Scotus Academicus, Tomus quartus: De Angelis

Name: Scotus Academicus, Tomus quartus: De Angelis
Author: Claude Frassen

Quaestio I: Quis, et qualis sit intellectus Angelicus

All Authors agree that the angels are endowed with intellectual cognition; they differ, however, about the principle of that intellection: for some will have it that angels understand by their very substance and essence, as the Commentator seems to have taught in 12. Metaph. text. 52., where he affirms that in separate substances essence and operation are not something distinct, and consequently that the understanding of an angel is his very substance.

Durandus, however, in 2. distinct. 3. quaest. 5. asserts that although that intellection by which an angel understands things really distinct from himself is distinct from his substance, yet that by which he knows himself is entirely indistinct from it.

The Thomists contend that angelic understanding is really distinct from his substance, since it is a pure accident.

But the Disciples of the Subtle Doctor with him will have the angelic intellect, like the human, to be a power only formally distinct from the substance of the angel or soul, yet elicitive of an intellection really distinct from it.

Wherefore three points above all must be resolved in the present Question: First, that the angel does not understand by his very substance, but by an intellectual power formally distinct from his substance and essence. Second, that that intellectual power has the character of an agent and possible intellect. Third, that the angelic intellect is made understanding formally by the word of the mind produced by itself.

Note 1. That this is the distinction between the intellect and intellection: that the former is the first act of understanding, that is, the power and activity of a spiritual substance for perceiving and knowing an intelligible object; while the latter is the second act, that is, the very operation of the spiritual substance whereby it in fact perceives the intelligible object. The former is called first act because it is evidently the first reason why a spiritual substance is capable of perceiving an intelligible object; the latter is called second act because it evidently emanates from that very power and capacity of understanding, as an effect from its cause. Hence the prior is called not only act but also power, because it is ordered to a further act which emanates from it and ultimately perfects it; the latter, however, is called act simply, because it is, as it were, the form of the intellectual power itself, ultimately perfecting it in the character of understanding.

Note 2. That the agent intellect can be spoken of in two ways. First, broadly, as a faculty in any way active, whether productive of its own acts, or of species or intellectual habits; and in this sense no Theologian denies that there is an agent intellect in the angels. Second, strictly, as a faculty only and immediately productive of intelligible species in a possible intellect lacking them, whether by abstracting those species from the phantasm, or by acting otherwise. Therefore the agent intellect is an internal faculty of the soul by way of an intellective principle in first act; hence Aristotle calls it active and factive in book 3. De anima, texts 17 and 18, where he writes, the agent intellect makes all things, and the possible intellect becomes all things, as the Subtle Doctor observes, Quodlibet. 5. art. 1. Now this agent intellect has especially two functions, namely to illuminate and to prepare the intelligible species.

This illumination, however, is not precisely only with respect to the phantasm drawn from the senses and presented to the intellect, but also with respect to the intelligible species, from whatever source it comes, and to the possible intellect, insofar as the species is bound to it for understanding, which indeed the Doctor indicates in the first dist. 3. quaest. 6. where he writes that the agent intellect causes nothing in reality in the phantasm through its illumination, but only in the possible intellect by imprinting the intelligible species.

Therefore, even if no phantasm were present to be illuminated by the intellect, nevertheless this function of it would still subsist with respect to the intelligible species.

Which indeed Aristotle confirms in the place cited, text 28., when he writes: the agent intellect is related to intelligibles as light to colors, which it makes visible in act when before they were only visible in potency.

Therefore just as light illuminates colors, and the visual power itself, so also the agent intellect, even with the phantasm set aside, illuminates the intelligible species by rousing them and presenting them ready in first act for the possible intellect to understand, which is said to be illuminated by it because it receives the principle of its intellection from it.

Whence appears the second function of that agent intellect. But whether the agent intellect itself produces intellection also in second act is no slight controversy among certain Scotists, as may be seen in Mastrius disput. 6. De anima, quaest. 5. art. 3. But since we shall treat of these matters in our Physics, we pass over a fuller inquiry into this question here. From what has been said, moreover, appears one function of the agent intellect itself, namely to prepare the intelligible species, by illuminating them and making them fit to be received in the patient intellect.

— Similarly the possible or patient intellect is taken in two ways: First, broadly, for a faculty in any way passive and receptive, or existing in potency to suffering and receiving. And thus the intellect of the angels is passive insofar as it is in potency to its proper acts, and the species and intellectual habits which are educed from it and received in it. And in this sense St. Bonaventure in the second book, distinct. 3. calls the intellect of the angels possible. Second, strictly, as it is taken by Aristotle in book De anima c. 4., for the faculty which is first bare potency in the genus of intelligibles, and afterwards becomes all intelligibles through the reception of species or of the word of the mind.

Note 3. That intellection consists inchoatively in that action of the intellect by which it produces that quality which is called the word of the mind; but consummatively in the reception of that same quality: for intellection formally consists in this, that it assimilates the intellect to the thing understood and makes it formally understanding; but this is accomplished inchoatively through that productive action of the word of the mind, and completely through the reception of that same word; for that quality, since it is an expressed likeness of the thing understood, will without doubt assimilate the intellect to the known object by informing it and adhering to it, and consequently will make it completely understanding. Now the word of the mind is an act of the intellect produced by the fruitful memory, having being only dependently upon actual cognition; so says the Doctor in the first dist. 27. q. 3. It is called first an act of the intellect, because it constitutes the soul formally understanding, as heat constitutes the hot. Second, produced by the fruitful memory, that is, by the intellect informed and, as it were, pregnant with the intelligible species of the object. Third having being only dependently upon actual thought, because it is the very complete intellection.

First conclusion. — An angel does not understand by his very substance, but by a power at least formally distinct from that substance, which we call the intellect.

This conclusion embraces two parts, of which the first is proved, first indeed by the authority of the Holy Fathers, for St. Dionysius in book De coelesti Hierarchia cap. 11. distinguishes in the supreme Spirits substance, virtue, and operation: Into three, he says, all the divine Minds are divided by their celestial reason, into Essence, into Virtue, and into Action. And St. Anselm in the book De conceptione originali cap. 4. similarly distinguishes these three. And in the book De casu Diaboli cap. 8. he affirms that the will of an angel is not a substance, although it is some essence. And St. Augustine lib. 6. De Trinitate, cap. 6. says that the human soul falls short of divine simplicity on account of the multitude of its operations and virtues.

The first part is also proved by reason. if the substance of an angel were its own understanding, it would also be pure act, because it would identify itself with the ultimate actuality of the intellectual order, and consequently would have nothing of potentiality mixed in: but no created substance can be pure act: therefore the substance of an angel cannot be its own understanding. Second, if the substance of an angel were for it the reason for knowing all things, it would follow that the angel would always and necessarily understand all things: but it is certain, as will appear below, that an angel does not understand all things either necessarily or always, and that some things can escape its knowledge: therefore an angel does not understand all things distinct from itself by its substance. Finally, third, if an angel through its substance were the intellection of itself, it would also through its substance be the love of itself; for between intellection and love there is a natural proportion: but an angel cannot be essentially and substantially the love of itself: therefore neither the intellection of itself. The minor is proved: for if an angel were the love of itself by its substance, such a love would be essentially and invariably right in the angel: but this cannot be said: therefore neither that. The sequela of the major is evident; for the whole substance of an angel is created by God alone; but those things which are from God alone are necessarily and essentially ordered. The minor, however, is urged; for evil angels do not possess a right and ordered love of themselves, since a right and ordered self-love cannot subsist together with sin and hatred of God; whence in Psalm 10. it is said: he who loves iniquity hates his own soul: therefore in the angels the love of self is not essentially and invariably right.

The second part is proved by the Doctor in the second distinct. 15. where he demonstrates that the faculties of the soul are not really distinct from it, by all those philosophical arguments which we have already weighed in our Philosophy, quaest. 3. conclusione 2. de Anima. It suffices therefore now to establish that truth by the oracles of the Holy Fathers. In the first place, then, St. Augustine lib. 1. De Trinitate, cap. 11. has this: These three therefore, memory, understanding, and will, since they are not three lives but one life, nor three minds but one mind; consequently certainly not three substances but one substance: therefore those faculties are not accidents or qualities really diverse from the soul, as the Thomists will have it. Moreover St. Bernard in sermon 11. Super Cantica says: Certain things I contemplate in the soul, memory, understanding, and will, and these three are the soul itself: but what is really distinct from the soul is not the soul itself.

Finally Hugh of St. Victor in the book De Spiritu, et anima, has this:

The soul is called by various names according to its operations; for it is called anima while it gives life, sensus while it senses, animus while it is wise, mens while it understands, etc.: yet these do not differ in substance any more than in names, since all are one essence, though the properties are diverse.

By these things it is established that the human intellect is truly distinct from the essence of the soul; not indeed really, nor merely in name; and therefore it is only formally diverse from the substance of the soul. But the same reasoning holds for the angelic intellect, as is evident, and therefore it is established that it is not really but formally distinct from the essence.

You will say 1. Angels are pure act, and essentially intellective: therefore they can receive nothing distinct from their substance which together with their intellect would effect cognition of things distinct from them: but only their own substance will supply such a medium.

I distinguish. Angels are pure act, by a purity excluding matter alone, with which some spiritual form rightly received in them can consist, which together with their intellect would effect in them the cognition of all things distinct from them; likewise they are essentially cognitive and intellective in first and radical act, I concede: they are pure acts by a purity excluding the potentiality of a faculty; likewise they are in proximate act and in actual cognition which would be of their intrinsic concept, I deny; for this cannot be from the precise character of a creature, which the angels intrinsically include, and which necessarily admits composition of act and potency.

You will say 2. For this reason our soul does not understand by its substance nor is it its own intellection, because it is understanding only in potency, since it is joined to the body and depends upon it in operating in such a way that only through it does it acquire the species of things, and through them is constituted understanding: therefore since an angel is not understanding only in potency but in act, the consequence follows that it is its own intellection, or that it understands by itself.

I answer. granting the antecedent and denying the consequence; for an intellectual nature can stand related to its own intellection in three ways: first, so that it is understanding only in potency; second, so that it understands in act, but by an act distinct from itself; third, by an act which is the same nature as the understanding subject. The first and second suit both our soul and the angels: but the third is proper to God, who is pure act. Whence the consequence must be denied along with its antecedent.

Second conclusion. — There must be admitted in the angel an agent and a patient intellect properly so called. This is the Doctor's teaching in the second book, third distinction, quaest. 11. n. 4. And he proves it thus. 1. Every active power which is granted to a lower nature without imperfection must not be denied to a higher one: but the agent intellect in men, who are inferior to the angels, is of this kind: therefore it must not be denied to the angels. The major and the consequence hold of themselves. The minor is proved: it is the greatest perfection in any nature that it should have within itself the power and principle by which it can acquire for itself a perfection suited to it, if it does not have it from elsewhere: but the agent intellect is the principle by which man can attain true knowledge and science, which is the highest perfection of his intellect: therefore it belongs to perfection in man to have an agent intellect.

It is confirmed. the noblest nature ought to embrace within itself those powers by which it can attain its perfection, if it has it not from elsewhere: therefore the angelic nature, which holds first place among all created things, ought to have within itself the principle by which it can procure for itself the cognition of universal things, if from the beginning of its formation it did not already know them through their species infused into it by God, and likewise can acquire the cognition of many singular things whose knowledge it has not congenitally. The antecedent is evident, and likewise the consequence; for the knowledge of things is the perfection of an angel, which it can procure for itself only through the benefit of the agent intellect.

The Thomists reply. that the major of the argument is indeed true of perfection simply speaking, which includes no imperfection in its concept and presupposes none; false, however, of that perfection which is only compared to supplying an imperfection: now the agent intellect (they say) is not a perfection simply speaking, but is granted in man only to supply an imperfection in him, namely the lack of knowledge of things, from which he is bound to beg from the things themselves dependently upon phantasms; and since the angels are free from that imperfection, that agent intellect must not be admitted in them either, just as generation is not admitted in them, which nevertheless imports a perfection in men, namely the propagation of the species.

On the contrary. by the same reason that the agent intellect is admitted in men, it ought to be conceded in the angels; for although they have species of the most excellent things concreated with them, yet they do not obtain connate knowledge of all things, especially singular ones; and therefore either they can acquire it for themselves, and so they need an agent intellect; or if they cannot, they are without doubt of a worse condition than men: for that nature must be judged more perfect which, though it does not have its perfection intrinsically, nevertheless has faculties and natural powers by which it can acquire it. Further, although the angels had from the beginning of their formation species of all things, even material and singular ones, concreated with them, they should no less have an agent and possible intellect: for (says the Doctor) although Christ the Lord had knowledge of all things from the instant of his conception, and saw all things in the Word, he nevertheless had an agent and possible intellect, otherwise he would not have been a perfect man, since he would not have had both that intellect which the Adversaries concede in all men. Finally, the action by which an agent of a higher order anticipates the operation of an agent of a lower order does not take away from the latter its active power with respect to its own operation; for if God were now to create water and infuse heat into it and continually preserve that heat, he would not on that account be said to have stripped the water of its refrigerative virtue: for indeed if God decreed to preserve that heat, immediately the water would acquire from itself the cold naturally due to it with no less facility than it repeats its cold when removed from the fire which had induced heat into it. Therefore similarly, although God has infused into the angels the species of things immediately from their creation, he must not on that account be said to have taken from them the agent intellect by which they could compare those species to themselves if he should cease to conserve those species in them. Nor does the example about generation help at all; since the imperfection which generation is granted to remove or supply, namely corruptibility, is not found in the angels, and therefore neither should its reparative generation be found in them. But it is otherwise with the agent intellect; since the imperfection which it removes and supplies, namely the lack of knowledge of many things, especially singular and immaterial ones, is found equally in the angels as in man: therefore it must be admitted in both.

The Thomists reply 2. That the aforementioned argument of the Doctor Subtilis concludes indeed in things which do not have perfections coeval with themselves, but not in those which by their nature and from their origin claim perfections for themselves, such as the angels are: which they prove by the example of the heavens, which, since they have natural perfections congenital with them, would be set in vain if powers and instruments by which they might attain them were posited in them.

— Truly this reply neither weakens nor breaks the argument of the Doctor Subtilis; for something can be said to have its perfection coeval with itself in one or other of these three ways: first, namely because such a perfection emanates from its nature and intrinsic principles, just as risibility arises from the nature of man, and the faculties burst forth from the substance of the soul: second, because since such a perfection cannot be produced by any natural power, it necessarily requires to be caused by the Author of nature together with the thing itself which is produced; as, for example, the qualities of the heavens, which cannot be produced by natural causes, must have been formed by their Administrator and Author together with the heavens themselves: third and finally, something can be said to have a perfection coeval with itself by the good pleasure of the Creator wishing to grant that perfection to it from the very beginning of its formation, which nevertheless the thing itself could by its own powers and the passage of time acquire for itself: just as the soul of Christ had knowledge of all things coeval with itself from the beginning of its conception through species infused divinely, which in the course of time it could have acquired for itself. These points premised, I say that a nature which has its perfection coeval with itself in the first or second manner indeed does not need means or instruments by which it may attain it, since those perfections either arise from its own substance or were granted to it by the Author of nature: but I deny that a nature which obtains this perfection only in the third manner, namely by the good pleasure and decision of the Author of nature granting it at his pleasure, which nevertheless the thing could claim from elsewhere, should not have faculties and intrinsic powers by which it could claim that perfection for itself if they had not first been granted by the Author of nature. Since therefore the angel has knowledge of universal things coeval with itself only in this third manner, it seems that the faculties by which they could attain it should not be denied to them if God had not implanted this knowledge in them.

Proof 2. The Doctor proves the Conclusion by the very reason by which St. Thomas had contended for the opposite of the established Conclusion, which the Doctor however draws out to the opposite. The adequate object of the angelic intellect is either something singular, or something universal by predication, such that it comprehends under itself absolutely all intelligibles: not the first; for a created singular thing, however perfect, cannot contain formally or eminently all intelligibles for the angel: but the first and adequate object of any faculty must contain formally or eminently all things that can be perceived by it, and therefore the object of the angelic intellect must necessarily be something universal and common by predication and attribution: such that it contains under itself all things intelligible by the angel, whether immaterial or material: but sensible objects are not proximately and actually intelligible: therefore in order that the angel perceive them, he necessarily needs an agent intellect, by whose power and operation he can receive species from the material things themselves, and make them proximately and actually intelligible.

The Thomists reply. that the adequate object of the angelic intellect is not something abstracted from sensibles, but only a universal species naturally implanted in the angelic intellect, by which it can perceive singular things, whether material or immaterial.

Against this first. It is false that there are given such universal species expressive of singular things of this kind, as we shall demonstrate below. Second, the adequate object of the angelic intellect, which is common by predication to all those things that can be known by the angel; either is thus common, that it belongs to all intelligible things, whether material or immaterial; or fits only immaterial things. Not the second, because it would follow that material and corporeal things, e.g. the heavens and the elements, could not be known by the angels, for no faculty is engaged about what is not comprehended under its adequate object. But if you admit the first, since sensibles and material things are not per se proximately and actually intelligible, because they are not objects proportioned to a purely intellectual faculty, it will be necessary, in order to perceive them, that the angel have an agent intellect, through whose mediation he may receive species from the material things themselves, and by their aid be able to know those material things themselves, if he did not have their knowledge implanted in him from elsewhere.

Proof 3. The Doctor: there must be admitted in the angel a possible intellect: therefore also an agent intellect. The consequence is evident; for an intellect is not called possible except with respect to an agent: therefore, once the one is admitted, the other must necessarily be admitted. The antecedent is proved: the intellect of the angel receives species which God implanted from the beginning of its formation: therefore it has in itself a power and faculty receptive of those species. The Thomists admit the antecedent; they must therefore also admit the consequence, since every recipient of some form needs to have a receptive power of that same form; nor does it matter that the recipient does not precede in duration, but only in nature, the reception of the form; for if God had concreated our soul with the species of all intelligibles, nevertheless there would be in it a receptive power, which we call the possible intellect, and therefore it is not necessary that the recipient precede in time the form received in it in order to be said to have a receptive faculty of it.

The Thomists reply. that although that receptive faculty of species is admitted in the angels, it nevertheless cannot be called the possible intellect, because it is always under act, and never in the state of a power ordered to that act.

On the contrary. The angel really can receive species of many things, for instance singular ones, which he did not have from the beginning of his formation: therefore at least with respect to those he will have a power, which is called the possible intellect. The consequence is evident from the terms: the antecedent will be proved below, and is urged now from this, that God could concede fewer species to the lowest angel than he bestowed on a superior one; and therefore that inferior angel will be able to receive those species, not coeval with himself, anew, either from God himself, or from superior angels illuminating him, and consequently with respect to them he will have a receptive power, because he will truly be in potency to the knowledge of those things whose species he newly receives: and thus he will truly have a possible intellect. Further, it is not required in order that a power be properly called receptive that it sometimes not be under act, or that it not actually have the form to which it is ordered; but it suffices that it can naturally be deprived of that form. For indeed the matter of the heavens and the elements is coeval with its forms, and nowhere existed without them; yet no one would say that it does not have in itself a receptive power of those forms: therefore similarly, although the angel had species of all things coeval with himself from the beginning of his creation, he would no less on that account have to be said to have a receptive power of them, and therefore also a possible intellect, and consequently an agent intellect.

You will say 1. Our soul depends in operating on the body because it depends on it in being: but an angel does not depend in being on a body: therefore neither in operating: but to receive species from corporeal things themselves is an operation dependent on the body: therefore the angel cannot elicit it, nor consequently have an agent intellect, whose primary office is to forge species, refine them of their corporeity, and make them spiritual.

I distinguish the major. that it depends on the body in operating only because it depends in being on it, I deny the major: that it depends on the body in operating through the mediation of the senses and phantasms, I concede the major; and the minor conceded, I likewise distinguish the consequent: that the angel does not depend on a body in operating as though he ought necessarily to operate through bodily senses and phantasms, I concede; that he does not depend in operating on corporeal things, so as to receive from them the species by whose aid he may understand those corporeal things, I deny. And so the angel depends on the body not as on a principle and co-cause of his knowledge, but as on the object from which he must receive the knowledge of a material thing.

You will say 2. The agent and possible intellect are so named and distinguished only by comparison to phantasms: but in the angel there are no phantasms: therefore those intellects ought not to be admitted either.

I deny the major. for the proper office of the agent intellect is to forge spiritual species of the things which it understands; whence when the intelligible objects are corporeal and can emit only corporeal species, the angel must necessarily fashion spiritual species from the presence of those material species, by whose benefit he may perceive those material things themselves; nor is any phantasm needed for this, as happens in us who, since we can perceive nothing except dependently on the senses, hence it is that our intellect needs phantasms in order that, at their sight, it may fashion spiritual images of intelligible things.

You will say 3. The agent and possible intellect disfigure the dignity of the angelic nature: therefore neither of them is to be attributed to it. The antecedent is evident, for the agent intellect is servile; its function and office consist chiefly in this, that it make or receive species and carry them like a porter's burden and minister them to the possible intellect. Now this possible intellect is so called because it suffers and receives those species, whereby it betrays its imperfection, namely a negation of actuality; for its passivity or possibility in being denies actuality and efficacy, and straightway betrays its weakness and inertness.

I deny the antecedent. for the office of supplying and conferring species is not servile work; otherwise God would have to be said to act and operate servilely while he confers and supplies the intelligible species of things to created intellect. Whence the argument can thus be retorted: the highest dignity is to carry out the same thing that God works and strives at from infinite goodness and power: but the agent intellect, by conferring species, carries out what God bestows: therefore etc.

It is confirmed. this reply follows from the fact that it is not unseemly for faculties and powers to assist and support one another; rather it is most honorable; for no one will impute disgrace to the intellect because it serves the will, illuminating it and proposing to it the good to be chosen and the evil to be shunned. Nor does it turn to reproach for the superior angels that they spend their ministry on the inferior ones, illuminating and governing them. And so with respect to the first part, the falsity of the antecedent is evident. It is evident also with respect to the second; for it is no disgrace to the possible intellect that its operation be a kind of undergoing, since since it is a power for understanding which is not pure act as God is, it is necessary that it receive from elsewhere the principles of understanding, from wherever they come, whether they are concreated by God, or supplied by the agent intellect, or flow from the objects. Therefore it is in no way unseemly that the agent and possible intellect be admitted in the angels.

The remaining things which could be objected will be dissolved in the following Question.

Third conclusion. — The angelic intellect can discourse, and from things known conclude others unknown by legitimate discursive reasoning. This is the Doctor's teaching in q. 4. and 5. of the Prologue: and in dist. 1. q. 1. n. 3. and dist. 7. n. 7., where he asserts that it does not seem probable that all discourse should be denied to the angels: against St. Thomas, who in 1. p. q. 58. art. 3. and elsewhere teaches that the intellect of the angel is not discursive, such that it proceeds from principles to conclusions by understanding them separately.

He proves the conclusion. The Doctor: the angel would not be discursive either because he would not have the power of drawing conclusions from premises, on the hypothesis that conclusions were not known to him; or because all conclusions had been known to him from the beginning of his creation; or finally because at least habitually he had known them from the very beginning of his formation: but none of these can rightly be affirmed. Not indeed the first, for there would be an imperfection in the angel if he did not have the power of collecting what is deducible from the known. Not even the second; for it is false that the angel understood all conclusions at once in act, otherwise he would have known almost infinite things by natural power; for the conclusions deducible from created things are nearly infinite: but for the angel to know infinite things implies a contradiction. Not finally the third, for although he had known all things habitually from the beginning, namely inasmuch as he had the habit and species divinely implanted, by whose mediation he could understand whatever cognition at his pleasure; nevertheless it would not follow from that that he was not discursive of himself; just as equally men would be no less discursive even if they knew all conclusions through species implanted in them, as is evident in the soul of Christ, which although it had the knowledge of all things implanted in it divinely, was no less truly discursive, or had the power of discoursing, otherwise it would not have been made like us in all things in what is natural.

Proof 2. The Doctor: if the angel could not discourse, then especially because in that discursive power no difference would follow between it and the rational soul: but this reason is null: therefore the discursive power must be conceded to the angels. The major is the principal and fundamental reason of St. Thomas: the minor is proved: although the angels and rational souls agreed with each other in discursive power, they could no less be specifically distinguished from elsewhere: therefore from the fact that the power of discoursing were attributed to both, it does not follow that there would be no difference between the two. The antecedent is proved: although the angels, in the opinion of the Adversaries, do not discourse, they are no less distinguished specifically from one another in the order of intellectual power: therefore similarly although the angels and the soul did not differ from one another by the discursive power, they could no less have a specific difference from elsewhere: for there is not a greater reason why various distinct species can be admitted within the grade of intellectual power without discourse than that they are admitted within the grade of intellectual power with discourse.

