Annotatio CCXXV

”But thou art cast out,” etc. — Isaiah 14:19

Anselm of Laon, in the Interlinear Gloss, drawing this passage allegorically to the Devil, says:¹ “Even though all souls shall at some time have rest, thou shalt never have [it].” A scholion of this kind is taken from the fifth commentary of Jerome on Isaiah, where he himself, bringing forward the mystical [interpretation] of an uncertain author — and perhaps of Origen — says: “But others interpret this passage thus: All souls, among the dead, shall receive some rest; thou alone shalt be bound in the outermost darkness.” St. Thomas, in book 4 of the Sentences, distinction 46, question 2, admonishes that these words are to be read prudently, lest anyone through carelessness slip into the dogma of Origen, who thought that the punishments of the damned would at some time be ended. But they will be read prudently, if we consider that Anselm spoke not simply and absolutely, but under an impossible hypothesis, to exagge-” the magnitude of the sin into which the Devil cast himself of his own accord.