Scotus Academicus, Tomus quartus: De Angelis

In God, the Maker of all things, theologians distinguish a threefold kind of operation; for besides the Intellect by which He beholds all things, and besides the Will by which He burns with divine fire, they discern in Him the Omnipotence by which He sets all things in motion and executes them. Just as many faculties do they describe in the angel, the most excellent image of the Divinity: namely, the intellect, by whose aid they are able not only to gaze upon and perceive the Divinity itself; and the will, by which they pursue with love both God and themselves and all other lovable things; but also an executive faculty, at least formally distinct from the intellect and the will, by which they can accomplish many and wonderful things with regard to created things, both material and immaterial. — But that this faculty is in them is urged not only by experience, by which it is established that angels and demons work many and astonishing things toward us and in the universe; but also by reason itself. For just as in the supreme intellectual being, namely God, and in the lowest, namely man, there is given, besides the intellect and the will, an executive power subordinate to those two, and in a certain way dependent on both as regards operation — on the intellect indeed as directing, on the will as applying — so in the angels, the intermediaries between God and man, such a power must be admitted. For it is neither of such great perfection that it surpasses the angels, since it belongs even to men; nor is it of such great imperfection that it disgraces the angels, since it is found also in God. — But since this executive faculty is found to operate most of all with regard to bodies, and that whether by holding place in them, or by moving itself within them, or finally by agitating them in various ways, so that we may be able to attain a distinct knowledge of them all, we shall divide the present Article into three Sections; of which the First will disclose how the angels are stationed in a corporeal place. The Second, how they move themselves in it. The Third, by what power they can agitate and produce bodies.

That angels occupy a place was not the unanimous teaching of the holy Fathers: for some asserted not only that they are in a place, but also that they are circumscribed by it, in the manner of bodies; of this assertion were all those who thought the angels to be endowed with bodies, among whom St. Basil, book De Spiritu Sancto, c. 16. Their substance, he says, is aerial, or if you will, a fire without matter, as it is written: who maketh his angels spirits, etc. Therefore, they are both in a place, and become visible, and appear to those who are worthy, in the form of their own bodies. Very many seem to have entirely denied that the angels are in a place; thus St. Gregory of Nyssa, in the first book against Eunomius, says: No one is of so childish an understanding as to think that difference of place is found in an intelligent and incorporeal nature; for position in place belongs properly to bodies: but that which by nature is intelligent and lacks matter is far removed from every notion of place, as all confess. — There have not been lacking

Scholastics who asserted that the angels are either everywhere or nowhere. For Durandus, in 1. dist. 27. quaest. 1., judges that the angels are in place neither by action nor by substance, but by a certain, as he says, presence of order, by which an angel is present to any body whatsoever which he can move, and to one no more than another: just as the heavenly body, because it diffuses its power into all lower things, is said to be present to all; not indeed proximately, but through the intervention of those nearer, it is present to those more remote. But an angel is intimately and proximately present to those bodies which he can move: whence, since he holds that all bodies can be moved by an angel, he teaches that he is everywhere.

This opinion, long since eliminated from the schools and rightly despised by all, today obtains no defender. It is worth while, therefore, here to determine first whether, and by what, angels are fixed in place. Second, how they occupy place: third, whether several can occupy the same place, or one many places.

Note 1. With the Seraphic Doctor, in the first dist. 2., question 2., that place has a threefold relation to the thing placed. For it is compared first, under the aspect of containing; second, under the aspect of measuring; third, under the aspect of conserving. For it contains as a vessel; it measures as a quantity; it conserves as a nature.

For indeed according to this threefold habitude, finite, corporeal, and corruptible substances are in place: for because they are finite and limited, they are in place as in a container: but because they are corporeal, they are in place as in a measurer: finally, insofar as they are corruptible, they are in place as in a conserver. According to the first two relations, which are to contain and to measure, substances which are finite and corporeal are in place, but incorruptible, namely the lower heavens: but according to the first, which is to contain, finite substances that are spiritual and incorruptible are in place, such as angels. And I say this of bodily place: for an angel has a spiritual conserving place, namely the power of God; a measuring or circumscribing place of its own substance, namely a limitation or enclosure of power: but it has a containing place, not only spiritual, but also bodily.

Note 2. The bodily place in which an angel is said to exist can be distinguished generically into two kinds: one connatural to it, the other violent, or beyond the inclination of its nature. The place connatural to an angel is called that one in which it presents itself as present according to the wish of its free will; the violent, however, is that in which it does not freely situate itself, but is shut up and detained therein by external force, such as, for example, the eternal fire and hell with respect to demons. We inquire here about both kinds of place: what is the proximate account by which angels are said formally to occupy place. For the resolution of this difficulty, a threefold opinion of authors is distinguished: The first is that of the Angelic Doctor and his disciples, who assert that the formal account immediately founding the location of an angel in a connatural place is an operation virtually passing outward: but in a violent place, it is a passion by which it is detained against its will in some place. The second assigns as the foundation of such location and presence some mode of union produced through the free will of the angel, by which before every passing operation it is united to a bodily place; thus Vasquez, disp. 188. Finally, the third opinion teaches that the formal account by which an angel is immediately in a place is the very substance of the angel, by which it becomes really and substantially present in the place it occupies. Thus the Subtle Doctor in the second dist. 2., question 6.

Note 3. From the Doctor just cited above, number 6., six conditions are required in creatures for the true determination of place and of the thing placed: First, he says, to be in place; Second, to be in actual place: Third, to be in determinate and equal place: Fourth, to be in place commensuratively: Fifth, to be in place determinately, here rather than there: Sixth, to be in place naturally or violently. The four first conditions, he says, belong to body insofar as body is body; the fifth belongs to it from an agent; the sixth belongs to it insofar as it is a natural body.

Moreover, from these six conditions only three seem to be required per se and intrinsically for constituting the account of place and of the thing placed formally, which conditions can belong not only to bodily things but also to spiritual substances: The first condition is that there be real and actual presence of the thing placed to the place, without which neither bodily things nor spiritual things can truly be said to exist somewhere. The second condition is that the thing placed, as regards its substance and entity, be terminated and bounded by the space and extent of the place itself. Finally, the third is that this determination to place come about through the formal account of being located. But the formal account, as the same Doctor observes in dist. 4., question 10. q. 3., ad 2., is taken two ways: First, properly for the proximate formal account by which a thing is called such formally; thus whiteness is the formal account by which a wall is called white. Second, it is taken fundamentally for the remote account by which a thing is denominated in such a way; thus the whiteness of one wall is the fundamental formal account of the likeness which one white wall has to another. These two formal accounts are also found in being-located: for the formal account of existing in place, properly so called and proximate, is the respect of the thing placed toward the place; but the fundamental and remote one is that in which such respect is founded: thus in bodies, the formal account of existing circumscriptively in place is quantity; but in angels or souls, it is substance, as we shall prove below.

First conclusion. — Angels are neither nowhere nor everywhere: but in some certain and definite space. This is common as regards all three parts among all theologians. The first part is openly gathered from sacred Scripture, which makes mention in many places of the place of angels, as will appear in the proof of the second part. Hence among the articles condemned by Stephen of Paris, this third is written in chapter 1., That an angel or separate soul is nowhere. It is proved also by reason: If angels were nowhere, especially on account of their spirituality, by which they would be said to be altogether separable from, and independent of, true or imaginary space: yet this reason does not prevent them from truly being said to be in place; since God himself, although supremely spiritual, is truly everywhere, not only by presence, knowing all things; and by power, operating all things in all; but also by essence, inasmuch as he fills all things with his substance and entity necessarily diffused everywhere unto immensity. Then, from the instant of their creation, angels either remained immobile, or had local motion: if the first, therefore they are by substance where they were created, namely in some lower empyrean heaven: if the second, therefore, changing place, they obtained other space and a place true or imaginary, and accordingly they are always supposed to be in place. Finally, angels cannot fail to be intimately present to God, upon the hypothesis that they exist: but if they were not in some part of true or imaginary space, they would not be intimately present to God. Lastly, it is no less improbable that something truly exists and exists nowhere, than that something truly exists and yet never exists: therefore just as whatever is at some time is, so too it must also be somewhere. Hence St. Gregory of Nyssa, book 1. Contra Eunomium: "It cannot be," he says, "that things brought forth by creation, or coming to be, should not have existence wholly in place or in time. Only that nature which needs nothing, is eternal, and embraces all things, is neither in place nor in time."

The second part is proved. Namely, that angels are not everywhere: First indeed from Scripture, which teaches that angels are in one place so as not to be in another. Thus Apocalypse 12.: Their place was no longer found in Heaven: where the words concern wicked angels driven out of Heaven because of sin. Scripture teaches likewise that angels are moved locally, and thus are present to one part of the Universe so that if they wish to be present to another, they must needs abandon this place and come to that one by local motion: thus Zechariah 2.: Behold the angel who spoke with me went forth to meet him, and said to him: Run, speak to this young man: thus Job 1., Satan says: I have gone round about the earth, and walked through it: Tobit 5., the angel Raphael said: I have often walked through all his ways, etc. All these are to be taken in their proper and literal sense; especially since no reason urges recourse to tropes; and moreover the holy Fathers themselves explain them literally.

For St. Basil, book De Spiritu Sancto, chapter 16., openly says:

Moreover, the several Powers are believed to be circumscribed within a definite place: for that angel who stood by Cornelius was not at the same time with Philip: nor did he who spoke to Zachary from the altar at the same time discharge his proper station in heaven. Yet the same spirit is believed to have worked both once in Habakkuk and in Daniel at Babylon.

Theodoret subscribes, question 3. on Genesis, where he pronounces God alone to be uncircumscribed: "But those things which began at some time to be are circumscribed; wherefore although we confess that the nature of angels is without bodies, we nevertheless assert that their substance is circumscribed."

St. Damascene agrees, book 2. De Fide, chapter 3., where concerning angels he says: "They are circumscribed, because when they are in heaven they are not on earth; and when they are sent to earth by God, they do not remain in heaven."

St. Gregory the Great openly teaches the same, book 2. Moralia: "In this," he says, "the angelic nature is now distinguished from the condition of our nature, in that we are both circumscribed by place and confined by the ignorance of blindness; but the spirits of angels are indeed circumscribed by place: yet their substances are far extended above us beyond comparison."

The third part follows from what has gone before, and the Seraphic Doctor confirms it in the place cited by a twofold reason: he repeats the first from the reason of a created and limited spirit. For since, he says, the uncreated Spirit, who is God, has in himself simplicity, by which he is within all things, and immensity, by which he contains all things and is outside all things, he communicates those conditions to a creature insofar as it is apt to receive them:

But because spirit could not receive the power of containment, since its simplicity is finite, therefore it is in place; and because it has not part and part, therefore it is whole in itself simultaneously here and now: whence it cannot have a capacity for containing: but since body is composite and has many parts, it could not participate divine simplicity, but on account of the extension of parts it could participate and receive a capacity for containing: therefore God made one most noble body which could embrace all things, outside which absolutely nothing existed, namely the empyrean, in which he placed the angel.

He draws the other reason from the fact that the distinction according to here and there belongs to body alone;

for since, he says, the other creatures hold order in the world, having distinction and position according to degrees of perfection: and thus one is here, another there, one above, another below: and because in body alone there is potential distinction according to here and there, therefore among creatures the universal power of locating, with respect to visible and invisible things, ought to be given to body alone, so that the Universe might be one, ordered in all its parts. And thus is clear the twofold reason why the power of locating spirit was given to body, and why spirit is contained by body. For this the order of the Universe required, both on account of the limitation of created spirit, and because distinction according to here and there is found in body alone.

You will object 1. Many of the holy Fathers deny that angels are defined by place; for besides Gregory of Nyssa praised in the prelude of the present Section, Didymus teaches the same in book 1. De Spiritu Sancto, where he denies that spiritual creatures are circumscribed by place and bounds, and in book 2. he says: "We separate places and changes of places from incorporal things:" St. Basil teaches the same, homily 30. De Paradiso, where he says: "Place belongs chiefly to body; the soul, however, is in place consequently, and as it were by accession, on account of its relation to body, since by the property of its own nature it is not at all circumscribed by place:" therefore much less ought angels to be circumscribed by place, since they profess no order to body. For that which is of magnitude of bulk and parts, namely body (says Nemesius, book De natura hominis, chapter 3., where he teaches that the soul is not at all circumscribed, because it is spirit), cannot be circumscribed by any part of place: for place exists by means of bulk, since place is the term of the ambient body, embracing the thing contained. Whence Boethius de Hebdomadibus says: "A common conception of mind, which appears to all, is that an incorporal thing is not in a place." Therefore since an angel is altogether incorporeal, it is by no means to be said to be in place.

— The Doctor answers, in the number 17. cited above: that the aforementioned opinions of the holy Fathers, and others like them, are to be understood as wishing that spiritual substances be not in place circumscriptively and commensuratively, in the manner of bodies, each of whose parts corresponds to a part of place, as St. Damascene explains in the place cited above: "And since angels are intelligences," he says, "they are in places also in an intelligible manner, not circumscribed after the manner of bodies. For they are not figured as bodies are by their nature, nor do they consist of three dimensions, but they are in place by this very thing, that they are present intelligibly etc." Therefore those holy Fathers deny that angels are circumscribed by place because they lack the parts which place measures, and which embraces the situated thing so that part may answer to part. Which Augustine declares in Epistle 28. to Jerome thus:

Further, if a body is only that which through the extent of place is set or moved with some length and breadth, so that with its greater part it occupies a greater place, and with its lesser a lesser, and is less in a part than in the whole, then the soul is not a body: for throughout the whole body which it animates it is extended not by local diffusion, but by a kind of vital intentness. For through all its particles it is whole and simultaneously present: nor lesser in lesser things, and greater in greater; but in some places more intense, in others more remiss; and whole in all, and whole in each.

You will object 2. Place, according to the Philosopher, is the ultimate surface of the first immobile containing body: but no body contains an angel, because the container ought to be more actual than the content: but body is not more actual than an angel: therefore an angel is not in body as in a place.

— The Doctor answers there, denying the minor, and distinguishes its proof: that the container, after the mode of cause, ought to be more actual than the content, he concedes: that the container, after the mode of place, such that the thing placed be found totally within the place, he denies. If, however, it be asked how an indivisible angel can be contained within some surface of a body: it is answered, not in any other sense except insofar as it is present to that surface; not that it is the ultimate surface of it, because an angel cannot be in place with extension of parts, but in such a way that it penetratively be within a part of that body to which it is present. — From these things the Doctor rightly infers that an angel is not necessarily in place: for if even body does not exist necessarily in place — seeing that it could be produced outside the world and set in a vacuum — much less will an angel depend on bodily place: for it can be produced independently of the production of any creaturely body whatsoever, and then there would be nothing in which it would be said to be located, and accordingly it does not have from its own nature the necessity of inhering in some place. It has, however, a power to be in place at least definitively, whether meanwhile that power is founded in it insofar as it is substance, or insofar as it is actually a limited nature, or by reason of something extrinsic; and therefore, says the Doctor, one need not seek some intrinsic account of being in place, because there is none there, but there is in it only passive potency, by which it can be in place, because it does not repugn to itself.

Second conclusion. — The fundamental formal account by which an angel is constituted in place is not to be sought from its operation, but from its substance.

This is the Doctor's teaching in dist. 2. qu. 6. n. 1. *where, having proposed the opinion of St. Thomas, who says in dist. 37. question 3. art. 1., and part 1. question 52. art. 1., that an angel is formally constituted in place by operation and application of power producing some effect in a place, he says: This seems to be condemned as* a certain article condemned by the Bishop of Paris (namely Stephen), and excommunicated. And if it be said that excommunication does not cross the sea, or a diocese: still, if it was an article condemned as heretical, it is everywhere condemned as heretical; not by the authority of a diocesan alone, but also by the authority of the Pope, Extra. de Haeres. c. Ad abolendam; or at least the opinion is suspect, when it is solemnly condemned in some University. — *Now the first of those articles which Stephen, Bishop of Paris, condemned, was that separate substances are somewhere by their operation alone, and that they cannot be moved from one extrinsic place to another. And since this is a proposition copulated from two, it leaves doubt whether the condemnation falls upon the copulate of both, or upon each taken singly and separately. And therefore perhaps Scotus used the word "seems," because the censure could be carried over both joined together, and not over one or the other torn away. — That this article was condemned is testified also by Richard of Mediavilla in dist. 2. art. 2. question 1.; and Gabriel in dist. 2. question 2. art. 2.; and Henry, who was one of those condemning, reports that censure. Whence it appears that some Thomists wrongly rebuke the Subtle Doctor, as if he had gratuitously invented that condemnation, or hurled it against adversaries like a glassy shield, using it as if the strongest argument of all for establishing and confirming his own opinion: how ridiculously contrived that reproach is, must be shown by the arguments of the Doctor proving the Conclusion.

First, indeed, the conclusion is to be supported *by all those texts of sacred Scripture in which angels are said to have approached places before they did anything there; thus Luke 2.: The angel Gabriel was sent to Mary, and entering in he said etc. Therefore he enters and becomes present before he speaks. Matthew 4.: Angels came and ministered to him, namely Christ the Lord after the assaulting demon had been overcome: therefore they were present to Christ before they did anything toward him; and hence their presence is precisely not to be gathered from operation.

The Thomists reply. That angels are indeed present before they operate, but with inadequate and inchoative presence, which an angel has when it begins to order itself toward some place, that it may operate there: which presence Cajetan calls the presence of order, teaching that three conditions are required for it, namely practical judgment about the operation to be done now, or at such time, by the angel; second, election of such operation, and dispatch of the executive power; these suppositions granted, he teaches that the angel becomes present to the place inchoatively and incompletely before it operates there; completely, however, and adequately through operation.

— On the contrary. For the true and adequate account of the angelic presence it is only required that the angel be truly whole here and not elsewhere; for what else does the presence of a thing mean? But by that very fact whereby an angel is somewhere, it is true to say that he is truly there, not elsewhere, even though he should work nothing there: therefore his presence there is adequate. Next, in that instant in which the angel orders himself to his operation, he can be removed from it, either by divine command, whereby he will be summoned elsewhere, or he will be forbidden to exercise the operation, just as those angels were forbidden to whom it was said in the Apocalypse: Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, etc. Or through the denial of divine concurrence; but in that case the angels would truly have been present in the place, and yet not operating there: therefore etc. Finally, if an angel were adequately in a place only through operation, it would follow that he could never be said to operate in a place; for to operate in a place presupposes a place, and a thing constituted in the place: but the angel, as operating, does not presuppose himself as constituted in a place, since by his very operation he would have to be constituted in a place: therefore he would never be said to operate in a place: which consequence no one admits, and therefore neither ought that whence it is inferred be admitted.

The Doctor proves the conclusion 1. To be is prior to operating: therefore to be in a place is prior to operating in a place: but what is later is not the cause of what is prior: therefore operating in a place is not the cause why the angel is in a place. It is confirmed: as being simply stands to operating simply, so being here stands to operating here. Therefore just as operating simply presupposes being simply, so operating here necessarily presupposes being here: and hence the angel must first be here before he operates here.

But the Thomists deny the antecedent: since, they say, nothing prevents something from being prior simply which is not prior according to something, as the subject is prior to surface simply, but not qua colored: for there are, says Cajetan, three things in the located thing. In a body, e.g., there is the substance which is located, the quantity which is the reason of location, and the relation of presence, which follows upon those two as upon its proper foundation. In an angel likewise there is the substance which is present as that which, the contact of power, which is present as that whereby, and the relation of itself arising from those two. These three can be diversely considered, and according to diverse considerations can have the character of prior and posterior: for if they are considered as certain entities existing in the nature of things, thus in the angel substance is prior to operation, and operation to relation; just as also in a body substance is prior to quantity and relation: but if they are considered not absolutely, as they are entities, but as reasons of being in a place, thus just as in bodily things substance is prior to quantity, and then the relation follows, so in spiritual things the very operation is prior to the substance of the angel, upon which, as upon subject and founding reasons, the relation of presence results.

— Contra 1. The example about the subject is not to the purpose; for it is evident that the reason of the extended colored thing constitutes that subject under the character of surface, since surface is the extension of a body according to length and breadth: but it is not likewise evident that operation is the constitutive reason of the angel in a place; nay rather the contrary is shown; for, as we have already said, the agent must first be located before acting, which is most evident in corporeal agents, for they are located before they act. Second, they falsely suppose that quantity is the reason of locating bodies, for the quantity of bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Eucharist remains the same after consecration, and yet it is not the reason why the bread is said to exist in a place; since it no longer exists: therefore quantity precisely is not the reason why a body is in a place, since it can subsist after that body is destroyed. Moreover, the adorable Body of Christ the Lord in the Eucharist has no quantity whereby its parts would be extended toward the place and circumscribed by it, and yet it is none the less truly in a definitive place; therefore quantity per se is not the reason why bodies are in a place, but only insofar as it affects bodies and inheres in them. Thirdly finally, they do not rightly reply that the application or contact of power to a place is the reason why the angel is in a place; for that application is either the first act of the angel, or the second. If the first, since the first act of the angel is his very substance, or a substantial faculty; the consequence is that the angel is present to the place by reason of his substance. If the second, either that act is transitive or immanent. Not immanent, as even the Adversaries confess, since an immanent act has no reference ad extra, and consequently cannot be the reason why angels are said to be present in a place. Not even transitive; for if transitive operation were the formal constitutive reason of the angel in a place, what sort of thing is that transitive operation? Therefore, since that extrinsic operation of the angel is in a place circumscriptively and measuratively (since it is commensurated with the body about which it acts, and in which it is received; while the body is circumscribed by the place) that operation must likewise be circumscribed by the place: for this is why the operation of a man, e.g., inasmuch as it imports the thing operated, is circumscribed by the place, because it is received in a subject which is circumscribed by the place: but the presence of the angel is not circumscriptively in a place, as will appear in the following Question: therefore, etc. Add that if the substantial power itself of the angel is not for him the reason of existing in a place, neither is the application of that same power; for if the quantity of a body were not the reason of existing circumscriptively in a place, neither would its application effect such a presence. Moreover, just as the application of a heating power to wood so as to heat it is not the reason of heating, but only a condition sine qua non; so similarly the application of angelic power to a place is not the reason of existing in a place, but a condition sine qua non whereby we would know the angel to be present to this place rather than to another; for angelic presence becomes known to us only through operation, although it is presupposed in the place before he operates there.

The Doctor proves it 2.: if the angel were precisely in a place through operation, it would follow that he would often be nowhere; *since it often happens that they operate nothing in places where they can be thought to exist. First indeed they perform no work in the empyrean heaven: but among the other celestial orbs only some Intelligences are occupied in governing and moving them, while the rest do not exercise their power in them. In the sphere of fire they attempt nothing at all, for fire in its center has need neither of fuel, nor of tinder, nor of an inciting air. In the air indeed demons sometimes excite and hurl hailstorms, thunderings, and lightnings as lictors and ministers of God the avenger; but good angels are exempt from these and rest. Nor do these expend any labor on the surge and motion of the sea, nor are good angels reckoned the authors of tempests, although demons sometimes stir them up. On earth finally no work can be thought of in trees, flowers, or living things worthy to be ascribed to the power of the angels; for without their operations rivers run headlong with their own clearness and nature, meadows sprout, trees are adorned with flowers and fruits, animals live and direct their movements according to instinct and impulse, and universal nature tends toward its ends according to the laws prescribed by its divine Maker without any special governance of the angels. Indeed demons are occupied in hell in tormenting and cruciating the reprobate; but they are demons, and not the most holy angels of whom principally we speak. Therefore for these no other ministry seems to be assigned with regard to creatures than the guardianship of men and the liberation and solace of souls groaning in Purgatory. But few out of so immense a multitude of them are detained in those ministries. From all these things, therefore, it may be gathered that if the existence of angels in a place were to be gathered from their operation around the place, few of them would be reckoned to abide in a place.

* Gonet answers, from Cajetan. First, indeed, that the angels have some operation regarding the empyrean heaven, although such an operation does not become known to us. — But this solution is offered quite gratuitously and is by no means to be admitted; both because if such an angelic operation does not become known to us, it is asserted without foundation and fictitiously imagined: and because in this way it would be easy to dissolve any arguments whatever: for who could not evade any difficulty whatsoever by answering that the matter is indeed as asserted, but that its reason and cause lie hidden from us?

He answers 2.: that the angels produce some light whereby the innate splendor of the empyrean heaven is more perfected: for although, he says, an angel cannot immediately produce alterative qualities, e.g., heat and cold, but only by applying active things to passive ones; yet he can well produce light, for light is supreme among all corporeal qualities; and the lower nature is touched in its supreme degree by the higher nature, because, as S. Dionysius says, De divinis nominibus: divine wisdom joins the ends of the first to the beginnings of the second. By this light moreover that celestial body is chiefly beautified and adorned. For thus it is said of the Blessed, Apoc. 21: They shall bring their glory and honor into it, namely into the heavenly City; much more will the angels, with their special light, make that city most glorious. — Against this: it is gratuitously and without any reason feigned that the angels adorn the empyrean heaven with new light; for that light would either emanate from the angels themselves, as it shall emanate from the glorified bodies, as is asserted by the cited text of the Apocalypse, or it would be produced by them: but neither can be said. Not the first indeed, since angels are purely spiritual substances, they cannot pour forth from themselves the corporeal light wherewith the heaven would be illuminated. Not even the second: for they would produce that light either through creation, or through generation. Not through creation, since creation is proper to God alone, as we proved with the Subtle Doctor in the Physics. Add that if the angels could produce light through creation, on the ground that what is supreme of the lowest order can be produced by something of a higher order; if, I say, on this account an angel could create light, much more could he create a rational soul; for although this is more interior to them, yet it is most akin to them: but no one admits the consequence; therefore neither ought the antecedent be admitted. Nor can the angels produce light through generation; for generation comes about through the corruption of a form previously existing in matter, whereas in the empyrean heaven there is nothing that can be corrupted, and therefore nothing whence generation could take place. Finally, a most perfect substance, such as the empyrean heaven is, ought to proceed from its Creator at the beginning of its formation with the whole perfection due to it, and consequently it obtained the light fitting to it by force of its creation. Nor does it avail to reply that a most perfect substance subordinated to another can be completed by that other, just as the lower angels, although perfect, nevertheless stand in need of illumination from the Superior ones. This reply, I say, is not to the purpose; for there is a far different distinction between the empyrean heaven and the angels; since the angels are operative intellectually, they can receive daily new perfection and illumination, which certainly can in no way be said of the empyrean heaven, wholly immobile and unalterable; since it can exercise no action, neither can it acquire any perfection, and therefore it must have had every perfection due to it by force of its perfection.

The Doctor proves it 3.: If the angel had necessarily to operate where he is, it would follow that the angel moving the heavens would be immediately in the whole heaven; for the whole heaven is proportioned to the power of the angel; but the consequence is false; for the angel would have his presence supremely diffused and extended through the whole heaven, which the Adversaries do not admit. — Nor say that the angel is only in that part of heaven in which he operates immediately, and which he moves, and mediately in the others. For, the Doctor says, the angel of himself has no greater power to move one part immediately than the others except insofar as he is more applied to one part than to the rest; but if he be first applied to one part, which he moves immediately, the consequence is that he is first in a place with that part before he operates in that part, and thus he will not have precisely from operation that he is in a place. He has other similar proofs, all of which, like the preceding ones, I touch upon briefly for this reason:

It is proved 4.: An angel can be in a corporeal place without any operation, or application of his power, whether properly or improperly called an operation, and without undergoing anything in the place, or adorning it; therefore he does not have from operation, as from the fundamental reason, that he is in a place. The antecedent is proved: a body can be in a place without any application of power, or operation proper or improper: therefore much more an angel. The Adversaries admit the antecedent; the consequence is proved: a body can be placed in a place without any operation either because it can have in itself an intrinsic ubi whereby it is formally said to be in a place, namely the relation of the located thing to the place; or because through the action of an extrinsic cause, motive of the place, it would be put in a place; but the angel is equally capable of an ubi, and of an intrinsic form whereby he would be placed formally in a place without any operation, and he is equally capable of being placed in a place through the action of a cause motive of the place as a body is: therefore just as a body can be placed in a place without any proper or improper operation, so too the angel. The minor is proved: first, no reason can be brought forward, or assigned why the substance of the angel by its quantity of power should not be capable of a definitive place without operations, any less than the material substance of a body by benefit of its quantity of bulk is capable of a circumscriptive place: therefore, etc. Second, God depends no more upon anyone to constitute some angel in a place independently of operation, than to transport and establish some body therein: but he can do this: therefore also that. Third, when an angel is located somewhere and operates, God can suspend his operation, either by forbidding him to do anything further in that place, or by denying him his concurrence: but by that suspension of action the angel no less remains present in that place, and another angel there would see him equally as he saw him while he was operating: therefore independently of operation he is truly as capable of occupying a place as a body.

The Thomists object 1.: A corporeal substance cannot, by its formal reason, proximately and immediately grant to bodies to be in a place: therefore neither can a spiritual substance be the formal reason proximately founding ubication in corporeal and immaterial things. The consequence is evident: for if a corporeal substance cannot of itself, and prescinding from quantity, be the formal reason proximately founding ubication for bodies, but holds this only by reason of quantity, much less will a spiritual substance hold of itself that it is for the angel himself the formal reason of being in a place. But the antecedent is proved: only that is in a body the formal reason immediately granting it to be in a place which is for it the proximate and immediate formal reason of touching the place: yet a corporeal substance cannot of itself be the proximate and immediate formal reason of touching the place; for a corporeal substance touches the place not immediately by reason of itself, but only by reason of the quantity mediating between it and the place: therefore, etc. The major is proved from a likeness, for one clothed, although he has a garment, is in no way said to be clothed unless he touches the garment: therefore neither could a substance be in a place unless it touched the place, either by physical contact through quantity, as corporeal substances; or metaphorically through power, as all spirits.

— I answer 1. by denying the consequence: for although real and physical contact would be necessary for bodies to be said to be formally in a place, it does not thence follow that the contact of power ought equally to be required, that a spiritual substance be said to be formally present to a place: for physical contact is said to be required in bodies because they are in a place divisively and through commensuration; so that their parts correspond to and are commensurated with the parts of the place, unto which, as appears, contact and application of the parts of the body to the parts of the place is necessarily required: otherwise it is with a spiritual substance, which since it is in a place definitively and in a manner wholly invisible, it is not necessary that it have any contact, or at least none other than the real presence of its substance: for as a body is said to touch the place through quantity, and by this reason becomes present to it; so the angel through his substance becomes really present to the place, which suffices for him to be said to touch it.

I answer 2.: the antecedent can be denied, as well as the major of its proof: Both because, as we have already said, the adorable Body of Christ the Lord in the Eucharist, stripped of its quantity at least external, and whereby it could really touch a place, is truly present on the altar, and under the eucharistic species, with definitive presence: therefore that quantity, whereby the place is touched, is not the formal reason why bodies are precisely in a place. And because the eucharistic species of bread and wine remain the same after and before consecration: but once consecration is accomplished, their quantity is not the formal reason why the substance of bread and wine is said to be in a place, since that substance has ceased to be, and subsists no longer: therefore quantity is not the formal reason founding the ubication of bodies in a place, since bodies, at least divinely, can be formally in a place without quantity, and quantity itself can remain in the same place without thereby constituting bodies formally in the place.

They object 2.: What is the proximate reason of founding angelic ubication imports determination, or limitation with respect to the place, since by it one is so here as not to be elsewhere: but the substance of the angel per se, and operation removed, does not import such a determination; for the order to place is not essential but accidental to the angel: therefore, all operation removed, the substance of the angel is not the formal reason immediately founding the ubication of the angel.

— I deny the minor. for that determination, or limitation with respect to the place is either understood causally, and denotes an extrinsic or intrinsic cause whereby the angel is determined to occupy this place rather than another; or fundamentally, or formally, insofar namely as existing here it has the reason of founding a relation to this place rather than to another: but it can hold this independently of any extrinsic operation; since it can be determined, either by the divine, or by its own will, to undergo this or that place: to which ubi when it is present, its substance is the sufficient reason of founding the relation of presence and ubication to the place; for nothing else is required for this than that the angel can be said to be truly present here, and not elsewhere, and hence to have a relation of presence to this, and not to another place, all of which can come about with any operation excluded: therefore whichever way the Thomists use that determination, it comes about independently of operation.

They insist: the substance of the angel per se is indifferent to every single place in particular: therefore that it be in a certain, or determinate place, it necessarily requires something whereby it be determined to undergo this place rather than another: but that cannot be anything other than its transitive operation: therefore by this it is substituted formally in a place.

— I deny the minor. for, as was said, that determination is understood either causally or fundamentally. If the first, the angel has it not from his operation transiting to the place, but either from his own motive power, whereby he freely transferred himself to that place, or from an extrinsic power, namely from God, whereby he was produced in that place, or detained therein, or translated to it. But if that determination be taken fundamentally, he has it from his substance, which although of itself it is indifferent to existing here or elsewhere, yet when it is stationed present here, whether by its own, or by another's will, it is no longer indifferent to founding a respect to this or another place, but necessarily founds a relation of presence to that place in which it is substantially present.

They urge again: with operation excluded, the angels have nothing whereby they could found a real relation of presence to a place; therefore this is necessarily required, that they be said to have a determinate place. The antecedent is proved: if there be anything besides operation in the angel whereby he could found this relation immediately, it is above all his substance: but the substance of the angel cannot be the immediate foundation of such a relation: Both because a substance per se and precisely founds no other relation than that of identity. And because if it founded a relation, it would be above all either qua it is substance, and insofar as it has the common concept of substance, or qua it is angelic substance: but neither can be affirmed: not the first indeed, otherwise every substance would found a like relation: not even the second, because the formal reason of angelic substance formally denotes nothing else than a total and adequate spiritual substance, denoting no order to a body: therefore the substance of the angel per se precisely cannot found a relation to space, or place.

— I deny the antecedent; and to the minor of its proof I say, that angelic substance founds a respect to the place, not precisely qua it is substance, nor qua angelic substance, but qua it is substance here, and not elsewhere; just as, e.g., a wall founds a relation of similarity to another, not precisely qua it is a corporeal substance, nor qua it is extended, but qua it is white, or black. But to what is said, namely that a substance founds no other relation than that of identity; I answer that this is true while it is compared with another substance, but not while compared with something else; for as substance qua created, when compared to God, bears to God a relation of dependence; so when compared to a place, it can bear to it a relation of presence entirely distinct from that respect of identity which it has to another substance. Thence it appears that the Thomists seem not to philosophize sufficiently congruously, while, as if indubitable, they put forward as the foundation of their opinion that substance per se can found no relation, since it has to God a relation of dependence, and to another substance a relation of identity.

They object 3.: If the substance of the angel per se, and anterior to the virtually transiting operation, were the proximate reason of founding ubication, or immediately granting to the angel that he be in a place, the angel would always claim for himself a certain place, and could not exist in a greater or lesser one at his pleasure: but this cannot be said: therefore neither that. The minor will appear below. The major is proved: for the substance of the angel within its own line is something invariable, for it always holds the same substantial perfection, and never varies in its substantial being: therefore if that per se, and anterior to operation, be the proximate reason of founding angelic ubication, or immediately granting to the angel that he be in a place, he will always claim a certain place for himself, nor can he at his pleasure exist in a greater or lesser place within the sphere of his activity.

