Dist. 10, 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/2/d/10/q/bon-sent-II-d10-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the Angels are sent to illuminate our intellect.*

Secondly it is asked whether an Angel is sent to illuminate our intellect. And that [he is], thus it seems.

*To the opposite.* 1. Thus Dionysius says in the book *On the Angelic Hierarchy*: «The arrangement of fitting elucidation manifests the brightness, first appearing as in copious effusions, to the most excellent essences, and through these, which are essences thereafter, [the lower ones] partake of the divine ray». From this text it is manifestly gathered that God illuminates us through the mediation of the Angels.

2. Likewise, in the book *On the Motion of the Heart* the soul is defined thus: «The soul is an incorporeal, intellectual substance, perceptive — by a last relation — of those illuminations which are from the first [principle]». Therefore, between the relation of the soul to God, when it perceives illumination, there falls another, intermediate relation; but this is none other than the relation of the angelic substance: therefore it seems that the soul is illuminated by God, by the mediation of an Angel.

3. Likewise, the Angels are spiritual lights; but since our agent intellect is a light — when it turns itself upon the phantasms, it abstracts and refines and in this way illuminates: therefore, if the angelic intellect is much more in act than ours, then much more can it illuminate our possible intellect.

4. Likewise, it is plain that the Angels reveal to us many spiritual things which are not fitted by nature to fall under and be received either in sense or in imagination: therefore it seems that they can immediately impress likenesses upon our intellect; but such an impression cannot be without illumination: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, an Angel is said to purge, illuminate, and perfect: therefore, if this belonged to him only by way of one who stirs up, then — since in like manner one man stirs up another — it would seem that a man would be said to illuminate, purge, and perfect. But if a man is not said to be a purger or an illuminator, as an Angel is, it seems that an Angel can illuminate the soul from a higher [station].

6. Likewise, a blessed Angel can do much more than the devil; but a demon can stir up various thoughts in us and suggest [them] from below: therefore it seems that an Angel, illuminated through glory, since he is higher and more luminous than our soul, can illuminate it from a higher [station].

To the opposite: *The grounds.* 1. Augustine in the book *Of Eighty-Three Questions*: «We call mind that which is so made to the image of God that it is formed immediately by the first Truth»; and in many places he says that «between the mind and God nothing falls as a medium»: therefore, if our intelligence is regarded according to the highest [part] of the soul, it seems that it cannot be illuminated by an Angel.

2. Likewise, upon that [verse] of the Psalm: *Thy hands, O Lord, have made me and formed me* etc., the Gloss says: «God by his very self irradiates pious minds»: therefore it does not seem [to be] through angelic ministry.

3. Likewise, it is easier to produce corporeal forms than to give spiritual illuminations; but an Angel cannot produce a natural form as a principal agent, but only dispose [it] exteriorly: therefore much more strongly can he not give a spiritual illumination to the soul.

4. Likewise, if an Angel illuminates the soul, either he illuminates by sending into it a light *of his own*, or by creating a *new* one. If by sending in a light *of his own*, since his light is not outside himself: then the Angel glides into the soul; which is proper to God alone. If by giving a *new* one, [it is] either by producing [it] from *something*, or from *nothing*. If from *something*, I ask, from what? And since that cannot be assigned, it follows that the Angel produces [it] from *nothing*, and so that he is a creator.

5. Likewise, if an Angel illuminates the soul, [it is] either *through a medium*, or *without a medium*. If *through a medium*, I ask what that medium is that conveys the spiritual illumination; and since what conveys a spiritual illumination cannot be anything but a spirit, between the illuminated soul and the illuminating Angel a *medium* must be posited. And again inquiry is made concerning that one, as concerning the first: therefore either there will be a going-on to infinity, or no *medium* is to be posited. If he illuminates the soul itself *immediately*, then it seems that he is in the soul itself, and so that he glides into the soul.

6. Likewise, the intelligence is fitted by nature to be borne immediately into God just as the will is: therefore, if an Angel cannot rectify the will, he will not be able to illuminate the intelligence.

*An incidental question.* Alongside this it is asked, with respect to what those three acts are taken — namely, to illuminate, to purge, and to perfect.

### Conclusion

> An Angel can illuminate the lower portion of the soul, not by infusing light nor only by presenting [it] as an object or a mirror does, but also by vividly stirring [it] up.

**I respond:** *Conclusion 1.* It must be said that to illuminate the soul as to the higher portion of reason is proper to God alone, as Augustine shows in many places; *Opinion 1.* although some, not understanding the principle of the whole truth, posited otherwise — namely, that our intellect does not reach to the first light, but is perfected and illuminated by the first light through the intermediate light

of the intelligence. — *It is disproved.* But this is to be rejected simply as erroneous, since in many places blessed Augustine shows the contrary, and sacred Scripture too says this, as it is said in John, chapter one: *It was the true light, which illuminates* etc. — which indeed is not the light of a creature, but the light of the divine wisdom and of the eternal truth. In which these things are to be noticed: that which *is*, that which *understands*, and that which *makes other things to be understood* — as we see in this material sun with respect to sensible things. And the chief *Note.* sign of this was that our intellect is fitted by nature to be beatified in the gazing upon the highest light, nor can it ever be content with anything until it be brought through to the clear gazing upon that [light].

