Dist. 2, Part 2, Art. 2, 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/2/q/bon-sent-II-d2-p2-a2-q1
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### ARTICLE II.

### *On the mode in which the angels are in a place.*

Consequently, concerning the second article, four [things] are asked.

The first is, whether spiritual substances are in a corporeal place.

The second is, whether an Angel is in several places at once, or only in one.

The third is, whether [an Angel] is in a punctual place or a composite [one].

The fourth is, whether several Angels can be at once in the same primary place.

### Question I. *Whether the angels are in a corporeal place.*

It is asked, therefore, first, whether it belongs to a corporeal place to locate Angels. And that [it does] so, it seems.

1. Strabus says: «As soon as the empyrean heaven was made, it was filled with Angels».

2. Likewise, Damascene: «Heaven is the containment of visible and invisible [things]»; he speaks of the empyrean: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, every created thing is of the universe, therefore is within the first container or the ultimate body; but the supreme encompassing body is called the empyrean: therefore every creature is contained within it: therefore also the angelic spirit.

4. Likewise, no substance operates except where its power is; but no power can be distanced from the substance except by a proportional distance — for an infinite power is in no way distanced, a finite power cannot be distanced except finitely — therefore it is necessary that the Angel be where it operates, or near. Therefore since it operates in a corporeal place, as is plain in a body which it moves, therefore it is there, or is in the nearest place: therefore if the place most apt for contemplation is the empyrean, it seems that it is there.

5. Likewise, the malign spirits will have to be placed in the same place of torments in which also the men

[who are] damned [will be], as is said in Matthew twenty-five: *Go, you cursed* etc.; therefore from the opposites or from the like in the contrary, the Angels with the blessed men will be in the same corporeal place; but the place apt for blessed men is that which was aforesaid, namely the empyrean heaven, which is supreme, quiet, bright, uniform, and spacious: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, a greater proportion of the perfection to the perfectible is required than of what is located to the place; but we see that a spiritual substance can be so proportioned to a corporeal one, and conversely, that the one is united to the other as a perfection, as is plain in man: therefore much more strongly can the one be united to the other as what is located to the place. Therefore since the empyrean heaven is the noblest of the simple bodies, either it will be in the Angel or the Angel in it; but it is not in the Angel: therefore conversely.

**But on the contrary:**

1. Boethius, *On the Hebdomads*: «It is a common conception of the mind, which seems [true] to all, that the incorporeal is not in a place».

2. Likewise, Gregory: «The place of the soul is God»; but there is not a more spiritual place for the soul than for the Angels: therefore if God is the place of the soul, [he is] also [the place] of the Angels.

3. Likewise, it seems [so] by reason, because there is a mutual need of the place to what is located, as is plain — for what is located needs its place, as earth [needs] the center; and the place too needs what is located, whence it flees emptiness; and it is impossible that a place be without what is located, but that something supply the need of the place — but the empyrean heaven does not need the Angels, nor does any place [need them], nor likewise [does] the Angel [need] a place, because, every body being removed, the Angel would still remain both according to substance and according to operation, which is contemplation: therefore in no way is it the place of the Angel.

4. Likewise, the place has influence and power over what is located [there] — whence the higher, nobler [things] locate the less noble, as is plain from this, that water [locates] earth, air water, and so of the rest — but the corporeal does not have [the power] to influence the spiritual except according to the order of justice, as in a sinful soul or spirit: therefore the spirit does not have a place in a body except through fault.

5. Likewise, everything located has weight and inclination toward the place; but Augustine says: «What weight is in bodies, this is love in spirits»; but the inclination of angelic love is toward the spiritual good, not toward a corporeal place: therefore they do not have a place corporeally, but only spiritually.

### Conclusion

> The empyrean heaven locates the Angels as a containing place, but not as measuring or conserving.

**I respond:** It must be said that the empyrean heaven locates the Angels and is the place of the Angels, as the reasons for the first part prove.

But for the understanding of the objections it must be noted that the place has a threefold comparison to what is located. For it is compared, first, in the character of *containing*, secondly in the character of *measuring*, and thirdly in the character of *conserving*. For it contains as a vessel, it measures as a quantity, but *conserves* as a nature. — According to this threefold relation, *finite, corporeal*, and *corruptible* substances are in a place: because finite and limited, they are in a containing place; because corporeal, in a measuring [one]; because corruptible, in a conserving place. According to the first two comparisons, finite and corporeal but incorruptible substances are in a place. According to the first only, finite, spiritual, and incorruptible substances, like the Angels, are in a place. And this I say [as to being] in a corporeal place; for the Angel has a spiritual conserving place, namely the power of God; a measuring or circumscribing place, the limitation or enclosure of its own substance and power; but a containing place, not only spiritual but also corporeal.

But the reason why the Angels are contained by a place or by something encompassing [them] is the ordering of the parts of the universe. For if they did not have something containing [them], their existence would not be ordered to one another, nor would one have order to another; but this does not befit the universe nor the highest Maker. — But the reason why they are contained by a corporeal place is twofold: one, namely the limitation of the created spirit itself. For since the uncreated spirit, who is God, has in himself simplicity, through which he is within all things, and immensity,

through which he contains all things and is outside all things, he communicates those conditions to the creature in so far as it is born to receive [them]. Hence he communicates simplicity to the spirit; but the spirit could not receive the power of containment. For because its simplicity is finite, therefore it is here and now; and because it does not have part and part, therefore it is here and now according to [its] whole: and therefore it cannot have a universal capacity of things. But the body, because it is composite and has innumerable parts, could not participate simplicity, but on account of the extension of [its] parts it could receive capacity; therefore God made one most noble body, which was born to encompass all [things], and outside of which there would be nothing at all; and this is the empyrean; and therefore it is necessary that the Angel be within it. — Another reason is that distinction is in body alone. For, if it is granted freely, the other creatures have order in the world, [and] have distinction and position according to grades of perfections, and so that one is here and another there, one above and another below, and in body alone is there a potential distinction according to here and there: therefore among creatures to body alone had to be given the universal power of locating, with respect both to visible and invisible [things], so that thus the universe might be one [thing] ordered in all its parts.

And so the twofold reason is clear, why the power of locating a spirit was given to body, and [why] a spirit is contained by a body. For the order of the universe demanded this, both on account of the limitation of the created spirit, and because in body alone is distinction according to here and there.

The reasons showing that it belongs to the empyrean heaven to locate the Angels are therefore to be granted.

1. For what is objected to the contrary first, that the incorporeal is not in a place; it must be said that it is understood of being in a place as what is measured is in a measure.

2. To what is objected, that the place of the Angel and of the soul is God; it must be said that it is understood of a conserving place, not of a defining place. And again the reason does not compel: that if God is the place, [it does not follow] that nothing created locates a spirit.

3. To what is objected, that there is a mutual need of the place to what is located; it must be said that this is true of those [things] which are located on account of a defect of themselves; but it is not true of those which are located for the sake of preserving the order of the universe. — Whence if it is asked whether a stone can be outside the heaven; it must be said no, both on account of its [own] need, because it would not have a conserving place, and because the order of the universe does not allow this. But concerning the Angel, that it does not leave the heaven, the reason is not the need of a corporeal place, but the universal containment of the ultimate body, according to which the universe is perfect and ordered.

4. 5. And to the other two reasons the response is clear, that they proceed [on the supposition] of being in a place as in a conserving [one], by reason of which an influence is posited in what locates, and an inclination also is posited in what is located; but this mode of being in a place does not befit the Angel.