— It is confirmed, from this, that since the quantity of bulk is in us the formal reason of being in a place, a body, e.g., cannot occupy or fill now a greater, now a lesser place unless some intrinsic change be made in its quantity, namely through condensation or complication, or rarefaction: therefore similarly, if the substance of the angel according to what it holds within its own line be the proximate formal reason of being in a place, the angel will not be able sometimes to exist in a greater, sometimes in a lesser place, unless his very substance be intrinsically varied, and within its own line, which however is impossible.

— I deny the minor, and to its proof I say, that although the substance of the angel is of itself invariable according to its entity, it can nevertheless be varied by respect to the place to which it is applied, insofar namely as it is subject to the determination of the divine or its own will, whereby it is applied to such or such a place. For although the substance of the angel per se is determinate to the place adequate to it, in this sense, that it cannot be in a greater, still it is not determined to exist in the whole of that place, nor in any certain part of it, but indifferently it can be either in the place, or within its breadth in a greater or lesser place: and consequently it is necessary that in this respect it be determined in some way, so that the very substance be a determined thing. Yet this determination is not to be understood as made in such wise that the very substance of the angel, before (at least in the order of nature) it be united to the place, lose the termination it has from its nature, and acquire another, as it were through a certain constitution or dilatation, by reason of which it demands so much or so much place within the breadth of that place, which according to its natural termination it demanded; just as bodies by reason of their own quantity demand a place of a certain extension, and that they be in a lesser one it is necessary that their quantity be first, at least in the order of nature, constrained, or in some other way acquire a new termination: but it must be said that the aforesaid termination is made in the angel by this alone, that his substance is applied to so much or so much place, according to the measure of his own will.

To the confirmation, I deny parity; for there is disparity between corporeal and angelic substance, in that the former while it is divisively in a place, is in it through commensuration of every kind of the whole quantity with the whole place, and of the parts of that same quantity with the parts of the place: but the latter is whole in the whole, and whole in any part, as the rational soul in the body, and the Body of Christ in the Eucharist; whence just as the rational soul, without intrinsic variation of itself, can inform now a greater, now a lesser matter, and the Body of Christ can sometimes exist under greater, sometimes under lesser dimensions or species, according to the will of the consecrator; so too the angel, without intrinsic variation of his substance, will be able sometimes to exist in a greater, sometimes in a lesser place, according to the good pleasure of his will, by reason of which angelic substance can be united either to the whole place adequate to it, or only to some one of the parts of the place.

Gonet urges: even if some substance be whole in the whole of some place, and whole in any part of that place, it does not thence follow that it can constitute itself now in a greater, now in truth in a lesser place, as it pleases it; for God is whole in the whole corporeal place, and whole in any part of it, and yet he cannot fail to fill every created place. Likewise the rational soul is whole in the whole body, and whole in any part of it, and yet it cannot at its pleasure inform sometimes the whole body, sometimes only one part of it. Whence that it can inform now a lesser matter, namely while it first actualizes the body of a child, now a greater, when indeed the same child grows, does not arise from this, that it is whole in the whole body, and whole in any part of it, but because from its nature it is determined to this, that it first actualize a lesser matter, then a greater converted into the proper substance of man. Similarly, that the Body of Christ can sometimes exist under lesser, sometimes under greater dimensions of the bread, according to the good pleasure of the consecrator signing the matter to be converted into it, arises from the nature or institution of the Sacrament of the Eucharist determining it to this. But the substance of the angel is not per se, and intrinsically, or from its nature determined to this, that for diverse times it be now in a lesser place, afterwards in a greater; nay rather, since it is wholly invariable from within, it must consequently be determined to exist always in an equal place, if it be the proximate formal reason of existing in a place.

— I deny the minor: for since angelic substance, as regards motion and its union to such or such a place, hangs altogether upon its free will, although per se it be invariable; yet it is not determined from within to exist always in an equal place; whence much more easily than the rational soul can it occupy a greater or lesser place; for the soul is so bound that a greater or lesser diffusion of it to the body hangs upon the greater or lesser constitution of the body itself; but the angel does not thus depend upon the place; but according to the inclination of his will he can pour forth the presence of his substance to a wider or stricter place.

— But the reason why peculiarly the substance of the angel, for the occupation of a place, hangs upon his free will, whereas the corporeal quantity of man is not so subjected to the empire of his liberty as to occupy a greater or lesser place according to his inclination, and neither is the substance of the rational soul free to inform the whole body, or only some parts of it, nor can God, by reason of his immensity and eternity, effect that his substance be only in some part of a place, and not everywhere; nor that his duration coexist with only some part of time: the reason, I say, of this distinction is, says our Rada, that the quantity of perfection in the angel, with regard to that union, holds two things by reason of which it befits it to be so subjected to the liberty of the angel himself: The first is, that from its own entity, and from the mode wherein it is united, it does not repugn to it indifferently to be united to the whole place, and to a part of it: The second is, that that union be the term of the free operation of the angel himself, namely local motion: for by means of local motion the angel applies and unites himself efficiently to some place. But to corporeal quantity the first is lacking by reason of its extension, as was expounded; and to the rational soul the second is lacking, for its union with the body which it informs is not the term of any free action of the soul itself, but is wrought by an extrinsic agent; and similarly the power of God toward every place, and coexistence with the whole time, if considered on the part of God, do not terminate any free action of God himself: but supposing that there be place and time, God necessarily coexists with them, otherwise God would be mutable as regards place and time.

Three things above all must be discussed in this Question: First, whether angels are able to occupy any place, however great or small: Second, whether several can exist in the same place at once; Third, whether one can be in several places.

Note 1. The place of the angels can be distinguished as twofold; namely adequate or total, and inadequate or partial. The adequate and total place is that which corresponds to the angel according to the ultimate measure of his power and virtue, in which whole he can substantially be, and outside of which he cannot at the same time naturally be: but the inadequate and partial place, which is less than the whole adequate place, is that in which an angel existing can also by his own power be outside it; namely as in a partial continuous place; such is some part of the aforesaid adequate place and space. We ask, therefore, whether an angel by natural or supernatural power can exist in several adequate and inadequate places at once.

Note 2. It is beyond controversy that one angel can exist at once in several inadequate places that are continuous and do not stand apart from each other; for since the presence of his substance to a place depends on the free application of the same, it is plainly evident that if a hall were the adequate place of an angel, and four parts and corners of that hall his inadequate place, he could at will remove his presence from one corner and another, so as to make himself present in only two other parts and corners, especially since this does not exceed his natural power: for his indivisible substance is not naturally extended to a place of a certain and determinate magnitude, in the way bodies are extended, which according to their greater or lesser quantity naturally and necessarily require a greater or lesser place. Hence the only difficulty is whether an angel can be, by his will and natural power, in inadequate places that are discontinuous and distant from each other, yet contained within the place naturally adequate to him; e.g., whether an angel existing in a hall can make himself present in two corners of that hall without existing in the middle.

Note 3. The precise reason why two bodies cannot naturally occupy the same place at the same time must be sought chiefly from this, that each of those bodies fills every place to which it is present: but a place filled by one body can receive no other: just as a vessel full of some liquid cannot by natural power receive the infusion of another liquid poured upon it. But whether the same reason holds, or whether some other similar reason must be brought forward why two spiritual substances cannot occupy the same place at the same time, Authors do not agree among themselves; for very many, with St. Thomas and his disciples, affirm that angels cannot be simultaneously present to one and the same adequate place: while the rest, with the Subtle Doctor, dispute the problem on both sides, inclining nevertheless more to the affirmative than to the negative side. These points premised, let there be

First conclusion. — Although the angelic substance is indivisible, it can nevertheless occupy a divisible place, and also a minimum indivisible one. This Conclusion, as to both parts, is the Doctor's in 2. dist. 2. quaest. 6. num. 13.; for although on this point he may seem problematic, he nonetheless leans more to the affirmative than to the negative side.

The first part is proved, namely that an indivisible soul can occupy a divisible place: for if anything were detrimental to this occupation and presence, it would be above all the indivisibility of the angelic substance: but that does not prevent him from being able to make himself present in a divisible place: for although the substance of the rational soul is likewise indivisible, it nevertheless occupies divisible space, being whole in the whole body which it informs, and whole in each part of it: similarly, although the divine substance and essence is truly supremely indivisible, nevertheless because it is infinite in entity, it is really and substantially diffused through the whole universe, as was proved when treating of the Divine Immensity: therefore, by parity of reason, although the angelic substance is indivisible, it can nevertheless occupy a divisible place. Add that since the presence of the angels comes about either through the voluntary application of their substance to a place, as we taught above with

the Subtle Doctor, or through the application and diffusion of their power, as the Thomists contend, both schools must necessarily hold this part of the Conclusion as certain and undoubted: for it is certain that an angel can naturally will that his substance make itself present throughout a determinate place; for what could oppose this volition? Especially since an indivisible substance can occupy a divisible place. It is equally certain that an angel can apply his power to some extended and divisible space: for although his operative power and operation are formally indivisible in their entity, they are nevertheless virtually divisible and extended, because they produce and immediately cause a divisible and extended effect in the subject about which they operate.

— Yet it is not permissible to infer from this that an angel could become present to an infinite quantity, if such were granted, seeing that his native power is limited and determinate, and therefore cannot extend itself infinitely: for he could not become present to an infinite quantity as infinite unless he became present to all its parts. But it implies a contradiction that a finite and limited substance could be proportioned and commensurated to infinite parts: therefore, etc. Whence the Doctor rightly concludes in the same place num. 11:

It is commonly conceded that an angel cannot be in a place, however great, because this is proper to God. — But whether an angel has a place so determinate that he cannot be in a greater or lesser one. This, he says at number 14., is doubtful, because neither part seems easily provable: which would indeed be an inconvenience, if his virtual quantity, by which he can be present to some place, were the natural reason of being in so great a place in its own manner, just as the quantity of a body is the natural reason of being in so great a place in its own manner: so that although it be within my power to be in this place or in that place, it is not however within my power to be in so great a place or in so great: because this effect naturally follows from quantity, which is not subject to my power: and as not in itself, so neither as regards this effect, namely to be in so great a place or so great. Nothing inconvenient therefore seems to follow if this were posited in angels, or if it were posited that their quantity has some adequate place, greater than which it could not have according to the conditions of its power and essence; although it is nevertheless subject to the will of the angel, so that he can, not always have that place, but a greater or a lesser one; no inconvenience follows.

By which words of the Doctor, Poncius says in his Commentary on the same passage, he means that no convincing reason can be assigned whereby it could be proved that an angel is able to occupy at will a smaller place, or that he is not able to. For if it were said that by his nature every angel tends to be connaturally in the whole place, as a body four palms long tends to be in the corresponding place, so that he could not naturally be posited in a smaller one, certainly the angel could not place himself in a smaller place, but although he could place himself in another place, every place in which he could place himself ought always to be of such a size: nor is there any convincing reason why it should not be said to be thus in fact. Again, if it were posited that he does not require by his nature so great a place, but is of himself indifferent to any place whatsoever below that maximum which he could have, down to the minimum place, then doubtless he could be posited in a smaller and smaller place, nor would he necessarily have to have always a place of the same magnitude: but neither is there even here any convincing reason by which it is shown that it is not thus in fact. Thus far Poncius.

The second part is also proved: namely that an angel can exist in a minimum place: for although the Doctor in the place cited above num. 11. seems to assert that an angel cannot exist in a place however small, nevertheless he maintains this only problematically, seeing that he immediately raises the question whether he can be in a point, and determines neither side, for he says at number 18:

Whether, however, he can be in a point or not, there seems to be no necessary reason, neither for one side nor for the other: because although the angel is indivisible, he has not an indivisibility limited like a point: and therefore he need not be in a point as in a place. Nor perhaps does it repugn for him to be in a point as in a place: because no inconvenience seems to be inferred from this; for if from being in a point as in a place it were inferred that he could not move locally unless space were composed of points, it does not follow; for he could carry himself immediately from the place of the little point into the continuum, whose continuum the point terminates.

Since, therefore, the Doctor holds that an angel can exist in a point, there is no doubt that he likewise asserts problematically that the same can exist in an indivisible place.

This is further urged: to the very place an Angelic substance can inexist, to which it can truly become present definitively: but an angel can definitively be present to a minimum and indivisible place; since by definitive presence a thing is whole in the whole, and whole in each part of the whole, so the substance of an angel, since it is indivisible, can inexist in an indivisible thing: therefore, etc. Add that no inconvenience follows from this; for, says our Herrera Disp. 6. quaest. 7., if any inconvenience could be assigned, it would be above all that the angel could not move himself locally from one place to another, because a point is not a place, since it is indivisible, nor are there two immediate points. But this does not stand in the way, because when the angel is in a place definitively, it will have the character of a definitive place, which can found the relation of the presence of the angel to it, and consequently since this fundamental character can be had in a point, because it can be predicated of the angel, that is, that he is thus here and not elsewhere, therefore in a point the true character of where, or of place, can be found. But there is no inconvenience concerning local motion, as the Doctor himself answers, because an angel existing in a point could bear himself immediately into a continuous place, that is, into the surface proximate to the point, whose point (namely of the surface) is the terminus.

Finally, when an angel is in the place adequate to him, he is also in whatever part of it: but a place smaller than any determinate divisible place is a part of that great place: therefore he is in fact in that smaller place when he is in the greatest place: but his existence in that place has no dependence on his simultaneous existence in the other parts of the greater place: nor indeed can it be shown in what genus of cause, or of necessary condition, such a dependence could be had: therefore he can be in that one place alone without being in the remaining parts.

You will object 1. If an angel could exist in a minimum place, he could also exist in Heaven and on earth. Proof: whatever can be in one of equals can be in any other equal to it, if some configuration which would be in one of the equals does not repugn to it: but no configuration of any place can repugn to an angel, since he is indivisible: therefore if he can be in one place, he can be in any place equal to it, if he be not determined to some small place. But this is an inconvenience; because it would follow that an angel could naturally be at once in Heaven and on earth: for if he can occupy a square place, that is, of four equal sides, and be not determined to some determinate small place, in which smaller he cannot be, since from that square place there can be made a quadrangular place (that is, of four sides, two of which are longer than the other two, and equal among themselves), of such length that it could be stretched out to Heaven, because its sides can be compressed more and more to infinity, and the more the sides are compressed, the more that body is extended toward length, it follows that he could exist at once in Heaven and on earth.

— Poncius answers in his Summa of Theology, denying the first assumption and the consequence of the proof; because from a square of four feet there cannot naturally be made any quadrangle that could be stretched from earth to Heaven: for although by compressing the sides it can be extended into greater and greater length to infinity: yet this can only be done with respect to indeterminate parts, syncategorematically and to infinity: but not with respect to determinate parts, categorematically and to infinity: from this, however, it does not follow that it can naturally be extended at once up to Heaven: just as it does not follow, although there are as many parts syncategorematically in a palm-sized quantity as in a hundred-palm one, that it could occupy at once so much place as the hundred-palm one.

— * The Doctor confirms and presses this same argument from a certain principle of Euclid the mathematician, propos. 30. lib. 2. where he teaches that whatever can be in one of equals, and in the rest, if no configuration repugns to it. Whence the Doctor argues thus in the place cited above num. 12 — and in the commentary on this passage of the Doctor:

Whatever can be in one equal can be in the other: if no configuration repugns to it, by which one is distinguished from the other: but no configuration of the place in which it is repugns to an angel: therefore if it can be in one equal, it can be in the other. And consequently if it can be in a square however small or narrow, which must be posited by saying that it does not repugn to him to be in any place whatsoever, it follows that it does not repugn to him to be in a place however long, because the quadrangle is equal to that small square in which it can be. Which is indeed a most certain argumentation. But it excepts: unless the configuration repugns, which pertains to bodies. For water, or wine, or another liquid, since it requires a certain capacious figure, will not be able to be in a quadrangle formed from a square: since if the quadrangle be too much contracted, and stretched out into an enormous length, it will not hold those liquids. But the angel is without body, and lacks figure; if he can be in a square, he can be in a quadrangle, though never stretched out here to infinity.

— To the Doctor I say that he truly presses and confirms this argument against St. Thomas who, lib. 1. q. 52. a. 2., having denied in the body of the article that an angel can be in a body however great, and having reduced him to a certain and determinate place therein, afterwards did not hesitate to say that within his sphere he could be in a greater and lesser place even down to the indivisible. An angel, he says, is indivisible, existing outside the genus of quantity and situation; hence it is not necessary that one indivisible place according to situation be determined to him: but either divisible or indivisible, greater or lesser, according as he voluntarily applies his power to a greater or lesser body. And so the whole body, to which his power is applied, corresponds to him as one place. And he had said above that the angel is not to be bound necessarily to an indivisible point, although he himself is indivisible; and so he leaves only his sphere free to him, so that within it, whether in a greater place or a lesser, he can be. And thus Cajetan understands it there, and commonly the authors, both domestic and extern.

This argument, I say, the Doctor twists against St. Thomas to show that his assertion is not firm and constant, nor resting on sure foundations. But he himself did not descend to the opposite opinion, but only proposed it as probable, whatever our Francis Macedo may pronounce to the contrary, sect. 6. collat. 1. De loco Angelorum. For thus teach the faithful more recent interpreters of the Doctor, namely Cavellus in his scholion on this passage of the Doctor; Vulpius disp. 18. art. 1; Mastrius; Tataretus on the same text of the Doctor, whom Lichetus had preceded in his Commentary, and Poncius in the same place, where he both copiously and subtly dissolves the aforesaid argument and turns it back in this way: by what reasoning would it follow that the angel could be in any quadrangle equal to some minimum assignable square, and consequently in a place however great; and hence he would be at once in heaven and on earth; and by parity of reason the same angel could be in any smaller square whatever which would be the minimum place that the angel can occupy. For if the angel can be, e.g., in a square of which any side is ten or twenty palms, but cannot be in a square so small that each of its sides is only one palm. Since thus that large square can be extended into a quadrangle as long as that small square can, by compressing its sides, even before it reaches the narrowness of that small square, because it has in breadth many more determinate parts, and as many indeterminate parts above the breadth of the small square, it can be extended toward length by compression of the sides as much as the small square can be extended, and consequently if the small square can be extended from earth into heaven, and into any length whatsoever to infinity, the large square can also be thus extended, even without reducing it to so narrow a breadth as the small square has, and consequently, if the angel can be in any quadrangle equal to that square, he could be at once in heaven and on earth, and in a quadrangle however long. Therefore that very inconvenience which follows according to the adversaries, because the angel can be in so small a square, follows from the fact that he would be in a square as great as they themselves concede. Thus Poncius.*

You will object 2. If an angel had not a determinate place as to smallness, but could make himself present in smaller and smaller places to infinity, he would be of infinite perfection: but this is false: therefore, etc. The consequence is proved; because it is of greater perfection in him that he can become present in a smaller and smaller place: for if, says the Doctor, n. 12., he could be in greater and greater places to infinity, the infinity of his power would be concluded; so therefore the infinity of his power would be concluded, if he could be in smaller and smaller places to infinity.

— I deny the consequence, and likewise the consequentia of its proof; for the reason of the disparity is that the occupation of greater and greater places to infinity, which would argue infinite perfection, is that which takes place through determinate parts, from which, if all were posited a parte rei, there would arise a categorematic infinite: whence it is no wonder that the power by which that occupation could take place would be infinite, and consequently repugnant to an angel; but the occupation of smaller and smaller places to infinity takes place with respect to indeterminate parts, from which, even if all were posited in act, it does not follow that a categorematic infinite is given.

* Because those parts are not distinct nor actually divided, but only in potency to be distinguished and divisible to infinity. — There is added, says Poncius in the same place, that the aforesaid argument can also be turned back upon the adversaries. For, he says, they themselves confess that between the maximum adequate place of the angel and his minimum place he could place himself in smaller and smaller places down to that minimum place, and that this also is of greater perfection in him. Whence I argue thus: between that maximum place and the minimum place there are given smaller and smaller places to infinity, because the excess of the maximum place over the minimum is divisible to infinity: but the angel can place himself in any place of those: therefore he can place himself in smaller and smaller places to infinity, even according to those authors. Either, then, this argues perfection; and then either such perfection must be conceded to the angel, or it must not be conceded to him that he can do this; or it does not argue it, and then the first consequence is bad together with the consequence of its proof. Thence Poncius concludes that the angel can truly reduce his presence to a smaller place than the adequate one, to which many more recent Scotists assent, as Branchatius disp. 5. q. 6; Mastrius 12 Metaphysicae disp. 11. q. 5. art. 2; and very many others, asserting that in this matter the Doctor does not oppose it, but only holds it as probable, seeing that he himself supposes as probable that an angel can be in a point, as is evident from his words cited above, whose reason is manifest enough. For if an angel can be in an indivisible place, such as the world, much more can he be in a less divisible place, because that minimum divisible place is more proportioned to the divisible adequate place of the angel than a wholly indivisible place. Further, whoever can be in extreme places can also be in intermediate ones: but an angel can be in a most divisible place adequate to him, and also in a point: therefore he can also subsist in a less divisible place, which is midway between the more divisible and the point *.

Second conclusion. — An angel cannot naturally be in two adequate places: nor even in inadequate discontinuous places: in both, however, he can exist supernaturally.

This embraces three parts, all of which the Doctor unfolds q. 7. n. 2.

The first part is proved. An adequate place is called that which neither exceeds the located thing nor is exceeded by it: therefore it implies that the angel is present simultaneously and once to several places, each of which is adequate. The consequence is plain; for if he were in several, he would exceed each of them in particular; since he would not be in one without equally existing in another, and thus each of those places would be adequate, as supposed, and at the same time would not be, since the located thing existing also in another would exceed the former place. Further, if an angel could be simultaneously and once in several adequate places, he would not need to pass from place to place in order to operate: but the consequent is false, and against Sacred Scripture, which teaches that angels approach bodies or spirits, that they may do something about such things, as was said in the preceding Question: therefore etc.

The second part the Doctor leaves as doubtful for others to discuss. For when he had said that one angel cannot be in two adequate places: Because, he says, then that place would not seem adequate to him according to his natural power, he adds: But whether he could be in two discontinuous places, of which neither one nor the other would be adequate to him, is doubtful: nor does a necessary reason seem to exist for or against.

Nevertheless the denying opinion appears truer than the affirming: First because, if an angel could make himself present in several inadequate discontinuous places, he would be at once in several places, as several: for those partial and inadequate places would be neither one in entity, as is evident; nor in continuity, since they are supposed to be discontinuous; nor in order, because the presence of the angel in one is not derived from his presence in the other, and therefore the angel would be in them as several: but he cannot be in several places as several; otherwise he could also be in several adequate places, the contrary of which has just been proved. Second because, if the angel could naturally be in several inadequate discontinuous places, he could at once become present to several places removed by any distance whatsoever; for if the distance which is between two inadequate places discontinuous with each other does not prevent the angel from inexisting in them without existing in the intermediates, neither will a greater distance stand in the way of that angelic presence: but that consequent is absurd: for it would follow thence that the angel could become naturally present at once to Heaven and to earth; which no Theologian admits.

— Nor does it avail to reply that this would indeed be true if that distance and discontinuation took place outside the sphere of the angel's activity and of his adequate place, which since it is not so, thence it does not follow, neither that the angel is in several places as several, nor that he can exist in places removed by any distance whatsoever: this, I say, response does not weaken the force of the preceding reasons. First, for whether those places are outside the sphere of the angel's activity or not, they are truly remote from each other and distinct from each other; and therefore they are truly many, and accordingly the angel existing in them exists not as in one, but as in many.

Add that since the angel is present to a place by reason of his substance, and through the application of his free will, if he could make himself present in four corners of a hall discontinuous with each other, why could he not likewise make himself present also in a place nearer to the hall, yet not contiguous? For if the distance of one cubit does not prevent him from being present to discontinuous places, by what reasoning could the distance of two or three cubits prevent it?

This reason is confirmed together with the preceding ones; First indeed, because no reason appears why such a power should rather be attributed to an angel than to other entities, which are limited and determined naturally to one place, so that as soon as we see a thing in one place we judge that it is distinguished from another placed in another place. Second, the angel is determined to a place just as the soul to informing a body: but the same soul cannot inform distant parts at once without informing the intermediates: therefore the angel cannot exist in several discrete parts of a place unless he exist in the intermediate parts. Third, the multiplication of the presence of the Body of Christ in divers places remote from each other is said to be miraculous: therefore it would be a miracle if a spiritual thing existed in divers discontinuous places, and consequently the angel cannot make himself present by his own power in divers remote places.

You will say 1. The whole reason why no body can be in two places, even partial ones, discontinuous and distant, is because a body is something continuous and dependent on place, and accordingly cannot be in discrete places unless its quantity be divided: but this reason has no place in angels, since they lack quantity and are independent of place: therefore, etc.

— I deny the major. For not for this reason is some body unable to be in several places, that it would be divided, but also because according to its limited entity it is so determined to one place that it cannot occupy several at once; which reason holds in angels. Whence as a body is shut up in one circumscriptive place, nor can occupy several at once, as several and discontinued; so by parity of reason the angel is shut up in a definitive place, so that by his own proper power he cannot extend himself to several.

You will say 2. An angel, as we have said, is in a place by the free application of his substance to it, in such a way that, whenever he wills, he can apply his substance to the whole place commensurate with him, or only to some one of its parts; therefore nothing prevents him from being able to apply it to two extremities, but not to the middle.

— I deny the consequence. For that an angel occupy the whole place commensurate with him or only a single part of it involves no apparent repugnance; since from this it does not follow that he is multilocated, and beyond the sphere of his natural power: but this does follow if he were present in two places that are non-commensurate and discontinuous, and so there is no parity.

The third part is proved, namely that, as the Doctor says in n. 2, an angel can be in several places, both commensurate and non-commensurate, by divine power: for if anything stood in the way, it would above all be because one and the same thing could not be in several places definitively; but the consequent is absurd, for the Body of Christ the Lord is really present under the discontinuous and distant Eucharistic species; therefore much more will an angel be able to be present multilocated. The consequence is evident, for it is easier to work a single miracle than many: but for the Body of Christ to become present under the consecrated species, two miracles must especially intervene, one by which it is stripped of its native quantity and exists in a kind of spiritual mode; the other by which it becomes present multilocated: but for an angel to be in several places only a single miracle is required, namely one by which his presence is multiplied; therefore he will be able to be constituted multilocated much more easily than bodies.

You will say 1. If an angel existed multilocated, he would be distant from himself; but this is absurd; therefore etc. The inference of the major is proved; because those places, as is supposed, are distant from one another; therefore also the angel existing in them. The consequence is proved; because things that are together with one third are together with one another; therefore things that are not together with one third are not together with one another, and consequently are distant from one another.

— The Doctor answers in the number praised above, denying both the inference and the consequent of each proof: for just as it does not follow that God is distant from himself even if the bodies in which he is present are distant; and just as it does not follow that the soul of a man is distant from itself even if it informs the right hand and the left, which are distant from one another; so it does not follow that an angel existing in several places is distant from himself, even if the places in which he exists are distant from one another; whether he exists in those places supernaturally or naturally: rather it is known only that he exists in them. This I add, because if it were known that one angel existed in one place naturally, and that an angel existed also in another place naturally, it should be judged that it was not one angel who existed in both places. For confirmation the Doctor distinguishes the consequent: when that which is together in them is limited to one only, he concedes; when it is not, he denies: as is clear concerning the soul, he says, placed in the right hand and the left, which soul is not distant from itself, and yet hand is distant from hand; similarly God is not distant from himself, yet those things that are with him, here or in Rome, are distant from one another.

You will say 2. An angel is of one limited nature; therefore he must be limited according to everything that can belong to him, and consequently cannot have several places at once.

— The Doctor answers by distinguishing the consequent. According to absolutely anything whatsoever of whatever kind, the consequence is denied: because otherwise he could not have several intellections at once, nor even several continuous presences; according to anything whatsoever that can belong to him by the mode of a natural property and inseparable accident, let the first consequence pass, and the second is denied.

* You will say 3. If an angel could exist in two places at once, it would follow that he could likewise at once rest in one place and be moved from the other place to another; but this fights contradictorily, for from it there would follow that he would rest and not rest at once; therefore it is also repugnant for him to exist in two places.

— The Doctor answers, in the third number, conceding the inference of the major and denying the minor along with its proof. It would indeed be true on that hypothesis that the angel would rest according to one where and not rest according to another where; but it would not be true that he would rest and not rest simpliciter: for to rest simpliciter signifies that the thing is moved in no way whatsoever with respect to any place whatever, and hence excludes all motion entirely from the thing located. But to rest with respect to one place and not rest with respect to another can be verified of the same thing, because they do not fight contradictorily, since it is not affirmed at once of the same thing according to the same place and state, but according to diverse ones; whence the Doctor concludes that on that hypothesis, if anyone were to infer from the fact that the angel rests in one place and is moved from another into another, that he would at once rest and not rest simpliciter, he would commit the fallacy from what is said secundum quid to what is said simpliciter, and would stray in his reasoning through ignorance of the elenchus, because he would infer that some things that are not contradictory — since they are not affirmed or denied of the same thing according to the same respect — are nevertheless contradictory.

You will say 4. Two "wheres" are formally incompossible as being contraries, since between them local motion can occur, which is always between two extreme contraries mutually opposed; for all "wheres" that are distant are of distinct species, and hence imply a certain contrariety; therefore those two "wheres" cannot be posited in one and the same angel, for contraries cannot be at once in the same subject.

— I distinguish the antecedent. Two "wheres" are incompossible and contrary in themselves and with respect to themselves, because they are of diverse species — I concede; with respect to something else and by reason of the subject, I subdistinguish: if they are taken non-commensurately, I deny, for an angel existing in a place commensurate with him has as many non-commensurate "wheres" as there are parts of that place, and hence is at once in several non-commensurate places. If those two "wheres" are taken commensurately, they cannot belong to one and the same subject — I subdistinguish: by the power of some natural agent, I concede; of a supernatural one, I deny: for although two "wheres" are naturally reckoned contrary and incompossible, because one cannot be acquired by the forces of nature without the other being lost; nevertheless, since it is certain from faith that one body can be in two places at once by divine power, nothing prevents the same being affirmed of an angel, since he is of a nobler entity and more vigorous power, and accordingly fitter to occupy diverse places at once by the ordination of God. Nor does the specific distinction of those "wheres" hinder this occupation in any way, since two things of distinct species can be found even naturally in the same subject, as whiteness and sweetness in milk, the sensitive and vegetative power in the same animal. *

Third conclusion. — It is more probable that several angels can be at once in the same place by natural power, not only materially but even definitively.

So holds the Doctor who, although he may seem doubtful about how this question should be resolved, nevertheless proves the affirmative part and dissolves the arguments of the denier.

It is urged 1. from the holy Fathers, some of whom, although they attribute bodies to angels just as they do to the souls of men, nevertheless affirm that several of either can subsist in the same place. Thus Tertullian, in book 2 De Anima, chapter 25, rebukes Plato's contrary opinion:

But if anyone, as Plato, thinks, he says, that two souls do not come together in one, just as neither do bodies, I would show him not only two souls crowded together in one, as also bodies in embryos; but truly many other things conjoined with a soul, namely demons, and not of one spirit, as in Socrates himself, but a septenary of spirits, as in Mary Magdalene, and legionary numbers, as in the Gerasene; whereby a soul is the more easily joined with a soul through the fellowship of substance than a wicked spirit through the diversity of nature.

Gregory Nazianzen indeed, in the first Epistle to Cledonius, refuting Apollinaris, who denied that Christ was a perfect man on the ground that two perfect things cannot exist at once, answers thus:

Not at all, provided you weigh the matter in a corporeal manner: for a vessel holding one measure will by no means contain two measures, nor can the place of one body hold two or more bodies. But if you consider these things as intelligible and incorporeal, observe that the very same contains both the soul, and reason, and mind, and the Holy Spirit:

he adds: for such is the nature of intelligibles, that in an incorporeal and indivisible manner they are mingled both with one another and with bodies. Which mingling occurs not according to their substantial union, but according to the occupation and presence of the same place.

The Doctor proves 1. indeed by the authority of Richard of Saint Victor, who gathers that demons do not have bodies, from the fact that a whole legion of demons occupied a single body of a man.

For the legion could not have been in someone if the demons had had bodies; therefore, the Doctor says, he seems to argue that if they had had bodies, their bodies would have been at once in the same place.

Therefore, in the way that they now do not have bodies, it seems it must be said that they were at once without bodies.

Moreover, if one angel moving the heavens is at midday, and another good angel sent from heaven to earth must pass through that place, there seems no necessity that he not pass through a straight line, or that the other give way to him. Finally, he says, if all angels had been created before bodily creation, as seems true according to Damasc., book 7, c. 21, it does not seem easy to assign how they were then not at once: and if it was then not inconvenient for them to be at once, neither now: however it turns out de facto, and de possibili — I speak of their natural power; yet de possibili with respect to divine power, it does not seem impossible but that by it they could be at once.

Moreover the conclusion is proved. Two angels can apply their operative natural powers, and their substances, totally at once to the same body or place, and make themselves present; therefore they can be at once in the same commensurate place according to their powers and essences. The consequence is evident: the antecedent is proved most manifestly, because an angel can inhabit the same body at once with a rational soul, as is clear in those who are vexed by unclean spirits; therefore by equal reason he will be able to be at once with another angel, since the rational soul is of the same kind as the angels as regards the mode of existing in a place. Then, because if the powers and essences of two angels applied at once to the same place could not coexist — above all because the power and essence of one would not be compatible with the power and essence of the other, but would exclude it, just as one bodily quantity naturally expels another from its place — but this cannot be said, since those powers and essences are spiritual; otherwise neither would the power and essence of the soul suffer with itself in the same place and body the angelic power and essence; therefore etc. Finally, the powers and essences of angels are of a far more immaterial and sublime nature than this light that we see: but it is established that two different lights caused by two luminous sources exist at once in the same commensurate place; therefore a fortiori two powers and essences of angels will be able to be applied at once and be in the same place; and hence also two or more angels, because the one does not obstruct the other.

* To this is added that several angels can even have diverse total operations in the same place; indeed that de facto they have them, for a good angel intimately present to a man suggests to him right and good thoughts, while a wicked angel, equally present to him, instills evil and depraved sentiments and motions. Therefore those two angels, intimately present in the same place, have operations altogether diverse though fully adequate; and thus the reasoning of the Thomists collapses. *

You will say 1. There cannot be two total causes with respect to the same effect: but the angel himself is the total cause of the operation by which the angel is constituted in a place; therefore another angel cannot have an operation in that place, and consequently cannot be in that place.

— The Doctor answers first that it is falsely supposed in this argument, namely that

an angel is constituted formally in a place by an operation. He answers secondly that although it were conceded, both that one operation proceeds from several angels, and consequently that from one operation they would not have existence in the same place; nevertheless it would not follow from this that when one angel has one operation, another could not have another. And if it be said that in a body an angel cannot have any operation except a motive-to-place operation, which moves him locally, and that when he is moved locally by an angel by one motion he cannot be moved by another by another motion; he answers thirdly that even with this granted gratis, two angels can still concur to the same operation, in such a way that neither is the total cause of it but partial, and then, although they would have existence in the place from the same operation, it would not follow that the same effect was produced by two total causes. That an angel can be the partial cause of such a motion and admit the concurrence of another is clear, because he is the free cause of it no less than a man, and can consequently employ his whole effort, or a part; and if one angel employs a part, the other can freely employ another part; and thus the whole motion will be from both as from two partial causes integrating one total cause.

