Reply Obj. 1: The greatest evil is not contrary to the greatest good in reality, but only in speech, for two reasons. The first is because there cannot be a greatest evil. For there is nothing so evil that there is not some good in it, at least its existence. Thus, the Philosopher says that if there were something so perfectly evil that it came forth from the corruption of everything around it, then neither would it be able to sustain itself.¹

Reply Obj. 2: Evil only has a cause incidentally,¹ in two ways. The first way is insofar as an agent is said to be incidental with respect to that which occurs apart from the agent’s intention, since every agent acts for an end and intends a good that is its end, and no privation is intended but rather follows from the imposed form to which it is joined. For fire does not intend to deprive from matter the form of air but rather to introduce its own form, though by introducing its own form, it removes the form of air. Likewise, the sinner intends delight, which is the good of part of himself, namely, the concupiscible part, and does not intend the privation of grace.

Reply Obj. 3: If we are speaking of natural evil, then evil can be considered either with respect to all of nature or with respect to some particular agent in nature. If it is with respect to the whole of nature, then in this case it is obvious that evil exists in fewer things by far, since it can exist only in generable and corruptible things, which taken all together are miniscule in comparison to the whole of heaven, in which nothing evil occurs.

Reply Obj. 4: Things have contrariety to one another with regard to proximate effects, but even contrary things agree in the last end with that to which they are ordered according to the harmony they form. This is clear in a mixed body, which is also composed even of contrary things. And from this it follows that proximate agents are contrary, even though the first agent is one, because a judgment about the agent and the end is the same, since these two causes coincide in the same thing.

Reply Obj. 5: Even though God is in no way matter, nevertheless matter’s very being, which it possesses as imperfect, just as it is called “a being” in potency, it has from God and is traced to him as to its principle. Likewise, too, form, which is part of a thing, is a likeness of the first agent, flowing from it. Hence all forms are traced back to the first agent as to their exemplary principle. And so, it is clear that there is one first principle simply, which is the first agent, exemplar, and last end.

Reply Obj. 1: According to Avicenna,¹ there are two kinds of agent: a natural one, which acts through motion, and a divine one, which gives being, as has been said.² Likewise, too, we must understand “what has been acted upon” or “what has been made” in two ways. One way is through the motion of a natural agent, and for every such being-made, not only active but also passive potency must precede in time, since motion is the act of what exists in potency. However, the other way is what has been made inasmuch as it has received being from a divine agent without motion. And if what has been made is of finite age,³ then active potency and not passive potency must precede its being, and such a thing made is said to have the potential to be made based on the active potency. But if it is not of finite age, then active potency does not precede it in duration, but in nature.

Reply Obj. 2: Creation is not a making that is change, properly speaking; rather, it is a reception of being. Hence it is not necessary that it have an essential order except with respect to the one who gives being. And so it is not from non-being except inasmuch as it is after non-being, just as night is from day.

Reply Obj. 3: No enduring reality can at the same time be made and have been made, if “being made” is taken properly. But there are certain things that signify what has been made in the manner of being made, such as, for example, when motion is said to be terminated. For at the same time it is being terminated and has been terminated.

Reply Obj. 4: “Creation” can be taken in an active and in a passive sense. If it is taken in an active sense, then since creation signifies a divine activity, which is his essence with a certain relation, then in this case creation is the divine substance. But if “creation” is taken in a passive sense, then it is a certain accident in a thing created, and in this case it signifies a thing, not one that is in the category of passion, properly speaking, but rather one that is in the genus of relation, and it is a certain relationship of something that has being from another as a result of the divine activity. And in this way, it is not unfitting that creation be in the very created thing brought forth by creation, as in a subject, just as filiation is in Peter inasmuch as he receives human nature from his father, nor is this filiation prior to Peter himself, but rather, it follows on action and motion, which are prior. But the relationship of creation does not follow motion but the divine action alone, which is prior to the created thing.

Reply Obj. 5: As was said before,¹ when a thing created is referred to its Creator, the relation is founded in the created thing really and in God only according to account. Hence the relation implied by the word “creation” does not entail anything uncreated but only something created. Nevertheless, it is not necessary for this relation to be created by another creation, since that which is essentially a relation is not referred to another by the medium of another relation, as was also said,² except according to reason. And it is not impossible for relations of this sort, which are merely according to account, to be multiplied to infinity.

Reply Obj. 1: In this matter, the texts of the philosophers are not to be followed, since they were wrong about this. Now, all those texts could be explained as speaking of “creating souls” inasmuch as through the movement of the spheres, bodies are disposed for the reception of the soul. But this is not what they intended to say.

Reply Obj. 2: Whatever is communicable to a created thing with respect to what pertains to the perfection of its nature is communicated to it. But this is not true with regard to secondary perfections. For example, not every man, though capable of royal dignity, has been made a king by God. And so it is with the power of creating, according to those who say that creation can be communicated to what is created.

Reply Obj. 3: The resistance of a contrary does not make for a difficulty in acting except inasmuch as it separates potency from act. For the more intense one of two contraries is, the more remote is its potency from the other. Thus, it is a matter of greater power simply for something to be made from non-being than for something to be made from its contrary, since in non-being simply no potency remains.

Reply Obj. 4: Even though last things are led to their last end through intermediate things, the influence of the last end is never communicated to any of the intermediates in such a way that it would be the last thing desired. So, too, the influence of the first agent, which is creation, can never be communicated to any of the secondary principles.

