CATECHESIS ON THE ANGELS
H.H. Pope John Paul II
Catechesis
on the Holy Angels by Pope John Paul II, given at 6 General
Audiences from July 9 to August 20, 1986.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: JULY 9,1986
CREATOR OF ALL
THINGS, SEEN AND UNSEEN
1. We cannot conclude our catechesis on God, Creator of the
world, without devoting adequate attention to a precise item of
divine Revelation: the creation of purely spiritual beings which
Sacred Scripture calls "angels". This creation appears clearly
in the Creeds, especially in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Creed: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of
heaven and earth, of all things (that is, entia or
beings) seen and unseen". We know that man enjoys a unique
position within the sphere of creation: by his body he belongs
to the visible world, while by his spiritual soul which vivifies
the body, he is as it were on the boundary between the
visible and invisible creation. To the latter, according to the
Creed which the Church professes in the light of Revelation,
belong other beings, purely spiritual, therefore not proper
to the visible world even though present and working
therein. They constitute a world apart.
2. Today, as in times past, these spiritual beings are discussed
with greater or lesser wisdom. One must recognize that at times
there is great confusion, with the consequent risk of passing
off as the Church's faith on the angels what does not pertain to
it, or, vice versa, of neglecting some important aspect of the
revealed truth. The existence of spiritual beings, which Sacred
Scripture usually calls "angels", was denied already in Christ's
time by the Sadducees (cf. Acts 23:8). It is denied also by
materialists and rationalists of every age But, as a modern
theologian acutely observes, "if one wishes to get rid of the
angels, one must radically revise Sacred Scripture itself, and
with it the whole history of salvation" (A. Winklhofer Die
Welt der Engel, Ettal 1961, p. 144 note 2; in Mysterium
Salutis, II, 2, p. 726). The whole of Tradition is
unanimous on this point. The Church's Creed is basically an echo
of what Paul writes to the Colossians: "for in him (Christ) all
things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominations or principalities or
authorities - all things were created through him and for him"
(Col 1:16). That is to say, Christ who, as the Son-Word eternal
and consubstantial with the Father, is the first-born of all
creation (Col 1:15), is at the centre of the universe, as the
reason and cornerstone of all creation, as we have already seen
in the previous catecheses, and as we shall see later when we
shall speak more directly of him.
3. The reference to the "primacy" of Christ helps us to
understand that the truth about the existence and activity of
the angels (good and bad) is not the central content of the
word of God In revelation God speaks first of all "to men...
and moves among them, in order to invite and receive them into
his own company", as we read in the Constitution Dei Verbum
of the Second Vatican Council (DV, 2). Thus "the most intimate
truth ... both about God and the salvation of man" is the
central content of the revelation which "shines forth" more
fully in the person of Christ (cf. DV, 2). The truth
about the angels is in a certain sense "collateral",
though inseparable from the central revelation, which is
the existence, the majesty and the glory of the Creator which
shine forth in all creation ("seen" and "unseen") and in God's
salvific action in the history of mankind. The angels are not
therefore creatures of the first order, in the reality of
Revelation, though they fully belong to it, so much so
that sometimes we see them carrying out fundamental tasks in the
name of God himself.
4. All this that pertains to creation enters, according to
Revelation, into the mystery of Divine Providence 'Vatican I,
which we have quoted several times, states it in an exemplarily
concise manner: "All that God created, he conserves and directs
by his Providence reaching from end to end mightily and
governing all things well' (cf. Wis 8:1). 'All lies bare and
exposed to his eyes' (cf. Heb 4:13), even what will take place
through the free initiative of creatures" (DS, 3003). Providence
then embraces also the world of pure spirits, which are
intellectual and free beings still more fully than men. In
Sacred Scripture we find important references to them.
There is also the revelation of a mysterious, though real, drama
concerning these angelic creatures, without anything escaping
divine Wisdom, which strongly (fortiter) and at the same
time gently (suaviter) brings all to fulfilment in the
kingdom of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We recognize above all that Providence, as the loving
Wisdom of God, was manifested precisely in the creation of
purely spiritual beings, so as to express better the likeness of
God in them who are so superior to all that is created in the
visible world including man, who is also the indelible image of
God. God who is absolutely perfect Spirit, is reflected
especially in spiritual beings which by nature, that is
by reason of their spirituality, are nearer to him than
material creatures, and which constitute as it were the closest
"circle" to the Creator. Sacred Scripture offers abundant
explicit evidence of this maximum closeness to God of the
angels, who are spoken of figuratively as the "throne' of God,
as his "legions", his "heavens". It has inspired the poetry
which present the angels to us as the "court of God".
GENERAL AUDIENCE: JULY 23,1986
CREATOR OF
THE ANGELS WHO ARE FREE BEINGS
1. Today we continue our catechesis on the angels whose
existence, willed by an act of God's eternal love, we profess in
the words of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed: "I believe in
one God, the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, of
all that is, seen and unseen".
