Scotus Academicus, Tomus quartus: De Angelis

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.