Sentences, Books I–II

Chapter 1 (56).

1. Each soul has a good angel assigned for its protection and an evil one for its exercise. It should also be known that good angels are assigned to protect human beings, so that each of the elect has an angel specially appointed for his progress and protection. — Hence in the Gospel 1 Truth, forbidding the scandalization of the little ones, says: Their angels always see the face of the Father. He calls them the angels of those to whose protection they have been assigned. On this passage Jerome 2 teaches that from the beginning of birth each soul has an angel assigned to protect it, saying: "Great is the dignity of souls, since each has an angel assigned to guard it from birth."

2. Gregory also says 3 that each person has one good angel assigned to protect him and one evil angel to exercise him. For although all good angels commonly will our good and strive for everyone's salvation, the angel assigned to protect a particular person especially exhorts him to good, as we read of the angel of Tobias 4 and the angel of Peter in the Acts of the Apostles 5. Similarly, although evil angels desire human beings' evil, the one assigned to exercise a person incites him more strongly to evil and presses harder to harm him.

3. Whether each person has one angel, or one is assigned to many. It is often asked whether individual angels are assigned to individual people, or one angel is assigned to many for protection or exercise. Since there are as many elect as good angels, it is clear that the total number of good and evil human beings together is greater than the number of good angels. Since the elect are as many as the good angels, the good angels are more numerous than the evil angels, and there are more evil people than good people, it is beyond doubt that there are more good people than evil angels, and more evil people than either the evil or the good angels.

4. He confirms that one angel may be assigned to many people, either at once or at different times. Therefore one must say that the same good or evil angel is assigned to many people for protection or exercise, either at the same time or at different times. ‘at the same time or at different times,’ since some think 1 that all the people who exist at any one time can each have their own angel, good or evil. For although the total number of human beings, counting all who have been, are, and will be, is greater than the number of angels, human beings replace those who die and so are never all present together in this life, whereas angels never die but are all present together. Thus it is possible that while they live in this life individual human beings have individual angels, good or evil, appointed to protect or exercise them. In any case, whether this is so or not, there is no doubt that everyone has an angel assigned to him, whether that angel is appointed to many at once or to one alone. Nor is it surprising for one angel to be assigned to protect many people, since the protection of many is assigned to one person, so that each of them is said to have his own lord, bishop, or abbot.

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Chapter 2 (57).

1. Whether angels increase in merit or reward up to the Judgment. We should also consider whether good angels increase in merit or reward up to the Judgment.

2. Some think that they increase in both. Some think that they increase in merits and merit more each day, because each day they serve human needs and attend to human progress. They also think that they increase in reward, namely in their knowledge and love of God. For although, as they say, at their confirmation they received eternal and perfect blessedness, their blessedness nevertheless increases each day, because they love and know more and more. — Their love is now both their merit and their reward. Their love by which they love God and us is both merit and reward. merit, because through it both their services rendered on its account merit reward and they advance in blessedness; and it itself is also the reward, because through it they are blessed.

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3. They confirm what they say by authorities. They confirm by the testimonies of the Saints that angels advance in knowledge, and thereby in blessedness. For Isaiah 1 speaks in the person of the angels admiring the majesty of Christ as he ascends: Who is this who comes from Edom, with garments dyed from Bosra? And in the Psalm 2: Who is this King of glory? From these it is clear that the angels knew the mystery of the incarnate Word more fully after its accomplishment than before. And just as they advanced in knowledge of this mystery, so, they say, they advance in knowledge of the Godhead. That they advanced in knowledge of this mystery the Apostle clearly teaches, saying 3: What is the dispensation of the mystery hidden from the ages in God, so that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the Principalities and Powers in the heavens. On this passage Jerome 4 says that «the angelic orders did not understand the aforesaid mystery fully until Christ’s Passion was completed and the Apostles’ preaching had spread among the nations».

4. How Augustine seems in this opinion to oppose Jerome. Augustine seems to contradict these words, however, saying on the same passage of the Epistle 5: «The mystery of the kingdom of heaven, which was revealed at the fitting time for our salvation, was not hidden from the angels. Therefore the aforesaid mystery was known to them from the ages, because every creature exists not before the ages but from the ages».

5. Resolution of the aforesaid authorities *. — Haymo *. Consider, reader, that the illustrious teachers seem to disagree on this point. Therefore, following Haymo 6, let us resolve the apparent contradiction as follows: «Let us say that the mystery had been known in part from the ages to those angels who are of greater dignity, through whose ministry those things were announced, as being its intimates and messengers; but that it remained unknown to those of lesser dignity» until these things were accomplished and preached through the Church; then they were perfectly known by all the angels.

6. It is therefore established that all angels advanced over time in knowledge of the divine mysteries. Hence they themselves not inappropriately say 1 that the angels’ knowledge and blessedness increase until the future consummation, when they will be most perfect in knowledge and blessedness, so that neither will increase further nor diminish.

7. The opinion of others who say that angels did not advance in certain of the aforesaid respects. Others say that at their confirmation the angels were endowed with such love and knowledge of the Godhead that they neither advanced further in these respects nor will do so. They did, however, advance in knowledge of external things, such as knowledge of the mystery of the Incarnation and the like; but not in contemplation of the Godhead, since they do not understand, nor will understand, the Trinity in unity and unity in Trinity more fully than they apprehended it at their confirmation. They likewise say that the angels did not advance in charity after their confirmation, because their charity was not afterward increased. Thus they say that they did not advance in merits, namely as regards the power of meriting, though not as regards the number of merits. For afterward they did many good things they had not done then; but their charity, from which those deeds proceeded, was not increased: by that charity they merited as much before those deeds were added as afterward, with them added.

8. What is more probable *. What the others said above seems more probable: namely, that angels advance in knowledge and in other respects up to the Judgment.

9. Certain authorities seem to conflict with the more probable opinion. The words of certain authorities nevertheless seem to conflict with it. For Isidore says in his book On the Highest Good 2: «Angels know all things in the Word of God before they come to be». — Resolution *. But he did not say that all angels know all things perfectly, and therefore he did not rule out their advancing in knowledge.

10. Gregory too says in Book IV of the Dialogues 3: «What is there that they do not know, when they know Him who knows all things?» He seems to say that angels know everything and that there is nothing they do not know. — Another resolution *. But this should be understood of those things whose knowledge makes the knower blessed, such as things pertaining to the mystery of the Trinity and unity.

1 Isai. 63, 1. Compare the Ordinary Gloss on this passage: «This is spoken in the person of the angels» (in Lyra, IV, 101r). 2 Ps. 23, 8; 3 Eph. 3, 9–10; 4 On this passage (PL 26 [1845], 483 C); 5 De Genesi ad litt., V, c. 19, n. 38 (PL 34, 334s; CSEL 28-I, 162); 6 Haymo Altiss., on Eph. 3, 10 (PL 117, 715 A).

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1 That is, Summa sent., II, 6 (PL 171, 1115 D–1116 A; 176, 88 C); 2 Sententiae, I, c. 10, n. 17 (PL 83, 556 C); 3 Book IV, c. 33 (PL 77, 376 B). Compare also Moralia, II, c. 3, n. 3 (PL 75, 556 D).

Apparatus: 19 Epistolae om. LMRX. 23 Rubrica om. LVW. 1 Idem om. BCOPV. 4 quibusdam praedictorum praedictis BCX. 11 perceperunt pepererint BCPX. 13 scilicet sed X, sed hoc LNTVW, non MR, sed exp. R. 14 sed om. LNTVX. 18 Rubrica om. MRVW. 24 Determinatio om. RVWX. 28 Rubrica om. LMRVW.