* To these add that an angel can naturally subsist in the same place with any body whatever; therefore much more can he subsist in it with another spirit. The adversaries concede the antecedent; but the consequence is manifest per se: for two complete spiritual substances have less repugnance to subsisting together than have a corporeal and a spiritual substance, which are opposed and specifically distinguished. *

You will say 2. Things having the same mode of existing cannot be at once; but angels have the same mode of existing in a place; therefore they cannot be at once. The major is proved: because glorious bodies for this reason cannot naturally be at once, although a glorious body can be at once with a non-glorious body; and therefore even if there were two Gods, they would not be at once with creatures.

The same Doctor answers by denying the major, which he rightly judges to be irrational or improbable, because to be in a place imports no essential respect or dependence of the located thing upon the place; but to be from another as from an essentially operating cause, as an effect is from a cause, signifies the essential dependence of the effect upon the cause; therefore if there can be several effects from one cause, it will not be inconvenient that several things can be in the same place as regards existence precisely. Then, all temporal things signify the same respect to time, or the same mode of existing in time, just as spiritual things signify the same mode of existing in place: but notwithstanding this, several temporal things can be at once in the same time; therefore also several spiritual things in the same place as regards this respect. Finally, all bodily accidents have the same mode of existing in place, and yet notwithstanding this several of them are in the same place, as whiteness and sweetness of milk. To the proof of the major, moreover, he answers: if it is true that two glorious bodies cannot be at once, or two Gods, this arises not from their having the same mode of existing in place, but from some other reason. In truth, however, it should rather be judged that two glorious bodies can be at once, and even two Gods, if they were possible.

You will say 3. Very many of the holy Fathers are of the opinion that no created thing, however lacking a body, can be mingled with and infused into another spiritual thing, since this is proper to God, to whom (as Paschasius says in book 2 De Spiritu sancto c. 1.) this privilege alone is owed, that he can enter into the secret conscience: but soul cannot be infused into soul, or angel into angel. Hence he affirms that demons, the assailants of men, can enter only the hiding-places of the body; but cannot reach the interior parts of the soul: which he proves by this argument, that they cannot know consciences. The same Didymus teaches in book 1 De Spiritu sancto c. 15; but Cassian more clearly in collation 7, c. 13, where he says:

That nothing is incorporeal except God alone, and for that reason all spiritual and intellectual substances are penetrable to him alone, because he alone is whole, and everywhere, and in all things; so that he inspects and surveys the thoughts of men and their inward motions without veils and completely; therefore truly two angels cannot be at once, just as neither can they be with a rational soul.

I deny the consequence. For the aforementioned Fathers, and whoever else brings forward similar things, are to be understood not so much of that penetration and infusion which comes about through the conjunction of place, as of the efficiency and impulse by which God moves our soul by himself, with no intervening thing, which angels cannot perform. Thus Saint Bernard seems to interpret the matter, sermon 5 on the Canticles:

Know this, he says, that no created spirit applies itself to our minds per se; namely that it be mingled with and infused into us with no mediation of our own or of its bodily instrument, whereby taught or better taught by participation of it, we might become good or better. No angel, no soul, is in this way capable of me, and therefore capable of none. Nor do the angels take one another in this way. Let this prerogative therefore be reserved to the supreme and uncircumscribed Spirit, who alone, when he teaches knowledge to angel or man, seeks no instrument of our bodily ear, any more than of his own mouth. He is infused per se; he makes himself known per se; the pure is received by the pure.

Since local motion is ordered to the acquiring of a place, therefore, having explained the place of the angels, what follows must be said in methodical order concerning its acquisition or loss, and thereupon concerning the local change which terminates in it; and not only its existence, but also its cause, nature, and various species are to be set forth in the present Section.

Note 1. Concerning the determination of the present Question there is a threefold opinion among Authors: The first was that of Durandus on the first dist. 37. second part of it qu. 1. num. 26. asserting that an angel is simultaneously wherever it can operate, whether simultaneously or successively; hence he holds both that an angel is simultaneously in all the bodies of the Universe, and that if more or greater things were made, it would at once exist in them without any mutation of itself, because it can always operate successively in all things, although it cannot move all things at once; because, he says, it suffices to have power at once to operate in whatever place disjunctively, and in all places successively, so as to be present to all at once, in the manner in which it can be. Thence in the second question he infers that an angel cannot properly be moved locally, so as to be transferred from place to place, because it is not in a place circumscriptively nor definitively; but is at once in every place in which it can be. Hence he thinks an angel is not properly moved locally, such that its substance abandons one place and begins to be in another: but only because it appears successively in different places through the various effects which it produces in them.

The second opinion is that of St. Thomas, first part, qu. 53. art. 3., and likewise of Cajetan there on the same article one, where he says: it must be diligently observed that local motion does not properly speaking belong to spiritual substances; but just as it is said abusively and equivocally that spiritual substances are in a place, so too are they said to be moved locally. Hence to be moved is not for them to be the subject of motion, just as neither is to be located to be the subject of ubi: but virtually to touch, in the genus of efficient cause, diverse places.

* Thus Cajetan on the celebrated passage of the Angelic Doctor. Yet the Angelic Doctor himself opens his mind more clearly, and excludes continuous motion from angels in 1. dist. 17. quaest. 1. art. 1., where thus ad 3.:

The local motion of an angel is not posited to be continuous, therefore it is not necessary that a part of that motion be motion, and therefore it is neither moved in A nor moved in B, although A and B are parts of it, but the succession of these, which is to be in A and to be in B: its motion is so called, plainly as if its motion were considered either according to intellect or according to affection, because the very succession of affections is called its motion, as in the body toward the end. An angel is said to be in a place inasmuch as it is applied to a place by operation, and because it is not at once in divers places it is said to be moved: whence just as the conceptions of intellect fittingly follow upon one another without continuity, so also do its operations. Hence its local motion is not continuous, but its very operations following consecutively upon divers places, according to which it is said to be in them, are said to be its local motion.

Thus St. Thomas. *

Third and finally, the opinion of the Doctor Subtilis on the second book dist. 2. qu. 9. and following, where just as he establishes the angel truly and properly in a place through its substance, so also he affirms that it is truly and properly moved.

Note 2. With our Herrera disp. 7. qu. 1., real space in each single place stands differently toward bodies than toward spirits; for with respect to bodies it stands in the manner of a container, since the body truly contains, and in the manner of filled space: seeing that with body it is so filled that it cannot admit another; thus while water is in a vessel, the vessel is said to be the place of the water, inasmuch as it contains the water, and it is called space inasmuch as it is filled with water: it can also be called the ubi of the water itself, inasmuch as it grounds or terminates the relation of presence, because the water is here in such a way that it is not elsewhere. But with respect to spirits, that real space can indeed have the character of place, and also of ubi, with respect to a spiritual substance located in it, provided that substance of an angel or rational soul is really there in such a way that it is not elsewhere: yet it cannot have the character of filled space, seeing that real space is not filled through the presence of a spiritual substance; indeed even if all angels were present in some real space, that space could receive any body no less than if no spirits were present.

Note 3. From the Doctor, lib. 2. on the Metaphysics num. 93., something is moved, and moves, in three ways: 1. per accidens; 2. according to some part; 3. according to itself whole. That is said to be moved per accidens which is moved by the motion of another with which it has a natural connection, whether this connection is made in the manner of a substantial or accidental form — thus the soul is moved by the motion of the body, and any accident by the motion of its subject: or after the manner of an integral part, thus the parts are moved by the motion of the whole: or as what is contained in a container naturally, thus liquid is moved by the motion of the vessel, and a sailor is carried about by the motion of the ship: or what is joined to something by some natural necessity, as a heavy thing to that on which it rests.

In the second way something is said to be moved, or moving, on account of motion produced by, or received in, some part of it: thus Peter is said to be healed, on account of his eye being healed, and to have thrown a stone, because he threw the stone with his hand.

In the third way something is said to be moved, and moving, according to itself whole: thus an animal is moved according to all its parts, and water cools, and fire heats according to all its parts.

These things having been set forth in advance, three things must be determined in the present Question: First, whether an angel is truly moved locally, not only metaphorically, but also really and properly. Second, whether it is moved by a motion both per se and per accidens. Third, whether it can not only be moved by another, but also move itself.

First conclusion. — The angel is truly moved locally; and that by motion properly so called. This is common, as to the first part, among theologians against Durandus.

Proof 1. By the authority of Sacred Scripture, which attributes local motion to angels not only when existing in a body but also outside a body; thus Isaiah 13. says of the prince of demons: How have you fallen from heaven, Lucifer? By which words is recalled the fall of the prince of the demons and all their followers, not only according to the affection of a depraved will, but also according to the distance of place, and their casting down from Heaven unto the lower parts of the earth. Which indeed Christ the Lord confirms, Luke 10., saying: I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven: hence in Apocalypse 2. is narrated the great battle fought by the Prince of the army of the Lord, namely Michael, against the rebellious angels, and how they were so cast down from Heaven that no longer was their place found in Heaven.

The same is confirmed by all those texts praised by us in the first Conclusion of the preceding section, by which it is not only openly signified that angels truly occupy a place, but also that they are carried from place to place by local motion.

It is confirmed. From the fact that the same must be asserted of angels as of the separated soul; but the rational soul, once severed from the body, is truly moved locally: therefore also the angels. The major stands both from that passage of Matthew 22. where Christ the Lord teaches that the lot of souls existing in Heaven will be like that of the angels, they will be, he says, as the angels of God: and from the fact that separated souls are altogether spiritual substances, having no actual commerce with a body, just like the angels; and therefore if, notwithstanding their spirituality and indivisibility, they can occupy a place and be moved locally, the same judgment will have to be passed on the angels. The minor is proved, both from the article of faith by which we believe that the most blessed soul of Christ descended to the lower regions during the three days of death: for the Lateran Council under Innocent III., cap. Firmiter, expounding that article of faith, He descended into hell, rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, says, But he descended in soul, rose again in flesh, ascended in both: therefore the soul of Christ the Lord truly descended to the lower regions by local motion, abandoning its body and entering the lower parts of the earth. And because the souls of the just, immediately released from their bodies, are said to be carried by holy angels to the place of rest. Thus Luke 16.: the soul of Lazarus is said to have been carried into the bosom of Abraham: therefore it is certain that they are moved from place to place.

Durandus replies that for the truth of the foregoing texts it is not necessary that angels change place substantially, but that it is enough that, through some effect, they begin to appear and signify themselves present where they did not previously appear; just as Matthew 3. says of the Holy Spirit that it descended like a dove upon Christ: and John 5. of the Son that he descended from heaven. Whence just as that descent of the Son, or of the Holy Spirit, signifies no local mutation in them, but only that the Holy Spirit through the dove, and the Son through the assumed humanity, newly produced some effect which he did not before produce: so in like manner there is no need for angels to change place according to their substance, but it suffices that they exercise certain works somewhere, that they may be said to be moved to that place.

On the contrary. The words of Sacred Scripture must be taken literally as often as they involve no repugnance in themselves, or anything implied and unseemly: but such are those texts affirming local motion in angels. For nothing absurd follows from this, as will appear in the solution of the arguments to be objected, whereas a great absurdity would follow if the Son, or the Holy Spirit, were said to change place substantially; for this appears impossible from Sacred Scripture itself, which expressly declares God present everywhere, and therefore incapable of changing place substantially, which cannot be said of the angels.

Add that the above passages were interpreted in this manner by the holy Fathers: especially St. Augustine, lib. 1. Retractationum cap. 24., where he sets out the difference between the descent of an angel and the descent of the Son of God, because the Son of God did not descend, nor come, where he previously was not, but appeared in human flesh according to which he previously was not: but the angel truly abandoned Heaven according to substance, and began to be where it previously was not.

Likewise St. Ambrose, in the book De Spiritu sancto cap. 10., comparing the Holy Spirit with an angel, says: That Spirit, since it is everywhere, cannot depart from a place, nor acquire a place: but the angel, since it is defined by place, can acquire and abandon a place.

Which Diadochus admirably explains, cited in Damascenus, in the Eclogae, title 47.

It belongs, he says, to the divine Word alone, who took on man (to be everywhere), which was seen truly on this earth and not in appearance only, and yet did not leave Heaven, but ever comprehends all things, always on account of the uncircumscribed immensity of the divine nature — which the angels cannot do: For at whatever time they are sent into the world, it is impossible for them to be in the same place, and above Heaven.

This very point all the other holy Fathers confirm: thus St. Chrysostom, homily three on the Epistle to the Hebrews, treating those words, sent to minister, says of the angels: they are sent into many places for us, and they minister to our salvation... They hasten about us, this is their ministry, to be sent by us to all quarters: which he confirms with various testimonies of Scripture, and finally, explaining the difference between the missions of the divine Son and of the angels, says: The Son was not sent as an angel is sent, for he did not pass from place to place, but took flesh; the angels however change places, and leaving those in which they are, come to others in which they were not.

St. Gregory Nazianzen concurs, oration 34., where among the properties of angels he lists, that they pass through all places, are present everywhere and everywhere untiringly: partly on account of the readiness of their ministry, partly on account of the lightness of their nature. Here the phrase, "are present everywhere," must be noted, together with its explanation, whereby he sufficiently declares that they are not everywhere at once, but able to aid us everywhere, and to do this untiringly through readiness of will and swiftness of nature.

As Tertullian also speaks in the Apologeticus cap. 22., saying: Every spirit is winged, that is, angels and demons; therefore in a moment they are everywhere, the whole world is one place to them; what is done anywhere they know as easily as they report it; the swiftness is believed divine, because the substance is unknown. Where by the word "winged" he alludes to the opinion of Dionysius in the last chapter of De Caelesti Hierarchia, who says the angels are depicted with wings, that their swiftness may be signified: and on account of that same swiftness Tertullian said the angels are everywhere in a moment; certainly by most swift passage: in which way also St. Jerome is to be understood, Epistola 50., where treating that text of Apocalypse 14., They follow the Lamb wherever he goes, he says: If the Lamb is everywhere: then the Martyrs, who are with the Lamb, must be believed to be everywhere; whence he adds: since the demons wander through the whole globe, and by their excessive swiftness are present everywhere, much more the Martyrs, etc. All which things signify true and real motion: and therefore the angels are not only truly moved, but also by a real and proper motion.

The Doctor Subtilis proves this truth equally by reason, qu. 9. num. 8.: Every recipient of forms of a certain genus, which is not determined of itself to some one of them, nor unlimited to having all of them, can be moved from one of those forms to another, as is evident of surface, which, being receptive of several colors, and determined to none of them, can now receive this one, now another: but an angel is receptive of several ubi, in which it can truly exist definitively, as was proven above; and it is no more determined to one place than to another, nor can it be present to all at once, but sometimes in one, sometimes in another, because it is neither infinite nor immense: therefore it can be changed from one ubi and place to another.

Next, the angel has a definite place, to which by its nature it is not necessarily present: therefore it also has mutability from place to place. The consequence is evident, because local immutability can arise only from necessary presence in all places at once, or from necessary adherence to one place. * But the angel neither exists in all places, nor is bound to any place, as is manifest and will be proved at once. * The antecedent indeed stands as to the first part, namely that the angel has a determinate place, since it is truly in a place, as was proved above. It is also evident as to the second part: for real place is something corporeal; but the angel adheres naturally by necessity to no body, since it is neither its substantial form, nor is it constrained to it by its nature; and therefore its motion cannot be hindered by it, as the motion of the rational soul can be hindered while it is detained in the body.

Finally, since angels excel in intellect and will, they can know and desire a place: but in them that desire would be vain, if they could not transfer themselves to that place: therefore etc. * The Doctor confirms it from the fact that if it be repugnant for the angel to be moved continuously, chiefly because they are spiritual substances: yet this does not stand in the way. For indeed the rational soul, once severed from the body, is a spiritual substance operating independently of the body: but it is truly moved locally, as is evident from the example of the soul of Christ, who during the three days of death descended to the lower regions; therefore the angels also can be moved locally. *

The second part also remains proven from what has been said: for not only does Scripture and the context of the holy Fathers affirm motion in the angels, but they also signify it to be true and real; which is moreover proved: The angel truly and properly exists in a corporeal place, although not commensuratively, but only definitively: therefore it can truly and properly be moved locally. The consequence is clear, since finite and limited things are moved in the manner in which it belongs to them to be in a place. Next, whoever truly and properly changes place, abandoning one and acquiring another, is also truly and properly moved locally; for local motion comes about through the true abandonment of one terminus a quo and acquisition of the terminus ad quem: but the angel, when it descends e.g. from Heaven to the earth, truly abandons heaven and reaches the earth, since, as was said above from the holy Fathers, they cannot by the forces of nature be at once in Heaven and on the earth: therefore, etc. Finally, whatsoever passes of itself from place to place through the application of its substance to divers places is said to be moved of itself, and substantially, and not merely metaphorically and equivocally: but the angel, when it appears somewhere, truly applies its substance there, and removes it from the place in which it previously was: therefore it is moved substantially and properly.

You will say 1. From Aristotle, 3. Physicorum, text 6., motion is the act of a being in potency according as it is in potency: therefore it is the acquisition of some perfection which the movable thing cannot have except through motion: but neither ubi nor place can be a perfection of the angel: therefore it cannot be moved to them. The minor is proved; every perfection is more excellent than the perfectible: but neither ubi nor place are more excellent than the angel: therefore neither are they its perfections.

The Doctor answers, num. 9., denying the minor together with the proof of that major: For, he says, the angel has intellection, which is a perfection of the intellectual power: yet intellection is simply more ignoble, or more imperfect, than the angelic nature. And so it can be conceded concerning ubi, or bodily presence with the angel, that it is some perfection of the angel, as any act is said to be a perfection: but far more ignoble than that nature in which it inheres. Add that not every motion must terminate in a perfection of the mobile thing; for many perfections are acquired through neutral and violent motion.

* It accedes that even if motion must terminate in some perfection, it is not necessary that that perfection redound to the good of the mobile thing itself; but it suffices that there be some utility and perfection for another. Thus the angels are moved for the perfection and salvation of men. *

You will insist from the Philosopher, 1. Physicorum: the indivisible cannot be moved: but the angel is indivisible: therefore it cannot be moved.

I answer. The Philosopher speaks of the quantitative indivisible, such as the point, which is not moved by motion properly so called, whereby namely it acquires place, and circumscriptive ubi; but he does not speak of the substantial indivisible, such as is the angel.

* Indeed, the Doctor adds, the mathematical indivisible existing per se of quantity, namely the point, can be moved locally and continuously. For a sphere moved over a plane describes a line on that plane, as was said in the Physics; yet the sphere itself, if it be perfect, touches the plane only at a point. Therefore the indivisible, even the mathematical one, can be moved locally and continuously, and accordingly this is much more to be attributed to the angel. *

You will urge. Motion is a divisible accident: but an indivisible substance, such as the angel, cannot be the subject of a divisible accident: therefore the angel cannot be the subject of motion, nor properly moved locally.

I distinguish the minor. The indivisible cannot be the subject of a divisible permanent accident, that is, one having all its parts at once, such as whiteness and blackness — I concede: successive, which has being in becoming, such as motion — I deny. Or otherwise I distinguish the minor: it cannot be the subject of divisible motion through the reception of that divisibility and extension — I concede; through commensuration and a certain proportion to it — I deny: for thus the rational soul, though indivisible according to substance, is in a divisible body which it informs, and the angel in a divisible place, to which it is present.

* You will say 2. Continuous succession in motion arises either from the resistance of the mobile to the mover, or from the divisibility of the space traversed, or from the medium retarding the action of the mover. But from none of these heads can there be succession in the motion of the angel. Not indeed from the first head, since the mobile is the same as the mover, namely the angel which moves itself. Nor even from the second or third head, because the medium and the space through which angelic motion occurs does not resist the angel either as mover or as mobile, since the angel could move itself through the medium by penetrating it without any motion of the mobile. Therefore in angelic motion there can be no succession.

The Doctor denies the major. For succession in angelic motion arises precisely from the divisibility of the space traversed; for, says the Doctor num. 41., between heaven and earth there are many intermediate places which the angel must traverse while passing from heaven to earth; nor can he by his motive power make those intermediate places exist all at once: therefore he must traverse them successively. *

You will say 3. St. Augustine, book 8. De Genesi ad litteram c. 20., teaches that every body is moved through time and place: but that a spiritual creature is not moved through place, but only through time; and that God is in no way moved: therefore St. Augustine holds that an angel cannot be moved locally.

I answer. St. Augustine there treats of circumscriptive motion, which belongs only to bodies: but not of definitive motion, which takes place without local circumscription, as Hugh of St. Victor explains in chapter 16; and therefore his opinion does not support the view of Durandus.

You will say finally. St. Bernard, Sermon 5. on the Canticles, openly teaches that the angels need bodies for motion, because, he says, To run about, nor to pass from place to place, is possible only to what is corporeal, which the angels are seen to do, as an authority proves, as indubitable as it is well known. Therefore in truth the angels are not of themselves capable of motion.

I deny the consequence. For St. Bernard does not speak of the angels considered in themselves, but only with respect to the ministries they carry out among us: for when at the beginning of the chapter he had said: Four kinds of spirits are known to you: of beasts, of ours, the angelic, and that which is like these. For not to all, to whom a body, or the likeness of a body, is necessary, whether on account of themselves, or on account of another, or on account of both, is it given — except only to him to whom every creature, both corporeal and spiritual, rightly confesses and says: You are my God, for you have no need of my goods. Then, speaking of the holy angels, he says: Now that the supercelestial Spirits have need of bodies for their work, that voice and divine saying above all makes us certain: Are they not all, he says, ministering Spirits, sent to minister for them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation? How then do they fulfill their ministry without a body, especially since they are occupied with a body? Whence he immediately adds: Finally, to run about, nor to pass from place to place, is possible only to what is corporeal, which the angels frequently do, as an authority proves, as indubitable as it is well known: Hence it is that they were seen by the Fathers, and entered to them, and ate, and washed their feet, etc. From these words it is plainly clear that he is speaking of the angels with respect to the ministries they exercise toward men, and not insofar as they are considered according to their own nature. For, says Alexander of Hales, question 33., member 3., where he explains the aforementioned authority in like manner:

As far as their nature is concerned, it befits the angels to be moved from place to place without a body, or without the assumption of a body, which indeed is evident from the example of separated souls: for separated souls, he says, can be moved without assuming a body: since they would assume either another's body or their own; another's body does not seem to befit them: concerning their own we see that they do not assume it, since they lie in their tombs; wherefore much more can angelic spirits be moved without the assumption of a body, since they are of themselves, and by their nature, separated; nor do they seem in any way to depend upon a body, or to have any relation to it.

Second conclusion. — The angel is not moved per accidens, and with the motion of the bodies in which he exists: but per se. This is the Doctor's teaching in the fourth book, dist. 10. qu. 6., where he says:

If an angel should make himself present to a stone voluntarily, when I move the stone, the angel is not moved on that account, because he is neither movable per se by my power, nor per accidens in this case, because he is neither the form, nor a part, of anything movable per se by me. If, then, an angel were present to a stone moved by me at the term of the motion, this would not be by my act, but by his own action, whereby he makes himself present there.

But that he is not moved per accidens is proved: whatever is moved per accidens must have a natural union and conjunction with the body in which it exists: but the angel does not have such union and conjunction with the body in which he is: therefore, etc. The major is clear from the third Notable; for in order that something be said to be moved per accidens, it is necessary that it be moved by the motion of another, every other effective causality being set aside, whether on its own part, or on the part of the other moving cause directly ordered to it. But the minor is evident per se, since, in whatever body the angel exists, in that body he is neither after the manner of a substantial form, as the soul in the body, nor accidental, as whiteness on a wall, nor of the contained in the containing, as liquid in a vessel and a sailor in a ship; nor of a heavy body at rest, as a stone in the earth; nor can any other natural conjunction be devised which should intervene between the angel himself and the corporeal place in which he is: therefore he does not seem to have with it any natural conjunction, and consequently he cannot be moved by its motion, except insofar as he himself moves himself together with the moved body, or is efficaciously moved by a higher cause, namely by God.

Next, if the angel were moved by the motion of a body, he could at once rest and be moved, and indeed be agitated by two contrary motions, namely upward and downward: but this appears absurd: therefore also that from which it follows. The inference of the major is clear: for if the angel had two stones as his adequate place, and one of them were moved while the other remained unmoved, or if one were cast upward and the other downward, it would be necessary that the angel rest with the unmoved stone and be moved with the projected stone, and likewise that he be held with one stone upward and with the other downward; which things certainly being repugnant, that also from which they follow is absurd.

Finally, if the angel could be moved per accidens, it would follow that he could be moved against his will by a man; for on the hypothesis that one angel had been destined by God to be stationed near the sacred Relics of some saint placed upon an altar, and some man should steal them away with a thieving and sacrilegious hand: if the angel ought to be moved by the motion of the body in which he exists, it would be necessary that he be moved, against his will, to the carrying away of those sacred Relics by a man; but the consequent appears not only absurd, but even contrary to experience, whereby it is established that nothing of prevailing power can be moved by the weak power of one weaker, while it resists in mind: therefore, since the angel is far superior to and stronger than man, it must not be said that he is moved against his will by a man, and consequently he cannot be moved per accidens.

The second part is also proved by the Doctor, in the second book, d. 2. q. 9. and 10.; for although he does not expound the question in its proper terms, nevertheless in his whole discussion he manifestly supposes it, admitting in the angel a receptive potency of motion, and teaching that he acts upon himself when he moves himself. Add that, as we said just now, he openly teaches that the angel is not moved per accidens: therefore it is necessary that he hold him to be moved per se.

The truth of this assertion is proved: that is said to be moved per se which is truly of itself the subject of motion: but the angel is truly the subject of his own motion: therefore he is moved per se. The major is clear; for a thing moved is so called from motion: therefore that which receives motion in itself and immediately is said to be moved per se. But the minor is proved, both because the angel ought to be said to be moved locally in the same manner as he is in place: but, as was proved above, he is in place fundamentally by his substance, in which nothing is more intrinsic to him, and formally by the respect of presence to the place received in the angel himself: therefore he is also moved locally by the motion residing in himself. The minor is clear from what has been said. The major, however, is admitted by all the Philosophers; since local motion is the tending of a mobile from one place to another, it is necessary that its motion correspond to that location, at least as regards the respect of presence: Then because the subject of the term of motion in facto esse and in fieri is the same: but the subject of the term in local motion in facto esse is the very substance of the angel present to this place which he acquired by motion: therefore the same is also the subject of that term in fieri, and consequently of local motion: since local motion is nothing else than the very term in fieri, that is, to be acquired: Then finally because the angel's motion is the very successive acquisition of ubi, that is, of the existence of the angel present in one and then another part of space: but an existence and presence of this kind is truly in the angel: therefore motion is likewise in him.

You will say. If the angel's motion were a real thing received in him, it would follow that the angel is really changed as many times as he is moved; but the consequent seems absurd: for he would be liable to infinite real changes, which seems unbecoming to the most excellent created nature, and one very close to God, who is altogether immutable: therefore, etc.

I distinguish the major. That he would be liable to changes through real absolute forms, which would change him physically and entitatively, I deny: through respective forms, or through relations, which produce no physical and entitative change, but only an extrinsic denomination, I deny: for the angel's motion, beyond his substance, signifies no absolute entity, but only the action by which the angel formally and immediately acquires successively the existence of his own substance, that is, the respect of presence of that substance to this or that space through which he passes, and toward a determinate place he tends: but that respect imports no real and entitative change; otherwise a man would be really changed a thousand times in every little moment of time, since he takes on innumerable relations and correlations anew.

Third conclusion. — The angel can move himself locally. So the Doctor in the second book, d. 2. q. 10., and it is common among the Theologians.

And it is proved 1. From sacred Scripture, which speaks of the motion of the angels in the same manner as of the motion of men, or of other animals that move themselves: for it uses the same words signifying motion proceeding from an intrinsic principle of the thing moving itself. Thus the demon Job 1. said: I have gone round about the earth, and walked through it, and of him St. Peter, first Epistle chapter 5. says: He goeth about seeking whom he may devour: whence Luke 8., Matthew 4., and John 13. attribute to demons the words of coming, approaching, entering, and going out; thus Christ commanded the unclean spirit to go out from the man: thus the demons besought Christ that he would permit them to enter into the swine: from which it is clear that the demons, as having the power of moving themselves, only asked that they be permitted to enter the swine, that is, that they not be forbidden.

The same is plainly established from those words of Christ, Matthew 12.:

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none: Then he saith: I will return into my house from whence I came out, and coming he findeth it, etc. Then he goeth, and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and entering in they dwell there:

in which, as Suarez cleverly observes, book 4. cap. 23., there are six or seven words that signify local motion, and motion from an intrinsic principle, namely the words of entering, going out, walking, seeking, returning, coming, going, and taking. For these things cannot be said of a thing which cannot move itself, but can only be moved by another.

From these words also, says Suarez, is taken the best reason, which Gregory touched upon: because all the motions and journeys of the demons are ordered to an evil end, namely the ruin of men, according to that saying I have gone round about the earth, and walked through it: therefore it cannot be said that those motions are specially made by God alone at the will of the demon himself; for it would be impious so to think of God: therefore it is necessary to confess that they are made by the demons themselves moving themselves.

The consequence is proved. Because if the angel does not move himself; much less will one angel be able to move another: therefore he could be moved by God alone, and in order that such motion not be violent or necessary for the angel, God would then have to move the angel only when he himself wishes to be moved, and consequently to lead the demons only when they themselves wish to tempt us; which is repugnant to the aforesaid texts of Scripture.

The Doctor proves the conclusion in the place cited for this reason: whenever something has a potency for acquiring something through motion, it is a perfection in it that it have also an active potency, by which it can acquire that thing: but the angel has a passive potency for local motion, as we said just now, since the angel is the subject of his own motion: therefore the active is not to be denied to him: since, as Aristotle says, nature must be honored as far as appearances permit.

The consequence is clear, because the angel is not of lesser condition than corporeal things and inferior creatures; indeed he is far nobler than they: yet in those things, together with the receptive potency of some perfection, there is found at the same time an active power, as is clear in living things, in which there is also a passive and an active potency for growth, and for the operations of the senses, and for moving themselves: it is clear also in inanimate things, for from the fact that heavy things have a passive potency to be in the center, they have also an active potency by which they can acquire it: therefore much more, if there be in the angel a passive potency, he also possesses an active one; and why should he not move himself, if he has an active power for moving?

It is confirmed. Because to move oneself is a degree of life which the angels enjoy: therefore they move themselves. Moreover, the angels are most perfect living things, and are not naturally everywhere, and therefore are capable of local change: therefore they can effect it in themselves. The consequence is proved, because, given the imperfection of their own limitation, to the perfection of life belongs the intrinsic faculty of moving oneself; the argument for this is, because lower living things, if they participate in knowledge not only intellectual but even sensitive, have the perfect power of moving themselves locally: who then will doubt that the angels can much more perfectly move themselves, especially since there is in this no difficulty, or apparent repugnance?

You will object. Nothing can be the same according to the same in potency and in act at once: but the mover qua mover is in potency to motion, and what is moved as such is in act of motion, that is, has motion in act: therefore nothing, the same indivisible thing, can be at once moving and moved, that is, can at once move and be moved, and consequently the angel cannot move himself. It is confirmed, because certain differentiae contracting and dividing being as such are incompossible in the same subject, as is clear from the differentiae by which being is contracted to substance and accident: therefore by parity of reasoning, the differentiae of act and potency, by which being as such is contracted, cannot be found in the same subject.

The Doctor denies the major. But he distinguishes it: nothing can be in potency, insofar as potency signifies the privation of act, and in act at once, I concede the major: nothing can be in virtual potency for producing, or receiving, an act, and at the same time in formal act, that is, at once have the formal act, I deny the major. Likewise I distinguish the minor: but what is moved is in potency to that to which it is moved, insofar as potency signifies such privation for that instant, or time, at which it is moved, and what moves is in act; that is, has the act opposed to that privation, I deny the minor: it is in potency, insofar as potency does not signify such privation, and in act at once, I concede the minor, and deny the consequence.

To the confirmation the Doctor says, that wholly opposite things dividing being, which are truly opposed, cannot be found really in the same subject: and consequently, that to be in act and in potency, insofar as they are differentiae of being so opposed, cannot be found in the same; but I deny that such things are found in the same. Therefore, when being as such is divided into being in act and being in potency, being in potency is not there taken for a being productive or receptive of something, and being in act for a being having such an act; otherwise prime matter could not at once have with form a receptive potency of it, and because otherwise it would be badly so divided, and without foundation, and against the truth: but being in potency is there taken for a possible being not actually existing, and being in act for a being actually existing; and it is evident that every being is either in act or in potency in this way, and that no being is at once in act and in potency in this way.

You will say 2. In that which moves itself, the part moving itself must be distinguished from the part moved per se: but in the angel no moving part and moved part can be assigned: therefore he does not move himself. The major is proved both by the authority of Aristotle, in the book Physics; and also by reason, because if one part moved another, it would follow that the whole would at once be at rest on account of the rest of one part, and not at rest on account of the motion of the other.

I answer. The major is true of corporeal substance moving itself with organic motion; for in it these things concur to motion, namely cognition, which first moves that part of the body which is first impelled, because the motive power concurring to such motion is organic, and consequently is not only really distinct from the soul, which is the first mover, but also perhaps the organic power itself resides in some part of the body, and must first move some other part. But from this it does not follow that whatever else is moved by itself with another, non-organic motion must have two really distinct parts, as is clear in heavy and light things, in which every part moves and is moved, because every part has an intrinsic active and passive principle of its motion. Whence it is no wonder if in the angels, whose substance is indivisible, one part moving and another moved is not so required for their motion. Add that in them also, at least metaphorically, a moving and a moved part can be assigned; for their substance is moved by the will.

You will object 3. The natural power of the angel ought to be ordered to some natural end according to the natural order of the Universe: but the motive power with respect to place, with respect to the angel himself, can serve no natural end: therefore it is not in him. The minor is proved: the angel is never moved on account of his own need, nor even on account of the natural need of other things, since the whole of inferior things are sufficiently aided by the motions of the heavenly bodies; indeed even man, as regards his body and all his animal powers, is sufficiently aided in his operations by the celestial motions; but as regards his mind, he is immediately subject to God himself, who alone can immediately touch intellect and will: therefore such natural motive power with respect to place is superfluous with respect to the angel himself.

I deny the minor. For that active power is not in the angel in vain, both because he himself needs it in order that the species of singular things may be able to be received from things remote from him through his approach to them: and also in order that he may be able to exercise certain operations pertaining to the governance of the Universe, which he could not otherwise exercise: and finally, because that motion above all expresses angelic liberty, by which he can transfer himself from place to place.

You will object finally. Opposite relations cannot belong to the same real extreme: but the relations of mover and moved are opposite: therefore they cannot both belong to the same angel.

