B. To what Class of Sin the Malice in the First Angel Sinning belonged.

64. As to the second article [n.33], it remains to be seen what sort of sin the immoderate love of friendship is [nn.37-38]; and what sort of sin the immoderate concupiscence of blessedness is [nn.40-62] that the angel coveted for itself according to one of the three stated modes [n.53]; and what sort of sin the consequent refusal is, and this whichever of the aforesaid kinds [n.63] the inordinate refusal was.

65. As to the first of these [n.64] it is said that the sin was pride.

And it seems to be the intent of Augustine City of God 14.13 n.1, where he supposes that presumption is ‘pleasing oneself too much’ - and for this reason are ‘the proud’ called in Scripture ‘self-pleasers’; therefore since this immoderate love of self is an immoderate being pleased with oneself, it was properly pride and thus presumption.

66. But this seems doubtful, because if pride is properly an immoderate appetite for one’s own excellence, and being immoderately pleased with oneself does not properly seem to be an immoderate appetite for excellence - how then is it pride?

67. Again, secondly: the presumptuous person seems to prefer himself to others, either in goods which he really has or in those he reckons himself to have of himself - but immoderate love of oneself does not seem to be this sort of preferring of oneself, because immoderately loving oneself with love of friendship and immoderately loving another thus (as a neighbor) seem to be of the same nature in malice; but no one by loving another immoderately is said to be presumptuous, but rather luxurious; therefore he is not said to be presumptuous by loving himself either.a

a. a[Interpolation; cf. Rep. II A d.6 q.2] Again, the angel did not first sin by desiring excellence in respect of others (as a sort of master), because the good for himself and to himself came first - nor by desiring excellence in the opinion of others, because then he would have desired a false excellence. For that reason he [sc. Scotus] said that the angel’s first sin was not pride properly speaking, but, because of the delight which it properly imported, seems rather to be reduced to luxury [n.71] - just as the sin whereby someone inordinately delights in speculation of a conclusion of geometry is reduced to luxury.

68. To these [nn.66-67] I say that someone loving a good immoderately wants it to be immoderately a great good, even the greatest good; and therefore he immoderately - because without his willing something to be present by which that good might increase - wills it to be more in itself than it is. And when he is unable to attain its being in itself more and greater than it is (because this is impossible), he wills as a consequence that it be greatest in the way it can be greatest, and this either in comparison or in opinion; in comparison, that is, so that it might excel the goods of others - in opinion namely so that others might think his good to be the greatest. And therefore the will of being preeminent or dominant above all others follows the willing by which someone wills immoderately his own good.

69. I say therefore to the first argument [n.66] that one who presumes (as presumption is the first species of pride [n.66]) does not will his own good to excel the goods of others according to any superiority, nor even does he will it to excel in fame (as in the case of him who desires praise), but he wills it to be great in itself, and so great that - without the addition of anything else - he wills it to be greater than all other things that he does not thus will. In this way it can be conceded that immoderate love of oneself -which is ‘the root of the city of the devil’ [n.38] - is presumption, because anyone who loves himself immoderately wills that he be as good as is able to be proportionate to the act by which he loves himself; and in this way can Augustine be expounded in City of God [n.65], and expounded well, because ‘he who pleases himself immoderately’ is proud (and this in the first species of pride), and that not by desiring the excellence that is a kind of relation, but by desiring the excellence that is ‘greatness in itself’, from which greatness follows his excellence in relation to others.

70. To the second [n.67] I say that presumption is not a sin of the intellect, as if the intellect of the presumptuous person were to judge or show itself to be as great as it is not - but it is a sin of the will immoderately desiring its own good to be as great as it is not, and from this follows the blinding of the intellect. But when it is added also that ‘the immoderate willing of oneself does not seem to be pride, as neither the immoderate loving of one’s neighbor’ [n.67] - see the response elsewhere [nn.74, 69].

71. But as to the disorder of the willing of concupiscence [n.64], it seems that that appetite for blessedness was not properly pride - not, to be sure, as to the first species of it; the thing is plain, because presumption (the way it was expounded in the preceding article [n.69]), if it belonged to the first inordinate willing of friendship, does not belong to any willing of concupiscence. And if it has to be reduced to something, it seems more consonant with the sin of luxury; for although luxury exists properly in acts of the flesh, yet everything delightful - desired immoderately insofar as it is delightful - can be called luxury, provided it is not a coveted excellence (such as that ‘appetite for blessedness’ was not).

72. As to the disorder of the third act, namely refusal [n.64], it is plain enough that any of those inordinate refusings was avarice or envy.

73. And if it be objected about the above disordered coveting [n.71] that it was not the sin of luxury, therefore it was properly some other sin - and it does not seem, by division, that it was anything other than pride [n.27] (as is proved by that famous and common division of mortal sins into seven) - I reply:

Whether mortal sins be distinguished by the bad habits opposite to the good ones (such as are the seven good habits, namely the four moral ones [courage, temperance, justice, prudence, Wisdom 8.7] and the three theological ones [faith, hope, charity, I Corinthians 13.13]), or whether - which seems more the case - by good acts (such as are the acts of the ten commandments [Exodus 20.1-17]), whether this way or that, the sevenfold division of capital sins would not be sufficient, because, in the first way, there would need to be seven capital sins other than theseOther than the usual seven (pride, avarice or greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia), which, in the first way, would have to be the opposites of the four cardinal virtues - imprudence, injustice, intemperance, cowardice - and the three theological virtues -infidelity, despair, hatred. ⁷ (for infidelity and despair are properly opposite to those listed seven [the cardinal and theological virtues] and are not contained under any of the usual seven [the capital sins]), but in the second way there would have to be ten capital sins according to transgression of the Decalogue. This division [sc. of capital sins], then, should not be held to be sufficient for all evil acts, although they are not roots first (nor perhaps the principal sins), but perhaps very common to other sins, as occasions for sinning.