You will object 1. The Holy Fathers expressly denying discourse in the angels, and attributing to them simple knowledge. Thus St. Dionysius ch. 7. De Divinis nominibus says: The simple and blessed Intelligences do not gather divine science by indivisibles or divisibles, whether senses, words, or reasonings: and further on: They penetrate purely, spiritually, and beyond matter with one single indivisible act: therefore he denies that there is in them a multiplicity of acts which are required in discourse. Whence afterwards, concerning our soul, he adds: By divine wisdom also the reasoning power of the soul has its course, applying itself through long habit to the truth of things, and is inferior to those singular Spirits. By which words he seems quite clearly to establish the difference between the soul and the angel, that the soul obtains knowledge by discoursing, but the angel in a simpler manner. St. Bernard subscribes, serm. 5. on the Canticles, where he teaches that the angels do not know spiritual things from corporal ones as we know them, but says by their own power alone and capacity of nature they penetrate the highest and the lowest.

I answer. from those sentences of the Holy Fathers only this is inferred, that the angels do not understand divine things from corporeal ones in a corporeal manner, namely through phantasms, nor do they labor with that difficulty with which we mostly sweat in gathering truth, either of effects from causes, or of causes from effects, because the necessary connection of both does not clearly shine forth for us. But it is otherwise with the angels, for, as St. Bernard adds in the cited place, That inhabitant of the heavens, by his innate subtlety and sublimity, reaches everything with all speed and ease.

You will object 2. In this especially the angelic and human intellects seem to be distinguished, that the latter apprehends the truth of things by discoursing, the former by simple intelligence or intuition: whence our spirits are wont to be called rational; but the angels sublime intelligences: therefore really the angel is not discursive.

I deny the antecedent. in which certainly the principle is begged; for the angels are distinguished specifically among themselves, although in the opinion of the Adversaries they are not discursive; why then would they not also be specifically distinguished from the soul, even though they had the same power of discoursing with it?

You will object 3. The angelic Spirits are compared to human ones just as celestial bodies to sublunary ones: therefore just as the celestial bodies differ from earthly ones in that the latter obtain their perfection without motion, while the former attain it through motion, so men need discourse, which is as it were a spiritual motion, in order to arrive at the knowledge of truth; but the celestial Spirits behold it without discourse.

I distinguish the antecedent. they are compared with respect to all things, I deny: with respect to some things, let it pass, for they can be compared with one another either in incorruptibility or in some other property. The remaining reasons of D. Thomas either beg the principle, or can easily be dissolved by the solution of the preceding ones.

Quaestio II: An, et qualiter Angeli res intelligant per earum species

A celebrated controversy exists among the disciples of the Angelic Doctor and of the Subtle Doctor in resolving this Question: for although the Subtle Doctor in 2. d. 3. q. 10. and 11. grants that the angel had infused into him by God from the very beginning of his formation the species of universal things, and indeed even of those individuals which existed along with him at that time, and therefore that he did not receive them from objects of that kind; he contends nevertheless that the species of those singulars which are produced in the course of time, and were not known even to the angel from the beginning, are borrowed from the individuals themselves: indeed, that the angel, by the power of understanding implanted in him, could even draw all species whatsoever from the objects, if he did not have them infused from elsewhere. But the contrary opinion the Angelic Doctor teaches in 2. d. 3. q. 2. art. 1. and 2. contra Gentes c. 96., whom all his disciples follow. Now, in order that the resolution of this Question may appear more evident, and the present controversy be settled by an easier calculation

Note 1. It is customarily distinguished, in the usual way, that knowledge of things is twofold: namely Intuitive, and Abstractive. Intuitive knowledge is knowledge of a thing present and moving as present, in its actual existence. But abstractive knowledge is knowledge of an object moving insofar as it abstracts from all presence and actual existence. Now all confess that this twofold knowledge is in the angels. For first, certain things are present to them in their actual existence, and they know them intuitively, nor do they need any species to perceive them, for the object present suffices for that intellection, concurring as an efficient cause together with the intellect, according to that common saying: from the object and the power is born all knowledge. But things which are not present, nor move the angelic intellect by their actual existence duly proportioned to knowledge of themselves, the angel knows only abstractively, namely in the impressed species representing the thing itself. For, as the Doctor says in the cited question 10., in order that the object concur together with the power, it must be present either in itself, or in something else. Now since the object, with respect to abstractive knowledge, is not present in itself, it must necessarily be made present by its species and image. Hence intuitive knowledge precisely is knowledge of an existing thing moving the intellect to knowledge of itself insofar as it is present: abstractive knowledge, however, is knowledge of an object present only in species and image, through which it is represented.

Note 2. Or, to sum up from what we said in sect. 2. q. 1. on the beatific vision, the representative species of an object is customarily distinguished as twofold: for one is called impressed, the other expressed. The former is a virtual similitude of some object, or a certain intentional quality effectively concurring with the intellect to produce knowledge, completing the power itself, as it were, and determining it on the side of the object to produce this knowledge. It is called a similitude because it represents the object and exhibits it as present to the knowing power: it is called virtual, for it does not represent the object formally, but virtually, because it takes the place of the object in concurring to form knowledge. For since all knowledge is born from the power and the object, the power indeed always concurs of itself to form knowledge, but the object sometimes through its vicarious species, as has been said. It is called an intentional quality, because it is ordered to knowledge and the intellect, whose operation is sometimes called an intentio. The latter species, namely the expressed one, is the internal term of knowledge, which in the intellect is called the Word of the mind, in the imagination a phantasm, and it is itself formed by the intellect and the object concurring, as the image and expression of that object.

Note 3. All Theologians concede that the species of things, at least of universals, and also of the more excellent individuals, which God had formed or was about to form, were concreated with the angels: for this truth is drawn first from Sacred Scripture, whereby Ecclesiasticus ch. 17. affirms that God filled the first Parents with the discipline of understanding, created in them the science of the spirit, and filled their heart with sense: and it is right to hold the same of the angels, of one of whom, namely the Prince, the Holy Fathers interpret allegorically that passage of Ezekiel 28. You Cherub... the seal of similitude, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, you were in the delights of the paradise of God, etc. You Cherub extended and protecting.... perfect in your ways from the day of your creation, until iniquity was found in you. Hence S. Dionysius c. 5 and 7. teaches that the rationes of things and the exemplars were implanted in the angels by the divine Mind and communicated to them; and S. Augustine, lib. 4. De Gen. ad litteram, c. 24. expressly teaches that before time, or by nature, than when material things were created, the angels had knowledge of all things, not only in the Word, but also in their proper genus, that is, through the species of those things. Which indeed can be confirmed by this reasoning of S. Thomas q. 55. art. 2: thus, with proportion observed, the intellective power ought to have been related to intelligible forms, as prime matter to substantial forms, for both are of themselves pure potency, and need a form through which they may be reduced to act: therefore just as the matter of lower and corruptible things was not always in act, but is successively actualized through diverse forms; while the matter of incorruptible heavenly bodies received from the beginning its substantial forms congenital to it: so the heavenly angels, spiritual and immortal, had from the beginning congenital to them the species or intentional forms necessary for their perfection, whereas human intellects receive them gradually from things.

With these things premised, three points above all come to be determined in this Question:

First, whether the angels necessarily need intelligible species in order to perceive things of any kind: Second, whether they had singular species of each thing, or rather perceived all things through one species, or not so many universal species: Third, whether they could have received species of things from objects, if God had not implanted them; and whether they can borrow some anew from the individual things themselves, which are formed from day to day: Fourth, whether they understand themselves through their substance, or through species.

First conclusion. — The angel needs impressed species for abstractive knowledge of things possible, or past, or future, or not sufficiently present: but not for knowledge of things present. This is the Doctor's teaching in 2. dist. 3. q. 10. n. 16. as regards both parts, of which

Proof of the first. For knowledge of possible things, and of things not duly present, the human intellect requires intelligible species: therefore also the angelic. The consequence is proved, because it appears easier how the human intellect could be determined to knowledge of those things without species, than the angelic: therefore if species are admitted in the human intellect notwithstanding this, much more must they be admitted in the angelic. The antecedent is proved: if intelligible species were not present to the human intellect, it could be said to be determined to knowledge of things through phantastic species: but nothing can be assigned in the angel which, with the species set aside, would determine its intellect to knowledge of things: therefore if species seem necessary in the human intellect with respect to things to be known abstractively, much more will they be necessary in the angelic intellect. Further, every object ought to inflow into the faculty and determine it to knowledge, either of itself, or through something else acting in its place and representing it: but those things to be known abstractively cannot of themselves move the intellect, since they neither really exist, nor are duly present to it: therefore, etc. Finally, the angel does not understand necessarily all possible things, for this would doubtless argue an infinite power in him: therefore in order to understand some of them, some determinant of that understanding must be admitted, whereby he may perceive that possible thing: but that determinant cannot be the possible thing in itself, because the possible thing, as such, is necessarily possible, and, as far as its nature goes, is applied always in the same manner; nor can any other determinant be assigned besides the impressed species: therefore it must be conceded.

— The same judgment must be given concerning absent things; that the angels cannot see corporeal things existing at whatever distance, Sacred Scripture seems to intimate in several places, especially Job 1. v. 7. I have gone round about the earth, and walked through it, etc. Have you considered my servant Job? And Matth. 12. v. 43. where Christ says, that

the unclean spirit, that is, the devil, when he has gone out of a man, walks through dry places seeking rest, and not finding it, he returns to the house from which he went out: And coming he finds it empty, swept, and adorned. Then he goes, and takes with him seven other spirits worse than himself, and entering in they dwell there, and the last things of that man (the energumen) become worse than the first.

From which it is clear that things are not found out by the angels at whatever distance: for if, says Martinonus disp. 36., the demon sees all things everywhere, he could have considered Job attentively, without traversing the earth, and yet on the occasion or presupposed cause of that perambulation God questions the demon whether he has considered Job his servant. Nor was there need for him to seek another dry place to find rest, if before he betook himself there he could see that there was no place of rest there; nor, in order to return to his former lodging, having learned its favorable disposition, to return to his companions, and, taking them with him, to enter it again together. For what purpose all those peregrinations, if from the dry place he could discern the disposition of the lodging, and from there summon his companions, and then together take up his abode in it? Nor does it stand in the way that some object — namely, that the rich man (Epulo) saw Abraham and Lazarus existing in the limbo from hell; for either that distance was not great physically, although a great chaos is interposed morally, on account of the impossibility of passage or aid; or rather this vision was not natural as to mode, but supernatural, like many other things pertaining to the divine justice and to the state of the Blessed and of the damned.

You will say. Although the angel had species of many things, he would not necessarily be carried toward the objects of those species, nor would he necessarily understand them: therefore he would have to be determined to understand them in particular by something else distinct from the species: but that other determinant could determine his intellect with the species set aside just as well as with them present: therefore those species do not seem necessary. The antecedent is evident, for if the angel necessarily understood the things whose species he has, since he has implanted species of almost all things, it would follow that he understands all things at once, which certainly would imply a greater perfection than befits an angelic intellect. The consequence likewise is evident: since the intellect is a faculty and power indifferent of itself, as it were, and undetermined as to whether it be occupied with this or that object, it cannot be applied to understanding one thing before the others, unless it be determined to this knowledge by something.

— I distinguish the antecedent. that he would not necessarily be carried toward the objects whose species he has, when those species are duly represented to the intellect itself and shine in it in act, and are clearly set before it as images of the things whose species they are, I deny: for since the intellect is a natural faculty, it is also naturally and necessarily carried to the knowledge of things duly present to it, either of themselves, or through their species: that he is not carried necessarily toward the objects whose species he does not have thus shining in him in act, I concede the antecedent and deny the consequence. For although our intellect has the species of many things stored up within it; yet because not all, but only some, appear shining in act in it by alternating succession, and are set before it to be beheld, thence it comes that it has knowledge only of some things, not of all things whose species it embraces. The same must be said in like manner of the angelic intellect, which although it embraces and preserves the species of many things divinely implanted in it; yet because all of them are not equally set before its gaze to be beheld, thence it comes that it does not perceive all objects at once whose species it embraces within itself.

You will insist. therefore our intellect does not perceive in act all the species it embraces stored up within it, because, to be sure, it is determined by phantasms and objects newly applied to the knowledge of one thing before another: but these things cannot be said of the angelic intellect, since, as we said, it has nothing besides the species by which it could be moved and determined to knowledge of an object: therefore, etc.

— I answer. the major being conceded, I distinguish the minor: the angelic intellect has nothing similar, corporeal, and sensible, I concede: immaterial and spiritual, I deny. For since the angelic intellect is of finite entity, and cannot know all things at once, it is necessary that it perceive objects by alternating concept, either through the presence of the same objects newly exhibited to it, or through the excitation of species, which is made either by superior angels illuminating, or by the will of the same angel; which, since it is always illumined and supremely free, nor, like ours, is as it were obscured or held captive by phantasms, or by the operation of the senses, both internal and external, can move the angel's intellect at its pleasure, so that it may gaze upon this or that object in the species which it sets before it.

You will say 2. If the angel has species, or receives them either from things, or implanted from God: but neither can be asserted: therefore, etc. The major stands: the minor is proved: if the angel were to receive those species from things, he would have to be moved by external objects to receive those species: but the objects themselves could sufficiently concur of themselves with the angelic intellect for knowledge of themselves, even with the species set aside: therefore for this reason they do not seem to be admitted. Nor do those species seem to be infused by God, for either those species, produced from the beginning together with the angel, were divinely implanted in him; or as due perfections of the angelic nature, or as forms flowing from his substance in the manner of a property: the first does not seem admissible, for it would follow that God could deny species to the angels without any prejudice to the angelic nature; nor would it be violent and imperfect for the angel to have knowledge of no thing, just as it is not violent for him not to see God naturally, although he can gaze upon him by another supernatural light.

— I deny the minor. for indeed the angel could receive those species from things, as we shall soon prove, or have them implanted in him divinely by God: nor would it thence follow that they must be called supernatural forms; since indeed the naturalness or supernaturalness of forms is not precisely attended to on the side of the producing principle; for if God were to produce heat anew in water, that heat would not for that reason be called a supernatural form, nor specifically distinct from that which is produced by fire: but it is attended to, either with respect to the receptive power, which of its nature does not require such a form for its perfection and operation, or on the side of the end and object transcending the forces of nature, namely that by its natural power it could in no way attain it. But these things cannot be said of the species of things implanted by God in the angels; since indeed those species could be naturally acquired by the angelic intellect, if it did not have them implanted from elsewhere: nor are they beyond the natural state of the angel, for since he is naturally understanding, he also requires knowledge of things as his natural perfection, and that knowledge which he has of objects through the mediation of species is purely natural.

Proof of the second part. namely that for knowledge of things existing and present the angel has no need of species; for objects, whether they be corporeal or spiritual, can sufficiently move and determine the angelic intellect, either in the manner of a cause partially concurring to form knowledge, or in the manner of a term, or condition without which not: therefore for knowledge of those objects species do not seem to be necessarily required. The consequence is evident: for if they were fruitless, there is no necessity to grant them; since nature suffers nothing empty and fruitless. Proof of the antecedent. By the very power by which a present object could concur to produce its species when it is set before the angelic intellect, by the same power it could concur to produce, or terminate, knowledge of itself: therefore for knowledge of it species do not seem to be required.

You will say 1. If the angel could understand present objects without species, the inferior angel would know the superior, or the superior the inferior, of itself: but neither can be affirmed. Not indeed the first, because the determinant principle for knowledge must be commensurated to the power, nor exceed it in immateriality; for by this reason the divine essence cannot be seen by an angel naturally: but a superior angel is not commensurated to an inferior: for he is far more immaterial, or more perfect, than he, and therefore cannot naturally concur with him for knowledge. Nor the second; because the object born to concur with the intellective faculty for knowledge of itself must be equally immaterial as the intellect itself: but an inferior angel is not equally immaterial as a superior.

— I deny the minor. for by the very reason by which an object could not concur with a power that was more or less material, neither could it concur with it to produce its species, nor would such an intellect naturally require such a species: but no one has said this: therefore neither ought what follows from it to be admitted. Or say, that the proof of that minor is to be distinguished: the object must be of the same perfection and equally immaterial as the power, according to its entity, I deny: it must be immaterial and commensurated according to the mode of operating, so that namely for a spiritual operation the object, however perfect or imperfect, must concur according to the mode of the operating faculty, and be so tempered to it, that a more excellent object with a less perfect faculty does not effect a more excellent operation than a less perfect one would effect, I concede. For the dignity of the operation is to be drawn not only from the side of the object, but also from the side of the operating faculty.

You will insist. If one angel could determine immediately the intellect of another angel to knowledge of himself (the same must be said of any other object), it would be necessary that he slip into his mind, since he would have to be made intimately present to it, and really change it: but no creature can slip into another creature: for this is proper to God alone by reason of his divine immensity: therefore, etc.

— I deny the major. for indeed in order that an object move a power, it need not be made present to it substantially, and by the insinuation of substance: but it suffices that it be made present by an intimate and immediate motion of itself, even if this be made by the mere external apposition and presence of the object. Add that, in order that one angel can determine and move another, that presence is not required by which it is made as it were in the manner of physical contact, which the intimate presence of bodies must be. For since the angel does not depend on a material medium in order to exert his power upon another, he can also, physically and substantially distant from him, move him and determine him to knowledge of himself, as we shall more fully teach below, when treating of angelic speech.

You will say 2. In order that an object cause intellection together with the intellect, it must be one with it, and therefore its form: but the object cannot be such of itself immediately, but only through the mediation of a species: therefore the species of the object is necessarily required.

— I deny the major. for just as a phantasm can concur with the agent intellect to the impressed species, although it is not its form, nor one with it, except in that manner in which two partial causes can be said to be one cause, to which it is not required that one be in the other, or be the form of the other: so plainly must it be said in our case, that in order that a proportionate object cause with the possible intellect the intellection itself immediately, it is not necessary that it in another way make one with the intellect, or be in it as its form.

Second conclusion. — The angel does not have universal species by which he could know many distinct things, but for knowledge of diverse things he needs diverse species. So the Doctor in the cited q. 10. num. 8.

Proof 1. No created thing can be the ratio of knowing things infinite in number: but a universal species, if it were given, would be the ratio of knowing things infinite in number: therefore, etc. The minor stands, for since the individuals of species are possible infinite in number, it follows that if a universal species be given, e. g. representative of all men, both existing and future and possible, that species must have the power of representing infinite things. The Doctor proves the major: it implies that some creature could be admitted which is of infinite perfection: but a representative species of infinite things would necessarily have to have infinite perfection; for where numerical plurality imports perfection, a greater plurality connotes a greater perfection; and therefore an infinite plurality argues infinite perfection. For indeed if a power capable of bearing two pounds is more perfect than that which can bear one, and capable of bearing six more perfect than that which bears two, it follows that that which can bear infinite things will be of infinite perfection: therefore similarly, since a representative species of two things is more perfect than that which reports only a single one, it follows that that which would have the power of representing infinite things would also be of infinite perfection. He confirms by a simile, because from the fact that the divine essence is representative of all intelligibles, we gather that it is infinite: therefore in like manner if any species could represent infinite things, it would truly also be of infinite perfection.

Proof 2. If any species could represent several distinct things, above all the species of common nature, e. g. the species of the nature of man, which would represent all men whatsoever: but this cannot be said. It is proved: in order that the species of human nature could represent all men whatsoever, it must be that all men are contained in human nature: but this is false. It is proved: if human nature contained men inferior to itself, either maximally, or formally, or eminently: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first, for that which contains something formally is also formally that very thing: but no nature is formally all its individuals: therefore it does not contain them formally. Nor the second: for that which contains eminently is far more excellent than that which it contains: therefore if any nature eminently contained all its individuals, both existing and possible, since these are infinite in number, it would follow that that nature is infinitely perfect: but this implies a contradiction: therefore also that from which it follows. Further, in order that something represent another perfectly, it must involve all its characters and degrees, otherwise it will represent it only partially and imperfectly: but no species of universal nature can refer all the characters of its inferiors. It is proved: no species of universal nature can represent another thing otherwise than what it itself contains in itself entitatively and exhibits to be represented: but no common or universal nature entitatively contains all the degrees of its inferiors, since individuals add a distinct entity and difference above the specific nature: therefore since the grade of individuality is not contained in the specific nature, neither can it be represented through it.

Proof 3. Those universal species seem useless and superfluous: therefore they are not to be admitted. The antecedent is proved: whatever the angel could understand through a universal species, he could know far more excellently through the particular species of it: for the species of a particular thing more perfectly represents it, than a merely common species would represent it. Therefore universal species do not seem useful for that. Further, through those universal species, either the angel would necessarily understand all things whose species he has, or he would not understand all things at once, but now these objects, now those, according as he is moved and determined either by his own will, or from elsewhere. If the first, it is certain that a particular species could effect this as perfectly as a universal species. If the second, the intellect will be able far more easily to turn from one object to another to be understood, where those various objects are represented through diverse species, than if through one: for how could it come about, that the intellect, by gazing upon one and the same species entitatively, insofar as it was representative of whiteness, e. g., would no longer gaze upon it as referring to whiteness, but as to blackness, while that same species is exhibited to it unchanged as present?

Proof 4. Those species are to be ascribed to the angel which seem more connatural to him: but particular species are of this kind: therefore etc. The major is evident: for perfections befitting its natural activity and entity must be granted to a most excellent nature, such as the angel is. The minor is proved: those species seem more connatural to the angel which the angel himself could procure for himself by his own power, if he did not have them implanted from elsewhere: but the angel could procure particular species from the things themselves, just as in fact he acquires those species of particular things which were not concreated with him: but he could in no way acquire universal species: for the Thomists will that they be of such entity that they can be produced neither by the angel himself, nor by any other created cause: therefore particular species are more connatural than universal.

You will say 1. Those species are to be granted to the angel which befit his nature more: but universal species befit the angelic nature more than particular: therefore, etc. The minor is proved: angels are in the supreme grade of created intellectual substances: therefore they must have the greatest efficacy and power of understanding, and therefore of understanding many things through one species: for a power united is more perfect than divided: therefore the angelic intellective power will be more excellent, if it perceives many things through one species, than through many species corresponding to diverse things.

— I deny the minor. and to its proof I say, that the greatest power of understanding of the angels is not to be drawn from this, that it could understand many things rather through one species than through several species, but from this, that they understand things more evidently and perspicaciously than the intellective natures inferior to themselves, or that they could know more things than men, whether they know them through many species, or through one. Add that it would not be of greater perfection in the angel to understand many things through one species rather than through many, unless that knowledge which would be made through one were more perfect than that which would be made through many: but it does not appear how it is more perfect to understand diverse things, e. g. whiteness and blackness, through one species, than through their particular species, as we have already said. But as to what is added, that a power united is more perfect than one not united: that indeed is true, when from a defect of union or unity there would follow a lesser application of the intellect to the object; which does not happen in the present case, since the intellect would be applied just as perfectly, indeed more efficaciously, to understanding many objects through their distinct species, than through one.

You will say 2. For this reason universal species seem to deserve to be proscribed, because they would represent most perfectly all the inferiors of the same nature: but from this nothing absurd follows: therefore for that reason they ought not be denied. The major is clear from what has been said. The minor is proved: if no species of a common nature could represent all the individuals of the same nature, chiefly because that is finite while these are infinite in number; and the infinite cannot be represented by the finite, since the representer must be like what is represented: but this argument has no force: since God himself is perfectly and distinctly represented by a created and finite species or quality, namely by the light of glory, or by the impressed species representative of the divine essence, whose possibility we proved in the Disputation on the beatific Vision: therefore, etc.

— I deny the minor. and in proof of it I say there is no parity: First because here we are speaking of natural representation, not of supernatural representation, which comes about through a supernatural medium, for example through that impressed species of the divine Essence, which would be created and infused by God acting supernaturally, or through the light of glory, which is of a higher and divine order: but this representation of infinitely many individuals is supposed to be entirely natural, and to occur in an angelic intellect operating naturally: and so between each representation there is no parity. Then also because an object unique in number but entitatively infinite can more easily be represented and seen than things infinite in number and finite according to their entity; because, as the Doctor says in 1. dist. 2. quaest. 2.

knowledge is the more perfect the more things it knows; for to know some things is a perfection, but to know many things signifies a greater perfection and a more perfect impressed species: therefore to know infinite things signifies infinite perfection: but not so when the object is unique in number yet infinite in entity, for then it is perceived only under the aspect of an infinite object, not indeed according to every degree of infinite perfection.

