Dist. 8, Part 1, Art. 3, Q. 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/8/q/bon-sent-II-d8-p1-a3-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the Angels in assumed bodies exercise operations belonging to the sensitive power.*

Secondly it is asked on this point, whether Angels in assumed bodies have operations belonging to the sensitive power; and that they do so, seems clear.

1. "The same is the principle of motion and of sense", as the Philosopher says; but the Angel gives motion to the assumed body: therefore also sense.

2. Likewise, just as the Angel assumes a body having organs apt for motion, so he assumes a body having organs apt for sense — for just as that assumed body has hands and feet, so it has eyes and ears — but organs of sensing without sense are useless: therefore if he does not in vain assume those organs, it seems that he ensouls them with sense and senses through them.

3. Likewise, that which has an operation following on its specific property has an operation following on its generic property; but just as the property of man is to be risible, so the property of animal is to be sensible: therefore just as the Angel in an assumed body can laugh and weep, so also he can see and hear.

4. Likewise, either the Angel has sense by his own nature, or he does not. If he does not — since sense is cognitive of particulars — he does not know particulars, which is plainly false. But if he does have sense — since sense is a power by means of which corporeal organs are ensouled with sense — it is plain, etc.

5. Likewise, the Angel existing in an assumed body knows these sensible things; either, therefore, by a power *immaterial*, or by a power which is by nature *bound to a body*. If by an *immaterial* power, then he knows what is distant just as well as what is near — therefore the Angel who is at Rome hears us speaking at Paris — therefore he would not need to be moved and to go about. But if this is false, it remains that he knows by a power which is *proportioned to a body* and concerns a determinate distance. If, then, this is sense, it is plain, etc.

6. Likewise, nothing suffers from a body unless it have a sense proportioned to a body; but the Angel is burned by fire: therefore if his sense can suffer from a body, much more can he sense through a body, since by nature he is more apt to act upon a body than to suffer punishment from a body.

7. Likewise, the Angel, looking at me in an assumed body, receives in his eye my likeness, and since the eye is a transparent and polished body, he further passes judgment on his likeness; this is plain: if therefore nothing more is required for sense than reception and judgment, it seems that he senses through the assumed body.

*On the contrary* — *Foundations.*

1. Sense presupposes life; but the Angel does not vivify the assumed body, as was proved above: therefore neither does he ensoul it with sense, therefore he does not sense through it.

2. Likewise, sense presupposes an act of the vegetative power; but Angels in assumed bodies have no operations of the vegetative power: therefore neither operations of the sensitive.

3. Likewise, if the Angel were to sense through a body — since that sense which occurs by means of a corporeal organ is bound to corporeal nature — the Angel would be by nature, just as the soul is, united to a body: therefore when he had no body, he would not have perfect *being*.

4. Likewise, if the Angel were to sense through a body — since to sense is the action of what is conjoined — the Angel would communicate his ministerial operations to the body: therefore he ought to communicate punishment and glory, which is false.

5. Likewise, *to sense* is proper to the animal: therefore it belongs to none to sense except to him to whom it belongs to *be* an animal; but this in no way belongs to the Angel: therefore etc.

6. Likewise, if to sense is by means of a corporeal organ, then he would not know a man with his eye closed, nor would he know a man from behind, nor would he know a man in the dark; all of which since they are false, it remains that the Angel in an assumed body does not have operations belonging to the sensitive power.

*A connected question.* — It is asked, therefore, what operations are fitting to, or are exercised by, the Angel in an assumed body.

### Conclusion.

> The Angel in an assumed body does not exercise operations of the sensitive power, insofar as these are acts of sensing through organs, but insofar as they are from the soul as mover.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said, it must be noted that, since the soul is united to the body as perfection and as mover, *there is a threefold kind of operations*: some operations follow upon the soul itself in the body as it is mover; some, as it is perfection; some

partly the one way, partly the other. *Threefold mode of operating.* — Now the soul exercises in the body in a different way those operations which follow upon it as *mover* and as *perfection*. For operations which follow upon the soul as *mover* it so exercises *through* the body that it exercises those same operations *upon* the body, because it moves not only other bodies but also its own body. But operations which follow upon the soul in the body as it is *perfection* — these the soul exercises in the body through the body in such a way that it exercises them *with* the body, as is clear: the soul with the eye closed cannot see any body. The third kind of operations it exercises *in* the body in both ways at once. And therefore the first belong to the soul as it is *something this* (*hoc aliquid*) and *a mover distinct from the moved*; the second, as it is *a form joined to matter*.

