ETIENNE GILSON SERIES 24

Etienne Gilson

Thomism
The Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas

A translation of
LE THOMISME
Sixth and final edition

by

Laurence K. Shook
and
Armand Maurer

P O N T I F I C A L INSTITUTE OF M E D I A E V A L STUDIES
 PART II. Chapter Two

The Angels

The order of creatures in which the highest degree of created perfection is real-
ized is that of pure spirits, commonly called angels. 1 Some historians pass over
in complete silence this part of Thomas' work or are content simply to allude
to it. This admission is particularly regrettable in that his study of the angels is
not in his own view exclusively theological. Philosophers have known the exis-
tence of angels; their existence can be demonstrated and in certain exceptional
cases they have even been seen. To disregard them destroys the balance of the
universe considered as a whole. Moreover, the nature and actions of lower crea-
tures, humans for example, can only be well understood by comparison, and
often by contrast, with the angels. In short, in a doctrine in which the ultimate
reason of beings is most often drawn from the place they occupy in the uni-
verse, it is difficult to omit the consideration of one whole order of creatures
without upsetting the equilibrium of the system. Thomas Aquinas' treatise on
the angels is the culmination of a long development in which there converge
heterogeneous elements of both religious and philosophical origin.
We know today2 that three springs fed this part of Thomism. First, astro-
nomical theories about certain spiritual substances considered as the causes of
the movement of the spheres and stars. Second, metaphysical speculation about
pure spirits considered as degrees of being and, so to speak, as marking stages
in the progressions by which the many issue from the One; finally, the biblical
accounts of angels and demons.
The astronomical data come directly from Aristotle, who was in this regard
influenced by Plato. According to Aristotle, the first immovable mover moves
insofar as it is desired and loved. But desire and love presuppose knowledge.

'On this question see A. Schmid, "Die peripatetisch-scholastischeLehre von den Gestirn-
geistern, " Athenaeum, philosophische Zeitschrift 1 (Munich: J. von Froschammer, 1862) 1:
549-580; J. Durantel, "La notion de la creation dans saint Thomas, " Annales de philosophic
chretienne 164 (1912): 1-32; Wilhelm Schlossinger, "Die Stellung der Engel in der Schop-
fung, " Jahrbuch fur Philosophic und spekulative Theologie25: 451-485 and 27: 81-117; same
author, "Das Verhaltnis der Engelwelt zur sichtbaren Schb'pfung, " Jahrbuch fur Philosophic
und spekulative Theologie 27: 158-208. The two latter studies consider the problem for itself.
They are useful, however, because their conclusions are generally based on the authentic teaching
of Thomas Aquinas. The richest source on this question remains the second part of Clemens
Baeumker, Witelo, ein Philosoph und Naturforscher des XIII Jahrhunderts (Miinster: Aschendorff,
1908), pp. 523-606: "Die Intelligenzen" and "Intelligenzenlehre der Schrift De intelligentiis. "
2
Schmid, "Die peripatetisch-scholasticheLehre, " p. 549ff; Baeumker, Witelo, p. 523ff.
190 PART II CHAPTER 2

Hence, the heavenly spheres can only owe their motion to intelligent substances
acting as motive forces. Plato had already placed the principle of universal order
in the world-soul and had considered the heavenly bodies to be moved by divine
souls. The successors of Plato and Aristotle wavered between these two points
of view. While the Platonists, properly so-called, attributed real souls to the
heavenly bodies, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church adopted a more reserved
attitude. None held this doctrine unreservedly; some considered it possible;
many rejected it. As for Aristotle's doctrine, which seems to have been limited
to motive intelligences without attributing souls in this strict sense to the heaven-
ly bodies,3 it will be interpreted in various ways during the Middle Ages. Some
Arabian commentators, like Alfarabi, Avicenna and Algazel, placed the first
principle of astronomical motion in real souls, while others put it either in a
soul stripped of every sensible function and reduced to its intellectual part (Mai-
monides), or in an Intelligence pure and simple (Averroes). All the great scho-
lastic philosophers held this last view in opposition to Avicenna. They did not
consider the heavenly bodies to be the cause of their own motion, as is the case
with the elements, nor did they consider the spheres to be directly moved by
God. Rather, they placed pure Intelligences, created by God, at the origin of
astronomical motion.
Metaphysical speculations on the hierarchical degrees of being, which in
this context deserve our closest attention, originate in the neo-Platonic doctrine
of emanation. Already in Plotinus, besides the four degrees characterizing the
exodus of things from the One, there is a kind of rough differentiation within
the first degree itself, namely, the Intelligence. In it, Plato's Ideas maintain a
subsistence of their own and a sort of individuality. They are even arranged in
a kind of hierarchical subordination analogous to that of species under their
genus and of the particular disciplines under science in general. We find that
organization completed by the successors and disciples of Plotinus: Porphyry,
Jamblicus, and above all Proclus. It is to this last-named philosopher that we
owe the definitive formulation of the doctrine of the Intelligences; their absolute
incorporeity and simplicity, their subsistence beyond time, the nature of their
knowledge, and so on.
From the earliest times we see a growing tendency to assimilate the Intelli-
gences, which lie between the One and the rest of creation, to certain other
beings of a very different origin, which will eventually be identified with them.
We are speaking, of course, of the angels, who in holy scripture are often as-
signed the role of messengers sent by God to the human family. Philo at an
early date speaks of pure spirits that dwell in the air, called demons by the

