Section XIX: The Conversation of Angels
SECTION XIX: ON THE CONVERSATION OF ANGELS
§ 79. They ask: How do angels speak with each other? Durandus (Sent. 2, dist. 11, q. 2) thinks that angels converse in the same way they converse with humans, by forming vocables in the air. Scotus (Sent. 2, dist. 9, q. 2) believes that one angel converses with another by effectively impressing on the other’s understanding [intellectus] a concept similar to his own concept. Thomas ([ST,] part 1, q. 107, art. 1) thinks that one angel speaks to another when with his own will he arranges a concept for that one. He says: “Through his will a concept of his mind is arranged for the other either to do something or to show something to the other. Furthermore, conversing is nothing else but revealing a mental conception to another, something that befits angels. In our case, in addition to the inner arrangement, we must use an external sign; but in the case of the angels this is unnecessary, nor is it necessary for the saints because” (as he says) “that conversation is mental.” However, Augustine says quite moderately about this question that we cannot explain it (Enchir., ch. 59; see also De civ. Dei, bk. 16, ch. 6, where the question is raised as to how God speaks to the angels).
Whether one angel illumines another of his order.
§ 80. The question arises: Does one angel illumine another? They say that “illumining” is nothing other than providing a revelation of the truth. In order to understand, the power of the understanding [virtus intellectiva] and the likeness of the thing understood come together. Therefore one angel illumines another, as Thomas says, “either by fortifying the other’s power of understanding or by somehow distinguishing the truth which the superior angel conceives universally” ([ST,] part 1, q. 106, art. 1). From this they conclude that the superior angels illumine the lesser ones, but not the opposite. Rather, the inferior angels merely speak to the superior ones, because the manifestation of things that depend on the first truth—on God—is “illumination,” while the manifestation of things that depend on the will of the one who understands is “speaking.” (See Biel, Sent. 1, dist. 9, q. 2, art. 4). If you say that all the angels see all things in the Word with a morning knowledge9 and that thus the inferior angels are not ignorant of what the higher angels know, Biel responds (loc. cit., art. 5) that the angels see in the Word only as much as the Word reveals to them. Moreover, He shows them as much as He wishes, because He is a reflector of the will with regard to the creatures that exist externally. We shall make use of this explanation of the mirror of the Word into which the angels and souls of the blessed look in our disputation on invoking the saints [On Death (Commonplace XXIX), §§ 324–27].
Whether the evil spirits penetrate souls.
§ 81. They ask: Do demons penetrate the souls of the possessed when they possess their bodies? They deny this because according to them penetration denotes the intimate presence of what penetrates and of that which it penetrates, as well as full and complete control and dominion of the penetrator over that which it penetrates. Therefore the penetration of a rational soul befits God alone but not the devil, because this would remove the freedom of the will and divine providence from the soul. (See Biel, Sent., bk. 2, dist. 8, q. 2, concl. 1, art. 1.) However, we pass over these and similar questions, and, content with what Scripture teaches about the angels, we conclude this discussion.
The complete definition of angels.
§ 82. If anyone wishes to reduce what has been said about angels into a summary, he can say that angels are understanding [intelligentes] and powerful spirits, created good, just, and holy by God, the Creator of all good things, to the end10 that they glorify Him and that God uses their ministry. However, some of them abandoned the primeval origin of their own free will; by their own fault lost the goodness, righteousness, and holiness with which they were created; and became enemies of God and of the human race and are being kept to be tormented by eternal fire. Yet the rest, who have persisted in the truth, have been confirmed in goodness and have been endowed by God with a crown of eternal happiness that will never be taken away.
God is the Creator of the visible and the invisible.
§ 83. Therefore conclude from the preceding that in the beginning God through His Son in the Holy Spirit created not only visible creatures but also invisible things, “whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers—all things were created through Him and in Him” (Col. 1:16).
1 Attributed to Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609).
2 That which completes another thing or determines it or through which it operates. “Form” is that which gives the being of a thing, or what makes it what it is.
3 intellectum agentem et possibilem. An “acting understanding” is a mind as it abstracts forms or ideas from the individual things of the world. A “possible understanding” is a mind as it is receptive to any and all cognitive representations (such as ideas or sensory perception) from outside of itself. See Roy J. Deferrari, A Lexicon of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1948-49), s.v. “intellectus” 3.a.
4 species. “Representations” are conceptual images that represent real objects to one’s intellect (see Deferrari, Lexicon of Saint Thomas Aquinas, s.v. “species” 5.a). Here Gerhard is discussing the view that angels were created with “representations” of things in their angelic minds and did not have to gather them from perceiving the created world. See below, p. 54 n. 4.
5 in motu primo. The “first motion” was thought of as the daily movement of the heavenly bodies around the earth, movement by which time is constituted and measured. (The “second motion” is the movement of the planets around the earth in their own specific periods.) Scaliger means that just as time is external to us, based in the establishment of time in the movement of the heavenly bodies, so also the everlastingness of the angels is external to them, based in the eternity of God. (On the “first motion,” see Deferrari, Lexicon of Saint Thomas Aquinas, s.v. “motus” 1. r2; see also Micraelius, Lexicon philosophicum, s.v. “motus.”)
6 “Evil of fault (malum culpae)” is an evil that is constituted by deliberate fault or guilt. “Evil of punishment (malum poenae)” is the punishment that God renders for sin according to His justice. This is not “evil” in the English sense of the word, but rather “bad” to the one who experiences it.
7 Read nolle instead of velle.
8 Read in vocatione sua instead of invocatione sua (“by their invocation”).
9 See above, p. 27, § 46.
10 Aim, purpose, goal. An end is the cause for which a doer acts or that for whose sake something happens.