In the perfection of their spiritual nature the angels are
called from the beginning, by virtue of their intelligence, to
know the truth and to love the good which they know in truth in
a more full and perfect way than is possible to man. This love
is an act of a free will, and therefore for the angels also
freedom implies a possibility of choice for or against the Good
which they know, that is, God himself. It must be repeated here
what we already mentioned earlier in regard to man: by creating
free beings, God willed that there should be realized in the
world true love which is possible only on the basis of
freedom. He willed therefore that the creature, constituted
in the image and likeness of his Creator, should be able in the
greatest degree possible to render himself similar to God who
"is love" (1 Jn 4:16). By creating the pure spirits as free
beings, God in his Providence could not but foresee also the
possibility of the angels' sin. But precisely because
Providence is eternal wisdom which loves, God would have been
able to draw from the history of this sin, incomparably more
radical inasmuch as it was the sin of a pure spirit, the
definitive good of the whole created cosmos.
2. In fact, as Revelation clearly states, the world of the
pure spirits appears divided into good angels and bad ones.
This division is not the work of God's creation, but is based on
the freedom proper to the spiritual nature of each one of them.
It is the result of choice which for purely spiritual
beings possesses an incomparably more radical character
than that of man, and it is irreversible given the degree
of intuitiveness and penetration of the good where with their
intelligence is endowed. In this regard it must also be said
that the pure spirits were subjected to a test of a moral
character. It was a decisive test regarding first of all God
himself, a God known in a more essential and direct way than is
possible to man, a God who granted to these spiritual beings the
gift of participating in his divine nature, before doing so to
man.
A radical and irreversible
choice
3. In the case of the pure spirits, the decisive choice regarded
first of all God himself, the first and supreme Good,
accepted or rejected in a more essential and direct way, than
could happen within the scope of action of human' free will. The
pure spirits have a knowledge of God incomparably more
perfect than that of man, because by the power of their
intellect, not conditioned nor limited by the mediation of sense
knowledge, they see to the depths the greatness of infinite
Being, of the first Truth, of the supreme Good. To this sublime
capacity of knowledge of the pure spirits God offered the
mystery of his divinity, making them thus partakers,
through grace, of his infinite glory Precisely as beings of a
spiritual nature they had in their intellect the capacity, the
desire of this supernatural elevation to which God had called
them, to make of them, long before man, "partakers of the divine
nature' (cf. 2 Pt 1:4), partakers of the intimate life of him
who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of him who in the communion
of the three Divine Persons, "is Love" (1 Jn 4:16). God had
admitted all the pure spirits, before and to the eternal
communion of love.
4. The choice made on the basis of the truth about God, known in
a higher way because of the clarity of their intellects, has
divided also the world of pure spirits into the good and the
bad. The good chose God as the supreme and definitive
Good, known to the intellect enlightened by Revelation. To have
chosen God means that they turned to him with all the interior
force of their freedom, a force which is love. God became the
total and definitive scope of their spiritual existence. The
others instead turned their backs on God contrary to the
truth of the knowledge which indicated him as the total and
definitive good. Their choice ran counter to the revelation of
the mystery of God, to his grace which made them partakers of
the Trinity and of the eternal friendship with God in communion
with him through love. On the basis of their created freedom
they made a radical and irreversible choice on a parity
with that of the good angels, but diametrically opposed.
Instead of accepting a God full of love they rejected him,
inspired by a false sense of, self-sufficiency, of aversion and
even of hatred which is changed into rebellion.
5. How are we to understand such opposition and rebellion
against God in beings endowed with such profound and enlightened
intelligence? What can be the motive for such a radical and
irreversible choice against God? Of a hatred so profound as
to appear solely the fruit of folly? The Fathers of the Church
and theologians do not hesitate to speak of a "blindness"
produced by the overrating of the perfection of their own being,
driven to the point of ignoring God's supremacy, which requires
instead an act of docile and obedient subjection. All this
summed up concisely in the words: "I will not serve" Jer 2:20),
which manifest the radical and irreversible refusal to take part
in the building up of the kingdom of God in the created world.
Satan, the rebellious spirit, wishes to have his own kingdom,
not that of God, and he rises up as the first "adversary" of the
Creator, the opponent of Providence, and antagonist of God's
loving wisdom. From Satan’s rebellion and sin, and likewise from
that of man, we must conclude by accepting the wise experience
of Scripture which states: "In pride there is ruin" (Tob 4:13).
GENERAL AUDIENCE: JULY 30,1986
CREATOR OF
THINGS UNSEEN: THE ANGELS
1. In the previous catechesis we dwelt on the article of the
Creed in which we proclaim and confess God as creator not only
of the whole visible world, but also of the "things unseen", and
we treated of the question of the existence of the angels who
were called upon to make a decision for God or against God by a
radical and irreversible act of acceptance or rejection of his
salvific will.
