Whether the highest angel among those who sinned was the highest of all?

❌ Objection 1 : It would seem that the highest among the angels who sinned was not the highest of all. For it is stated (Ezech. 28:14): "Thou wast a cherub stretched out, and protecting, and I set thee in the holy mountain of God." Now the order of the Cherubim is under the order of the Seraphim, as Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. vi, vii). Therefore, the highest angel among those who sinned was not the highest of all.

❌ Objection 2 : Further, God made intellectual nature in order that it might attain to beatitude. If therefore the highest of the angels sinned, it follows that the Divine ordinance was frustrated in the noblest creature which is unfitting.

❌ Objection 3 : Further, the more a subject is inclined towards anything, so much the less can it fall away from it. But the higher an angel is, so much the more is he inclined towards God. Therefore so much the less can he turn away from God by sinning. And so it seems that the angel who sinned was not the highest of all, but one of the lower angels.