I answer with the Doctor, in 2. dist. 25., that relations are of three kinds: For some are such that they are repugnant to one another, not because they cannot be in the same foundation, but because some of them include an essential dependence; such as the relations of cause and caused: and because the same cannot depend essentially upon itself, therefore these relations cannot belong to the same. Others are relations which include an essential order of origin, such as the relations of the producer to the product, and this implies that the same be producer and product. But other relations are (such as those of mover and moved) which include neither an essential dependence nor origin, and therefore can be founded in the same nature and in the same supposit, and they argue only an accidental dependence. Nor does it follow from this that that relation is of the same to himself, although the same will and the same angel be mover and moved: for if the angel be considered as causing motion in himself, he founds the relation of mover; but if the angel be considered precisely insofar as he receives motion in himself, then he founds the relation of moved; and thus it is only required that that form by reason of which the angel is moved, namely passive motion, be really distinct from the angel himself moving and moved. Such is the Doctor's teaching.

From these gather first, that the locomotive power of the angel is not really distinct from his substance: for that distinction would be altogether superfluous, since the same thing is not to be inferred concerning the locomotive power of the angel as of man; indeed, since the locomotive power of man is organic, and depends upon an external and corporeal faculty, there is no doubt that it is really distinct from the rational soul: but it is otherwise with the angels, who, being destitute of body and of corporeal faculty, there appears no reason why their locomotive power should be really distinguished, both from the angel's substance and from his will; therefore it seems to me more probable that it is altogether one and the same with the will; since faculties are not to be multiplied without necessity; but no necessity appears for admitting a locomotive faculty distinct from the angelic will; since the angelic will has its entity, and its own substance subordinated to it with respect to place and motion; and consequently it alone can suffice for effecting the motion, and for moving and placing its own substance somewhere.

Gather secondly, that any angel whatever can be moved extrinsically by God, in such a way that he himself concurs only passively in such motion: both because that does not repugn on the part of the angel himself, since he is not everywhere, and can be moved, nor does he resist the mover; and even if he did resist, his resistance, since it is finite, could be overcome by an agent of greater power. Nor does it repugn on the part of local motion absolutely and in common, because the angel's motion is not vital, and consequently does not require that it be necessarily made by an intrinsic principle of the mobile itself. Nor finally does it repugn on the part of the agent, because neither a superior angel, nor at least God, lacks the power for such an effect, nor is there involved in it any imperfection unbecoming to God: therefore God can move the angel per se. A superior angel could also move an inferior, even one resisting, on account of the greater power in him, just as a stronger animal moves a weaker one, even against its will. Thus the Magi, who have more powerful demons, overturn the machinations of others, namely by one superior demon coercing an inferior one: thus also the demons undoubtedly seize damned souls against their will and carry them off to hell. But how this is done, it is not so easy to determine; nevertheless it appears likely that the stronger angel unites himself, and in a certain manner binds himself, to the inferior one, upon which being posited, the rest or motion of the latter follows, according as the binding angel rests or moves himself: for just as a superior angel can determine and bind himself to a certain place, so it does not appear why he cannot likewise bind himself to another spirit, so as to carry him and hold him wherever and as long as he pleases. But if the spirit binding the other is not, or remains, present to the one bound, that binding is more easily explained by saying that it is made only by God, and morally by the spirit, as certain Saints are reported to have detained demons by their command: in which way also the angel Raphael is said to have bound the demon Asmodeus in the desert.

Note 1. Local motion is customarily distinguished as fourfold, namely Continuous, Discrete, Successive, and Instantaneous. That motion is called continuous in which the mobile leaves the term from which by parts and acquires the term to which. Discrete, on the contrary, is that motion in which the mobile leaves the whole of the term from which all at once, and immediately acquires the whole of the term to which all at once; yet so that it seems, as it were, to rest in its last being in the term from which before it immediately exists in the term to which through the first of its being in it. Successive is entirely the same as continuous, except perhaps they differ from each other in this, that continuous motion is called that whereby the mobile reaches its adequate place intended and proposed by the mover at the inception of the motion: while successive is that whereby the mobile sometimes does not reach the adequate place proposed, but subsists midway; whence it happens that every continuous motion is also successive, but not every successive motion should for this reason be called continuous. Finally, that motion is called instantaneous whereby the mobile leaves the term from which and acquires the term to which in the same moment; so that this rejection of one term and acquisition of the other coexists with only a single instant of our time. Hence it appears that continuous motion is directly opposed to discrete, and successive to instantaneous. We ask, therefore, whether angels are moved by this twofold, or rather fourfold, local motion.

Note 2. The divisibility of motion is to be drawn chiefly from three heads. First indeed on the part of the mobile, namely when it is extended and divisible, and has extended parts, such that one cannot be moved except after another, as is the motion of an animal. Second, on the part of the extended space having various parts, one of which cannot be traversed except after another, for example the air midway between heaven and earth. Third, on the part of temporal duration; for since time is the measure of motion according to prior and posterior, and therefore according to succession, what is measured must be divisible when the measure is divisible. Hence motion is to be called divisible as often as the mobile has distinct parts, or the space is so extended and disposed that one part ought not to be traversed before another is traversed; or while the motion lasts through some succession of time: but it is not necessary that these three concur together to constitute motion truly divisible, but it suffices that either one intervene in the motion itself. It is certain, however, that angelic motion cannot be said to be divisible on the part of the angel himself, since his substance is wholly indivisible: whether he obtains divisibility from the space that is traversed, or from the time during which it lasts, must be resolved here.

Note 3. Motion can be considered in two ways: first in general, and insofar as it embraces every passage from a term from which to a term to which; whether that passage supposes something mediating between the two terms or not. Second in particular, as it truly signifies not only every such passage, but also the medium between the two terms, which the mobile must pass through in order to pass from the term from which to the term to which. The former is called mutation rather than motion, and it embraces all those instantaneous mutations of generation and corruption, illumination and darkness, etc., which philosophers are accustomed to call motion, though using the word motion loosely and less properly. The latter, however, signifies only that tending of the mobile from the term from which to the term to which through the space mediating between both. There will be discussion here of both. For three things must be determined here: First, whether an angel can be moved per se with local motion that is continuous: Second, whether he can be moved with discrete motion: Third, whether he can pass in an instant from one place to another by true motion, or only by true mutation.

First conclusion. — An angel can be moved per se from place to place with continuous and successive motion. So the Doctor in Book II, dist. 2, q. 9, n. 8, where, after saying that an angel can move himself because he is not immense and unlimited as regards every where: therefore he can be changed from one where to another, he adds: and that continuously is evident: because between two wheres there are infinite intermediate wheres, which is proved from the continuous motion of a body through all those wheres: but through all those the angel can pass, such that he is in none of them except indivisibly, and consequently he cannot pass through all of them unless he be moved continuously.

By which words the Doctor affirms not only that an angel can be moved, but even that he can be moved continuously without any interruption for some time, say for a quarter of an hour, or an hour, or a day: which he certainly proves, because between two places, from one of which to the other an angel can be moved, so that he must necessarily leave the prior place before acquiring the later, there are either infinitely many places acquirable successively, on the hypothesis that infinite parts are given in the continuum, whether in act or in potency, as is commonly conceded; or at least very many intermediate places successively and continuously acquirable, otherwise a body could not be moved successively and continuously from one place to another: therefore the angel, moving himself from one place to another, can move himself successively and continuously through those intermediate places.

The Doctor confirms this argument from the fact that if an angel could not move himself continuously just as bodies do, especially since his substance is spiritual and indivisible: but this objection does not stand; for the rational soul is likewise a wholly indivisible substance, yet separated from the body it can be locally moved, and that with continuous motion. Whence he says: the most blessed soul of Christ is locally moved, because it descended into hell, as the article of faith says. It is also evident from Scripture that angels were sometimes sent with an assumed body, and if then they were moved with the body, it seems that there was then some passive motion on their part, or formally in the passive motion of the body itself, because they were not formally something of the body. Similarly, it is credible that they were often sent without a body, as was the one sent to Joseph doubting about the conception of blessed Mary.

Proof. An angel can successively leave some place and acquire another in the same manner without any interruption: therefore he can be moved from place to place continuously. The consequence is clear. The antecedent is proved: when an angel is in a lesser place than the one that is adequate to him, he can little by little and successively leave a part of it, so that he remains in a lesser one, and acquire a greater within the breadth of the adequate place: therefore he can also leave successively and by parts the whole place in which he is, transferring himself in the same manner to another total place. This consequence is clear, for no reason appears why the angel could not leave and acquire a total place in this manner just as a partial one. The antecedent is proved: the angel freely applies himself to a greater or lesser place within the breadth of the place adequate to him: therefore also, after he is in some lesser adequate place, he can either leave a part of it, not all at once but by parts, or extend himself to a greater place; for it cannot otherwise be understood how it is free for the angel, once he is in a place, either to contract himself to a lesser place or to extend himself to a greater within the breadth of his adequate place. Then, if it were repugnant for an angel to be moved with continuous and successive motion, especially because his substance is indivisible: yet the rational soul, although indivisible, can successively leave some part of that matter which it informs, namely when some part of the body successively corrupts and wastes away: similarly it can extend itself to informing a new part of the substance which is regenerated through continuous nutrition: therefore by equal reason the angel will be able, notwithstanding his indivisibility, either to leave a part of that adequate place in which he is, or to extend himself to other parts of the same place to be acquired successively.

It is confirmed. It is no more repugnant to the indivisibility of an angel to acquire an extended place successively than to be in an extended and indivisible place: but the latter is possible: therefore also the former.

Finally, an angel can pass from one place to another by passing through all the intermediate places, leaving none untraversed and resting in none of them: therefore he can be moved with continuous and successive motion. The consequence is clear, because he cannot be moved through all those intermediate wheres with no intervening rest except with continuous and successive motion. But the antecedent is proved, because a body can pass through all those media: therefore also an angel. The consequence is clear, because in this the minor shows less repugnance. Likewise, for the continuity and succession of motion the divisibility of space suffices: therefore it is not repugnant for the angel, even though he be indivisible, to be moved continuously. The consequence is obvious, especially since an angel can exist in a divisible place. But the antecedent is clear from the second Note.

You will say 1. The angel is indivisible according to substance: therefore he cannot be moved with continuous motion. The inference is proved, for continuous motion requires that the thing moved be partly in the term from which and partly in the term to which: because what is moved is not being moved when it is in the term from which, for then it rests, nor when it is in the term to which, because it has already been changed: therefore what is moved continuously must be partly in the term from which and partly in the term to which: but the angel is impartible: therefore he cannot be locally moved continuously.

It is confirmed. Because an indivisible place ought to correspond to an indivisible mobile: therefore if the angel passes continuously through some space, it will be necessary that by his transit he number the infinite indivisibles that are in the space, touching one after another, which nevertheless is impossible; since a multitude that can be passed through by counting has a terminus, and consequently is not infinite.

The Doctor answers in the place cited above, n. 36: When it is said that an angel cannot be moved, because he is indivisible, although it could easily be answered that the angel occupies a divisible place, and therefore is related to place as if he were divisible; or that he occupies a punctual place, and thus existing non-punctually he cannot be moved continuously so as always to have punctual being; nevertheless, because no reason seems to appear why an indivisible should be denied motion, even if it were an indivisible of quantity existing per se: therefore it can be conceded that an angel having a punctual where can be moved continuously, as ever existing in a point. From there he proves that an indivisible can be locally moved, even continuously, as is evident from the motion of a sphere and a cube over a perfectly plane surface: since, he says, the divisibility and succession of motion arises from the divisibility of the mobile or of the space, either of which suffices for the divisibility and succession of motion.

You will say 2. Continuous succession in motion arises from the resistance of the mobile to the mover, or of the medium through which the motion occurs to the mobile that is moved through it, or of the medium to the mover that moves through it: but succession in the motion of an angel can arise from none of these heads: therefore his motion cannot be successively continuous. The minor is proved, because not from the first head, inasmuch as the mobile here would be the angel, and the same angel is the mover when he moves himself: but the angel does not resist himself. Nor from the second or third head, because the medium through which angelic motion occurs does not resist the angel either as mover or as mobile, since the angel could move himself through the medium by penetrating it without any motion of the medium. It is confirmed. Because a body would not be moved successively through a vacuum, since such a medium does not resist it: but a plenum resists an angel no more than a vacuum would resist a body: therefore the angel cannot be moved successively through any medium, whether corporeal or empty.

— The Doctor denies the minor in the place cited, n. 10, where he distinguishes two successions in motion, one which belongs to it by reason of space, the other which is attributed to it from the resistance of the medium, which cannot easily be traversed, say on account of its thickness, whereby it does not easily yield to the mobile. The first is essential; the second accidental. The essential one belongs to motion by reason of space, whose parts, since they are not together, also cannot be traversed and gone through together; wherefore it is necessary that any mobile whatsoever pass through them successively, running through one after another: thus the angel descending from Heaven to earth must necessarily traverse the air, the medium, successively. But the accidental succession, which arises either from the resistance of the medium, or from a greater or lesser impediment on the part of the mobile itself in overcoming it, cannot have place in an angel; since neither can the medium resist him, nor can there be in it any impediment by reason of which he would acquire the term more quickly or more slowly. From there the Doctor concludes in n. 13 that successive motion can occur in a vacuum, speaking of essential succession, since that motion would correspond to the parts of the filled place; it would not, however, be accidentally successive, since it would have neither greater nor lesser velocity. For altogether, says the Doctor, the mobile in a vacuum would have no superadded velocity or slowness, such as it would have in a plenum; evidently by reason of the space yielding more easily or more difficultly to the mobile.

You will say 3. If the angel were moved continuously, it would follow that the inferior angel would be moved with equal velocity to the superior angel, even though each would exert all his locomotive power: but the consequent seems absurd: therefore also that from which it follows. The minor is plain, for the greater power an agent has, other things equal, the more excellent an effect it ought to produce: since, therefore, the superior angel excels in a more excellent nature, and therefore a more vigorous locomotive faculty, than the inferior, it is evident that if each exerts all his locomotive power of moving, the superior ought to run through the space with quicker and more prompt motion and obtain the term to which. Therefore the inference of the major is proved: if the superior angel moves himself with continuous and successive motion, he must spend some span of time in perfecting that motion; but however brief that span of time might be, in an equal span the inferior angel could descend from Heaven to earth with the same velocity. Since indeed he undergoes no resistance on the part of the space by which he could be somewhat retarded in his motion: therefore, etc.

— I answer 1. by denying the major: since, as was said just now, the succession of the angel's motion is to be sought not only from the resistant space, but also from that space inasmuch as it is divisible, and has parts not posited together but extended, one of which ought to be traversed after another.

I answer 2. The minor can be denied; for although one angel exceeds another in locomotive power, it still need not be inferred that he must be moved more quickly than the other; for the motive power of the superior angel could exceed the power of the inferior in many other respects, say that he could move a greater body, or agitate one equal to a greater with greater velocity, nay, could hold the inferior angel himself in place against his will and resisting, and impede him from being moved: just as, e.g., it does not follow that, although some luminous body exceeds another in illuminative power, it can illuminate more quickly or faster; nay, this seems impossible, since each illuminates in an instant. It suffices, therefore, for that diversity that the more excellent luminous body diffuse a greater light, and to a greater distance.

Second conclusion. — An angel cannot be naturally moved with discrete motion. This is the Doctor's teaching in Book II, dist. 2, q. 11, against St. Thomas and several of his followers.

Proof. To be moved with discrete motion is to leave the whole of the term from which through one's ultimate being, and immediately afterward to acquire the term to which without any succession: but the angel cannot do this by the powers of nature: therefore he cannot be moved with discrete motion. The major is admitted by the adversaries. But the minor is proved: two immediate indivisible instants cannot be given, otherwise it would follow that something composed of indivisibles is given: but in discrete motion it would be necessary that two immediate instants exist; for there would have to be given an ultimate instant in which the angel is in the term from which, and a first instant in which he becomes present to the term to which: but the ultimate instant in which the angel is in the term from which, and the first instant in which he exists in the term to which, must necessarily be two distinct instants: therefore it must be confessed that in that discrete motion two immediate instants must necessarily be admitted. The minor is clear, for those instants are intrinsically conformed to the opposite terms, namely the term from which and to which: therefore equally they ought to be opposite and distinct.

The Thomists reply that although in our time two instants cannot succeed each other immediately, yet they well can in discrete and angelic time, whereby discrete motion and the free operations of the angel are measured; for, they say, that time is nothing else than a number of indivisible durations, or instants.

— On the contrary. To each of those instants of discrete time corresponds something of our time; for whatever duration each of them has is determined also with respect and order to our time, since God knows determinately and distinctly how great would be the duration of that discrete motion: but in our time only divisible parts are found, or indivisible instants continuing the divisible parts of time; but whatever instant of angelic motion can be compared either with a past or with a future part of our time: therefore it is necessary that to each of those two instants of discrete time there correspond in our time either a single instant, or that to the first instant of discrete time there correspond the prior part of our time together with the terminating instant thereof, and that to the second there correspond the subsequent part of time together with its initiating instant; for the same instant in our time terminates the prior part and initiates the posterior; or at least it follows that to one there corresponds only an instant of our time, and to the other a part of the same time: but both are absurd. The first, indeed, for it would follow that those two instants of our time are immediate to each other; for if some time intervened between them, it could not be verified that the second instant of discrete motion is the first non-being of the angel in the term from which, since in that intermediate time it would previously have been truer to say: The angel is not in the term from which. Add that it would follow that the angel does not immediately pass from one term to the other, as the adversaries wish: for it would be necessary that in that intermediate time, before he reached the term to which, he be in some middle place between the two terms, and consequently, leaving the term from which through his ultimate non-being, he would not acquire the term to which through the first of his being in it. Nor can the second be said, otherwise it would follow that there is not given either a first being of the angel in the term to which, or an ultimate being of the same in the term from which, because neither a first nor a last part of time is given.

They reply 2. It does not seem unfitting that the inception or cessation of something indivisible occur in time, when it is not in it per se, and as by its proper measure, but only per accidens, and according to a certain coexistence: for the nature of the duration of anything is not to be judged by order to whatever other duration with which it coexists, but by order to that which has the character of measure with respect to it: and thus the existence of the angel in the term from which would be said to cease indivisibly and through his ultimate being, and in the term to which to begin through the first of his being, because what so ceases and begins by order to its proper measure, that is, to discrete time, although it begins or ceases by coexisting with a divisible part of our time, no less begins or ceases indivisibly. Just as the substantial being of the angel no less begins or ceases indivisibly than his existence in a place, and yet it is not repugnant that its first or ultimate being coexist with our time; otherwise one angel could not be created immediately after another with respect to our time; because if the creation of the first angel coexists with an instant of our time, it will be necessary that the creation of the second coexist with time, seeing that in our time two immediate instants are not given.

— On the contrary. It is repugnant that the acquisition of the term to which coexist with time having parts, and occur all at once and indivisibly; for either that acquisition in fieri coexists secundum se whole with the whole time, and according to its various parts with distinct parts of time, such that only one of its parts corresponds to one part of time and another to another: or the whole coexists at once with the whole time, and the whole with each single part: but neither can be said. Not the first, otherwise it would follow that that acquisition did not occur all at once, but successively and by parts, which the adversaries deny in discrete motion. Nor even the second; even if in each part of that time there is the whole acquisition, it follows that it occurs infinitely many times, because in any time there are infinitely many aliquot parts. Add that two halves of time cannot exist together; but upon the advent of the second the first recedes, and the same must be said of the other parts: therefore that acquisition of the term cannot coexist at once with any whole time.

The conclusion is proved secondly. Local motion is essentially an intermediate passage between two terms: but if the angel simultaneously abandons the term from which, and simultaneously also acquires the whole term to which, some passage cannot mediate between those two terms: therefore neither in that way can local motion occur from one to the other. The major stands: for every motion, especially local, is a way, or tending, from one term to another.

The Thomists reply. The very cessation of one term and acquisition of the other has the character of way and tending; for the succession, they say, and the relation of one term to the other has the character of some medium.

— On the contrary. The rejection of one term and the acquisition of the other are not outside the terms themselves: therefore neither can have the character of a medium, or passage. The antecedent is clear; for either that rejection and acquisition are both at once in the term to which, or one occurs in the term from which and the other in the term to which; because since that rejection and acquisition of the term is an operation of the angel, or presupposes an operation, it must be found in one or other extremity at once, or the rejection in one and the acquisition in the other. The consequence also is evident; for a passage is something mediating between terms; but the medium is distinguished equally from both extremes, since it does not hold to one side any more than to the other.

The Thomists reply 2, that existence in the term from which can be taken in two ways, namely either secundum se and absolutely, or as bearing the order of a certain potentiality to existence in the term to which immediately succeeding it. If it is taken in the first way, it is true that the angel, while he is in the term from which, is not moved: but if it is taken in the second way, it is false; because according to this account he is the terminus of discrete succession, in which discrete motion consists; and this suffices for existence so taken to be called inchoative succession and motion. Similarly, existence in the term to which can be taken in two ways, namely absolutely, or as bearing the order of actualizing and terminating the potentiality which existence in the term from which imports: taken in the first way it is not called motion; yet taken in the second way it is called motion terminatively. But the reason why each of these existences, as bearing order to the other, can be called discrete motion, is taken from the proper nature of this motion; for discrete motion is nothing else than a number of diverse operations, by reason of which the angel is successively in diverse places: whence as number is composed of units, considered indeed not absolutely, but one in relation to another; so also discrete motion is composed of diverse operations, not taken absolutely, but as one bears order to another.

— On the contrary. Whether the existence of the angel in the term from which is taken absolutely and secundum se, or respectively and by order to the term to which, it is always true that the angel really is in the term from which, and not in the term to which, nor in the middle: therefore equally it is true that he is really not moved; for real motion is a tending from the term from which to the term to which, such that the one is abandoned and the other acquired: but as long as the angel really is in the term from which, he does not abandon it unless he cast off some part of it, and consequently he cannot be said to be moved. Then, that relation and ordainability of the angel to the term to which can by no means be called motion formally: therefore neither by reason of that can the angel be said formally to be moved. The antecedent is proved: that cannot be called motion formally which can subsist with rest: yet the angel, even resting in the term from which for an hour, not only in the last instant of that hour but in every moment of it, can have that relation and ordainability to the term to which; for he has that ordainability from the moment when he voluntarily determined and ordered himself to that place to be acquired: but in the first instant of that hour in which he exists in the term from which he can determine and ordain the acquisition of the term to which; and therefore be ordained to it; and consequently that ordainability can subsist with the rest of the angel, and forthwith cannot be called true motion. Finally, all Thomists confess that every motion, whether discrete or continuous, can occur in a true and real instant; but that discrete motion would have to occur in an instant, since between the rejection of the term from which and the acquisition of the term to which no true time is supposed, nor an intervening instant: therefore their reply is invalid and a pure evasion.

It is proved thirdly. It belongs to the character of local motion that it be one: but the motion in which the angel is so disposed that through his ultimate being he simultaneously abandons the whole term from which, and immediately through his first being acquires the whole term to which all at once, is not one, but an aggregate of many instantaneous mutations: therefore, etc.

The minor is proved. Motion interrupted by rest is not one: but this motion would be interrupted by some rest: therefore it would not be one.

The minor is proved. An angel cannot be in one term by a single instant alone without being in another for a time, since time necessarily follows upon an instant, given that, as we said, two instants of time cannot be immediately successive to one another: therefore an angel moving himself must of necessity remain for some time in the term from which, or to which, and then presently come to rest in one or the other.

Finally, the Conclusion is proved by the Doctor's argument whereby he solves the principal foundation of the adversaries, namely: that he who is at rest throughout some whole time cannot be otherwise disposed in the last instant of that time, but must also necessarily be at rest in it. This foundation, I say, the Doctor attacks thus: if that were true, it would follow that the bread which was under the Eucharistic species in a state of rest throughout the whole time of the pronouncing of the words of consecration would be under them in the last instant of the pronouncing of the words, which is false, inasmuch as in that instant transubstantiation takes place, and the Body of Christ is under those species, while bread no longer exists in the nature of things. Next it would follow that the air, which was in a state of rest under darkness throughout the whole time before the instant in which it is illuminated, would also be under darkness in that instant, and thus either darkness and illumination would be simultaneous, which implies a contradiction, or certainly illumination would not take place in an instant. Nor does it matter that the Sun is applied by local motion to the darkened air which it illuminates, and that illumination takes place in the instant terminating that local motion: both because, if the Sun were created in an instant, and the air preexisted under darkness up to that instant, certainly illumination would still take place in that instant. Add that although illumination does not in fact take place except in the instant terminating the motion, from this it does not follow that it does not take place in that instant: therefore either darkness is not in that instant, or darkness and illumination exist simultaneously. —

• Caïetan tries to refute this argument of the Doctor. First, to the example of Eucharistic transubstantiation he answers in two ways: in one way, that it is miraculous, and from divine power: in the other, that there is no opposed state of rest there. But, says our Macedo, whether that rest be proper or not, certainly an instantaneous change succeeds to it, just as an instantaneous change of an angel succeeds to a preceding state of rest, whatever it may be. To the second, concerning illumination, he answers that when it is made anew it is not per se first the terminus of local motion, but per se second according to the course of nature. Which solution does not contain the point: for what is per se first or second? It is enough that illumination take place after the rest of the darkness of the air, and that it take place in an instant, so as to convict the change of an angel, which takes place in the instant of its preceding local rest.

He attacks the Doctor secondly: * If the foundation of St. Thomas were true, it would follow that an angel would never be moved locally, neither in continuous nor in discrete time: but the consequence the Adversaries do not admit: therefore they ought not admit that from which it follows. The sequel of the major is proved: on the hypothesis, e.g., that an angel has been at rest for an hour of our time in one place, according to the adversaries he should also necessarily have been at rest in the last terminating instant of that hour in the same place. This supposed, I ask, when the adversaries say that he can move himself in an instant of discrete time to another place, does that instant of discrete time coexist with an instant of our time, or with some part of it? If with a part: then that angelic motion takes place in our continuous time, and has no instant in which it could begin. If in an instant: then either that instant will be immediate to the terminating instant of the rest, and thus two instants would follow immediately upon one another, which is here also supposed by the adversaries to be false, because otherwise our time would be composed of indivisibles, and consequently would not be continuous but discrete. If mediated: then between that mediated instant and the terminating instant of the rest there intervenes a time in which the angel is still at rest; but if he is at rest in that time, he must be at rest in the terminating instant of that time according to the adversaries: but that terminating instant is that same mediated instant in which he is said to be moved: therefore he could not be moved in that instant, because otherwise he would be moved and at rest in the same instant.

The adversaries object: To be moved with discrete motion is to abandon by one ultimate act of being some whole place, and immediately after to acquire another whole place simultaneously, and not part by part: but an angel can do this: therefore he can also be moved with discrete motion. The major stands, for by this indeed discrete motion differs from continuous, that in continuous motion the mobile abandons the term from which part by part, and acquires the term to which part by part: in discrete motion, on the contrary. The minor is proved: An angel is indivisible, and consequently is not commensurated with the place in which he exists; therefore he can by one ultimate act of being abandon some whole place, and immediately after acquire another whole place simultaneously. The consequence is proved: first, because by this very fact that an angel is not commensurated with a place, he need not be in it according to its exigency, and consequently need not be moved continuously in that place, even though it be continuous. Secondly, because from the extension alone of the mobile it comes about that it cannot acquire the whole term to which simultaneously: but an angel, by this very fact that he is indivisible, lacks extension. Thirdly, because the rational soul, by the very fact that it is indivisible, actualizes in a moment the whole divisible body, and in an instant abandons the whole simultaneously: why then could not an angel abandon some whole place simultaneously and at once, and immediately after acquire another similarly whole simultaneously? So Gonetius.

— I deny the minor. And to its proof I distinguish the consequent: That an angel can thus abandon some whole place, and immediately after acquire another whole simultaneously by an abandonment and acquisition which is true local motion, I deny: that which is only a change, I concede: for, as will appear in the following Conclusion, an angel can in an instant, at least by divine power, pass from the term from which to the term to which, not by true local motion, but by simple change. But our discourse here concerns true local motion.

To the first proof of that consequent I say, that it is not necessary that an angel be commensurated with a place in order to be said to be moved continuously in it, but that it suffices that he can present himself to one part of that place, then to another, and again to another.

To the second proof, I deny that therefore the mobile cannot acquire the whole term to which simultaneously because it is extended; for, as we observed in the second Notable, the divisibility of motion must be drawn not only from the extension of the mobile, but also from the side of time, or space.

To the third proof, I deny the parity. For the soul informs the whole body not by motion, but by a kind of instantaneous infall, and therefore that example of the instantaneous informing, or abandonment, of the body is beside the point, since here the discourse concerns not every change whatever, but the change of local motion.

They object 2. Therefore a body cannot be moved with discrete motion, but with continuous alone, because since it is extended, and consequently has parts corresponding to the parts of the place, it cannot abandon some whole place simultaneously; but it is necessary that its last part depart first from the last part of the place in which it is, and enter into another place before the first part: but an angel lacks extension: therefore he can be moved with discrete motion.

— I deny the major. For not by this reason alone can a body not be moved with discrete motion, but also because it must traverse the divisible space mediating between the term from which and the term to which: since, as we said just now, the divisibility of motion must be sought from a threefold source, namely from the side of the extended mobile, of the intervening medium, and of the divisible terms from which and to which. Hence although angelic motion may not have the primary reason of divisibility and succession, it suffices that it can be called divisible by reason of the divisibility of space and terms.

From these the Doctor gathers, that recourse need not be had to another time for measuring the local motion of an angel, whether that by which he moves himself locally continuously and successively, or that by which he moves himself instantaneously and not successively; but that an angel can altogether move himself successively according to our time no less than a body, and can also move himself instantaneously according to an instant of our time.

He proves the first part; because nothing can be saved by discrete time that cannot be saved by continuous time: for by discrete time nothing else can be saved than that an angel can be moved from place to place either indivisibly and without succession, or divisibly and with succession: but he can do both of these in our time, comprehending under time the instants themselves, which I suppose to be included in it: therefore, etc.

The major is proved as to the first part, because if he is moved indivisibly without succession, that motion can take place in an instant, as is evident.

He proves the same major as to the second part concerning divisible motion; because if he is moved divisibly and successively, either those parts of the motion are all divisible and not continuous, but discrete succeeding one another, and then they can all be successive and discrete according to the instants of our time, and those which are divisible can be according to divisible parts of our time; or all are divisible, but discrete, and then also they can be according to diverse parts of our time discrete from one another, namely so that one be taken for a quadrant, and then cessation be made, and another for another quadrant after cessation: therefore although the very existence of an angel be measured by aevum, nevertheless where he and his motion ought not necessarily to be so measured by it, they can be measured by our time, just as what is corporeal and its motion can be.

He proves the second part; because if he is moved through several wheres continuously without any intermission, as a body is moved, since upon the arrival of the later where the earlier ceases, certainly he will be moved in time just as well as a body; and if he is moved to one place without succession, so that he is not present to one part before another, he will certainly be moved in an instant of our time to that place.

Third conclusion. — An angel cannot in an instant be moved from one place to another with motion properly so called: nevertheless he can in an instant pass from one place to another by a simple change of place. This is common to the Subtle and Angelic Doctor and their followers, for the Doctor says in the cited place number 6.

I say that change can be understood in two ways, and a twofold change can be spoken of, one including the whole reality of motion, another including precisely the reality of the terminus of motion. An example of this is that this thing is changed from a where, up to B where. "Where" can be understood in two ways: either that it has simultaneously all the intermediate wheres, as it would have if it were precisely moved successively, or that by that change it would precisely have the last where, as it would have if that change were the last terminus of motion. In the first way, objecting against the second opinion, I do not see how an angel can be changed or moved in an instant by natural power, because it does not seem that by his natural power he can have several equal wheres. In the second way, it does not seem inconvenient that he could be changed in an instant, because that the terminus of motion is not induced at once is from the imperfection of the power of the mover itself, which imperfection is not to be attributed to an angel unless some necessity appears, because nature is to be dignified as much as appearance permits.

• But St. Thomas, 1st part q. 53. a. 3.; and on 1. dist. 57. q. 4. a. 1., expressly proves that the motion of an angel must take place in time, either continuous or discrete.

It remains that the motion of an angel be in time: in continuous time indeed if his motion be continuous: but in non-continuous, if his motion be non-continuous. For in either way it happens that the motion of an angel exists, as was said. For the continuity of time is from the continuation of motion, as is said in 4. Physics. But this time, whether > it be continuous time or not, is not the same time that measures the motion of the heaven, and by which all corporal things are measured, which have mutability from the motion of the heaven, for the motion of an angel does not depend on the motion of the heaven.

But that an angel cannot be moved in an instant with motion properly so called is proved: if he were so moved, it would be necessary that in an instant he have several adequate wheres: but this cannot come to pass by the powers of nature: therefore neither to be moved in an instant. The sequel of the major is proved: if an angel were moved successively for an hour from this hall, which would be his adequate place, to the adjoining hall, in every instant of that hour he would have a place adequate to himself. For in the prior instant he would be as in an adequate place in part of this hall and in part of the other hall; but in the posterior instant he would be in another part of this, and in another also of the other hall, and thus little by little and successively he would change his adequate place, leaving part after part of the prior adequate place, and acquiring part after part of the posterior adequate place, until finally he arrived at occupying the whole second hall, occupying no longer any part of this hall: therefore, etc. — Further, that which by its essence is successive cannot be in an instant: but motion by its intrinsic and essential reason is successive: therefore it implies being in an instant: the consequence is evident together with the minor proved above. But the major is proved, because everything successive has part after part succeeding one another and incompossible with one another, and therefore cannot be in an instant, because then they would be simultaneous. Finally, where there is intrinsically a prior and posterior, there is intrinsic succession: but in the motion of an angel there is intrinsically a prior and posterior: therefore also intrinsic succession. The minor is proved: motion is the tending of a mobile from the term from which to the term to which through the space mediating between both: but in this tending there is a prior and posterior, since in abandoning the term from which the mobile must first be in the medium than in the term to which: therefore, etc.

The second part is also evident, namely that an angel can change his adequate place in an instant: first, because from this it does not follow that he be simultaneously and at once in two adequate places, since that sudden change would take place by the angel's first not being in the term from which, and first being in the term to which, which, as is evident, does not import being in two places, but only being in one and not being in the other. Further, if anything hindered this instantaneous change, especially because the term to which, which is at a distance from the term from which, has divisible parts: yet this does not stand in the way, since in an instant the rational soul informs the whole body, and light is spread through the whole air by sudden diffusion. Finally, if an angel were created outside the world, doubtless he could in an instant occupy the whole adequate place in the world: therefore the same can come to pass while he already occupies a place.

You will say 1. Against the first part; the motion by which an angel is moved from place to place through intervening spaces can altogether and beyond all proportion exceed the motion by which a body traverses that space; but this excess could not be unless the angel were moved in an instant: therefore, etc.

— I deny the minor. For in order that angelic motion exceed in swiftness the motion of any body whatsoever, it is not necessary that it be moved in an instant; but it suffices that it can take place in a smaller and smaller divisible duration than the motion of any body whatsoever can be: and since time is divisible to infinity, the consequence is that an angel will always be able to be moved with greater and greater velocity than any bodies whatsoever.

