Breviloquium

Consequently, we must now treat of spiritual and incorporeal nature, such as the angelic, concerning which the condition of the supernal spirits, the ruin of demons, and the confirmation of the good Angels must be considered.¹ It should therefore be known that, from the beginning of their creation, four things are attributed to the Angels: simplicity of essence, personal distinction, on account of the reason implanted in them, namely memory, understanding, and will, and freedom of choice for choosing goods and rejecting evils.² — But these four principal attributes are accompanied by four others: effectiveness in operating, officiousness in ministering, perspicacity in knowing, and immutability after election, whether in good or in evil.

The reason for understanding the aforesaid is this: because the first principle, by the very fact that it is first, produced all things from nothing; therefore it had to produce not only what is near nothing but also what is near itself;³ not only a substance distant from itself, namely corporeal nature, but also one that is near; and this is the intellectual and incorporeal substance, which, by the very fact that it is most like God, has simplicity of nature and personal distinction, so that it may be likened to God on the part of substance, whether common or individual.⁴ — It also has in its mind the image of the Trinity according to memory, understanding, and will; it also has freedom of will, so that it may be likened to God on the part of power, whether natural or elective, so that natural power is marked with the image of God, but elective power with freedom of choice. For it would in no way attain meritoriously to the glorious reward that makes each person⁵ blessed unless it had freedom of choice of will; but this can exist only in rational substance, which is accompanied by memory, understanding, and will. But where there is reason, there must be «an individual substance of a rational nature»; it must also be a spiritual and incorporeal substance, and hence simple, entirely without quantitative dimension.

Such a substance, by the very fact that it is simple, is effective in operating⁶; by the very fact that it is effective and personally distinct, distinction of office in ministering befits it; by the very fact that it is simple and effective, perspicacity in discerning befits it; by the very fact that it is simple and perspicacious, possessing a godlike intellect⁷, therefore it has stability after election in the chosen, whether in good or in evil. — And these conditions generally accompany the general condition of the supernal spirits.