Chapter 22.—The Difference
Between the Knowledge of the Holy Angels and that of the
Demons.
The good angels, therefore, hold
cheap all that knowledge of material and transitory things which
the demons are so proud of possessing,—not that they are ignorant
of these things, but because the love of God, whereby they are
sanctified, is very dear to them, and because, in comparison of
that not merely immaterial but also unchangeable and ineffable
beauty, with the holy love of which they are inflamed, they despise
all things which are beneath it, and all that is not it, that they
may with every good thing that is in them enjoy that good which is
the source of their goodness. And therefore they have a more
certain knowledge even of those temporal and mutable things,
because they contemplate their principles and causes in the word of
God, by which the world was made,—those causes by which one thing
is, approved, another rejected, and all arranged. But the demons
do not behold in the wisdom of God these eternal, and, as it were,
cardinal causes of things temporal, but only foresee a larger part
of the future than men do, by reason of their greater acquaintance
with the signs which are hidden from us. Sometimes, too, it is
their own intentions they predict. And, finally, the demons are
frequently, the angels never, deceived. For it is one thing, by
the aid of things temporal and changeable, to conjecture the
changes that may occur in time, and to modify such things by
one’s own will and faculty,—and this is to a certain extent
permitted to the demons,—it is another thing to foresee the
changes of times in the eternal and immutable laws of God, which
live in His wisdom, and to know the will of God, the most
infallible and powerful of all causes, by participating in His
spirit; and this is granted to the holy angels by a just
discretion. And thus they are not only eternal, but blessed.
And the good wherein they are blessed is God, by whom they were
created. For without end they enjoy the contemplation and
participation of Him.