The Revolt of the Angels. Anatole France

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      He pointed to the ceiling – not daring to finish.

      But the Angel continued:

      "Do you not know that the sons of God have already revolted and that a great battle took place in the heavens?"

      "That was a long time ago," said Maurice, putting on his socks.

      Then the Angel replied:

      "It was before the creation of the world. But nothing has changed since then in the heavens. The nature of the Angels is no different now from what it was originally. What they did then they could do again now."

      "No! It is not possible. It is contrary to faith. If you were an angel, a good angel as you make out you are, it would never occur to you to disobey your Creator."

      "You are in error, Maurice, and the authority of the Fathers condemns you. Origen lays it down in his homilies that good angels are fallible, that they sin every day and fall from Heaven like flies. Possibly you may be tempted to reject the authority of this Father, despite his knowledge of the Scriptures, because he is excluded from the Canon of the Saints. If this be so, I would remind you of the second chapter of Revelation, in which the Angels of Ephesus and Pergamos are rebuked for that they kept not ward over their church. You will doubtless contend that the angels to whom the Apostle here refers are, properly speaking, the Bishops of the two cities in question, and that he calls them angels on account of their ministry. It may be so, and I cede the point. But with what arguments, Maurice, would you counter the opinion of all those Doctors and Pontiffs whose unanimous teaching it is that angels may fall from good into evil? Such is the statement made by Saint Jerome in his Epistle to Damasus…"

      "Monsieur," said Madame des Aubels, "go away, I beg you."

      But the Angel hearkened not, and continued:

      "Saint Augustine, in his True Religion, Chapter XIII; Saint Gregory, in his Morals, Chapter XXIV; Isidore – "

      "Monsieur, let me get my things on; I am in a hurry."

      "In his treatise on The Greatest Good, Book I, Chapter XII; Bede on Job – "

      "Oh, please, Monsieur …"

      "Chapter VIII; John of Damascus on Faith, Book II, Chapter III. Those, I think, are sufficiently weighty authorities, and there is nothing for it, Maurice, but to admit your error. What has led you astray is that you have not duly considered my nature, which is free, active, and mobile, like that of all the angels, and that you have merely observed the grace and felicity with which you deem me so richly endowed. Lucifer possessed no less, yet he rebelled."

      "But what on earth are you rebelling for?" asked Maurice.

      "Isaiah," answered the child of light, "Isaiah has already asked, before you: 'Quomodo cecidisti de cœlo, Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris?' Hearken, Maurice. Before Time was, the Angels rose up to win dominion over Heaven, the most beautiful of the Seraphim revolted through pride. As for me, it is science that has inspired me with the generous desire for freedom. Finding myself near you, Maurice, in a house containing one of the vastest libraries in the world, I acquired a taste for reading and a love of study. While, fordone with the toils of a sensual life, you lay sunk in heavy slumber, I surrounded myself with books, I studied, I pondered over their pages, sometimes in one of the rooms of the library, under the busts of the great men of antiquity, sometimes at the far end of the garden, in the room in the summer-house next to your own."

      On hearing these words, young d'Esparvieu exploded with laughter and beat the pillow with his fist, an infallible sign of uncontrollable mirth.

      "Ah … ah … ah! It was you who pillaged papa's library and drove poor old Sariette off his head. You know, he has become completely idiotic."

      "Busily engaged," continued the Angel, "in cultivating for myself a sovereign intelligence, I paid no heed to that inferior being, and when he thought to offer obstacles to my researches and to disturb my work I punished him for his importunity.

      "One particular winter's night in the abode of the philosophers and globes I let fall a volume of great weight on his head, which he tried to tear from my invisible hand. Then more recently, raising, with a vigorous arm composed of a column of condensed air, a precious manuscript of Flavius Josephus, I gave the imbecile such a fright, that he rushed out screaming on to the landing and (to borrow a striking expression from Dante Alighieri) fell even as a dead body falls. He was well rewarded, for you gave him, Madame, to staunch the blood from his wound, your little scented handkerchief. It was the day, you may remember, when behind a celestial globe you exchanged a kiss on the mouth with Maurice."

      "Monsieur," said Madame des Aubels, with a frown, "I cannot allow you…"

      But she stopped short, deeming it was an inopportune moment to appear over-exacting on a matter of decorum.

      "I had made up my mind," continued the Angel impassively, "to examine the foundations of belief. I first attacked the monuments of Judaism, and I read all the Hebrew texts."

      "You know Hebrew, then?" exclaimed Maurice.

      "Hebrew is my native tongue: in Paradise for a long time we have spoken nothing else."

      "Ah, you are a Jew. I might have deduced it from your want of tact."

      The Angel, not deigning to hear, continued in his melodious voice: "I have delved deep into Oriental antiquities and also into those of Greece and Rome. I have devoured the works of theologians, philosophers, physicists, geologists, and naturalists. I have learnt. I have thought. I have lost my faith."

      "What? You no longer believe in God?"

      "I believe in Him, since my existence depends on His, and if He should fail to exist, I myself should fall into nothingness. I believe in Him, even as the Satyrs and the Mænads believed in Dionysus and for the same reason. I believe in the God of the Jews and the Christians. But I deny that He created the world; at the most He organised but an inferior part of it, and all that He touched bears the mark of His rough and unforeseeing touch. I do not think He is either eternal or infinite, for it is absurd to conceive of a being who is not bounded by space or time. I think Him limited, even very limited. I no longer believe Him to be the only God. For a long time He did not believe it Himself; in the beginning He was a polytheist; later, His pride and the flattery of His worshippers made Him a monotheist. His ideas have little connection; He is less powerful than He is thought to be. And, to speak candidly, He is not so much a god as a vain and ignorant demiurge. Those who, like myself, know His true nature, call Him Ialdabaoth."

      "What's that you say?"

      "Ialdabaoth."

      "Ialdabaoth. What's that?"

      "I have already told you. It is the demiurge whom, in your blindness, you adore as the one and only God."

      "You're mad. I don't advise you to go and talk rubbish like that to Abbé Patouille."

      "I am not in the least sanguine, my dear Maurice, of piercing the dense night of your intellect. I merely tell you that I am going to engage Ialdabaoth in conflict with some hopes of victory."

      "Mark my words, you won't succeed."

      "Lucifer shook His throne, and the issue was for a moment in doubt."

      "What is your name?"

      "Abdiel for the angels and saints, Arcade for mankind."

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