According to Sacred Scripture the angels, inasmuch as they are
purely spiritual creatures, are presented for our reflection as
a special realization of the "image of God", the most perfect
Spirit, as Jesus himself reminds the Samaritan woman in the
words: "God is spirit" (Jn 4:24). From this point of view the
angels are creatures closest to the divine exemplar. The name
given to them by Sacred Scripture indicates that what counts
most in Revelation is the truth concerning the tasks of the
angels in regard to man: angel (angelus) in fact
means "messenger" The Hebrew malak, used in the Old
Testament, signifies more precisely "delegate" or "ambassador".
The angels, spiritual creatures, have a function of mediation
and of ministry in the relationships between God and man. Under
this aspect the Letter to the Hebrews says that Christ has been
given a "name", and therefore a ministry of mediation, far
superior to that of the angels (cf. Heb 1:4).
Care and solicitude
2. The Old Testament emphasizes especially the special
participation of the angels in the celebration of the
glory which the creator receives as a tribute of praise on
the part of the created world. The Psalms are in a special way
the interpreters of this voice, when, for example, they proclaim
"Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise him in the heights!
Praise him all his angels ..." (Ps 148:1-2). Similarly in Psalm
102 (103): "Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones
who do his word, hearkening to the voice of his word!" (Ps 102
[103]:20). This last verse of Psalm 102 indicates that the
angels take part, in a way proper to themselves, in God's
government of creation, as "the mighty ones who do his word"
according to the plan established by Divine Providence. To the
angels in particular is entrusted a special care and solicitude
for people, whose requests and prayers they present to God as,
mentioned, for example, in the Book of Tobit (Cf. especially Tob
3:17 and 12:12). Psalm 90 proclaims:" "For to his angels he has
given command about you... upon their hands they shall bear you
up, lest you dash your foot against a stone"(cf. Ps
90-[91]:11-12). Following the Book of Daniel it can be said that
the tasks of angels as ambassadors of the living God extend not
only to individual human beings and to those who have special
duties, but also to entire nations (Dan 10:13-21).
3. The New Testament highlights the role of the angels in
Christ's Messianic mission, and first of all in the mystery
of the incarnation of the Son of God, as we observe in the
account of the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist
(cf. Lk 1:11), of Christ himself (cf. Lk 1:26), in the
explanation and orders given to Mary and Joseph (cf. Lk 1:30-37;
Mt 1:20-21), in the indications given to the shepherds on the
night of the Lord's birth (Lk 2:9-15), in the protection of the
newborn child from the danger of persecution by Herod (cf. Mt
2:13).
Further on the Gospels speak of the presence of the angels
during Jesus' forty days of fast in the desert (cf. Mt 4:11) and
during the prayer in Gethsemani. After Christ's resurrection
there will also be an angel, appearing under the form of a young
man, who will say to the women who had hastened to the tomb and
were surprised to find it empty. "Do not be amazed; you seek
Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not
here ... go, tell his disciples ..." (Mt 16:5-7). Two angels
were seen also by Mary Magdalene who was privileged with a
personal apparition Of Jesus (Jn 20:12-17; cf. also Lk 24:4).
The angels appear to the Apostles after Christ's ascension, to
say to them: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking up
into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven,
will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven" (Acts
1:10-11). They are the angels of him who, as St. Peter writes,
"has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with
angels, authorities, and powers subject to him" (1 Pet 3:22).
4. If we pass to the Second Coming of Christ in the
Parousia, we find that all the Synoptic Gospels note that
"the Son of man ... will come in the glory of the Father with
the holy angels" (thus Mk 8:38; as also Mt 16:27; and Mt 25:31
in the description of the Last Judgement; and Lk 9:26; cf. also
St. Paul in 2 Thess 1:7). It can therefore be said that the
angels, as pure spirits, not only participate in the holiness of
God himself, in the manner proper to them, but in the key
moments they surround Christ and accompany him in the fulfilment
of his salvific mission in regard to mankind. In the same
way also the whole of Tradition and the ordinary Magisterium of
the Church down the centuries has attributed to the angels this
particular character and this function of Messianic ministry.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: AUGUST 6,1986
ANGELS
PARTICIPATE IN HISTORY OF SALVATION
In his general audience of
August 6th, Pope John Paul II noted that the modern mentality
does not see the importance of angels. Yet in the encounter with
the world of angels, man comes to see his own being not only as
body but also as spirit.
In the recent catechese we have seen how the Church, illuminated
by the light that comes from Sacred Scripture, has professed
throughout the centuries the truth about the existence of the
angels as purely spiritual beings, with the
Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and has confirmed this in the
Fourth Lateran Council (1215), whose formulation was repeated by
the First Vatican Council in the context of the doctrine on
creation:
"God at the beginning of time created for nothing both
creatures together, the spiritual and the
corporeal, that is, the angelic and the earthly, and thus He
created human nature as having both, since it is made up of
spirit and body" (Constitution De Fide Catholica, DS
3002).
