1. The Possibility of Several Intervals

24. As to the first [n.23] manifold things can be said.

For two intervals can be posited: namely one in which the angels are in the term -and another single one preceding it, when they are on the way. And thus a certain doctor [Aquinas] posits that the angels were created together in grace in the first instant, and therein all merited; in the second instant these merited and those who interposed an obstacle did not, such that, had they not interposed it, they would have been rewarded as the others were.

25. However three intervals can be posited, and this in many ways:

In one way that in the first interval they all existed in their natural state, in the second the bad angels were in sin and the just in merit, in the third the bad in punishment and the good in grace and reward. And this seems the way of the Master [Lombard], who seems to say that the bad demerited having grace applied to them when it was being applied to the good, as if they had already sinned in the second interval before - in the third interval - grace was applied to the good; and then, in the third interval, the good had, all at once in duration, grace and glory.

26. In another way by positing three intervals such that in the first all were in their pure natural state, in the second the good were in grace and merit, the bad in demerit -and in the third both the former and the latter in the term.

27. In a third way by positing three intervals such that in the first interval all were created in grace and merited, in the second only the good stood in merit and the bad fell, in the third they were both in the term.

28. There can, in a different way, be posited four intervals, and this doubly:

In one way that in the first interval they were in their pure natural state, in the second the bad sinned, in the third grace was applied to the good and they merited, in the fourth the good were rewarded and the bad in like manner condemned.

29. In another way, that in the first interval all were in their pure natural state, in the second all were in grace, in the third the good stood (and merited) in grace and the bad failed, in the fourth both were in the term.