Page:Essays on Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism.djvu/148

were alone created in the image and likeness of their maker, that is to say, intelligent and free; consequently, angels and men could alone be the cause of disorder, or, what is its equivalent, supreme evil. Angels and men could not disturb the order of the universe without rebelling against God; therefore, in order to explain the existence of evil and disorder, it is necessary to suppose the existence of rebellious angels and men.

All disobedience and rebellion being what is called sin, and all sin being a rebellion and disobedience, it follows that we can neither conceive of disorder in creation, nor of evil in the world, without supposing the existence of sin.

If sin consists in disobedience and rebellion, and if these are nothing but disorder, and disorder nothing but evil, then it follows that evil, disorder, rebellion, disobedience, and sin are absolutely identical-just as good, order, submission, and obedience are things presenting a perfect resemblance. Whence we conclude that submission to the divine will is the supreme good, and sin the supreme evil.

When all the angels were obedient to the voice of their Creator, viewing themselves in his divine countenance, rejoicing in his splendors, and moving with freedom and concerted harmony at his word, it came to pass that the most glorious among them forgot God in the contemplation of himself, and remained enraptured in self-adoration, and ecstatic at beholding his own beauty. Regarding himself as self-subsistent, and as his own ultimate end, he violated that universal and sacred law, according to which all diversity must have its beginning and its end in unity, which, embracing all without being embraced in anything, is the universal