In other words, God created both realities from the very
beginning - the spiritual reality and the corporeal, the earthly
world and the angelic world. He created all this at one and the
same time (simul) with a view to the creation of man,
constituted of spirit and matter and set, according to the
biblical narrative, in the framework of a world already
established according to His laws and already measured by time (deinde).
Together with their existence, the faith of the Church
recognizes certain distinctive characteristics of the nature of
the angels. Their purely spiritual being implies first of all
their nonmateriality and their immortality. The
angels have no "body" (even if, in particular circumstances,
they reveal themselves under visible forms because of their
mission for the good of men), and therefore they are not subject
to the laws of corruptibility which are common to all the
material world.
Jesus Himself, referring to the condition of the angels, will
say that in the future life, those who are risen "cannot die
anymore, because they are equal to the angels" (Lk. 20-36).
As creatures of a spiritual nature, the angels are endowed
with intellect and free will, like man, but in a degree
superior to him, even if this is always finite because of the
limit which is inherent in every creature. The angels are
therefore personal beings and, as such, are also "in the image
and likeness" of God.
Sacred Scripture refers to the angels also by using terms
that are not only personal (like the proper names of
Raphael, Gabriel, Michael) but also "collective" (like the
titles: seraphim, cherubim, thrones, powers, dominions,
principalities), just as it distinguishes between angels and
archangels. While bearing in mind analogous and representative
character of the language of the sacred text, we can deduce that
these beings and persons, as it were grouped together in
society, are divided into orders and grades,
corresponding to the measure of their perfection and to the
tasks entrusted to them. The ancient authors and the liturgy
itself speak also of the angelic choirs (nine, according
to Dionysius the Areopagite).
Theology, especially in the patristic and medieval periods, has
not rejected these representations, seeking to explain them in
doctrinal and mystical terms, without, however, attributing an
absolute value to them. St. Thomas preferred to deepen his
researches into the ontological condition, the epistemological
activity and will into the loftiness of these purely spiritual
creatures, both because of their dignity in the scale of beings
and also because he could investigate more deeply in them the
capacities and the activities that are proper to the spirit
in the pure state, deducing no little light to illuminate the
basic problems that have always agitated and stimulated human
thought: knowledge, love, liberty, docility to God, how to reach
His Kingdom.
The theme which we have touched on may seem "far away" or "less
vital" to the mentality of modern man. But the Church believes
that she renders a great service to man when she proposes
sincerely the totality of the truth about God the Creator and
also about the angels.
Man nurtures the conviction that it is he (and not the angels)
who is at the center of the divine Revelation in Christ, Man and
God. It is precisely the religious encounter with the world
of the purely spiritual being that becomes valuable as a
revelation of his own being not only as body but also as spirit,
and of his belonging to a design of salvation that is truly
great and efficacious within a community of personal beings who
serve the providential design of God for man and with man.
Let us note that Sacred Scripture and Tradition give the proper
name of angels to those pure spirits who chose God, His
glory, and His Kingdom in the fundamental test of their liberty,
They are united to God by the consummate love which flows
from the beatific vision, face to face, of the Most Holy
Trinity.
Jesus Himself tells us this: "The angels in Heaven always see
the face of my father who is in Heaven!' (Mt. 18:10). "To
see the face of the Father always" in this way is the highest
manifestation of the adoration of God. One can say that this
constitutes the "heavenly liturgy," carried out in the name of
all the universe; with which the earthly liturgy of the Church
is incessantly joined, especially in its culminating moments.
Let it suffice here to record the act with which the Church,
every day and every hour, in all the world, before beginning the
Eucharistic Prayer in the center of the Mass, makes
appeal "to the angels and archangels" to sing the glory of the
thrice-holy God, uniting herself thus to those first adorers of
God, in the worship and the loving knowledge of the unspeakable
mystery of His holiness.
According to Revelation, the angels who participate in the life
of the Trinity in the light of glory are also called to play
their part in the history of the salvation of man, in the
moments established by divine Providence "Are they not all
ministering spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those
who are to possess salvation?,'' asks the author of the
Letter to the Hebrews (1:14).
This is believed and taught by the Church, on the basis of
Sacred Scripture, from which we learn that the task of the good
angels is the protection of people and solicitude for their
salvation.
We find these experiences in various passages of Sacred
Scripture, like for example, Ps. 90 which has already been
quoted several times: "He will give His angels charge over you,
to keep you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you
up, lest you dash your foot against a stone" (Ps. 90:11-12).
Jesus Himself, speaking of children and warning against giving
them scandal, refers to "their angels" (Mt. 18:10). Besides
this, He attributes to the angels the function of witnesses in
the last divine judgement about the fate of those who have
acknowledged or denied Christ: "Whoever acknowledges me before
men, the Son of Man likewise will acknowledge him before the
angels of God, but whoever denies me before men will be
denied before the angels of God" (Lk. 12:8-9; cf. Rev.
