Dist. 11
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/11/q/bon-sent-II-d11-littera
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### DISTINCTION XI.

### Chapter I.

*That individual souls have a good Angel for custody, an evil one for exercise.*

It is also to be known that the good Angels have been deputed to the custody of men, in such a way that each one of the elect has an Angel specially delegated to his advancement and custody. Whence in the *Gospel* Truth, prohibiting [men] from scandalizing the little ones, says: *Their Angels always see the face of the Father.* He says the Angels are *theirs,* to whose custody they have been deputed. On which place *Jerome* delivers that each soul, from the beginning of nativity, has an Angel deputed to its custody, saying thus: « Great is the dignity of souls, that each one from the rising of nativity has an Angel delegated to its custody ». *Gregory* also says that « each [man] has a good Angel deputed to his custody, and one evil one for exercise ». For although all the good Angels will our good and study in common for the salvation of all, nevertheless he who has been deputed to someone's custody specially exhorts him to the good, just as is read of the Angel of Tobit and of the Angel of Peter in the *Acts of the Apostles*; likewise also the evil angels — though they desire the harm of men — yet that one more eagerly incites a man to evil and presses more strongly to harm him, who has been deputed for his exercise.

It is wont, however, to be asked, whether individual Angels are deputed to individual men, or one to several for custody or exercise. — But since the elect are as many as the good Angels are, it is clear that all the good and evil men together are more numerous than the good Angels. And since the elect are as many as the good Angels, and the good Angels are more than the evil, and the evil men are more than the good, it is not in doubt that the good men are more than the evil angels, and the evil men more than the evil angels or the good Angels. Therefore it must be said that one and the same Angel, good or evil, is deputed to several men for custody or exercise, whether at the same time or at diverse times. — But we say *at the same time, or at diverse times,* because it seems to some that all men who are together at any one time can each have their own individual Angels, good or evil; because, although the number of men is greater, counting in one all who have been, are, and shall be, than [the number] of the Angels, yet because men succeed men who pass away — and therefore are never together at the same time in this life, while the Angels never pass away but are all together — therefore it can be that the individual men, while they are in this life, have individual good or evil Angels destined for their custody or exercise. Yet whether it is so or not, there is no doubting that each one has an Angel deputed to him, whether destined to several at the same time, or singularly to one. Nor is it to be wondered at that one Angel is deputed to several men for custody, since the custody of several is deputed to one man — in such a way that each of them is said to have his lord or bishop or abbot.

### Chapter II.

*Whether the Angels advance in merit and reward up to the judgment.*

Furthermore that ought to be considered, whether the good Angels advance in reward or in merit up to the judgment. — That they advance in merits and daily more and more merit, seems [right] to some on this ground: that they daily serve the utilities of men and study their advancements. And to those same it seems no less that they advance also in reward, namely in the cognition and love of God. For though, as they say, in the confirmation they received eternal and perfect beatitude, nevertheless their beatitude is daily increased, because they more and more love and know; and their charity, by which they love God and us, is both *merit* and *reward: merit,* because through it and through the services rendered to us out of it, they merit and advance in beatitude; and that same is *reward,* because by it they are blessed.

And that the Angels advance in cognition, and through this in beatitude, they confirm by the testimonies of the Saints. For *Isaiah* says, in the person of the Angels marveling at the magnificence of the ascending Christ: *Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments from Bosra?* And in the Psalm: *Who is this king of glory?* From which it appears that the Angels knew the mystery of the Incarnate Word more fully after the fulfillment than before. And just as they advanced in the cognition of this mystery, so, they say, do they advance in the cognition of the Godhead. That they have advanced in the cognition of this mystery the *Apostle* evidently teaches, saying: *That the dispensation of the sacrament hidden from the ages in God may be made known, that the manifold wisdom of God may, through the Church, be made known to the Principalities and Powers in the heavenly [places].* On which place *Jerome* says: « The angelic dignities did not perfectly understand the aforementioned mystery, until Christ's passion was completed and the preaching of the Apostles was spread among the nations ».

But to this Augustine seems to contradict, on the same place of the *Epistle*, saying: « The mystery of the kingdom of heaven was not hidden from the Angels, which was revealed at the opportune time for our salvation. To them therefore the above-mentioned mystery was made known *from the ages,* because every creature is not *before* the ages, but *from* the ages ». — Attend, reader, because the illustrious Doctors seem to dissent in this opinion. Therefore, that all repugnance be removed from the midst, following Haimo let us determine the aforesaid words thus: « That to those Angels who are of greater dignity, and through whose ministry those things were announced — as to *familiars* and *messengers* — [the mystery] in part was known from the ages; but to those who are of lesser dignity, we say that it stood unknown, until it was fulfilled and preached by the Church, and then was perfectly known by all the Angels ». It stands, therefore, that all the Angels advanced in the cognition of divine mysteries according to the process of time. Whence not incongruously these same say that the knowledge and beatitude of the Angels increase up to the future consummation, when they will be most perfect in knowledge and beatitude, so that it neither increase further nor be diminished.

Others, however, say that the Angels in the confirmation were endowed with so great a love and notion of the *Godhead,* that in these they have not advanced further nor are to advance. Yet they advanced in the science of *exterior things,* as in the cognition of the sacrament of the Incarnation and the like, but not in the contemplation of the Godhead, because they do not understand the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity more fully (or shall they understand them) than they perceived from the confirmation itself. So also they say that they have not advanced in charity after the confirmation, because their charity has not afterward been increased; and so they say they have not advanced in merits — but this as to *the power of meriting,* not as to *the number of merits.* For they did many goods afterward, which they had not then done; but their charity, from which those proceeded, has not been increased, from which they merited only as much, before those things were added, as afterward, with these adjoined. — But what the others above say seems more probable: namely, that the Angels advance up to the judgment in knowledge and in other things.

To these, however, the words of certain authorities seem to be opposed. For Isidore says in the book *On the Supreme Good*: « The Angels know all things in the Word of God before they come to be ». — But he did not say that *all* Angels know *all things perfectly*, and therefore he did not remove their advancing in knowledge. Gregory also in the book of the *Dialogues* says: « What is it that they do not know there, where they know the One knowing all things »? — where he seems to say that the Angels know all things, and there is nothing they do not know. — But this is to be taken of those things whose cognition makes the knower *beatus,* such as those things which pertain to the mystery of Trinity and Unity.

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