Commentaria in Isaiam
Mystically, St. Augustine, book 3 On Christian Doctrine, last chapter, according to the seventh rule of Ticonius, takes this of the devil, that is, of the body of the devil, which is the company of unbelievers, the wicked and reprobates; and St. Bernard, treatise On the Twelve Degrees of Humility, degree 4, “Lucifer,” he says, “who didst rise in the morning—nay, now not a light-bearer but a night-bearer, or even a death-bearer. Thy course was straight from the East to the South, and thou strivest in perverse order toward the North; the more thou hastenest to the heights, the more swiftly thou declinest to thy setting. This cold North, no doubt, is the reprobate; thy seat is the power thou hast over them.” The same Bernard, in his eighty-fifth sermon on the Canticle, says: “The devil stood not in the truth, because he leaned not upon the Word, since he trusted in his own strength. And therefore, perhaps, he wished to sit, because he could not stand. For he said: I will sit in the mount of the covenant. But God judging otherwise, he neither stood nor sat, but fell, the Lord saying: I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven. Therefore he who stands, if he does not wish to fall, let him not trust himself, but lean upon the Word. The Word speaks: Without me you can do nothing.” The same, in his fourth sermon On the Ascension: “Alas, wretched one,” he says, “in the sides of the North! Cold is that mountain; we follow thee not. Thou hast a desire for power; thou presumest the height of dominion. Yet how many to this day follow his foul and unhappy footsteps; nay, how few escape who are not ruled by the lust of ruling! Whom do you follow, miserable men, whom do you follow? Do you not see Satan falling like lightning from heaven? Is not this the mountain to which an angel ascended, and became a devil?”
I shall be a supreme and sacred majesty, not only human and royal but divine, and as such I shall be adored. Balthasar learned this from his father Nabuchodonosor, who wished to be adored in a golden statue of great height, namely of sixty cubits, Daniel 3. So the king of Tyre, Ezechiel 28:2, said: “I am a god, and I sit in the chair of God, in the heart of the sea;” to whom God therefore replies, verse 9: “Thou art a man, and not a god. Thou shalt die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers.”
So Augustus Caesar usurped divine honours, and wished altars to be set up to himself.
Hence Horace, book 1, epistle 16: He touches the throne of Jove, and attempts the heavenly things:
For he shall ever be a god to me: his altar a tender lamb from our folds shall often stain.
Nor did Phaethon and Icarus, those figures of the heathen, signify anything else by their flight to heaven.
Note: “I will be like.” Lucifer, or the devil, was not at the beginning so foolish as to wish to be God, or equal to God, and as it were a second God; for he knew this to be impossible and foolish. But at the beginning, considering the exceeding beauty of his nature, his wisdom, power and grace, he took too great a complacency in them; thence he swelled with pride, which grew until, as though sufficient to himself, he would not depend on God, would not be subject to God, would not lie under His law and command. Hence he was blinded, and this blindness could so grow with his pride that he truly desired equality with God and divinity, as we see certain tyrants have desired it. But at the beginning, before he was blinded, he could not aim at it. Wherefore the opinion of the Doctors is probable, that the hypostatic union of Christ as man with the Son of God was revealed to the devil, and that he envied Christ this, and desired it for himself. For he knew that this could be done, and thought that it ought so to be done for himself, as being an angel nobler than man. And indeed if this mystery of the union was revealed to him, there is scarcely a doubt that the proud angel aspired to it, and envied Christ. But that it was revealed to him we may suppose; we cannot demonstrate it from Scripture or the Fathers.
Verse 15. Nevertheless thou shalt be brought down to hell. This is a just penalty of pride. Balthasar and the devil wished to ascend to the summit of heaven; therefore they descended to the bottom of the pit. For the Prophet sets the lowest against the highest, hell against heaven, and the sides of the pit, as the Hebrew has it, against the sides of the North. To this regards the adage of Homer: “From Tartessus to Tartarus.” For Tartarus is a place of misery, Tartessus of happiness; Tartessus is a city on the borders of Spain, famed for the fertility of the place.
Rightly does Climacus say, in the step On humility: “Pride makes demons of angels; humility makes angels of demons.” So St. Michael, humbly saying, Who is like God? took the seat of Lucifer when he was cast down; for God hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble.
Rightly does St. John the Abbot, who foretold to the Emperor Theodosius victory over the tyrants, relate in Palladius, in the Lausiac History, chapter 44, that a certain monk, proud of his virtue, was tempted and overcome by a demon who appeared to him in the form of a woman, and enticed him with allurements to it, to the lust of Lucifer. When at last he had consented, the demon escaped, vanishing from his hands like a shadow. And the laughter of many demons was heard in the air, crying: “He that exalteth himself shall be humbled. Thou wast indeed exalted to the heavens, but thou art humbled even to the abyss.” Wherefore he rose up lamenting, and despairing of his salvation, returned to the world.
On the contrary, that old man in the Lives of the Fathers, book 7, chapter 12, says: “However far a man humbles himself in humility, so far he advances upward; for as pride, if it ascend to heaven, is brought down even to hell, so humility, if it descend into hell, shall then be exalted even to heaven.”
Moral. Learn here, then, what pride and ambition are: they are, no doubt, the sin of Lucifer, which made a most foul devil of a most beautiful angel. Let those, therefore, who seek bishoprics, prelacies and principalities know, first, that they seek the government of souls, of which God will demand an account from them, and will impute to them their damnation if they perish; a prelacy is therefore a burden to be dreaded even by angelic shoulders. Secondly, let them know that ambition, like avarice, draws many sins with it; for the ambitious are almost ready to seize any occasion of rising by right or wrong. Thirdly, let them know that most heresies have arisen from ambition; for the ambitious, when they could not attain the hopes and dignities they aimed at in the Church, became enemies of the Church and heresiarchs, and truly Luciferi.
Fourthly, let them consider that saying of St. Chrysostom, homily 34 on the epistle to the Hebrews: “It is a wonder if many of the prelates are saved,” for more are damned; and let them know that many placed in dignity are damned who would be saved if they lived as private men; for proportionally far more are saved in the humble state of subjects than in the high state of prelates; many, no doubt, are lifted on high that they may fall with a heavier fall, and thunderbolts strike the highest mountains. Fifthly, let them consider that saying of the Wise Man: “The mighty shall be mightily tormented.” Let them hear Origen: “All ambition of entering upon ecclesiastical honour would be cut off, if those who wish to rule over peoples would think that they are rather to be judged than to judge.”
Sixthly, let them know that ambition is never satisfied, because it always reaches for greater things; as Lucifer did not rest until he invaded the throne of God; for, as Seneca says, “to the ambitious man it is not so pleasant to see many behind him as it is irksome to have someone before him.” So the proud Aman was more tormented by the one Mardochai preferred before him than he was refreshed by all the peoples and princes submitting themselves to him. Seventhly, let them consider that saying of Julius Caesar: “Those who live in a lofty place have their deeds observed by all;” and they are exposed to the censure, envy, detraction and hatred of many. Eighthly, let them consider that honour and dignity quickly perish, like a flower; whence the Psalmist says: “Their memory hath perished with a noise.” Ninthly, that in various waves the ambitious are tossed, like the sea; both because of the many distractions and cares by which they seek to win or keep honour, and because of rivals, and because they must flatter their own people, or their superiors, or their subjects.