3:5).
These words are significant because, if the angels take part in
the judgement of God, then they are interested in the life of
man. This interest and participation seem to be accentuated in
the eschatological discourse, in which Jesus has the angels
appear in the Parousia, that is, in the definitive coming of
Christ at the end of history ( cf. Mt. 24.31; 25:31-41).
Among the books of the New Testament, it is especially the
Acts of the Apostles that show us some facts that bear
witness to the solicitude of the angels for man and for his
salvation.
Thus the angel of God liberates the Apostles from the prison (cf
Acts 5:18-20 and first of all Peter, when he was
threatened with death at the hands of Herod (cf. Acts 12:5-10).
Or he guides the activity of Peter with regard to the centurion
Cornelius, the first pagan to be converted (Acts 10:3-8,
11:1-12), and analogously the activity of the deacon Philip
along the road from Jerusalem to Gaza (Acts 8:26-29).
From these few facts which we have cited as examples, we
understand how the Church could come to the conviction that God
has entrusted to the angels a ministry in favor of people
Therefore the Church confesses her faith in the guardian
angels, venerating them in the liturgy with an appropriate
feast and recommending recourse to their protection by frequent
prayer, as in the invocation "Angel of God." This prayer seems
to draw on the treasure of the beautiful words of St. Basil:
"Every one of the faithful has beside him an angel as tutor and
pastor, to lead him to life"' (cf. St. Basil, Adv. Eunonium,
III, 1; cf. also St. Thomas, Summa Theol. I, q.11, a.3).
Ministering Spirits
Finally, it is appropriate to note that the Church honors the
figures of three angels with a liturgical cult; these are
called by name in Sacred Scripture.
The first is Michael the Archangel (cf. Dan. 10:13-20;
Rev. 12:7; Jude 9). His name is a synthesis that expresses the
essential attitude of the good spirits. "Mica-EL" in fact means:
"Who is like God?" In this name, therefore, we find expressed
the salvific choice thanks to which the angels "see the face of
the Father" who is in Heaven.
The second is Gabriel: a figure bound especially to the
mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God (cf. Lk 1:19-26).
His name means: "my power is God" or "power of God," as
if to say that the culmination of creation, the Incarnation is
the supreme sign of the omnipotent Father.
Finally, the third archangel is called Raphael. "Rafa-EL"
means: "God heals." He is made known to us by the story of
Tobias in the Old Testament (cf. Tob. 12:15-20), etc.). which is
so significant for what it says about entrusting to the angels
the little children of God, who are always in need of custody,
care, and protection.
If we reflect well, we see that each one of these figures,
Mica-EL, Gabri-EL, and Rafa-EL reflects in a particular way the
truth contained in the question posed by the author of
the Letter to the Hebrews: "Are they not all ministering
spirits sent forth to serve, for the sake of those who are to
possess salvation?" (Heb. 1-14).
GENERAL AUDIENCE: AUGUST
13,1986
THE FALL OF THE
REBELLIOUS ANGELS
1. Continuing the theme of the previous catecheses, which were
dedicated to the article of the faith that concerns the angels,
God's creatures, we shall begin today to explore the mystery
of the freedom which some of them have turned against God
and his plan of salvation for mankind.
As the evangelist Luke testifies, when the desciples returned to
the Master full of joy at the fruits they had gathered in their
first missionary attempt, Jesus utters a sentence that is highly
evocative: "I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning" (Lk
10:18). With these words, the Lord affirms that the proclamation
of the Kingdom of God is always a victory over the devil, but at
the same time he also reveals that the building up of the
Kingdom is continuously exposed to the attacks of the spirit of
evil. When we consider this, as we propose to do with today's
catechesis, it means that we prepare ourselves for the
condition of struggle which characterizes the life of the
Church in this final time of the history of salvation (as the
Book of Revelation asserts: cf. 12:7). Besides this, it will
permit us to clarify the true faith of the Church against
those who pervert it by exaggerating the importance of the
devil, or by denying or minimizing his malevolent power.
The preceding catecheses on the angels have prepared us to
understand the truth which Sacred Scripture has revealed and
which the Tradition of the Church has handed on about Satan,
that is, the fallen angel, the wicked spirit, who is also called
the devil or demon.
2. This "fall", which has the character of rejection of God with
the consequent state of "damnation", consists in the free choice
of those created spirits who have radically and irrevocably
rejected God and his kingdom usurping his sovereign rights
and attempting to subvert the economy of salvation and the very
order of the entire creation. We find a reflection of this
attitude in the words addressed by the tempter to our first
parents: "You will become like God" or "like gods" (cf. Gen
3:5). Thus the evil spirit tries to transplant into man the
attitude of rivalry, insubordination and opposition to God,
which has, as it were, become the motivation of all his
existence.
