But since supernatural felicity cannot be obtained by purely natural means, but is the effect of grace, and since it can be merited only by God's adopted children, God adorned the angels with sanctifying grace, and thus qualified them for the performance of actions deserving of an eternal reward.

103. The reward of the faithful angels consists in the ever lasting vision of God face to face.

1. The angels that were found faithful in their trial obtained supernatural happiness, consisting in the beatific vision, or the contemplation of God face to face. Christ Himself says in reference to the little ones: "Their angels in heaven always see the face of My Father" (Matt. xviii. 10). Again, He compares the felicity of the blessed in heaven with that of the angels: "They are equal to the angels and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection" (Luke xx. 36). But the happiness of the blessed consists in the vision of God face to face; in like manner, therefore, the happiness of the faithful angels.

2. This state of happiness is an everlasting one; for, without the assurance that their happiness will never cease their present enjoyment would be imperfect and the fulness of their bliss impaired (211).

The distribution of the angels into nine choirs is founded on Holy Writ, which (Eph. i. 20; Col. i. 16; Thess. iv. 15; Is. vi. 2; Gen. ix. 24) speaks of nine different classes: angels, archangels, princedoms (lowest hierarchy), whose name points to the immediate execution of God's mandates to His creatures; powers, virtues, and dominations (second hierarchy), who have, as their name implies, a larger share in the execution of God's will in His creatures; and, finally, thrones, seraphim, and cherubim (third and highest hierarchy), who, as their names signify, stand around the throne of God, and glowing with love, contemplate His face evermore.

104. The fallen angels have been condemned by God to everlasting torments.

Many of the angels were found faithless, though the fathers seem to find certain hints in Scripture which go to signify that the greater number remained faithful. According to the common · opinion pride was the cause of their fall: "Pride is the beginning of every sin" (Ecclus. x. 15). What the object of their pride was revelation does not tell us. Whether they tried to gain supernatural

happiness by their own effort; or disdained that happiness which they could obtain only with God's supernatural assistance, glorying in their own natural perfections; or refused to recognize and adore God as the giver of their natural gifts; or withheld submission from the Son, whose incarnation God may have revealed to them,--are all mere conjectures.

Holy Scripture at the same time testifies to the fall and to the punishment of the evil spirits: "God spared not the angels who sinned: but delivered them drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower hell, unto torments" (2 Pet. ii. 4). The ropes signify the duration of their punishment, which began immediately after their sin; yet fresh judgment will be pronounced upon them as well as upon men on the last day; for "the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, He hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains unto the judgment of the great day" (Jude i. 6). Though God permits them to leave their place of torment to tempt man, their punishment in that case is not interrupted; for as the good angels here upon earth see the face of God, so the wicked ones can experience God's wrath, in all places.

The fallen angels, though they are pure spirits, can in diverse ways suffer from the fire prepared for them (Matt. xxvi. 41). The very confinement to the place of fire is a punishment, since restriction to one place is contrary to the nature of spirits; and the consciousness of this confinement accompanies them even when permitted to go at large. Again, though a pure spirit cannot naturally feel the physical effects of fire, yet God in His omnipotence can give to fire a supernatural influence; for He can elevate the natural things-for instance, water-so that they produce supernatural effects. If, by His supernatural influence, God can elevate the natural faculties of man to the contemplation of His own essence, He can so raise the power of fire that it will exert its influence on spirits (cf. 214). Although the fallen angels substantially preserved their natural powers, yet they cannot be said to have preserved that natural happiness which results from these (102). Happiness is contentment; but contentment is impossible in the case of intelligent beings without rest in God as their last end. But the will of the evil spirits, far from resting in the love of God, is averted from Him by hatred. Their intelligence, far from deriving any satisfaction from the knowledge of God, adds to their torment by the very fact that it perfectly realizes the greatness of their loss.

It is the common opinion of the fathers that one of the fallen angels seduced the others to their fall. Those passages of Scripture which ascribe the sin or its punishment to one seem to favor this opinion. "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil

sinneth from the beginning" (John iii. 8). Depart from Me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, which was prepared for the devi and his angels" (Matt. xxv. 41). The hierarchical order of the fallen angels still continues to exist, as may be inferred from the words of the Apostle: "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places" (Eph. vi. 12).

B. The Material World.

105. The material world was created and perfected by God. By the material world, in contradistinction to the spiritual world and to man, we mean all creatures not endowed with reason, whether animate or inanimate.

1. Scripture first relates the creation of inorganic, or inanimate, nature. For after the words: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth," we read: "And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved over the waters" (Gen. i. 1-2). It further relates that God, after dividing the waters, caused the green herbs and trees to spring up (Ib. 11); whence it is manifest that the foregoing verses speak only of inorganic nature. God Himself, no other dependent or independent agent, is here represented to us as the creator of this material world. The Manichean heresy, which admitted two principles, of which one was the author of the invisible, the other of the visible world, has been rejected by the fathers and by the whole Church, whose teaching is that God is the "one principle of all things, the creator of all things visible and invisible, spiritual and material" (Symb. Later.).

