Dist. 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/2/q/bon-sent-II-d2-littera
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### *Distinction II.*

### *Part I.*

Concerning the angelic nature, then, these things must first be considered: when it was created, and where, and of what kind it was made when it was first founded; then of what kind it became by the turning-away of some and the turning-toward [God] of others. Concerning also [their] excellence and the orders and the difference of gifts, and concerning [their] offices and names and several other matters, some things must be said.

### Chapter I. *On the angels: when they were made.*

Certain authorities seem to suggest «that the angels were created before all creation». First of all was created wisdom, which is understood of the angelic nature, which in Scripture is often called *life*, *wisdom*, and *light*. For that wisdom which God is, is not created. For the Son, the wisdom of the Father, is begotten, not made nor created; and the whole Trinity is one wisdom, which is neither made nor created, neither begotten nor proceeding. Of the angelic life, therefore, that [text] is to be taken which Scripture speaks of when it [says] it was made, namely *first of all*. — But again another Scripture says: *In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth*. And in the Prophet: *In the beginning, Lord, thou didst found the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands*. And a certain contrariety seems to arise from these assertions. For if first

of all wisdom was created, all things seem to have been made after it, and thus heaven and earth seem to have been made after it, and it [seems] made before heaven and earth. Again, if in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, nothing was made before heaven and earth; nor was wisdom itself made before heaven and earth. Since therefore these things seem contrary, and since in divine Scripture it is not lawful to suppose that there is anything of contrariety, let us seek the understanding of the truth. — It seems, therefore, that this is to be held: that the spiritual creature, that is the angelic, and the corporeal were created together, according as that [saying] of Solomon can be taken: *He that liveth for ever created all things together*, that is, the spiritual and the corporeal nature; and thus the angels were not created prior in time to that corporeal matter of the four elements. And yet first of all wisdom was created, because, although not in time, it nevertheless precedes in dignity. That the spiritual and corporeal creature were created together, Augustine on Genesis plainly shows, saying that by *heaven and earth* the spiritual and corporeal creature are understood. And these were created *in the beginning*, namely of time, or *in the beginning* because they were made first.

### Chapter II. *That nothing was made before heaven and earth.*

For before this nothing was made, nor was even time made before the spiritual — namely the angelic — nature, and before the corporeal — namely that confused matter of the four elements. For these were created with time, not from time nor in time; just as neither was time created in time, because there was no time before heaven and earth were. Whence Augustine in the book *On the Trinity* says that God was Lord before there was time, and did not begin to be Lord in time, because he was the Lord of time when time began to be; nor indeed did time begin to be in time, because there was no time before time began.

### Chapter III. *That the spiritual and the corporeal creature began together with time and with the world.*

Together therefore with time the corporeal and the spiritual creature was made, and together with the world; nor was the angelic creature before the world, because, as Augustine says, «no creature is before the ages, but from the ages, with which it began». — Jerome, however, on the Epistle to Titus seems to think otherwise, saying: «Six thousand years of our time are not yet fulfilled, and how many eternities before, how many times, how many origins of ages must we suppose there to have been, in which the Angels, Thrones, Dominations, and the rest of the Orders served God without the alternations and measures of times, and, at God's bidding, subsisted»! Certain men, adhering to these words, said that secular time began with the world, but that before the world there existed an eternal time without mutability, and they assert that in it the Angels, immutably and outside time, at God's bidding, subsisted and served him. — But we rather approve, according to the capacity of our understanding, what was said before, saving nevertheless reverence for the secret things, in which nothing is to be rashly asserted; and we judge that Jerome said that not in the sense of [his own] opinion, but reporting the opinion of others.

### *Part II.*

### Chapter IV. *Where the angels were created at first.*

It has already been shown when the angelic nature was created. Now, however, it must be attended to where it was made. By the testimonies of certain authorities it is evidently shown that the angels were in heaven before the fall, and that thence some fell through pride, while others, who did not sin, stood fast there. Whence the Lord in the Gospel says: *I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven*. Nor is heaven here called the firmament, which was made on the second day, but the splendid heaven, which is called *empyrean*, that is, fiery from splendor, not from heat, which as soon as it was made was filled with angels, which is above the firmament. And that empyrean some of the expositors of sacred Scripture wish to be understood by the name of *heaven* where Scripture says: *In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth*. «Heaven», says Strabus, «here does not name the visible firmament, but the empyrean, that is, the fiery or intellectual [heaven], which is so called not from burning but from splendor, which as soon as it was made was filled with the holy angels. Whence Job: *Where wast thou, when the morning stars praised me?* etc.» Of this too Bede thus says: «This higher heaven, which is set apart from the revolving of the world, as soon as it was created was filled with the holy angels, whom the Lord testifies to have been founded in the beginning with heaven and earth, saying: *Where wast thou, when the morning stars praised me, and all the sons of God rejoiced?* By *the morning stars* and *the sons of God* he calls the same angels. For the heaven in which the luminaries are placed was made not in the beginning, but on the second day». From these things it is clear

that in the empyrean all the angels were before the ruin of some, and that the angels were created together with the empyrean heaven and with the unformed matter of all corporeal things.

### Chapter V. *That the matter of visible things and the nature of invisible things were created together, and both unformed.*

Together therefore the matter of visible things and the nature of invisible things was founded, and each was *unformed* in some respect, and *formed* in some respect. For just as the confused and commingled matter of corporeal things — which according to the Greeks is called *chaos* — in that beginning of [its] primary founding both had the form of confusion and did not have the form of distinction and discretion, until afterward it should be formed and receive distinct species; so the spiritual and angelic nature in its founding was formed according to the habit of [its] nature, and yet it did not have that form which it was afterward, through love and conversion to its Creator, to receive, but was unformed without it. Whence Augustine, expounding the foregoing words of Genesis in many ways, says that by *heaven* is understood the unformed nature of spiritual life, as it can exist in itself not [yet] converted to the Creator, in whom it is formed; by *earth*, the corporeal matter without any quality, such as appears in formed matter.

### Chapter VI. *How Lucifer said: I will ascend into heaven.*

Here it is customarily asked: if the angels were in the empyrean heaven as soon as they were made, how, as is read in Isaiah, does Lucifer say: *I will ascend into heaven and exalt my throne, and I will be like the Most High?* — But there he calls *heaven* the loftiness of God, to which he wished to make himself equal; and it amounts to this: *I will ascend into heaven*, that is, to equality with God.

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