3. In the Old Testament, the narrative of the fail of man as
related in the Book of Genesis, contains a reference to an
attitude of antagonism which Satan wishes to communicate to man
in order to lead him to sin (Gen 3:5). In the Book of Job too,
we read that Satan seeks to generate rebellion in the person who
is suffering (cf. Job 1:11; 2:5-7). In the Book of Wisdom (cf.
Wis 2:24), Satan is presented as the artisan of death, which has
entered man's history along with sin.
4. In the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), the Church teaches that
the devil (or Satan) and the other demons "were created good
by God but have become evil by their own will". In fact, we
read in the Letter of St. Jude: " . . . the angels who did not
keep their dignity, but left their own dwelling, are kept by the
Lord in eternal chains in the darkness, for the judgement of the
great day" (Jude 6). Similarly, in the second Letter of St.
Peter, we hear of "angels who have sinned" and whom God "did
not spare, but... cast in the gloomy abysses of hell, reserving
them for the judgement" (2 Pet 2:4). It is clear that if God
"does not forgive" the sin of the angels, this is because they
remain in their sin, because they are eternally "in the
chains" of the choice that they made at the beginning,
rejecting God, against the truth of the supreme and definitive
Good that is God himself. It is in this sense that St. John
writes that "the devil has been a sinner from the
beginning..." (Jn 3:8). And he has been a murderer
"from the beginning", and "has not persevered in the truth,
because there is no truth in him" (Jn 8:44).
Satan: cosmic liar and murderer
5. These texts help us to understand the nature and the
dimension of the sin of Satan, which consists in the denial of
the truth about God, as he is known by the light of the
intellect and revelation as infinite Good, subsistent Love
and Holiness. The sin was all the greater, in that the
spiritual perfection and the epistemological acuteness of the
angelic intellect, with his freedom and closeness to God, were
greater. When, by an act of his own free will, he rejected
the truth that he knew about God, Satan became the cosmic
"liar and the father of lies" (Jn 8:44). For this reason, he
lives in radical and irreversible denial of God, and seeks to
impose on creation - on the other beings created in the
image of God, and in particular on people - his own tragic "lie
about the good" that is God. In the Book of Genesis, we find a
precise description of this lie and falsification of the truth
about God, which Satan (under the form of a serpent) tries to
transmit to the first representatives of the human race: God is
jealous of his own prerogatives and therefore wants to impose
limitations on man (cf. Gen 3:5), Satan invites the man to free
himself from the impositions of this yoke, by making himself
"like God".
6. In this condition of existential falsehood, Satan - according
to St. John - also becomes a "murderer", that is one who
destroys the supernatural life which God had made to dwell
from the beginning in him and in the creatures made "in the
likeness of God": the other pure spirits and men; Satan
wishes to destroy life lived in accordance with the truth,
life in the fullness of good, the supernatural life of grace
and love. The author of the Book of Wisdom writes: ". .
death has entered the world through the envy of the devil, and
those who belong to him experience it" (Wis 2:24). And Jesus
Christ warns in the Gospel: "... fear rather him who has the
power to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna" (Mt 10:28).
7. As the result of the sin of our first parents, this fallen
angel has acquired dominion over man to a certain extent.
This is the doctrine that has been constantly professed and
proclaimed by the Church, and which the Council of Trent
confirmed in its treatise on original sin (cf. DS 1511): it
finds a dramatic expression in the liturgy of baptism,
when the catechumen is asked to renounce the devil and all his
empty promises.
In Sacred Scripture we find various indications of this
influence on man and on the dispositions of his spirit (and of
his body). In the Bible, Satan is called "the prince of the
world" (cf Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), and even "the god of
this world" (2 Cor 4:4). We find many other names that
describe his nefarious relationship with man: "Beelzebul" or
"Belial", "unclean spirit": "tempter", "evil one" and
even "Antichrist" (1 Jn 4:3). He is compared to a "lion" (1 Pet
5:8), to a "dragon" (in Revelation) and to a "serpent" (Gen 3).
Very frequently, he is designated by the name "devil": from the
Greek diaballein (hence diabolos), which means: to
"cause destruction, to divide, to calumniate, to deceive". In
truth, all this takes place from the beginning through the
working of the evil spirit who is presented by Sacred Scripture
as a person, while it is declared that he is not alone:
"there are many of us" as the devils cry out to Jesus in the
region of the Gerasenes (Mk 5:9); and Jesus, speaking of the
future judgment, speaks of "the devil and his angels" (cf. Mt
25:41).