3
This is not certain, and interpreters of Aristotle differ about it. It is easier to understand
Aristotle's world if stars are living, but his statements are obscure on this point. See Octave
Hamelin, Le systeme d'Aristote (Paris: Alcan, 1920), p. 356.
 THE ANGELS 191

philosophers and angels by Moses.4 Porphyry and Jamblicus reckon angels and
archangels among the demons. Proclus has them entering into composition with
demons, properly so-called, and with heroes, to form a triad that would fill up
the gap between the gods and men.5 With Proclus too, we see the precise for-
mulation of the doctrine of angelic knowledge that was to prevail in the schools,
and the presentation of that knowledge as simply illuminative and not discursive.
Dionysius the pseudo-Areopagite gathered all this data together and made a
definite synthesis of the biblical concept of angelic messengers and the specula-
tion of the neo-Platonists. The Fathers of the Church and medieval philosophers
simply adopted this synthesis and worked out its details.6 From this time on,
there was a growing tendency to think of the angels as pure spirits. Gradually,
the neo-Platonic notion of the total incorporeity of the angels triumphed over the
early doubts and hesitations of the Patristic period; 7 and, while some scholastics
maintained the distinction between matter and form in angelic substances, it was
not a question of corporeal matter, even luminous or ethereal, but of a simple
potentiality and a principle of change. The pseudo-Areopagite not only defined
the angels of the Bible as pure spirits, but he arranged them in a masterly clas-
sification, 8 dividing them into three hierarchies, each of which is composed of
three classes. This classification will enter unchanged into Thomas' doctrine.
Finally, we are left with the problem of relating the angels, conceived as
Intelligences by the philosophers, to the motion of the spheres. A priori, this
identification was in no way necessary. Indeed, apart from a few isolated indica-
tions in a number of the neo-Platonists, we have to wait for Oriental philoso-
phers to find it definitely made.9 The Arabians and Jews liken some orders of
angels mentioned in the Koran or Bible either to the Intelligences that move the
heavenly bodies or to the souls of heavenly bodies that are dependent upon these
Intelligences. The influence of Avicenna and Maimonides in this matter is im-
portant. The scholastics in the West, however, are far from accepting their con-
clusions without modification. Albeit the Great flatly refuses to identify angels

4
See Emile Brehier, Les idees philosophiqueset religieuses de Philond'Alexandrie(Paris:
Vrin, 1925), pp. 126-133.
5
On these different issues see Baeumker, Witelo, pp. 531-532.
6
For Dionysius' dependence upon the neo-Platonists see Hugo Koch, Pseudo-Dionysius
Areopagitica in seinen Beziehungen zum Neuplatonismus und Mysterienwesen. Eine literar-
historische Untersuchung (Mainz: Franz Kirchheim, 1900); H. F. Miiller, Dionysios, Proklos,
Plotinos, in Beitrage 20. 3-4 (Miinster: Aschendorff, 1918). On the later influence of Diony-
sius see Josef Stiglmayr, Das Aufkommen der pseudo-dionysischen Schriften und ihr Ein-
dringen in die christliche Literatur bis zum Laterankonzil (Feldkirch, 1895).
7
See Joseph Turmel, "Histoire de 1'angelologiedes temps apostoliques a la fin du Ve sie-
cle, " Revue d'histoire et de litterature religieuses 3 (1898) and 4 (1899); esp. 3: 407-434.
*De caelesti hierarchia 1 and 7-10 [PL 122: 125-143, 176-228].
9
For copious references and texts on this question see Baeumker, Witelo, pp. 537-544.
192 PART II CHAPTER 2

and Intelligences; nor do Bonaventure and Thomas accept this identification.

