Dist. 37, Part 2, Art. 2, Q. 2
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/1/d/37/q/bon-sent-I-d37-p2-a2-q2
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### Question II.
#### *Whether the angel is moved through a medium.*

Secondly it is asked whether the angel is moved through a medium, or not. And that he is moved through a medium, is shown.

1. Damascene says that "the angel quickly passes through, by the swiftness and power of his nature": but to pass through is to pass through a medium: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, when the angel is moved from a *terminus from-which* to a *terminus to-which*, either he is moved at the *terminus from-which*, or at the *terminus to-which*; but at the *terminus from-which* it is not-to-have-been-moved; whereas at the *terminus to-which* it is to-have-been-moved: therefore, since to be moved is the middle between the two, it must be that he is in an intermediate space.

3. Likewise, that he can be moved through a medium is seen, because it is certain that the angel, while at Paris, can be at Rome by the same power, and at any intermediate place — and first at the nearer place and then at the several places successively — but this is to pass through a medium: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, whenever between any extremes there falls a medium which has a natural order to the extremes, it is impossible that an agent of finite power should arrive from one extreme to the other without the medium, as is plain — for between white and black there is an intermediate color, and it is impossible that any created agent should make black from white without making it through the intermediate color — but between heaven and earth there are by natural order other bodies as media: therefore it is impossible that anything should come from heaven to earth, or be moved, without traversing the medium.

**On the contrary:**

1. Augustine *On Genesis according to the letter*, and the Master places it in the *littera*: *God moves spiritual creature through times, not through places:* therefore, although he passes from one place to another, this is not through a middle place.

2. Likewise, the conclusion is proved in the *sixth [book] of the Physics*, that it is impossible that an indivisible be moved over a magnitude; but the angel, with no body assumed, is indivisible: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, by reason it appears that, if he passes through, then either through simples or through composites: if through composites, then he is composite; if through simples — but these are infinite in any continuum, and it is impossible to traverse infinites: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, if through simples; but out of simples no continuum is made: therefore that motion will not be continuous, therefore by passing through them he never traverses a space: therefore if he is moved through a medium, he never reaches the terminus.

5. Likewise, "it is impossible that anything traverse a space greater than itself, unless it has first traversed a space less than or equal to itself": therefore if the angelic spirit passes through a space, he first passes through one equal to himself or less than the greater. But what is equal to a simple is nothing but a simple; and a simple added to a simple does not make something greater: therefore in the first traversal there is just as much, as if nothing were traversed, and likewise in the second traversal, therefore not in the third either: and thus he never traverses any space at all.

### Conclusion.

> *It is reasonably said that the angel is moved through a medium.*

**I respond:** It must be noted here that, concerning this, different writers have spoken in different ways.

For some have said that, since the angel is simple, he cannot pass through a medium; whence he is moved from one extreme to the other without a medium, and every place to which he is moved is related to him in the manner of an immediate. Hence change of place in the angel is not a motion, but only a change without a medium. — But this position does not seem fitting. For it is certain that the angel who is the guardian of a man can guard him so as not to abandon him, and can guard him without a body: therefore he can accompany him inseparably: therefore, when a man goes through a medium, and the angel does not abandon him, equally the angel goes through the medium.

And therefore there were others who said that the angel can be moved both through a medium and without a medium, since his motion is at the bidding of his will according to the power divinely conferred on him; and therefore, when he wills, he places himself at the extreme immediately, and when he wills, he passes through. And they put forward an example, that our intellect can think of Paris and of Rome in two ways: either in such a way that it thinks immediately of one and afterwards of the other, or in such a way that it thinks first of one and afterwards of the way and thirdly of the third. And because for the angel motion is as easy as thinking is for us, since he is not bound to a body, they say that thus and thus he has to be moved. — But whatever is to be said of the position, the example is not fitting: because the thinker has within himself the species of Rome and the species of Paris, and these have no situation in the soul nor any order according to situation, but rather each is equally present to the gaze; and therefore at will he can think of the one or the other. But in reality there is a natural order and situation, and necessarily there lies a medium between one city and another. And on this account that example is not fitting, nor is a way opened to us through it for understanding.

And since it is in some way intelligible that he be carried through a medium, and reason agrees and authority too; therefore it seems reasonable that this should be said. But that limb [of the alternative] which says that he could [be moved] without a medium, I judge ought to be rejected — not because I would assert it false, but because there is no authority at hand which says this, and reason does not compel, indeed does not grasp [it]. It is, however, possible that God may have given to those spiritual substances something which carnal intellects do not grasp. — Therefore the reasons proving that the angel is moved through a medium ought to be conceded.

1. To that which is objected, that God does not move the angel through place; it must be said that force is to be done to the word according to Augustine's understanding: which appears from the *littera*. For he himself said that the spirit is not moved through places, because *the properties of place* — namely circumscription and dimension — it does not have, when transferred from place to place; but *the property of time*, which is some variation and innovation, the spirit truly and properly admits. For new affections succeed in spirits by nature and thoughts, and

further they are intensified and remitted, so that there can truly be partibility on the side of form or of property to be acquired.

2. To that which is objected from the Philosopher, that an indivisible is not moved over a magnitude; it must be said that the Philosopher proves and concludes about an indivisible which has a situation in a magnitude, that it is indivisible and is situated in an indivisible. This cannot be moved over a magnitude, because if it is moved, it is moved to acquire a situation; and what is acquired through motion is acquired in such a way that part comes after part; and the situation of the indivisible cannot be acquired in such a way that part is acquired after part: and therefore it is true that such an indivisible cannot be moved over the magnitude itself. But the angel is such an indivisible as does not have a situation in an indivisible, nor is it to be said that the angel is in an indivisible place, as will be made plain: and therefore the demonstrations of the Philosopher do not have a place here.

3. 4. To that which is asked: whether he passes through simples or through composites; the answer is that he passes through *composites*, since he is not in a simple place but in a composite [place]; this I suppose for the present, but in its [own] place it will be proved. Nor is it valid to say: he passes through composites, therefore he is composite — just as it is not valid to say: the soul is in a composite, therefore it is composite: because it is in it in such a way that there is no part in a part, but the simple itself as a whole is in any part, in such a way nevertheless that those parts are one place.

It could however be said, if anyone wished to embarrass himself with this kind [of objection], that even if he were to pass through simples, he would not on this account pass through infinites. And this appears thus: that if anyone imagine a sphere being moved over a plane, it does not touch except in a point: therefore it does not touch except through simples, and yet it does not actually traverse infinites — since that sphere is carried over the plane and does not rest in any situation; and so it commensurates itself with no point, but neither does it count the points in [the plane], but, since it is in continuous motion, it regards those indivisibles as united, and so as they are in a continuum; and thus, since the continuum is actually finite and infinite in potency, and that potency is not reduced to act, it does not actually traverse infinites, since it does not regard them as actually numbered. — Nevertheless, since the example bears a charge against it, and the saying does not seem consonant with the saying of the Philosopher, who absolutely says that an indivisible is not moved; I adhere rather to the prior response.

5. And by it the next [objection] is plain. For he objects as if the angel were in a point — which I believe is altogether false, since he would not be in a place, since a point is not a place, nor is it actually in the continuum. But all this will be made better plain in the *second book*.