Dist. 2, Part 2, Art. 2, Q. 4
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-q4
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### Question IV. *Whether several Angels are at once in the same place.*

Fourthly and last it is asked whether several Angels can at once be in the same primary place. And that [they] can [be] so, it seems by a manifold reason.

1. And the first is this: an Angel is not in a place corporeally, but spiritually: therefore, since the Philosopher says in the third [book] *On the Soul* that «the soul is the place of species», in which namely they are spiritually, the mode of an Angel's existing in a place and of a species [existing] in the soul is similar. But in the soul several species can be at once, so that one is not in another: therefore by parity of reason several Angels [can be] in one corporeal place.

2. Likewise, an Angel is not of less simplicity than a point; but two points can be at once: therefore also several Angels. *Proof of the minor*: the Philosopher says that «those things are contiguous whose extremities are together»: and he says that «whatever things are in the same primary place are together»: therefore since it happens that lines are made contiguous, and so their extremities are together: therefore two indivisibles are together.

3. Likewise, by another similar [argument]: because «the Angels are spiritual lights», as Dionysius says; «but corporeal lights», which are of less simplicity and depend more on a corporeal place, «are together», as Dionysius says, and several species in the same medium are together, as is plain: therefore by parity of reason, indeed by a stronger [one], several Angels [are] in one place.

4. Likewise, the rational soul appropriates to itself the body in whose whole it is more than an Angel [appropriates] a place, because it is united to it by a greater bond: but a demon can besiege and be in the same body with the soul: therefore etc.

5. Likewise, the Saints say, and it will be had below, that a glorified body passes through a non-glorified [one]: therefore two bodies can be at once, therefore much more strongly two spirits. If you say that it does not hold in spirits, because one is not material with respect to the other, as a non-glorified body [is] with respect to a glorified [one]; it is then objected: let there be at once two animated bodies, of which one is glorified and the other not; it is established that the two souls are together; and yet one is not material with respect to the other: therefore by parity of reason two spirits.

6. Likewise, a rational spirit does not occupy a place; for let us understand that a place is empty of a body, and let a spirit be put there; nonetheless it will be empty as before, and born to receive only as much as before: therefore since a body can be there equally well, as if there were not a spirit, by parity of reason it seems [the same] also [for] another spirit.

**On the contrary:**

1. Strabus says, and it is had in the text: «that as soon as the empyrean was made, it was filled with the holy Angels»: but it was not filled as to emptiness, therefore as to the totality of [its] adornment: therefore they have distinct and diverse places in the empyrean: therefore if God produced them so as they are born to be, then they were not born to be in the same place, but in diverse [ones].

2. Likewise, Augustine, *On the Faith, to Peter*: «There is in each spirit a natural term by which they are distinguished from one another, and one is not in another»: therefore if they are distinct by natural terms, it is impossible that they be together and exist at once in the same place.

3. Likewise, a place is said toward what is located [there] by an essential relation: therefore since, one of the relatives being multiplied, the other is multiplied, as many as the things located, so many the places, in the same mode in which a place is said toward what is located: therefore since the place of an Angel is said toward what is located not in the mode of measuring, but in the mode of defining, therefore as many as the Angels defined, so many the defining places.

4. Likewise, as the place is related to what is located, so conversely; therefore as one located thing [is related] to several places, so one place [is related] to several located things; but one located thing, like an Angel, cannot be in several places: therefore one place cannot be of several Angels: it is manifest therefore etc.

### Conclusion

> For the order of the universe to be preserved, two Angels cannot be in the same primary place.

**I respond:** To the aforesaid question some said that the Angels could be several at once, nothing being repugnant, and this on account of their simplicity and on account of this, that they do not fill a place by reason of their spirituality. Hence they do not diminish the capacity of the place, just as neither [do] lights nor images in a medium, nor species in the soul, which are in the same [place] and according to the same [respect] in a multitude; nor however is an image posited in an image, nor a light in a light; so they say it is in the matter at hand. Nor does the objection from the filling of the heaven compel, because this was said on account of the multitude of spirits; nor [the objection] from the spiritual power or place, because they are always distinguished by [their] proper power and nature, nor does one slip into another; nor [the objection] from relation, because of one to another there is no relation nor dependence of necessity, but only of a certain congruity.

Others said that although an Angel is in a place spiritually, yet several Angels cannot be at once in the same place, the relation of distinction which is of the place to the Angel being repugnant. For just as two species of whiteness cannot be in the same soul, not on account of this, that filling is repugnant, but on account of this, that the informing of the soul itself is repugnant, because, informed by the species of whiteness, it cannot again be informed by a like species: similarly in the matter at hand a place defining one thing cannot define another,

which is in the place in the same mode; whence just as one body cannot be perfected by two souls, so neither [can] one primary place be deputed to two spirits.

But we can better terminate this question if we look to the reason on account of which we posit the Angels in a corporeal place; for this is not on account of the need of the Angel, because, every corporeal place being destroyed, the spiritual substance could remain. Nor is this even on account of the need of the place, because by the presence of the Angel no need of the place is removed; but this is on account of the order of the universe. Since therefore the Angel does not occupy a place, the Angel does not terminate the need of the corporeal place, neither simply nor in part; as far as concerns the spiritual nature of it and of the place, nothing would prevent several spirits being together, like several images, or species in the soul. But since the order of the universe is removed by an utter lack of distance, just as by an infinite distance: just as the order of the universe does not allow that an Angel be infinitely distant from an Angel, indeed all are enclosed within one circumference of the ultimate heaven; so it does not allow that an Angel be at once with an Angel in the same primary place. And from these [things] the objections are clear.

1. 2. 3. For to what is objected concerning the species in the soul and the points and the luminaries, the response is clear, that it is not similar, for the reason that diverse species fill diverse needs of the soul; not so [do] several Angels [fill] the need of a place. Further, order is not so attended to in those as to existence in a place, as [it is] in the Angels.

4. 5. Likewise the following two [arguments] do not hold, because there is nothing there which is repugnant to the order of the universe, because a demon and a soul are in a body by a diverse mode of being, and a non-glorified body is material with respect to a glorified [one].

6. But the last [argument] concludes from the part of the nature of the Angel; but it is another [thing] that prevents [it].