*To the connected question.* — Since therefore the Angel is united to the assumed body not as *perfection* but as *mover*, he exercises the first operations fully in that same body, the second by no means, and the third in some manner yes, in some manner not. — And this will be plainer if we come down to examples. *Progressive motion*, or any other motion of the outer members, is from the soul in the body as it is *mover* or *moving principle*; and therefore it belongs to the Angel. But *sensing through the organs of the body* belongs to the soul as it is the *perfection* of those organs — for just as the soul perfects the whole body, so vision or the visive power perfects the eye — and this does not belong to the Angel in an assumed body. But *to laugh* is an operation which belongs partly to the soul as it is *mover*, partly as it is *perfection*. For there is in it a certain *gladdening of the heart*, and this is from the soul as it is *perfection*; there is also in it a certain *motion of the cheeks*, and this is from the soul as it is *mover*. By reason of the first it does not belong to the Angel, but only by reason of the second.

*A two-membered conclusion.* — From this is plain the answer to the question proposed. For if by works of the sensitive power are called the acts themselves of sensing *through organs*, then it must be said briefly that the Angel does not exercise them through the assumed body. But if the works of the sensitive power are extended to those which are from the soul as mover, then he does communicate them to the body. — The reasons, therefore, proving that the Angel does not ensoul the assumed body with sense are to be conceded.

*Solution of the opposed arguments.*

1. To the first thing brought forward to the contrary, that the same is the principle of motion and of sense; it must be said that the Philosopher is speaking of animals, in which he holds that the heart is the principle of sense, just as it is the principle of motion.

2. To the objection that that body has organs made for sensing; it must be said that the Angel does not only assume the human body as an *instrument* for operating, but also as a *sign* fitting for showing himself. And since a body lacking the organs due to a man would not be fittingly indicative of an angelic spirit, therefore he assumes a body having all the organs, not for the ensouling-with-sense of those organs themselves, but rather for the showing of himself.

3. *To be noted.* — To the objection that he communicates to the body an operation following on the species, etc.; it must be said that *to laugh* is not an act following on the species of man insofar as it names only the motion of the outer cheeks, because thus it follows on the soul as *mover*; but insofar as together with this it names a certain inner act which follows on the existence of the soul in the body as it is *perfection*; and in this mode it does not belong to the Angel, but only in the first.

4. *Sense is said in three ways.* — To the objection that the Angel has sense, because he knows singulars; it must be said that *to sense* can be taken *commonly*, *properly*, and *more properly*. Commonly, *to sense* is the same as to know a thing as present, in which mode Augustine takes it *To Paulina in the book On Seeing God*. In the second mode, *to sense* is the same as to know a thing as *here and now*; and so Boethius takes it when he says that "sense is of particulars, intellect of universals". In the third mode, *to sense* is the same as to receive a species existing in matter apart from the matter by means of a corporeal organ; and so the Philosopher takes it *in the second book On the Soul*, when he says that "sense is receptive of species in matter apart from matter". In the first two modes sense does not differ from intellect in reality but only in account; and in this mode it is well placed in the Angel; for the Angel by his intellective power knows a thing as present and as *here and now*, directing his gaze upon it. But in the third mode the sensitive power differs from the intellective in reality and in account, and in that third mode sense is a power bound to the body; and in this mode it does not belong to the angelic spirit.

5. To the objection that, if he knows by an immaterial power, then distance contributes nothing; it must be said that while he knows and senses singulars, he knows by an immaterial power, yet he directs his gaze upon the known thing; and therefore, if that thing is not present to him or immediately conjoined to him, it is necessary either that the power of the Angel be carried across to it, or conversely. And since both the power of the Angel and that of the object is a finite power, therefore he neither knows

nor can know at any distance whatever. But this is not on account of the materiality of the power, as is the case in bodily sense, but on account of the finitude of the power.

6. To the objection that he suffers from fire; it must be said that this does not conclude, as will be better shown in the fourth book; for a spiritual sense and affection suffices for sensing true pain, as will be shown there.

7. To the objection that he receives and judges; it must be said that since these two things are present in sense, namely *reception* and *judgment*; *reception* is principally by reason of the organ, but *judgment* by reason of the power. In bodily sense the *reception* is in the organ in such a way that it is *reception* in the power likewise; and so the *judgment* of that power is in the organ in such a way that it is not apart from the organ; and therefore both *reception* and *judgment* are of the whole conjoined being. But in the eye of the Angel the *reception* is in the organ in such a way that it is not a reception in any power bound to that organ; and so the *judgment* is from the power in the organ in such a way that it is also apart from the organ. Hence the Angel would perceive someone as well with the eyes closed as with them open; and therefore there is not there *reception* and *judgment* in the way in which it belongs to sense; and through this there is not there an outer sense. Nor is the Angel's eye called an eye except equivocally; and such a body has more the character of an *instrument* than of an *organ*, although it may be called *organic* by reason of the likeness it has to a natural body. And so the whole is plain.

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