Dist. 10, Art. 3, 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-a3-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the same locution can be from God and from an Angel.*

Secondly it is asked whether the same locution can be from God and from an Angel. And that [it can], thus it seems.

*The grounds.* 1. The Apocalypse, chapter one: *Speaking through his Angel to his servant John* etc.; but whenever some craftsman acts through an instrument, the action of the agent and of the instrument is the same — just as, when one cuts with an axe, the cutting is the same: therefore the locution of God and of the Angel is the same.

2. Likewise, when God speaks to us through a prophet, that locution is said to be of God and of the Holy Spirit, and likewise that locution is the prophet's own; but it is established that it is only a single one: therefore by parity of reasoning [it is so] when God speaks to us through the Angels.

3. Likewise, when that voice was heard, *This is my beloved Son*, in Luke chapter three, it is established that that was the locution of God, because no one could say this truly except God; but that locution had succession and variation: therefore it was from some spiritual creature: therefore it seems that one and the same locution can be of God and of an Angel.

4. Likewise, it seems that no sensible locution can be of God without being also of an Angel. For a sensible locution comes about by the mediation of organs; therefore, just as God cannot of himself run, because running comes about by the mediation of corporeal organs, which God does not have — so likewise neither [can he] of himself speak sensibly: therefore at least a sensible locution of God is so [a locution] of God that [it is] also [a locution] of an Angel.

**On the contrary:** *To the opposite.* 1. The acts of diverse acting substances are diverse; but God and an Angel are altogether diverse agents: therefore they make diverse locutions.

2. Likewise, the locution of God is nothing other than the Word of God; but the Word of God and the word of an Angel are altogether one thing and another: therefore the locution of God and the locution of an Angel are altogether one and another.

3. Likewise, no act which belongs through itself and properly to God as to a subject is, if it be said of a creature, the same insofar as it is said of God and of a creature — as is plain; for the understanding of a man is one thing, the understanding of God another — therefore by parity of reasoning the locution of an Angel will be one thing, and the locution of God another.

4. Likewise, when God speaks to our minds, he speaks to the soul as to its highest part; but when an Angel speaks, he suggests from below: therefore it does not seem that the locution of God and of an Angel can be the same.

*Incidental question 1.* Alongside this it is asked: since an Angel appears and speaks in the person of God, whether he can likewise be adored in the person of God. — *Incidental question 2.* It is also asked whether all the apparitions in a subject creature by which God appeared, and the locutions also, were made by the mediation of Angels.

### Conclusion

> Intellectual locution to the mind is of God alone; locutions through a sensible or even an imaginary sign can be both of an Angel and of God — but of God as the one commanding, of the Angel as the one carrying out.

**I respond:** *A threefold seeing, hearing, and locution.* It must be said that, just as we are said to see God in three ways — namely by corporeal, by imaginary, and by intellectual vision (and by intellectual vision God is seen shining in himself, but by imaginary and corporeal vision God is seen appearing in a subject creature) — so too we are said to hear in three ways: either through some sign offered to the exterior ears, as [a voice] was many times heard both in the Old and in the New Testament; or through some sign formed in the interior sense or in the interior imagination;

or through some word of inspiration instilled into our minds. And just as one hears in three ways, so also is one said to speak in three ways, according as he stirs up a threefold hearing in us. As, therefore, he stirs up our sense to the apprehension of itself by the mediation of a sensible sign — in which an Angel appears in the person of God, or God appears through the ministry of an Angel — but informs our mind through his very self, that it may see and know him: so it is to be understood in locution.

*Who is the author of the threefold locution.* For that locution by which God speaks to us through a sensible sign, whether exterior or interior, comes about either always or frequently through an Angel, as Gregory says in the *Morals*. For he says: «When God speaks to us through an Angel, he sometimes indicates his will by things, sometimes by images shown to the eyes of the heart, sometimes by images taken from the air before the bodily eyes, sometimes by heavenly substances, sometimes by earthly, sometimes by heavenly and earthly together»; and he gives examples of all [these]. — But the locution by which God inspires something into our minds — although it can come about through an Angel stirring [it] up from below, as Gregory says, that «sometimes God so speaks to human hearts through an Angel that [the Angel] himself is presented to the gaze of the mind» — nevertheless comes about principally from God himself.