Third conclusion. — Angels can know something anew, and receive species from external things. This is the teaching of the Doctor in 2. d. 3. quaest. 11. num. 11. where * he lays down three points: first, that an angel can know anew some singular of which he does not have connatural knowledge; but he cannot know this singular through the connatural universal species, and therefore he must procure for himself that knowledge through a species newly received. Second, that even if he had knowledge of the singular from elsewhere, he still ought to receive knowledge of existence and of the accidents which accompany existence, because, he says, from knowledge of quiddities and universals, which are necessary, a contingent proposition cannot be known; but the existence or non-existence of things is contingent; therefore it does not suffice to have knowledge of quiddities and universals in order to know that this singular exists. Third, that however much he might have connatural knowledge of the singular and of contingent existence, nevertheless he necessarily receives intuitive knowledge of singulars from things: for not everyone knowing the existence of something knows it intuitively, since he can know it abstractively. To these he adds a fourth reason, namely that even if angels did not have the universal species of things concreated with them, they could nonetheless know all created things by the operation and benefit of the agent and possible intellect. But before we weigh all these reasons of the Subtle Doctor, by the authority * The conclusion must be proved, first indeed from sacred Scripture: for S. Paul says to the Ephesians 3.;

He sent me to illuminate all what is the dispensation of the Sacrament hidden from ages in God, who created all things, that is, that I should announce the mystery of the Incarnation not only to men, but also, he says, that the manifold Wisdom of God might be made known to the Principalities and Powers in heavenly places through the Church.

As if he said that he was deputed by God to teach the mystery of the Incarnation not only to men but also to angels; for, as S. Chrysostom says on that very passage, The angels were ignorant of this mystery: for if the Principalities were ignorant, much more the angels. Whence then were they to know, by whose revelation, namely when Paul knew it, then through him these others too: Paul, the Evangelist of the angels, illuminated them. To him S. Ambrose accords on the same passage, saying that God gave Paul not only as teacher to the Gentiles but also to the angels. Cyril of Alexandria subscribes, affirming that while Paul preached, the angels learned the mysteries of the Gospel. S. Augustine also favors this truth in lib. 12. cap. 7. where he teaches that when some thing comes about anew, the carnal senses of men and animals are affected, as well as the celestial senses of angels. God, he says, does not see for a time, nor does anything new come about in his vision and knowledge when something is turned temporally. Just so are affected the senses, either carnal of animals and men, or even celestial of angels: but this new affection of the angels cannot be brought about by those things unless the angels receive species from them: therefore, etc.

The Conclusion is proved. First, an angel has an agent intellect and one capable of being acted upon: therefore he can acquire and receive into himself anew species from the things themselves. The antecedent was proved in the previous Question. The consequence moreover is manifest per se: for the agent intellect is a faculty acquisitive of species, and the possible one receptive of those same species.

— Con- firmatur.** if an angel were created by God in the pure state of nature, namely endowed and illumined with no intelligible species, either he could know something by himself with the ordinary and common concourse of God through his own powers, or he could not. If the first: therefore an angel left to his own nature could borrow from the things themselves knowledge, and thereupon species. If the second: therefore an angel will be, according to his own natural powers, less perfect than our soul, which with the common influx of God can procure for itself knowledge of things through intelligible species received from them.

The Thomists reply. it is no wonder that in that case an angel would perceive nothing and would be less perfect than our soul, since he would lack some debt of his nature: just as it would be no wonder that our soul, created without an agent intellect and sensitive powers, could understand nothing, and would thereby be baser per se than a brute animal.

— On the contrary. this reply does not weaken the force of the argument, since it is false that species are owed to angels by the same right by which the agent intellect and sensitive faculty are owed to man. Indeed these faculties belong to the intrinsic perfection and constitution of man, and are really distinct from his soul: but those intelligible species are adventitious to angels and impressed from without, and therefore with them set aside the angelic nature can remain safe and intact according to substance and operative faculties: and therefore absent those species, its intellect is in the same state as the human: but, as was said, the human intellect not illumined by intelligible species can procure them for itself: therefore much more the angelic.

— It is confirmed. whatever things among inferiors signify perfection must be admitted to exist with greater right in the superior: but abstracting species from sensible things imports a perfection in the rational soul, which by the benefit of the agent intellect can vindicate for itself all knowledge of natural things: therefore much more is that power to be granted to an angel.

Proof 2. An angel can know Peter and Paul and any other individuum newly produced: but he cannot know them through any infused species: therefore either he knows them immediately, or through species borrowed from them. The major is clear; for who would affirm that an angelic intellect could not know some individuala newly produced and duly present to it? The minor is proved: if it knew them without species procured by itself, it would know them especially either through universal species of their common nature, or through particular species, by which those singulars and individuals are themselves represented: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first; both because, as was proved in the previous Conclusion, those universal species must be altogether proscribed; and because just as the universal nature does not contain determinately under itself Peter and Paul more than the other individuals of human nature, so its species cannot determine and move toward knowing Peter and Paul rather than other singular men: therefore in order that the angelic intellect understand Peter and Paul determinately, it must have another mover and determiner than the species of human nature. Nor can the second be said; for although it be conceded to the Adversaries that angels have divinely impressed species of certain individuals, it does not seem probable that there were concreated in them species of absolutely all individuals whatsoever that would ever exist. For since angels can intuit objects sufficiently present per se without the aid of a species, or borrow species from them while they are presented as present, what need was there for God to infuse into them from the beginning species representing all the blasts of winds, the motions of leaves, marine waves, all genera of idioms whatsoever, and all significations of words, and the like, which the angels certainly do know? Add that since an angel knows futures when they exist, and all their circumstances of time and place, it would follow that if he had had from the beginning impressed species of all these, he could have known free futures no less certainly, just as he intuits things present, and can recall pasts whose species he retains: but it is against faith that angels naturally foreknow certainly, and more than conjecturally, future contingents before they exist, as will be proved below: therefore, etc.

Proof 3. That although an angel might have infused species by which he understands singulars, both material and spiritual, those species would not suffice for him to know the real existence of those same objects; but he ought to receive that knowledge either from the things themselves immediately and without species, or mediately and through a species: therefore truly he can receive a species from things and know something anew. The antecedent is proved: actual existence is joined with the singular not necessarily but only contingently: for Peter, e. g., does not exist necessarily: therefore the species that represents Peter as such an individuum of human nature does not represent him necessarily as existing: and consequently in order that he be thus represented to the angelic intellect, something is necessarily required by which that intellect is moved to knowing Peter now existing, whom before it knew only as future: but this determiner cannot be anything other than a newly acquired species, or the individual thing itself, which by its own species moves the angelic intellect to the knowledge of its real existence: therefore, etc.

The Thomists reply together with S. Bonaventure in 2. d. 3. p. 2. art. 2. q. 1. that while the thing is present and existent, the angel can direct his gaze toward it, and thus through mediating infused species know it as really existing, whom before he knew only as future.

— On the contrary. to that extent can he direct his gaze toward a present thing as he has species representing it as really existing: but species concreated with them cannot represent that thing as existent, since from the beginning of the world the species of Peter, e. g., not yet produced, represented him only as future: therefore an angel who before saw Peter, through the species concreated with him, only as future, necessarily needs some determiner and motive principle by which he may intuit him as present. Otherwise the Doctor brings forward arguments of this kind which I pass over for brevity's sake.

Fourthly finally the Subtle Doctor proves the conclusion from the fact that through those concreated species contingent propositions of things cannot be known, for this contingent proposition, e. g., Peter will tomorrow pray to God, is contingent, since it can be or not be. But it is known by an angel before it is, determinately or not determinately. If the first, it is not known as contingent; if the second, another ratio cognoscendi besides those concreated species is required; for those species represent only those terms, Peter will tomorrow pray, but not their contingency. Therefore through those concreated species the knowledge of the contingency of that thing which is known only certainly when that thing exists cannot be had. For in order that the future existence of that thing would be known certainly, it would be necessary that the free decree of God concerning the futurition of that thing be likewise known; but it is not probable that God manifested to the angels all his decrees concerning the production, direction and administration of things. Therefore through those concreated species an angel cannot know certainly the contingency of things.

— It is confirmed. because those concreated species of angels are not more perfect than the divine ideas in representing: but the divine ideas do not represent the contingent or contradictory propositions of things certainly and determinately: therefore neither will those species represent this contingency. The major is evident: for whatever is created and finite both on the part of the subject and on the part of the term is far less perfect than that which is uncreated and infinite in entity. But those species concreated with the angels are truly something created and in a finite intellect, as is clear; whereas the divine ideas are uncreated and in an infinite intellect: therefore etc. The minor is likewise manifest; for the divine ideas antecede the free decree of the will without which there is no determined future contingent. *

You will say 1. The heavenly bodies had concreated with them all the qualities and perfections they can have: therefore in like manner angels from the beginning of their formation had every perfection and knowledge due to them, and therefore can know nothing anew.

— The Doctor answers first. by retorting the argument in this way: the heavenly bodies ought not to have had concreated with them, nor impressed by God alone, the perfections which either they themselves or other secondary causes could produce in them: therefore in like manner angels ought not to have had species or knowledges infused by God which they themselves could procure and acquire anew. Then, if parity must be posited between the heavenly bodies and Spirits with respect to the matter at hand, it must be inferred that just as none of the heavenly bodies failed to have concreated the perfections naturally due to them, so similarly there ought to be no Spirit who would not vindicate for himself the natural perfection due to him impressed from the beginning of his formation; and thereupon our soul, since it is truly a Spirit, ought to have had from the beginning every perfection compossible with it. Finally, the heavenly bodies have their perfections concreated with them precisely because those perfections emanate from their substance as properties: but angels do not have a similar productive and emanative power of species and knowledges: therefore there is no parity there.

The Doctor answers 2. I distinguish the consequent: angels must have concreated with them all perfections which they cannot easily and readily acquire, he grants: which they can procure for themselves without difficulty, he denies.

You will say 2. * An angel is middle according to nature between God and the rational soul: therefore he must have a manner of operating medium between each; and thereupon, just as God does not understand through intelligible species, while the soul understands through species acquired and received from the senses, so the angel ought to understand in a middle way, that is indeed through species but innate and concreated, not however adventitious nor acquired,

— I deny the sequel of the major. for although it be granted that an angel is middle between man and God, it does not follow from that that he must have a manner of being and operating medium between each. Nor indeed does this inference hold: An angel is medial between God and man: but God is pure act in being and in operating; man however is something potential in being and in operating: therefore an angel must be partly pure act and partly something potential both in entity and in manner of operating. The same inept and unbecoming manner of arguing appears from this argument: man is middle between an angel and a horse: but an angel is not moved by progressive motion, while a horse is moved by it: therefore man must have another manner of moving than progressive. Therefore that absurd sequel of the major must be denied. It is added that the argument can thus be retorted against the adversaries. An angel is medial between God and man: therefore between each there must be held a medium manner of operating in which he partly agrees and differs with the extremes. Therefore just as he differs from man in the manner of understanding through universal species concreated, so he must agree with man in the manner of understanding and knowing singulars, existents and contingents through species newly procured. *

You will insist. an intellectual creature cannot derive species from a material object unless it have sense and phantasy: but an angel lacks those powers: therefore he cannot derive species from material objects. The minor is proved: a created power cannot naturally pass from extreme to extreme except through a medium constituted by nature between each: but if an intellectual creature lacking senses and phantasy were to derive a species and knowledge from a material object, such an object would pass from one extreme to the other without passing through the medium constituted by nature between them. It is proved: to be imaginable, or phantastic, is the medium constituted by nature between being wholly sensible, which is perceived by the bodily senses, and being intelligible which can be attained by the intellect: but if an intellectual creature lacking senses and phantasy were to receive species from a sensible object, then such an object would pass from the material and sensible being it has in itself to the intelligible being it has in the angelic intellect, without passing through the intermediate and phantastic being: therefore there would be a passage from extreme to extreme without transit through the medium constituted by nature.

— The Doctor denies the major, and distinguishes the proof of its minor. to be imaginable is the medium between the sensible and the intelligible with respect to the human intellect, he grants; with respect to the angelic, he denies. For it can happen, he says, that something be a medium with respect to one power but not with respect to another, e. g. there could be some heating agent of lesser power which could not induce eight degrees of heat in the subject at once and simultaneously, and unless it first heats it sensibly as one, then as two, so those intermediate degrees up to the eighth will be as media with respect to producing that eighth: but there could be another heating agent of such power that as soon as it were applied to the subject it would produce those eight degrees of heat, not first making it sensibly hot as two or as three, and so with respect to those two or three degrees of heat it would not be counted a medium: therefore pari ratione, being imaginable and phantastic can be a medium with respect to the human intellect, but not the angelic. And the Doctor confirms this: for if the imaginable were a medium absolutely to be passed through from sensible being to intelligible being, either it would be such a medium from the nature of the object itself, or from the nature of the knowing power. The first cannot be said, otherwise no intellect, even the divine, could know sensible being unless it first had imaginative being. If you say the second, from that it also follows that an angel could in no way understand material things, since it cannot receive the imaginable and phantastic being. Add that although the imaginable is a necessary medium with respect to the inferior and weaker power which is bound to the senses, it does not follow from that that it must also be a medium with respect to the superior and more vigorous power wholly exempt from corporeal concretion.

The Thomists reply. That indeed a sensible object can be perceived without its having imaginative and phantastic being; but that it cannot imprint its species into the intellect except by passing through the imagination; from which it follows, they say, that just as the divine and angelic intellect can know the sensible object itself without its imprinting such species, so it can have perfect knowledge of it without that object first having being in some imagination or phantasy.

— On the contrary. the sensible object could not for that reason imprint its species immediately into an intellect separated from a body, namely because it is purely corporeal and material; but nothing material can be received nor attained immediately by a spiritual thing: but this argument has no force, since that phantastic and imaginable being is truly corporeal; for it is the object of phantasy and of the common sense, which are truly corporeal, nevertheless it is perceived immediately by the human intellect, since at its aspect the agent intellect mints intelligible species; why therefore should not the angelic intellect equally be able to attain corporeal objects and at their aspect mint intelligible species? Moreover the human intellect cannot deal immediately with external objects because, being bound to the senses, nor able to operate except dependently on them, hence it is no wonder if the sensible being must first be made imaginable and phantastic before it becomes intelligible by the human intellect.

Fourth conclusion. — An angel can know himself through his essence, with no intelligible species mediating: he could nevertheless know himself through his own species, and abstractively. So the Doctor 3. dist. 3. q. 8. n. 8. * where he writes:

I say that an angel can understand himself through his essence according to the understanding expounded at the beginning of the question. Which I prove first: because the object has some partial causality with respect to intellection, and this insofar as it is actually intelligible; and the intellect has its causality with respect to the same act, according to which it concurs with the object toward perfectly producing such an action, so that these two when they are perfect in themselves and united are one integral cause with respect to intellection.

But in order to prove this assertion the Doctor repeats from 1. d. 3. q. 7. that the intellect is not the total cause of any cognition, nor is the object either, but that each is a partial cause essentially subordinated to the other, which doctrine is far more common and is granted by all concerning the human intellect at least as conjoined, and was proved in the Disputation on the soul.

These things having been premised, he thus proves the conclusion: every partial cause which is in act according to its own proper perfection, and according as it is such a cause, can cause by the causality corresponding to it an effect, and when it is united to another partial cause in its act can with it cause perfectly: but the essence of an angel is of itself in the first act corresponding to the object, because of itself it is actually intelligible, and also of itself is united to the intellect, as the object in the conjunction of both partial causes, therefore it can immediately, with the other partial cause united, have the perfect act of intellection with respect to its essence. That he may confirm and explain this, he brings forward the example of an intelligible species together with the intellect causing intellection, in which he says the object is in diminished being, that is, represented; and he concludes that the object causes much better in true being, and simply, and absolute, such as the essence of an angel has per se immediately as object of the angelic intellect. Wherefore there is no room for doubting that from essence and intellect one and adequate, nay even a nobler principle is constituted.

With these things premised the Doctor seems to argue thus: *

every agent acting by an immanent action, having the total cause productive of some effect, can produce that effect itself, whatever else be set aside; but an angel has within himself the total cause of his own intellection, having only his own intellect and his own essence, all extrinsic things and species being set aside; therefore he can understand himself through his essence.

The major is evident. The minor is proved: whoever has an intellect endowed by its native activity, and an intelligible object proportioned to that intellect in the ratio of its object and united to it, can truly understand it; but so it is with the angel regarding knowledge of himself; for the activity of his own intellect regarding knowledge of himself is no less than regarding other things; likewise his essence is actually intelligible and proportioned to his intellect, since they are of the same order of degree of spirituality; it is also intimately united to and approximated to it, nor can there be any greater union of any species with that intellect than the union of the same essence with it, for they are really identical; but species and intellect really distinguish from one another; therefore, etc.

— Next: the impressed species, in which the object is contained only according to its diminished, or intentional, being, suffices together with the intellect to produce knowledge of the object; therefore much more will the object itself duly applied and proportioned suffice to form the same knowledge; but the essence of the angel, as we said, is duly proportioned to the intellect of the same; for it is in the same order of immateriality with it, and consequently will suffice to form knowledge of the angel himself.

— Finally: if for some reason the essence of an angel could not be the ratio cognoscendi of itself, especially because it is a form existing per se and not inhering in the intellect; but such per se existence, or non-inherence, is no obstacle; therefore it can be the ratio of knowing itself in its own intellect. The major is well known; the minor is proved: First of all, that per se existence is no obstacle, because the divine essence is more per se existing, and yet is the ratio of understanding in the divine intellect, both uncreated and created blessed. Moreover, for some form, or something having itself after the manner of a form, to be the principle of physical operation, it is not necessary that it inhere: for heat, which would be in a subject only by way of assistance, could heat that subject as expediently as if it inhered in it; therefore similarly, for something to be the principle of operation in the genus of intelligibles, there is no need that it inhere in the intellect, but it suffices that it be objected to the intellect, proportioned to it, and intimately united with it. Finally, all confess that an angel can know things intimately present and proportioned to him without any species; but those things so known cannot inhere in the intellect of the angel knowing them; therefore, in order that something be the ratio of knowing, there is no need that it inhere in the intellect.

The Doctor objects first. if any object sufficiently present to the intellect could concur with it in forming an intellection, it would follow that a sensible object exposed to the intellect could cause knowledge without an impressed species, because whiteness has being simpliciter of itself, and consequently a more perfect being than the being secundum quid which it has in the impressed species.

— To the first. I say, num. 10., denying the consequence, because the sensible object is not actually intelligible according to its real being; and therefore cannot determine the intellect to knowledge; but in the impressed species it is actually intelligible, and therefore, shining forth as it were in it, can determine to intellection. In the present case, however, the essence of the angel is, according to its real being, as actually intelligible, and as proportioned to the intellect, as it is in the intelligible species; whence if in the species it can determine to intellection, it follows that according to its real being it can so determine.

The Doctor objects secondly. nothing can concur partially with the intellect in forming an intellection, nor can it be the ratio of acting immanently, unless it inform it or inhere in it. But the essence of an angel can neither inform the intellect nor inhere in it; therefore it cannot be for the intellect the ratio of acting immanently and concur with it partially in forming an intellection.

— The Doctor distinguishes the major: that such a ratio cannot be total, he concedes; partial, he denies; and the minor granted, he similarly distinguishes the consequent: the essence of an angel is not the total ratio of that intellection which the intellect itself has, he concedes; that it is not partial, he denies. And since the essence of an angel is no less present to the intellect than the expressed intelligible species would be, it likewise has no less power to move the intellect itself to eliciting knowledge of it. For, says the Doctor there, num. 10., the intellect has its own proper activity, whether the subject is present to it in itself, or in its species concurring with it to cause the common effect of both, so that the union and approximation of these partial causes suffices. Nor is it required that one inform the other, because neither gives to the other an act pertaining to its own partial causality.

You will insist. Since the essence is distinct from the angelic intellect, it cannot concur with it, whether as a partial cause or as a total one, unless it be united with it in intelligible being. But it cannot be so united except through an expressed species. Therefore neither can it concur with it, without this, in forming knowledge of itself.

— I answer. this instance indeed presses the Thomists, who contend that the intellect is really distinguished from the essence and does not concur partially with the object in forming an intellection, but holds itself merely passively in that operation. But it does not thus press the disciples of the Subtle Doctor, who contend with him that the intellect is distinguished from the essence formally only, and that it is a co-principle concurring with the object in forming an intellection. For the identity of the angelic intellect with the essence is greater in Scotus's doctrine than in the doctrine of St. Thomas; and accordingly it is more easily understood why the essence of an angel can move the intellect to knowledge of itself. For that essence is knowable of itself like light, and hence per se manifest and evident; and since it is intimate to the intellect and really distinct from it, it illustrates and illuminates it. And just as it communicates life to it, so also it grants it intellection, which is nothing other than the action by which the intellect lives: which, since it is of itself active and is in the soul like a form, does not need to receive anything from the essence intimately present to it and illuminating it, in order to know that essence distinctly. Hence, just as the will is moved to the choice of the good represented, without receiving anything from it. For what would the will receive from it, except illumination? But it is not capable of receiving spiritual light and intelligence. Nevertheless it operates by loving, or abhorring, the object proposed and represented by the intellect. Why then should not the intellect, from the immediate and perspicuous presence of the angelic essence, be able to know it without any mediating species emitted from the essence and received in the intellect, so much so that that knowledge is quasi facial and intuitive, and like the beatific vision, in which the divine essence concurs with the blessed intellect without any mediating species in forming that vision? Thus the present difficulty, which seems the gravest of this whole disputation, is easily untangled and solved. *

You will say 3. What is the ratio cognoscendi must be subordinated to the intellect; but the essence of an angel cannot per se be subordinated to its own intellect; therefore neither can it be known by it per se. The minor is evident, because subordination implies dependence; but the essence of an angel cannot depend on its own intellect; rather here the latter depends on the former as a property, and faculty, emanating from that essence, which is the fount, and root, of all its properties, and faculties. The minor is proved: the principle by which is subordinated to the principle that; but the ratio cognoscendi is the principle by which, while the intellect is the principle that; therefore the former must be subordinated to the latter.

— I distinguish the minor. When the ratio cognoscendi is something accidental received in the intellect and really distinct from it, I concede; when it is something substantial, and really undistinguished from the intellect, I deny; for the divine essence is not subordinated to the divine intellect, although it is the ratio cognoscendi of itself and of all other things; therefore similarly, the essence of an angel ought not to be subordinated to the intellect of the angel himself, because it is really undistinguished from it, and is its fount, and origin.

You will say 4. If an angel recognized himself through his essence, it would follow that he would always be in the act of knowledge of himself, such that he could not cease from it; but the consequent seems absurd, and contrary to the most free manner of acting of the angels; therefore, etc.

— I deny the consequence of the major. For although the angel always has his substance duly applied and present under the ratio of an object, he can nevertheless, if he wishes, refrain from gazing upon it: for the angel can indeed, at the command of the will, be recalled from the intuition of his own substance, so as to apply himself to other objects proposed, just as our intellect is called away from one object present to the intuition of another.

You will say finally. The essence of an angel is something singular; but no singular is per se intelligible; therefore neither can it per se be the ratio of its own knowledge.

— St. Thomas answers that the major is true of corporeal things, not by reason of singularity, but by reason of matter, which is in them the principle of individuation, but otherwise of spiritual things and those separate from matter, such as the angels.

— But the Doctor rejects this reasoning and shows that if therefore an angel cannot know the material thing because it is individuated through matter, neither will he be able likewise to know the immaterial thing, because it is far more difficult to know the individuating principle of a spiritual thing. It is proved; because the principle of individual difference is more remote in a spiritual thing than in a material one, since in a spiritual thing there are far fewer signs and indications of diversity than in a corporeal one. Next, according to the opinion of St. Thomas the principle of difference is in one alone, whereas in a corporeal species it is in many. Whence from that very multitude the facility of knowing them is derived. Moreover, in the cognition of a singular spiritual thing the knowledge of the species through its specific difference must necessarily intervene, and these are not so easy to know as genera and individuals are. Finally, on the principles of St. Thomas the principle of individuation is detected far more easily in a corporeal thing than in a spiritual one. For in the latter matter with quantity at once presents itself, together with its certain and determinate accidents, which display and show forth individual diversity. But in a simple spiritual thing, similar in the nature of spirit, lacking physical composition, act and matter do not readily stand forth as principles of distinction.

