Dist. 3, Part 1, Art. 1, 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/3/q/bon-sent-II-d3-p1-a1-q1
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### ARTICLE I.

### *On the simplicity of essence in the Angels.*

### Question I. *Whether the Angels are composed of matter and form.*

It is asked, therefore, first, whether in an Angel there is a composition of diverse natures, namely of matter and form. And that [there is] so, is shown:

1. By the reason of *change*. Nothing changeable is simple; but the Angel of its nature is changeable and is changed: therefore it has composition. But further, that [it is] from matter: in whatever there is change, there is a principle of changeableness; but the principle of changeableness is matter: therefore etc. The first is manifest; the second is plain through Augustine, twelfth [book] of the Confessions: «Everything changeable suggests a certain formlessness, by which form is received, or is changed, or is turned». And Boethius in the second chapter of the book *On the Trinity*: «Nothing which is purely form can be subjected to accidents». And in the same place he expressly says that «form does not receive accidents, because it [form] does not receive [them], unless matter is the subject». If you say to me that changeableness comes to things because they are from nothing, as in many places Augustine holds; but it is established that changeableness is not a pure privation, but rather states some positing: therefore it does not have for its cause a pure privation itself. It is necessary, then, that it have a cause stating a positing; but not an absolute positing, since it also states privation: therefore something which is not wholly something, nor wholly nothing, but which is a middle between something and nothing; and this Augustine calls matter: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, this same [thing] is shown by the reason of *action* and *passion*: because nothing identical and according to the same [respect] acts and is acted upon; but an Angel according to the same [respect] acts and is acted upon: therefore it has one and another principle, according to which it acts and according to which it is acted upon. But the principle according to which it acts is form, but the principle according to which it is acted upon can only be matter; therefore etc. The major is manifest of itself; the minor likewise is plain; for it belongs to an Angel to receive illuminations and to give [them]: therefore etc. If perhaps you give the instance that a medium by the same nature receives light and gives [it], as is plain in air; there is no instance at all, because a medium has not the character of [something] active nor cooperative. And again, this instance cannot occur in true action and passion: for an Angel acts and is acted upon; for while it acts what it ought not, it suffers what it ought; while it does fault, it suffers penalty, so that in no way is the disgrace of sin without the beauty of justice, and this is passion properly.

3. Likewise, this is seen by the reason of *individuation*. For in the Angels there is a distinction of hypostases, not through origin. Let then this reasoning be made: every distinction according to number comes from an intrinsic and substantial principle, because, all accidents being removed, things differing in number are diverse; but it does not come from form; therefore it comes from a material principle: therefore etc. The major is manifest of itself; the minor is plain through the Philosopher, who says in *On the Heaven and the World*: «When I say heaven, I say form; when I say this heaven, I say matter». And the same [author] in many places says that «matter wholly behaves numerably». If you say that matter is called the hypostasis itself, or the very *that-which-is*; I ask you concerning the hypostasis: either it adds something over essence and form, or nothing. If it adds nothing, then it does not contract: therefore just as the universal itself is born always to be and to be everywhere, so the hypostasis itself, as is plain in

divine [things], because the person does not add over the essence, but is everywhere and immense, like the essence. Therefore since the hypostasis of the Angel is finite and constricted and limited, and so here and now, it is necessarily required that beyond form it add something substantial constricting it; and this can only be matter.

4. Likewise, this same [thing] is shown by the nature of *essential composition*. For an Angel is defined, and so participates the nature of *genus* and of *difference*: the nature in which it agrees with others, and the nature in which it differs. Therefore since it is necessary that the whole truth of the definition be really found in any Angel, it is necessary to posit in it a diversity of natures. But it is impossible that several natures concur in the constitution of a third, but that one have the character of the possible, the other the character of the actual; because from two beings in potency nothing comes to be, likewise neither from two beings in act: therefore it is necessary etc. If you bring me the instance of whiteness and of other forms, which have [the property] to be defined and have genera and differences, nor however have matter [as] a part of themselves; the instance is none at all, because it is otherwise in the natures of accidents, which have [their] origin from substance and its principles, and [it is otherwise] concerning the natures or differences of substance, which do not have [their] origin from another genus. Whence it necessarily follows either that whiteness has diverse natures in itself, or that the nature of the species and of the first and subaltern genus are caused by diverse natures found in the subject; and if this cannot be posited so in an Angel, the first [alternative] must be posited.

**But on the contrary:**

1. Boethius, at the end of the book *On the Two Natures and One Person of Christ*: «Every nature of an incorporeal substance rests on no foundation of matter; but there is no body to which matter is not subject». — And again: «Since one thing rests on a foundation of matter, like a body, but another wholly needs not a substrate of matter, like the incorporeal; in no way can it come about that a body be changed into an incorporeal species». From this authority it is expressly had that the Angel does not have matter.

