Dist. 10, Art. 1, Q. 1
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/2/d/10/q/bon-sent-II-d10-a1-q1
----------------------------------------
### Article I. *Whether the good Angels are sent.*

### Question I. *Whether any Angels are sent.*

Concerning the first, one proceeds thus, and it is shown that the Angels are sent.

*The grounds.* 1. Luke, chapter one: *Gabriel the Angel was sent from God into a city* etc., and in many other places of Scripture.

2. Likewise, "Angel" is a name *of a messenger and of an office*, as the Gloss says upon that [verse] of the Psalm: *Who makes his Angels spirits*: therefore, if they are truly and properly called Angels, they are truly and properly messengers: therefore, if it belongs to messengers to be sent, the point is clear, etc.

3. Likewise, the greater the charity one has, the more solicitous he is concerning the one whom he can help; but the Angels have perfect charity and can relieve our need: therefore it seems that they are solicitous to help us. But this they do not do by their own authority, but by the Lord's: therefore it seems that they are sent by the Lord.

4. Likewise, the Angels, as to status and dignity, are midway between us and God: therefore it seems that they carry our petitions to God and bring back to us divine revelations from God; but this is proper to messengers: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:** *To the opposite.* 1. In vain does one send a messenger where he himself is present and can do [the thing] better by himself: therefore, if God is most present to us and can do all things by himself, then in vain does he send an Angel to us. But he does nothing in vain: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, God the Father sent the Son and the Holy Spirit to procure our salvation; therefore either

our salvation is sufficiently procured through the Son and the Holy Spirit, or not. If not, then the Son, and the Holy Spirit also, is an imperfect mediator — which to say is profane; if so, then in vain is an Angel sent.

3. Likewise, when an Angel is sent to us, either he *turns* toward us, or not. If not, then he is sent in vain; if so, then — since he cannot be moved by diverse motions at one and the same time — he ceases to be blessed.

4. Likewise, it seems that from this a prejudice is generated for the Angel, because, however fervent in charity anyone may be, he is moved more fervently when he is moved toward God than when he is moved toward [his] neighbor: therefore an Angel is moved more fervently when he attends upon God than when he ministers to us. But when the fervor of love is diminished, the love of devotion is diminished: therefore the mission of the Angels to us both diminishes in them the fervor of charity and the delights of joyfulness: therefore it is to their prejudice.

5. Likewise, this same thing seems [to follow]: although the soul has several powers, nevertheless, because those powers are rooted in one simple substance, when one is intensified, another is slackened: therefore, by parity of reasoning, in the Angels, when an Angel is engaged about the things which belong to the ministering power, his contemplation is diminished, and therefore his love also.

6. Likewise, a blessed Angel is located in the empyrean heaven as in a place fitting and assigned to him: therefore he desires to be there. If, then, he goes out beyond the empyrean, some desire will be incomplete in him: therefore it seems that mission places an incompleteness in the Angels. If, then, the blessed Angels are in a state of all-round perfection, it seems that to be sent in no way befits them.

### Conclusion

> That the blessed Angels are sent to us by God befits the charity of God, of the Angels, and of men.

**I respond:** It must be said that without doubt the blessed *Conclusion.* Angels are sent to us by God.

Although many reasons can be assigned for this, *The principal reason.* one nonetheless, the most powerful, is taken from the law of charity. For this mission accords with the charity of God, with the charity of the Angels, and [with the charity] of men. With the charity of God, because in this is manifested the divine goodness — how greatly it loves our salvation — when it directs and sends the most noble spirits, who are joined to it by intimate charity, to procure our salvation. — And it befits also the charity of the Angels. For since it belongs to ardent charity most of all to desire the salvation of others — on account of which [an Angel] also says to the Lord, as Isaiah said: *Behold, I [am here], Lord, send me* — and since the Angels can help us, inasmuch as they see that we need their aid and that the evil angels assail us without ceasing: therefore the law of angelic charity requires that they be sent to us. — This befits also human charity, which, since it is little, so long as we are on the way, needs to be cherished and nourished and stirred up. And since the Angels are fellow citizens with men — [yet] since they are not joined to them by the likeness of nature, which stirs up to love — it was necessary that they be joined by the service of beneficence. — Hence the arguments adduced for this [position] are to be conceded.

*The solution of the opposing arguments.* 1. To that, then, which is objected on the contrary — that God is present to us — it must be said that, although God is present, nevertheless, on account of the blindness *Note.* and darkness of our intellect, in which we are, we know him as absent. And since those spirits, on account of the brightness of light and the perfection of beatitude, always see God *face to face*, and are present to him — just as those who are in the king's chamber make known the king's will to those who are outside, and are sent for this by their lord — so it is to be understood in the matter at hand. Nor does it avail [to say]: the Lord can do [it] by himself, therefore he ought not to send a messenger for this. For one who is in authority can do many things by himself which he nonetheless enjoins upon a servant or a messenger, so that in ministry and in actions a becoming and fitting order may be preserved.

2. To that which is objected — that the Son and the Holy Spirit sufficiently procure our salvation — it must be said that, although they procure [it] sufficiently as far as is *of themselves*, they do not, however, exclude the freedom of our choice; *for we are God's helpers*, as the Apostle says. And since our choice is sluggish and does not cooperate well with grace, it therefore needs one to stir [it]. And for this no one is more suitable than an Angel is; and therefore it is fitting that he be sent to us — not on account of any need of procuring our salvation on the part of the Son or of the Holy Spirit, but on account of the negligence of cooperation on our part.

3, 4, 5. To that which is objected — that if [the Angel] is moved toward us, then [he is] not [moved] toward God — it must be said that that argument errs in two ways. First, indeed, because [the Angel] is not moved toward us except for God's sake; hence his motion does not rest in us, but always refers us back to God; and therefore that motion does not take away the motion toward God, but rather disposes [him] toward it. — *Another reason.* There is also another reason: because, although one substance by a single power cannot at one and the same time turn itself to diverse things *by nature*, it can nonetheless [do so] *by divine dispensation*, or by perfect grace, of which kind is glory. Hence an Angel at one and the same time thinks both of us and of God; so too will it be in the Blessed. — And by this the two following [points] are clear, namely concerning the loss of the fer-

vor of charity and the slackening of the action of the acting power; for this is true where one conversion impedes another — which indeed is not the case in the matter at hand. And this [a man] who can grasp it has clear enough understanding [to see], *Note.* how a beatified soul understands many things at one and the same time.

6. To that which is objected lastly concerning place, it must be said that, as has been held in what precedes, place is not owed to an Angel on account of his necessity or need, but only on account of a certain *fittingness*. And this fittingness can be compensated for by a greater [fittingness]; and then it places no imperfection or unbecomingness through his own absence. And so it is in the matter at hand. For an Angel delights more to fulfill the will of his Lord and, in helping man, to please God, than he would delight to be in the empyrean.