The Fall of the Apostate Angels

The Fourth Lateran Council teaches that "The devil and the other demons were indeed created by God good by nature but they became bad through themselves." Let's look at the scriptural sources of this teaching.

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star [O Lucifer], son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.' But you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit" (Isaiah 14:12-15). Biblical scholars will rightly point out that Isaiah is addressing the king of Babylon in this passage. On the spiritual level, however, the Christian tradition has always interpreted it as referring to the fall of Satan. The same is true of the following passage from the prophet Ezekiel, which was originally addressed to the king of Tyre: "Thou wast the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and 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 chrysolite, 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 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" (Ezekiel 28:12-17).

The devil seduced other angels to fall with him: "And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world - he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him" (Rv 12:9).

This miniature painting adorned a prayer book produced for the Duke of Berry around 1416. The scene portrays the fall of the apostate angels from the heavenly choirs. Lucifer or Satan is the first to fall, and is noteworthy for his beauty - which may have been the source of his prideful rejection of God's and his plan of salvation for men.

Although the exact number of fallen angels is unknown, many speculate that it was one third of the total number of angels, on the basis of the following passage: the dragon's "tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven, and cast them to the earth" (Rv 12:4).

Angels likely fell from every choir, although perhaps more fell from the hierarchies of principalities and powers: "we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph 6:12; see also Col 2:15).

The fallen angels or demons have been consigned to hell, although they continue to exercise the powers, to the extent that God allows, on earth. "And the angels that did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day" (Jude 1:6). "For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment" (2 Pt 2:4).

The fallen angels cannot be saved; their sin is irrevocable. In his general audience of 13 August 1986, Pope John Paul II comments 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." Confirmed forever in hatred of God, demons do all they can to thwart his plan of salvation for men.   

In the heavenly battle from another illustrated prayer book, Michael leads the holy angels against the devil, portrayed as the seven-headed dragon in Rv 12.

The Fall of Man

The visions revealed to John the Seer identify the serpent who "deceived Eve by his cunning" (2 Cor 11:3) in Eden with the devil: "the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan" (Rv 20:2).

Jesus confronts his adversaries: "You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (Jn 8:44). Why is the devil a murderer? First, because he brought about the fall of his fellow angels, thereby destroying the life of grace in them; second, because his seduction of Adam and Eve brought death to them and to all their posterity.

The Council of Trent, in the Decree Concerning Original Sin, teaches: "the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and ... he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil...."

But God did not abandon man; He gave Adam and Eve the proto-evangelium, the first hint of a Messiah who would save them from the dominion of the devil and his Virgin Mother: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel" (Gn 3:15).

Blessed Brother Claudio Granzotto carved this baptismal font in 1927. It can be seen in the church of St Lucie de Piave in Treviso, Italy. The figure of Satan, in marble, labors to support the weight of the baptismal conch, which includes also a bronze statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Christ and the Devil

The Lord's first direct confrontation with the devil takes place immediately before He begins his public life. "And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan, and was led by the Spirit for forty days in the wilderness, tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing in those days; and when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.' And Jesus answered him, 'It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone.' And the devil took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, 'To you I will give all this authority and their glory; for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it shall all be yours.' And Jesus answered him, 'It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.' And he took him to Jerusalem, and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written, "He will give his angels charge of you, to guard you," and "On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone."' And Jesus answered him, 'It is said, You shall not tempt the Lord your God.' And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time" (Lk 4:1-13; see also Mt 4:1-11 and Mk 1:13).

Duccio di Buoninsegna painted this scene of the temptation of Christ in between 1308 and 1311. The devil, portrayed as a dark winged angel, is showing the Lord the kingdoms of the world and all their glory.

Giotto painted this fresco of the Pact of Judas on the chancel wall of the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy, in the early fourteenth century. The devil stands behind Judas, who is wearing yellow and holding his money bag, while he betrays Christ to the high priest.

This carved baptismal font dates to the 13th or 14th century, and is found in the Church of Saint Vincent of Montreal in France. It is a great image to open this treatment of demons because it puts them in their proper place. The  baptismal font is resting upon the back of the devil. He appears to be crushed by its weight, and not particularly happy about supporting the font of salvation.

This twelfth-century mosaic can be seen in the Byzantine basilica in Torcello, Venice. This relief is part of a larger scene portraying the final judgment. Here Satan is depicted as a dark human figure with a clearly human antichrist sitting in his lap. His demons harass the damned, while his throne includes the mouths of hell.

Flemish artist Hans Memling (d. 1494) pained this image of hell to adorn an altar panel. Images of demons torturing the damned in hell tend to owe more to the artist's imagination than to solid grounds in revelation. The purpose of such images is moral: they stimulate our imagination regarding the torments of hell as a means of spurring us on to do good.

The baptismal font in the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis stands on four pillars, each of which rests upon a grotesque figure representing the devil, including this dragon.   

The stained glass serpent in the menu bar on the left comes from a chapel of the Josephinum Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.