Since Scripture teaches that God created not only the universe in general, but also the material world in particular, with the essential elements of which it is composed, it is evident that those systems of philosophy which attribute to it any other origin are not only false, but also contrary to faith.

2. Our globe received from God its present form, its relation to the other heavenly bodies, its outfit with vegetation and animal life-in short, the present state of the earth is also God's work, though the co-operation of the forces of nature is not excluded. The Scriptures evidently attribute the order

and the final completion of the earth to God. God said: Let there be light; and there was light. Let the waters divide under the firmament into one place, and let the dry land appear; and it was so. Let the earth bring forth the green herbs, etc. (Gen. i). Scripture by thus deriving the different classes of beings from God as their creator teaches us two things: first, the absurdity of paying divine honor to nature; secondly, that God, the author of all things, deserves our gratitude for having created such a variety of beings for our use and enjoyment.

a. Reason itself shows that the origin of organisms cannot be otherwise explained than by divine action. For, if inorganic matter could generate organisms, such a fact would certainly come under our observation under some condition or other. But such is not the case; experience teaches that life is generated of life. Besides, it is inconceivable how any class of beings could produce a higher species than itself, since, in the natural order of things, like produces like.

b. As life cannot be developed from inorganic matter, so also one form of life cannot be evolved from another; animal life cannot be evolved from the vegetable, much less man from the brute animal. For, that which is not contained in the germ cannot be evolved from it. As life in general is produced from life, so animal life from animal life. That man can descend only from man is self-evident. The theory that distinct species are produced from one single species of the same order is not supported, but refuted, by experience. Only races, never different species, are developed from a species. What Genesis relates of God's immediate action in the production of the different species is in perfect harmony with reason and experience.

c. As God produced living beings by animating matter already created, their production is not, strictly speaking, creation (93). Scripture implies as much in the words: "Let the earth bring forth the green herb.. And the earth brought forth living creatures, according to their kind" (Gen. i. 12, 21). The earth co-operated, inasmuch as it yielded the matter.

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d. According to the Mosaic narrative, on the first day God said: "Let there be light, and light was made. And He divided the light from the darkness" (Gen. i. 3, 4). Whether by this light we are to understand a light dimly penetrating through the clouds from the sun, or light from a different source, is not decided. On the second day God made the firmament and divided the waters that were under the firmament from those that were above the firmament,” i.e.. the clouds from the waters that were upon the earth. On the third day God brought forth the earth out of the waters that surrounded it and clothed it with vegetation. It is not without reason that light and air, the necessary conditions for vegetation, were previously

mentioned. The vegetable must have preceded the animal kingdom, since it is only upon organic matter that animals can live. On the fourth day God called forth to view the sun and other heavenly bodies. Whether they already existed or not is not evident from the text; for Moses here speaks of the heavenly bodies in their relation to the earth. On the fifth day God made the lower animals: fishes and birds. On the sixth day were made the higher animals and man.

It is the opinion of some geologists who hold the six days to be longer periods of time (94) that organic nature came into existence in the order given by Moses. The lowest stratum of the earth's surface, they say, contains principally the remains of plants, the next fishes, the uppermost land-animals. Others believe that the vegetable and animal kingdoms of which Moses speaks are of a much earlier period and quite different from those the remains of which are found in a fossilized condition. According to this view, Moses speaks only of the reconstruction of the earth from a chaotic state, hinted at in the words: "The earth was void and empty." Others again maintain that Moses in his narrative would only classify the works of God without intending to imply that they were produced in the same order as narrated-plants, lower animals, higher animals. As long as the Church, however, has not pronounced on the matter, we are free to choose that explanation which, without contradicting the Scriptures, best accords with the results of science. For the rest, the results of geology are not of such a nature as to afford us sufficient light for the interpretation of the Scripture narrative.

C. Man.

106. Man was created by God.

1. After the creation of the material world God proceeded to the chief work of visible creation as indicated by the words: “Let us make man to our own image and likeness. . . . And the Lord God formed man out of the slime of the earth and breathed into his face the breath of life" (Gen. i. 25). Of the creation of animals Scripture says simply: "God made the beasts of the earth according to their kind" (Gen. i. 5), but in man a distinction is made between the formation of the body and its animation by the breath of life. The body is formed of the slime of the earth, the soul infused into it directly by God—created.

Man is therefore created in a stricter sense than other living beings, which are only produced from matter. The soul of man is created in the strictest sense of the word, being produced out of nothing, independently of matter. This is not the case with the life-principle of plants and brute animals, which is produced in, and