You will say 2. An angel, since he is altogether spiritual, is far more subtle and swift than corporeal light: but corporeal light in an instant pervades every space of the air: therefore much more easily will an angel be able to pervade it.

— I distinguish the minor. That corporeal light pervades the whole air in an instant by true motion, I deny: that by simple diffusion, and by a change which is the terminus of motion, I concede. But an angel passing from one place to another, since he is truly moved, not in an instant but successively, can pervade the air.

You will say 3. The local motion of an angel is nothing other than the acquisition of a place: but, as we proved in the second part of this Conclusion, an angel can acquire a place in an instant: therefore he will also be able to be moved locally in an instant.

— I deny the major. For, as we said, that simple acquisition of place is only a change, not truly local motion, which in order to be properly so called must be a passage from the term from which to the term to which; for if an angel were produced outside the world, he could acquire a place in the world, yet for all that he would not be said to be thus moved locally.

• Moreover, that sacred Scripture may declare the swiftness of angelic motion, when it attributes bodies to those spirits in which they appeared, it also feigns wings for them. Thus Daniel, Ezekiel, and Isaias saw them flying toward them. Wherefore Moses willed the Cherubim over the ark to be represented with expanded wings, not only to signify the loftiness of their nature, and the sublimity of the place which they inhabit, as St. Chrysostom thought in the homily De incomprehensibili natura, but especially, as St. Jerome adds on chapter 6 of Isaias, to designate their swiftness. Wings, he says, they are said to have, on account of their speed and their swift course into all things: or because they always dwell in higher things. Namely just as wings are attributed to winds to denote their swiftness, whence God too is said in Psalm 17. and 103. to fly and walk upon the wings of the winds. By the poets likewise winged beings are feigned, as appears from Ovid, Silius, Juvenal; also Calais and Zethus, sons of Boreas, winged according to Apollodorus. Wherefore I do not doubt that the angels being described as winged pertains chiefly to indicating swiftness: and because neither have the evil angels lost it, these too are said to be winged. Whence the Talmudists on Anoth cap. 36: Three things demons have in common with angels; that they are winged, that they foreknow future things, and that from one extremity of the world to the other they transfer themselves most swiftly.

Note 1. Just as the Philosophers distinguish two kinds of parts in continuous quantity, namely commensurate or proportional parts and non-commensurate or aliquot parts: so likewise the medium, or intervening space, between the term from which and the term to which in local motion can be distinguished as twofold, namely communicating with both extremes and not communicating with them; for example, if an angel existing in the first palm of a body three palms long wishes to pass to the third palm, the non-communicating medium will be the second palm, because it has its own extension distinct from the other two palms and participates in nothing of the extremes; yet it could be a communicating medium if something were taken from the first palm and something from the second, or something from the second and something from the third: but these communicating media are infinite in potency, since after some indeterminate part of the first palm another palm can be measured out that participates partly in the first and partly in the second; and since the points and proportional parts are seen to be infinite in potency, even the communicating media can be said to be infinite in potency.

Note 2. That angels can change place in several ways, positively, privatively, and mixedly: positively, by acquiring a new presence while not losing the prior one, as when an angel existing in a point, or in a smaller adequate space, extends himself to a larger space while retaining the former: privatively, when conversely he contracts himself to a smaller space, or to an indivisible, acquiring nothing new: mixedly, when he abandons the prior space either wholly or in part, and acquires another wholly or partially different; then indeed he acquires his presence in part and loses it in part — namely he acquires a new one and loses the old, and this either totally, when he enters into a place entirely different, or in a certain respect (secundum quid), when the place is not entirely different but the same in a certain respect. Furthermore, when a new and totally different place is acquired, either it is remote and distant from the prior one, or it is not distant but immediately continuous or contiguous, yet larger than the angel could occupy all at once. Both cases are inquired into here: whether he can pass from one to the other immediately, and without truly being in the medium between the two terms, from which and to which, through any instant.

Note 3. Here the question is raised not only about motion that is outside the sphere of angelic activity, but also about that which is within the sphere of his activity; suppose, for instance, that the sphere of an angel's activity and his adequate place is a single hall: it is asked whether he can move himself from one part of it to the other extreme without being moved through the medium that lies between those two parts. Likewise, on the hypothesis that there are two other adjacent halls outside the angel's adequate place and the sphere of his natural activity: whether he can transfer himself into the third without passing through the intervening middle one.

First conclusion. — An angel cannot pass from one adequate place to another distant place without passing through the medium, if that medium is communicating; but he will be able to pass thus with instantaneous motion if the medium does not communicate with the intermediate parts. This is the Doctor's teaching in 2 dist. 2. q. 12., where, having set forth this question, he answers at number 3: It seems probable that he cannot, because the order fixed by a superior agent seems necessary for every inferior agent, when it has its action precisely about such ordered things.

The first part is proved by the same reasoning of the Doctor, which is explained at the same time: the order fixed by a superior agent must necessarily be observed by any inferior whatsoever, nor can an inferior cause invert the order prescribed to it by the superior cause: but there is an order fixed by God that no creature can pass from place to a distant place without such a medium having been traversed. The major is evident; since every creature depends on the Creator not only in respect of entity and operation, but also in respect of the mode of its operation and activity, it must act according to the prescribed order. The Doctor proves the minor, first indeed by experience, whereby it is established that since, he says, the order of natural forms succeeding one another in natural generation is determined by him who instituted nature, the same is necessary with respect to any natural agent whatever. Hence no inferior cause can produce the sensitive soul in an organic body unless the vegetative has preceded it, nor can the rational soul exercise its operations in the same body unless the vegetative and sensitive operations have preceded; nor does the soul informing a body pass on to inform one distant part of the body without first informing the intermediate parts by which the distant part is continuous with the part previously informed. Nor, says the Doctor following Aristotle, 8 Metaphysics, can a natural agent make vinegar from wine immediately, because between wine and vinegar there naturally lies a certain other substantial form: therefore, etc.

The Doctor proves the second part.

*But if we speak of indivisible motion, he says, I say that in such motion he can pass through from extreme to immediate extreme without passing through a medium that is something of each extreme; nay, this is necessary, because if he passed through such a medium, he would pass continuously, and not instantaneously.

Hence, when further objection is raised against him below, that if the angel cannot pass from place to place without passing through a non-communicating medium, neither can he pass through a communicating medium, he answers that this inference is false;

Because, he says, in passing through from one where immediately to another where in an instant, he has all these wheres in a certain order of nature, among which there is a potential order ex natura rei; but he need not have them in an order of duration; whereas if he passed from what is distant to what is distant without order of any kind, then he would have them neither in the order of nature nor of duration, things among which there is a natural order, about which nevertheless he operates, presupposing their order as necessary.

Moreover the truth of this Conclusion is evident; for while the angel passes instantaneously from place to a contiguous or continuous place, if he were in an intermediate place participating in both places, either he would not be moved in an instant to the neighboring place, which is against the hypothesis, or he would be simultaneously in two adequate places, which naturally implies a contradiction. Proof: for when he is moved from this hall in an instant to another neighboring one, he must be in that neighboring hall: therefore either he is simultaneously in the intermediate participating place, made up of the middle part of the prior place and the middle part of the posterior place, or he is not. If he is not: therefore he has not passed through all the intermediate communicating places; if he is: therefore he is simultaneously in the whole neighboring hall and in the middle part of this hall, and so he is in two adequate places, or at least in a place larger than his adequate place, because the neighboring hall, as is supposed, and the middle part of this hall is a place larger than the neighboring hall alone: therefore he would be in a place larger than his adequate one.

— But the disparity that the Doctor adduces, why an angel can pass from place to place without passing through a communicating medium, yet cannot so pass without passing through a non-communicating medium, consists in this, says Pontius on this passage: that when he passes from place to an immediate place in an instant, there is no part of the communicating medium to which he was not present, whether by priority of time or by priority of nature, before he was present to the whole immediate place, although he was not present to some parts of the medium earlier in time. This is clearly evident, supposing the angel to occupy this hall as his adequate place, and thence to pass in an instant to a wholly contiguous or continuous hall: in this case, the communicating media are the parts interposed between the two halls; for example, if this hall is four palms long and the second the same, one communicating medium is the three posterior palms of this hall together with the first of the neighboring hall, another communicating medium is the two posterior palms of this hall together with the two anterior ones of the neighboring hall, and so on for the rest. Now when the angel passes from this hall to the neighboring one, during the time he was in this hall he occupied all the palms and parts of this hall, and this earlier in time than he instantaneously occupied the neighboring hall; and when in an instant he placed himself in the neighboring hall, he simultaneously occupied all its palms and parts: whence it is evident that in this case there would be no part of the medium between the two places to which the angel was not at some time present; and indeed he was present to the parts of this hall earlier in time; but to the anterior and nearer parts of the neighboring hall he was present before the posterior ones, or before the whole place, yet not in time, since he occupied all of them in an instant, but only in nature, namely because unless he were present to those parts he could not be present to other, posterior parts; yet he could well be present to those anterior parts without being present to the posterior ones. Hence this consequence holds: he is present to the posterior parts: therefore he is or was present to the anterior ones too; but this one does not hold: he is or was present to the anterior parts: therefore he is or was present to the posterior ones. And consequently, since that is said to be prior in nature from which the sequence of subsisting is not converted: the presence of the angel to the anterior parts of the neighboring hall is prior in nature than to the posterior parts, and thus the angel himself is prior in nature present to the anterior parts than to the posterior ones, which cannot be doubted. But so it is that the order necessarily to be observed from the nature of created things in mutation is not that every thing must first, in time, be in the medium before being in the extreme place toward which the motion is directed; but rather in time or in nature. Whence it follows manifestly that even if the angel moved himself instantaneously from place to place, not passing through the whole medium first in time, he would still observe the order of nature, because he would be in every part of the medium first in time or in nature. But if he moved himself from place to a distant place without traversing a non-communicating medium, as from this hall to a third hall leaving out the second, he would invert that order, because he would have been in the intermediate second hall neither prior in nature nor prior in time than in the third. Such is Pontius's account.

Here however take note, that by instantaneous motion the Doctor does not understand a passing from place to place that is truly motion properly so called, since, as was proved above, motion properly so called cannot occur in an instant; but he merely calls that passing instantaneous which is a simple change of place, namely abandoning the term from which and acquiring the term to which, which we proved in the preceding Question can occur in an instant.

You will object against the first part: The angel is in a place by his substance with subordination to the command of his will: but he can will to be in a distant place without willing to be in the medium: therefore it is not necessary, in order that he pass from one place to another, that he be moved through a medium.

— The Doctor distinguishes the minor, number 4, speaking of angels in that state in which they are now constituted: that a bad angel can will inordinately to be in a distant place without willing to pass through the medium, from which volition no effect would follow, since it plainly exceeds his natural power, nor could he obtain it except by God acting extraordinarily — he concedes; that a good angel could will in an orderly way to be in a distant place without willing to pass through the medium as if by his own power he could attain it — he denies; for in that case in which a good angel wished to pass from place to place without traversing the medium, God, granting his wishes and acting extraordinarily, would so move him from place to place without moving him through the medium; but this would come about by supernatural power, of which we are not here speaking.

Otherwise I distinguish the minor. That the angel can will to be in a remote place with a volition by which it suffices that he be in such a place, or through which he can naturally obtain the remote and distant place — I deny; with an ineffectual volition that does not obtain what is desired — that he pass, I concede: and so just as we are moved from place to place through the command of the will, and yet cannot always obtain the place desired according to our will, but only when we truly apply ourselves to reaching the place: so although the angels move themselves locally with dependence on the command of their will, they still cannot obtain the place desired unless they apply themselves in the due manner to attaining it: but this due application cannot occur except with an ordering toward running through the medium before the place to be reached.

You will say 2. The adorable Body of Christ the Lord passes from heaven to the altar without the medium having been traversed: therefore the angel too can pass thus.

— The Doctor distinguishes the antecedent: That the Body of Christ becomes thus present on the altar by an extraordinary and supernatural power, which need not conform itself to the natures of things nor be measured according to their power — he concedes: Because, he says, it is above that order, foreshadowing it and not having it as prefixed. That it becomes present by natural power — he denies. Here, however, the speech is about the natural power of the angel, which, since it is limited and determined in every way, cannot alter the order established and fixed by God for things, and therefore cannot reach from the term from which to the distant term to which without transit through a medium.

You will say 3. The motion of an angel is like our thought, and also like the motions of the bodies of the Blessed: but our thought can pass from heaven to earth without a medium: for our intellect thinking of heaven can straightaway direct its thought to earth without thinking at all of the intervening air. Similarly the bodies of the Blessed (says the Author of the book De Cognitione verae vitae, cap. 25., cited by S. Augustine in Tome 9.) can be transferred from East to West as quickly as our thought can, which certainly can do this in an instant and without transit through a medium: therefore much more can the angels be moved thus.

— I deny the major. For there is a great difference between the motion of thought and local motion: both because thought does not require a real and substantial presence of the thinker to the object, but only a metaphorical and intentional one, whereas local presence to space does; and also because the intermediate space is not a medium of cognition, and hence the intellect need not think of that medium when it casts its thought from one extreme in order to think of the other; but it is otherwise with local motion, which must necessarily come about through the intermediate space between the two distant terms. As to what the praised Author says about the bodies of the Blessed, I can reply that it should be understood thus: namely that those blessed bodies are transferred as quickly as our thoughts because of their most swift motive force and their marvelous gift of agility.

Second conclusion. — By instantaneous mutation an angel can be transferred from one adequate place into another adequate place that is continuous and congruent with the prior one; and likewise can abandon part of his adequate place and restrict his presence to the smallest part of that same place. This Conclusion has two parts, of which

The first is proved. No lesser power is to be conceded to the angel than to the rational soul and to a luminous body: but the rational soul is simultaneously infused into the whole organic body in the instant of animation, and likewise into every part regenerated through nutrition. Similarly light from the Sun or from fire is diffused in an instant through the contiguous and continuous air: therefore similarly the angel by instantaneous mutation will be able to pass from one place to another contiguous one. Further, if the angel could not accomplish this, especially because succession is necessarily required in the abandonment of the term from which and the acquisition of the term to which — but this is false. Proof: because no succession is required on the part of the medium, since none is supposed to exist; nor on the part of the term to which, or of the presence that is acquired, because what can be simultaneously possessed can also be simultaneously acquired if nothing else stands in the way, and there is no contrary standing in the way of and impeding this acquisition, as heat, for example, is produced successively on account of opposing cold; nor on the part of the term from which, since the angel abandons it by the very first moment of his not being in it, as was said in the preceding Question: therefore nothing makes succession necessary, and consequently that mutation can occur instantaneously.

You will say. The term that the angel acquires is extended, and therefore has parts nearer, others middle, others more remote: but the nearer parts are acquirable before the middle ones, and these before the more remote ones: therefore the angel cannot abandon one adequate place and acquire another except with some succession.

— I distinguish the minor. If this acquisition comes about through true motion, I concede; if it comes about through a diffusion of himself through the adequate space, and likewise through a replication of himself and a multiple positioning in diverse parts or points of space, I deny: for just as the light of the Sun, for example, is diffused without transit through the production of diverse parts of light in the diverse parts of the whole hemisphere, without temporal succession but with the order of nature alone, because the Sun illuminates by nature the parts near it before the more remote ones, granted that naturally it cannot act at a distance per se primo: so the angel can in the same instant and at the same time diffuse himself through the adequate space by a replication of himself and a multiple positioning in diverse parts or points of space, with the order of nature alone, because he cannot naturally occupy the remote parts except through the intervening ones, since he cannot be moved to a distance without occupying the medium. Thus also the rational soul is simultaneously present to all the parts disposed sufficiently at once, not earlier in time to the nearer than to the remote parts, and simultaneously leaves off and ceases to inform the parts cut off at once; by which example it is evident that the angel can fill the space adequate to himself all at once. For if no succession is necessary in the soul in order to occupy simultaneously any whole space — nay, such succession is not even naturally possible, since the soul can neither at the outset inform a single indivisible, nor in growth does the ultimate disposition come about through indivisibles — then succession does not seem more necessary to the angel, strictly speaking, in order to fill that space which is adequate to his power.

The second part is evident from what was said in the preceding Article, in which it was proved that the angel can lose, by a simultaneous mutation, the real presence he had to all the parts of his space or adequate place, retaining presence only in a smaller part of that space; yet he cannot accomplish this by true local motion, which cannot occur in an instant, but only by a sudden mutation, of which it has often been spoken.

Note 1. We must distinguish a fourfold kind of measure. 1. There is the measure of perfection, according to that saying of Aristotle, Metaphysics 1, chapter 3: In every genus there is one thing which is the measure of the others under the same genus. 2. There is the measure of causation; thus in Metaphysics 9 the knowable is called the measure of knowledge because it causes knowledge. 3. There is the measure of knowledge or of making known; thus a cubit makes known the quantity of a cloth, and in this way a measure is nothing other than a quantity more known which makes known another: insofar as being measured involves a threefold respect, one to the intellect, another to the thing measured, and another to the measure. 4. There is the measure of duration; thus Time is called the measure of motion, aevum the measure of the angels, eternity the measure of God.

Note 2. This is the difference between eternity, aevum, and time: that Eternity (as we said when treating of the eternity of God) is the possession of life interminable, whole at once, and perfect, which namely expresses a threefold negation, of ending, of beginning, and of succession and dependence. Time, however, as we said in the Physics, is the measure of motion according to before and after. Aevum, however, is a measure and duration permanent, incorruptible from within, yet defectible through a superior external power. In this aevum is distinguished in two ways both from eternity and from time; first it differs from Eternity, because eternity is always actually present and in no way in potency: time, however, according to the present instant is in act, but according to the future is in potency, without any permanence at all of past and future. Aevum, however, is a certain indivisible measure, and is not wholly present, but partly actually present, partly in potency: for just as the being of an angel is indivisible and immaterial, and is now actually present, yet is somehow in potency, because it is in potency so as to be preserved in the future by the maintenance of God, which if it ceased entirely the angel would be annihilated: for the same reason it must be said of aevum that it is indivisible and actually present, yet somehow in potency with respect to the future. Moreover it differs from time, because it is not so potential as time is, for it does not have preceding parts and following parts. Second, aevum differs from eternity and time on the side of its measure, because Eternity is the measure of a thing neither failing nor able to fail: Time, however, is the measure of a thing actually failing and able to fail: Aevum, however, is an intermediate measure, namely the measure of a substance not failing and immutable, yet able somehow to fail and to be changed according to its operations. It is declared by an example; for just as a solar ray produced from the Sun in a diaphanous medium, while the latter remains the same, is one and the same ray produced in an indivisible instant, is in act; yet it is somehow in potency, because when the Sun withdraws, it immediately ceases to be: so it must be said of the angel and of its measure. The other example is an image in a mirror, which is produced from a visible corporeal object in an instant, and is produced indivisibly, yet when the object withdraws that image ceases to be. Time itself, however, is compared to a river whose parts flow forth from the same source, so that one part succeeds another, and accordingly the parts of time are the measure of a thing with renewal and aging of the same: aevum, however, is the measure of a thing without renewal and aging as to its substance.

Note 3. From the Doctor, Book II, dist. 2, question 2, n. 10: That to measure is to certify an unknown quantity by a more known quantity:

certification, however, can sometimes be made by a quantity existing in a thing or in imagination, just as an experienced craftsman, by some quantity which he has in his imagination, measures any quantity that presents itself to him. Sometimes, however, it can be made by some quantity existing in a thing, and this in three ways: either one exceeding: and then the intellect is certified about the lesser quantity by its approach to the greater quantity, or its withdrawal from it; and in this way a measure is placed in the quiddities of things, and the measure is more perfect than the very thing measured, which is said to be naturally more known than the thing measured itself: just as whiteness is placed as the first measure in the genus of colors, and God is said to be the first measure of all things that are in whatever genus. In another way a thing is measured by an exceeded quantity, because the known quantity is the lesser, and a part of the greater quantity, which is more unknown, and then that lesser quantity, by its repetition, measures the whole greater quantum, and in this way a lesser motion can be the measure of a greater motion ex natura rei. In the third way an unknown quantity is measured by another quantity known, distinct, and equal to it, and this is done by application, or superposition. And because that which is a measure ex natura rei ought to be naturally more known than the thing measured itself; therefore in this way, namely the third, one of equals is not the measure of the others, unless that equality has been known ex natura rei; in this way time, if it is another quantity than motion, and more known than it, can be the measure of motion ex natura rei. To some intellect, however, that can be a measure which ex natura rei is not a measure, for instance if the quantity of a cubit is known to someone, and the quantity of the cloth unknown; then the quantity of the cubit can be the measure of the quantity of the cloth, although ex natura rei neither quantity has greater certitude than the other.

These things having been set forth in preamble, three things especially are to be resolved here: First, that the angels have no other measure of their duration than aevum. Second, that this measure is not successive. Third, that it is really indistinct from the substance of the angel.

First conclusion. — The existence of the angels is measured by aevum. This is common among the Theologians.

Proof, first. The existence of an angel is measurable by some measure: but it is not measured by eternity, for this is the proper measure of God, nor by time, because corruptible things are measured by that, although the very existence of the angel, on account of the intensive perfection, power, and magnitude of its duration, could coexist with the whole of time, no variety having been made in its duration: as in the example of a stake fixed in a river, around which water flowed continually, the stake itself remaining stable: therefore the very existence of the angel is measured by aevum alone, since there is between it and that existence of the angel the proportion which is required between measure and measured. Then, if there were no time, an angel could know its own duration: therefore it has some other measure distinct from time, by which it can know it: that, however, cannot be eternity, since it is of a higher order; therefore it is aevum, because nothing else can be assigned which would have the character of a measure of angelic existence. Finally, aevum, according to the Doctor, is the measure of a created being permanent, and uniformly disposed while it subsists, or which has a uniform mode of existing: or, according to St. Thomas, it is the measure of a being immutable according to its substance; but mutable and variable according to its operations: but the substance of the angels is immutable in itself, and is uniformly disposed while it subsists: therefore the angel is truly measured by aevum. The things that could be objected against this Conclusion will be more easily resolved in the following Conclusion.

Second conclusion. — Aevum is not a successive duration. This is the position of the Doctor in Book 2, dist. 2, question 1, where, although he said the opinion of St. Bonaventure about the succession of angelic duration was probable, and had solved all the arguments that had been proposed by others against the opinion of the Seraphic Doctor; nevertheless he himself attacks that same opinion in this way, n. 18:

That angelic duration, which according to St. Bonaventure is said to be a quantity having its divisibility not permanent but successive, so that to one of its nows of rapidly flowing time another succeeds; that duration, I say, or quantity, either is identified with the existence of the angel, or it is not identified with it.

The first cannot be said, because it is impossible for there to be succession in duration without succession in existence; but in the existence of the angel there is no succession, any more than in the essence with which the existence is identified: therefore, etc. The second likewise cannot be affirmed, because just as the absolute existence of the angel itself can be put in being by various productions, or by the same production continued, so the absolute duration which it has from the first production can be put in being by a second production, or by the same continued: therefore when the angel is preserved for a second instant, it is not necessary that there be given to it a new duration distinct from that which it had in the first instant, and consequently its duration will not be a successive quantity consisting of various parts. If you said that the same absolute duration can be put again in being, but for different nows: On the contrary, if it can be put in different nows; therefore it can be preserved in them: whence I argue thus: either it can be preserved in them by another duration distinct, and thus there will be a process to infinity, because the same question is asked about the other duration: or it can be preserved in them without another duration, and thus just as the same existence is in different nows, the same duration also will be in them, which is the intended point.

The Doctor imputes, second, to that same opinion, inasmuch as it would assert that duration to be something successive, because, he says, a new respect does not seem to be posited without a new foundation, or term, and without some newness on the side of the extremes: therefore if the existence of the angel is the same, and God is disposed in the same way in the second instant as in the first, a new respect does not seem to be admissible.

The conclusion is proved further by the authority of the holy Fathers, first indeed by St. Augustine, book 83 questions, question 72, where he says, that this alone stands between aevum and time, that aevum is stable, but time mutable. Likewise St. Dionysius, De divinis nominibus, chapter 10, says, It is the property of aevum to measure the whole at once, according to the whole: not therefore according to part and part, and successively. And in chapter 5 he says aevum is a quiet life, whole at once. Likewise Gregory, in the Moralia, says of the joy of the Blessed, Nothing has passed away, nothing has arrived, and nothing will be future: therefore it is whole at once.

It is proved again by the fundamental reason: otherwise aevum would be successive, because it would plainly consist of many nows, or instants succeeding one another: but that does not seem to be true: therefore, etc. The major is that of St. Bonaventure. The minor is proved: that first now, or instant of aevum, either is the same as the existence of the angel, or other: if the same, therefore just as the existence of the angel remains always the same, according to St. Bonaventure, so also the same now remains permanent. But if you say it is other; On the contrary: just as the very existence, according to St. Bonaventure, can be put in being infinitely many times, so also that now, other than the essence and existence of the angel, can frequently be put in being, and thus the same now of aevum can be preserved, just as the same existence: therefore a plurality of those nows is not necessary: but one suffices. But if you say, that if it is frequently put in being, it will be put in different nows: I answer, that either a process to infinity will have to be granted, or it must be said that the same now can be preserved without a new now. It is proved, because that first now either can be preserved without another, or not. If the first, I have my point; if the second, I ask about that other now whether it can be preserved without another; and thus either one must arrive at some now which can be preserved without another, or a process to infinity will be granted. Moreover, even if this last were granted, still it will not be necessary that there be succession in the now itself; for just as the essence of the angel is posited as the same and unvarying, even if it is posited in one now and another, so the same now can remain unvarying in itself, even if it is posited in being in one now and another.

It is confirmed. because the conservation of the angel is taken either actively or passively. If the first, it is whole at once, having no succession, for it is a divine action, to which permanence considered in itself is not repugnant, any more than to its term, namely the angel. Hence God will be able by such an action to conserve the angel, especially since such a mode of conservation is more connatural, and consequently more due, to things themselves indivisible. Furthermore, because the conserving action of an incorruptible thing is incorruptible by its nature, since it has no intrinsic principle of its ending: therefore, etc. If the second, it is the very angelic being itself, unvarying: therefore it has no succession, and consequently the opposite opinion does not rightly assert that aevum, on the side of the conservation of the angel, includes succession.

You will object 1. The Doctor objects several authorities of the holy Fathers, which seem to support the opinion of the Seraphic Doctor: first of all St. Augustine 11. Confessionum, c. 4. If the now of time always stood, and did not flow, it would not be time, but eternity: therefore if the now of aevum did not flow, it also ought to be reckoned eternity: but the consequent is absurd: therefore also that from which it follows. Likewise book 4, on Genesis, chapter 14, expounding those words, My Father works even until now; he adds: even until now signifies the consummation of the work, for otherwise it could be understood if it were said, now he works, where it would not be necessary that we take the consummation of the work, but he compels it to be understood otherwise when he says, even until now, from that time at which he wrought all things. By which St. Augustine signifies that there is some continuation in the actions of God ad extra, by which he conserves the creatures produced by himself, and in consequence a continuation in the duration of creatures: but continuation implies succession: therefore the duration of any creature whatever, and therefore of the angels conserved, is successive. Boethius subscribes, book 1, De Trinitate, chapter 9: Although, he says, according to the Philosophers it can be said of celestial bodies and spirits that they are always, yet there is a great difference in being always, for in God alone the present is, not running; but the now flowing makes sempiternity, that is, aevum: therefore aevum is a flowing duration. St. Damascene also favors it, book 1, De Fide, chapter 25: Aeon, he says, is said to be that which is always extended together with the eternal things, as it were a space: but the angels endure through aeons; therefore their duration is extended as it were a space, and consequently includes parts succeeding one another. St. Anselm also agrees, in the Proslogion, c. 24: In this way also you transcend all things, even eternal ones, he says, speaking to God, because your eternity and theirs is wholly present to you, since that eternity does not yet have of its eternity what is to come, just as it no longer has what is past: therefore he holds that the duration of the angels does not exist as to that part which has passed, nor as to that which is future, and accordingly he thinks the duration of the angels includes parts succeeding one another. Finally St. Jerome, in the Epistle to Marcella, says: God alone is such that he does not know having been, or going to be: therefore a creature in its being has past and future, and consequently succession.

The Doctor answers, n. 21. that by all these authorities it is only persuaded that no creature is independent from the first Cause, but always dependent; not, however, by a continuous dependence now one, now another, but by the same, on account of which any creature whatever can have being with one part of time, and not with another, and thus can as it were fall under time, that is, coexist with one part of time, and not with another; for which reason it is said to have been, but not to be going to be, and thus not to have eternal being.

I answer 2. for the sake of greater elucidation, to each of those authorities singly; and indeed to the first of St. Augustine, I say that he intends only that if temporal duration of itself subsisted always necessarily, and could in no way fail even from without, it would truly be eternity, which, as is apparent, is altogether impossible: but he does not will that if that duration subsisted without any flux, and with the ordinary conservation of God, it ought to be eternity; for from that it would not follow that it could not in any way fail, as eternity itself is altogether indefectible. Hence I distinguish the consequent: if aevum did not flow, that is, if it were altogether indefectible, it would be eternity, I concede; for we do not will it to be non-flowing in that way: if it did not flow, insofar as it would not have succeeding parts, it would be eternity, I deny the consequence. To the second saying from St. Augustine, I deny the subsumed inference drawn from it: for by the very fact that the same action by which the thing was produced is always continued, the thing itself conserved is also continued without any succession in itself, or in its duration. To the authority of Boethius I answer that he wills that the sempiternity of God be always present so necessarily that it be altogether indefectible, even with respect to whatever; but the sempiternity which an angel would have if it had been created from eternity would not have existed always present necessarily, since it could have failed, God willing: whence that saying is to be distinguished in the same way as the prior one of St. Augustine. To St. Damascene I say that the consequence drawn from his authority in the last place is to be denied: for extension through a space can be said not of that which has parts succeeding one another, but of that whereby the very existence itself, the same always, is conserved indivisible. To St. Anselm I say that he wills only that since the angels have not existed always necessarily, nor will exist, since they can fail, God willing: therefore on account of that possible defection they can truly be said not to have what is future, nor what is past: just as God has it necessarily, because in the highest degree necessarily, he always was, is, and will be. Hence the consequence is to be denied: for the whole of that duration of the angel for past and future time exists now, although it has not existed necessarily for the past, nor, speaking absolutely, will it so exist for the future. Finally, to St. Jerome I deny the consequence drawn from his authority: for the angel, even if it has a permanent duration, can know past and future, since it knows that it has not existed necessarily, nor will exist, inasmuch as it can be annihilated, God so ordaining.

You will object 2. Another authority of St. Augustine, from book 8, De Genesi ad litteram, chapter 19, where he says: As the air with respect to the Sun is not made lucid, but becomes lucid, otherwise, the Sun absent, the air would remain lucid: so the creature stands with respect to God. From which the Doctor Subtilis argues thus for the opinion of St. Bonaventure, on the cited question 1, n. 4:

The creature is continually produced by God conserving, and is conserved by God producing, and it does not only depend on God inasmuch as the productive action of it goes forth from God for the first instant in which it has being, but also inasmuch as for any instant whatever in which it is conserved in being, that divine action by which it is conserved continually goes forth from God; but it is not that very same action by which it was being produced by God for the first instant, which goes forth from God for the other instants in which it is conserved: but another action altogether distinct, succeeding the prior: therefore the duration of the angel is not whole at once, but successive.

The consequence is evident, because that conserving action is of the essence of the duration of the angel, either as the formal reason, or an intrinsic part; or as a condition sine qua non: therefore if that conservation is successive, the very duration of the angel will also be successive, or at least will depend on something successive. The Doctor proves the minor: the conserving action is a true positive action: but it is not the same by which God produced the angel in the first instant: therefore it is another, succeeding that prior one. The major is evident, because, the Doctor says, to conserve is not only not to destroy, but is some positive action of God, otherwise he would be said to conserve the light who does not close the window, which is openly false, for the light could be conserved in the hall even with it absent. Furthermore, if conservation were not a positive action, it would follow that annihilation, opposed to it, would be a positive action, because there is no negation of a negation: but it is false that annihilation is a positive action, because to annihilate is not to act; therefore to conserve is to act. Finally, no creature is independent in its being, because it is not pure act: therefore it depends continually on a cause, not only by reason of its primary production, whereby it received being from that cause, as if it did not continually receive that being from it, because it would follow that to conserve would be nothing other than to have acted previously, and now not to destroy: therefore it is necessary that the conserving action be positive. The minor is therefore proved, namely that that positively conserving action, distinct from the first productive action; because by that productive action whereby the thing received being in the first instant, it cannot be said to be formally and ultimately conserved in that being for the other following instants, without any superadded thing; for that first productive action could be without the thing being conserved for another following instant; since in that following instant it could be annihilated: therefore, that it may exist for another following instant, there must be another action of its conservation distinct from the prior.

If you said that indeed from that action alone the thing produced by it does not have that it exist for another posterior instant, but it is further required that there be that posterior instant, which being posited, and without any new action, or anything superadded in any way, that thing coexists with that posterior instant; the Doctor urges against this: if the angel, produced in the first instant, had of itself, and without anything superadded, the power to coexist with the following time, there being posited only the existence of the future time, it would follow that its duration would not differ from eternity; for eternity cannot coexist with future time unless future time exists; but where it will no longer exist, neither will eternity coexist with it. Add that notwithstanding the production of the angel for the first instant, it could not have coexistence with the future instant, even with the future time itself existing; because it could not be conserved for that instant: therefore from the action whereby it receives being for the first instant it does not have being for the future instant, even with such a future instant existing.

Therefore the Doctor answers, n. 20. by denying the minor, and conceding the consequence of each proof, from which it does not follow that conservation is an action distinct from the first production as to the positive element of each; although the first production, inasmuch as it signifies a respect to the non-being immediately preceding the production of the thing, is distinct from the conserving action, inasmuch as the latter does not signify such a respect, but rather a respect to the being immediately preceding: for the productive action presupposes the non-being of the thing which is produced, but the conserving action supposes that the thing which is conserved previously had being through the first production of itself.

But that this objection with its proofs may be more easily solved, I answer: on the hypothesis that duration were a mode distinct from the very thing enduring, it indeed follows that that mode through which the thing would coexist with the first instant could not suffice for it to exist in the second instant; nor could it consequently make the angel existent for the second instant, unless it itself existed for the second instant: therefore that the thing might exist for the second instant, there would have to be another mode distinct, through which it would thus exist. On the supposition, however, that the duration of the angel, and the action whereby it is produced, superadds nothing above the entity and existence of the angel itself, beyond the volition of God, whereby he wills to produce it for so long a time, or for such, the argument concludes nothing; because it is false that that action of God, whereby it is produced for the first instant, can in fact be conserved without the angel being conserved, namely in the composite sense, and on the hypothesis that the conserving action of the angel would always subsist. Hence although there could be granted some productive action which of itself, and without anything else superadded, would not suffice for the conservation of the thing, for instance if God willed to produce an angel with the intention that through a single instant alone that angel should subsist: nevertheless, since the action whereby he in fact creates the angel is that volition whereby he wills to produce it for eternity a parte post, and since that volition cannot be without the angel necessarily existing thus for eternity, hence the aforesaid argument introduces no difficulty.

