Dist. 10, Art. 3, 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-a3-q1
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### Article III. *In what manner the Angels carry out their office.*

Next there is inquiry concerning the third article, namely, in what manner [the Angels] carry out the office enjoined upon them; and since they do this by going about and by announcing, there would here arise a question concerning the Angel's motion and concerning [his] locution. But because of motion it has been treated in the first book, distinction thirty-seven, now inquiry must be made concerning angelic locution. And, it being supposed that it belongs to the Angels to speak without an assumed body — as many authorities of Scripture say — by a spiritual locution, which indeed is without voice, two things are asked concerning the manner of speaking.

The first is whether the locution of an Angel is the same as his thought. The second is whether the same locution can be from God and from an Angel.

### Question I. *Whether the locution of an Angel is the same as his thought.*

Concerning the first one proceeds thus, and it is shown that the spiritual locution of an Angel is not the same as his thought:

*The grounds.* 1. First, through that which is said in the first [Epistle] to the Corinthians, chapter thirteen: *If I should speak with the tongues of men* etc.; there the Gloss [says]: «The Angels set over [others] signify to the lesser ones what they themselves first perceive of God's will, which comes about by certain nods or signs»; if, then, the nod of a thought is something other than the thought, then the thought is something other than the locution.

2. Likewise, in an Angel the act of the intellective power and [the act] of the operative [power] differ: therefore, by parity of reasoning, the act of the cogitative power and [the act] of the interpretative [power] differ; if, then, to think is the act of the intellective power, and to speak the act of the interpretative power: therefore they are not the same.

3. Likewise, the conversion by which the intellect is turned toward itself and [the conversion] by which it is turned toward another are not the same: if, then, in thinking the intellect is turned toward itself, and in speaking is turned toward another: therefore to think and to speak in an Angel are not the same, but diverse.

4. Likewise, through locution there is the manifestation of an angelic thought: therefore, if to speak and to think were the same, whatever [an Angel] thought, he would manifest to another: therefore nothing that is in one Angel would lie hidden but that it would be in another: therefore whatever the Angel of a higher order knew, he who is of a lower [order] would know; which is plainly false: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:** *To the opposite.* 1. Gregory in the *Morals*, defining the voice of the Angels, says: «The voice of the Angels in the praise of the Creator is the wonder of the inmost contemplation»: if, then, wonder or contemplation is not an act differing from thought, then neither [is] locution or vociferation.

2. Likewise, Damascene: «The Angels do not need tongue and hearing, for without a word uttered by voice they hand over their illuminations to one another»: therefore it seems that either angelic locution is nothing, or, if it is something, it is nothing other than to think.

3. Likewise, locution is nothing other than the manifestation of a concept; but an Angel, inasmuch as he is a cognitive substance, has the nature of a light and of a mirror; but corporeal light, by the fact that it shines, manifests itself, and a mirror, by the fact that it receives and retains a species, represents the species: therefore it seems that an Angel, by this very fact that he understands, declares his thoughts: therefore, since the declaration of a thought is locution, in him thought and locution are the same.

4. Likewise, to speak is nothing other than to say, and to say is nothing other than to beget or form a word; but thought is nothing other than the formation of a word or the conception of a word, as Anselm and Augustine hold: therefore thought is nothing other than interior locution; but the locution which befits an Angel is, in itself, only interior: therefore it is the same as thought.

5. Likewise, if locution differs from thought — since it presupposes it — I ask, what does it add over it? If you say to me that it adds a manifestation, which comes about by a certain offering and transfusion of a species into another as into a hearer; then it seems — since an Angel of a higher order receives nothing from an Angel of a lower [order] — that an Angel of a lower order could not speak to any Angel of a higher order: which is plainly false. For if an Angel can speak to God, much more can he speak to another Angel.