Therefore, as to the highest part, an Angel cannot illuminate the soul; but as to the lower *Opinion 2, understood in three ways.* part of reason, the catholic commentators have held that our souls are illuminated by the blessed Angels through their revelations. And this can be understood in three ways: in one way, that the Angel be understood to illuminate the lower portion by way of *an irradiating light*; in another way, that he be understood to illuminate by way of *a mirror that presents*; in a third way, that he be understood to illuminate by way of *a tongue vividly expressing*. All these modes, even though they are in some way intelligible — since the Angel is a *light* and a *mirror* and has also the office of spiritual interpretation or speech — can be sustained; *The third mode is preferred.* the third mode, however, is more intelligible. For it does not appear very well how an Angel irradiates, nor how he presents himself to the gaze of the soul; but this is intelligible enough — how an Angel can suggest to the soul what he has conceived. And just as a teacher, while he speaks exteriorly, stirs up the intellect and prepares the way to understanding, and living and efficacious speech, by a certain liveliness of its own, gains entrance to our intellect while it sounds exteriorly in the ear of the body — by reason of which a man also more gladly hears a good cleric, whose discourse is efficacious and living, «since it has something of the hidden energy of the living voice's act», as Jerome says; *Conclusion 2.* so too, in its own way, it is to be understood that an Angel can do this in the interior power, which is more elevated than the exterior sense, by a certain spiritual speech and exaltation of the phantasms interiorly; and so he illuminates — not by infusing light, nor only by presenting [it] as an object or a mirror [does], but also by vividly stirring [it] up, like an exterior teacher, and in a still more efficacious manner.

*To the grounds.* These things being seen, the reply is for the most part plain to the objections on both sides. For the arguments showing that an Angel cannot illuminate our intellect speak of the intellect as to the higher portion, namely the mind, and of an illumination which indeed is by the infusion of light; and this is proper to God alone, as has been said before; whence those arguments are to be conceded.

*The solution of the opposing arguments.* 1. But to that which is objected from Dionysius, the reply is already plain. For I say that he speaks of illumination in the second way, not the first.

2. To that which is objected from that definition of the soul, it must be said that the soul is said to perceive illuminations from God by a *last* or *second* relation — not because an Angel falls as a medium between God and the soul by way of one that flows in, but because the Angel is illuminated by God more perfectly and more nobly than the soul [is] by nature; and therefore that illumination is called second, not in the order of causality, but of dignity.

3. *In what sense [Angels] are called lights.* To that which is objected — that the Angels are lights — it must be said that this is true; but they are not called lights because they diffuse their light outwardly into other things, but because they shine within themselves. For the case is not alike with corporeal and with spiritual light. *Spiritual light differs from corporeal.* For spiritual light, on account of its own dignity, proceeds immediately from the fount of light, since it cannot have a conveying medium. But corporeal light is received and conveyed through a medium, and just as it can be conveyed and received, so too it can be given back; and thus the illuminated can illuminate, as is plain in the moon.

4. To that which is objected — that they reveal to us many things which they do not express to us through sense — it must be said that this does not conclude that they flow immediately into the intellect; for this can come about if they suggest immediately to the intellect. Nor even is that necessary, but it can also come about by the mediation of the imaginative power. For just as we see that I

cannot show you anything except by the mediation of the senses and the lower powers — because your intellect is not fitted by nature to receive anything from above except from God flowing in — nevertheless there is nothing in me so spiritual that I cannot, by the mediation of a sensible word, bring it forth to your intelligence, and so speak with you of spiritual things as of corporeal: much more strongly can an Angel do this in the interior power, which is more elevated than the exterior sense, by a certain spiritual speech and exaltation of the phantasms.

5, 6. To that which is objected — that if [the Angel] could [act] only by way of one who stirs up, then he could [do] no more than a man, or even an evil angel — it must be said that, although a man or an evil angel can do this, nevertheless from this it does not follow that they are made equal in the power and capacity of expressing, because by the same way it happens that [one] teaches well and [another] better, as is plain. For through the exterior ears we learn both from a wise teacher and from a foolish one, but he teaches us far better who has the light of wisdom than he who lacks it; and so it is to be understood that it stands in the Angel [also]. — And by this the last two [arguments] are clear, because the case is not alike either with a man or with a demon; for neither can instruct so efficaciously, since they do not have so great a light of wisdom.

*To the incidental question.* To that which was asked last — in what way the distinction of those acts comes about — it must be said that one manner of speaking is that those three acts regard the intellect, so that *purging* is at the beginning, *illumination* in the progress, and *perfection* at the term. — *Otherwise.* Or otherwise, so that there be noted in them three things to which angelic erudition or teaching is ordered: the first is the removal of impediments; the second is the knowledge of true things; the third is the love of good things. And to these [the Angel] is ordered by way of one who *stirs up*, like the discourse of one preaching well; and therefore not unreasonably is a good teacher and preacher said to illuminate and purge and perfect his hearers, as blessed Dionysius expressly gives to understand in the book *On the Angelic Hierarchy*.

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