— Therefore I answer with the Doctor that certain knowledge can be had even of individual things, especially when due circumstances are added, namely the intimate presence of the object and its manifestation either per se, or through a vicarious species of itself. * He will also be able to cease from that cognition by non-application; just as, for example, it sometimes happens that we have our eyes open, and the object duly present and illuminated, and yet do not see it, because the powers, and faculties, both sensitive and rational, are occupied and detained elsewhere.

Proof of the second part. A superior angel can know an inferior through the latter's species; therefore in like manner that inferior angel will be able to know himself. The antecedent is clear; for angels know one another through species divinely infused into them, as all confess; although they can also know themselves immediately through their own presence. The consequence is proved: while a more perfect intellect can have imperfect knowledge of some object, a less perfect intellect will be able to have equal knowledge; therefore if a superior angel can have abstractive knowledge (which is less perfect than intuitive) of an inferior angel, why can an inferior angel not have equal knowledge of himself? Next, every angel is knowable, and intelligible, through a species by an intellect capable of receiving that species; but the intellect of that very angel is truly capable of receiving that species emitted by his own substance; indeed for receiving it he seems more apt than others, since he is more intimate to that substance emitting the species, and penetrates and conceives it, and all that flows from it, better than anyone else; therefore he can receive that species emitted from himself, and thereupon know himself abstractively.

You will say 5. The essence of an angel is necessarily joined with his existence; therefore he cannot be known according to essence without being known as existing; but he cannot be known through a species, as existing, except intuitively; therefore by no means can an angel know himself abstractively.

— I deny the consequence of the major. For just as there could be given a proper species of man representing him as animal, without its representing him qua rational, although animal and rational are two degrees intimately united in man; so there could be given a representative species of the substance of an angel, without its representing the degree of existence, especially if God should wish to suspend his concurrence, lest while the essence emits its species, existence also flow into such an emission.

You will insist. By the very fact that an angel knows himself as being such a singular thing, he must know himself as he himself is; therefore if he exists in himself, he must know himself as existing, and consequently intuitively. The consequence is proved, because in a thing actually existing, existence is not distinguished from the singular essence.

— I distinguish the antecedent. As it is in itself with respect to its singular nature, I concede; as it is in itself with respect to all the rest that pertain to it and are not necessarily involved in the concept of such a singular nature, I deny the antecedent, and the consequence together with its proof. And indeed it is marvelous that some think the concept of existence is not distinct in an existing thing from the concept of singular nature, when it is certain that we in fact have knowledge of some singular man who exists, even if we do not know whether he exists or not; add that one angel could doubtless have a concept of another singular existing angel, at least during great absence, without knowing him formally as existing.

You will say 3. An angel, through the same species unvaried in act first, knows a singular thing to exist when it exists, and not to exist, when it does not exist; therefore whenever he knows quidditatively another angel, or himself, he necessarily knows intuitively. The antecedent is proved: for by the very fact that he contemplates the singular thing, and does not see it existing, he knows that it does not exist; therefore through the same species unvaried he knows both.

— Pontius answers in his Commentary on Scotus's book 2, dist. 3, q. 8. First indeed by denying the consequence: for although through the same species one could know some singular thing existing, and not existing, still this ought not to be true of every species, but of the species sufficient for intuitive knowledge; but for the consequence to hold, it would have to be true of every species. He answers secondly by denying the antecedent: for that species which is apt to represent the thing as singular, and existing, will always so determine it, nor can it represent that thing otherwise: hence if one having such a species contemplates that thing when it does not exist, and does not see it existing, he will not see it mediated by that species, but mediated by another; nor will he be able to know with certainty that it does not exist, because he can thus reason: this thing could truly be existing, even though it is not known by me to be existing. Indeed, although the same species which would represent the thing existing could also represent it when it did not exist; nevertheless even if the angel did not see it existing, he could not infer that the thing itself did not exist; for seeing it not existing, he could doubt; perhaps because it had been transferred elsewhere by God, or because divine concurrence for detecting the existence of that thing was denied to him.

— * These points are confirmed: if anything stood in the way of the material species of a corporeal subject being able to concur with the angelic intellect as a co-principle in forming knowledge of an existing thing, namely either because that species, since it is material, cannot flow into a purely spiritual faculty and operation, such as the intellect and knowledge of an angel, or because it could not be joined with the angelic intellect itself so as to be made by it subtler and spiritual. But from neither head does this conflict: certainly not from the first, because the species of corporeal things taken in by the senses, although it remains material and resides in phantasy, which is a material faculty. Nevertheless it moves the agent intellect and concurs with it in forming a spiritual and intelligible species, and is made more subtle by it and becomes as it were spiritual. Why then should not those species of material things likewise be able to move the agent intellect of the angel, and be restored by it into a state spiritual and fitting, so that they concur with it in forming an intellection? — Nor does it conflict from the second head. For a material species to concur with the agent intellect of the angel in producing knowledge, it is not necessary that it be received in the intellect itself, but it suffices that it be fitly joined to it and accommodated to receive that purification and subtilization, as appears from the example of the phantastic species, which although it remains within the phantasy is nevertheless sufficiently applied to the agent intellect so as to be purified by it and become immaterial. — Nor does it help to allege the disparity in the fact that phantasy is a faculty intermediate between the external sense and the agent intellect, and consequently that its phantasm, or species, is by nature more purified and subtler, and consequently more apt to produce an immaterial species. This answer, I say, does not help; for, as we said above with the Doctor, only this follows from it, that greater virtue is required in the angelic agent intellect, to purify that species which is offered to it by corporeal objects, than is required in the human intellect to attenuate that which is proposed to it by phantasy; for although the latter is less gross and material than the former, nevertheless it is always material; therefore on this account there is no conflict that it be spiritualized by the intellect of an angel, which is more vigorous than the human.*

COROLLARIES.

From these Conclude 1. That a rational soul dissolved from the body can understand itself even through its own substance; for then it will know in the angelic mode, nor will it need species received from sensible things, or conversion to phantasms; but otherwise while bound to the body; for since it is the form of the body and cannot know anything except by benefit of the senses, thence it comes about that it needs a certain accidental species, by which it may attain knowledge of itself through discourse, by removing, namely, from its own substance all the defects of corporeal things, and coming to know itself as immortal and immaterial.

Conclude 2. That although an angel recognizes himself through his own proper substance, which is entirely similar to the substance of another angel, he nevertheless cannot know another angel abstractively through the intuition of his own proper substance, as through a species. For a species is the formal and perfect likeness of the object; but the substance of one angel is not perfectly assimilated to the substance of another according to absolutely all degrees. For although they are of the same species, and differ in number alone; each of them has his own characters, and individual degrees, which the other does not possess, and accordingly one cannot perfectly represent the other. Add that in order that one object be the ratio cognoscendi of another, it must contain it, either formally, or eminently; but in neither way does the substance of an angel contain another: not indeed formally, since they have distinct forms, and various personal characters; nor yet eminently, for this eminent containment of things according to their entity, and perfection, belongs to God alone, by reason namely of his infinite entity, and his being the principle of all entities.

Conclude 3. That since the species of universal things, and of the more excellent individuals, have been granted to the angels by God, it follows that those species do not emanate from their substance; for species, since they are the seed of the object, must be produced either by the object itself, or, it failing, by the Maker of all things. Next, by what reason the species of certain things would emanate from the essence of an angel, the species of the others too would emanate, even possible ones, and therefore infinite ones. Finally, by equal reason it could be said that the very cognitions of things would emanate from the essence of an angel.

Conclude finally. That even if those species were divinely infused, they nevertheless ought not on that account to be judged supernatural as to their substance; but only as to the mode of acquisition, no differently than was the knowledge granted by God to the first parents, and to Solomon; for those species were entirely like those which the angels themselves could have acquired from the presence of the objects, if they had not had them infused from elsewhere; nor were they beyond the lot, and natural exigency, of the angel himself, since their native cognitive virtue naturally demands of itself what can conduce to its natural perfection; but those species confer in this way, and therefore ought not to be judged preternatural.

Quaestio III: Quodnam sit obiectum cognitionis Angelicae

I suppose 1. That as certain, the angel naturally knows many things, namely himself, other angels, and every kind of corporeal object, whether by themselves or through their species moving the angelic intellect to knowledge of them; indeed even God Himself, not only by abstractive knowledge, which comes about by way of discursive reasoning — whereby not only the existence of God but also His divine pre-eminence are gathered from created things by all, and can in turn be gathered by angels in a far more perfect manner — but also by that abstractive knowledge which would come about through a species representative of the divine essence: for, as the Doctor says in book 2. dist. 3. quaest. 9. n. 7.

it does not seem unfitting to posit such a species representing the divine essence for the angelic intellect, implanted in the intellect of an angel from the beginning: so that although it is not natural to the intellect in such a way that this intellect could acquire it from its natural powers; nor yet that it could have it from the action of some naturally acting object, because it cannot have it from the presence of some finite object acting upon it, except the divine essence alone, which causes nothing else from itself by natural causation: nevertheless, just as perfections given to an angel in his first creation, although they do not necessarily follow from his nature, would be called natural, distinguishing them against those merely supernatural, namely of grace and glory; so this perfection given to the angelic intellect, by which the divine essence would be present to him distinctly, though abstractively, can be called natural, and belong to the natural knowledge of the angel: so that whatever the angel knows of God by the power of this species, he knows in one way naturally, and in another way not naturally: naturally, inasmuch as this is not the principle of any gratuitous or glorious act; but not naturally, inasmuch as he could not attain to it from his natural powers, nor by any natural action.

That is, that distinct representative species of the divine essence, whose possibility we demonstrated when treating of the beatific vision in section 2. quaest. 1., would be natural as to substance, since it would not be of the same order with the qualities which are of the order of grace or of glory; but it would be supernatural as to mode, because neither would it be required of the intellect naturally as a perfection owed by its natural complement, nor could it be obtained by the intellect's own powers.

— The Doctor persuades himself that this species was implanted in the angel from the beginning of its formation by these reasons. 1. Because the natural happiness of the angel was more excellent than the native happiness of man ever was: but it is likely that man before sin had a somewhat distinct natural knowledge of God: therefore the angel ought to have had a more perfect one, namely quidditative. 2. Such a species, being possible, does not exceed the natural receptive capacity of the angel himself, and contributes supremely to his perfection, which is most of all completed by the knowledge of truth, and in turn that is more excellent which is gathered from the most excellent truth, such as the distinct knowledge of God. 3. St. Aug. lib. 4. De Gen. ad litteram cap. 21. attributes to all the angels before the fall the morning knowledge of created things in the Word, besides the evening knowledge of the same things in themselves: now that knowledge of things in the Word either accompanied intuitive knowledge of God, or abstractive knowledge through a species: the first cannot be said, otherwise the demons also would have had intuitive knowledge of God, and thus would truly have been blessed, especially in the opinion of the Thomists, who place formal beatitude in the beatific vision. But none of the Theologians admits this, and therefore it is necessary to confess that that knowledge of things in the Word existed together with abstractive knowledge of God through a species. Moreover, from that act of knowledge habitual knowledge could remain, and the species itself causing memory of it, such as St. Paul had while recalling what he had heard and seen when rapt to the third Heaven.

— Here therefore we inquire only whether the angel can know by the powers of nature God as the Author of nature and of grace, as well as those things which are contained within either order, or which are supernatural both as to substance, e. g. grace, the light of glory, etc., and as to mode, e. g. the resurrection of the dead, the changing of water into wine, etc.

I suppose 2. That future contingents are of three kinds: for some proceed necessarily from natural causes, and in no way depend on free will, such as the motions of the heavenly bodies and the courses of the stars, indeed even all the natural events that occur in these lower regions, whether from the influence of the heavens or from other lower natural causes, where free will intervenes in no way. Other futures are those which follow from their causes not necessarily but for the most part, without any intervention of free will, such as health from such a medicine. Finally, other futures are those which come about or happen entirely contingently, and from free causes. Now it is certain that the angels naturally know necessary things, which are contained in causes determined toward their production by nature, and by ordinary law not to be impeded by God the Maker of all things. For the angels have a universal and marvelous knowledge of natural causes, and consequently of the effects proceeding from them naturally and necessarily. It is equally certain that the angels can perceive future contingents, and free ones, that is, ones proceeding from contingent and free causes, by a kind of conjectural knowledge and by certain indications; and this in four ways, as the Seraphic Doctor teaches concerning demons from St. Augustine lib. 5. De Genesi ad litteram, in 2. d. 1. p. 2. a. 1. q. 3. namely:

by keenness of intellect, or much experience, or crafty caution, or the doctrine of others: keenness of sense, as when they see carefully and consider toward what our affection inclines, or what things lead us on or hold us back. Experience of times, because from such circumstances they see such things happen. Crafty caution when he proposes something done, and predicts that someone will do something. The doctrine of others, when by the just judgment of God he is permitted to learn it from the angels.

I suppose 3. That the greatest difficulty among Theologians concerns whether the angels can naturally know the secrets of hearts, or the affections and thoughts freely elicited either by men or by other angels. For although all agree, against Durandus, that those internal and free affections, not only future but even present, are in fact hidden from the angels and open to God alone, since He reserved this knowledge to Himself alone; nevertheless they are split into various parties regarding the power and activity of the natural angelic intellect: namely, whether of itself it possesses sufficient power by which it could detect these free affections and internal thoughts. All Thomists commonly deny this. But the disciples of the Doctor Subtilis affirm it with him in 2. dist. 9. n. 27. and in the Reportata dist. 10. Observe with the Seraphic Doctor in 2. dist. 2. parte 2. q. 6. from St. Augustine lib. 12. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 17.

That just as corporeal substances have certain coverings by which they hide themselves from alien gazes, so spiritual substances also have them in their own way. This obstacle indeed must not be understood as the interposition of some opaque nature, as happens in our bodily vision, whether obscurely or less clearly; but to hide in them is the same as to be unwilling to manifest. And although there are not there foldings of diversity arising from the composition of diverse natures, yet in the soul there are grades of powers and states, according to which certain things are said to be more intimate to the soul, namely those which regard the higher and simpler powers, or purer ones, according to which the soul gathers itself more into itself, and is united to and simplified with that which is supremely one; and by means of these the secret of conscience resides least of all. Thence he inferred above, that no creature, neither human nor angelic, can know the secrets of human conscience, except by signs and conjectures, unless it knows them by God's revelation, or by the denunciation of man. And because few things are so secret that they do not come forth into exterior works, or appear through exterior signs of the face, or through signs of the heart, which is moved variously according to the diversity of actions: hence it is that many of our thoughts and affections can be detected by evil spirits, unless they are kept away by the power of God; but this knowledge is rather conjecture than certain science.

These suppositions therefore having been thus pre-stated, First, it must be determined whether the angels can know by natural power those things which are supernatural as to entity and as to mode. Second, whether they can certainly apprehend future contingents depending entirely on free causes. Third, whether they can know the internal thoughts and free affections both of angels and of men, not only by conjecture but also by certain science.

First conclusion. — The angel cannot know things supernatural in their entity, and those which are truly within the order of grace and glory, by the powers of nature: but well can it know those which are supernatural only as to mode.

This is the most received opinion among Theologians as regards each part, of which the first is proved from that passage of 1. Corinthians 2. Who of men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of man which is in him? and the things of God no one has known except the Spirit of God; as if to say, those things which depend on the sole and free will of God, no one knows except Him bestowing them: and so the Apostle adds forthwith: But we have not received the spirit of this world; but the Spirit which is of God, that we may know the things that are given us from God. Where the spirit of the world is rightly interpreted by Theodoret as the created spirit. For this was the Apostle's purpose, namely that the mysteries of the Christian faith could never have been attained by the understanding of any created thing, even of the angels, but were known only by the revealing Spirit of God. Then he sets the spirit of the world in opposition to the Spirit of God. To this purpose serve the words of Ambrose in his commentary on that passage: The sense of God no one knows, except the Spirit of God who is of God. For inferior things cannot know the counsel of superiors, nor can a creature discern the will of its Creator. — It can likewise be proved from that passage of Ephesians 3. where the same Apostle says: That to him was given this grace, to illuminate (that is, to instruct and teach) what is the dispensation of the Sacrament hidden from ages in God, who created all things, that the manifold Wisdom of God might be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places through the Church. Explaining which, St. Chrysostom copiously demonstrates that the Principalities and Powers, that is, the highest orders of the angels, were enlightened by the Apostles revealing those mysteries, and learned from them what they had hitherto been ignorant of.

But this was chiefly true of the knowledge of the mystery of the Incarnation, as Gregory of Nyssa expressly weighs in hom. 8. in Cant.

For indeed, he says, until now the angels understood the simple and single-moded power of God and His efficiency, who had seen that whole variety of created things to have existed by the one and simple will of God and by His word alone. But that varied and manifold kind of Wisdom, which consists of contraries mutually joined and fitted together, they had clearly known through the Church: how the Word was made flesh, inasmuch as life is mingled with death: how by His bruising He heals our wounds, how by the weakness of the cross He overturns the strength of the enemy: how that which cannot be seen is manifested in flesh, so that He who redeems captives is at once the buyer, and the price; and then how He underwent death in such a way that life did not depart.

— Anselm also favors this in his Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul, where he says: He asserts that even the angelic spirits advanced in the knowledge of this wisdom through the Church; because while Christ instructed her either by Himself or through the Apostles, the angels learned many secrets which they were ignorant of.

— Marvelous indeed is what Ambrose says rather more strongly lib. 4. De init. cap. 7. when he says: Even the angels doubted whether Christ would rise, the Powers of the heavens doubted seeing that flesh would ascend into Heaven; finally they said: Who is this King of glory? And while some said, Lift up the gates etc.; others doubted, saying: Who is that King of glory? etc.

Yet I can by no means be brought to believe that the mystery of the Incarnation was then unknown to the angels; for St. Paul himself writes to the Hebrews 1.: And when again he brings the First-begotten into the world he says, and let all the angels of God adore him: and therefore at that moment when the Son was brought into the earth, that is, into fellowship of flesh, the Father proposed Him to His angels to be adored. Then, not only Gabriel announced that He would be born of God and of the Virgin, as Son, but the rest also afterward frequently celebrated the same One as born with repeated and festal acclamations, as in Luke, announcing His birth to the Shepherds: Because this day is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord, in the City of David. Finally, long before He assumed flesh, the angels' knowledge of it is persuaded by this reason: since the Prophets predicted that God and man would come, such as Isaias, it is not credible that this lay hidden from the angels, who were almost the Ministers and Interpreters of the heavenly prophecies.

Although these things are true concerning the most holy Spirits, nevertheless it appears more likely that this mystery of the Incarnation lay hidden from the demon: for St. Augustine openly declares this in De Civitate Dei cap. 21. where, speaking of the knowledge of the angels and demons and the difference between them:

Only so much, he says, was made known to them as He willed: and He willed only so much as was fitting: but He made it known, not as to the holy angels, who enjoy it in participated eternity according to that which the Word of God is; but as it had to be made known to terrify them, namely through certain temporal effects of His power, and most hidden signs of His presence, which could be conspicuous to the angelic senses even of evil spirits rather than to the weakness of men.

Finally, when He judged that these things should for a little while be suppressed, and He sometimes lay hidden more deeply, the Prince of the demons doubted concerning Him, and tempted Him whether He were Christ, etc.

To this truth gives support what the Apostle writes 1. ad Cor. 2. when speaking of the incarnate Wisdom he says: Which none of the princes of this world knew. For if they had known it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory: for by the princes of the world most of the Fathers understand the demons, especially St. Leo, serm. De Passione, where concerning Christ the Lord he writes thus:

That He might loose mankind from the bonds of deadly transgression, He concealed from the serving devil the power of His majesty, and set before him the humility of our infirmity. For if the cruel and proud enemy could have known the counsel of the mercy of God; he would have determined to temper the minds of the Jews with gentleness, rather than to inflame them with unjust hatred: > lest he should lose the servitude of all his captives, while he pursued the liberty of one owing nothing to him.

This very thing the theological reason proves. 1. Indeed the angel can know only that which is proportioned to his natural power: but the mysteries of grace are not proportioned to the natural activity of the angelic intellect, since they are of a higher and superior order, nor are they called supernatural for any other reason than that they entirely exceed the powers of the natural agent. Then, since all mysteries depend on the mere will of God, they cannot be known through their native species, nor through anything which has connexion with them: for the angelic intellect receives those species either from the things themselves, or from God infusing them divinely. Not the former, since those things are of an inferior order, to which the native power of the angels cannot apply itself; much less will it be able to borrow species from them. If the latter: therefore those species cannot naturally claim for themselves, and consequently cannot know those mysteries by the powers of nature.

You will say 1. The demons truly knew the Incarnation of the Word, not by revelation, nor by a species divinely implanted in them: therefore, etc.

— The sacred Interpreters answer that they spoke flatteringly, in order to elicit the truth whether He was the Son of God and the Messiah sent into the world or not; yet it does not follow from this that they knew the mystery of the Incarnation by their natural powers.

You will say 2. Created being does not exceed the activity of the angelic intellect; but those supernatural things are created beings: therefore, etc.

— I distinguish the major. that it does not exceed the activity of the angelic intellect under whatever aspect considered, I deny; under some aspect, I concede. For being is the term and object of the intellective faculty, inasmuch as it is limited and finite, and under this aspect it is proportioned to every created and limited intellect; but not as to the degree of supernaturality, under which it exceeds the power and activity of the same faculty, and consequently it is no wonder if it cannot be attained by it.

The second part is also evident, namely that things supernatural as to mode do not exceed the natural power of the angelic intellect. Those things which are truly within the order of natural things can easily be perceived by the angelic intellect: but those which are supernatural only as to mode are, according to their entity, truly within the natural order of things, as is evident: therefore etc. Nor does it matter that they possess a degree and mode of supernaturality: since the angel has clearly perceived the divine omnipotence, and knows that God can do many things which entirely surpass the activity of natural causes, in no way knowing the natural entity of the effect produced, he will still be able to know even the supernatural mode of that production at least conjecturally. For seeing a man who had previously been blind now given sight, he will be able to understand not only that this sight has been restored, since that sight according to its entity is purely natural; but he will also be able to judge that it was restored divinely, since the angel knows more perspicaciously than the Philosophers that there is no return from privation to habit by the powers of nature: and consequently it was necessary that that man, deprived of his eyes, received them by the donation of a supernatural power. By this reason the angel will be able to know naturally that the humanity of Christ the Lord lacks its own subsistence, and that the eucharistic accidents are deprived of inherence, and that Christ is under the species after an indivisible mode. For these things, as to entity, are natural, although they come about in a supernatural mode.

You will say. If the angel can detect that the humanity of Christ the Lord is stripped of its own subsistence; he will also be able to know that it subsists in the divine [nature], which is praeternatural as to substance; but this is against the first part: therefore one or the other must be false.

— I deny the consequence of the major. For although God could conserve a substance stripped of every subsistence, as some hold, and although he could at least suspend his concourse so that an angel, seeing the humanity, would not also see its subsistence really distinct from it; if it happened that an angel saw the humanity of Christ the Lord stripped of its proper subsistence, he could not conclude from this that it subsists divinely, since he might doubt whether God denies him his concourse precisely so that, in seeing the humanity, he does not at the same time see its subsistence.

Second conclusion. — Angels do not in fact know the secrets of hearts: yet they could perceive them if God did not prevent it.

Proof of the first part. By all those texts of Scripture by which it is signified that knowledge of the secrets of the heart is reserved to God alone: thus 3 Kings 8. Thou alone knowest the heart of all the children of men: and 2 Paralipomenon 6. Render to everyone according to his ways, which thou knowest him to have in his heart: for thou alone knowest the hearts of the children of men, Solomon says to God: and Jeremiah 17. The heart of man is perverse and inscrutable; who shall know it? I the Lord search the heart and prove the reins. Which question and its answer seem to deny knowledge of the human heart to anyone else besides God alone, and to refer the difficulty of knowing it not to God's good pleasure, but to God's very nature.

This same truth, besides the testimonies of Scripture, the Holy Fathers also teach us, above all Origen, Homily 7 on Genesis, where he denies that angels know the purpose of our mind;

For example, he says, I have a resolve to suffer martyrdom; from this an angel will not be able to say to me, because now I have known that you fear God. For the purpose of the mind is known to God alone: but if I come forward to the contests, produce a good confession, endure steadfastly all that is inflicted upon me, then the angel can say, as confirming and strengthening me: now I have known that you fear God.