You will object 3. If the duration of the angel, whereby it ought to exist, e.g., for a year, is not something successive, but indivisible, simple, and immutable: it follows, that after half a year God could not bring it about that that angel should not subsist for the other following half of the year; just as he cannot bring it about that it has not existed for the preceding half of the same year. But the consequent is absurd; for it is false that God, for any time whatever, cannot destroy a creature produced by himself: therefore, etc.

The Doctor proves the sequel of the major, n. 6. in that which has the whole of being at once, to have been, to be, and to be going to be are the same: but that which was, it is impossible that it not have been: therefore if in the aeviternal to have been and to be going to be are the same, it is also impossible that it not be future. But this is proper to God alone, whose eternity to have been, to be, and to be going to be it embraces necessarily and indivisibly. Then, God cannot from eternity will contradictories, as contradictories: but he can will to create the angel, and annihilate it, and consequently he could will it to be, and not will it to be: therefore the being of the angel, and its non-being, do not seem to be contradictories: but truly they would be contradictories, unless diverse nows, or diverse instants of duration, were assigned, in one of which he would will to create the angel and that it exist, and in the other he would will to annihilate it, or would not will to create it and that it be: but those diverse nows ought not to be instants of time, because God could will to create and annihilate an angel even if no time were given: therefore they ought to be diverse instants of aevum, or of the duration of the angel, succeeding one another, and consequently the duration of the angel will be successive.

I answer 1. I distinguish the minor: it is absurd that God could not annihilate the angel for any instant whatever in the divided sense, and on the hypothesis that he has not decreed to conserve it for that instant, I concede: in the composite sense, and on the hypothesis that he has decreed to conserve it for that instant, I deny.

I answer 2. By distinguishing the sequel of the major: if the duration of the angel is something indivisible holding on the side of the angel itself, it must necessarily make the angel enduring for the whole year, I concede: if that indivisible does not hold on the side of the angel itself, but of God, I deny. But it is false that that duration is something indivisible holding on the side of the angel precisely, for it is the very volition of God whereby he wills it to exist for a year, or for eternity, which volition is one and indivisible; hence it is in no way inconvenient that if God wills to produce the angel and conserve it for a year, or eternity, the angel also ought to be conserved for so long a time in the composite sense, and that God cannot not give to it future being, just as he cannot not have given to it past being. To the first proof of the sequel I distinguish the minor: it is repugnant to created duration that it have being, having been, and going to be at once, inasmuch as the duration is of a created thing, holding on the side of the creature itself, I concede the minor: holding on the side of God conserving the creature through his indivisible and simple volition, I deny. To the second proof I deny the minor; for by the same reason that it would not be contradictory that God willed to create and annihilate the angel if its duration were successive, so neither would it be contradictory if its duration be something permanent and indivisible: for to save that contradiction nothing helps that that duration be divisible rather than indivisible. But how those two opposite volitions with respect to conserving and annihilating the angel could not be contradictories is gathered from this, that God can will the angel to be in such a way that, if such or such a time were existing, by the force of that volition the angel could not endure except for so long, or so long a finite time; and thence he would have a volition whereby he would will to conserve it further, by reason of which volition it would come about that, although further time would be admitted, nevertheless the angel would not exist in it. Hence I distinguish the subsumed: that those two opposite volitions would be contradictories, unless diverse nows, whether of aevum or of time, actually existing, were assigned, I deny: if those diverse nows were assigned as possible, in one of which creation could be, and in the other the negation of creation, I concede. Therefore those diverse nows ought not to be nows of time, or of aevum, which exist in act; but they can be diverse possible nows of time.

You will object 4. The angel is going to endure for eternity: therefore it will have duration to infinity, and accordingly if its duration is not successive, but whole at once, the consequence is that its duration is actually infinite; and consequently, that something created is actually infinite: but it is absurd that something created be actually infinite: therefore, etc.

The Angelic Doctor denies the consequence, num. 23. For in order that something be infinite by reason of the coexistence it could have with infinite time, it would have to coexist with all the parts of that infinite time: for just as that time would not be infinite unless it included infinite parts, so what coexists with it would not be infinite unless it equally coexisted with all its parts; but since the parts of infinite time can nowhere be simultaneously in act, neither could the coexistence with those parts be simultaneously in act. And therefore, although the duration of the angels is indivisible in itself, nevertheless since it is divisible with respect to coexistence with infinite time, if such were granted, it does not follow that they must be actually infinite in itself and permanently, although it could have a successive coexistence with the parts of infinite time, if such were granted.

Finally he objects: An angel could have been created not a sinner, and afterwards could have sinned, even if there had been no time: therefore in its duration there can be a prior moment, namely that in which it would not be a sinner, and a later one, in which it would exist as a sinner; and so its duration is successive. It is confirmed: an angel could be created, and afterwards annihilated, and another angel created after it: but in that case it would not be true that those two angels existed simultaneously for the same now: therefore they would have to exist for different nows: but another angel could coexist with those two angels, namely with the annihilated one and the one newly produced; therefore in the duration of the third angel there would be a prior and a later: prior indeed, by reason of which it would be said to have coexisted with the annihilated angel: and later, by which it would coexist with the newly produced angel.

The Doctor denies the consequence, both of the argument and of the confirmation, num. 24. For although one angel follows upon another, and from not sinning becomes sinning, it does not follow from this that there is a succession in its duration, but there would only be a succession between its duration and its annihilation, and likewise between its innocence and its injustice: so that although its duration coexists with an innocence and an injustice succeeding one another, it does not follow from this that there is any succession in its duration; for the indivisible duration with which it previously coexisted with innocence can coexist with its injustice. In the same way a third angel could coexist with an angel previously produced and with an angel subsequently produced without any succession in its intrinsic duration; just as eternity itself, which is indivisible and without any formal succession, coexists, according to all, with yesterday and today.

* Corollary. — From these things it becomes clear that even if the Subtle Doctor solved all the arguments of Henry and of St. Thomas against the opinion of St. Bonaventure, and demonstrated that they do not prove nor are correctly deduced, nevertheless Cajetan falsely charges him, when he says that he held with St. Bonaventure that the angel is measured by successive duration, or that the duration of the angels includes formal succession; nor does Rada rightly hold, controv. 1. art. 1., Delogad. in that treatise De Angelis, cap. 9., nor others who think that the Doctor proposed that opinion as probable and confirmed it with his arguments. For whoever has read the arguments of the Doctor for the indivisible aevum of the angels and of spiritual things, and indeed of ingenerable material substances, will easily persuade himself that he could not have proposed that opinion of a successive aevum as probable. For how would those things cohere with what he has in 2. dist. 2. quaest. 2. num. 3., where he clearly proves that the aevum of an angel is really indistinct from its existence, which we shall also demonstrate in the following Conclusion? But there the Doctor teaches, in what follows, that the duration of the existence of an angel is indivisible. How then could the probability of the other opinion, which posits formal succession in angelic duration, stand with this doctrine?

Third conclusion. — Angelic duration is not really distinct from the angel.

Thus the Subtle Doctor, in the second book, dist. 2. quaest. 2. n. 3., where he proves this conclusion as follows: By this very fact that a thing is produced and preserved, or that it terminates the productive and conserving action, it endures either in an instant or in time: therefore nothing else is required in order that it endure: both because if duration were something distinct from the thing enduring and from its productive and conserving action, it would be something absolute or relative: but neither can be said: therefore it is not something distinct from them. The minor is clear: for it is not relative, because a real relation must have a real term: but a thing can endure without there being something real to which it would have a relation, for instance if God were to produce a single angel: nor is it absolute, because it would be posterior to the thing enduring, and consequently the thing enduring could be produced without it; which is absurd, because then it would endure and not endure: it would endure indeed, because it would be produced: but it would not endure, because it would not have the duration, which would be another absolute thing posterior and not produced.

Proof 2. Whenever things are really distinguished, and one of them is prior in nature to the other, one of them can also exist without the other: therefore if aeviternal duration is really distinguished from the substance of the angel, since the substance itself is posterior, it follows that the angel can be and remain without its aeviternal duration, and thus it will endure without its duration, which is contradictory. Moreover, if aevum is really distinct from the being of the angel, either the angel endures by itself, or by another distinct from itself. If by itself, then by equal reason existence itself could endure formally by itself, because that other will not be more perfect than its actual existence itself, since it is as it were a passion of it: but if it endures in being by another absolute thing distinct from itself, there will be a process to infinity in measured things and measures. Further, plurality is not to be posited without necessity, from the first book of the Physics: but there is no necessity that aevum, taken as the duration of the aeviternal, be something other than the aeviternal: therefore it is not other. Finally, if aevum is really and essentially distinguished from the angel, or from the aeviternal whose duration it is, it follows that it is some accident of it: but it seems impossible that the substance itself endure per accidens; for the accident rather seems to endure through the substance than the converse: therefore, etc.

You will say 1. Time is really distinguished from the motion which it measures: therefore by equal reason something really distinct from the essence of the angel must necessarily be admitted, which would be its measure.

The Doctor denies the consequence, because, he says, num. 8. of the same question,

although time differs from motion, and consequently the instant from mutation, the same does not seem to be said of the duration of the angel: for, he says, if time differs from motion, this is because the parts of the same proportion are not necessarily equal in number and quantity to the parts of the same proportion of time; but no quantity is the same as another quantity unless the parts of the same proportion and quantity in it are equal to the parts of the same proportion and quantity in the other, and this equ> al both in number and in magnitude: but speaking of the quantity which is in motion, which it has on the part of the magnitude, or of the form according to which there is motion, some parts of motion, for instance ten parts completing the whole motion, can be with ten parts of time: but they are not the same as those, because with the same parts of time there can be more parts of motion equal to the prior parts of motion, or as many unequal ones, because a double power moves the same mobile, and consequently twice as fast; there will be no part in the slower motion which is not in the faster motion, speaking of the parts which it has in magnitude, or of the parts which it has according to the form by which it is: because the mover moving the mobile with a faster motion does not make it pass through some parts of magnitude simultaneously, but precisely one after another: therefore there are as many parts in the faster motion, and of such a kind, speaking of that quantity, as there are in the slower motion; but the same time cannot have the same parts with this motion and with that motion: therefore those parts of time will not be the same, neither with the parts of this motion nor of that, because they do not stand in the same proportion to the whole, nor are they equal to those parts of the whole.

Thus the Doctor. But the same reason does not hold of aeviternal duration and the angel, since both the substance of the angel and its duration are altogether indivisible: and therefore one cannot exceed the other.

You will say 2. Permanent quantity is an accident distinct from the subject: therefore successive quantity too, because both are of the same genus, or predicament: and consequently both must be distinct from the subject, especially if the subject is a substance: but what measures the existence of the angel is successive quantity: therefore the measure of the angel is really distinguished from it.

The Doctor answers, num. 11. that there is nothing in the actual existence of the angel which is properly a quantity, nor anything indivisible of the genus of quantity; because existence seems to be able to be known without any other addition. Hence the supposition of the subsumption is denied, namely that there is in the angel something which measures its existence: and even if such a thing were granted, certainly it would not be a quantity, whereby it would not be something really distinct from it.

You will say 3. If a thing could endure of itself without any other addition, it could also be in a place of itself without a new where superadded, against our opinion.

I answer. by denying the parity; because a thing does not necessarily have being in a place from the fact that it is produced; for it could have it independently; but it endures by this very fact that it is produced and preserved. Hence in order to be in a place, something must concur besides conservation: but in order to endure, nothing other than conservation must accrue.

You will insist. An angel is as indifferent to being in this or that time as to being in this or that place: therefore just as besides that indifference a distinct where is posited, which is determined to this place rather than to another, so in order that it be in this time rather than in another, something added must be posited: but that is nothing other than duration: therefore, etc.

I answer. by denying the subsumption; because duration is not that from which a thing has being in this or that time, but that by which it can exist for such or such a time, comprehending under the name of time either its divisible part or the indivisible instant.

Corollary I. — From these things the Doctor gathers, num. 11., that there is not in the angel any form intrinsic to it, really distinct from its existence, by which it would be measured. He proves this; because entities are not to be multiplied without necessity: but there is no necessity of positing such a measure in the angel: therefore, etc. The minor is proved; because if there were a necessity of positing a distinct measure, there would be a necessity of positing a distinct duration: but this is not necessary, as is clear from the proof of the first conclusion. It is confirmed; because those very arguments by which it was proved that no distinct duration is given in it prove that no distinct measure is given in it. It is confirmed secondly; because if a measure were posited in the angel, neither an exceeding nor an exceeded measure would be posited in it, since it cannot be understood for what reason it would be exceeding or exceeded; therefore an equal measure ought to be posited: but neither can this be said, because nothing posited in the angel can be better known for the purpose of measuring, neither ex natura rei nor per accidens, than the very existence of the angel: therefore nothing is posited in it which could be the measure of that existence: and although some total quantity, distinct and known, could be its measure with respect to certain of its parts, nevertheless not even thus can the reason of a measure be posited in the angel, because it has no parts which could be measured by it. The Doctor adds to this that not only is it not necessary to posit something absolute as a measure, but not even any relation, because it is not necessary here to posit any other relation than that by which it is related to the efficient or conserving cause, and that is not something other than its foundation.

Corollary II. — He gathers secondly, in the third question, that some external measure is to be admitted in the duration of the angels, and that it is either outside the genus or in the genus. The former is God himself by reason of his infinite duration, in accordance with which created things can be said to coexist with him more or less. The latter is the existence of the first angel, whose aeviternal duration can be called the measure of the others: for this measure of the first angel with respect to all aeviternal things is the simplest, and more uniform, regular, and simpliciter better known in the genus of aeviternal things; accordingly it is the measure of all the existences of the other angels: just as the motion of the first mobile, because it is the simplest of all, best known, and more uniform and longer-lasting, is posited as the measure of all motions, and time of all temporal things. Therefore just as the existence of any angel is measured by its particular aevum, as its extrinsic measure, and in that way is distinguished from another, so that there are as many aeva as there are aeviternal things: so, generally speaking, there is one aevum of all aeviternal things, namely the existence of the first angel, distinct from the existence of any aeviternal thing, and therefore it is called an extrinsic measure also in the reason of duration.

It is proved from the fact that, as we said above from Aristotle, in every genus of things there is some first thing which is the cause and measure of the rest: therefore in the durations of spiritual things one must have recourse to the first duration, more perfect and uniform, in order to measure the durations of the others; but that duration is in that first angel, whose nature is simpler, more perfect, and more uniform and regular in its duration; and consequently its existence is the measure, at least extrinsic, of other incorruptible things, since each aeviternal thing has its own proper intrinsic measure, as was said. Hence just as the measure, whether of wheat or of wine and other such things, in some commonwealth is wont to be sealed with the public seal, so that it may be made known to all that it is faithful and certain, in order that the other measures be weighed against it: so, since art imitates nature, it must be said that the substance of the first and supreme angel, proportion being preserved, is the uniform and perfect measure of all other spirits, which measure indeed is really the same as the existence of that supreme angel in which it inheres, but is really distinguished from the existences of the others which it measures, just as that supreme angel is really distinguished from all the other angels.

You will say 1. If the aevum of the first angel is the measure of all aeviternal things: therefore, the first angel in which it is being destroyed, such an aevum would also be destroyed, and consequently all the other aeviternal things measured by it would be changed: but this is inconvenient: therefore, etc.

I answer. that this being granted, they would not be measured by the aevum of the first angel, nor consequently would they be changed according to their absolute entity, because the relation of the measure to the measured is not real but of reason, which imports no mutation; for the first angel is related to the other aeviternal things as an exceeding measure, but not as a measure from which the measured depends.

You will say 2. The measure must be better known than the thing measured: but the aevum of the first angel is not better known to the other angels, for rather the proper aevum is better known to each angel than the aevum of the first angel: therefore, etc.

I answer. that it suffices that the measure be better known in itself, even if it is not better known to the one who uses it; for as regards us, the motions of these lower things are better known than the motion of the first mobile, which is the measure of all, because in itself it is better known; so it is with the aeviternal duration of the first angel.

You will say 3. All the angels were created simultaneously, and the duration of all is equally uniform: therefore there is no greater reason why the aevum of the first angel should be the measure of aeviternal things, than why the aeva of these should be the measure of the first angel.

I answer. that the aevum of the first angel is simpler, more uniform, and more invariable, and thus it is the measure with respect to aeviternal things: just as although the other heavens are uniform in their motions, nevertheless they are not called the measure of the first mobile, but rather are measured by it, because it is higher.

These things notwithstanding, I would not hesitate to assert that in truth no angel can be called the measure of another's duration by reason of greater simplicity; for it does not appear how one angel, as regards essence, could be called simpler than another angel, since all are indivisible as regards integral and physical parts, and none of them is without metaphysical composition, nor composition of essence and existence, nor composition of nature and personality. Unless perhaps simpler were said because it could perceive more things simultaneously through fewer acts; and in this sense, although a more perfect angel could be called simpler, nevertheless from such simplicity it does not follow that it could measure the existence of another as regards its duration, of which measurement we are speaking.

You will ask. By what measure are the angelic operations measured?

The Doctor answers in question four. That the immanent operations of an angel, namely its intellection and volition, are measured by aevum, just as its substance is, he proves thus: because things that exist in the same manner as long as they exist have a measure of the same kind, even though one of them exists longer than another; but the angel and its operation have the same mode of existing while they exist, without any difference, except that the angel is to last longer than any operation of its own: therefore the angel and its operation have a measure of the same kind; but the angel has aevum for its measure: therefore also its operation. The major is proved, because by the very fact that they have a similar mode of existing, whatever can measure the one can also measure the other; and if it could not, it would certainly follow from this very thing that they did not have a similar mode of existing. It is confirmed, because from this it follows that all the angels, although some are more perfect than others, nevertheless have a measure of the same kind, namely because they all have a uniform mode of existing. It is confirmed secondly, because the fact that one thing exists longer than another does not prevent both from being measured by aevum; otherwise, keeping the proportion, it would follow that because sound does not last as long as the motion of the heavens, it ought not to be measured by time, as the motion of the heavens is measured, but by some other measure of a different kind, which is absurd.

You will reply. that there is a disparity; for the existence of the angels will be everlasting, whereas their knowledge and other immanent operations can cease.

On the contrary. because it is per accidens with respect to the duration of a measure that one thing lasts longer than another; for if an angel were to last only for an hour, it would still be measured by aevum; for perpetuity, or destruction or annihilation do not formally vary the measure: therefore likewise its knowledge and other immanent operations, together with their nature, while they remain, having their whole being at once and uniformly permanent, suffice for them to have the same measure which the very existence of the angel has. This argument is confirmed, because for no other reason are successive things measured by time than because they have a permanent mode of lasting; for, as was said above, a measure must be proportioned to what is measured, and the diversity of measure is considered according to the diverse mode of lasting of what is measured: but such interior and immanent operations of the angels are not successive, but unfailing and permanent, like the very existence of the angels: therefore they must be measured by the same measure.

The Doctor proves it secondly. The beatific vision is measured by aevum; therefore also the immanent operation of an angel. He proves the consequence, because the beatific vision proceeds from the intellect as from a partial cause: therefore the intellect has a production terminated to it; but that production must be measured by such a measure as the vision itself is measured; for the vision cannot be in aevum, and its continuous production, on which it necessarily and per se depends, of another measure: therefore that production is in aevum, that is, measured by aevum; but if that production is measured by aevum, then every other operation of the angel produced and conserved indivisibly must likewise be measured by aevum.

The Thomists reply. that those operations are indeed not measured by the eternity which is the measure of God, but by participated eternity, which they say is inferior to divine eternity and differs from it as the more perfect from the less perfect; for divine eternity is the measure of divine being, while participated eternity is the measure of the being of the divine and supernatural order, such as habitual grace, the virtues infused by God, and the beatific vision.

On the contrary. whatever is properly measured by eternity is unfailing by its nature, as God is: therefore what is measured by participated eternity is unfailing by participation; but no being is so unfailing, because every created being, absolutely speaking, is fallible: therefore nothing is measured by participated eternity.

If you were to say that glory is in this way unfailing, I would reply with stronger reason that since the angel is a living substance, and consequently under this consideration nobler in its very entity than the glory which is an accident, it too ought to be so measured; for whether it is a natural or supernatural being matters little to the present difficulty. Yet no one admits this.

You will say 1. By this the duration and measure of God are distinguished from the duration and measure of the angel, in that the duration of God is independent and unfailing by its nature, whereas the duration of the angel is fallible and dependent by its nature, so that it could in no way be, and after it is, could cease; but the angelic operation has some fallibility by its nature which the angel does not have, because the angel, once produced, naturally tends never to cease, which is not required of its operation, which can naturally cease: therefore the operation of the angel has a measure specifically distinct from the measure of the angel. The consequence is evident; for there is no stronger reason why the fallibility of the angel and the infallibility of God should require distinct measures than the fallibility of such an angelic operation and the infallibility of the angelic substance itself, at least intrinsically and of itself; nor does there seem to be a stronger reason why that diverse mode of existing which God and the angel have — inasmuch as the angel exists fallibly and God infallibly — should require a diverse measure, than that diverse mode of existing which the angel and its operation have, inasmuch as the latter is naturally fallible and the former not so; therefore they do not have the same mode of existing, nor consequently the same measure.

I answer. that even if the substance of the angels and its operation had a different duration and measure, they could nevertheless agree with each other in the character of aevum as such, namely insofar as aevum is distinguished from eternity and from time; for aevum thus taken is nothing else than the duration of a thing fallible of itself or through another, and having its whole being at once without any succession of parts; and the angelic substance and its operation have such a duration, and therefore would agree in the character of aevum, although they would differ from each other in the specific character of this or that aevum.

You will say 2. If the substance and operation of the angels were measured by aevum, it would follow that all permanent beings would likewise be measured by aevum; but this seems absurd: therefore, etc. The major stands; for there is nothing permanent whose existence does not remain the same while it lasts, and this without succession properly so called, which is the acquisition or loss of part after part. The minor is proved first, because according to the Philosopher, book 4 of the Physics, text 118, rest is measured by time; therefore those things around which motion is naturally apt to be, when they are no longer in motion, are measured by time, just as if they were in motion. Secondly, because the generations and corruptions of all generable and corruptible things are measured in an instant of time; but of that whose first being is measured by a now of time, the habitual being is measured by time: therefore the habitual being of all these things after generation is measured by time.

The Doctor grants the major in the same question, number 9. Namely, that it be measured by aevum: Whatever actual existence is invariable, that is to say, to which it is repugnant that according to it there be variation, whether flux or acquisition of part after part; for neither the perpetuity of some things, nor their corruption, or annihilation, formally varies the measure, provided the existence is of the same kind while it lasts.

But to answer the minor, he notes that several things can be considered regarding permanence. First, there can be considered the flux of a divisible permanent form, which is acquired successively, which flux is the very successive acquisition of the form, or the succession of the parts of the form. Secondly, there can be considered the very form for which that flux is apt, or which is acquired successively in act, as for example the form of heat or cold produced successively. Thirdly, the form remaining, around which motion can be, although de facto it is not, as heat, for example, after it has been produced. Fourthly, the permanent form around which flux is not apt to be, or which is not apt to be produced successively, as substantial forms producible in an instant, for example the form of the soul, which form nevertheless has another consequent form around which flux is apt to be, for example the form of heat or of some other quality consequent upon that permanent substantial form. Fifthly and finally, that which is so permanent that neither can flux be given with respect to it, nor with respect to some form antecedent or consequent to it, as are the heavenly bodies.

From these, this last, namely the fifth, is in no way measured by time, neither per se nor per accidens, as by its proper intrinsic measure. But the first is measured by time. The fourth, of itself, is not apt to be measured by time by reason of the consequent form around which motion and rest can be. The third and the fourth are in reality the same form, which nevertheless has one character insofar as motion is toward it, and another character insofar as it is under rest without motion. And this manner of speaking the Doctor again distinguishes into two. The first is that it is always measured by time, even when it rests and remains according to all its parts, because it is a form variable of itself, or acquirable and destructible successively; and if this is held, then the major ought not to be understood of all permanent things, but of those which must be produced and conserved indivisibly, nor does the first objection press even if everything proposed in it is granted. The second manner of speaking is that that form, as long as it is under rest, is measured by aevum, because then it has all its parts existing indivisibly. He says, however, that this second manner of speaking is less probable than the first, because a form produced in time for the last instant of that time seems to have that instant for its measure, and not a now of aevum; but according to this second manner of speaking this would be false. Whence he concludes that although the rest of forms of this kind is measured by time, yet the forms themselves are not necessarily so measured; or if, according to the prior manner of speaking, it is said that they are measured by time, nevertheless it must be said that all generable and corruptible substances, indivisibly or successively, are of themselves measured by aevum, although per accidens, by reason of the consequent motion, they may be said to be measured by time. So the Doctor.

You will say 1. Between the thing whose substance and action are measured by time, as fire for example, and the thing whose substance and action are measured by eternity, as God, there is given a middle thing whose substance is measured by aevum and whose action by time; but such a thing is the angel rather than any other thing: therefore the operation of the angel is not measured by aevum. The major is that of Proclus, who is the author of the book De causis among the works of Aristotle.

The Doctor denies the major in n. 13. and rejects the authority of Proclus; because, he says, the doctrine concerning causes was handed down according to the erroneous doctrine of Avicenna, as if that author understood the intelligences to be certain gods, and their operations to be measured by a now of time — not indeed the intrinsic operation, for this would posit neither potentiality nor succession, but the extrinsic one around a body to be in a moment of time; and therefore that authority is not to be had as an authority, because it was handed down through an erroneous root.

You will say 2. Nothing is produced so as to cease immediately: therefore whatever is produced ought to last for some time; and consequently the angelic operation ought to last for some time; but if it were measured by aevum, it ought not to last for any instant; for whatever is measured by aevum and is not eternal must exist for some instant only, whereas the angelic operation is not eternal: therefore if it is measured by aevum, it must exist for some instant.

The Doctor denies the minor. For although nature does not intend the production of a thing so that it cease, and therefore according to the intention of nature the thing produced ought to last for some time, nevertheless it can cease from elsewhere, as is evident in all instantaneous mutations, which, the Doctor says, have being only fleetingly, and immediately are not, that is, immediately cease to be.

You will say 3. Such is the measure of the angelic operation as of the beatific vision; but the beatific vision is not measured by aevum: therefore neither ought the angelic operations to be measured by aevum. The major stands from the second proof deduced above. The minor is proved: both from that passage of John 17, This is eternal life, that they may know thee; and from S. Augustine, book 83 Questions, question 25, where he calls our beatitude participated eternity.

I deny the minor. and to its proof I say, first, that the context of Scripture is taken not for eternity formally taken, but for sempiternal aevum, just as the soul is said to be eternal because it is to endure forever; for, as we observed in the Article on eternity, the name of eternity is used in Scripture in various ways, but especially in five. To S. Augustine I say that he is not speaking of the beatific Vision, but of our soul, which he teaches to be eternal by participation of eternity, seeing that it is to be conserved forever by God, who is eternal.

* You will say 4. The operations of the angel, namely intellection and volition, can be intensified and remitted; but intensification and remission in the doctrine of Scotus take place by the addition of degree to degree, which addition entails succession and hence temporal duration. Therefore the Doctor admits successive duration and the measure of time in the angelic operations.

I answer first. that the argument does not proceed concerning the beatific operations of the angels, which are altogether invariable and incapable of remission or intensification; and forthwith the doctrine of the Doctor concerning those operations is altogether unshaken.

But as regards the other operations which they elicited while they were wayfarers, it does not appear how those could have admitted more and less, seeing that in that state the angels had uniform knowledge and volition arising from the species infused into them, which represented the object equally and without any variation; and hence in that state the angels had a certain and invariable knowledge, to which corresponded operations of the will likewise uniform. Therefore concerning these operations also the argument does not press. But as regards the other operations which the angels acquire for themselves by discourse, I answer that even if perhaps some remission and intensification intervenes in them, it still does not follow from this that these take place with time and successive duration; for those degrees are altogether indivisible, and those which are added do not properly compose with the preceding ones, but with one new degree coming upon the scene there is also made a new cognition, which, since it is indivisible, is not measured by successive time, and henceforth must be measured by the same duration by which the other angelic operations are measured.

You will ask. By what measure and duration are the transient operations of the angels measured?

I answer. These operations, such as local motion, the carrying about and agitation of bodies etc., I say are to be measured by our time. For by this reason they share a certain condition common to bodies, namely local motion, and ubi, inasmuch as the angels participate in it: therefore they ought also to participate in the measure of corporeal things, which is continuous time. It is confirmed; for inasmuch as they are moved locally, they participate in ubi, which is a condition and passion belonging to body, somehow of the same kind in them and in body: therefore they can also be measured by the measure of the first moved body. Indeed I add that although the foregoing concerning the immanent operations, according to the doctrine of the Doctor, appear more certain, nevertheless I would not hesitate to assert that the duration of the angel himself, as well as of his operations, and indeed of whatsoever permanent thing, can truly also be measured by our time; so that by their coexistence with our time it can be distinctly known how long they have lasted, namely either by a year, or by a day, or by an hour; and accordingly the duration of those things can be called temporal just as much as anything else whatsoever.

And this can indeed be confirmed by reason; for angelic duration must have some measure, whence it can easily be conjectured that the angel has lasted or will last so long; but this cannot be distinctly known through the very existence of the angel; for even if someone were to know intuitively the nature of the angel and its real existence, still from that he could not know with certainty how long it has lasted or will last; and therefore it must have another measure from which is known what sort and how great its duration is, and to measure it at least as regards the past. Now time can easily serve for this; since, on the hypothesis that (as was proved above) the angels were created together with the Universe, anyone will easily be able to judge that they have already lasted through so many thousands and hundreds of years, namely from the creation of the world until now; and if time were perpetual, from it anyone could know of the angels that they themselves and others have lasted so many and no more years, days, and hours: therefore if we consider the coexistence of the angels with time, it will be permissible to assert that it can be called an external measure of angelic duration, as of any other permanent things whatsoever.

Yet thence I would not subscribe to the Thomists, who assert that the immanent operations of the angels are measured by discrete time; for this assertion seems improbable: both because, as we proved above in question 1, conclusion 2, that discrete time is altogether fictitious and gratuitously invented; and because any instant of discrete time necessarily coexists with some part of our time, or with an instant: if with an instant, then our time is likewise discrete, and has instants succeeding each other immediately; and henceforth it is not a continuous quantity, as the Philosophers hold; if it corresponds to some part of time, then it follows that the angel cannot form an intellection in an indivisible instant of our time, because it could not form it except in an instant of its discrete time, which instant would necessarily correspond not to an instant but to a divisible part of our time; but this consequent is far from the truth; for if man can form an intellection in an instant of our time, much more the angel; finally, moreover, because the Thomists admit that our intellections and volitions are not measured by discrete time: therefore by parity of reason the same must be said of the angelic ones. The consequence is evident, for our intellections are whole at once, just as the angelic ones: therefore they have a proportionate measure; and hence if those are not measured by discrete time, these likewise cannot be said to be so measured by such a time.

Although the angels, by their nature, have no commerce with corporeal things — since they are not concreted with a body, nor do they coalesce from matter and spirit, nor are they, finally, substantial forms destined by their nature for the animation and actuation of a body — it is nevertheless certain that they sometimes produce effects toward bodily things that are altogether stupendous, whether they move bodies of any kind so that what lies hidden in them may appear to us, or work various effects in them and bring forth things wonderful and unusual. Of all these matters, that we may at least taste something of them, we here propose three especially to be determined: First, whether, and what bodies the angels assume in order to appear to men in them: Second, whether, and what vital acts they are able to perform in those bodies: Third, whether, and in what way they are able to produce or alter certain corporeal things.

Note 1. From the Seraphic Doctor, in the second book, dist. 8, art. 1, qu. 2: that there is in the angels a twofold power, namely the Contemplative and the Administrative.

According to the Contemplative, he says, they are turned toward God, and thus they do not need the solace of an assumed body. According to the Administrative they descend to us and condescend to us, and in order to condescend to us more fittingly they need the solace of an assumed body. They need it, I say, 1. for exercising certain operations; 2. they need it for manifesting themselves; 3. they need it for gladdening or comforting us ourselves, and therefore they assume bodies as instruments, or organs for operating, as signs for manifesting, as coverings, or dwellings for conversing. Hence the assumed body is joined to them as instrument to mover, as sign to what is signified, as dwelling to inhabitant. Now this need on our part requires it more than their need does on their own: and because the end imposes necessity upon those things which are toward the end, and a body figured or organized with human figure especially befits the operations of a rational spirit, and signifies them more expressively, and in some way adorns them as a beautiful garment; therefore the angel assumes a body, not just any kind, but one marked with human figure.

Note 2. From the same place, art. 2, question 1: although the angels sometimes assume human bodies, yet they do not fashion for themselves perfectly organized ones,

because, he says, the angel cannot bring a natural form into being except when aided by the power of nature; now it belongs to the power of nature to produce the bodies of all animals; nevertheless in one way and in another. For to bring forth certain things the universal cause suffices without the help of a particular agent similar in species of nature, such as those animals which are generated by putrefaction; but there are certain things for which it does not suffice unless it is aided by an agent of similar species, such as the bodies of animals, which are produced only by propagation, and this is plain to sense. But if the reason for this is asked, the first is the divine institution according to which there is a limitation in the powers and natures of things: and this according to the law which he implanted in them from the beginning. Hence just as he said, Let the earth bring forth green herbs: he did not say that it should bring forth man; but to man he said that he should multiply himself; so the earth brings forth herb, and man generates man. Now this law, or institution, is not without reason; because certain animals are imperfect both in organization and in duration, while others are perfect in both ways; but since certain animal bodies are imperfect both in organization and in completion, they do not need an agent of such great power; rather the productive power of them could have been given to the earth, as to a mother, and to the Sun as to a father, with the help of other simple bodies, both elemental and celestial; but because they are imperfect in duration and at times perish, this had to be communicated to an agent of another nature, because for this the generative power was given to things, as the Philosopher says, that they might perdure in being. Contrariwise it is with animals perfect in both ways: and therefore their productive power demands a greater actuality, and the seminal ratio is brought into act with greater difficulty: therefore it needs greater help. Those animals, then, which belong to the first kind can be brought forth by the angels, by means of nature's help, quickly and almost suddenly; truly nonetheless, because by the force of nature. But animals and their bodies belonging to the second kind cannot be brought forth truly except with the aid of nature, and with long delay and time. And since the assumption of bodies by the angels is quick and almost sudden, they do not assume true human bodies, because they cannot form them of themselves truly, nor can they bring them into being quickly with the aid of another: and even if they were brought forth, they still would not befit, partly because of the appetite they would have for a rational soul, partly because of gravity: both of which are repugnant to the end of that body. For if it had a rational soul, it would not be a fitting sign for appearing: > if it had gravity, it would not be a fitting instrument for operating, especially for motion, nor would it even be a fitting habitation for inhabiting.

Note 3. From the same place, question 2: that there was variety of opinion among the weightier Authors concerning the resolution of the present question:

for some wished to say that the angels assume bodies from elemental nature, yet so that not from one only, but from all mixed together at once, though one of them predominating: hence they say that body assumed by the angel is truly a mixed body, although it is not truly a human body. And they say that that form of mixture is from the angel as from one preparing the ground, but from the Lord as from one giving — giving, I say, not by creation or infusion, but by intrinsic operation, inasmuch as he implanted in things nature and seminal powers, according to which all natural forms are produced into being with God cooperating.