Only the Averroists could be fully satisfied with it, and they alone accepted it
without reservations.
These are the historical elements, varied in nature and from many sources,
that Thomas was able to fashion into a coherent and, in many respects, original
synthesis. Holy scripture attests to the existence of angels as an order of entirely
incorporeal creatures: "Who makest thy angels spirits. "10 Nothing gives great-
er satisfaction to the mind than this testimony of scripture because, if we reflect
we are bound to affirm the existence of incorporeal creatures. God's principal
end in creation is the supreme good, which is becoming like God; we have al-
ready seen that this is the only reason for the existence of the universe. Now,
an effect is not perfectly like its cause if it does not imitate that by which its
cause is capable of producing it. Thus the heat of the body resembles the heat
that produces it in the body. But we know that God produces creatures by knowl-
edge and will. It follows that the perfection of the universe requires the exis-
tence of intellectual creatures. Now, the object of the intellect is the universal.
Bodies insofar as they are material, and all bodily powers, are on the contrary
determined by nature to a particular mode of being. Hence truly intellectual
creatures must be incorporeal; and this amounts to saying that the perfection of
the universe demands the existence of beings totally stripped of matter or of
body. 11 Moreover, the general plan of creation would show an obvious gap if
there were no angels in it. The hierarchy of beings is continuous; every nature
of a higher order in its least noble element borders on what is most noble in
creatures of the order immediately below it. Thus intellectual nature is superior
to corporeal nature, and yet the order of intellectual natures borders on the
order of corporeal natures by the least noble intellectual nature, the rational
human soul. On the other hand, the body to which the rational soul is united is,
by the very fact of this union, raised to the highest grade in the genus of bodies.
It is fitting, therefore, in order to preserve proper proportion, that the order of
nature keep a place for intellectual creatures superior to the human soul, that is,
for angels, who are in no way united to bodies. 12
At first sight it may seem that an argument of this sort is nothing but one
of convenience and harmony. We would be wrong, however, to regard it as sat-
isfying our need for logical and abstract symmetry. If it is satisfying for reason
to admit the existence of intelligences free from bodies which are to souls joined
to bodies what animated bodies are to bodies deprived of souls, it is because
there is no discontinuity in the hierarchy of created perfections. And this con-
tinuity constitutes the profound law governing the procession of things from

10
Ps 103: 4.
"ST 1. 50. 1, resp.
12
SCG2. 91 [4].
 THE ANGELS 193

God. Thomas Aquinas refuses to fragment the creative activity, unlike the Ara-
bian philosophers and their Western disciples. But although he does not admit
that each higher grade of creatures gives being to the grade immediately below
it, he firmly maintains this hierarchical multiplicity of grades. A sole and unique
creative power produces and sustains creation in its entirety; but if it no longer
bursts forth like a new spring at each new stage of creation, it still pervades
every one of them.
This is why the effects of the divine power are naturally ordered in a con-
tinuous series of decreasing perfection. It is why the order of created things is
such that, in order to travel from one end to the other, we have to pass through
all the intermediary grades. Immediately below celestial matter, for example,
there is fire; below fire air, below air water, and finally, below water earth. All
these bodies are arranged in this way according to the order of nobility and de-
creasing subtlety. Now, we discover at the highest degree of being an absolutely
simple being, namely, God. It is impossible to put corporeal substance, which
is very composite and divisible, immediately below God. We must posit a great
number of intermediate steps by which we can descend from the sovereign sim-
plicity of God to the multiplicity of material bodies. Some of these grades will
be made up of intellectual substances united to bodies. Others will be made up
of intellectual substances free from all union with matter; it is precisely these
that we call angels.13
Thus angels are completely incorporeal. Can we go further and consider
them as totally immaterial? Many philosophers and masters say they are not.
If the excellence of the angelic nature from now on appeared to everyone as
including their incorporeity, it is more difficult to give up the notion that they
at least consist of matter and form. By matter we do not necessarily mean a
body, but in a broad sense every potency that enters into composition with an
act to constitute a being. Now, the only principle of motion and change is to be
found in matter. Hence there must be matter in anything that moves. Created
spiritual substance is movable and changeable, because God alone is unchange-
able by nature. Accordingly, there is matter in every created spiritual substance. 14
Second, we must consider that nothing is active and passive at the same time in
the same respect; moreover, that nothing acts except by its form nor is acted
upon except by its matter. Now, created spiritual substances known as angels
act insofar as they enlighten angels immediately below them, and they are acted
upon in that they are enlightened by the angels immediately above them. Conse-
quently, angels are necessarily composed of matter and form. 15 Finally, we

l3
De spiritualibus creaturis 1. 5, resp.
!4
Ibid. 1. 1, obj. 3. See this argument in Bonaventure, In Sent. 2. 3. 1. 1. 1 [Quaracchi ed.
2: 89, n. 2].
l5
De spirit, creat. 1. 1. See Bonaventure, In Sent. 2. 3. 1. 1. 1 [p. 90, n. 4].
194 PART II CHAPTER 2