Hilary subscribes, on Psalm 139.

To know the thoughts of the heart, he says, is not ours, but his of whom it was said: searching hearts and reins, O God: and his too who said, knowing their thoughts, why do you think evil in your hearts? He beholds all the hidden senses of the wicked in their hearts with a penetrating and open entrance, going forth by the nature of his power.

— Other Holy Fathers urge this very point, while they prove that Christ was true God from the fact that he knew the inner thoughts of the mind: but if knowing the secrets of hearts were not an action proper to God, and fitting to another than God, it would not be well inferred from it that Christ is God: therefore knowing the secrets of hearts is an action proper to God, which belongs to no creature, human or angelic. The major is proved from John 2.¹ where it is said that Christ did not commit himself to any who professed that they believed in him, because he knew their hearts were alien to himself. From this the Evangelist infers, indicating Christ's divinity: He had no need that anyone should bear witness to man, for he himself knew what was in man: on which Cyril, book 2 on John, says, This dignity also, as well as the others that are in Christ, belongs to God; nor is it found in any created thing. For the Psalmist attributes it to the true God alone, saying: He who formed the hearts of them severally, who understands all their works. Hence Ambrose, on chapter 5 of Luke; The Lord, he says, wishing to save sinners, shows himself to be God by his knowledge of things hidden. S. Chrysologus subscribes, sermon 5, where, addressing the Pharisee whose thought Christ had disclosed in Luke 7, he says, Take the insignia of his Divinity, hear that he has penetrated the secret of your breast: behold that he has reached the recesses of your thoughts. Understand that he lays bare the silent counsels of your heart. And sermon 94. While he laid open the secret of the Pharisee's heart, he demonstrates himself to have been the Author of the whole prophetic office. From all this it is clear that the angels are truly denied knowledge of the secrets of the heart, since it is proper to God alone.

You will say 1. Several Holy Fathers even affirm that angels naturally know one another's affections, and also the thoughts of men. Thus Philip the Priest in his commentaries on the book of Job seems to have thought that angels know their own intimate thoughts and affections mutually. For, he says, spirits cannot conceal anything of their affections from one another. For simple creatures, having as it were no obstacle of corporeity, are transparent to one another. So likewise S. Gregory seems to think, book 18 of the Morals, chapter 27. In the beatitude of the risen, he says, each will be transparent to the other as to himself; and while each intellect is attended, conscience is simultaneously penetrated. Whence he concludes that the City of the Blessed is called allegorically pure glass. And immediately after he adds: But now our hearts, so long as we are in this life, because they cannot be seen by one another, are enclosed within vessels of clay. Beda also subscribes, book 2 on Job, chapter 7, where he says: For spirits cannot conceal anything of their affections from one another: for simple creatures, having as it were no corporeal obstacle, are transparent to one another.

— I answer 1. The Holy Fathers must be understood either of conjectural knowledge, which angels can have, especially from men through a certain excitation of their body, as S. Augustine at times had said in book On the Divination of Demons: An angel learns men's dispositions with entire ease, not only when uttered in speech, but even when conceived in thought, provided certain signs are expressed in the body. Which he afterwards retracted in book 2 of the Retractations, chapter 30.

I said, he says, a most obscure thing with more boldness than I ought; for that these things reach the knowledge of demons has been discovered by several experiments: But whether certain signs are given from the body of thinkers, perceptible to them but hidden from us; or whether they know these by another force, and that a spiritual one; or whether it can be discovered by men only with the greatest difficulty, or not at all.

— I answer 2. The praised Holy Fathers only want that angels are not impeded by the corporeity of their members, as men are, from penetrating one another's mind.

You will object 2. Experience establishes that even evil angels often know and disclose internal thoughts and secrets of hearts. For Magi and energumens sometimes reveal what men have deliberated among themselves or thought; as concerning a certain Magus named Albericus S. Augustine testifies in book 1 against the Academics, chapter 6. Delrio also reports other cases, book 4 of the Disquisitions on Magic, chapter 2, question 2.

— I answer. Demons indeed know these things and disclose them by conjecture, because of the excitation they see in the body; or from the fact that those inner affections of mind and heart are represented in the phantasm, or in the sensitive appetite excited by inner motions; for as was observed in the second supposition from S. Bonaventure, demons can uncover hidden and occult things in four ways, or as he adds there:

I say that no creature, neither human nor angelic, can know the secrets of human conscience, except through signs or conjectures, or unless it knows them by God's revelation or man's denunciation. And since few things are so secret that they do not come forth into outward works, or appear through outward signs of the face, or through signs of the heart, which is moved variously according to the diversity of the affections, hence it is that many of our thoughts and affections can be detected by wicked spirits, unless they are kept off by God's power; but this knowledge is rather conjecture than certain science.

Proof of the second part. Namely, that an angel could by natural power uncover the secrets of hearts if God did not prevent it, as the Doctor seems to assert in dist. 3, q. 9, n. 27, and in dist. 10, q. 8, *where, answering the argument of S. Thomas proposed at the beginning of the question from the first part, question 57, article 4, and question 17, article 3, by which the Angelic Doctor contends that the thoughts and affections of intellect and will are known to God alone, because the rational will of a creature is subject to God alone, and he alone can act upon it who is its principal object and last end, he attacks it thus: although some say that an angel can hide his intellection by an act of his will, and unhide it, and this unhiding is to speak; still it does not seem why anything actually intelligible would be present to a passive intellect and yet could not change it: nor does there seem a greater reason why by his will he can hide his intellection more than his essence. And in dist. 4, q. 45, question 4, n. 7, where he disputes whether the Blessed know the prayers we offer, having proposed according to the argument on the denying side, namely that God alone knows the secrets of hearts, such as mental prayer, he answers thus: I say that there is nothing in the mind, that is, any operation whatever of intellect and will, or any property, or real condition of this or that, but that the whole lies open thus to an angel proportionally present and not impeded, or to a soul not impeded proportionally present, just as whiteness present appears to the conjoined soul through the senses. From these things it is established that the Doctor's opinion is that angels could naturally know not only men's but one another's thoughts and affections of mind, unless they are prevented by God.*

— Every object actually intelligible, and proportionate, and sufficiently present to the angelic intellect, can be naturally perceived by it: but the secrets of hearts and the affections of mind are of such a kind: therefore, etc. The major is evident: the minor is proved: that is actually intelligible, and proportionate to the angelic intellect, which truly exists; for every real being is actually intelligible, contained within the order of nature: but those affections of mind and secrets of hearts are supposed to actually exist: they are also within the order of nature, for they are not supernatural acts, as is supposed, and accordingly are proportioned to the angelic intellect.

Some reply. Those affections of mind are indeed naturally knowable by the angelic intellect, unless they are hidden by the will of the other angel having such affections: but since the will of every angel is free and mistress of its own actions, it can hide or manifest them at pleasure: and accordingly another angel could not detect them by any natural power unless the other consents.

— On the contrary, the Doctor says, there is not a stronger reason why an angel could hide by his volition an affection of mind and an internal thought, than his essence: but he cannot bring it about that another angel does not see his essence: therefore neither will he prevent him from seeing his affections. The major is evident: for those affections are as real as the essence, and are equally intelligible. Next, that volition by which he would be said to hide his affections is itself a natural being, actually intelligible, and accordingly either it would lie open together with what it is said to hide, or it would need to be hidden by another volition, and that again by another, and thus there would be a process to infinity.

The Thomists answer 2. The angelic intellect can indeed naturally attain every natural entity belonging to the physical order, but not that which belongs to the moral order. Free acts, they say, belong to the moral order, not to the physical order; and accordingly it is no wonder if they cannot be naturally perceived by the angelic intellect. For, they say, the angelic intellect can perceive an object only insofar as it is part of the Universe; but things belonging to the moral line, the line of freedom, are not parts of the Universe, and thus are not within the object proportionate to the angelic intellect.

— Against 1. Every real being, whether physical or moral, is of itself actually intelligible in the mode in which a real being exists, whether of the physical or of the moral order: but those affections of mind are real natural beings: therefore naturally intelligible, and consequently can be naturally known: for what is naturally knowable can be naturally known. Next, the Thomists themselves concede that Michael, for example, can naturally know his own affections and his own internal thoughts: therefore by equal right Gabriel will be able to know them; for those thoughts are as naturally knowable with respect to Gabriel as with respect to Michael himself: and accordingly, by the same reason by which Michael conceives them by natural power, though they are within the moral line, Gabriel will be able to perceive them. Finally, one angel can perceive the affections of another angel revealing them to him; for, as will appear below, angels in speaking to one another can express internal thoughts and affections of mind: therefore that reason of moral being does not prevent those thoughts and affections of mind from being naturally known, if they are made duly present; whether meanwhile they are manifested voluntarily or not. Truly therefore one angel could know the internal affections of another's mind, unless God prevented it. — That God prevents that knowledge is gathered both from Scripture and from the Holy Fathers praised above.

You will say 1. The aforementioned sayings of Scripture and the Holy Fathers simply affirm that internal affections of mind cannot be known by another than God: but this manner of speaking would not be true if they could be naturally known, as we assert: therefore our opinion seems to oppose both Scripture and the Holy Fathers. The minor is proved: First, because what can happen naturally is said to be able to happen absolutely; for although God can prevent fire from burning, nevertheless fire is truly said to be able to burn, because it has a natural power of burning; therefore if it can be said simply that those internal affections can be known by the forces of nature, contradictory propositions can be formed, namely that they can be known naturally, and cannot be known naturally. Second, because if a created intellect could naturally see the affections of another mind, it would follow that it is always in a state of violence, and that perpetual miracles are wrought; as it would be a miracle if fire, duly applied, did not burn, which certainly seems less congruous, especially since God does not seem to deprive any whole genus of cause of the concourse connaturally due to it (at least from the beginning of its formation) for some action toward which it has a natural inclination and a proportionate power: otherwise that inclination and power would be frustrated. Thirdly finally, because from the sayings of the Holy Fathers, in which God is asserted to be absolutely invisible, it could not be gathered that he cannot be seen naturally. For by similar reason God would be said to be invisible, not because he cannot be seen naturally, but because God has not decreed to concur to the vision of himself until after this life: but the consequent seems absurd: therefore also the antecedent.

— I deny the minor. And to its first proof I say that, although an angel does not in fact perceive the affections of another mind, toward the knowing of which he nevertheless has natural knowledge and power, it does not follow from this that he can naturally perceive those affections of mind, which would be contradictory. For propositions to be truly contradictory, they must be made of the same thing regarded in the same way, which does not occur here. For while we concede that angels have the power for perceiving the affections of another mind, we concede in them a faculty and potency expedited only in first act for eliciting this operation: while we deny that they in fact perceive the affections of mind, we also deny that that native faculty of knowing is expedited for this operation in second act, because of the divine concourse denied to them: and therefore our affirmation and negation, although they are about the same thing, are not however about it considered in the same way. For the affirmation is about the potency of the angel in first act; but the negation about the same potency considered in second act; and so those propositions are not truly contradictory.

To the second proof I deny the minor. For a thing is not judged to be in a state of violence except while its natural power is suspended and prevented in every way, not merely with respect to some operation; for we can naturally execute many things according to the native propensity of the rational and sensitive appetite, which nevertheless we do not do, God forbidding; nor are we for that reason said to be in a state of violence: nor would it be congruously said that God does violence to us while, to demonstrate his supreme dominion over us and obtain our reverence and observance toward himself, he forbids many things to be done, toward which natural appetite throws a propensity. So similarly, although God denies an angel his concourse for detecting the affections of another mind, he is not for that reason to be said to inflict violence upon him, since he makes him free for knowing everything else. Nor does it equally follow that that natural intellective power is frustrated; for it is not necessary that an innate power be said to be frustrated because it can be exercised around whatever objects and in whatever subjects: for the inclination which God implanted in angels and men at the beginning toward beatitude is not fulfilled in demons and the damned, and yet it is not said to have been given in vain; for, the Doctor says, it suffices that it be fulfilled in certain individuals of the angelic and human nature, as truly happens in the blessed Angels and holy minds.

To the third proof, I deny the consequence. For the reason of the disparity is that God is said absolutely and simply to be invisible to the forces of nature, since intuitive cognition of him is not within the line of the natural order, but of the supernatural; and accordingly when he is said to be invisible, it is sufficiently understood that he is outside the sphere of the activity of a created mind, and cannot be attained by it unless it is illuminated and strengthened by divinely given aid: but it is otherwise with the affections of mind to be known by an angel; since they are within the line of the natural order and do not exceed the ingenerate activity of a created mind, from the fact that they can be naturally perceived by it and yet are not perceived, it does not follow that they are naturally imperceptible, as it follows that God is invisible; not precisely because he is not seen by the forces of nature, but because he cannot be seen, for the reason that he is not within the line and order of nature, but of the supernatural.

You will say 2. Whenever no individual of some species has in fact some effect, however aptly it stands disposed toward that effect as it can stand disposed toward producing other effects, it ought not be affirmed that it has a natural power for that effect, unless it is elsewhere established by reason or authority that the negation of the production of that effect arises not from its natural activity, but from the divine concourse denied to it; but no angelic intellect, however much it exerts its powers to perceive the affection of another mind, will ever perceive it anywhere without the voluntary manifestation of the other, or a special revelation of God: therefore if by reason or authority it is not elsewhere established that this negation of knowledge arises solely from the negated divine concourse, it will have to be confessed that it arises from the impotence of the knowing angel, who has no native activity for perceiving those affections of mind: but this can be urged neither by authority nor by reason; therefore, etc.

— I concede the first argument, but deny the assumption. Since it has been proved by sufficient reason that angels have sufficient natural power for perceiving the affections of another mind: and since both the authorities of Scripture and of the Holy Fathers clearly establish that they do not in fact perceive such affections of mind, it follows that that non-perception arises not from the impotence of the intellective power, but from the concourse divinely denied to them. *For, as the Doctor speaks in the Reportata, dist. 9, q. 2, n. 6: Therefore God alone is said to know volitions, because he does not co-act in the knowing of volitions, so that one angel might act upon the intellect of another. Therefore God does not concur with any angel for uncovering the volitions of another, unless that other angel freely wills to signify his volition to another through speech; whereas that volition is by its nature intelligible and knowable, and would easily be known by the other angel unless God suspended that actual knowledge by the denial of concourse.

You will insist. In the same place the Doctor signifies that that suspension of divine concourse regards only moral and meritorious acts; for he speaks only of volitions that are meritorious or demeritorious, because, he says, volitions are ordered to punishment and reward, which belong to God alone, according to that text: Vengeance is mine, and I will repay. And therefore he reserved that knowledge to himself, because primary and judiciary power belongs to him. But that reason does not conclude in the same way of intellections as of volitions: for intellections are not ordered to reward and punishment, whence they are not meritorious.

— I answer. Truly the Doctor holds that good angels can in fact know one another's operations insofar as they are purely natural, or according to their natural entity; but not as they are morally free and good or evil, meritorious or demeritorious, namely insofar as they are ordered to a good or evil end, by which reason they are properly called the secrets of hearts. But the Doctor judges that God denies both kinds of knowledge to wicked angels, as he himself distinctly teaches in dist. 4, q. 10, question 8, n. 12, where he writes:

Regarding the evil angels I say that, if any evil angel were permitted absolutely to use his natural cognitive power, he could understand whatever caused intelligible there is, and consequently the thoughts of hearts and the mysteries of grace, once these have been brought into effect. But, as the Master says, book 1, d. 7., many things are possible for them by their nature which are not permitted to them. And so it is supposed that an evil angel is not permitted to see the secret of the heart, and in this way, and no other, could he see the body of Christ in the Eucharist. Therefore it is supposed that they are not permitted to see the mysteries of grace.

By these words the Doctor denies evil angels knowledge of the secrets of hearts, both as regards their moral being and as regards their natural being. — Therefore, when it is objected: God alone knows the secrets of the heart, one must answer with this distinction: God alone knows the secrets of the heart insofar as they belong to the purely natural order, I deny, since on that basis they are manifest even to the good angels; insofar as they are supernatural and moral and ordered to him as rewarder and avenger, I concede. For this seems to be the genuine opinion of the Subtle Doctor.*

You will say 3. From what has been said it is clear that the Holy Fathers proved the Divinity of Christ the Lord from the fact that he knew the secrets of hearts and the inward affections of the mind: therefore it is a sign that they judged such knowledge to be proper to God alone and not able to belong to any other in any way, otherwise their inference would certainly have no force.

— I deny the consequence, just as I deny its inference: for the efficacy of the argument of the holy Fathers required only that it be clear from Scripture that God alone in fact had knowledge of the thoughts of hearts: and since Christ also in fact had it, it followed that he was God. Add that this argument for the Divinity of Christ seems indeed sufficient, but not efficacious: for even if he had not truly been God, he could still have known the inward affections of the mind, namely through divine revelation, as happened to many Prophets, especially since Sacred Scripture does not explain whether the mode of that knowledge is natural and proper, or supernatural and received from elsewhere.

*So that the other things that are usually objected against the opinion of the Subtle Doctor on this point may be more easily dissolved, it should be carefully noted that he attributes knowledge of the secrets of the heart variously to God, to angels and to demons: so that God, by his infinite power of understanding, knows them not only according to their natural being, but also according to their moral and supernatural being; nor merely some of them, but absolutely all, and not by knowledge received from another but as most properly his own. The good angels indeed, by the power granted to them by God, can know them according to their natural being, but not according to their moral being and in the order to the supernatural end. The demons, however, know only some of them by conjectural knowledge, especially in those matters that pertain to the inward affections of men, which they surmise and infer from certain movements and agitations of the body.

— The Doctor himself must be heard in book 4, dist. 45., question 4., n. 7., where, answering the second argument proposed at the beginning of this question, whether the blessed know the prayers we offer, when it had been objected that God alone knows the secrets of the heart and that consequently he alone has the mental prayers that are made, he answers thus:

I say that there is nothing in the mind, namely any operation whatever of intellect or will, or any property, or real condition of this or that thing, but that the whole of it lies open proportionally to an angel proportionally present and unimpeded, or to a soul unimpeded and proportionally present, just as present whiteness appears to the soul united to the body through sense. That saying, then, that God alone knows the hidden things of hearts, is universally true and from his own perfection, so that it is impossible that anything impeding should hide them from him. He also knows them as universal Judge of all such hidden things, in that way in which neither the good angels, nor the evil ones, nor separated souls know them. Indeed in fact the Blessed did not know many such movements, because of the lack of due presence. But the evil, even with proportional presence, did not know many such things, God impeding them; because of whose impediment they cannot do many things which, if unimpeded, they could naturally.

Thus the Doctor.*

Third conclusion. — Angels do not know future contingents dependent on free causes.

Proof 1. From Sacred Scripture, especially from that passage of Isaias 41., Announce the things that are to come hereafter, and we shall know that you are gods: and chapter 46.² I am God, and there is no God besides, neither is there anyone like me announcing from the beginning the things that shall be at last, and from the beginning things that are not yet made, saying. And Daniel 2.: There is a God in Heaven revealing mysteries. The same is taught commonly by the Holy Fathers. Hilary, in book 9.: What is proper to God, rather than knowledge of things to come? And Cyril too, book 4. on John: To none other, he says, than to the one and only natural God does it befit to know things to come. And Jerome, weighing that passage of Isaias 46., where at length he proves that demons could not predict future outcomes of events through idols, since indeed they did not foreknow the ruin of their own temples. Wherefore Origen, book 6. Contra Celsum, rightly concludes that the prediction of things to come is the character of the divine word. And St. Damascene, book 2. De Fide, chapter 4., affirms that prescience of things to come depending on liberty is denied not only to demons but also to the holy angels: the good angels indeed can know it from God's revelation, but the demons from conjecture alone.

The Seraphic Doctor proves this truth, book 2, dist. 7., question 3.: These future contingents are either known by angels in their causes or in themselves: not in their causes, because free will is of itself indifferent to one part and to the other, and regards one part no less than the other: therefore from it the event is no more understood as future than as not future. Not in themselves, because this seems proper to God alone, who, being eternal, holds all things in his eternity, both future and past, as present.

Whence, he says, divine cognition does not depend on any thing: rather, it knows all things that it knows according to the mode of its own truth, and because its truth is most certain, it knows contingents most certainly, as necessary; but as it knows most certainly, so can it announce and reveal with certainty; therefore this foreknowledge of things to come is either God's or from God: and therefore when such things are predicted, the prediction is called Divination, because such is a divine act; and because demons, being proud, desire above all to be honored as God, they strive above all to show that they have this in themselves, and to say this; therefore to say that demons of themselves foreknow future contingents with certainty is to attribute to them what belongs to God; therefore there is infidelity there, and idolatry is frequently annexed to infidelity; therefore Divination is prohibited.

Yet this argument, common among all Theologians, can indeed persuade that angels do not in fact know those futures that depend on the free choice of God or of rational creatures; but it does not effectively demonstrate that angels have no natural activity toward their knowledge. For although free will is free, nevertheless the truth of either proposition about a thing to come necessarily determines it, and since that truth lies within the limits of the natural order, it does not seem to transcend the angelic grasp; and therefore the reason why the angel does not know that truth of a future thing is not to be sought from anywhere else than from the very will of God reserving to himself the knowledge of the future thing, which he sometimes announces and reveals to creatures as he pleases.

You will say. Experience establishes that demons, either by themselves, or through men whom they inspire, announce many things freely to come, for instance the outcomes of wars, the changes of kingdoms, and other things like these, which depend on the free wills of men; yet these are not excepted from God revealing: therefore by their own natural power they can foresee future contingents.

I answer to the major. Truly indeed demons sometimes announce these things, but they receive them either from God, who reveals many things to the wicked and impious, as he once predicted many things through Balaam, and Caiphas, and the Gentile Sibyls, and idolaters, as Augustine teaches, book 2. De Genesi ad litteram, chapter 17., and who deigns sometimes to address demons, as is clear from chapters 1. and 2. of Job, and who, as it were ministers of his justice, can reveal some future things through himself immediately, or through the holy angels; or I say that demons predict true things through revelations made not to themselves but to holy men, which they can gather from their words or writings. For, says Tertullian in the Apology, chapter 22.: they pick out also the dispensations of God, now while the Prophets preach, and now while the readings resound. Thus taking from hence certain lots of times, they emulate Divinity, while they steal divination. Or thirdly I say with St. Augustine, book 2. De Genesi ad litteram, chapter 17., that sometimes the nefarious spirits even predict by divining those very things they themselves are about to do: wherefore the good Christian must beware of mathematicians, or of any impious diviners, above all when speaking truths, lest the soul, deceived, be ensnared in a moment by the fellowship of demons into a bond of association. Fourthly, finally, I say that demons sometimes know future things from conjectures and from the influences of the stars, which they know excellently well: For, says Tertullian in the same place, from their dwelling in the air, and from their nearness to the stars, and from their commerce with clouds, they prepare themselves to know heavenly things: so that they promise rains which they already feel. But since they know from elsewhere that the greatest part of men follow the passions excited by the influences of the stars rather than reason, they frequently speak truths, although they know those things not certainly, but only conjecturally. Add that God, in vengeance for the impious curiosity of those who consult them, sometimes permits that either Demons or Magi predict truths: For, says St. Augustine, book 2. De Doctrina Christiana chapter 23.: it comes about that, by some hidden divine judgment, men greedy of things to come are given over to be mocked and deceived according to the merits of their pleasures, by mocking and deceiving Angels; and through these illusions and deceptions it happens that in those superstitious and pernicious kinds of divinations many things present and future come to be known, and that many things happen according to their observations just as they said; entangled in which they become more curious, and insert themselves more and more into the manifold snares of pernicious error.

You will object 2. The rational soul sometimes also discloses many future things during sleep, and when it is free from the operation of the senses, especially the exterior senses; for we think many things in dreams which are afterwards proven by the event to have been thought truly. Therefore this must be attributed much more to angels purified of every body.

The Seraphic Doctor praised above answers, that

Dreams are of fivefold kind. Some occur from the disposition of the body: some from anxiety of mind: some from diabolical illusion: some from angelic revelation: some from divine vision. The first two Dreams are presages of futures which have their cause in us: thus Dreams that occur from causes of the body are signs of infirmity: Dreams that occur from anxiety of mind are signs of those things to be done or desired toward which our inclination tends. But the others are not signs of themselves; rather, if of themselves they are applied to other things, they offer occasion for erring rather than for foreknowing. Dreams, which if they are from diabolical illusion, are of no strength, just as neither are the divinations of Augurs. But Dreams, which are from the good angels, or from God, are true and right signs in us; and so from this it is not obtained that foreknowledge of future contingents is had in any other way than from God.