2. Likewise, the Philosopher *On the Soul* says that «it is neither a body, nor is form in a body, nor mixed with matter at all»; and this he says is true of the intellect; but the Angel is of this kind: therefore it does not have matter.

3. Likewise, it is shown by reason. The universe is most perfect according to the order of natures, so that a more perfect cannot reasonably be conceived; but there can reasonably be conceived some spiritual and immaterial substance: therefore that is in the universe: therefore etc. The major is plain by this, that God made all [things] very good; it is plain also through Damascene, chapter twenty-nine: «All [things] which come to be through the providence of God receive a fitting deduction, and were made as [there] is nothing better». Augustine *On Free Choice*: «There can be something in the nature of things which you do not conceive by your reason; but that what you conceive by a true reason does not exist, cannot [be]». The minor is plain, because reasonably is conceived a substance similar to God by spirituality and immateriality; and this is seen: for since there is some nature which according to substance and being is the act of matter, like the material and corporeal forms; another which [is so] according to the act of being, not according to essence, like the rational soul; there will therefore be a third, which according to act and essence will be separate.

4. Likewise, it is seen by reduction to an unfitting [conclusion]. For it is unfitting that some created nature be nobler than an Angel; but every cause is nobler than its effect: therefore the Angel has no other cause than the uncreated. But that cannot be a material nor a formal cause: therefore the Angel has neither matter nor any other form, but is essentially form.

### Conclusion

> If matter is taken broadly, extending the name to every potential constitutive [principle], the very substance of the Angel is composed of matter and form.

**I respond:** It must be said that it is certain the Angel does not have a simple essence by the privation of all composition; for it is certain that the Angel is composed by a manifold composition. For it can be considered in comparison to its *principle*; and so it is composite to the extent that it has a dependence on it. For the most simple is the most absolute, and everything dependent by that very fact falls into some composition. — It has, secondly, to be considered in comparison to its *effect*; and so it has [the property] to be composed of substance and potency. — It has nonetheless to be considered as *a being in a genus*; and so according to the metaphysician it is composed of act and potency, but according to the logician of genus and difference. — Likewise, it has to be considered as *a being in itself*; and so as to *actual being* there is in it a composition of *being* and *to-be*, as to *essential being*, of *by-which-it-is* and *that-which-is*, as to *individual* or *personal being*, thus *that-which-is* and *who-it-is*. — When therefore the angelic essence is called *simple*, this is not by the privation of these compositions.

But this is certain, that some compositions are removed from the substance of the Angel, namely composition from *quantitative* parts, composition from *heterogeneous* parts, and composition from *corporeal* and *spiritual* nature, such as is in man.

But concerning the composition of *matter* and *form*, or of the *material* and the *formal*, concerning this there is doubt. And some have wished to say that such [composition] is removed from the Angel, and there are in it the compositions before stated. — But, as was shown above, since in the Angel there is a reason of changeableness not only to non-being but according to diverse properties, there is again a reason of passibility, there is again a reason of individuation and limitation, lastly a reason of essential composition according to [its] proper nature: I do not see the cause nor the reason how it can be defended but that the substance of the Angel is composed of diverse natures, and [so] the essence of every creature being-through-itself; and if it is composed of diverse natures, those two natures are related in the mode of the actual and the possible, and so of matter and form. And therefore that position seems to be the truer, namely that in the Angel there is a composition of matter and form.

1. 2. To what then is objected to the contrary from the authority of Boethius, it must be said that he speaks of matter appropriately, namely by reason of the passive potency, «which is the principle of suffering and of being transmuted by another». And this is plain, because he himself wishes to prove that corporeal [things] are not converted into spiritual [ones], nor conversely. Likewise the Philosopher wishes to say that the soul is denuded of the reason of matter, according to which it is the cause of intermixture and corruption. And therefore they do not speak generally of matter, but appropriately; otherwise Boethius himself would contradict himself in the beginning of *On the Trinity*, where he says that nothing is subjected to accidents except through matter; and in the same place, that God alone is immaterial.

3. To what is objected, that a simple creature can reasonably be conceived etc.; it must be said that, the properties of a creature being considered, because a creature by the very fact that [it is] a creature is not pure act, it must have possibility; because it is changeable, it must have a foundation; because it is limited and in a genus, it must have composition: whence there cannot reasonably be conceived [that] which can neither be nor come to be. And if you object to me that God can make an accidental form be without matter, as in the Sacrament of the altar; it must be said that He never does so, but that [the form] is always born to be in matter, and to it, as far as is of its own nature, has an inclination. If therefore God founded things according to what befits their natures, it is plain that He never had to make a form stand without matter in the founding of things, although in miracles He acts against nature and above nature. «For in the founding of things we do not ask what God can [do], but what is congruous to the nature of the creature itself», as Augustine says.

4. To what is objected, that a cause is nobler than its effect; it is true of the efficient and the final [cause], which properly hold the character of cause; but of the material and the formal, which are principles ordered to composition, it does not hold true simply, but only in a certain respect.