Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

The title is clear. – In the body, one conclusion: Angels are incorruptible according to their nature. – It is proved in two ways¹. First thus. Everything that is corrupted is corrupted by the fact that its form is separated from matter: therefore angels are incorruptible.

The consequence holds: because angels are subsistent forms and altogether immaterial, and thereby in them the separation of form from matter cannot have place. – The antecedent is proved thus. Being (esse) belongs per se to form: therefore it is inseparable from form: therefore in every corruption a separation from matter occurs.

The first antecedent, now assumed, is proved from the fact that to whatever being (esse) belongs, it belongs by reason of form; as is clear in matter, which is at the greatest distance from form. – The first consequence is clear from I Poster.²; and is explained by the example of the roundness of the circle and of bronze, or of the bronze circle. – The second consequence is founded on two things. The first is: Corruption is a change from being (esse) to non-being. The second is: In every corruption matter must remain. For from these it manifestly follows that there is a separation of form from matter. Because, since in every corruption some being (esse) is destroyed, and being (esse) cannot be separated from form, being (esse) and form must go together: and since, on the other hand, in every corruption the subject must remain, it is necessary that, if corruption occurs, being (esse) be separated from the remaining subject, and thereby form too be separated from it: otherwise corruption cannot be understood.

II. Concerning the first argument, a doubt arises about the truth of that assumed proposition, namely, being (esse) belongs per se to form. For this is either false or infers nothing to the purpose. For it can be interpreted in two ways. First, as the term per se is distinguished against through another, and signifies the same as without a medium, or immediately. And in this way, although it is true, it does not prove the proposal: because from this it does not follow that being itself is inseparable from form. For it is not valid, A belongs to B immediately, therefore inseparably; as is clear of form with respect to matter, and of whiteness with respect to surface. – St Thomas's explanation from roundness and the circle, etc., also stands against this interpretation.

In the second way the term per se can be taken, as it is distinguished against per accidens. And thus the proposition is false, both in the doctrine of St Thomas and simply. According to St Thomas³, indeed, being (esse) is predicated per accidens of any form other than God; so that it is neither of the essence of any form nor flows from it as a property, as he said above in q. III, art. 4; because no thing is a sufficient cause for itself that it be. – And simply, because no thing can be understood under the opposite of what belongs to it per se: but it is evident that without contradiction it can be said of any form, the divine excepted, that it is not: therefore being (esse) does not belong per se to form.

III. To this it is said that the term per se can be interpreted in either way. And as to the first way, a distinction must be made about the medium, namely about a medium action and a medium form. For from the conjunction of certain things immediately, that is, without a medium form, inseparability cannot be concluded, as was proved by way of objection. – But whenever any two things are so related that they are conjoined universally without a medium conjoining action, then those two must be inseparable from each other: because whatever are generated by the same generation are also corrupted by the same corruption. But such immediacy of action is not found between matter and form, and other such things: since it is evident that, the subjects pre-existing, the agent conjoins them by its action. But between any form whatever and the existence of the thing no conjoining action intervenes joining this to that: since the form is not first made, and then joined to existing by another action; but the very making of the form terminates in that conjunction. And therefore they are related inseparably.

IV. For the evidence of the second way⁴, it must be known that for something to belong to something per se, that is, not per accidens, happens in two ways: in one way simply, in another physically. Perseity simply is called that which is founded on the relation of terms taken absolutely: physical perseity, that which is founded on the relation of terms posited in natural being. An example of the first: five is odd; an example of the second: Socrates will sometime be corrupted. These two perseities agree in this, that, just as what belongs to something per se simply adheres to it necessarily and inseparably when taken absolutely; so proportionally what belongs to something per se physically necessarily and inseparably accompanies it posited in natural being. But they differ, because predicates per se simply presuppose nothing non-necessary, since they regard subjects taken absolutely: but predicates per se physically presuppose something non-necessary, namely that the subjects have been produced in the nature of things (but the production of things is not always necessary); and this is because such predicates regard subjects in physical being. And from this they differ in a second way, because the first perseity is so necessary that its opposite implies a contradiction: the second perseity is not necessary except by the necessity of the natural course; and therefore its opposite does not imply a contradiction. – All these things said about physical perseity are clear by comparing actual corruption, not now but sometime, to any corruptible thing. For it is not accidental to any mixed body that it be corrupted sometime, but it belongs to it per se from its essential principles: and yet it does not imply a contradiction that it never be corrupted; but that, left to its own nature, it never be corrupted does imply one.