* You will ask. — Of how many kinds, and what, is angelic knowledge? I answer that a twofold knowledge of the angels is assigned by St. Augustine, one of which he called Matutinal (Morning), the other Vespertinal (Evening), taking the occasion from the creation of the universe closed within six days of evening and morning; so that, in his opinion, those days of the creation of the world were not in the succession of flowing time, but in angelic cognition, which he distinguished as twofold, wherefore he called the first Matutinal because through it they knew things produced or to be produced in the divine Word as in a mirror, in which those things were represented, but far more clearly and distinctly than they are and appear in themselves: but the other, which the angelic intellect had regarding the things themselves considered according to their entitative and natural being, since it was somewhat obscure, or less splendid than the preceding, he therefore named Vespertinal.

— On this matter St. Augustine himself must be heard, book 4. De Genesi ad litteram, chapter 31., where, speaking of angelic cognition and inquiring whether the angels knew all things at once, he answers:

Was it not through all six days, while those things which it pleased God to create individually were being created, that first he received these in the Word of God, so that they would first come to be in his knowledge — already it was said, and thus it was done. Then, when they had been made in their own proper nature which they have, and had pleased God because they were good, then likewise he knew them by another certain lower cognition, which was signified under the name of Evening, and then evening having been made it became morning, when God was praised for his work, and the knowledge of another creature that was next to be made was received from the Word of God before it came to be. Not therefore then all things at once, and day and evening and morning, but singly in the order which Scripture records. Then, when he had established the difference between human and angelic cognition — that the latter is compared with slowness, difficulty, and delay of time on account of the corruptible body, whereas the angelic mind apprehends what is to be known most swiftly — he adds: before these things were made he saw them in the Word of God to be made, before they were made: as if they were first coming to be in his knowledge, when God was saying that they be made, before they were in their own proper nature, which likewise, when made, he knew even in those very things. With the lesser knowledge, therefore, which was called Evening — and surely the things being made preceded that knowledge, because whatever can be known precedes cognition; for unless what is known exists first, it cannot be known — after these things, if it so pleased him that he delighted more in himself than in his Creator, morning would not be made, that is, he would not rise from his cognition into praise of the Creator. But when morning was made, another thing was to be made and known by God saying: Let it be made, so that previously it would likewise come to be in the cognition of the angelic mind, and it could again be said, and so it was done; and then in its own proper nature, wherein it would be known upon the ensuing evening.

— He explains this matter far more clearly and distinctly in book 11. De Civitate Dei, chapter 7., where, having said that on the first day of the creation of the world, under the name of Light, the holy city was signified in the holy angels and blessed spirits: he adds that in that recital of the work of the days mention is indeed made of evening but not of night, and he brings forward this reason:

When Scripture numbered those days in order, nowhere did it interpose the word night. For it does not say anywhere: night was made, but evening was made, and morning was made, one day. So the second and the rest. For the cognition of a creature in itself is, so to speak, more faded than when it is known in the wisdom of God, as in the art by which it was made. Thus evening can more fittingly be said than night, which, however, as I said, when referred to praising and loving the Creator, returns to morning. And when it does this in the cognition of itself, it is one day. When in the cognition of the firmament, which between the lower and upper waters is called heaven, the second day is made. When in the cognition of earth and sea and of all things generated, which are continued to the earth by roots, the third day. When in the cognition of the greater and lesser lights, and of all the stars, the fourth day. When in the cognition of all swimming and flying animals from the waters, the fifth day. When in the cog> nition of all terrestrial animals, and of man himself, the sixth day.

— Ludovicus Vives, weighing the aforesaid passages of St. Augustine in his commentary on the aforementioned chapter 7., book 11. De Civit. Dei, writes, concerning these things, in book 4. De Gen. ad litt. where he calls morning:

when the angels raise themselves up from the aspect of created things known in those very things — where there is darkness and deepest night — to the charity of God: and if, loving God and gazing on all things in him, they know them, which is a surer science of all things than if the things themselves were seen, then it is day. But it inclines toward servant when the angel turns himself from God to created things, and beholds them not in God, but in themselves: yet even here evening does not pass into night, because never do they prefer the work to their Artificer, which would be the darkest night. So much from Augustine, who first introduced the matutinal and vespertinal sciences.

Thus he.

To these things must be added what the Subtle Doctor hands down, book 2, dist. 3., qu. 9., num. 9. and 10., where, weighing the former passage of St. Augustine's De Gen. ad litt., he writes thus:

Those six days were not in the succession of time, but in the angelic cognition of creatures having an order of nature, so that the angel first naturally knew the creature in the Word, secondly in its proper genus: and, not standing there, he returned to the Word, praising it for its work: and in it again he saw naturally the rationale of the following creature, so that when God said: Let there be light, the angel saw himself in the eternal Word: when light was made, and when evening was made, he saw himself in its proper genus: and when evening and morning were made, one day, he rose from himself into the praise of God, in whom he saw the second creature: so that that vision was the term of the preceding day (inasmuch as from the cognition of the first creature in the Word he rose into the cognition of the Word — nay, it is the rest of all creatures in the first Artificer and Maker; thus Augustine distinguishes each day up to the seventh day, of which the morning was of the last creature in the Word, and no evening followed) and it was the beginning of the following day inasmuch as he saw that creature in its proper genus. And although he himself placed that cognition of things in the Word as beatific cognition, as appears there at the beginning of chapter 22.: Since the holy Angels always see the face of God and enjoy his unigenitate Word, equal to the Father, in the Word of God they first knew the whole universal creature in which they themselves were principally created: fruition therefore pertains to beatitude. Similarly in the same chapter: Then the night pertains to the day, not the day to the night, when the lofty and holy angels refer what they knew of the creature in the Creator himself to his honor and love, in which they contemplate the eternal reasons by which it was created, and by that most harmonious contemplation they are one day, which the Lord has made. To which the Church, freed from this pilgrimage, is joined, that we also may exult and rejoice in it. — Yet it can be proven from his sayings that the cognition which is called most commonly matutinal cognition is natural, and not precisely beatific: because according to him, that order existed in angelic cognition, creature after creature, in that the angelic cognition of creatures in the Word naturally preceded prior their cognition in their proper genus. But when the creatures had been made in their proper genus, the angel could immediately have cognition of them in their proper genus. Therefore: all those cognitions in the Word naturally preceded the cog> nition of creatures in their proper genus: therefore all of them, according to him, were produced simultaneously. Therefore that cognition in the Word naturally preceded their production in the proper genus, but then the angels were in the state of innocence, and not blessed, because there was some little delay between their creation and fall. There was, therefore, some matutinal cognition of the angels, namely of creatures existing in the Word in natural things, or at least not of the blessed: and so it seems that one must posit a distinct cognition of the angel standing in natural cognition, or in grace, because otherwise, with the cause alone known, he could not know creatures and ordered effects before knowing them in their proper genus. For the ratio of knowing a thing confusedly is not the ratio of knowing it distinctly, and its ordered effects. — And if it be objected how he could know other things in the Word, known not intuitively but abstractively, I answer: the whole of natural science is now about passions abstractively through the intellect, so that not only the subject intuitively known, but also abstractively, is that in which the passion is known.

— Thus the Doctor, who, since he explains this matter amply, we shall refrain from expounding it more fully.*

Quaestio IV: An, et quomodo Angeli sibi invicem loquantur

Note 1. That speech is the thought of an intelligent nature brought forth to the knowledge of another by a certain sign: whence it comes about that it is attributed not only to men, but also to angels, and to God himself: yet in a far different manner; for, as St. Gregory observes, book 2. of the Moralia, chapter 5.

He speaks one way to the angels, another way the angels speak to God: one way God speaks to the souls of the saints, another way the souls of the saints speak to God, one way God speaks to the devil, another way the devil speaks to God. For since nothing from bodily admixture obstructs a spiritual nature, God speaks to the holy angels by the very fact that he shows to their hearts his hidden and invisible things, so that whatever they ought to do, they read in the very contemplation of truth: so that the very joys of contemplation are, as it were, a kind of precept of his voice. For it is said, as it were in accidents, what is inspired in those who see. Then, with certain things interposed, God therefore speaks to the angels when his intimate will is manifested for them to see. The angels, however, speak to the Lord when, by this, that they look upon themselves, they rise into a movement of admiration.

And in the following chapter: The words of souls are the desires themselves: for if desire were not speech, the Prophet would not say: the ear of thy God heard the desire of their hearts.

Note 2. It must be held by faith that angels speak to one another by manifesting their own concepts and affections: for sacred Scripture indicates this in several places, as in Isaiah 6. The Seraphim cried out one to another: Zechariah 1. The Angel of the Lord answered and said: O Lord God of hosts, how long wilt thou have no mercy on Jerusalem! And in Jude, in his Canonical Epistle, Michael disputes with the devil about the body of Moses: but a disputation cannot be understood without some kind of speech: almost all think that this speech of the angels is understood by the Apostle under the term "tongue," who thus writes in 1. Cor. chapter 13. If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, etc. On which passage Chrysostom writes thus: He here calls the tongue of angels, not attributing a body to the angels, but it is such a thing as he says: Although I speak in such a way as the angels converse with one another, etc.

Theophylactus subscribes: the angels, he says, moreover have an intellective tongue, doubtless that tongue by which they impart to one another the understanding of divine things and divine contemplations.

Theodoret also agrees, writing on the same text thus: He calls the tongues of angels those things which are perceived not by sense, but by understanding; through whom they also praise the God of all, and differ from one another. For Isaiah and Ezechiel heard them praising, and even Daniel speaking with one another, and Zacharias, and Michaeas.

Reason also lends its support; for if angels did not speak to one another, there would be, nor could there be, any society among them; for this is acquired by communication, and without it cannot stand; but to say that angels are not capable of society is absurd; for the natural aptitude for society seems to be a property of rational nature; or else we must fall into another, greater absurdity, namely to say that angels have no need of communication and speech, because all the secrets of one are manifest to every other, which we demonstrated above to be false.

Add that angels were created by God for this end, that they celebrate his divine perfections with continual praises, as often as they are called by the Holy Fathers, especially by Gregory the Great on chapter Job 38., the singers of heaven, the birds of heaven, and the heralds of divine praises.

But how could they resound with divine praises if they lacked the faculty of speaking, and could not mingle sacred converse with one another? It is certain, therefore, and wholly beyond doubt, that angels truly speak with one another; but how this takes place, there lies the hinge and summit of the difficulty.

Note 3. Concerning the mode of angelic speech to be declared, there is among Theologians a grave controversy, and a wonderful variety of opinions. For there are those who think that angels speak to one another through certain corporeal and sensible signs traced by them in some body, just as we utter voices and letters in the air, or on paper; which opinion Durandus reports in 2. dist. 11. qu. 2.; and they think this happens by one or other of these two ways. One is that those sensible signs are figures traced in the heavens having a particular signification known to the angels. The other is that those signs by which angels speak with one another are certain sensible sounds formed in the air in the manner of a voice, or are nods and signs made in assumed bodies, just as men speak with one another: the former way Durandus rejects; the latter, however, he approves, as being, in his judgment, necessary for speech properly so called.

Some wish angels to speak to one another through certain spiritual signs, such that an angel speaking can effect a sign representative of that word which he formed about a thing known; and that this sign by its nature is not hidden, but known to others, and therefore the formation of that sign is the expression of his concept, and speech. Vasquez inclines to this opinion.

There are those who assert that the speech of angels consists in the mere ordination of the concept of the speaker to him to whom he speaks, without the speaker effecting anything in the hearer. Thus almost all the Thomists with their Angelic Doctor, * who, in question 107, article 1, having distinguished a threefold mode in which the intelligible is in the intellect, first indeed habitually and according to memory, secondly actually, or as an actual concept, thirdly as related and ordered to another, thence concludes that > when the mind turns itself to actually considering what it has in habit, someone speaks to himself, for the very concept of the mind is inwardly called a word. But from the fact that the concept of the angelic mind is ordered to manifesting itself to another by the will of the angel himself, by one concept of the mind one angel makes himself known to another, and thus one angel speaks to another. For to speak to another is nothing else than to manifest the concept of one's mind to another. And answering the first objection, after he brought forward the twofold obstacle preventing the concept of the human mind from being given forth, namely the will, and the grossness of the body, he says the angel does not have this second obstacle. Therefore, he says, as soon as he wishes to manifest his concept, another at once knows it. Furthermore, to the second: it must be said that exterior speech, which is made through the voice, is necessary for us because of the obstacle of the body. Whence it does not befit an angel, but only interior speech, to which it pertains not only that he think by inwardly conceiving within himself, but also that he order by his will the manifestation to another: and thus the tongue of the angel is said metaphorically to be the very power of the angel, which manifests his concept.

— Finally the Subtle Doctor, in 2. dist. 9. question 2., affirms that the angel speaking directs his expressed concept into the intellect of the hearer; at whose concept's presence the hearing angel forms a vital and formal concept similar to that which the speaker wished to intimate to him, by which formal concept the hearer vitally understands all that the other had wished to signify to him.

Which opinion, as the truer and more certain, shall be established, but first let

First conclusion. — Angels do not speak to one another through corporeal signs, nor through spiritual ones.

Proof of the first part. First indeed by the authority of St. Gregory of Nyssa, chapter 12. of the book Contra Eunomium, who says:

In matter-free and intelligible nature, the action of the mind is speech, in no wise using the ministry of material organs. For even in human nature we should have no need of the use of words and names if we could mutually show the naked movements of our soul; now since the interior notions of our mind cannot be made manifest, because nature is circumscribed by the garment of the flesh, we of necessity do this, affixing certain impositions of names to things as signs, and by their aid making known to one another the movements of our mind.

Scotus Erigena explains the matter clearly in his commentaries on Dionysius De coelesti Hierarchia, chapter 25.

Who of mortals, he says, may worthily conceive the manner of their spiritual converse? Do not therefore imagine in them the form of human bodies, the lineaments of limbs, the office of a bodily tongue, the distinctions of sounds. For such things are not in them, except spiritually only, nor do they need bodily speech: since contemplating their consciences spiritually with one another, they in a manner speak to each other without voice, while the one by seeing the other understands, for even after the future resurrection our hearts shall be radiant with brightness toward one another and translucent with purity, for their very brightness shall be manifest to one another in their alternate hearts. And when the countenance of each is beheld, at the same time his conscience shall be penetrated. For there the bulkiness of the body shall not hide the mind of each from the eyes of the other: but the soul shall lie open, and to the bodily eyes the very harmony of the body shall lie open: and thus then each shall be more visible to the other than now to himself. Since therefore we hope this of ourselves without end, let us understand like things of those who are of a nobler and subtler substance.

This truth is also proved by theological reason: Angels require mutual society and conversation among themselves corresponding to their spiritual nature * : but speech through corporeal signs in no wise suits their nature: therefore this mode of speaking is not to be attributed to them. The minor is evident, since speech depending on corporeal things does not correspond to a spiritual nature; the major is proved, for angels are united to one another within the degree of their intellectuality and spirituality, and therefore ought to have a connatural mode by which they can bring forth their concepts and affections; but it is evident that sensible signs are not connatural to a spiritual substance, and consequently can in no wise serve for the speech of angels.

— Next, even if God had created no corporeal things, yet truly the angels would have had the strictest friendship and society with one another, and consequently speech and manifestation of concepts, inasmuch as without it true friendship and perfect society cannot subsist; therefore such angelic speech can take place independently of sensible signs.

— Finally, angels speak to men through sensible signs in assumed bodies for this reason, namely that the rational soul, bound to the senses, cannot perceive objects, nor know the concepts of others, unless it be moved and altered by a phantasm: but in angels there are no phantasms, nor any natural connection of the senses with the intellect: therefore neither among them can sensible speech have the force of speech reaching to the altering of the intellect; for, as St. Damascene says, book 2. De Fide, c. 3., They have no need of tongue and ears: but without the aid of speech they communicate their thoughts and counsels with one another. To this fits that saying of St. Basil, homily 3., affirming that the use of sensible speech was given to men because of the impediment of the body; for, he says, if we ourselves lived, the soul of all being visible to the eyes and naked among us, we would soon come together through mutual understanding of thoughts.

The second part is also proved, namely that this angelic speech cannot take place through spiritual signs: for those signs would be either natural, or by institution; but neither can be said. Not indeed the first: both because if they were natural signs, they would be above all certain qualities; for they could not congruously be reduced to any other predicament: but no quality can be a natural sign of an angelic concept. It is proved; nothing can be a natural sign of another except insofar as it is like it, either physically or intentionally: but such things they cannot be: not indeed physically, because truly they would be of diverse natures: then, although one man be physically like another, he is not therefore said to represent him: therefore much less would this species represent. Not even intentionally: because nothing has such a likeness except the impressed or expressed species of the other: but those qualities would not be such species of the concept: therefore thus they would not represent them. Then because if they were natural signs, they would have to be public and common, and consequently manifest to all the angels; and thus one angel could not speak to another without the rest understanding his concept, which would greatly detract from the dignity and liberty of the angels, since they could not intimate to another any private secret. Nor indeed the second, because if those signs were by institution, and signified by convention, especially since they would be ordained by the common consent of the angels, and therefore would be known to all: therefore whenever one angel should use such a sign to manifest his concept to another, all the other angels, knowing this manifesting sign, would also understand the concept signified.

Next, those signs could not have been instituted by the common consent of all the angels without a previous speech, by which they would of course agree with one another to use this thing to signify this: therefore antecedently to the institution of that sign they could speak, and consequently the speech of angels does not necessarily require to be made through any signs.

Nor can the second be said: for that private and particular institution of a sign, which would be made by some angel, could not be intimated to another angel except through speech: therefore without the use of a sign manifesting the concept one angel can speak to another, and thus their speech is not to be judged to take place through any signs, whether corporeal or spiritual.

You will say 1. The Gloss on that saying of the Apostle, 1 to the Corinthians 13. If I speak with the tongues of men, and of angels, affirms that angels speak to one another by nods and signs: therefore the speech of angels takes place through some signs.

— I answer. Angels can be said to speak by nods and signs insofar as they direct their concepts, or the species of concepts, toward one another, by which of course they signify to another what they previously had hidden in the mind; by which reason also certain holy Fathers are to be expounded, who indicate that angels speak with one another through certain signs.

You will say 2. For one angel to be said to speak to another, the intellect of the hearing angel must be altered and moved by something, whereby he may perceive the concept of the speaker: but nothing else more congruous for effecting this can be devised than some spiritual sign, at whose presence the hearing angel may attend to and perceive the concept of the speaker: therefore these signs are to be admitted.

— I deny the minor. For that attending and perceiving of the hearing angel is conceived to take place in a far easier way through the knowledge impressed on him of the object about which the speech is made, as we shall say at once: therefore these signs are less congruous, indeed are altogether superfluous.

Second conclusion. — Angelic speech is not made by the mere manifestation of a concept and its ordination to a hearer without some real change in the hearer.

Proof 1. By speech one angel must arouse another to listen: but by that manifestation and direction an angel cannot pass from not listening to listening: therefore, etc. The major stands: the minor is proved: for an angel to pass from not listening to listening, he must of necessity be changed and moved, for he is not always in actual consideration of all those things which he can know: but by that simple manifestation and direction the angel who is said to be a hearer cannot be really changed. Proof: nothing is really changed except by something real received into itself or produced by itself: but by that simple manifestation and direction the hearing angel receives nothing real into himself, nor produces anything: therefore he cannot be said to be really changed, and consequently cannot pass from not listening to listening.

— Next, that simple manifestation and direction is rather an act of the will than of the intellect, not only because it is a free act, since one angel speaks to another only most freely, but also because it is a certain ordination and direction toward something extrinsic, which is made through the very will of the directing angel; for the speaker would accomplish nothing else than by willing that his concept become manifest in such or such a way: but angelic speech is not an act of the will, but of the intellect, as was proved in the previous Conclusion from the holy Fathers; and Theodoret most openly teaches this on that passage of the Apostle: if with the tongues of men, etc. For he says: The tongue of the angels must be called the power of understanding, through which they are perceived not by sense but by intelligence; they manifest it: therefore that speech is not a simple direction.

— Finally, if that angelic speech were a simple direction, one angel could not manifest his private concept and affection to some particular one to whom he was said to speak without manifesting it equally to all, even though he would not be judged to speak to them; since he would be said to indicate his concept to a hearer only insofar as he would expose it so that it could easily be perceived by an angel attending to him; but on the hypothesis that there were three angels together, Michael, for example, could not manifest his concept to Gabriel without Raphael, attending to Michael, likewise recognizing the concept: but this redounds to the prejudice of angelic liberty, that one cannot indicate something to one without its being conceived by another: therefore, etc.

The Thomists object: To speak to another is nothing else than to manifest and disclose the concept of one's mind: but one angel manifests his concept to another by this alone, that he directs it to him by his will: therefore by this precisely he addresses him. The Thomists suppose the major as true; and they prove the minor thus: for the concept of one angel to be manifested to another, it suffices that it can be known by him: but precisely from the fact that one angel voluntarily ordains his concept to another, that it may become known to him, that other angel can know it: therefore by such ordination or direction it is manifested. They suppose the major as evident: they prove the minor: for the free concept of one angel to be able to be known by another, it suffices that it begin to pertain to the one who must know it, for since every angel is by nature able, through the species which he has in himself without any impression or action of the object upon him, to understand whatever pertains to himself, by the very fact that the speaking angel ordains his concept to another, that it may become known to him, by that very fact, I say, he makes such a thought pertain to the one to whom he directs it: therefore by this very fact he makes that thought able to be known by him.

— I answer 1. By denying the major; for speech is not the mere manifestation of a thing, otherwise he who removed the veil by which some picture is covered, in order to exhibit the image depicted on it for another to behold, would be said by this exhibition and manifestation to speak: and as often as something to be seen is submitted to us by another, so often would he be said to speak to us, which certainly no one would say; since a mute can exhibit a thing to be seen in this way, and is not on that account said to speak; and so speech is not a simple manifestation of a thing to be known, especially in the opinion of the Thomists, who deny that all speech can be made through signs, as Gonetus himself teaches, who in disp. 13. art. 3. affirms that angelic speech is not made through corporeal or spiritual signs; and so for speech the mere manifestation of a thing does not suffice, but in addition it is required that the same concept of the speaker, or another, be formed in the hearer.

— I answer 2. By denying the minor; for one angel truly to manifest his concept to another, it does not suffice that he direct and ordain it to him by his will, but beyond this it is required that the angel to whom such a concept is said to be directed receive into himself something by which he is moved and aroused, so that he attend to that angel who wishes to unveil and manifest the concept to him. However much Raphael, for example, wishes to open his free concept to Gabriel, Gabriel will in no way attend to him, especially if he be held by knowing another object, unless he receive into himself something by which he be removed from the consideration and knowledge of the prior object, so that he transfer his thought to Raphael. For the intellect of one angel is not of itself sufficiently constituted in first act to know the free acts of another, otherwise he could know them at will, and independently of the speech and will of the other: therefore, that he may become able in first act to know those free acts, he must of necessity be completed by the reception of some species directed to him by the speaker, or by the production of a concept formed in him by the speaker.

They object 2. Therefore the free act of one angel is by its nature unknown to another angel before his own consent, because the angel himself who freely elicited it has, by force of his liberty, dominion over such an act, and a connatural right to himself of reserving its knowledge as long as he wishes: but precisely from the fact that he directs such a concept to another angel, that it may become known to him, by that very fact, says Gonetus, he yields the dominion and right which he has of concealing the said concept: therefore by that very fact it begins to be manifested to that angel to whom it is directed: and consequently the angel thus manifesting his concept is judged sufficiently to address the other angel.

— I answer. By conceding the whole Argument and denying the inference consequent upon it; for, as was said above, speech is not a simple manifestation of a thing, and so it is false that an angel freely exposing his concept to be seen, however much he yields the right and dominion he has of concealing the said act, must on that account be judged to speak to another. For if no one attends to that concept, there will be no perception and knowledge of it; and consequently, beyond the manifestation of the concept on the part of the speaker, something must also of necessity be produced by him and transmitted into the one whom he intends to address, namely, that he pass from not attending and not listening to attending and listening.