6. Likewise, locution, which differs from thought, adds some expressing sign: if, then, an Angel wishes to manifest to another Angel, by speaking, an intelligible species which he has in himself, and in him locution and thought differ: it must be, then, that the species by which he understands and the sign by which he expresses differ. Then, therefore, I ask concerning that sign: it is either a species or a thing. If a species: then by parity of reasoning it needs another sign, and similarly inquiry will be made concerning that other third one; nor will there be a stopping-point there, just as neither in the first. But if it is a thing: [it is] either sensible or intelligible. Sensible [it is] not, because whatever is in an Angel is spiritual. If intelligible: I ask, why does the Angel to whom the discourse is made apprehend that [thing] rather than the very species which is in the angelic intellect? And again, that thing which is in one Angel cannot come to be in truth in another Angel: therefore it must be that it come to be according to a likeness; and then by parity of reasoning a species existing in the intellect of one Angel can generate its like in another. Or if not, why not?

*Incidental questions.* Likewise, how can that be understood? and what is the conveying medium there, and what is the abstracting light there, and what is the stirring and impressing force or power there? For all these seem to be necessary, if in an Angel locution and thought differ.

### Conclusion

> The locution of the Angels is not the same as thought, because locution adds to thought a relation to another and a new act, but not a sign.

**I respond:** *"To speak" is said in two ways.* For the understanding of the foregoing it must be noted that to speak is [taken] in two ways: in one way, to speak [as] an act in itself, or intrinsic; in another way, [as] an act toward another, or in a certain way extrinsic. In the first way, to speak is the same as to form or beget a word; in the second way, it is the same as to bring forth or express a word [already] formed. In the first way, locution — whether in God, or in man, or in an Angel — is nothing other than thought. In the second way it says more than thought, but differently in different [cases].

*"To speak" in God adds an effect.* For in God, to speak to another, beyond [the act of] understanding, marks an effect, namely revelation. For

God is not said to speak to us merely because he understands, but also because by revealing he effects some illumination in us. Hence Gregory in the *Morals*: «God's locution, made to us inwardly, is seen rather than heard: because, while he insinuates his very self without the delay of speech, he illumines the darkness of our ignorance with a sudden light».

*In man it adds an effect, an act, and a sign.* But in man it adds not only an effect upon another, but also an act and an intermediate sign. For when one man speaks to another, he not only thinks, but also, by forming a sensible voice, interprets and explains his thought to the other. — Now the reason why locution in men adds not only an act but also an intermediate sign is this: that in the soul the act of conversion upon itself is one thing, and the act of conversion toward another is another; and in thought the soul is turned upon what it has within itself, but in locution it offers [it] to another: and so it must be that to think and to speak are a different act, and so locution adds an act over thought in man. It also adds a sign, because the soul, so long as it is with the body, is not fitted by nature to receive [anything] except by the mediation of the sensitive power; whence «those who lose one sense necessarily lose one [branch of] knowledge». Therefore, in order that the soul may express its concept to another, it must join it to a voice formed by sensible organs, by the mediation of the imaginative power, and so the intelligible likeness, or the intelligible thing signified, ascends, through that sensible sign of his, by the mediation of the sensitive powers, to the intellect of the other soul. — And this is fitting, that, as man is composed of soul and body, so his locution should have something spiritual, something corporeal.

*Conclusion 1.* But in spiritual substances it is in a middle way; for locution adds over thought an effect or relation, but does not add a sensible sign. It adds a relation and an effect for this reason: that thought, as far as is of its own nature, is secret; and therefore it never becomes manifest unless the one thinking offer something as it were to a hearer, and, by opening himself, by a certain quasi-nod as a medium, cause what he has within himself to reach, as it were to the ear, to the intellect of another. A new act also is necessary, because not by the same conversion does he turn himself upon himself and upon another or toward another. — But nevertheless a sensible sign is not necessary, nor a conveying medium, because, since the angelic intellect itself is fitted by nature to receive without sensitive powers, the speaking Angel is likewise fitted by nature to offer without a sensible medium; *Conclusion 2.* and therefore for speaking the intelligible species itself suffices for the Angel, [a species] which, from the intellective power of the Angel himself, at the command of the will, can be extended toward another. And just as that species, while the intellect beheld it for itself and in itself, was an interior word; so, while it extends it toward another, it becomes as it were a nod and an exterior word. And because both that species and the power extending it toward another, and the extension itself, are spiritual, therefore it does not need a corporeal conveying medium. — *A corollary.* But because that power is finite, it is necessary, for this — that one Angel by speaking, that is, by extending that species, should stir up the intellect of another Angel — that they be distant from one another by a finite distance.