And by this the response to the objections is clear⁵. Because to exist is an accidental predicate with respect to any nature other than the divine, that is, not per se simply: and therefore its opposite does not imply a contradiction. But it is called a per se predicate with respect to form, because it is conjoined to it by physical perseity: since to exist necessarily accompanies a produced form, and not per accidens. And this is true, and effectively infers the proposal.

V. This distinction is to be noted, however, and kept before the eyes: because it is useful and necessary both for theological and for physical matters in many subjects. – The objection about the separation of proper existence from the soul of Christ, produced in the nature of things, is also solved from what has been said (since that soul, according to St Thomas⁶, does not have a proper being (esse) of existence). For it is already clear from what has been said that being per se and inseparably accompanies a produced form, so far as it is from itself, or left to itself: but the soul of Christ, once produced, was not left to itself, but was anticipated by the divine Word, and assumed to his being.

VI. The second argument⁷, from a sign, is this. The object of the intellect is everlasting: therefore an intellectual substance is incorruptible. – The antecedent is proved: because it is above time. – The consequence: because the species and notion of intellection is grasped from the object; and the mode of the operation shows the mode of being of the operator, because each thing operates according as it is in act.

VII. Two things are to be noted here about the antecedent. First, that the subject of the antecedent, namely the term object of the intellect, can be taken in two ways: namely materially, for the thing that is the object of the intellect; in another way formally, that is, for the intelligible in act as such. It is not taken in the first way here, but in the second.

Second, that the predicate of the antecedent, namely the term everlasting, can be taken in two ways: namely positively, and negatively. And although, expounded in the second way, it is indubitably true, and in the first way somewhat ambiguous, in both senses it nevertheless serves the proposal, and more so in the first. For it is doubtful to no one that the intelligible in act as such, since it abstracts from motion and change, is immutable and necessary, and thereby perpetual negatively. If anyone also examines more deeply, he will find that, because the intelligible, as such, is above time and motion, it follows both that the intelligible, speaking per se, claims for itself everlastingness, just as motion claims velocibility to infinity (and thereby it is incidental to the intelligible to be corrupted, because it is intelligible thus, for instance in phantasms): and that the intelligible in act, if it existed outside the soul as such, would be posited as everlasting positively according to its being (esse); since the intelligible would be posited as having existence above time and motion. Therefore the intelligible in act as such, if it exists, is everlasting positively: and if not, it is everlasting per se negatively.

VIII. Concerning the consequence⁸, note that the force of the consequence consists in this. The intelligible in act, as such, is above time: therefore intellection is of those things that are above time: therefore so is an intellectual substance. – The first consequence is proved: because the notion of an operation is taken from its proper object formally taken. For if the intelligible, as such, is raised above motion and time, it demands immobility and everlastingness, and it must follow that the condition of intellection is taken from immobility and everlastingness: and thereby it belongs to the same order. – The second consequence is proved: because if to understand is to operate in this mode, namely above time etc., then the mode of being of an intellectual substance will also be above time and motion. Therefore it will be an everlasting being.

Note well here that from the everlastingness of the object we did not infer the everlastingness of the operation: but that it is of the order of everlasting things, that is, raised above time and motion. And this speaking per se, of intellection as such: since it happens per accidens that intellection in such a mode, namely through phantasms, is with the continuum and time. – But from the fact that intellection is thus raised above time, we have a great sign that the intellect, as such, is more elevated; and thereby subsists incorruptibly.