angels…were created by God before the fashioning of this World, is first gathered from this, etc.  Then, when we see that immediately after the Creation of the World man in Paradise was seduced at the instigation of the Devil; it is not plausible, that he, within so brief a time, was both brought forth by God, and fell with so great a company of Angels; that he conducted himself so contumaciously against God, and undertook so many and such great impieties and hostilities against God.  Episcopius follows Volkelius and those ὁμοψήφους, of the same mind, Institutionibus Theologicis, book IV, section III, chapter I, page 346b, and chapter III at the beginning, page 349b, opera, volume I:  see what things MARESIUS sets forth for the refutation of this error, Hydra Socinianismi expugnata, tome I, pages 694, 695, rightly pointing out, that no reason is given why a much greater space has to come between the Creation of the Angels and their apostasy, than between the Creation of Man and his Fall.  Nevertheless, that it is more probably that some Angels had already fallen into sin before the Creation of the World, is maintained by the Authors of Angeli Historiæ universalis, part I, pages 140, 144.

But, that Angels fell before Man, is undoubtedly true, since he was tempted and seduced to sin by the Devil:  but this first external sin of the Devil that is commemorated appears to suppose their defection from God already accomplished, and a fountain of evil already existing internally in them.  Therefore, one may affirm with certainty only that concerning the Time of the Angelic Fall, namely, that it happened after the end of the first Hexameron, and yet before the Fall of man.

Consult on this § ODÉ, de Angelis, section IV, chapter II, § 18-21, pages 488, 489.

[1] Peter Lombard (c. 1096-c. 1164), although of relatively humble birth, became a renowned theologian in Paris.  His Four Books of Sentences served as a standard theological text at medieval universities.

[2] Job 38:7.