I Will Ascend into Heaven: Lucifer's Pride and the Ascension of the Humble
Old Testament: Isaias 14:12-15
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations? And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High. But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit.
New Testament: Philippians 2:6-9; Acts 1:9
Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: ... And when he had said these things, while they looked on, he was raised up: and a cloud received him out of their sight.
The connection
Isaias's taunt over the king of Babylon (Isaias 14:4) gives the proud heart its own words, five times over: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ... I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High", and the answer is a fall: "thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit" (Isaias 14:13-15). The Fathers hear in it the fall of the devil, which Christ Himself saw: "I saw Satan like lightning falling from heaven" (Luke 10:18). St Paul gives the other ascent. The Son, "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied himself", and went down "even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him" (Philippians 2:6-9). The one who was not God reached to be like God and fell; the One who was God did not grasp, went down, and was raised. Luke tells even the Ascension, which He made by His own power, in the words of one received: "he was raised up: and a cloud received him" (Acts 1:9). "No man hath ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven" (John 3:13). St John Cassian sets the two side by side: God heals "opposites with opposites, that those things which were ruined by pride might be restored by humility. For the one says, 'I will ascend into heaven;' the other, 'My soul was brought low even to the ground.'" The Catechism teaches that only the one who came from the Father can return to the Father (CCC 661).
Moral sense
Heaven is not climbed into; it is received after going low. "Every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted" (Luke 14:11), for "God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble" (James 4:6). Babel tried the first way, a tower "the top whereof may reach to heaven" (Genesis 11:4), and was scattered. Every "I will" of Lucifer is a temptation the soul knows; the remedy is the other voice, "not what I will, but what thou wilt" (Mark 14:36).
Anagogical sense
The last ascent is a call, not a climb. The two witnesses "heard a great voice from heaven, saying to them: Come up hither. And they went up to heaven in a cloud" (Apocalypse 11:12), and Christ promised the same to His own: "I will come again, and will take you to myself; that where I am, you also may be" (John 14:3). The throne the proud one tried to seize above the stars is given, in the end, to the humble.
The Fathers
St John Cassian, Institutes, XII, 8: "And so God, the Creator and Healer of all, knowing that pride is the cause and fountain head of evils, has been careful to heal opposites with opposites, that those things which were ruined by pride might be restored by humility. For the one says, 'I will ascend into heaven;' the other, 'My soul was brought low even to the ground.' The one says, 'And I will be like the most High;' the other, 'Though He was in the form of God, yet He emptied Himself and took the form of a servant, and humbled Himself and became obedient unto death.'" St Cyprian, Epistle LIV: "Exaltation, and puffing up, and arrogant and haughty boastfulness, spring not from the teaching of Christ who teaches humility"
Warrant
Patristic. Isaias 14 is literally a parable against the king of Babylon (14:4); the Fathers read its "I will ascend" as the devil's pride, and St John Cassian sets it word for word against Christ's self-emptying in Philippians 2 (Institutes XII.8), as St Cyprian sets the same verses against "the teaching of Christ who teaches humility" (Epistle LIV). The contrast is the Fathers': OpenBible's readers join Isaias 14:12 to Luke 10:18 (40 votes) but give Isaias 14:13 no link to Philippians 2 or Acts 1. Christ's own words on the fall of Satan (Luke 10:18) have their entry in Treading upon the Asp and the Basilisk; the Ascension as a cloud and a gift has its own in Elias Taken Up. The verses came to the site from Dunk's search of the Douay.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 661.
The verses
Isaias 14:12 · Isaias 14:13 · Isaias 14:14 · Isaias 14:15 · Philippians 2:6 · Philippians 2:7 · Philippians 2:8 · Philippians 2:9 · Acts 1:9