know that whatever exists is either pure act, pure potency, or composed of
potency and act. Created spiritual substances are not pure act, because this is
proper to God alone. Nor are they pure potency, as is evident. They are accord-
ingly composed of potency and act, and this amounts to saying that they are
composed of matter and form. 16
These arguments, inviting as they are, are incompatible with the Thomistic
notion of the first cause presiding over creation. We know that the need for
positing these incorporeal creatures called angels is based in Thomism on the
necessity for an order of pure intelligences placed immediately under God.
Now, the nature of pure intellectual substances must be in harmony with their
action, and the characteristic act of intellectual substances is the act of knowing.
It is easy, moreover, to specify the nature of this act from its object. Things
can be grasped by the intelligence insofar as they are free from matter. Forms
present in matter, for example, are individual forms and, as we shall see, they
could not be apprehended as such by the intellect. A pure intelligence, whose
object is the immaterial as such, must accordingly also be free from all matter.
The total immateriality of angels is therefore demanded by the very place they
occupy in the order of creation. 17
This means that the objection drawn from the mobility and mutability of the
angels cannot be regarded as decisive. The modifications to which they are sub-
ject in no way affect their very being, but only their intelligence and their will.
To account for this, therefore, it is enough to grant that their intellect and their
will can pass from potency to act; but nothing compels us to posit a distinction
of matter and form within their unchanging essence. 18 The same holds for what
concerns the impossibility of their simultaneous activity and passivity. The illu-
mination that an angel receives and that which it transmits presuppose an intel-
lect that is at one time in act and at another in potency, and not at all a being
composed of form and matter.19
There is one last objection: a spiritual substance that would be pure act
would be identical with God. Hence, we must grant that an angelic nature con-
tains a mixture of potency and act, and in the last analysis, a mixture of form
and matter. In one sense this argument is completely acceptable. It is true that
an angel, placed immediately below God, is as distinct from him as a finite
being is from an infinite being. The angel's being, therefore, must contain a
certain amount of potentiality limiting its actuality. Consequently, if we take
potency as a synonym for matter, we cannot deny that the angels are in a sense

16
£te spirit, creat. 1. 1; 571. 50. 2. See Bonaventure, /rc Sent. 2. 3. 1. 1. 1, resp. See E. Gil-
son, The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure, trans. Illtyd Trethowan and Frank J. Sheed (New
York/London: Sheed and Ward, 1938), pp. 246-250.
]1
ST 1. 50. 2, resp.; De spirit, creat., 1. 1, resp.
{
*De spirit, creat., 1. 1, ad 3.
19
Ibid., ad 16.
 THE ANGELS 195

material. But it is not necessary to identify potency with matter in this way, and
an examination of material things will enable us to see why.
In material substances we can discern a double composition. First, they are
composed of matter and form and this makes each of them a nature. If we think
of this nature itself, composed as it is of matter and form, we are also aware
that it is not its own act of being. Taken in respect to the esse it possesses, the
nature is related as a potency to its act. In other words, apart from the hylomor-
phic composition of a created being, we find that it is also composed of its
nature or essence and the existence the creator has conferred upon it and in
which he preserves it. This is the case not only with a material nature but also
with a separated intellectual substance or angel. Self-sufficient and immaterial,
this substance is still related to its act of being as potency to act. Hence it is
infinitely removed from the first being, or God, who is pure act and the whole
plenitude of being. Accordingly, it is not necessary to introduce any matter into
the angelic nature in order to distinguish it from the creative essence. A pure
intelligence and simple form, free from all matter, it has nevertheless only a
limited amount of being, and the being it has is not identical with it. 20
Our certainty of the complete immateriality of angels enables us to solve the
disputed question of how they are distinguished from each other. The masters
who thought there is matter in angelic substances were attracted to this opinion
because it helped them to distinguish between individual angels. Matter provides
the basis for numerical distinction in each species. Hence, if angels are pure
forms unlimited by matter, there seems to be no way of distinguishing one from
another.21 The answer to this is that no two angels are in the same species.22
The reason for this is clear. Beings of the same species but differing in number
as distinct individuals have a similar form united to different matters. Hence,
if angels have no matter, each of them is specifically distinct from all the others.
In this case the individual as such forms a species by itself.23 Against this con-
clusion the objection can be raised that by making it impossible for individual
angelic natures to be multiplied in a species we lessen the total perfection of the
universe. It is by its form that each being is distinct in species from every other
being, and form clearly surpasses in dignity the material principle of individua-
tion that places the being in a species by making it an individual. Accordingly,
the multiplication of species adds more nobility and perfection to the whole
universe than the multiplication of individuals in one and the same species.

20
Ibid., resp.; ST 1. 50. 2, ad 3; 5CG2. 50 [7], and 51, 52; Quodl. 9. 4, resp. [ed. Spiazzi,
p. 190].
21
Bonaventure, In Sent. 2. 3. 1. 1. 1 [Quaracchi ed. 2: 88, n. 3].
22
For Thomas' agreement with Avicenna on this point and his opposition to most of the
masters see Baeumker, Witelo, p. 543.
"ST" 1. 50. 4, resp.
196 PART II CHAPTER 2

