Dist. 2, Part 2, Art. 2, Q. 3
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-q3
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### Question III. *Whether an Angel is in an impartible or punctual place.*

Thirdly it is asked concerning the mode of the Angel's being in a place. And it is asked whether it is in an impartible or punctual place. And that [it is] so, it seems.

1. Damascene says «that an Angel is in a place not figurally but intelligibly»: since therefore nothing of the place itself is unfigurable and intelligible except the point, it is in a point.

2. Likewise, there ought to be a proportion of what is located to the place; but the Angel is simple and impartible: therefore to it is owed a simple and impartible place. But this is the point of place alone: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, let us suppose the Angel to be in a place than which it cannot be in a lesser; I ask: either that place is partible or impartible. If partible: therefore since the Angel is simple, it can therefore still be in a lesser [one]. But if it cannot be in a lesser [one], it seems that that [place] is impartible; but nothing is impartible in place except the point: therefore etc.

4. Likewise, «what is received in something is received there in the mode of the receiver, not in the mode of what is received»: if therefore the Angel is in a partible place, it is [there] partibly. But it is impossible that the Angel receive partition: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, if the Angel is in a partible place as

in a primary place, then either it is whole in any part, or it is so in the whole that part is in part. If it is whole in the whole, so that part [is] in part, then it is partible; if so that it is whole in any part, then, since the parts of the place are many, it will be in several places. If you say that it is in all of them as in one place, just as the soul is in all the parts of the body; *on the contrary*: suppose that that body be divided, and the place in which the Angel is; it is established that it can nonetheless be in all the parts, since it does not depend principally on any part. And if [it is] so, since there is there a multitude of places, the Angel will be in several places.

**On the contrary:**

1. The point is neither a place nor a part of place: therefore what is in a point or in a punctual place is not in a place.

2. Likewise, «the point, as the Philosopher says, is a posited substance», that is, an essence having position, in which it differs from unity: therefore if the Angel is in a point according to a proportion befitting a point, then the Angel has position. But a form, having position in matter, is not a sufficient mover of that in which it is: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, if the Angel is in a point, then it first influences power upon the point: therefore since the point is disproportionate to body, it is impossible that its power extend to body; and so it will never move a body.

4. Likewise, the soul is in the whole body; but union does not do this, because from this very [union] it has dependence, and so constriction: therefore this is by reason of simplicity. Since therefore the Angel is equally simple, or more so than the soul, it seems that much more strongly it can be whole in a greater or equal place.

### Conclusion

> An Angel is definitively in a divisible place, yet so that there is no place so small but that the Angel can still be in a smaller [one].

**I respond:** There were three positions concerning this.

For there were some saying that the Angel, although it is in a corporeal place, is nevertheless not in it corporeally, but spiritually. But since it is not in a place situally, therefore [it is] neither according to whole, nor according to part, nor according to the impartible, because there is no commensuration at all of the Angel to the place. — But this position does not seem intelligible, namely how something could be in something and be defined and contained, and yet not first immediately be in the whole, or in a part, or in the impartible. For everything that is in some whole is either by reason of the whole or by reason of some part.

And therefore there was concerning this a second position, namely that the Angel is in an impartible or punctual place. And their reason was this, that the Angel does not have matter wholly different from the matter of corporeal [things] except according to being, namely because it is not extended. Hence, since matter is simple as a point of itself, they say that the Angel has a simplicity proportional to a point, and so is in a punctual place. — But this position is false and not intelligible. For whatever be [the truth] about matter, as will be said below, this however is true, that every corporeal place is partible: therefore just as it is a contradiction in the adjective to say an impartible or punctual body, so also to say a punctual place. And again, since a point is not a place, to posit the Angel in a point is to posit that it is not in a place.

And therefore there is a third position, that the Angel, since it is contained by a corporeal place, [is] in a partible place as in a primary place; and since it cannot be extended in it, therefore it is necessary that it be in the whole, so that [it is] whole in the whole and whole in any part. And in this the simplicity of the Angel is in a certain way similar to the divine simplicity: but it falls short, because the Angel is so in one place, but God [is] everywhere. From this John Damascene says that the Angel is in a corporeal place, but intelligibly, not figurally, because the intellect grasps this only, namely how the substance is whole in the parts and whole in the whole.

1. And so the response to the word of Damascene is clear.

2. To what is objected, that there ought to be a proportion; it must be said that it is not necessary that there be a proportion according to the special and proper conditions of the Angel or of the place, because the Angel is not posited to be in a place prop-

erly; yet there is there a proportion as to finitude and limitation, by which two [the Angel] is defined and is in a place; for just as the Angel has a finite substance and power, so its place is constricted and limited.

3. As to what is asked about this: if the Angel be posited in a place than which it could not be in a lesser; it must be said that in this the existence of the Angel in a body and [that] of the soul differ, [namely] that the soul, because it is the perfection of a body born to be vivified by rational life, and that [body] is in a determinate quantity, therefore it can be in a body so small that [it can] not [be] in a lesser [one], because a lesser [one] would not be organizable and vivifiable; but the Angel, because it is not as a perfection and is simple, is whole in any part of the place, however small it is — because the character of place is preserved in any [part] — a place cannot be taken so small but that it can still be in a lesser [one] — and therefore there is no giving a place than which it could not be in a lesser; yet there is giving [one] than which [it can] not [be] in a greater, just as also [in] the soul, because this comes from limitation. As therefore in bodies there is a stop in ascending, but in dividing there is never a stop to posit, nor is it ever arrived at the impartible: so it is to be understood concerning the existence of the Angel in a place.

4. To what is objected, that it is in the mode of the receiver etc.; it must be said that this is true where what is received depends on the receiver, as a species [which] is received in an organ is received also in the intellect, and its existence depends on that in which it is received, and is related to it in the mode of [something] informing; hence it is that it receives the mode of its existence from that in which it is received. Not so is the Angel received by a place, because it does not depend on it.

5. To what is objected: if it is whole in any part of the place, since there are several places etc.; it must be said that it is whole in any part, nor however in several places, just as neither [does] the soul, while it vivifies the whole body, vivify diverse bodies, but one.

But as to what is objected: suppose that that body or place in which the Angel is be divided; I say that if it were divided into a thousand parts, provided however that the parts were not sequestered far from one another, it would be whole in all, and all would be one place to it, because they have no character of encompassing or defining the Angel, but [only] that which embraces all the parts. For a place is not numbered according to the number of locating bodies, but in comparison to what is located; as is plain, because one body can be partly in air, partly in water, partly in earth, nor however in three places, but is in one.