Question Four of Chapter Ten of the Third Decade
How many species of demons there are which torment human beings before and after the judgment
It is asked how many species of demons there are which torment human beings before and after the judgment.
It is answered thus: until the day of judgment there are two species of demons which torment human beings and lie in wait for them.
For some are bound in the midst of this air of ours, which is dark and gloomy. They have been prepared to minister for our exercise until the day of judgment by tempting us—yet not beyond what we are able to bear.
They willingly remain with us in this middle region of the air. This is evident because they are frequently read to have asked Christ that they not be sent into hell.
They do not do this as though their punishment were in some respect diminished while they are around us. For, as has been said, wherever demons go, they carry hell and the fire in which they always burn with them—not materially and by a corporeal action, such as heating, drying, and so forth, because in that case they would burn up everything around us, but by spiritual action and motion.
Rather, they prefer to be here with us than in hell because they judge it penal to be in hell, where they can act against us more rarely, ineffectively, and remotely than while they remain near us in this air.
Other demons are bound in hell in order before the judgment to torment souls alone, but after the judgment to torment the composite—that is, the soul and the body—in the manner stated above in the First Decade, Chapter Three, Little Question Five.
Other and third demons are in purgatory. They stand there before the souls, mocking and insulting them concerning their punishments, as Thomas says in Book IV of the Sentences, distinction 21, question 5.
They nevertheless possess no power to torment the souls there, since in the present life those souls were their conquerors.
Albert, however, in Book IV assigns reasons why demons do not torment souls in purgatory.
First, because those who sinned venially only did not give consent to the devil; rather, they habitually consented to God. Therefore they are said to be subjected to God alone and to his justice, not to the devil as torturer.
Second, he proves the same thing thus. As we see in political communities, one person punishes a son and another a thief or enemy. So it ought also to be in divine matters, because our justice is modeled upon God. A father is set over a son, but a commissioner is set over an enemy. Therefore, since those who are in purgatory are children of God, God the Father ought to punish them and not a demon.
Nor are they punished by good angels, because it is not plausible that good angels should afflict their fellow citizens so vehemently. Rather, they visit and comfort them.
Lord Peter of Palude says that, if it is objected that a good angel injured Jacob by touching the sinew of his thigh, which immediately withered, Genesis 32, it is said that this was for restraining concupiscence and not for grave affliction, as Lord Bonaventure says in Book IV of the Sentences, distinction 2.
And because this exercise by demons both in purgatory and in the gloomy air around us, as well as the ministry of good angels, will be ended on the day of judgment, all the evil spirits of purgatory and the gloomy air will after the day of judgment be thrust into hell with evil and damned human beings, but the good will be in paradise with their angels.
These things are from Thomas, First Part, question 65, article 5, reply to the third, and the question cited below.