Now, the universe owes its perfection mainly to the separated substances. There-
fore, substituting a number of different species for a number of individuals of
the same species does not lessen the total perfection of the universe; rather, it
increases and multiplies it.24
No doubt many of our contemporaries will consider this kind of discussion
foreign to philosophy. But there is no better vantage point for revealing the
meaning and significance of Thomas' existential reform of Greek metaphysics.
This must be emphasized, particularly because the reform was one of the great
events in the history of philosophy. If we do not grasp its meaning, we allow
its fruits to perish.
Reduced to essentials, the whole medieval controversy on the hylomorphic
composition of angels leads to the solution of the problem of how to conceive
of simple spiritual substances that are not gods.
The whole of natural theology was occupied with this problem—a veritable
watershed dividing Christian philosophy from Greek philosophy. For Aristotle,
all beings fall into two classes—those having a nature and those that do not.25
All beings composed of matter and form have a nature. They are recognizable
because they have within themselves the principle of their motion and rest. This
principle is nature itself, "for nature is a principle and a cause of movement and
rest for the thing in which it resides immediately, by essence and not by acci-
dent. "26 But since it is an active principle, the nature of a being cannot be its
matter, and hence it must be its form. Since this being is the seat of movement,
there must be matter in it, as the principle of that potentiality which, by move-
ment, its nature brings into act. Thus we call every being composed of matter
and form27 a "natural being, " and its nature is only its form considered as the
internal cause of its becoming.
The science of natural or "physical" beings is called physics.28 Beyond
this science there is another—the science of beings beyond physical beings. It
is called the science of "meta-physical" beings, or, as we say, metaphysics.

24
5CG 2. 93 [5]; De spirit, creat. 1. 8, resp.
25
On this distinction see Gilson, Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, p. 432, n. 8.
26
Aristotle, Phys. 2. 1, 192521-23.
"Ibid. 19356-9.
^"Physics is, in fact, like the other sciences, the science of a genus of determinate 5eing,
that is, of the kind of su5stance that possesses in itself the principle of its movement and of
its rest" (Aristotle, Metaph. 4. 1, 1025al8-21). Similarly, we shall see that theology is also
the science of a genus of determinate 5eing. "There must, then, 5e three theoretical philoso-
phies, mathematics, physics, and what we may call theology (t/uXocrcx/m #£0X071*07), since it
is o5vious that if the divine is present anywhere, it is present in things of this son. And the
highest science must deal with the highest genus. Thus, while the theoretical sciences are more
to 5e desired than the other sciences, this is more to 5e desired than the other theoretical
sciences" (i5id. 1026al8-23; Oxford trans. ).
 THE ANGELS 197

What distinguishes this second group of beings from the first is that they are
self-subsisting forms. Without matter, these beings are entirely in act; they are
said to be pure acts. For the same reason, they are not subject to any move-
ment; they are said to be immovable pure acts. Being immobile, these beings
have no nature and they are not natural beings. They can be called "meta-natu-
ral" quite as well as "metaphysical, " for the two words mean the same thing.
Inversely, since they are above natural beings, these pure acts of Aristotle could
be called "superphysical" or "supernatural" beings. Thus in Aristotle's philos-
ophy the boundary between the natural and the supernatural is that which sepa-
rates material forms from pure forms. The same boundary line separates the
natural world from the divine world. In this sense, since it is the science of the
divine, Aristotle's metaphysics can rightly be called divine science or theology.
It is even theology in the ultimate meaning of the term. As there are no beings
more divine than those with which Aristotle's metaphysics is concerned, there
is no room in it for any theology, nor indeed for any science beyond it.
The pure forms that Christian theologians called angels rightly belonged in
the class of beings that Aristotle called gods. Hence the perplexity of these theo-
logians. The Bible forbade them to deny the existence of angels. Sometimes
they tried to make them corporeal beings, but too many sacred texts suggested
they are pure spirits for this notion to win out in the end. To make gods of them
would have been to fall back into polytheism. Thomas' treatise De substantiis
separatis, an incomparably rich historical work, enables us to some extent to
follow step by step the evolution of this problem and to disentangle the various
doctrines involved in its history. All the evidence shows that for Christian think-
ers, the problem came down to finding another criterion for the divine than
immateriality, but time was needed to discover it. As a matter of fact they had
to wait for the existential metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas.
Here as elsewhere the hardest obstacle to remove was the Platonism of es-
sence. Aristotle himself had failed to remove it, or rather, he had not even
tried. For him, as for Plato, being was ultimately identified with the immovable.
What he called "being as being" was accordingly "being as not becoming. " It
is true—and the point is important—that for Aristotle the stability of all "being
as being" expressed the purity of an act. Moreover, this is why, unlike Plato's
Ideas, pure Acts exercise a causality different from that of principles in the
intelligible order; because they are Acts, Aristotle's highest principles are truly
gods. They are eternal immobile beings and causes of an eternal becoming.
However, when all is said, their actuality amounts to that of a perfect essence
whose pure immateriality excludes all possibility of change. For those who were
positing angels as so many immaterial substances, Aristotle was providing no
excuse for not making them so many gods.
This explains why the thesis of the hylomorphic composition of angels re-
ceived such a good reception among Platonists of every sort, and that it mounted
so vigorous a defense against its rival. Just as they could not conceive of being
198 PART II CHAPTER 2