*Conclusion 1.* The first and the second manner of speaking, therefore, is both of an Angel and of God — but of God as the one commanding, of the Angel as the one carrying out, so that the speech of the one carrying out is referred to the person of the one commanding. And this can be in two ways: either when an Angel speaks in the person of God, as when he formed that voice, in Luke chapter three: *This is my beloved Son*; or as he spoke to Moses, in Exodus chapter three; or when he speaks as a messenger of God, bringing forth that word as it were from God — in which manner also the Lord is said to speak through the Prophets. *Conclusion 2.* But the third manner of speaking is proper to God himself; and so the locution of God and of an Angel cannot be the same according to that manner.

From these things the reply to the question is plain, and for the most part to the objections. For the arguments which prove that the same locution can be of God and of an Angel proceed according to that manner of speaking by which God speaks through the ministry of an Angel; and then the locution is the same, just as the operation of the principal mover and of the instrument is the same, although there is there a diverse relation; and all those arguments proceed by this way, as is plain, and therefore are to be conceded.

*The solution of the opposing arguments.* 1. But to that which is objected on the contrary — that the acts of diverse acting substances are diverse — it must be said that this is understood of the first and immediate act with respect to the acting power. *Note.* For if it be understood of the work done, then it does not hold true simply — especially when several agents are fitted by nature to concur to one effect; and so it is in the matter at hand. For the locution of the Angel is so from the Angel as not to exclude, but to include, the operation of God; the action of God, however, which is the same as God himself, cannot be the same as the locution of the Angel; but the effect of that locution can be both of God and of the Angel.

2. To that which is objected — that the locution of God is nothing other than the Word of God — it must be said that, as was said before, just as there is a speaking interior and exterior, so there is a speech interior and exterior. And the interior speech, or Word, cannot be the same as the speech or word of an Angel, but the exterior speech can. For the interior speech of God, or his Word, is God himself, but the exterior speech is the effect of that Word.

3. To the other [argument] it must be said that to speak, insofar as God is said to speak through an Angel, is not compared to God as to a subject, but as to a cause. For that locution is not said to be God's because it is a disposition of God, but because it is from his command. But [the objector] objects concerning the internal and uncreated locution, of which nothing [pertains] to the matter at hand.

4. To that which is objected — that God and an Angel speak from one side and another — it must be said that that objection proceeds concerning locution according to the third manner.

*To incidental question 1.* To that which is asked — whether [an Angel] ought likewise to be adored in the person of God, just as it befits him to appear and to speak in the person of God — it must be said that, just as the speech which an Angel forms in a subject creature can be referred to God in two ways, either mediately or immediately (immediately, when the Angel pronounces [it] as though God were pronouncing [it]; mediately, when the Angel pronounces [it] as a messenger of God), so it is to be understood in a sensible apparition, because that form either leads principally to the Angel, who is the messenger of God, or leads principally to God; and in the first way *dulia* can be adored, and in the second way *latria* can be adored, as Abraham adored.

*To incidental question 2.* To that which is asked last — whether apparitions and sensible locutions of this kind always come about by the mediation of an Angel's ministry — to this Augustine responds doubtfully in the third book *On the Trinity*; he nonetheless rather intimates this side: that all come about by the mediation of angelic ministry, whether they were in the Old Testament or in the New. But Gregory affirms this more expressly — that all come about by the mediation of some rational creature. For he says thus in the *Morals*: «The Lord speaks through an Angel when the words of a supernal revelation are heard, as it is said in John chapter twelve: *I have glorified [it], and again I will glorify [it]*. For God, who without time cries out by the force of an inmost impulsion, did not in time put forth his voice through a substance which he marked off, circumscribed by time, by means of human words; but, speaking of heavenly things, he formed his words, which he willed to be heard by men, by the administration of a rational creature». But of these things it has been treated more openly in the first book, distinction sixteen, where treatment was made of apparition or visible mission.