They object 3. In this human speech differs from angelic, that a man is not judged to speak to another precisely from the fact that he voluntarily directs his concept to him; for by a twofold obstacle, says St. Thomas, that concept is as it were veiled lest it become known to another: first indeed by the very liberty of the will, by which a man can reserve his inner motions to himself: second by the grossness of the body, on account of which a man must use some sensible sign, that he may be able to manifest his concept to another man: but the concept of one angel is veiled by only one veil, namely the dominion of liberty alone, at whose pleasure he can either conceal or manifest his concepts to another: therefore by this very fact that the veil itself is removed, and that he yields to such dominion and directs his concepts to another, he is judged to speak to him.

— I deny the consequence. Because, as has been said many times already, speech, beyond the declaration of the concept, requires not only that it be directed morally, but also physically, to the hearer, namely, that he pass from not attending and not listening to attending and listening. Nor does it avail to reply with Gonetus, that the moral direction suffices for this: since that moral direction is a purely internal act of the speaking angel, since it is only his volition by which he wills his concept to be manifested to another, and consequently by that internal act nothing is produced in the one to whom such a concept is directed, so that he could be moved and determined toward its contemplation. Moreover, moral motion presupposes a faculty already attending to the object or end, to be known or loved: but the intellect of the angel to whom the concept of the speaker is directed is not supposed to attend to the speaking angel: therefore that direction or moral motion, which lies on the side of the speaking angel, does not suffice to determine the hearer to the knowledge of the concept thus manifested.

Third conclusion. — It is more probable that one angel speaks to another by producing in him the concept of the object of which he speaks, so that the hearing angel is passively disposed toward the knowledge of the thing of which the speech is made.

— * This is the express opinion of the Subtle Doctor in 2. dist. 9. quaest. 2. n. 15., where, resolving the proposed question, he says: I answer: An angel speaks to an angel by causing in him the immediate concept of that object of which he speaks. For the proof of this assertion he brings forward two arguments which we shall examine below; but first it must be observed with him, in num. 20., that a speaking angel can effect this in three ways, for, he says, he can cause in him the act only, so that not the species: and he can cause the act and the species at once; and he can cause the species only: which threefold mode of angelic speech he there explains and applies.

— But more briefly and more clearly in the Reportata, n. 13., where, having said that a speaking angel can produce in the hearer first the act with the species; then the act without the species; afterward the species without the act; he proves each: First, because that which is receptive, caused in first act by anyone having the power, can receive it: but an angel is receptive of species, and act sometimes at once, and another sufficiently causes: therefore etc. Second, because it is possible for an angel to communicate a concept to another, whose knowledge he has habitually, since he previously had the species: because we see in ourselves that a new act can be caused without a new species; therefore also in angels. And so I believe they commonly speak. Third, because an inferior angel cannot impede a superior from his act; therefore if the superior stands in his act, which is incompossible with the act which the inferior would wish to cause by his speech, he does not draw him back from that act; yet he can cause the species, because the caused species does not draw him back from such an act. Hence as one existing in a strong imagination indeed receives the white object offered before his eyes, and does not then receive the act, yet afterward can remember, so if an angel etc.

Therefore the conclusion is proved by the argument of the Doctor, which I thus formulate *: One who speaks intellectually intends to lead the one to whom he speaks into the knowledge of the thing of which the speech is made: therefore if he can produce that knowledge in the hearer as total cause, and without any medium, he is truly to be judged to produce it in fact: but certainly he can do this: therefore his speech is made through the formation of the knowledge of that thing of which there is discourse. The major stands, for speech is ordered solely to this, that the hearer know and apprehend the thing of which there is discourse from the speaker. The Doctor proves the minor: the intellect of a speaking angel, together with the intelligible species of the object concurring to its knowledge, is an adequate, sufficient effective cause for producing such knowledge in any intellect duly applied and capable of such knowledge: but the intellect of the hearing angel is capable of having such knowledge, and is judged to be sufficiently applied whenever it is in potency to having that knowledge, as it is while it has the character of hearer: therefore then the intellect of the speaking angel can cause that knowledge in it.

The major stands, for whatever is able to produce some effect in one subject capable of receiving the same effect can truly produce that effect in it: therefore since the intellect of an angel informed by the intelligible species received from the object can effectively produce the knowledge of that object in itself, it will also be able to produce it in any intellect capable of receiving such knowledge.

The minor is proved: for an intellect to be judged capable of perceiving some knowledge, only two things are required: first, that it have the intellective power by which it can perceive the object represented to it, however that representation and reception of the object be made in it, namely either from itself, or from God, or from another angel: second, that it not be so held about the actual knowledge of some object that it can in no way be withdrawn from it, nor receive another: but every hearing angel is thus disposed, since there is no angel who does not have the intellective faculty unencumbered; and none who cannot be withdrawn from the contemplation of one object, that he may be led to the knowledge and contemplation of another.

For in fact and in act the angels do not know all those things whose knowledge they can have, otherwise their power of knowing and understanding would be supreme and immense; and consequently they are capable of receiving knowledge from whatever quarter it be infused. That an angel, however, is capable of knowledge received from another than himself is clear: both because one angel is illuminated by another, as will be proved in the following Question; and illumination is made through the impressed knowledge of the object known by the illuminating angel: and because no one can deny that God can produce in any created intellect the knowledge, not only habitual but also actual, of any object whatever, natural as well as supernatural: therefore it is necessary that that intellect be capable of receiving such knowledge produced by an external principle.

Proof 2. The Doctor, in number 19: An inferior angel knows himself intuitively through his essence: therefore a superior also knows him intuitively through that same essence of his: but an angel knows objects outside himself by forming a concept of them: therefore also through that concept produced in the intellect of the hearing angel, this hearer can know the object understood by the speaking angel even at whatever distance. It is confirmed. If anything stood in the way of a speaking angel being able to cause in the intellect of the hearer a concept like that which he himself, speaking, forms, especially since that intellection or concept is a vital and immanent action and resides wholly within the intellective faculty from which it is produced: but this does not stand in the way: that it may be made manifest, two things are to be distinguished in intellection, namely the way and the term: the expression of the object, and the expressed concept: between which this difference occurs, that the way and the expression is a vital action: but the term and the concept is a quality produced indeed vitally, but is not a quality formally vital. It implies indeed that the intellection, taken in the prior way, namely inasmuch as it is the way and the expression, be produced in another than in the faculty formally understanding. But nothing stands in the way of that expressed concept, or that quality vitally produced and perfect in its being as a quality, concurring to the production of a similar concept.

For if anything stood in the way, it would be especially because it is produced and conserved vitally; but vitality is something immanent, and so proper to the living and understanding being, that it cannot pass over to another intellect, so as to live by the life of another. But this argument is of no force, since that expressed concept, or that quality produced by vital intellection, is not of itself sterile, for all confess that this concept leaves in the memory its trace or species and image; but this is not done except by production: therefore that concept is fertile and productive. Next, if that concept be formed from scientific knowledge or faith or opinion, it produces or increases the habit of science, opinion, or faith: therefore it has a certain fertility, nor is it altogether sterile. Why then could it not concur with another intellect to produce an intellection like that by which the expressed concept itself was formed, especially since this concept is a quality not formally vital, and therefore not of itself essentially requiring that it subsist within the faculty by which it was produced? It can therefore pass over from one intellect to another. It is added that one intentional species and one light conduces to the production of another, why therefore by equal reason could one expressed concept not concur to the formation of another? since it is as much an absolute quality as that. Nor do these things stand in the way, that in its proper intellect that concept does not beget another, for from this it does not follow that it cannot conduce to forming a similar concept in another intellect. In its proper intellect indeed, from which it was formed, it produces nothing, because this intellect does not need the formation of another concept, since it is already under the act of intellection. But another intellect needs that concept, that it may be able to understand the mind of the speaker and answer him. Therefore nothing on any side prevents that expressed concept from being transmitted by that angel into the intellect of another whom that angel wishes to address. *

You will object 1. That the aforesaid foundation of the Subtle Doctor seems altogether false; for if every productive principle of some effect in itself were also productive of the same effect in any other whatever capable of receiving it, it would follow, first, that the eye of Peter, which produces in itself the vision of a white wall, could produce the same vision in the eye of Paul about the unoccupied wall: second, it would follow that a blessed angel could produce the beatific vision in the intellect of another angel not blessed: third, that the intellect of an angel, without the concurrence of his will, could produce his knowledge in the intellect of another; since, with every act of will set aside, the intellect with an impressed species can produce in itself the intellection of the object whose species it has: but these inferences are absurd, and to be rejected: therefore equally absurd is the principle on which our opinion rests.

I answer. By denying the major: for the foundation of the Doctor must not be taken so universally, as if he wished that every principle productive of an effect in itself be also productive in another; but only when the producing principle and the receiving subject of the produced effect are proportioned to one another, so that one be susceptible of the effect of the other of the same order and reason. Hence to the first argument I say that there is no parity between the angelic intellect and the corporeal eye; for the angelic intellect has far greater activity than any corporeal power, and therefore can do more than the eye, which, since it is a material and altogether corporeal faculty, is not sufficiently applied to another eye. Hence it is no wonder if, since it is in itself devoid of matter, bound to no body, it can present itself intimately present to another angel, and exercise its fertility upon his intellect; since it is hindered by no corporeal obstacle whatsoever, and the other angel can truly receive into himself the knowledge produced by another; since God can produce in the angelic intellect not only the species of things and all supernatural habits, but any knowledge whatever, even the beatific vision itself: and so no repugnance appears, either on the part of the speaking angel or on the part of the hearer, that one can infuse his knowledge into another. It is otherwise, however, with a corporeal faculty, such as the eye, because it is not sufficiently active toward another on account of the lack of sufficient application, for example, to another eye in which it ought to operate. To the second inference I say that there is no parity; for the principle of the Subtle Doctor is understood only of a faculty operating by the proper forces of nature, which is as it were of itself mistress of its own acts, and needs no supernatural aid for eliciting them, which the beatific intellect is not with respect to the vision, which, since it depends upon the light of glory as upon a supernatural principle, is therefore supernatural in entity; hence it comes about that it cannot be received, nor exercised, in an intellect disposed purely naturally, as it would be disposed if an angel not blessed received it from another as produced by him. To the third inference I say that more is required for the intellect to produce something outside itself than in itself; for although it be a natural faculty, it is nevertheless subordinated to the will, and at the command of the will it can elicit its act, not primary but secondary, as the will shall determine: hence although in itself it can produce the primary intellection of a thing at its presence, or with its species, without the command of the will, nevertheless it could not exert that same action upon another except by the command of the will: for since that action toward another is altogether free, it is necessary that it be directed by the will.

You will object 2. Knowledge is a vital act: but this essentially requires to be produced by an intrinsic principle in which it resides, so that it could be effected by another only by miracle; indeed some even deny that this can be done divinely: therefore much less could it be produced by one angel in the intellect of another merely passively disposed.

He answers 1. Our Herrera, Disp. 11. q. 7., says it can be said that the hearing angel is not only passively disposed toward the act by which he knows and understands the thing of which another speaks, but also that he truly concurs in forming the knowledge, together with the species of the uttered word, or with the word itself uttered by the speaker and directed to the intellect of the hearer; so that the speaker is actively and operatively disposed with respect to that species or word directed to the hearer, and the hearer is receptively and passively disposed toward the reception of that species or word directed by the speaker: but he concurs effectively with the word itself, or with its species, in forming the knowledge; and so this knowledge by which the hearer perceives the object of which speech is made is truly a vital act, since it is produced by his intellect effectively concurring with the word transmitted by the speaker to form that knowledge. But since this answer seems alien to the mind of the Doctor, as is clear from what he there subjoins, especially n. 20., where he resolves that the speaker can infuse the knowledge of his concept into the hearer in three ways: first, if the hearer does not have the species of the object of which there is to be speech, he causes in him only the act of knowledge: second, if he does not have the species, the hearer can receive from the speaker both the species and the act: third, if he has actual knowledge of that object, he receives from the speaker only the species, by which he be moved to attend to the concept formed by the speaker himself; therefore the Doctor holds that sometimes the speaker can cause only the act of understanding in the hearer; therefore I answer by denying the minor: for it is not required for the character of a vital act that it be produced by the living being itself, but it suffices that through it it tend vitally, and inasmuch as it is a vital power, toward the object, whether meanwhile such an act be produced by that vital power or not. For an act is called vital insofar as through it the power vitally perceives its object. Nor does anything else seem to be desired for the character of the vital. But if it sometimes happen that that act, which is called vital, so requires to be produced by the power in which it resides, that it seems it could proceed from no other, this is not to be referred to the side of vitality, but either to the fact that no second cause is present which could produce such an act and transmit it into the vital power: or because, since the power is of itself most sufficient for producing that act, the production of that act seems more fittingly to be attributed to the power which operates through that act than to another, although it could also be produced by an alien power.

— But if anyone necessarily require for the character of a vital act that it be produced by the power which operates through it, I will deny that absolutely: nor do I think that those holding the contrary can evince it by any sufficient argument.

You will object 3. That knowledge to be produced in the hearer would be formed either by the intellect or by the will of the speaker: neither can be said. Not indeed by the intellect, for this is not an extrinsic productive principle of vital action, for its operation is wholly immanent, since it operates not that it may communicate itself, but that it may perfect itself; nor is it poured out upon objects as the will is, but draws all things to itself. Nor the second, for the will cannot be the principle of intellection, neither in its own nor in another's intellect.

I deny the minor. For it can be affirmed that that knowledge produced in the hearer is formed by the intellect and by the will of the speaking angel; by the intellect indeed efficiently, by the will however imperatively. That it proceeds from the intellect is clear from the proof of the Conclusion; but although the intellect is a faculty operating immanently with respect to its own knowledge and perfection, from this it does not follow that it could not also be operative and productive with respect to the knowledge and perfection of another. For who will evince the contrary? That the will of the speaking angel also concurs in forming that knowledge the Doctor teaches in the same place n. 23., and Poncius from him, saying that although the intellect, and the impressed species of the object of which speech is made, is the total immediate cause of the knowledge produced in the hearer, nevertheless in that production it depends upon the command of the will, so that without it it cannot produce: which is evident a posteriori, because otherwise the angel would necessarily speak to all angels applied and not impeded by attention to other objects, which is inconvenient. That the intellect could have such subordination to the will is also evident, because as the intellect, having the knowledge of some object, nevertheless depends upon the will for the conservation of such knowledge, since the will can call it away from the consideration of the object itself, and lead it to the knowledge of another; so it can depend upon the will in the production of knowledge in the intellect of another angel.

— The Doctor likewise observes in the same place, that although the speaking angel must first form in himself the knowledge of the object before he produces it in the intellect of the hearer; nevertheless that previously formed knowledge does not concur as a condition sine qua non, which is pre-required in the speaker, that he may be able to will to infuse his own knowledge into another; Because, says the Doctor, in subordinate effects, which are of the same reason, and of which each is by nature to be begotten by an equivocal cause, it is not necessary that the prior be the cause of the posterior; but that each be caused by the same equivocal cause: and this especially in the matter at hand: because actual intellection has not the character of parent as memory does. Hence the Father in the divine begets by memory, not by intelligence.

You will object 4. Although an angel could produce in another angel the knowledge of an object understood by himself, nevertheless he would not on that account be said to speak to him: therefore speech does not consist in such production. The antecedent is proved: speech necessarily imports a distinct signification of the concept of the speaker concerning the thing of which speech is made: but by the production of knowledge about an object the concept of the angel producing it would not be signified; since the angel having that knowledge produced in himself would not know who had produced it: therefore by that formally he would not be said to speak to him.

I answer. that for true speech it is not necessarily required that the hearer know distinctly who is addressing him. For it can happen that someone speaks to us through some intervening obstacle, whom we therefore could not know, and yet his speech would be no less true and properly so called: therefore by parity an angel speaking could truly speak by signifying his concept to a hearer, even though the hearer, on account of some impediments, either does not see him or does not know that the speech came from him. Hence the consequence of the antecedent must be denied, as well as the major of its proof; for true and perfect speech suffices that the thing about which the speech is made be known, nor is it necessary that the speaker also be distinctly known by the hearer.

You will object 5. If an angel were to speak to another by producing his knowledge in him, it would follow that a wicked angel speaking to another could not lie: but the consequent is false: therefore also the antecedent. The major is clear: for he could not form in the other any concept other than one entirely conformed to that which he has in himself, and consequently he would not speak against, but according to his own mind. The minor also holds: for wicked angels are in very fact deceitful spirits; full of guile and of all malice; and of the devil it is said, John 8. 44¹ He was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth; because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof, namely, of the lie.

I deny the consequence of the major. For although an angel would speak to another by the production of his knowledge, he could lie no less thereby: since he could form in himself a notion opposed and contrary to the first which he had had about the object, and signify this second notion to the other as if it were truly the first notion he had had about the object, although it was not the first, nor was the first conformed [to it]; and thus it appears that he would lie.

You will say 6. If angelic speech were made by the production of a notion in the intellect of the hearer, it would follow that one angel could not speak to another at whatever distance supposed: but this seems absurd: therefore also that from which it follows. The major is proved: no action can be made at a distance unless it first acts upon the medium; but the intervening air, or some other corporeal thing between the two angels, is not a receptive medium of angelic speech: for a corporeal thing cannot be the subject of a spiritual thing: therefore, etc.

He denies the major. The Doctor, n. 16., and in reply to its proof he answers that an angel can produce the knowledge of his concept in another distant angel without producing anything in the medium: since, as was proved in the Physics, a corporeal action can sometimes be done at a distance without any action whatsoever upon the medium, especially when the medium is not productive of a similar quality produced: therefore much more still can a spiritual action be done at a distance.

The Doctor splendidly declares this opinion in the Reportata Parisiensia, question 3, distinction 9, number 2, where he says: An angel can speak immediately to another distant angel, causing nothing in the medium. Because, as he soon adds, in the speech of angels the action upon the extreme in no way depends upon the action upon the medium. And when he had proved this by many modes and examples, and had distinguished in n. 4. the presence of the agent from its power, such that the agent can be present to something by power and virtue where it is not present by entity and presence, because power does not always require physical contact between agent and patient; finally he concludes thus: an angel can speak to a distant angel, so that according to the term of the power, because thus he would cause in him the effect as if he were not locally distant. From these words this argument can be formed: when an action is of such a nature that of itself it can be exercised upon a distant patient independently of a medium, and with such facility as if the patient were not distinct from the agent, that action can take place notwithstanding any distance whatsoever: but such is angelic speech: therefore etc. The major is certain. The minor likewise holds. For an action purely spiritual, from a spiritual agent toward a spiritual patient, in no way depends upon a corporeal medium, since the latter is incapable of receiving that action. Therefore the space or medium interposing between the angel speaking and the hearer cannot impede that speech, and the hearing angel, however distant, is reached immediately by the power of the speaker, as if he were not at all distant.

— Nor should adversaries object that from this it follows that one angel could address another even infinitely distant. For if, they say, distance does not hinder this speech, whatever distance may finally be conceived, it will not stand in the way of this angelic speech.

I answer. that this objection is of no force or weight, seeing that infinite distance between two angels is utterly chimerical and fictitious, for within the limits of the universe this cannot be conceived, since the world is finite and limited on every side. But if it were posited in imaginary spaces, certainly it would be altogether imaginary and fictitious, and the empty offspring of an idle and holiday mind.

Since, however, certain disciples of the Doctor, such as Lichetus, Mastrius, Tataretus and others, contend that the Doctor himself does not state absolutely that angelic speech can take place at any distance whatsoever, therefore *

I answer 2. That if in truth an action could not be done at a distance without there being a production of a likeness in the medium, it will not be absurd to concede that an angel cannot speak to a distant angel; nor does any imperfection in the angels follow from this; just as neither is it an imperfection in men that one cannot speak to another at the greatest distance supposed, and accordingly the Minor can be denied.

But he would dissolve these and all other difficulties with easier labor who would interpret the opinion of the Subtle Doctor thus: that he wills that the angel speaking does not absolutely produce the total and adequate notion in the intellect of the hearer, but only the species and image of the concept formed by himself: so that that species, received in the intellect of the hearer, concurs effectively with him in forming the notion about the object of which the speech is made; which is the very opinion of Alexander of Hales, part 2, q. 27, member 1., and also of the Seraphic Doctor on 2. dist. 10. art. 3. q. 1. where he says:

For the angel's speaking there suffices the intelligible species itself, which by the intellective power of the angel himself, through the force of the will, can be extended to another. And just as that species, while the intellect beheld it in itself and for itself, was an inner word, so when he extends it to another, it becomes as it were a nod, and an outer word: and because both that species, and the power extending it to another, and the extension itself are spiritual, therefore it has no need of a bodily medium to carry it: but because that power is finite, it is necessary, in order that one angel may excite the intellect of another angel by speaking, that is, by extending that species, that they be distant from each other by a finite distance.

The Doctor surely defends this opinion at least in part, inasmuch as, as was said above, he teaches that sometimes the angel speaking produces only a species in the intellect of the hearer. But when he asserts that the angel speaking is the total cause of the notion produced in the intellect of the hearer, it could be said that he speaks of objective knowledge, namely of the species which he directs to the hearer, and with which, in the manner of an object, he concurs * in forming the intellection and formal concept in the intellect of the hearing angel:

You will ask first: how the hearing angel stands in receiving that concept expressed by the angel speaking to him and produced in his intellect.

I answer. that as soon as the concept itself is produced and transmitted, the hearing angel is merely passive; just as he stands toward the impressed species in the opinion of those who judge it necessary in angelic speech; for the hearing angel does not, as was soon said, understand formally through that sent-in concept, since this is impossible, just as it is impossible to exist by the existence of another and live by the life of another. Hence by that reception of the expressed concept the intellect of the hearing angel is only excited, just as it would be excited by a species received from an object, to form an intellection and formal concept like that which the angel speaking formed, through which formal concept he vitally understands, and sees and perceives what the other wished to intimate and signify to him. Then, producing another concept, he sends it back to the angel previously speaking in the same manner in which he had received his concept, and thus the angels converse with each other by the mutual direction of their expressed concepts toward one another.

You will ask secondly: whether, and how, one angel can speak to one and not to another?

The Doctor answers. in 2. dist. 9. question 2:

I say that just as it is in the power of an angel with respect to the first intellection, to use this species in memory, or that one, for this or that actual intellection of his: so if he had several intelligences, it would be in his power that the notion be begotten in this intelligence or in that: for the natural passive is no more determined to being acted upon than the natural active is to acting. Just therefore as that active, which of itself is subject to the will, can of itself act and not act on account of its command: so can that active be determined to act in this passive and not in that: and as the determination would be made to the intelligences intrinsic to the angel himself, if there were several, so can the determination be made to this or that extrinsic intellect, which in this respect are passives of the same kind with that intrinsic passive into which the intrinsic active would act by the command of the will.

Thus the Doctor, by which he declares that since angelic speech depends upon the will of the angel speaking, and it is free for him to direct his concept to one angel rather than to others out of several angels, it is easily conceived how he can speak to one, but not to the others.

You will ask thirdly to how many angels hearing at once can he speak? For, says the Doctor praised above: a natural agent cannot produce at once whatever effects adequate to it, and so one angel cannot at once direct various expressed concepts into the distinct intellects of the hearing angels.

The Doctor does not give the answer there, and writes that it must be sought; in the addition indeed the answer is referred to be sought in the Reportata: yet neither does it appear even there. Hence Faber, disp. 38. num. 2., deterred by the foregoing argument, contends that one angel cannot speak to several at once. But the other disciples of the Subtle Doctor contend that one angel can speak to several at once provided they are sufficiently present. For, says Poncius in his Commentary:

there is no greater difficulty in this speech than in the other efficient causes; for one fire can at once produce several other fires in distinct subjects aptly disposed, and the same object can produce several visible species, and concur with different eyes toward distinct visions: nor does it follow from that production of several effects that there is a greater or more excellent power in the efficient cause when the effects are of the same perfection. Since the power is the same, changed as really as formally, which produces all these effects as if it brought forth only one.

Yet both Poncius himself and the other Scotists of the same opinion do not seem in this matter to attain the Doctor's meaning, nor to solve the difficulty proposed by him, namely that one and the same cause cannot at once bring forth several adequate effects. Moreover, whatever angelic speech is, through a concept expressed by the angel speaking and directed to the hearer, is an adequate effect. For, in order that the angel speaking beget his concept in the mind of the hearer, he must himself form the integral and adequate intellection, through which that expressed concept is produced. But he cannot at once form several adequate intellections, therefore neither several speeches. For neither is angelic speech made through some external sign which is exposed to all, as human speech is made through external voices, which can be perceived at once by several hearers. Therefore, either it must be stated that one angel can at once speak to one alone only, or the solution of this question must be left, with the Doctor, to each one's judgment.

You will ask fourthly. whether the concept of the angel speaking to another can become manifest and known to other angels present?