other than as a mode of being, so they could not conceive of an absolutely im-
material being that was not a god.29 In pushing his analysis of being to the
very act of being, Thomas was eliminating one of the principal reasons used to
support this hylomorphism. If the divine is identified with the immaterial, and
being with essence, then every being whose essence is purely immaterial has a
right to be called a god. But if we locate the ground of essence in its act of
being, it is at once evident that further distinctions have to be introduced among
immaterial beings.
Though an immaterial substance is completely actual in the order of form,
it is not necessarily so in the order of existence. Free from all potentiality as
regards matter, this substance nevertheless remains in potency with regard to its
own proper esse. There is only one substance that escapes this particular defi-
ciency, and that is the substance whose essentia is identical with its esse, namely,
God. "Form is act" objected the defenders of the hylomorphism of the angels,
"and what is form alone is pure act; now an angel is not pure act, for this be-
longs to God alone; the angel, therefore, is not only form, but has a form that
is in matter. "
To this, Thomas Aquinas could now reply:
Although there is no composition of form and matter in an angel, nevertheless an
angel contains both act and potency. We can be assured of this by considering
material things, which contain two compositions. The first is that of form and
matter, a composition to be found in all natures. A nature thus constituted is not
its act of being; rather, the act of being is its act. Nature itself stands in relation
to its act of being as potency to act. If matter is removed, and if it is granted that
the form itself subsists without matter, the form is still related as potency to act
with regard to its act of being, It is in this sense that we must understand the
composition of angels.... But in God, there is no difference between the act of
being and what he i s . . . hence it follows that God alone is pure act. 30
Whether he was aware of it or not, Thomas was here destroying the entire
Aristotelian theology of Immovable Movers. He was erecting above the essenti-
ality of Plato's Ideas, even above the substantiality of Aristotle's pure Acts,
sublime in its solitude, the unique pure Act of Being.
We are now in the presence of a number of angelic creatures both specifi-
cally and numerically distinct from one another. Their number is probably enor-

29
Gilson, The Philosophy of St. Bonaventure, pp. 207-209. On Ibn Gebirol (Avicebron),
considered as the source of this hylomorphism, see Thomas Aquinas, De substantis separatis
5 [Leonine ed. 40: d48-d49].
30
Sr 1. 50. 2, ad 3. For the sake of simplicity, we pass over Thomas' discussion of the
Boethius-inspired thesis that placed in the angel a composition of quo est and quod est (ibid. )-
To reduce esse to quo est in this way is once again to be confined to the order of essence and
not to proceed to that of the act of existing.
 THE ANGELS 199

mous, much greater, indeed, than the number of material things, if we grant
that God ought to have produced a greater abundance of more perfect creatures
in order to assure a greater nobility to the universe as a whole.31 We know, be-
sides, that species differ from one another like numbers, that is, they represent
greater or lesser amounts of being and perfection. There is reason, then, for
trying to find out in what way this vast host of angels is ordered and distributed?2
If each angel in itself constitutes a single species, we ought to be able to
descend by a continuous chain from the first angel—"the nature closest to God"33
—to the last, whose perfection is nearest that of the human species. Our mind
would become lost in trying to follow so vast a number of grades of being, par-
ticularly since the individual knowledge of angels is not given to us in this world34
The only possibility left is to attempt a general classification by orders and hier-
archies based on their different activities. The proper activity of pure intelli-
gences is clearly intelligence itself. Accordingly, the angelic orders could be
distinguished by the differences in their modes of intelligence.
From this point of view, the whole angelic hierarchy, collectively consid-
ered, is radically different from the human order. No doubt the original source
of knowledge is the same for both angels and humans. In both cases they are
enlightened by divine illuminations, which angels and men receive in different
ways. Humans, as we shall see later, take from sensible things the intelligible
factor hidden in them; angels perceive it immediately and in its intelligible
purity. Thus they have been given a mode of knowledge exactly proportionate
to their place in the scheme of creation, that is, between the human and divine.
Situated immediately below God, the angelic being differs from him in that its
essence is not identical with its existence. This multiplicity, characteristic of
creatures, is to be found in their way of knowing. God's knowledge is one with
his essence and act of existing, because his act of existing, being purely and
simply infinite, embraces being in its entirety. The angel, for its part, is a finite
essence endowed by God with a certain act of being and its knowledge does not
extend by right to all being.35 On the other hand, the angel is a pure intelli-
gence, that is, it is not naturally joined to a body. Accordingly, it cannot appre-
hend the sensible as such. Sensible things come within the grasp of the senses,
while intelligible things come within the grasp of the intellect. Every substance
that receives its knowledge from sensible things is united by nature to a body,

31
Sr 1. 50. 3, resp.; SCO 1. 92; Depot. 6. 6.
32
On the progressive effort at synthesis on this point to be observed in the thought of
Thomas Aquinas see J. Durantel, "La notion de la creation dans saint Thomas, " Annales de
philosophic chretienne (April 1912): 19, n. 2.
33
De spirit, creat. 1. 8, ad 2.
34
ST 1. 108. 3, resp.
35
S7 1. 54. 2 and 3, resp.
200 PART II CHAPTER 2

because sense knowledge requires senses and consequently bodily organs.