— But since that body is formed and destroyed almost suddenly, it does not seem probable to others that it is mixed by full mixture: especially since in its resolution no length of time appears, nor corruption of putrefaction: and therefore they said that that body is of simple elemental nature, from which they say that assumed body is formed in this way. For the elemental nature from which the angel forms a body for itself is the element of air, which by its nature is capable of rarefaction and condensation, if there be a power able to do this. Hence just as we now see water solidify into crystal or ice in cold: if it happens that by some hidden power — which does not escape the angels — air can be condensed, but this according to more or less at the will of the angel operating: while this body is condensed it can take on figure and effigy: and thus become conformable to an organic body. Nevertheless it can be condensed more in one part, less in another, not at all in another, and thus be conformed to nerve, bone, and flesh. It can also intercept more of light in one of its parts, less in another, none in another, and thereby have various colors in itself: and thus become almost in all respects conformable to a human body, although it is not multiform in its principles; and thus be fit as instrument, sign, and habitation, to be assumed by an angel.

— But still, because it is difficult to understand how from air, without the admixture of another element, a solid body colored with diverse colors comes to be, since to produce colors is not within art's power except through nature's assistance, therefore the third way seems still more probable, namely that the body assumed by the angel is an elementary body, not because it is compounded of four elements mixed with full mixture, like a complexioned body, nor because it is formed of pure and simple element; but because it is formed principally from air, with some admixture of another element, as we see in a cloud, which is not a fully mixed body, yet has in itself the natures of several elements: in this way the body assumed by the angel is understood to be formed principally from air, with the nature of some vapor of earth or water concurring, which indeed contributes both to variety of condensation and to multiformity of color; and the angel has no need to beg this from afar, since air is for the most part mingled with vapors.

These things prenoted, four points remain here chiefly to be determined and proved: First, that in truth the angels sometimes assume bodies in which they appear sensibly to men, so that the apparition is not an illusion and mockery of the senses, but truly an outward sensible manifestation of a body. Second, that that assumed body is sometimes fashioned by the angels from sensible matter. Third, that that assumed body is sometimes a human cadaver delineated and moved in the manner of a living being. Fourth, that the angel is in that body only as an extrinsic mover and director.

First conclusion. — Truly the angels appear at times to men in bodies visible and perceptible to sense.

This is common opinion, against William of Paris, part two of the second part of De Universo, chapter 34 and following, where he proves that the angels do not assume bodies but only alter the imagination of those to whom they appear.

Proof of the Conclusion. by all those texts of Scripture in which such sensible apparitions of angels are related; for they were most frequent in the Old Testament. For Genesis 3: the demon appeared to Eve under the appearance of a serpent, and spoke; and ch. 18: three men appeared to Abraham; and ch. 19: two angels came to Sodom in the figure of pilgrims; and ch. 32: angels came to meet Jacob, whom when he had seen he said, These are the camps of God; and afterwards one of them wrestled with Jacob in the figure of a man until morning. And finally Raphael appeared to Tobias not only in passing, if I may so speak, but accompanied him through many days and over varied journeys. In the New Testament too the angel Gabriel appeared visibly and spoke to the Virgin Mary, and the Devil appeared visibly to Christ to tempt him: and in the Acts of the Apostles, ch. 5, and more clearly in ch. 12, similar apparitions of angels are narrated. Therefore this truth is certain, and taken generally no doubt or difficulty arises about it: but in the manner of explaining such apparitions there can be some.

The holy Fathers prove this same thing, Augustine above all lib. 15. De Civit. Dei, cap. 23. That angels, says he, appeared to men in such bodies that they could not only be seen but even touched, the same most true Scripture testifies. In which words he is little short of teaching that this is a matter of faith. The same Damascene openly holds in lib. 2 De Fide, cap. 3, speaking of the holy Angels: To upright men outstanding in virtue, to whom God has willed to grant the opportunity of seeing them, they appear not as they are, but assume now one form, now another, as he may be seen by men: and therefore further below, when he had said that the angels do not consist of three dimensions, nor are circumscribed in a bodily way, nor figured, he adds, as regards their nature, indicating that in assumed bodies they can receive those three things. Indeed even in cap. 4, On the evil Angels, he says: By power granted from God they prevail with forces, and are changed, and pass, as indeed appears, into whatever form they will; wherein, as Suarez says lib. 4 cap. 33, the phrase as indeed appears does not exclude a sensible, if I may so say, manifestation; but denotes either that they do not appear as regards their proper nature, but only as regards the assumed body; or denotes that those bodies in which they appear are not of that nature or species which they display, although they are truly sensible and external.

Hence St. Gregory, Homily 34 on the Gospels, distinguishes a twofold mission of the angels, namely invisible and visible, after the manner in which Theologians are accustomed to distinguish them in the divine Persons: and he refers that distinction in the angels back to Dionysius.

Finally Cyprian, lib. De cardinalibus Christi operibus, in the Prefatione: if, he says, the Angelic Spirits who are about him, although of invisible nature, make themselves manifest to hearing and sight in their embassies, we most often experience them as ministers of our salvation.

It is proved also by the arguments of the Seraphic Doctor praised above, qu. 2. First indeed: hospitality's lodging can be extended to no one unless he has a body naturally united or assumed: but these offices have at times been rendered to angels, as is said in the last chapter of Hebrews, that some pleased God, receiving angels to hospitality: therefore they either had bodies united or assumed: but they did not have naturally united ones: therefore assumed. Second, no spiritual substance offers solace to sense from its companionship unless it becomes visible through the indwelling of a body: but angels frequently offer solaces, not only according to spirit but also according to sense, as is plain in the angel of Tobias: therefore they inhabit bodies: but they do not always have them united: therefore voluntarily assumed. Third, no spirit can be visibly pointed out in demonstration of a body unless it be somehow joined to that body: but the angel who spoke to Tobias could be visibly pointed out, and truly called "this is Raphael," or "this is an angel": therefore he had that body joined to himself in some way: but not by natural conjunction: therefore by voluntary assumption.

You will say 1. There ought to be proportion of the assumer to the assumed: but angelic spirit is wholly incorporeal: therefore it has no proportion to a body: therefore it never assumes it. It is confirmed. the rational soul has greater conveniency to a body than angelic spirit has: but a separate soul does not assume a body: therefore neither does angelic spirit.

The Seraphic Doctor answers that that proportion must be attended to according to the mode of assumption: whence since assumption is not into unity of nature, it is not required that there be proportion there as of perfective to perfectible, but it suffices that there be proportion as of mover to movable.

To the confirmation. he answers that there is no parity between an angel and a separate soul, because it has not administrative power, nor the use of administering, and therefore neither assumes a body nor ought to have the power of assuming.

You will say 2. A body is assumed either on account of something, or on account of nothing: if on account of nothing: then in vain: if on account of something, it is either good or evil: if good: then by the assumed body he merits: if evil: then by the assumed body he demerits: therefore the angel must be able to be punished and rewarded together with the assumed body, which is inconvenient and plainly false.

The same Seraphic Doctor answers that that assumption takes place, not in vain, but on account of the reasons assigned in the first Notable. That for which he assumes, however, he says, he does not perfect through the body as the soul through its own body; but as an artisan through an instrument, and therefore just as an instrument through which one merited is not rewarded, so neither is the body assumed by an angel.

You will say 3. Wherever there is assumption, there is some union, either in person, or in nature, as is plain in the assumption of human nature by the Son of God: therefore if the angel assumes a body, he unites it to himself either in person or in nature: but he does not unite it to himself in nature: because no third thing results: nor in person, because there is no communication of idioms: therefore in no way is there union there: therefore no assumption.

The same Seraphic Doctor answers, denying the antecedent: for it does not comprehend every mode of assumption, because, he says, a man assumes clothing when he puts it on, yet he does not unite it to himself in person, nor in nature: therefore the antecedent is true only of that assumption in which there is perfect union, such as was the assumption of human nature by the divine Word. But that other similar objections of this sort may be solved, he cleverly admonishes in the same place, that when an angel is said to assume a body, this assumption is not to be so understood as if he merely moved it, or operated something upon the body; but because he takes it to himself, that in it he may operate, that in it he may be manifested, that in it he may converse: and because in that conjunction or reception the body follows rather the mode of the spirit than conversely, since it is formed, preserved, and ruled by it, therefore the angel holds the role of assumer and possessor; the body truly the role of assumed and possessed.

You will say 4. The angels sometimes appear to men by mere alteration of the interior senses and of the imagination, namely when they address sleeping men: thus e.g. an angel appeared to Joseph in dreams, saying: arise, and take the child and his mother, etc. Why then shall we not affirm that they always appear thus?

I answer. that this indeed truly happens at times, but I deny that it is always done in that manner. I acknowledge therefore that apparitions of angels are accustomed to take place in one or other of these three ways: First by mere alteration of the imaginative faculty: Second by a certain disturbance of the external sense, as happens in prestiges: Third by the external representation of a sensible object, whether meanwhile what appears is true or merely fictitious. It is indeed true that angels sometimes appear to men in the first way; they are also seen in the second way, namely when demons mock men with their prestiges: yet it must also be confessed that they are sometimes perceived in the third way, namely in assumed bodies duly presented to the visual faculty rightly disposed for operating.

You will say finally. with the aforesaid William of Paris, at the beginning of the Conclusion: if the angels appeared in bodies, they would either fashion those bodies or assume them formed elsewhere: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first, for the fabrication of such bodies would be either sudden or successive; if it were done suddenly: then by the mere nod and command of the assumers: but this belongs to the virtue of the omnipotent Creator alone: but if it were not done suddenly, but successively, part namely after part, then this fabrication would be generation, wherefore it would be from something which would be corrupted into the generated; since therefore it must be visible, it is necessary that such generation take place elsewhere than before the men before whom such apparition is made: since therefore it has never been seen anywhere in the whole world either taking place, or the matter from which it is made, it is necessary that it be made outside the dwelling of men: how then do they arrive into the sight of men with such velocity, and depart likewise with no less? and where do they lay down and store away those bodies of which no trace appears after their disappearance? Such are his words.

He confirms it from the fact that the angels sometimes appear in greatest number,

for, he says, their army seems greater than all the armies of all the Kings and Princes of the earth: whence then would the matter be assumed from which so great a numerosity of human bodies, and of new horses, shields, lances, helmets, and other things appearing was fabricated, when whole mountains and all other parts of the earth persist?

— Nor yet secondly, for if they were true bodies, he says in the same place, of the kind they appear, they would be truly tangible, truly palpable, and truly passible with every kind of passion: but nothing of this is found in them. Moreover, to be corrupted suddenly and reduced to nothing is not possible; for the corruption of a body, or its generation, does not seem possible to happen suddenly, as it is manifest of creation that it is instantaneous, and not done in any way by parts or succession: where then would that corruption take place, if not where also their apparition and disappearance? There therefore it is necessary that in truth appear and be that in which the corruption or resolution of such bodies is made; but it is manifest, since they leave nothing behind them that is body or corporeal.

He answers, that the angels sometimes appear in bodies fashioned by themselves, but sometimes in bodies formed elsewhere; how however, and from what matter, they can fashion or dismiss bodies with so easy and so sudden formation or resolution, will be opened up

Second conclusion. — The angels sometimes appear in bodies which they fashion out of matter, not celestial, nor purely elementary, but mixed.

This is the common view, according to the truth of the matter, among almost all Theologians, although some vary in the mode of explaining and proving the same; and the Subtle Doctor openly defends it, dist. 8, n. 3, whose words, since they lucidly explain the truth and proof of this resolution, I am glad to transcribe here.

I say, he says, that he does not assume a celestial body, nor an elementary body in which he may appear, because in the elementary he would not appear visibly, nor is an elementary body receptive of those accidents in which he appears. Mixed bodies, however, already generated by nature, he can assume, such as the corpse of the dead, or a stone, or something of that kind. And when he assumes some one which does not seem previously caused or formed by natural causes, but seems to be formed then and suddenly, and, the operation complete, to disappear, as happened with Raphael and Samuel; then it seems probable that it is a mixed body on account of the accidents which appear in the body; but not mixed with full mixture: both because from generation such a mixture could not be formed so suddenly, for it would not be born to generate except according to a determinate process of nature, which is not there, namely if he appear in the body of a man not previously generated by nature, that body would not be born, or apt to be generated, except in matter. It cannot be said that the angel suddenly induces that form into matter, because he cannot induce a natural form, but only the active and passive elements can he fittingly apply together, and approximate to bodies in a fitting situation, so that the particular form may be induced which is born to be induced by such particular agents.

Therefore the body which is thus so suddenly formed and resolved is mixed with imperfect mixture, such as can be induced by natural agents, the approximation of the elements having been made almost suddenly; so that such a body is more assimilated to an impression which is imperfectly mixed, and the sign of this is, that when such a body disappears, there does not remain anything of such a body into which the assumed body would naturally be resolvable by means thereof, if it had been perfectly mixed; for a human body, if it were a perfect mixture, is not born to return except to a cadaver: but such an imperfectly mixed one is resolved at once into the elements, just as it could at once be generated from them on account of their imperfect mixture.

By these arguments the Doctor concludes chiefly three things. First, that angels do not assume a heavenly body, because they would either assume a heavenly body already generated or produced before, that is, some part of the heavenly bodies, e.g., of the heavens or of the stars; but this would be stupid to think, since it would follow that those superior bodies would not remain intact, either, in place of the part assumed by the angel, another part would have to be produced anew; or there would be some body of the same species as the heavenly body; but this also would be absurd, since, bearing as it does the species of a sublunary body, it ought rather to be called sublunary than heavenly. Add that a heavenly body would not be a proportionate subject for those accidents which appear in bodies of this kind when assumed.

The Doctor concludes secondly that that body figured and assumed by angels is not formed out of any one of the four elements. For if any pure element served for this, especially air: yet air is not a proportionate subject of those accidents which are in bodies assumed by an angel, namely such solidity and density as there is in bones, or in those parts which appear as bones in those bodies. Then, too, since that body appears as a mixed body distinct from the elemental ones, and it would not seem easier for an angel to produce those external accidents which appear than a mixed body, it ought rather to be said that it is a mixed body than air, or some other element.

Hence I cannot assent to Alexander of Hales, q. 34, member 4, where, having said that there is a twofold part of air, namely the upper, which is purer and properly called air, and another lower, which is named Aether, and that on this basis two heavens are distinguished, the ethereal and the aerial, he concludes that good angels assume bodies from the ether, but evil ones rather from the air. This, I say, I can hardly prove, seeing that neither portion of air seems capable of being so condensed and compacted into a body as to display the softness of flesh and the hardness of bones.

Whence the Doctor concludes thirdly, that the body formed by angels should have as its matter some mixture, namely vapor, or a cloud: as St. Thomas also grants, affirming that angels sometimes fashion for themselves bodies out of a cloud, which Maro too was not ignorant of when he sang of the Devil disguised: Then the goddess in a hollow cloud, a slender shadow without strength, a marvel wondrous to behold, fashioned into the face of Aeneas, adorned with Dardanian arms, etc. The reason of this is that a mixed body can easily be condensed, and take on thickness and shape, as is evident in clouds, vapors, exhalations, and other meteors, some of which are so compacted by cold, or hardened by ethereal fire, that they can scarcely be dissolved, as appears in lightning and hail. I confess, however, that it can hardly be explained how bodies formed by angels out of vapors and clouds can be so hardened as to be felt or touched, so that to the touch they appear either solid or soft;

for who could explain, says St. Augustine in the Enchiridion, chapter 59, with what kind of bodies they appeared to men, so that they were not only seen but even touched? And a little later he adds, And they raise a most difficult question, how the Patriarchs washed their feet, how Jacob wrestled with the angel in so solid a contest; and in the same place he concludes:

When these things are inquired into, and each one handles them as best he can, minds are not unprofitably exercised, provided the discussion be moderate, and the error of those who think they know what they do not know be far away; for what need is there that this and the like be affirmed or denied or defined with risk, when they can be left unknown without fault?

and although Augustine said this about bodies in which he thought angels naturally subsist, the same judgment must be held, with stronger reason, of those which angels assume by will alone.

Nevertheless we can affirm that an angel, by the same power by which he assumes the body, can make it appear solid to the touch although in itself it is not solid; namely, by his own power resisting, lest the parts of such a body yield or be divided easily. Hence he can bring it about that some softer parts appear like flesh, and others denser like bone; for he can resist the touch more or less, yielding not at all in some places, somewhat in others; not so as to be divided, but so as to be somehow compressed.

I confess, however, that if the man with whom the angel converses in an assumed body considers attentively what he touches while the angel handles the body, he will easily judge that it is not true hardness, nor true softness such as is found in bones and flesh: for if he attended carefully, he would easily perceive that his touch is not affected by those bodies as by others which live and have real flesh and bones.

The opposite happens, however, when a man is persuaded that this is a true man with whom he converses and whom he sees; for then, since he judges with his eyes that he is a man, and touches his body with his mind, he thinks he is touching flesh and bones, nor does he discern whether it is a true body or only an apparent one. Thus I think it happened to Abraham and Lot when in Genesis 18 and 19 they washed the feet of the angels: for then they did not know that they were angels appearing in assumed bodies.

As for the colors which are fashioned by angels in assumed bodies, very many hold them to be merely apparent, like those which are repeatedly seen in clouds, or on the neck of a dove: but this seems difficult, since the same colors appear to many beholders and in different places, even when the sun is not shining, which does not happen with the rainbow, clouds, and other merely apparent colors: therefore they are real, arising partly from the blending of the elements and primary qualities, partly disposed by the work of the angel as though painting them with art.

Concerning the power by which these bodies are assumed and prepared, St. Thomas holds, question 51, that it is done by the power of God. But Alexander of Hales, question 34, member 5, says that the angel prepares the assumed body, while the ultimate formation is done by God himself. Yet I judge it more probable, with

the Doctor, that those bodies are made by the angel by his own power: for the Doctor holds, as we said above, that those bodies are shaped by condensation; and since condensation is brought about solely by a motion of compression, which the angel can effect by his own power, it follows that a body can be assumed by the angel by his own power. And although this is not always done by condensation alone, yet the angel can sometimes accomplish such bodies by applying other natural causes, so that they may be assumed. This I think more probable, for since evil angels also assume bodies for the worst ends, it is not likely that God forms them by his own power, using only the demon himself as instrument.

Moreover, it must be noted that when angels, especially demons, appear in a body figured by themselves and assumed, they can insert it into the body of the man with whom they speak, and also surround that man with their assumed body; so that the man thus surrounded and clothed with such a body may either bear the likeness of another man, or put on some other form: for this the subtlety of the aerial substance urges, being easy to dilate or rarefy, and to thicken and condense. Which Psellus rightly hands down as the cause why specters seem to grow and shrink in so short a space: for sometimes those specters represent a giant, at other times a dwarf or a pygmy; because the matter out of which they compacted the assumed body, being thin and soft, can easily be rarefied and condensed.

Third conclusion. — Demons for the most part appear in bodies either of men or of animals that have died.

This also is the common view among Theologians, as is proved by well-nigh countless examples, whereby it is established that demons have for the most part deluded men in assumed corpses of the dead: many examples of this kind Caesarius, Monk of Heisterbach, adduces in book 12 of his Miracles, chapter 3, where he relates above all that a demon bore about the body of a certain German Prince who had died, for a whole year before he was buried, as though quickening it: so that he truly seemed to have risen from the dead. He adds in the same place that similar things are read in the life of St. Patrick, Apostle of the Irish, concerning a certain man in whose body the Devil dwelling for many years as though he were the man's soul at length went forth at the nod of the holy man, and the body collapsed and was reduced to dust. And in chapter 4 he writes that a certain Clerk had so sweet a voice that to hear him seemed a delight, until a certain Religious conjured him; at whose word the corpse fell down flat, stenching horribly.

— So also clad in a corpse the Devil, whether incubus or succubus, has dealings with witches and fortune-tellers. Whence also in that kind of men a certain cadaverous stench of foulness is discerned.

So William of Paris, in the last part of De Universo, relates that once, having assumed the carcass of a beast, the Devil deluded a soldier who, thinking he had possessed a beautiful maiden, found himself lying in the embrace of a beastly carcass dissolved in corruption, stenching most foully.

So finally the demon at times raises up bodies already buried, and agitates them as though they were living, so that they may seem to have risen again; a thing of this stupendous kind Phlegon relates in the book On Marvels and Long-lived Persons, whose authority Origen uses in tractate 29 on Matthew, to prove the eclipse which had occurred at Christ's dying. That Phlegon, I say, testifies that he knew a certain man named Machates, who had loved Philinnium, the daughter of his host, against the will of her parents, and desired to lead her as his bride; during Machates' absence she, wasting away with grief, died, and was publicly buried. But when Machates returned six months later, Philinnium entered to him by night, and after long conversation with him passed the night there; which when her parents had heard, and had caught sight of their daughter sleeping with her guest, they rush into his embraces as though she were alive; but she, regarding them with fierce eyes,

O cruel parents toward your daughter! she said: could you not have grudged me, my Machates, even three full days of enjoyment in my father's house? Will this curiosity or hardness cost you great grief? You will renew past sorrows, and bury your daughter a second time.

These words spoken, she grew pale, and fell down, a corpse again like unto death, or rather truly dead: for when, at the command of the Magistrate, the tomb of that Philinnius had been opened, it was found empty of the corpse, and in it were only an iron ring and a gilded cup, which Machates had given as presents to her as though returned to life.

— It happens also that the daemon, enticed by the works of Magicians, at times steals living persons, and substitutes in their place dead corpses fashioned to the likeness of those persons, exhibiting them as though languishing, at length sickening unto death, then dying, and to be buried as dead, so that the persons withdrawn by him may be accounted truly dead. Two stupendous examples of this kind Thomas of Brabant relates in book 2 De Bono Universali, chapter 51, where he writes that in a village of Brabant named Gunerchena, a certain youth loved a virgin maiden; and when her parents anxiously pressed him for her marriage, and they refused, meanwhile the girl fell into an acute fever, under which growing worse, she seemed to all to die, and mourning being made, the bells were tolled as for one dead. Without delay, the young lover of the girl was passing at twilight from that village to another, and as he went through the thickets he heard a voice as of a woman lamenting anxiously: so running hither and thither, and seeking her whom he had heard, he found the girl whom he had judged dead; to whom he said, Your people mourn you as dead, and whence do you come here? Behold, she said, a man goes before me who led me here. Astonished at this, since he saw no one else but the girl, the youth boldly seizes her, and straightway hides her in a house outside the village. Thence entering the village he speaks with his friends, and with them comes upon the father of the girl sitting with his household at the funeral; he asks him whether he would give him his daughter, whom he was bewailing as dead? To whom the father answered in wonder, Are you God's envoy to me, that you should raise the dead and take her to wife? To whom the youth said: Only promise me willingly that I may have your daughter to wife, if I restore her alive and healed. To him the father consenting confirmed the word before all; presently the youth, lifting the linen with which the daughter was thought covered, they found a marvelous figment such as no man could make. It is said moreover by those who inspected these diabolical figments that they were inwardly like rotten wood, and outwardly wrapped in a thin skin: hence the girl restored...

But if you ask, how could the daemon accomplish these things? I shall answer that it is indeed done, God permitting, by magical power, which perhaps that youth had used, that he might lead the foresaid daughter to himself in marriage. Other things like these we shall relate in the last Disputation, when we speak of Magi and Witches.

It must be noted, moreover, first of all, that the daemon cannot truly organize those assumed corpses, nor restore life to them, since the vivification of the dead is the work of God alone. Yet he can, if permitted, render himself tangible in the assumed body of the deceased with true hardness and softness on the part of the body, external causes also conjoined, heat, and other sufficient qualities, so that it appears alive to the touch.

It must be noted likewise, that it must without doubt be believed that this is never permitted to the daemon with regard to the bodies of those who died just; because it is unfitting, nor is it consonant with divine friendship: but of others perhaps it sometimes happens; yet I think it rarely permitted to the daemon, because so great license is not given him, especially in the Church of Christ, for deceiving men.

However much he may wish to represent the fairest likeness of a man, which is of God's goodness, he is wont to assume only as much, and such, as God permits, as St. Chrysostom testifies, Homily 4 on Lazarus; and therefore we see it happen even against his will, that those who are not too dull of mind can always, if attentive, detect the fraud: for either the demons show themselves in a human body black, filthy, squalid, stinking, hideous, and dreadful, at least dark, black, and foul of face, with nostrils either deformedly flat or monstrously aquiline, with jaws gaping wide and deep, with eyes deeply sunken yet flaming, with hands and feet crooked and vulturine, arms and legs shaggy and exceedingly hairy, with calves goat-like or ass-like, one or both feet cloven and horny; sometimes solid-hoofed, sometimes maimed in one foot or both: finally, of a stature never comely and graceful, but always bearing something of unusual mark, betraying the deformity and perversity of the demon.

You will say. If the daemon could assume a true human body, it would follow that there was no argument of Christ the Lord, whereby in Luke 24, when the Disciples doubted of his true resurrection, he wished to persuade them that he was not a phantom, saying: Handle, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have; by which words he invited them to handle and see that he himself had flesh and bones, such as spirits have not even when they assume bodies: therefore he implies that a spirit cannot assume for itself a body that is palpable, and has the softness of flesh and the hardness of bones: but such would be a human body assumed by a daemon: therefore it cannot assume it, or else the argument of Christ did not seem to press much.

I deny the consequence. For the intent of Christ was only to persuade the Apostles that he was not a phantom, such as they thought him, because they had seen him enter through doors closed; which was repugnant to anything corporeal, whether living or dead, since penetration of bodies cannot naturally occur: therefore he wished to prove that by touch they could feel and judge that he had a true body, and not a phantastic one. And because by handling alone they could know that it was a body, but not whose body it was, therefore he commands them to see and touch the wounds imprinted on his body, whereby they were allowed to detect that he was the very one who had been crucified three days before.

Fourth conclusion. — An angel does not assume a body by way of an informing form, nor by way of hypostatic union, but as a mover ruling and directing it in the eliciting of certain operations.

Thus the Subtle Doctor, dist. 8, num. 2, where, having asked what it is for an angel to assume a body, he answers: This indeed, he says, is not to inform, nor even to unite it hypostatically to himself, but only to be the intrinsic mover of the body: for then he assumes, that is, takes to himself; because to discharge his proper operations he uses it as an instrument. Nor is that assumption said to occur when the assumed body is moved with progressive motion; because such motion does not suit the end for which such a body is assumed.

By these the Doctor resolves first that an angel is not united to a body as form, because otherwise he would be an incomplete substance, not complete, no less than the soul; nay, he would be a soul; because if he could inform some body, especially an organic body, seeing that it is fitter for information, he would thus be the act of an organic body.

He infers secondly that he does not assume a body hypostatically, since at least naturally such hypostatic union cannot occur; but demons assume bodies only by natural power: and in good angels a miracle does not seem admissible as often as they appear to men; for the matter is per se far too slight for establishing so great a miracle as hypostatic union itself.

He concludes thirdly, that for an angel to assume a body is nothing else than to assist it as a mover in the mobile, in order to exercise those operations truly or apparently, by which the angel may seem to inform the assumed body. In this the other Princes of Theology agree likewise, especially St. Thomas, 1, q. 51, art. 2, and the Seraphic Doctor, in 2, dist. 8, art. 3, q. 2. For nothing seems further required for that assumption of a body than that the angel intrinsically move the assumed body in such wise, which will plainly appear by assigning the reason of the individual parts of this dictum on assumption. First, we say that the angel is an intrinsic mover, because if he were an extrinsic mover he would not properly be said to assume a body to himself; likewise, if he were intimately present to the body, but not in order to move it, surely he would not be said to assume it; just as neither can the soul, present to a body, assume a body, nor is one body simultaneously penetrated with another body said to assume that other body, even if by its own power it placed itself penetratingly together with it. There is added, in order to exercise such operations, because it would not suffice that he be intimately present by way of local motion, otherwise an angel present to the Heaven and locally moving it would be said to assume the Heaven; likewise the angel who carried the Prophet Habakkuk by the hair to the den of lions, in which Daniel the Prophet was shut up, would be said truly to have assumed him, which nevertheless all Interpreters deny; for that translation was indeed a carrying of the body, but not an assumption. We said true or apparent operations, because some of those operations which appear are such not in the truth of the thing; for sensible hearing, bodily touch, and ocular vision, which we think the angels exercise in assumed bodies, are not true actions, but merely apparent.

Finally, the Doctor gathers that it does not suffice for that assumption of a body by an angel that he move it locally; for thus the motive Intelligences would assume the celestial spheres which they are said to move. Add that bodies remain assumed even when the angel ceases from all motion. Therefore, for him to be truly said to assume a body which he moves with progressive motion, it must be understood of progressive motion that either is a sign of life, or signifies the angel to be intimately present to the body and moving it intrinsically.

Note 1. Vital actions are of a twofold kind above all: some are said to be productive of an intrinsic term, which is called vital, because it either essentially depends on an intrinsic principle of life, both proximate and principal, or at least cannot naturally be brought about in any other way; of this kind are all the actions of the external and internal senses, and also of the sensitive appetite. Others, however, are actions of living things which, although they are performed by them in a vital mode and are such under that aspect, nevertheless produce terms that can be brought about by a non-vital action, such as progressive local motion, the formation of the voice, and the like; these can be called vital actions as to their mode, and not as to their substance, so that they may be distinguished from the former, which can be called vital essentially, or in their substance.

Note 2. From the Seraphic Doctor in 2. dist. 8. art. 3. q. 2., sensation can be taken in three ways, namely commonly, properly, and more properly. Commonly, to sense is the same as to know a thing as present, according to which mode Augustine takes it in the book De videndo Deo addressed to Paulina. In the second way, to sense is the same as to know a thing as it is here and now, and thus Boethius takes it, when he says that sense is of particulars, and intellect of universals. In the third way, to sense is the same as to receive, by means of a bodily organ, the species existing in matter apart from matter, and thus the Philosopher takes it in the second book de Anima, when he says that sense is receptive of species in matter apart from matter. In the two prior ways sense does not differ from intellect in reality, but in reason only, and in this way sensation can be admitted in an angel; for the angel knows a thing by his intellectual power as present, and as here and now, by directing his gaze upon it. In the third way, however, the sensitive power differs from the intellectual in reality and in reason, and in that third way sense is a power tied to a body, and in this way it does not befit an angelic spirit. So St. Bonaventure.

Note 3. From the same, ibidem,

Since the soul is united to the body in a threefold way, namely in the manner of a mover, or of a perfecter, or in both ways, so it has a threefold kind of operations with regard to the body: for some are operations that follow from the soul itself in the body as mover; some as perfection; some partly in this way and partly in that. Now the soul exercises in the body, in different ways, the operations that follow from it as mover and as perfection: for the operations that follow from the soul as mover it exercises through the body in such a way that it exercises those same operations upon the body itself, because it moves not only other bodies but also its own body. But the operations that follow from the soul in the body as its perfection the soul exercises in the > body through the body in such a way that it exercises them with the body, as is evident from the fact that the soul, with the eye closed, cannot see some body. The third operations, however, it exercises in the body in a manner as it were of both ways; and therefore the first befit the soul as mover, distinct from the movable thing; the second, as the form joined to matter. Therefore, since the angel is united to the assumed body not as perfection but as mover, it exercises the first operations fully in that same body; the second not at all; the third in a certain way yes, and in a certain way no. And this is better seen if we descend to examples: progressive motion, or whatever other motion, of the exterior members is from the soul in the body as mover, and therefore it befits an angel. But to sense through the organs of the body befits the soul as the perfection of those organs; for as the soul perfects the whole body, so the sight, or visual power, perfects the eye, and this does not befit the angel in the assumed body. But to laugh is an operation that partly befits the soul as mover, partly as perfection; for there is there a certain exhilaration of the heart, and this is from the soul as perfection; and there is also there a certain motion of the cheeks, and this is from the soul as mover. By reason of the first it does not befit the angel, but only by reason of the second.

So the Seraphic Doctor, with whom the Subtle Doctor agrees in many points, as he will show.

First conclusion. — Angels in assumed bodies can exercise operations of life that are performed through the motion of the body; but not those that necessarily proceed from the sensitive or vegetative faculties.

So the Doctor praised above, n. 4., where he explains the First part of the conclusion thus:

I say that the angel can cause local motion in the assumed body, and thus motion that seems to be progressive; also motion that would be of inspiration and respiration, the motion of the eyelids and of the hands and of similar things: and the reason is, because there is no body so imperfect in the universe that it has not something in its active power, as is evident of a heavy body with respect to the center.

So the Doctor. From which it is established that he grants that every vital action that is performed through the motion of the body the angel can elicit in the assumed body. He proves this, because no power should be denied to a spiritual substance that is granted to a body: but the power of acquiring a place is granted to bodies; therefore also to angels. Yet I confess that this proof is only a light conjecture, since this power could befit a body even though it did not befit a spirit, for many things befit bodies that do not square with spirits; for there is no body that cannot produce some corporeal quality, yet no spirit, as is commonly supposed, can effect this. The true reason, therefore, why an angel can effect this motion is that it can transfer a body from place to place; but it could not do this unless it could equally move it locally; therefore it can walk in the assumed body, etc. Hence we read of the angel Raphael that, while Tobias walked, he spoke, and effected other motions and gestures of the body.

The Doctor also indicates the Second part in the same place, namely that the operations that necessarily proceed from the sensitive or vegetative faculties cannot be produced by angels in assumed bodies; and this is first evident concerning the operations of the sensitive faculties:

Because, he> says, those are not naturally apt to be received except in a composite of an organ at least perfectly mixed and of the soul, insofar as it has a perfective power, neither of which is there, namely neither such a mixture nor a perfecting soul; and therefore, simply speaking, in such a composite body that he assumes there is no sensation. Also the operations that consist in truly acting, of which kind are the vegetative operations, do not befit that composite; for either those operations are naturally apt to belong to an animate composite, which is not there; or to a perfectly mixed body, as if flesh were to generate flesh: but neither is there. Likewise as to the vegetative acts that appear, if we speak of true nutrition, nothing there can be nourished; but if we speak of eating, which precedes nutrition, that is only the division of food by the local motion of the jaws, and its conveyance into the belly by local motion; then exhalation and resolution into humor, or into the elements, can take place; and these local motions can be brought about in the body by the active power of the angel. And as was said of the nutritive, so must be said of the augmentative, for there there is no nutrition or augmentation: yet there can be a true juxtaposition, if he himself should wish suddenly to add to his body other elements that can be imperfectly mixed, so as to bring about such an imperfect mixture, so that he might seem to grow.

But if you say, if eating is not a vital operation, then the argument for proving the true resurrection of Christ from his eating with his Disciples is worthless, which is against the holy Fathers. — I answer, that for proving his resurrection there are in the Gospel many other arguments more efficacious than this one, and thus along with the others it proves well, even if not by itself alone. Or I say that it was an eating ordered to true nutrition, for it is not unfitting that a glorious body can convert a non-glorious body into itself, just as it can be together with a non-glorious body; nor is it on that account corruptible, because it can convert another into itself; for God could make a glorious body in the least quantity, and augment it through eating, and yet nothing of what was nourished and augmented would be corrupted; but in such assumed bodies there is no nutrition, but only addition, or apposition.

