Tea at Trianon: A Brief Primer on the Devil

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, January 26, 2019

A Brief Primer on the Devil

From The Catholic Thing:

I have written a fair amount on the angelology of St. Thomas Aquinas. But I haven’t yet delved much into demonology, though Aquinas has quite a bit to say about that subject in the Summa Theologiae (I, Q. 63-64). Fortunately, Aquinas asked many questions that come to my mind, and maybe yours, too. So, herewith, a few of them, with possible answers:

Q: Devils, as pure spirits, don’t make choices like humans: For example, “Oh, if only I knew what the consequences would be!” The angels had the initial choice of siding with God, or not. They had a clear understanding of what they were doing, and what the results would be if they rejected God, including the punishments. How could they be so stupid?

The intellects of pure spirits are not discursive, like ours; in other words, they do not think logically – starting with certain premises, figuring out connections or implications, and coming to conclusions. For us, even the conclusions can be ignored, out of laziness, or conflicting interests; regrets may come later, as bad consequences appear.

We can imagine souls in Purgatory regretting actions they took in life, or souls in Hell cursing themselves and all the conditions or persons that put them on the wrong road. But this could never take place with the devils. They can literally only blame themselves, since they foresaw as clear as day all the future consequences of their choices.

So, then, why did they reject God, and the rewards and love He offered? The tradition has it that Satan himself, the leader of the angels, was like a god, with powers and intelligence that we can barely fathom. When Satan took Jesus to the top of the mountain (Matt. 4:8) and showed him all the riches and grandeurs of the world, and claimed that everything was under his power and could be bestowed on Jesus, Jesus did not contradict him. Satan before his fall was probably the closest thing to divinity. But this was also his downfall. Could a primeval “son of God” (Job 1:5, 2:1) with such majestic and all-encompassing powers accept subjugation to God – even the God who had created him?

How could such a great being accept such subservience and humiliation? How could St. Michael’s cry, “Who is like God?” penetrate such overbearing pride? And if Satan and his followers were also given information about the coming creation of humans, how could they resist the possibility of setting up their own kingdom down below, being followed and even worshiped for the benefits and powers they could supply? (Read more.)