8. According to Sacred Scripture, and especially the New
Testament, the dominion and the influence of Satan and of the
other evil spirits embraces all the world. We may think
of Christ's parable about the field (the world), about the good
seed and the bad seed that the devil sows in the midst of the
wheat, seeking to snatch away from hearts the good that has been
"sown"in them (cf. Mt 13:38-39). We may think of the numerous
exhortations to vigilance (cf. Mt 26:41; 1 Pet 5:8), to prayer
and fasting (cf. Mt 17:21). We may think of the strong statement
made by the Lord: "This kind of demon cannot be cast out by any
other means than prayer" (Mk 9:29). The action of Satan consists
primarily in tempting men to evil, by influencing their
imaginations and higher faculties, to turn them away from the
law of God. Satan even tempts Jesus (cf. Lk 4:3-13), in
the extreme attempt to thwart what is demanded by the economy of
salvation, as this has been pre-ordained by God.
It is possible that in certain cases the evil spirit goes so far
as to exercise his influence not only on material things, but
even on man's body so that one can speak of "diabolical
possession" (cf. Mk 5:2-9). It is not always easy to discern the
preternatural factor operative in these cases, and the Church
does not lightly support the tendency to attribute many things
to the direct action of the devil; but in principle it cannot be
denied that Satan can go to this extreme manifestation of his
superiority, in his will to harm and lead to evil.
9. To conclude, we must add that the impressive words of the
Apostle John, "The whole world lies under the power of the evil
one" (1 Jn 5:19), allude also to the presence of Satan in the
history of humanity, a presence which becomes all the more acute
when man and society depart from God. The influence of the evil
spirit can conceal itself in a more profound and
effective way: it is in his "interests" to make himself unknown.
Satan has the skill in the world to induce people to deny his
existence in the name of rationalism and of every other system
of thought which seeks all possible means to avoid recognizing
his activity. This, however, does not signify the elimination
of man's free will and responsibility, and even less the
frustration of the saving action of Christ. It is, rather, a
case of conflict between the dark powers of evil and the powers
of redemption. The words that Jesus addressed to Peter at the
beginning of the Passion are eloquent in this context: "...
Simon, behold, Satan has sought to sift you like wheat: but I
have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail" (Lk 22:31).
This helps us understand how Jesus, in the prayer that he taught
us, the "Our Father", that is, the prayer of the Kingdom of God,
terminates almost brusquely, unlike so many other prayers of his
era, by reminding us of our condition as people exposed to
the snares of evil and of the evil one. The Christian,
appealing to the Father with the Spirit of Jesus and invoking
his Kingdom, cries with the power of faith. let us not succumb
to temptation, free us from evil, from the evil one. 0 Lord, let
us not fall into the infidelity to which we are seduced by the
one who has been unfaithful from the beginning.
GENERAL AUDIENCE AUGUST 20,1986
CHRIST'S VICTORY
CONQUERS EVIL
The Holy Father concluded his
catechesis on God as the Creator of "the things that are unseen"
by speaking of the victory of Christ over the spirit of evil.
1. Our catechese on God, the Creator of the things "that are
unseen", have brought fresh light and strength to our faith
concerning the truth about the evil one, or Satan; he is
certainly not willed by God, who is supreme Love and Holiness,
and whose wise and strong Providence knows how to guide our
existence to victory over the prince of darkness. The Church's
faith, in fact, teaches us that the power of Satan is not
infinite. He is only a creature - powerful, in that he is
pure spirit, but nevertheless always a creature, with the limits
proper to creatures, subordinated to the will and dominion of
God. If Satan is at work in the world because of his hatred of
God and of his Kingdom, this is permitted by Divine
Providence which directs the history of man and of the world
with power and goodness (fortiter et suaviter). It is
certainly true that Satan's action causes much damage,
both of a spiritual kind and also indirectly of a material kind,
to individuals and to society, but he is not able
ultimately to neutralize the definitive end towards which
man and all creation tend. the Good. He cannot block the
construction of the Kingdom of God, in which at the end there
will be the full realization of the righteousness and the love
of the Father for the creatures who are eternally "predestined"
in Jesus Christ, his Son and Word. Indeed, we can say with St.
Paul that the work of the evil one cooperates for the good (cf.
Rom 8:28) and that it helps to build up the glory of the
"chosen" ones (cf. 2 Tim 2:10).
Total salvation
2. Thus, the whole history of humanity can be considered as
serving total salvation which means the victory of Christ
over the "prince of this world" (Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
"You shall bow down only before the Lord your God, you shall
adore him alone" (Lk 4:8), says Christ eternally to Satan. At a
dramatic moment of his ministry, when he was openly accused of
casting out the demons because of his alliance with Beelzebul,
the chief of the demons, Jesus replied with these words that are
at once severe and comforting. "Every kingdom that is
divided falls into ruins, and no city or family that is divided
can stand upright. Now if Satan drives out Satan, then he is
divided in himself. How then can his kingdom stand upright?...