So the Doctor. From which he concludes three things above all: First, that truly sensitive actions, or sensations, cannot be elicited by angels in assumed bodies, because those actions require a living organ, either as an effective principle, or as a receptive principle, or perhaps as a productive and receptive principle; therefore, since in assumed bodies there are no living organs — otherwise the assumed body would have to be judged vivified by the angel, and consequently the angel would be the act of the body, and in consequence would be a soul, and an incomplete substance naturally requiring to be in a body, all of which are absurd — therefore neither can those truly and properly sensitive operations be elicited in assumed bodies. He infers, secondly, that eating can be brought about by angels insofar as it is the crushing of food and its conveyance into the inner part, or stomach, but not insofar as it signifies the conversion of the food into the substance of the one fed; for, says the Seraphic Doctor, dist. 8. art. 3. quaest. 1., in perfect feeding or eating there is a twofold action: The first is the taking and consumption of the food; the second is the conversion and union of that food with the substance of the one fed. The first, he says, befits angels in the assumed body, not in pretense but truly, because they truly take and consume the food set before them; not so the second, for the food taken does not restore their need or loss; for that feeding is not in the angels from need, as it is in bodies truly nourished. Hence those foods taken by the angels either dissolve into the air or are carried away elsewhere. For this reason the angel Raphael said to Tobias: I seemed to eat with you: but I make use of invisible food; for by seeming to eat, he indicated that he truly took the food, divided it, and conveyed it into the inner part of the assumed body, but did not convert it into the substance of that same body.

Finally the Doctor infers that the eating done by Christ after the resurrection before the Disciples could truly take place through the conversion of the food into his substance, and therefore be true nutrition: namely because it does not seem unfitting that a glorious body, by the absolute power of God, can be nourished without the loss of any part previously possessed.

This opinion Suarez, undeservedly and without any reason whatever, marked as error in lib. 4. cap. 39., because, he says, it may seem excessive, or at least rash; both because, he says, it is against the common consent of the holy Fathers and of the Church; and also because it is against the impassibility, or perfection, of the risen body. But both these reasons, as well as that man's censure, appear utterly absurd; for first, groundlessly he feigns it to be against the sense of the Church, since on this matter not even a syllable is read among the Fathers. Secondly, he falsely supposes that nutrition cannot take place without the loss of the preceding parts; for which of the Philosophers besides Suarez ever dreamed this? Nutrition indeed takes place through the addition of a new part of substance, but it does not necessarily entail the loss of the preceding parts. Nor does what he again objects have any more truth, namely that if nothing was lost through the eating of Christ after his resurrection, it follows that his body was incomplete, or that through the substance added it was made in a way monstrous, since it would have a redundant portion of substance.

— For he answers that, since that added substance was small, the body of the Lord Christ could not be said to have anything exuberant, or beyond its natural lot and just proportion. Nor did it equally follow from this that he would be passible, since nothing of him perished through that nutrition. Suarez's censure, therefore, is vain.

You will say. Tertullian in lib. 3. adversus Marcionem, who contended that the body of the Lord Christ was only phantastic, but not true and solid, and proved this from the fact that the angels, in the phantasm of putative flesh, acted before Abraham and Loth, and yet truly both met with them, and were fed, and did what had been commanded them; Tertullian replies:

Know that not even that is to be conceded to you, that the flesh in the angels was putative, but true and solid human substance: for if it was not difficult for that putative flesh to exhibit true senses and acts, much more easily did it have to give true substance of flesh with true senses and acts.

Therefore Tertullian grants that the angels had, just as a true body, so also truly vital bodily operations.

I answer. Tertullian was utterly doubtful in solving this question, whether the angels ever had true bodies and true bodily vital operations; for indeed he teaches the negative part in the book De Carne Christi cap. 6., where he says of the angels: It is established, he says, that the angels did not bear their own flesh, that is, of a spiritual substance of nature, and if of some body, nevertheless of their own kind: but they were transformable for a time into human flesh, so that they could be seen and meet with men. And more openly in the book De Resurrectione Carnis cap. 62.: Because the angels, he says, were sometimes as men, eating, drinking, and stretching out their feet to the washing: for they had put on a human surface, their own substance remaining intact within. And so it seemed to Tertullian to suffice that it did not agree with the dogma of Apelles, who said the angels were created from airy substance; but what kind of bodies were assumed by them, true or masked, he held in doubt.

Which indeed ought not seem marvelous, since blessed Augustine himself, referring to this perplexing question lib. 3. De Trinitate, cap. 1, confesses that it exceeds the powers of his attention; and blessed Bernard followed him, Homilia 5. in Cantica.

Moreover, he says, whether natural bodies belong to those spirits, as ours belong to men, or whether the spirits themselves, when there is need, take bodies, and again, the work being finished, lay them down into that same matter from which they were taken, to be dissolved? I do not wish you to inquire into this: the Fathers seem to have held different views on such things, nor is it clear to me whence I should teach one or the other, and I confess my ignorance; but I judge that the knowledge of these things contributes little to our profit.

But as to the speech that angels frequently form in assumed bodies, our Alensis, qu. 35. memb. 4., ascribes to them the power by which they can form a voice similar to the human not only through the assumed body as through instruments serving the human voice like organs, but even without any assumed human body at all; which also all antiquity attests, which remembers oracles not only in statues and idols, but also in caves, trees, beasts, and even in skulls uttered by the demon.

Yet I would judge that speech formed by angels is not properly so called, since this action, no less than those described above, is vital; nor does it, properly speaking, signify only the sound formed in the air, but also the manner of its formation, namely that it be made immediately through one's own vital organs, and from the motion of the phantasy, and with the intention of signifying something. And although an angel can form in the air, or in the assumed body, a sound similar to that, and materially of the same nature as the sound of the human voice, yet he cannot fashion that same sound formally, since that sound of angelic speech is not made through vital organs, nor through the alteration of the phantasy, nor with the intention of signifying something. Therefore angels speak in assumed bodies only in about the manner in which someone artfully expresses the sound of the human voice by means of some instrument, say a pipe or a trumpet, or in the way hollow valleys and fissures of walls, and likewise the recesses of caves, echo back a received and reverberated voice in a most articulate manner.

— But it must be observed that demons speaking in bodies for the most part use a shrill, hissing, confused, obscure, weak, puny voice, and as it were from a tun, or through a cracked shell, as Remigius admits in lib. 1. De Demonolatria c. 8.; but the devil, when he appears and speaks in an assumed body, can be seen and heard only by those whom he wishes, while remaining altogether hidden from the rest: and that naturally; if, namely, with respect to some and not with respect to others, he brings an impediment on the part of the object or of the organ, as if he should so obstruct the medium that the species are not carried through it to the eye or the hearing; or if he forbids those similitudes to be directed to others, while to those by whom he wishes to be heard and seen he allows the images and sounds to pass freely, and draws their imagination to nothing else.

Second conclusion. — Angels in assumed bodies cannot truly per se generate any perfect animal.

So the Theologians commonly, with the Doctor praised above, n. 5.

As to generation, he says, it must be said that it takes place by the power of the seed shed by the male into the female, in which the power of the father is preserved, as is commonly said: if he himself can receive that seed from someone by submitting, and preserve it in its natural quality suitable to his natural generation, until he pours it forth; he himself does nothing there except that he first receives into that assumed body that which he afterwards locally moves into someone upon whom he lies: and if that seed, before it is received into the womb, does not lose its natural quality, generation can take place through it, just as if he truly transferred what first fell into that same womb. And in this way generation is attributed not indeed to the good angel — God forbid that he mix himself in such vile things — but to the demon, because the same one first as succubus and afterwards as incubus receives the seed first poured forth by the one shedding it, and then pours it into the womb.

— The same has the Seraphic Doctor in the same dist. art. 3. q. 1., where he proves that demons cannot generate per se: first,

because generation is the production of a thing similar in species, but a demon assuming a body is not made like a man, but like a demon; therefore it cannot generate a man. Next, in order for generation to occur, it is necessary, according to the Physicians, that a threefold spirit concur, natural, vital, animal; and according to the Philosopher a threefold heat, namely the heat of the soul, the heat of the heaven, and the heat of the element; therefore, since the demon can have in the assumed body neither the animal spirit nor the animal heat, it seems that it can in no way generate. Finally, to generate is not an act of soul and body dividedly, but conjointly; but from the demon and the body there is not made one thing; therefore it can never pass through the body into the act of generating.

He adds, however, that two things concur to generation, namely the faculties and the constitution of the seed, as well as the transfusion and reception of that same seed:

the first, he says, belongs to that one alone to whom God gave the propagative power, and this in no way befits demons assuming a body; but the second, namely the reception and transfusion of the seed, can befit them; for first they submit to men in the form of women, that they may receive from them the seed of pollution, and with a certain cunning they preserve it in its power, and afterwards, by God's permission, they become incubi, and pour it into the vessels of women, from which transfusion men can be generated.

Delrio persuades this same truth with very many examples in lib. 2. Magiarum quaestionum q. 15. For antiquity, he says, thrusts forth its own offspring, begotten by demons in the guise of human form, as semi-gods: Hercules, Sarpedones, Servios Tullos; Anglia, Merlin; Pannonia, the Huns, born of the Arlunian Gothic striges and Fauns. Helinandus, lib. 4. Chronicorum, affirms that the family of Beauvais was raised up from a demon succubus. Chiesa, cap. 27. p. 2. histor. Perus., writes that in Hispaniola the demon Crocoton was accustomed to mingle with women, and that from this two-horned dwarfs are born.

— This same truth St. Augustine confirms in the books De Civitate Dei; for although in lib. 3. cap. 2. he spoke doubtfully, whether Venus could bear Aeneas from the union with Anchises, let us leave it in the middle: for a question of almost this kind arises in the Scriptures, where it is asked whether the apostate angels lay with the daughters of men? when, with the giants born, that is, men excessively large and strong, the earth was filled; nevertheless in lib. 15. cap. 23.¹ he determines the question in these words:

The report is exceedingly widespread, and many confirm that they have heard it from those with experience of such things, or from those who had the experience from persons whose good faith cannot be doubted, that Silvans and Fauns, whom the common people call Incubi, have been wanton with women and have coveted and accomplished intercourse with them; and that certain demons, whom the Gauls name Dusii, constantly attempt and effect this uncleanness — and they assert such things about it that to deny it would be shamelessness.

This very thing the Gloss confirms on those words of Genesis: The sons of God seeing the daughters of men, etc., where it says that it is not incredible that giants were begotten not by men but by angels, or by certain demons who are wanton with women.

William of Paris also proves it in part 3 of De Universo, chapter 25, where, after saying that the nation of the Huns was generated from demons of this kind, and likewise that the whole island of Cyprus was ravaged and inhabited by the sons of demons, he demonstrates by many arguments that demons can beget men, assuming and infusing not only human seed but even that of certain animals which have a certain affinity with man in generation; and he confirms this with the following example:

know, he says, that in the province of Saxony a certain bear (Ursus) carried off the wife of a certain soldier and brought her into the cave in which he dwelt, and there kept her for many days and years, and begat sons by her in the same place; and afterwards, when that woman was recovered and restored to her husband, they lived with the same woman and later became soldiers; and although they were true men of bear-like nature, this appeared in them, that their countenances inclined somewhat toward the likeness of bears' faces; and they were called Ursini, taking their surname from their father, namely the Bear, by whom they had been begotten. It should be known, moreover, that the bear is like men in two respects, namely in that they couple as married folk do; and when they are skinned, the whole shape of their body appears like that of men, on account of which many have abhorred the eating of their flesh, namely as though it were the eating of human flesh. It is therefore no wonder if bear-seed also approaches human seed with so great a likeness that it can be applied to it in a union suitable for generation. But to one who understands, is it not known that diabolical spirits of this kind can easily and suddenly present and apply to the women whom they thus deceive the seeds of animals which they know to be suitable for generation?

From these things he gathers below that the famous report, spread abroad by popular opinion, about Merlin is not improbable — namely that in Great Britain he is said to have been the son of an incubus demon — nor is that impossible. But that the same Merlin was held to be a Prophet in that same region, because he was seen to have prophesied many things about things to come, this can not undeservedly be believed to have happened by paternal instruction or teaching; for it is certain that demons know many things about the future and other hidden matters, and sometimes reveal them to others, not to say their own sons. He adds, moreover, that incubus demons are more hostile to women endowed with beautiful hair for a manifold reason: either because, he says, women of this sort devote excessive care to the dressing, adorning, and dyeing of their hair; or because they have been accustomed to strive to inflame those who look upon them with that beauty toward their own lust; or because women insolently glory in it. And perhaps they endure this temptation from wicked spirits unto the terror of divine severity, that they may cease from such adornment, fearing to inflame men to their lustful concupiscence, while they see the very demons seeming to instigate and provoke them to it.

Burchard, Abbot of Belleval, reports something similar in the life of St. Bernard, chapter 6, where he narrates that when that saint had come to Nantes, he found there a woman who was tormented by a certain wanton devil. That lascivious devil appeared to her in the form of a soldier of exceedingly handsome aspect, and falsely inclined her heart toward love of him, inwardly by hidden suggestion, outwardly by flattering speech.

And when he had obtained the woman's consent, spreading out his arms, he placed her feet upon one of his hands; and with the other hand he covered her head, and endowed her with himself as the sign of this covenant. Now she had a husband, a valiant soldier, but wholly ignorant of so execrable a commerce. Therefore that most impure adulterer abused her invisibly, even while her husband lay in the same bed, and he tormented her with incredible lust. The evil lay hidden only six years, nor did the lost woman reveal the disgrace of so great a crime. But in the seventh year she was confounded within herself and was terrified, both on account of the abomination of so continuous a filthiness and on account of the fear of God, by whose judgment she feared at every moment to be intercepted and damned. She fled to the Priests and confessed her sin. She made pilgrimage to holy places and implored the intercession of the saints; but no confession, no prayer, no largesse of alms availed her. Daily, as before, and more importunely she was infested by the demon. Finally so great a crime was poured forth into public: which her husband, having heard and learned of it, abominated the intercourse. Meanwhile the man of God had come with his company to the aforesaid place; and when the unhappy woman heard of his arrival, trembling she cast herself at his feet. Weeping floods of tears she opened to him her horrible passion and long-standing deception, and that whatever commands had been imposed upon her by the Priests had profited her nothing. She added that her oppressor had foretold her his coming and had menacingly forbidden her to go before his presence, because it would profit her nothing, and that he (the Abbot withdrawing) who had been her lover would become her cruelest persecutor. Hearing these things, the man of God consoles the woman with kindly words; and promising help from Heaven, he commands her to return on the following day (for night was already at hand), trusting in the Lord. Returning in the morning, when she had related to the man of God the blasphemies and threats which she had heard that same night from her incubus: do not heed, says the man of God, his threats, but take this staff of ours and place it on your bed, and let him do what he can. The woman did what had been commanded, and reclining on her bed, fortified with the sign of the cross, she places the staff beside her. Straightway > he is present, but he does not presume to approach either the accustomed work or the bed itself: yet he threatens most fiercely that when the man of God had departed he would return to her torments. The Lord's day was drawing near, and the man of God wished to be summoned to the Church by edict of the Bishop. And when on that day a great multitude had gathered in the Church, during the solemnities of Mass, with the Bishops Gothfrid of Chartres and Brictius of Nantes accompanying him, he himself ascended at the ambo and proclaimed that all who were in the Church should hold lighted candles in their hands. And doing this himself with the Bishops and Clerics, he publicly discloses the unheard-of audacities of the devil, and with the subscription of all the faithful who were present he anathematizes the fornicating spirit, who had burned even against his own nature in so horrendous pollutions; and by the authority of Christ he forbids access both to her and to all women thereafter. And so, when those Sacramental lights were extinguished, the whole power of the devil was thereafter extinguished, and after the woman had communicated following her confession the enemy never afterward appeared to her, but driven out beyond return he fled away.

Laurentinus Ananias reports something similar in book 1 of De natura daemonis, chapter 3, as having happened in the region of Marrea, in which not many years ago a certain girl, lovely and outstanding in beauty, and no less illustrious by birth, long refusing marriage, was found to be with child; and when her parents were anxiously inquiring about who had perpetrated such a violation, the girl of her own accord confessed that she had exercised venery both by night and by day with a certain youth; but that she did not know who he was, or whence he came or was. At these things the parents could not but be greatly astonished, anguished in mind and afflicted; and when at last they were taught by a maidservant that a man was having dealings with their daughter in the bedchamber, without any delay, with torches and tapers lighted, since it was night, they came running, and with the doors unlocked they saw a huge and horrendous monster, exceeding all human credence and most terrible of all, hanging from their daughter's embrace. Straightway they summon a priest approved in life and morals, who, while he was reciting the words of the Gospel of St. John, The Word was made flesh, the demon, with a very great and horrendous clamor raised, and terror struck and left behind him, after his own manner vanished, at the same time carrying off the ceiling of the bedchamber: but this most unhappy woman, three days later, gave birth to a monster no less horrendous, which, lest it be nourished and reared to the utter ignominy of the family, a pyre having been built after the custom, was consumed by flames.

Now the reason why demons make themselves incubi or succubi is not for the sake of grasping delight or carnal pleasure; since, being pure spirits, they cannot perceive such delight: but this is the chief reason, that through the vice of lust they may injure the whole nature of man, both of body and of soul, and thus render men more prone to all vices.

You will say 1. A demon is devoid of life and the origin of death: therefore he cannot be the author and origin of a vital act. — I answer. this vital power is not in the demon but in the seed itself; just as the power of heating is not in the cup of the one offering the drink, or in the vessel for pouring wine, but in the wine itself. But if it is asked whose son a man thus begotten may be; I answer that he is not the son of the demon but the son of the man whose seed was taken. And when it is urged that nothing is superfluous in the works of angels as in those of nature: this I concede; but when it is inferred that the demon can both receive and infuse seed indivisibly: I answer that this is true; but he rather does this visibly, as succubus and incubus, that thus by such filthiness he may infect the body and soul of man and woman.

You will say 2. A demon and a man differ in species: therefore from this coupling offspring cannot follow. — I answer. that there is no such consequence, both because from horse and ass, and from other animals discrepant in species, Mules, Thoes, Leopards, Panthers, and other hybrids are begotten; and because generation is not here attributed to the demon but to the man whose the seed is, as St. Thomas rightly says in the sixth Quodlibet, article eight, ad sextum; and therefore here man is born from man, as he is ordinarily born from male and female.

You will insist. Generation is accomplished through the formative power which is in the seed, the living body being resolved: but the body assumed by demons is not living: therefore demons cannot generate. Further, the principle of begetting is the heart: therefore since the demon lacks a heart, the cordial power is equally wanting to him, tempering the heat as is required. Finally, the seed has no generative power except so long as the animal heat is retained in it: but it must needs evaporate because of the great distance to which it is sometimes carried by the demon, etc. — I answer to the first. that the demon in this matter conducts himself not after the manner of a principal cause but of an instrumental one, applying the true seed necessary for generation: which he can assuredly perform, as was said above. To the second I say, whether the power of begetting arises from the heart or from the brain, the genital spirit is infused into the seed itself at the very moment of the seed's separation from the human body; and the demon merely preserves this spirit with its heat. For demons can employ certain means for the preservation of the seed, lest the vital heat evaporate; they can also move so swiftly and carry the seed so that those spirits cannot flow away: from which the answer to the last objection is clear.

You will say finally. That it is not to be believed that God concurs to an act of this kind, or infuses a soul into such a body born of such a coupling, and adds the crown to the work of the demon begun. — I answer. that the demon, as regards the operation of nature, is here merely an instrument, and only applies the principal agent, which is the true human seed: but that God concurs to the ultimate disposition of the organic body born of human seed: and that what is involved is merely accidental, and morally only the sin of the witch and the malice of the demon. Therefore God, as the author of nature, helps nature, but is not at the service of sin, of which He is not the author. Add that, if arguments of this kind had any force, it would follow that offspring could be begotten neither from fornication, nor from adultery, nor from incest.

I answer. that the case is different, because in these the order of nature is observed, but not in that demoniacal wedlock. — But this answer does not dissolve our rejoinder: for the order of nature is observed as regards the principal physical principles of generation; for nature merely demands that offspring be born of the prolific seed of the man duly mixed with the seed of the woman.

You will ask 1. Whether sons can be born also from a man with an incubus, and from a demon as succubus.

I answer. that it seems more probable that they cannot. For mothers supply more things for the generation of offspring and for childbirth than fathers; for the touch of the body is required, that the seed in the mother's womb may be changed into an organic body, and that most perfect architecture of the human body be completed; there is required also the continuous operation of the vegetative soul in nourishing the fetus, and other secrets of nature almost innumerable; all of which a demon in an assumed body can perform I greatly doubt, nay rather I judge that he cannot. Hence I shall steadfastly affirm that what certain histories of the French relate about the Counts of Poitou descended from Melusine the Siren and a noble man, as well as what we related above from William of Paris about the family of the Ursini propagated from a bear, must be reckoned among oft-repeated old wives' tales. I should therefore judge that the boys whom we read to have been born of a succubus demon were either supposititious, being the true offspring of another woman secretly taken away by the demon: or masked demons under the appearance of a little child newly born, and growing as it were through feeding and nursing after the manner of a true growing boy. An example of the former kind very many Authors relate with Delrio, book 2, q. 15, concerning a certain noble Bavarian, who, because he bore the death of his wife too impatiently, asserted that on a certain night a woman had returned and said that she had been raised up, the demon having assumed the appearance of the deceased woman: who thereafter lived with her husband as the aforesaid woman, and received children from him: but when that husband had been admonished many times by that masked wife to abstain from revilings and blasphemies, and yet did not amend his life, on a certain day, in the sight of this man, the lying wife herself vanished, leaving there a woman's garment and the little children whom she had secretly received from elsewhere and had supposed to be begotten of herself. — For the latter kind, however, of the demon's fraud in assuming the form of a little child born of a succubus demon, Ulricus adduces an example in his Dialogue on Pythonical Women, chapter 6.

This happened in the kingdom of Sicily in the reign of Roger, that a certain man, vigorous and skilled in the art of swimming, bathing in the sea about twilight while the moon shone, seized by the hair a woman swimming behind him, thinking she was one of his companions who wished to duck him; and speaking to her he could not extort a single word, and he led her, wrapped in a cloak, to his house, and at length solemnly took her in marriage. When he was at one time rebuked by a certain companion because he had accepted a phantom, terrified he grasped his sword, threatening in the sight of the same woman to kill the son whom he had had by her, unless she should speak and say whence she was. What, she said, woe to you wretch, you are destroying a useful wife by forcing me to speak; I would have been with you and it would have gone well with you, had you permitted me to keep the silence enjoined upon me? But now hereafter you shall not see me, and straightway she vanished. But the boy grew up and began to frequent the baths; until one day that phantastical woman snatched the same boy away in those same waves before many, him whom, had he been her true son, she ought to have driven from the sea to the shore. So far he.

To the proof of demoniacal fraud of this kind belong the little children themselves whom the demons sometimes substitute for women, as if begotten by them, and who are commonly called Changelings, that is, Exchanges, says William of Paris in the last part of De universo, chapter 25, as it were exchanged and substituted by the parent women in place of their own sons. They are said, moreover, to be so insatiable with milk that, even after exhausting the breasts of four nurses, they persist in being wasted and thin; yet most weighty, and at last after some years they utterly vanish. The Italians call them Vagitations, from their continual crying. Delrio judges that such was the boy whom a certain beggar carried about on his shoulders through Galicia with the utmost exhaustion; for when the beggar was afterwards apprehended, he confessed that the boy had been a masked devil, who had promised him that he would allure all men to give him alms so long as he was thus carried about in the habit of a sickly boy wrapped in bandages.

You will ask 2. Whether demons can produce animals of themselves?

I answer 1. That imperfect animals, as flies, worms, frogs, and insects of this kind and others, which are born from putrefaction, demons can produce quickly; not indeed by creating, but by applying actives to passives. So St. Augustine, book 3 of De Trinitate, chapter 7. And it is proved by examples almost innumerable, by which it is established that Magicians, having received a powder from the devil and cast it into the air, usually at once produce various species of locusts, cankerworms, mice, and various plagues of similar little animals. Thus also they can produce certain geese more imperfect, such as are wont to be generated from the fallen fruits of trees rotting in the sea, or from the timbers of rotten ships. — I answer 2. That they can also produce the animals which are called perfect; not indeed by applying actives to passives, since these are not born from putrefaction but from the prolific seed of parents: but they can produce them in the manner in which they do men, namely by receiving from an animal the seed emitted, as an incubus demon, and afterwards infusing it into another animal, as a succubus. A demon could also cunningly take away animals already born, and in remote places where they seem to have been born, cherish, nourish, and effect their respiration; since not rarely among stones are found not only flies, mice, and similar imperfect living things: but even sometimes perfect ones: for William of Newburgh relates in the Historia Anglorum, chapter 28, that while in a certain quarry a huge rock was being split with iron tools, there appeared two dogs filling in that rock a place capable of themselves, without any breath, understand any perceptible one: but they seemed to be of that kind of dogs which they call greyhounds, but with fierce countenances, heavy of odor, devoid of hair; and one of them, as is said, quickly expired, but the other, of, as they say, stupendous voracity, Henry, Bishop of Winchester, kept for many days in his delights. He adds, moreover, that in another stone was found a toad having a golden chain about its neck. I judge that this chain was added by a demon; for the toad itself could have been born in the same place, for in the coal mines of Liège huge flints are sometimes found in which live toads are enclosed, hidden as it were in the cradles of their nativity. So Delrio, book 2, qu. 14.

You will ask 3. Whether demons can change bodies into another species?

I answer. that they cannot; for all such transformations that are read of are illusory and deceiving: for neither, for example, can a human soul inform a beast-like body, as neither can the soul of a lion a horse's body, or the soul of a horse a human body; because each substantial form, in order to give its own being by informing, requires dispositions proper and suitable to itself, and the proper organization of its own body; hence the soul is defined: the act of an organic body. Whence it comes about that neither can a brute soul inform a human body, nor a human one a brute body. Therefore the soul of a man will not be able to migrate into a beast's body so as to inform it, much less will it be able, if it is with its body, to change an animal. This St. Augustine proves excellently lib. 18. De Civit. Dei, cap. 18, where, speaking of the juggleries of demons by which the most famous Sorceress Circe is said to have changed the companions of Ulysses into swine, he says:

nor indeed do demons create by nature, if they do anything such as this question which we are treating is concerned with; but they change, in appearance only, things which were created by the true God, that they may seem to be what they are not. Therefore I should not believe that, by any art or power of demons, not only the mind but not even the body can truly be converted into bestial limbs or lineaments: but that man's phantastic spirit, which is varied even by thinking or dreaming through innumerable kinds of things, and although it is not a body, yet assumes forms like bodies with marvelous swiftness: the bodily senses of man being lulled or oppressed, can by some ineffable manner be brought into a corporeal figure to the senses of others, so that the very bodies of the men may lie somewhere, living indeed, but much more heavily and vehemently than in sleep with their senses closed. And that phantastic spirit, as it were embodied, may appear in the likeness of some animal to the senses of others, and the man himself may also seem to himself to be such, as he could seem such to himself in dreams, and may carry burdens, which burdens, if they are true bodies, are carried by demons to make sport of men, some beholding true bodies of burdens, part false ones of beasts. For a certain man named Praestantius related that it had happened to his father that he should take that poison by means of cheese in his house, and should lie on his bed as if sleeping, who nevertheless could in no way be aroused: after some days, however, he said that he had awakened as it were, and had related as it were dreams which he had suffered, namely that he had been made a horse, and had carried grain among the other beasts of burden to the soldiers, which is called retica, because it is carried to the nets; and that it was found that this had been done as he narrated: yet these things seemed to him his own dreams. Another also declared that in his house during a night, before he rested, he had seen coming to him a certain Philosopher very well known to him, and that he had expounded to him certain Platonic matters which he had previously, when asked, refused to expound; and when he had been asked by the same Philosopher why he did in his house what he had denied to the petitioner in his own house: I did not do it, he said, but I dreamed that I did it: and hence to the other, waking, it was exhibited through the phantastic image, what the other saw in dreams. These things have come to us not from witnesses of any quality whatsoever whom we should think it unworthy to believe, but from those relating them whom we should not judge to have lied to us. Wherefore that men are said, and it has been committed to letters by the Gods, or rather demons, that the Arcadians are wont to be converted into wolves, and that Circe changed the companions of Ulysses by meats after that manner, seems to me to have been able to happen in the way I have said, if however it was done.

Thus St. Augustine.

James Sprenger relates in the second part of De mallei maleficarum, q. 2,

that in the city of Salamina of the kingdom of Cyprus, when a certain youth, together with the others from a ship there putting in, that they might procure for themselves necessaries of food, had received eggs from a poisoning woman and witch for a price, and had eaten one of them while returning to the ship, straightway as if deprived of his mind and made mute, he was unable to conjecture what had happened to him; while he wished to board the ship he suffered repulse from his companions, they seeing and thinking him an ass. Wherefore, as the woman had admonished him, he returns to her house, and served her in the manner of an ass for three years, carrying away the necessaries of the house in timbers and grains, and whatever had to be carried he bore as a beast of burden; this consolation being left to him, that although he was reckoned a beast of burden by all others, yet by the very sorcerers dwelling together or apart he was recognized as a true man by his humanly manner of conversing in gait, posture, and habit. Therefore when three years had elapsed, while one day before noon he had entered the aforesaid city, and the woman followed from afar, it happened that a certain Church, in which the divine mysteries were being celebrated, the youth thus bewitched was passing by: who, hearing the known bell for the elevation of the Body of Christ, turned himself to the Church, and while he did not dare to enter on account of blows and expulsion, from outside he fixed his knees and hinder legs in the earth, and raising his fore feet, that is hands, joined together, from his asinine head, as was thought, he beholds the Sacrament in the elevation. When certain Genoese Merchants had espied so great a prodigy, wondering they follow the ass, and conferring among themselves about the wondrous work, behold the witch follows the ass with a staff: and because, as was premised, witchcrafts of this kind are much practiced in those parts, at the instance of the Merchants, by the Judge the ass is seized together with the witch, and being interrogated and exposed to tortures she confesses the crime, and promises to restore the youth to his own form, that she may be able to return to her house. Therefore, having been dismissed and returned home, the youth is reduced to his pristine form, and she again being seized, received the due vengeance for what she had committed, and the youth returned to his own home with joy.

Thus Sprenger.

Palladius relates something similar in the life of St. Macharius, writing that a certain maiden, by the aid of a certain Jew with magical arts converted, as it seemed, into a mare, was brought to blessed Macharius, whose sight the devil could not make sport of: for although all beheld her as a daughter, that is as a mare, yet St. Macharius beheld her as not masked under that equine form, and by his prayers obtained from God that she should be free from all that illusion; and he said to her that this witchcraft had been permitted by God because she frequented the Sacraments more negligently, although otherwise she lived honestly and devoutly.

Delrio relates something stupendous in the place cited, as having happened not long ago near Dixmude in Flanders: that when a tavern-keeper woman had had a complaint with a certain rustic about the price to be paid for the beer she had served, she said angrily that on that day he would not be able to board the boat which he had left at the river's bank and push it from the bank with poles; which indeed came to pass as the woman had threatened: for when he had expended all his strength in vain to draw that boat from the bank, he called two or three Soldiers to his aid, who, when they had long labored together in vain, at length they espy in the bilge of the boat a ghastly toad regarding them with gleaming eyes. One of the soldiers could not endure it, but with the point of his sword, pierced and swollen at the throat, threw it into the water. It rolls over on its back as if lifeless, belly upturned; the others impose other wounds on it as it flounders, and suddenly the boat is released. Joyful, the rustic leads his helpers back to the same inn from which he had departed; he asks for drink, the maidservant offers it; he asks where the hostess is? He hears that she is very ill and yielding up her soul in bed. What, I say, do you take me for a fool, you silly girl? Scarce half the hour has elapsed since I left her there sound and wicked as you are? I am going to see what this means. He enters the bedchamber, he finds the woman with her neck and belly pierced with wounds, lacerated, and expiring. Whence, he exclaims, these wounds? The maidservant professes not to know, nor that the woman had, so far as she knew, set foot out of the house. They go to the Magistrate; the wounds, inflicted with cut and thrust, are found in the very places in which the soldiers had marked the toad, which appeared nowhere.

From these things, therefore, it is established that that transformation of men is not true, but only masked, which either Magicians by diabolical art, or the devil himself effects. And this in divers manners; for he is wont sometimes to substitute another body, and while those men are absent and lulled asleep somewhere in a hidden place, he himself, having assumed a wolf's body, either formed from the air and circumposed about himself, performs those things, who think that the men were wrought by that miserable one absent and sleeping. Which stratagem, made manifest to all by a certain Saint, William of Paris narrates in the last part of De universo, chapter 13.

There was, he says, a certain one possessed, and for days the wicked spirit used to seize him, and so demented him that he believed himself to be a wolf: but in the days of the seizure the devil used to hurl him into a hidden place, and there leave him as if dead; but in the time of such concealment the devil entered into a wolf, or showed himself to men in the very form of a wolf, and made terrific incursions against men and animals, so that they fled from his face, fearing to be devoured by him. There was also a report that that man became a wolf for days. And this the man himself believed, as I said before. He believed moreover that he was that very wolf which made incursions of this kind. Which having been heard, a holy man came into that region in which these things were being done, and preached to the men that what they believed about that man was not true, namely that he became a wolf: and being brought to the place in which he lay as if dead, he showed the man to the people, who had come to such a spectacle; and before the men, he having been aroused and freed from such vexation, he showed to him and to the bystanders the wolf which that man believed himself to be, as he also himself confessed before the men who were present.

Sometimes, however, he circumposes about the very men the skins of beasts, most fitly put on outwardly: which happens when he gives them a wolf's skin to be hidden in the hollow of some tree-trunk, as is established from the confessions of certain persons. Finally, sometimes on the part of the Magician he circumposes an aerial image of a beast, and applying members to members so far as the likeness permits, accommodates head to head, mouth to mouth, belly to belly, foot to foot, arms to arms. This is wont to happen when they use for this certain injunctions, or words conceived in the mind alone; in which last case, indeed, it is nothing wonderful if afterwards they are found truly wounded in those human members which in the beast's body had received the blow; for the circumambient air yielded lightly, and the wound was truly implanted in the body. Which confirms

Of this also, he says, of the apparent conversion of Witches into Cats, another witness in this city of Ferrara, Philip by name, asserted to me with a certain artifice under judicial oath in this year, that some three months ago a certain witch had imposed upon him, that he should not forbid to come about the boy (perchance bewitched by himself) whom he had undertaken to cure, if he should see any cats fawning upon and mocking him. Therefore on the same day, after she had departed, an hour later he himself and his wife saw a great cat, and hitherto unseen by them, which was approaching the boy with swift step: and when the parents had often driven it away out of fear, at last they burned with impatience at the coming vexation of its approach: and the door being shut, that man most grievously struck the cat fleeing hither and thither for a long time with a spear, and at length it got out by a window. From that time, however, that old witch lay in bed for very many days, her whole body broken and wounded.

So Spina.