Hence, angelic substances cannot know by means of sensible things.36
Thus the very nature of the being conferred by God on the angels brings
with it an original mode of knowing. It cannot in any way resemble abstraction,
by which human beings uncover the intelligible buried in the sensible. Nor can
it in any way resemble the act by which God is the intelligible and at the same
time apprehends it. It can only be a knowledge acquired through species that are
received by the intelligence and enlighten it. These species are purely intelligi-
ble, that is, proportionate to a completely incorporeal being. To satisfy all these
conditions, we say that angels know things through species that are connatural
to them, or, if you prefer, by innate species.37 All the intelligible essences that
preexisted from eternity in God in the form of ideas proceeded from him at the
moment of creation in two distinct and parallel lines. On the one hand, they
were individuated in material beings and constituted their forms. On the other,
they flowed into angelic substances, thus conferring upon them knowledge of
things. We can say, then, that the angels' intellect is superior to our human in-
tellect, just as a being completed and endowed with its form is superior to form-
less matter. And if our intellect is like a blank tablet on which nothing is written,
the intellect of the angel would be rather like a canvas covered with its painting,
or, better still, like a mirror reflecting the luminous essences of things. 38
The innate possession of intelligible species is common to all angels and is
characteristic of their nature. But all angels do not possess the same species; and
here we are coming to the basis for distinguishing among them. What consti-
tutes relative superiority among created beings is their greater or lesser proximi-
ty to the first being, or God. Now, God's total fullness of intellectual knowledge
is gathered at one single point: the divine essence, in which he knows every-
thing. This intelligible fullness is found in created intelligences, but in an in-
ferior way and less simply. Thus the intelligences inferior to God know by a
multiple means what God knows in a single object; the lower the grade of the
intelligence, the more numerous must be its means of knowing. In brief, the
superiority among angels is greater the fewer the species necessary for them to
apprehend all intelligibles. 39
We know, moreover, that each individual angel constitutes a distinct degree
of being. The simplicity of their knowledge, then, is continually lessened and
fragmented unceasingly from the first angel to the last. However, it is possible
to distinguish three principal degrees. In the first degree are those angels who
know intelligible essences as proceeding from the first universal principle, which is

36
SCG2. 96 [2].
31
ST 1. 55. 2, resp.
38
D<? ver. 8. 9, resp.; ST 1. 55. 2, resp. and ad 1.
™De ver. 8. 10, resp.; 571. 55. 3, resp.
 THE ANGELS 201

God. This mode of knowing belongs properly to the first hierarchy, which is in
immediate attendance upon God, and of which we can say with Dionysius40
that it dwells in the antechamber of the divinity. In the second degree are those
angels who know intelligibles as subject to the most universal created causes.
This mode of being is proper to the second hierarchy. Finally, in the third de-
gree are those angels who know intelligibles as applied to singular things and
dependent upon particular causes. These last form the third hierarchy.41 There
is, then, decreasing generality and decreasing simplicity in the distribution of
the angels' knowledge. Some are turned solely to God and contemplate intelli-
gible essences in him alone. Others contemplate them in the universal causes of
creation, that is, in a plurality of objects; others, finally, contemplate them as
particular effects, that is, in a multiplicity of objects equal to the number of
created beings.42
When we try to be more specific as to how separated substances apprehend
their object, we observe further that there are three different orders within each
of these hierarchies. We have said that the first hierarchy contemplates intelligi-
ble essences in God himself. Now, God is the end of every creature. According-
ly, angels in this hierarchy contemplate as their proper object the highest end
of the universe, which is the goodness of God. Those who behold it most clear-
ly are called Seraphim, because they are as it were on fire with love for this
object which they know so perfectly. The other angels in the first hierarchy
contemplate the divine goodness, not directly and in itself, but under the aspect
of providence. They are called Cherubim, that is, fullness of knowledge, be-
cause they see clearly the pristine operative power of the divine model of things.
Immediately below the preceding come the angels who contemplate in itself the
disposition of the divine judgments. Since the throne is the sign of judicial pow-
er, they are called Thrones. This does not imply that God's goodness, essence,
and knowledge, by which he knows the disposition of beings, are three distinct
realities in him. There are simply three aspects under which those finite intelli-
gences who are angels can behold his perfect simplicity.
The second hierarchy does not know the reasons of things in God himself
as in a simple object, but in the plurality of universal causes. Thus its proper
object is the general disposition of means in view of their end. Now, this uni-
versal disposition of things presupposes the existence of many directors; these
are the Dominations, whose name indicates authority because they prescribe
what other angels must carry out. The general directives issued by the first
angels are received by others who multiply them and channel them according
to the various effects to be produced. These angels are called Virtues, because
they confer on the general causes the energy required to carry out their numer-

w
De caelesti hierarchia 7. 2 [PL 122: 179aB].
4I
ST1. 108. 1, resp.
42
Ibid. 6, resp.
202 PART II CHAPTER 2

