Contenu du sommaire : Les démons

Examined here is theology's resolution in the central Middle Ages to remain a science that would not be the mere transcription of anxieties, at once universal and contextual, that pervaded Europe in the late Middle Ages. Towards the end of the 13th century demonology became an autonomous sector of theology, as is illustrated by three treatises on demons written between 1270 and 1300, constituted by an assemblage of questions disputed by Thomas Aquinas, Peter John Olivi and Richard of Middleton. Paradoxically, it was new anthropological considerations that blazed a trail for reflection on the demon (for example, suicidal temptation and forgetfullness). Finally, demonology formed a rational framework for thinking about causality (for example, the sacramental pact) and the antagonism of supernatural actions, all the while promoting a theology of risk.

The article studies scholastic theories of demonic obstinacy among a few theologians of the second half of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century. We analyze, in particular, how these authors characterized the state of the will of damned creatures. Unlike the will of the viatores, which can be either good or bad, and the will of blessed angels, who can no longer sin, the will the damned appears in the paradoxical situation of freely causing, in whole or in part, the very act which constitutes their punishment and from which they would like to free themselves.

After having situated Aquinas' demonology with respect to his angelology and speculative thought, this article examines the notions of the fallen angels' goodness and integrity of nature, which Aquinas elaborates on the basis of the fourth chapter of the De divinis nominibus. The inquiry involves an assessment of the rich angelological documentation produced in his drafting of De substantiis separatis and aims to clarify the role that his reading (or rereading) of Dionysius plays in the elaboration of his demonology. We thus show how Thomas, following Dionysius, harmonizes the Aristotelian notion of nature as a fixed and unalterable essence with the Augustinian one of a nature susceptible, on the other hand, to weakening and failure. Less concerned with characterizing Thomas' demonology as Dionysian than with observing the substantial interaction between sources and speculative thought in his works, we hint at the triptych formed by his unfinished opuscule De substantiis separatis and his commentaries on the Liber de causis and the Metaphysics as the last example of Aquinas' ways of working, between philosophy and theology, tradition and speculation.

In his readings of the several narratives of John's Gospel wherein the Evangelist mentions Satan, Thomas Aquinas shows a consistent concern to demolish any notion that the first of the fallen angels can be identified with a supreme evil being, a summum malum, that could be identified with the malevolent demiurge described by gnosticizing thinkers such as Marcion, Valentinus, Manes, or the medieval movement associated with the latter, often known as the Cathars. Primary among his concerns is the refutation of the moral determinism he finds in their thought, which is particularly incompatible with the God given freedom for reception of divine filiation he finds throughout John's Gospel.

By publishing in 1965 Le Péché et la durée de l'ange, Fr. Guérard des Lauriers, O. P. (1898-1989) offered a major contribution to a debate which had divided Thomists. In 1946, the publication of Henri de Lubac's Surnaturel, drawing support from texts of Thomas Aquinas, had called into question the thesis of the angel's natural impeccability, until then (almost) unanimously accepted in the Thomist School. The debate then became polarized along the lines of two readings of Aquinas. The reason for the angel's sinfulness is to be sought either in his elevation to the supernatural order (De malo, q. 16, a. 4), or in the very structure of the angelic creature (Summa theologiae, Ia Pars, q. 63, a. 1). Aided by a renewed hermeneutics of Thomas's texts on the angel's peccability, and equipped with a redeployment of a Thomist doctrine of freedom, articulated in its double dimension of specification and exercise, Guérard establishes that the foundation of spiritual creatures' freedom - and thus their peccability - lies at the heart of their metaphysical constitution, in the real distinction between nature and person, without necessarily involving the distinction between the natural and supernatural orders. His penetrating and innovative analysis leads him to uncover a structure of free will that integrates and unites without confusion the two orders of reality engaged in the free act: the metaphysical and the moral. He thus offers a first-order contribution to the development of a contemporary philosophy of freedom, thereby attesting to the fruitfulness of the Thomist tradition.