The Doctor answers in the place cited above, n. 27. that since angelic speech is made through an intellection, which depends upon the direction of the angelic will, the angel speaking can direct the expressed concept through his intellection to one angel rather than to another; so that only one receives that concept, but not the others, and accordingly only one of them will be the hearer through that received concept. Nevertheless, says the Doctor there, num. 27., the other angels present could perceive that directed concept, as well as the intellection of the angel speaking: because, he says, there seems no greater reason why the angel speaking, by his will, could conceal his intellection more than his essence; nor does any reason appear why an angel could not perceive that volition of the angel speaking, whereby namely he would wish to conceal his concept from him; since that volition, like that directed concept, are of the natural order and within the breadth of the object of the angelic intellect; and accordingly it can be perceived by any angel.

But, you will say. If every angel can know the thought of another, speech is therefore vain.

— The Doctor answers in the same place. that although an angel would previously see the intellection of another angel before he had hearing from him, nevertheless the hearing would not be in vain; it would be a perfection communicated per se by another angel liberally: and for this chiefly is speech among intelligibles, that they communicate their concepts to each other liberally and freely. Thus the Doctor.

Quaestio V: An, et qualiter unus Angelus alterum illuminare possit

Note 1. From St. Dionysius, chapter 3 of The Celestial Hierarchy: since a Hierarchy is a sacred Order, knowledge, and action, which approaches as far as possible the likeness of the Divinity and is drawn upward to the imitation of God in proportion to the illuminations divinely given to it; its end is the imitation of God; but the means by which the divine likeness can be formed is participation in the divine light, by which the supreme angels, being nearer to God and receiving the divine light more fully and gazing wholly upon divine truths, illuminate and instruct those below them: wherefore in the middle of that same chapter he affirms that the order of the Hierarchy requires that some be purified and purify others: Some are enlightened by the light of doctrine, and some enlighten; and some are perfected, while others perfect: not that only the superior Hierarchy illuminates and purifies the inferior; but since within the same Hierarchy one order is superior and another inferior, the inferior angels are enlightened by the superior.

But those, he says, whose task it is to enlighten, so that their minds may be brighter and of such a kind as properly to be able both to receive light and to impart it to others, being most richly suffused with sacred splendor, pour forth that light with which they are surrounded on all sides upon those who are worthy of it.

Note 2. From the Subtle Doctor in book 2, dist. 9, question 2, number 25: That angelic illumination is a kind of speech about a truth perfective in second act. It is called speech first of all: for every illumination is a speech of an angel to another, although not every speech is an illumination, and accordingly illumination differs from speech as a species from its genus: since speech is about any matter whatsoever, whether perfective of the intellect of the hearer or not perfective, and indifferent; for one angel can address another about a matter whose knowledge he already had, in which case the speech is not perfective of the intellect of the angel hearing it: since it would not instill new knowledge and perfection. There is added "about a truth," not because for illumination it suffices to manifest and declare any truth whatever — otherwise it would not differ from simple speech: but, says the Doctor, it must be about a truth divinely revealed to the superior angel and previously unknown to the angel who is said to be illuminated. Finally it is said to be perfective in second act, since it instills in the illuminated angel actual knowledge of some truth which he could not acquire by his own natural powers, and which he did not previously know through the species concreated with him: since however all knowledge of truth is perfective of the intellect, hence deservedly the angel illuminated, through the revelation of a supernatural truth previously unknown, is rightly said to be perfected in second act, or actually.

Note 3. Concerning the resolution of the present Question the Princes of Theology vary greatly. For some contend that illumination takes place by the simple proposition of the truth about which the illumination is made, without anything being impressed upon the illuminated angel, just as happens among men when a Master teaches and enlightens a disciple by proposing to him the truth to be learned, without any efficiency in his intellect; thus certain more recent Thomists think concerning illumination and angelic speech. Others indeed contend that through illumination something is caused in the intellect of the illuminated angel; so that the illuminated angel, strengthened and fortified, can perceive the thing revealed and proposed to him. Thus St. Thomas, part 1, question 106, article 1, in the body; where he says that angelic illumination takes place by fortifying the intellective power of the angel to be illuminated, and by distinctly manifesting the thing to him; according to these two, he says, one angel can make known a known truth to another: First indeed by fortifying his intellective power. He explains the manner: For just as the power of a less perfect body is fortified by the situational nearness of a more perfect body, as the less hot grows in heat from the presence of what is hotter, so the intellective power of the inferior angel is fortified by the conversion of the superior angel to him. For in spiritual things the order of conversion does what the order of local nearness does in corporeal things. Second, one angel manifests a truth to another on the side of the likeness understood. He explains this manifestation: so that the angel to be illuminated may receive the truth more particularly, while the illuminating angel distinguishes it, so that it can be grasped by the inferior. He gives an example: as among us doctors distinguish in many ways what they grasp in summa, providing for the capacity of others, that is, of disciples. So the Angelic Doctor. — He explains the matter more briefly in answering the 2nd argument there: One angel does not illuminate another by handing over to him the light of nature, or of grace, or of glory, but by fortifying his natural light, and by manifesting to him the truth about things pertaining to the state of nature, and of grace, and of glory. See also question 3, article 1, in the body, and also question 117, article 1, where he teaches that angelic illumination, whether among themselves or toward men, takes place by the proposition of truth and the fortification of the intellective power of the illuminated one.

There are indeed certain other theologians who think that an angel is illuminated by another through the derivation of a certain spiritual ray from the illuminator into the illuminated, by which he is thereby stirred to listen, and through whose mediation he forms in himself the likeness of the thing revealed, about which he is instructed and illuminated by the superior. Some say that through illumination there takes place only an intensification of the light of the inferior angel, who is said to be illuminated. Finally the rest, with the Subtle Doctor, affirm that illumination does not take place by the simple proposition of the thing to be revealed and without the production of any effect in the intellect of the illuminated angel, nor through the causation of a new light, whether natural or supernatural, by which the illuminated angel would become livelier and more powerful for seeing the truth revealed to him; but he contends that this angelic revelation takes place in the same way as speech, namely by producing knowledge of the revealed truth in the intellect of the angel to whom that revelation is made.

First conclusion. — Truly certain angels illuminate others. Thus think all Theologians against Durandus, who in book 2, dist. 11, question 3 affirms that all angels are illuminated by God immediately.

The truth of the conclusion is evident from St. Dionysius cited in the first note, and he teaches this truth at length in the book On the Celestial Hierarchy, especially chapter 7, where concerning the Seraphim he says: That the lower ranks bear up most powerfully in their own likeness, with a luminous and illuminating property expelling all obscurity. And there concerning the Cherubim he says, That they transfuse into what follows and is below the wisdom granted to them. Hence around the middle of the chapter: This the Theologians plainly believe, that the lower orders of celestial natures, rightly unfolding the divine works, learn the sciences from those above: but that the highest are taught the mysteries by God himself according to their capacity. For he shows that some of them rightly learn this from those before them, that the Lord is of the heavenly virtues, and King of glory, he who was assumed into Heaven, as he taught as man. Whence in the following chapter he teaches that the middle distinction of celestial spirits, which contains these divine properties in itself, is indeed purified, and illumined, and perfected, as has been said, by the divine illuminations which are given to it in the second place through the first distinction of the Hierarchy, and through that middle one are carried in the second place. Moreover very many other Fathers subscribe, especially St. Athanasius in the book On the Common Essence, where he says: The Cherubim and Seraphim learn from God without any mediator and interpreter, and by them the lower orders are instructed, and so on in turn the rest according to their rank. Sophronius in the Encomium on the Angels addressed to Seraphinus says: You receive the splendor, as far as is lawful, without any intermediary, and you make what you have received common to the other minds and intelligences. Similarly St. Damascene, book 2, chapter 3.: That indeed, he says, is clear, that those who are more excellent and more sublime impart splendor and knowledge to the lower. Finally St. Bernard in the fifth sermon On Consideration, chapter 1, says of the Cherubim: Drawing from the very fountain of wisdom with the mouth of the Most High, and pouring back the streams of knowledge to all their fellow citizens. Nor does it avail to reply, with Durandus, that the aforesaid holy Fathers wish to say only that God illuminates the lower angels through the mediation of the higher, not by a mediation of causality, but of dignity, inasmuch as no doubt he first illuminates the superiors, and afterwards the others. This reply, I say, does not avail; since from the words of the holy Fathers it is clear that those divine irradiations take place first in the superior angels, and through them are carried down to the inferiors.

The conclusion can also be proved by this argument: to illuminate another is nothing else than to manifest to him an unknown truth: but the superior angels teach and manifest to the inferiors a truth unknown to them: therefore they illuminate them. The major is admitted by all: the minor however is proved: the superior angel, since he is nearer to God, perceives the things of God far more clearly and abundantly than the inferior, seeing that he is of lesser activity and power; and since among them there flourishes the greatest and most perfect friendship, which demands the mutual communication of goods, it is fitting that they pour out that fullness of divine light upon the inferiors. — Further, this order in the state of the universe of things has been prescribed by God, that lower things be governed and perfected through higher ones; whence the higher luminous bodies illuminate the lower; and in the Church the superiors are said to illuminate the inferiors, according to that text of Ephesians 3.: To me, the least of all the saints, is given grace to illuminate all, etc. Rightly therefore, says St. Dionysius, chapter 4 of The Celestial Hierarchy: That supreme and supersubstantial Order of all established through each distinction first, middle, and last orders and virtues, namely that the more excellent of the inferior spirits should be Teachers and Leaders: where the name of Leader and Teacher evidently shows the causality of one in another by way of doctrine and illumination. — Finally, just as although God can produce all things immediately through himself, he nevertheless does not will it so far as he bestows this productive power upon creatures; so likewise he does not will to illuminate all intellectual creatures immediately through himself, but some through the benefit of others, that they may become partakers of that illuminative power: whence the Royal Psalmist, Psalm 6.¹ Illuminating wonderfully from the eternal mountains; that is, not only our souls, but also the inferior angels from the superior, who are therefore metaphorically called mountains; because just as the mountains first receive the rays of the Sun and at last communicate them to the lower parts of the world, so the supreme angels receive the divine illuminations immediately from God: but where, says Dionysius, chapter 3., they have drunk their fill of the most sacred radiance granted to them, thereafter they pour it out upon those who follow without envy.

Truly, says William of Paris, part two of the second part of De Universo, c. 51., this angelic illumination is to be understood not after the manner of bodily and natural influences: for those take place by necessity and a kind of servitude, but these by will and liberty; for it is not in the power of solar light to shine less than it shines, or to withhold anyone from its rays, but as it were by an impulse and violence of divine generosity it diffuses its light in its whole power of luminosity everywhere. But these luminous substances infuse the lights of revelations as they will and as much as they will, and likewise withhold them; and each holds its luminosity most fully in its free power.

You will object 1. Speech and illumination must take place through the production of the knowledge of that thing about which the illumination or speech is made in the intellect of the illuminated or hearing angel: but a blessed angel cannot produce in the intellect of another angel such knowledge as he himself has of an object divinely revealed to him, e.g. of the futurition of Antichrist: therefore neither can he illuminate him. The minor is proved: The angel who is said to illuminate has no other knowledge of such an object than that by which the knowledge is said to be in the Word: but such he cannot communicate to another angel: both because that is beatific vision, which one blessed being cannot produce in another: and because the Subtle Doctor expressly denies here that knowledge in the Word can be bestowed by one angel upon another.

— I deny the minor, and also the minor of its proof, for not every vision of a thing in the Word is beatific vision, nor does the Doctor deny that every vision in the Word can be communicated by one angel to another. For something can be seen in the Word in two ways: in the prior way when through the beatific vision of the Word not only the Word itself or the divine Essence is seen, but also certain secondary objects are seen which shine forth in it: in the latter way something can be seen in the Word insofar as the knowledge of the Word, inasmuch as it was terminated to some particular extrinsic object, for instance to the futurition of Antichrist², which as such was not seen through the beatific vision itself, could be seen through a vision distinct from beatific vision: but when an angel sees something anew in the Word, he is not said to see in the prior way, but only in the latter: whence the prior knowledge cannot be communicated to another angel; but the latter can. *For since the angels are not all of equal beatitude, nor do they altogether have the same beatific vision, a superior angel discovers more in the Word than an angel of the interior order. Therefore when God manifests to a superior angel the time and circumstances of the coming of Antichrist, e.g., that superior angel informs the expressed concept of this truth revealed to him, and directs it into the intellect of the angel to be illuminated, so that in him he may see the immanent concept of the illuminating angel and the thing expressed in it, which he himself saw in the divine Word; which thing that angel, gazing upon it, forms of it an intellection and formal concept by which he is formally illuminated. Therefore a twofold illumination can be distinguished on the side of the efficient cause: one indeed objective, which is made by the revealing angel directing to the other the concept he expressed of the thing manifested to him. The other truly formal on the side of the intellect of the angel to be illuminated, who at the presence of the object proposed to him fashions the image of it or formal concept by which he understands the thing itself and is formally illuminated. — The Doctor further notes in the aforesaid number 25., that this formal illumination can be a disposition to a more excellent illumination, which will take place through the vision of the same thing by the illuminated angel in the Word, namely if that illuminated angel, seeing the image of that thing which the illuminator saw in the Word, as representing the thing itself most perfectly as in a mirror, should desire to behold the same in that divine mirror through beatific vision; which vision if God grants to him, he will without doubt be illuminated far more excellently, and will apprehend the thing more clearly and distinctly than he had before perceived it in the expressed concept directed to him by the illuminating angel.

You will ask. how the inferior angel, to whom that vision of such an object revealed to him, for instance of Antichrist to come, is not owed, can behold it in the divine Word?

I answer. that vision to be indeed immediately and directly not owed to the angel; but not mediately and indirectly so entirely not owed, because on occasion of the revelation made by the illuminating angel there has been stirred up in the illuminated angel the desire of beholding the thing itself more distinctly and more clearly; which desire God, willing to satisfy out of his goodness, manifests the object itself to the desiring angel in the Word as in a divine mirror: so that he who had seen the thing in the expressed concept directed by the illuminating angel, as in an imperfect mirror, says the Doctor, sees it in the Word as in a perfect mirror, and rejoices in seeing and is perfectly illuminated. Whence he concludes that vision to be disposively from the superior angel, because he gave the occasion of this desire which is fulfilled in the Word.*

You will object 2. The heavenly Jerusalem, Apocalypse 21.³ is said not to need the Sun, nor the Moon, that is, created light, because the clarity of God illumined it: therefore since the angels are citizens of that supernal city, they must be said to be illuminated by God alone. 2. God alone beatifies the angels both in essential and in accidental beatitude; but illumination is a kind of accidental beatitude: therefore God alone produces it in all the angels. 3. Illumination takes place by proposing the object and fortifying the intellect, because such illumination confers glorious knowledge, to which nature does not suffice unless it receives strength and vigor from God: but God alone can propose a supernatural object and fortify the intellect of any angel: therefore he alone can illuminate an angel immediately.

— I answer to the first. that those words of the Apocalypse are to be understood of those things which pertain to beatific vision and the manifestation of the Deity itself, which God alone can effect and bestow; but not of that illumination which pertains to certain supernatural truths, which God can reveal to one of the Blessed apart from another. Whence the consequence must be distinguished: The angels are not illuminated except by God, with that illumination which is the intuitive and clear manifestation of the divine essence, I concede; which is the declaration of a certain supernatural truth specially revealed by God to one angel, I deny.

To the second I distinguish the major. to beatify essentially, both effectively, namely by bestowing the beatific light by which the created intellect is illumined, elevated, and fortified to elicit beatific vision, and objectively, by terminating that vision itself, pertains to God alone, I concede: to beatify accidentally, not indeed primarily, but after the manner of a certain appendage, namely by manifesting a certain truth which can confer some perfection upon the beatific intellect, pertains to God alone, I deny: for there is nothing inconvenient in the superior angels cooperating in some way in the acts pertaining to the accidental beatitude of the inferior angels; seeing that men wayfarers can cooperate in the sanctification of other men, which is more excellent than accidental beatitude itself.

To the third I deny the major, since ordinarily the illuminated angel, in the opinion of the Doctor, is merely passive in receiving the illumination, which is wholly produced by the illuminating angel, or at least concurs only effectively with the species emitted by the illuminating angel for perceiving that thing about which the illumination is made, and consequently no other virtue is required in him than that which is ordinary to him.

You will object 3. No blessed angel is overwhelmed with darkness: therefore none can be illuminated. — The Doctor distinguishes the antecedent. as regards the privation of the knowledge of that thing which pertains to his beatitude, he concedes it: as regards the privation of the knowledge of some other object, he denies it. For just as it is not inconvenient that blessed angels be in potency to some knowledge which has the character of light, so neither is it incongruous that they be in potency to the privation of some knowledge, which can be called obscurity, not positively, but negatively.

Finally you will object. If a superior angel were to illuminate an inferior, since he has a greater light, he would impede him from his own operation, just as the light of the Sun, which is far greater than the light of the stars, impedes their effect, whereby it comes about that while the Sun shines the stars do not gleam: therefore one cannot illuminate another. — I deny the antecedent, in proof of which I say that the light of the Sun does not extinguish the light of the stars, since even at midday the stars can be seen in the depths of wells: and therefore although the power of the illuminating angel is far superior to that of the illuminated, he does not on that account extinguish the latter's light, nor impede his operation. Add that, says the Doctor in number 26., the parity does not hold of sensible light with respect to the eye to intelligible light with respect to the intellect. For, according to Aristotle, book three of De anima, text 7., after the most excellent intelligibles we understand other things no less, but more: but after the most excellent sensibles we sense other sensibles less, because the power or organ is weakened.

Second conclusion. — *Angelic illumination takes place through the impression of the knowledge and truth which the illuminator transfuses concerning the thing revealed.** Thus the Subtle Doctor in book 2, dist. 9, question 2, number 25., where treating of illumination he writes:

that illumination in an angel is a kind of speech about a truth, perfective in second act. For just as not every intellection is simply the perfection of the angelic intellect, but the vision of the Word, and not the vision of quiddities, whether through habitual or intuitive species: so neither does every cognition of singulars, other than the vision of the Word and the cognition of quiddities, equally perfect the angelic intellect, as it were secondarily, but the vision of the truth revealed perfects in second act: but not so the singular cognition in its proper genus. I say then that the superior angel, to whom according to the common course something particular is first revealed, causes in the inferior a certain concept of that thing revealed, which is called hearing, and to cause this, which is a kind of special speaking, is to illuminate. It also seems probable that the illuminating angel causes something in the illuminated, and not in himself: because God himself, illuminating the first angel, causes nothing in himself, but in the illuminated angel.

These words of the Doctor, in which he declares and establishes first, that illumination is a kind of speech about the revealed object, which is perfective of the intellect of the illuminated angel in actus secundus. Secondly he establishes that it takes place through the production of a concept of the truth itself revealed by the illuminating angel in the intellect of the illuminated. Thirdly he judges it probable that the illuminating angel is not changed in himself while he illuminates: but that the illuminated is changed by God through the illumination, for God, who reveals the unknown thing, changes the illuminated angel himself through the illuminating angel by conferring on him a new knowledge which he did not have. Since however the illuminator was already endowed with that knowledge, he is not changed by it, for the agent is not changed by the action by which he produces the term in the patient, which is truly changed. These things having been premised, so that it may be clear what the opinion of the Doctor is, the Conclusion must now be proved.*

And that by the same reasons set forth in the preceding Question; for since illumination is a kind of speech, as was said in the 2nd note; and since speech takes place through the direction of the expressed concept to the intellect of the hearer, the illumination itself must likewise be judged to take place in the same way.

Third conclusion. — Not only can a superior angel illuminate an inferior, but also an inferior a superior. Thus the Doctor in the place cited, number 25.:

I say, he says, that God by his absolute power could reveal something to an inferior angel which was not revealed, or known, to the superior, and then that inferior could in some way speak to the superior about that which the superior was ignorant of, and that speech would be in some way an illumination. Yet it cannot have so great an efficacy over the intellect of the superior as over the intellect of the inferior, and therefore he could not necessarily make the superior hear, as conversely, because if the superior considers something in its proper genus, that inferior would not make him hear simpliciter. But simpliciter the superior can make the inferior hear, and can impede his intellection of some intelligible. In fact however it is likely that God distributes his illuminations in an ordered way, as he distributes the angels in their orders; first indeed to the superiors, then to the inferiors.

In which words the Doctor admits that in the ordinary way the inferior angels are illuminated through the superiors; yet that in an extraordinary way the superiors can receive light from the inferiors. For since God is the most free distributor of his gifts, he can reveal to any angel as he pleases those things which are hidden even from the others most near to himself, and can will that the thing declared by an inferior be known by the other superior angels also: just as in the Church militant he reveals not only things to come, but also truths most lofty, to most holy men, though unlearned and plebeian, sometimes, that they may make them known to the Prelates and Doctors of the Church.

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Monitum I: Monitum editoris

Praefatio I: In secundum librum Sententiarum praefatio

Tractatus I: De Angelorum natura, operationibus, et praecellentiis

Disputatio I: De Angelorum existentia, natura, et ordine

Articulus I: De Angelorum existentia

Quaestio I: An revera constet Angelos existere

Quaestio II: An, et quo tempore, et loco creati fuerint Angeli

Articulus II: De natura, et substantia Angelica

Quaestio I: An Angeli sint omnino incorporei, et prorsus immateriales

Quaestio II: An, et quomodo Angeli sint incorruptibiles, et immortales

Quaestio III: An, et quomodo Angeli ab anima rationali distinguantur

Articulus III: De numero, et ordine Angelorum

Quaestio I: An certo cognosci possit multiplex Angelorum numerus

Quaestio II: An inter Angelos plures sint specie, et solo numero distincti

Quaestio III: Quid, et quot sint Angelorum hierarchiae, et ordines

Disputatio II: De facultatibus, et operationibus Angelorum

Articulus I: De intellectu, et cognitione Angelorum

Quaestio I: Quis, et qualis sit intellectus Angelicus

Quaestio II: An, et qualiter Angeli res intelligant per earum species

Quaestio III: Quodnam sit obiectum cognitionis Angelicae

Quaestio IV: An, et quomodo Angeli sibi invicem loquantur

Quaestio V: An, et qualiter unus Angelus alterum illuminare possit

Articulus II: De voluntate Angelica

Quaestio I: An Angelica voluntas revera sit libera, et mutabilis

Quaestio II: An, et qualiter Angelus Deum, seipsum, et alia diligat

Articulus III: De potentia motrice, et executiva Angelorum

§ I: De loco Angelorum

Quaestio I: An, et per quid Angeli constituantur in loco

Quaestio II: Qualiter Angeli existant in loco

§ II: De motu Angelorum

Quaestio I: An, et per quid Angeli localiter moveri dicantur

Quaestio II: Qualis, et quotuplex distingui possit motus Angelicus

Quaestio III: An Angelus possit transire de uno loco ad alium, non transeundo per spatium intermedium

Quaestio IV: An, et quae sit Angelorum durationis mensura

§ III: De activitate Angelorum erga corpora

Quaestio I: An, et qualiter Angeli soleant in assumptis corporibus apparere

Quaestio II: An, et quas Angeli operationes vitae edere possint in corporibus assumptis

Disputatio III: De Angelorum gratia, merito, et demerito

Articulus I: De gratia Angelis concessa

Quaestio I: An, et in qua beatitudine creati fuerint Angeli

Quaestio II: An, et qualem gratiam habuerint Angeli

Quaestio III: An, et quomodo Angeli gratiam sanctificantem, et suam beatitudinem ex propria operatione, et merito fuerint assecuti

Articulus II: De officiis sanctorum Angelorum erga homines, et obsequiis hominum erga Angelos

Quaestio I: An omnes omnino Angeli ad hominum obsequia interdum deputentur

Quaestio II: An, et qualiter Angeli sancti ad hominum custodiam deputentur

Quaestio III: Quaenam beneficia per suam custodiam nobis impendant Angeli, quaeve ob eam eis rependat Deus, nosque eis rependere debeamus

Articulus III: De Angelorum peccatis, et poenis

Quaestio I: An, et qualiter Angeli peccare potuerint

Quaestio II: Quodnam, et quale fuerit primarium, et capitale diaboli peccatum

Quaestio III: An voluntas daemonum ita sit in malo obfirmata, ut nec possit aliquatenus resipiscere, nec bonum aliquod operari

Quaestio IV: An, et quali poena daemones crucientur

Appendix I: Appendix. De infestatione, et cruenta daemonum in humanum genus saevitia