And if it is by the power of the Spirit of God that I cast out
the demons, then it is certain that the Kingdom of God has come
among you" (Mt 12:26-26, 28). "When a strong man, well armed,
guards his palace, all his goods are secure. But if one stronger
than he comes and overpowers him, he takes away the armour in
which he trusted, and divides his spoils" (Lk 11:21-22). The
words which Christ speaks about the tempter find their
historical fulfilment in the cross and resurrection of the
Redeemer. As we read in the Letter to the Hebrews, Christ
became a sharer in human nature even to the cross "in order
to reduce to powerlessness, by means of death, the one who
has the power over death, that is, the devil... and thus to free
those who... were held in slavery" (Heb 2:14-15). This is the
great certainty of the Christian faith: "the prince of this
world has been judged" (Jn 16:11); "the Son of God has
appeared, in order to destroy the works of the devil" (1
Jn 3:8), as St. John bears witness. It is therefore the
crucified and risen Christ who has revealed himself as
that "stronger one" who has overpowered "the strong man", the
devil, and has cast him down from his throne
The Church shares in Christ's victory over the devil, for Christ
has given to his disciples the power to cast out demons (cf. Mt
10:1 and parallels; Mk 16:17). The Church uses this victorious
power through faith in Christ and prayer (cf. Mk 9:29; Mt
17:19ff.), which in particular cases can take the form of
exorcism.
3. It is to this historical phase of the victory of Christ that
the announcement and the beginning of the final victory, the
Parousia, belongs: this is the second and definitive coming
of Christ at the close of history, and it is towards this that
the life of the Christian is orientated. Even if it is true that
earthly history continues to unfold under the influence of "that
spirit who now is at work in rebellious men", as St. Paul says
(Eph 2:2), believers know that they have been called to struggle
for the definitive triumph of the Good. "for our battle
is not against creatures made of blood and of flesh, but against
the Principalities and Powers, against those who hold dominion
over this world of darkness, against the spirits of evil that
dwell in the heavenly places" (Eph 6:12).
Definitive victory
4. As the end of the struggle gradually draws nearer, it becomes
in a certain sense ever more violent, as Revelation, the
last book of the New Testament, shows in a special emphasis (cf.
Rev 12:7-9). But it is precisely this book that emphasizes the
certainty that is given to us by all of divine Revelation, that
the struggle will finish with the definitive victory
of the good. In this victory, which is contained in
anticipation in the paschal mystery of Christ, there will be the
definitive fulfilment of the first announcement in the Book
of Genesis, which is significantly called the
Proto-Evangelium, when God admonishes the serpent: "I will
put enmity between you and the woman" (Gen 3:15). In this
definitive phase, God will complete the mystery of his fatherly
Providence and "will set free from the power of darkness" those
whom he has eternally "predestined in Christ" and will "bring
them over into the kingdom of his beloved Son" (cf. Col
1:13-14). Then the Son will subject even the whole universe to
the Father, so that "God may be all in all" (1 Cor 15:28).
5. Here we finish the catecheses on God as the Creator of "the
things that are visible and invisible", which are united, in our
structuring of the catecheses, with the truth about Divine
Providence It is obvious to the eyes of the believer that the
mystery of the beginning of the world and of history is
joined indissolubly to the mystery of the end, in which
the finality of all that has been created reaches fulfilment.
The creed, which unites so many truths in such an organic
manner, is truly the harmonious cathedral of the faith.
In a progressive and organic way, we have been able to admire,
struck dumb with wonder, the great mystery of the intelligence
and love of God, in his action of creation, directed to
the cosmos, to the human person, and to the world of pure
spirits. We have considered the Trinitarian origin of this
action and its wise orientation towards the life of man who is
truly the "image of God", called in his turn to rediscover fully
his own dignity in the contemplation of the glory of God. We
have been enlightened about one of the greatest problems that
perturb man and characterize his search for truth: the
problem of suffering and of evil. At the root, there is no
mistaken or wicked decision by God, rather his choice - and in a
certain manner the risk he has undertaken - of creating us free,
in order to have us as friends. Evil too has been born of
liberty. But God does not give up, and he predestines us with
his transcendent wisdom to be his children in Christ, directing
all with strength and sweetness, so that the good may not be
overcome by evil.
We must now let ourselves be guided by Divine Revelation in our
exploration of the other mysteries of our salvation. We have now
received a truth which must be profoundly important for every
Christian: that there are pure spirits, creatures of God,
initially all good and then, through a choice of sin,
irreducibly separated into angels of light and angels of
darkness. And while the existence of the wicked angels requires
of us that we be watchful so as not to yield to their empty
promises, we are certain that the victorious power of Christ the
Redeemer enfolds our lives, so that we ourselves may overcome
these spirits. In this, we are powerfully helped by the good
angels, messengers of God's love, to whom, taught by the
tradition of the Church, we address our prayer: "Angel of
God, who are my guardian, enlighten, guard, govern and guide me,
who have been entrusted to you by the heavenly goodness. Amen".
Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano -1986