From these things, then, it is plain that, although locution and thought do not differ in an Angel as much as they differ in man, they do nevertheless differ in some way. Therefore the arguments adduced for this side are to be conceded.

*The solution of the opposing arguments.* 1. To that which is objected from Gregory, it must be said that Gregory is speaking of the Angel's locution in comparison to God, with whom for an Angel to speak is to think, because nothing lies hidden from his ear.

2. To that which is objected from Damascene, it must be said that, although the locution of an Angel does not differ from thought by the fact that it utters a sensible voice beyond the thought, *Note.* nevertheless it is not altogether without difference; because, even if it does not add any sign beyond the thought, it nevertheless adds a further act and relation, by reason of which it concerns a finite distance, although thought and intellect abstract from all distance.

3. To that which is objected concerning the manifestation of light and of a mirror, it must be said that the case is not alike, because the manifestation of light or of a mirror is natural. Whence light cannot shine, nor a mirror receive [a species], without also manifesting themselves; but it is not so in angelic thought, whose manifestation is voluntary, as Augustine says upon Genesis according to the letter: «While the Angels themselves, at the nod of [their] will, now conceal, now communicate their thoughts — certain spiritual obstacles being set up or removed — as we see sensibly with regard to bodies».

4. To that which is objected — that to speak is nothing other than to say — it must be said that, just as to speak is [taken] in two ways, in itself and toward another, so also is to say; and although to say in oneself is the same as to think, or by thinking to understand, nevertheless to say toward another has a further act.

5. To that which is objected — that if locution adds something over thought, then an Angel of a lower order will not be able to speak to an Angel of a higher [order] — it must be said that this is true if to speak were to add a true influence upon another; but the act of locution, superadded to the act of thought, *Note.* says nothing but a certain extension of a species toward another, which extension indeed is not impressive of that species, but rather is excitative of the intellect of the hearer, so that by its own power it may receive [it] and make [it] in itself. Hence locution, on the part of the speaker, posits nothing but an active stirring-up; on the part of the hearer, nothing but a passive stirring-up. — *What the hearing of an Angel is.* And from this it is plain what the hearing of an Angel is, and how to hear and to see differ; for both to hear and to see is, in an Angel, to understand. But he sees when by his own motion he understands something; he hears when, by the offering of an intelligible species, stirred up by another that understands, he understands the very [thing] which is offered. And so this befits an Angel not only with respect to a higher [Angel], but also with respect to an equal or a lower one; for thus the highest Angel hears from the lowest, as a master can hear from a disciple — not because he receives doctrine or illumination from him, but because he better knows his defects through the [disciple's] disclosure of himself.

6. To that which is objected — that if locution differs from thought, [then] a nod differs from a species — it must be said that this is not necessary, that it differ in [its] thing, but it suffices that it differ in relation. *To the incidental questions.* For the species is the same which is considered in itself and which can be extended toward another, differing [only] in relation. But the act of considering it in itself, which indeed is thought, and the act of extending [it] toward another, which is locution, are a different and different act; for by these acts the angelic intellect uses the same likeness in diverse ways, so that in the one [act] that likeness and intelligible species is called a species only, and a word; but in the other not only a species, but also a nod. — *Another solution.* Nevertheless it could be said that, just as the species which is in a mirror, while it extends itself to the eye, is not altogether the same, but multiplies itself, so too can it be understood, in a spiritual manner, of the species which is in the angelic intellect. — *No medium is required.* But if inquiry be made concerning a medium, it must be said that there is no question, because, since it is a spiritual and intellectual action, it does not need a corporeal medium. — *On the power and the light.* But if inquiry be made concerning the power by which it comes about, or concerning the spiritual light, it must be said that there concur there the light of the offering Angel's intellect and also the light of the supernal truth, *Note.* so that — just as in corporeal light we see concur, for the altering of sight, both the incorporated light and, besides, the light flowing in and absolute, namely the light of the sun — so too in spiritual cognition we understand a twofold light to concur, according as Augustine intimates in many places.