ous operations without fail. This order, then, presides over the activities of the
entire universe, so that we can reasonably ascribe to it the movement of the
heavenly bodies, which are the universal causes from which come all the partic-
ular effects that take place in nature.43 To these spirits, too, apparently belong
the carrying out of those divine effects outside the ordinary course of nature and
that are often immediately dependent upon the influence of the stars. Finally,
the universal order of providence, already at work in its effects, is preserved
from all disorder by the Powers, whose task is to safeguard it from all those
baneful influences that might possibly disturb it.
With this last class of angels we approach the third hierarchy, which knows
the order of divine providence, not in itself, nor in its general causes, but as it
can be known in the multiplicity of particular causes. These angels are placed
in immediate charge of the administration of human affairs. Some of them are
especially appointed to the common good and the general welfare of nations and
cities. Because of their dignity they are called Principalities. The distinction of
kingdoms, the transference of temporary supremacy to one nation rather than
to another, the leadership of princes and great men belong directly to their min-
istry. Beneath this very general order of goods comes one that effects both the
individual taken by himself and, under the same title, a great number of indivi-
duals. Such are the truths of faith that must be believed, and divine worship that
must be respected. The angels, whose proper object is these goods, which are
both particular and general, are called Archangels. They also bring to people
the most solemn messages from God. It was the archangel Gabriel who came
to announce the incarnation of the Word, the only Son of God, a truth everyone
is obliged to accept. Finally, there is a still more particular good that concerns
every individual in himself and as an individual. In charge of this order of
goods are the angels properly speaking, the guardians of men and women and
God's messengers for less important announcements. 44 With them, we reach
the end of the lowest hierarchy of separated intelligences.
It is easy to see that the foregoing arrangement concerns the continuity of
a universe in which the lowest members of a higher grade approach very closely
the highest members of a lower grade, as the least perfect members of the ani-
mal kingdom border on plants. The first and highest order of being is that of the
divine Persons, which terminates in the Spirit, that is, in Love proceeding from
the Father and the Son. The Seraphim, who are closely united with God in a
burning love, stand in close affinity with the third person of the Trinity. The
third degree of this hierarchy, the Thrones, has an equally close affinity with
the highest degree of the second, that is, the Dominations. It is they who trans-
mit to the second hierarchy the illumination necessary for the knowledge and
execution of the divine decrees. Similarly, the Powers are very close to the

43
See In Sent. 4. 48. 1. 4. 3, sol. 3 [Vives ed. 11: 443].
M
SCG1. 8Q [3]; ST 1. 108. 5, ad 4.
 THE ANGELS 203

Principalities, because there is very little distance between those who make
particular effects possible and those who produce them.45 The grouping of the
angels in hierarchies thus makes us aware of a continuous series of pure intelli-
gences through which the divine illumination shines from one end to the other.
Each angel transmits to the one immediately below it the knowledge it receives
from above; but it transmits the knowledge particularized and parcelled out to
match the capacity of the angel following it. In this regard the angel proceeds
like teachers, who perceive directly the consequences lying hidden in principles,
but expound them by making many distinctions in order to bring them within
the reach of their listeners. 46
In this way the elements Thomas owes to the philosophical tradition are
brought into a harmonious synthesis. He confirms the existence of angels in the
strict sense in their biblical role of announcers and messengers. He refuses to
reduce them, as do the oriental philosophers, to the very small number of sepa-
rated intelligences that move and guide the celestial spheres. Yet he continues
to assign these functions to the angels. Finally, the neo-Platonic hierarchy as
adapted by pseudo-Dionysius reappears in Thomas Aquinas' hierarchy of pure
intelligences. Thomas closely binds these notions of such varied origin to his
own principles, firmly putting his imprint upon them. In distributing the angelic
hierarchies according to the progressive darkening of their intellectual illumina-
tion, he is conferring a totally new organic structure upon the world of separa-
ted substances. The internal principle governing it is the same as that which
Thomism places at the very source of the order of the universe. At the same
time we find that the angelic world occupies a place in creation of such impor-
tance that it simply must be considered if the universe is to remain intelligible.
Between God's pure actuality and human rational knowledge based upon sensi-
ble things, the angels introduce an infinite number of intermediary degrees. As
we come down along this long chain, we find two parallel and diminishing
graduations: a knowledge becoming less and less simple, and an esse whose
actuality grows less and less pure. No doubt, the vast host of angels, being
finite creatures, does not fill completely the gap between God and creation. But
if there is always discontinuity in the mode existing, there is however continuity
of order: "Such is the order of things that we go from one extreme to the other
only through intermediaries" (Ordo rerum talis esse invenitur ut ab uno extreme
ad alterum non perveniatur nisi per media). Knowledge comes down in stages
from God, the source of all light. It comes first to the angels, those intelligences
by nature full of intelligible essences. Then it comes to us humans whom we see
seeking and gathering the intelligible multiplied in sensible things. Finally, its
ray comes to be imprisoned in matter under the form of finality.

45
Sr 1. 108. 6, resp.
46
Sr 1. 106. 1 and 3, resp.