Pars 2, Cap. 6
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/5/d/2/q/bon-brev-p2-c6
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### Chapter VI. *On the production of the higher spirits.*

Next it must be treated of the spiritual and incorporeal nature, of which kind is the angelic; concerning which it is fitting to consider it as regards the *founding of the higher spirits*, as regards the *ruin of the demons*, and as regards the *confirmation of the good Angels*.

It is therefore to be known that to the Angels, from the very beginning of their founding, four things are attributed: namely *simplicity of essence, personal distinctness*, and — on account of the reason implanted in them — *memory, understanding and will*, and *freedom of choice* for choosing good things and rejecting evil. — And these four principal attributes are accompanied by four others: namely *power* in operating, *dutifulness* in ministering, *perspicacity* in knowing, and *immutability* after election, whether in good or in evil.

Now the reason for the understanding of the foresaid is this: that the first principle, by this very fact that it is first, produced all things out of nothing; and therefore it had to produce not only what is *near to nothing*, but also what is *near to itself*; not only a substance far removed from itself, namely corporeal nature, but also one near to it. And this is the intellectual and incorporeal substance, which by this very fact, that it is most like to God, has *simplicity* of *nature* and *personal distinctness*, so that it may be made like to God on the side of substance, whether *common* or *individual*. — It has also in its mind an image of the Trinity according to *memory, understanding* and *will*; it has also *freedom of will*, so that it may be made like to God on the side of power, whether *natural* or *elective* — so that the *natural* power is marked with the image of God, and the *elective* with the freedom of choice. For it would in no way arrive meritoriously at the glorious reward which makes anyone blessed, unless it had free choice of will; and this cannot be except in a rational substance, which memory, understanding and will accompany. And where reason is, it must be « an individual substance of a rational nature »; it is necessary also that it be a spiritual and incorporeal substance, and through this *simple*, lacking all quantitative dimension.

But such a substance, by this very fact that it is simple, is *powerful in operating*; by this very fact, that it is powerful and personally distinct, there belongs to it a *distinction of office in ministering*; by this very fact, that it is simple and powerful, there belongs to it *perspicacity in discerning*; by this very fact, that it is simple and perspicacious, having a *deiform intellect*, it therefore has *stability* after election in what has been chosen, whether in good or in evil. — And these conditions generally accompany the general founding itself of the higher spirits.