Dist. 10, Art. 2, 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-a2-q1
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### Article II. *To what end the good Angels are sent.*

Next there is inquiry concerning the second article, namely, to what end they are sent. And the first question is whether they are sent to kindle our affection. Secondly, whether they are sent to illuminate the intellect.

### Question I. *Whether the Angels are sent to inflame the affection.*

Concerning the first one proceeds thus. And that they are sent to inflame the affection, [thus] it seems.

*To the opposite.* 1. The Angel who was sent to Isaiah, as Dionysius says, is said to be one of the Seraphim, because he was sent to set on fire and to inflame: but inflaming regards the affection: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, the acts of the hierarchies, as Dionysius wishes, *On the Angelic Hierarchy*, are «to illuminate, to purge, to perfect»: therefore, if purging regards the removal of filth, and defilement regards the affection as to the vice of concupiscence, it seems on the contrary that an Angel is sent to inflame the affection through holy and pure love.

3. Likewise, this seems [so] *by reason*. The good, insofar as [it is] good, is diffusive of itself; but a blessed Angel is perfectly good: therefore he can diffuse goodness. But the good as good regards the affection: therefore it seems that, since our affection is to be perfected and inflamed according to the reception of goodness, an Angel can and ought to be sent for this, that he may inflame and perfect our affection.

4. Likewise, we see in natural things that that which is inflamed, when it draws near to another inflammable thing, inflames it: therefore, if the angelic affection is inflamed and filled with the fire of divine love, and in his mission draws near to us, then he inflames our affections.

To the opposite it is argued thus: *The grounds.* 1. The freedom of choice consists especially in our affection; but nothing except God alone has power over free choice, since it is most powerful under God: therefore no creature, however noble and perfect, can inflame or perfect our affection.

2. Likewise, justice and equity consist especially in our affection — «for justice is rectitude of will preserved for its own sake», as Anselm says — but it belongs to the highest justice alone to rectify our will: therefore it belongs to it alone to inflame the affection.

3. Likewise, charity consists according to the right inflaming of the affection: therefore, if charity either is the Holy Spirit, or [is] immediately from the Holy Spirit, the inflaming of our affection cannot be from any other.

4. Likewise, the deiformity of our soul consists especially according to our affection: if, then, it belongs to God alone to make [a thing] deiform, it belongs to God alone to flow into our affection: therefore that does not pertain to the ministry of the Angels.

### Conclusion

> The good Angels inflame our affection, not by effecting [it] principally, but by stirring [it] up and helping.

**I respond:** *A distinction.* For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that the inflaming of our affection by something can be understood in two ways: either thus, that it be inflamed by something as by a *principal agent and efficient [cause]*, or as by something that *stirs up and helps*. And according to this twofold mode of understanding, some understood in two ways our affection to be inflamed and perfected by the Angels; but the first understanding is heretical, the second indeed catholic.

*A heretical opinion.* The first understanding certain philosophers held. For they posited that the intelligence was the soul's instrument, and that the intelligence flowed into the soul as an agent flows into an instrument; whence they said that the soul has a threefold

operation: an *animal*, an *intellectual*, and a *divine* [operation]. The animal [operation] from itself, the intellectual from angelic influence, but the divine from divine influence. — *It is disproved.* But this position is against the catholic and pious truth. For those who posited this did not understand the freedom of choice, nor the dignity of the soul, nor the sublimity of beatitude; which if they had understood, they would have said — as blessed Augustine, the excellent doctor, posited — that the soul is completed and moved and beatified immediately by God, as blessed Augustine [held]. Hence blessed Augustine, wherever he speaks of the mind, roots out that error, showing that the soul, according to the mind, is so immediately united to God, just as the angelic mind also [is].

*Conclusion.* But if it be understood in the second way, then it has truth; and in this way blessed Dionysius understood [it] in the book *On the Angelic Hierarchy*, and in this manner too the Prophet is said to have been set on fire by an Angel.

*The solution of the opposing arguments.* 1, 2. And by this the reply to the first two [arguments] is plain.

3. But to that which is objected — that the good is diffusive of itself — it must be said that diffusion can be from the good in two ways: either by way of *multiplication*, as heat or light is said to diffuse itself; or by way of *useful operation*, in which manner a good man is said to diffuse his goodness, while he works and labors to this end, that others may receive goodness — not from him, but from God. And in this manner is to be understood the diffusion in angelic goodness or charity.

4. To that which is objected — that the inflamed [thing], joined to an inflammable [thing], inflames [it] — it must be said that this is true when that inflaming is by the eduction of something from matter; for there what is in act can educe something which is in potency. But when something is to be inflamed by the infusion of heat, it does not hold true, because in this manner a thing is not inflamed except by the joining of itself with the principle of heat, which is fitted by nature to infuse the heat. And in this manner is the inflaming in spiritual things, where the flame is divine love, not produced from the soul itself, but rather infused by God; and therefore this heat the angelic spirit cannot effect in us, although in some way it can stir us up to the reception of it.