Reply Obj. 5: A proximate agent, such as that which generates, only acts in the thing generated by drawing out form from the potency of matter. But the activity of the first cause consists in creating even the very matter. Thus, a natural proximate agent is only what generates the thing, but the first and divine agent is what creates it. And from this it is clear that just as the activity of an art is founded on the activity of nature, inasmuch as nature prepares the matter for art, so also the activity of nature is founded on creation, inasmuch as it provides the matter for nature.

Reply Obj. 1: It is not out of neediness that God needs other causes to create, but rather out of the goodness of him who willed to confer even the dignity of causing on others.

Reply Obj. 2: If we posit, according to the opinion of some, that the angels serve God in the movements of the spheres, it is obvious that angels will be a cause of generation and corruption through the movement of the spheres. And this causality will redound to them all, even though not all would be devoted to this ministry. For, according to Dionysius,¹ the higher angels illuminate the lower ones in regard to the ministries that are to be performed by them. But if we do not suppose this, then it can be said that from the fact that angels are more noble, it does not follow that they have the dignity of causing generation and corruption in things, but rather another much greater dignity that consists in the knowledge of God.

Reply Obj. 3: The same effect in its species cannot come from different immediate agents that have activities determined to determinate effects, as from an art and from nature. But God does not have an activity that is determined to some effect. Rather, by one single activity he can produce all the effects he wills. Hence even without the activity of nature God can produce the same effect specifically that nature produces.

Reply Obj. 4: Regarding the coming of things into being through generation, there have been three opinions. The first was of those who posited “hiddenness,” such as Anaxagoras, who posited that all things are in all things and that generation comes about by drawing things out.¹ And so, he did not posit true generation, where a new substantial form for matter is acquired. And every opinion of the ancients who did not posit true generation but rather that generation is through aggregation or separation, or through alteration alone, falls into this deficiency. This happened to them because they did not posit formal cause but either material cause alone, or an agent cause along with it.

Reply Obj. 5: Just as natural heat acts by the power of the soul as its instrument, as is said in On the Soul 2,¹ on account of which it not only heats but also acts for the generation of animated flesh, so also an active quality acts in the power of a substantial form. Thus, through this action matter is not only brought to the act of incidental form but also to the act of substantial form.

Reply Obj. 1: Matter is ungenerated and incorruptible, but it does not therefore follow that it has always existed. For it began to be not through generation from something else but altogether from nothing. It could likewise cease to be if God so willed, since by his will being is communicated to matter and to the whole world.

Reply Obj. 2: Similarly, this argument proceeds by considering a beginning through generation and motion. Hence this is an argument against Empedocles and others who posited that the heavens were generated.

Reply Obj. 3: The potency for duration that is now in the heavens is not measured by a determinate time. Hence through this potency it could have existed for an infinite time before as well as after, if it had always possessed it. But it did not always possess this potency for duration. Rather, it was given to it by the divine will at its creation.

Reply Obj. 4: Before the creation of the world there was not a vacuum, just as there is not a vacuum after it. For a vacuum is not merely a negation but a privation. Hence for the position that there was a vacuum, one must posit a place or separated dimensions, as those who posited a vacuum said, but we can posit none of these things before the world. And if it be said that there was the potential, one should reply that this was only in the power of the agent, as has been said above.

Reply Obj. 5: This argument is circular, which is clear, according to the Philosopher, in the following way. On the basis of “before” and “after” in motion, there is “before” and “after” in time. Hence when it is said that every “now” is the end of “before” and the beginning of “after,” it is supposed that every moment of motion follows one motion and precedes another. Hence I say that this proposition cannot be proved except by supposing its conclusion. Thus, it is clear that it is not a demonstration.

Reply Obj. 6: “Now” is never understood as static but rather always as fluid—yet not as flowing from “before,” unless motion precedes it, but rather as flowing into the “after.” And again, not as flowing into “after” but as flowing from “before,” unless motion follows it. Hence if motion never followed or preceded, “now” would not be “now.” And this is clear in a particular motion, which is observed sensibly to begin, of which any given moment is fluid, and yet there is still something first and something last with reference to the terminus-from-which and the terminus-to-which.

Reply Obj. 7: God precedes the world not only by nature but also by duration, yet not by a duration of time, but rather by one of eternity, since before the world there was not time that existed in reality but only in the imagination. For now we imagine that on the “before” side God could have added many years to this finite time, and eternity would be present to all these years. And accordingly it is said that God could have made the world before he did make it and that he could have made it both greater and more than one.

Reply Obj. 8: Newness of relation comes about not from a change in the mover but from a change in the movable, understanding “change” in a broad sense to include creation, which is not a change in the proper sense, as has been said above.¹ Hence the creation of the heavens precedes its motion at least by nature, but no change precedes creation, since it is from non-being simply.

Reply Obj. 9: Of this alternation whereby the world did not exist and then later existed, the efficient cause is not a motion but rather a reality that is always the same, namely, the divine will, which resolved from eternity that the world should come into being after non-being. And if it be objected that the same thing always does the same thing, I say that this is true if “first agent” is taken in its proper account, whereby it determinately produces a certain effect. But just as a natural agent is determined by its proper form such that an action never follows unless it is in agreement with that form, so also a voluntary agent is determined to an action by the will’s intention. Hence if the will can be neither impeded nor moved, an effect does not follow except in accordance with what the will intended. And it is true that the divine will, inasmuch as it is always the same, always does that which it willed from eternity, since it is never caused. Even so, the divine will does not cause the things willed by it to exist always, since this is not what it wills. Hence if it were to do this, then, because it would be doing what it itself does not will, it would be like if heat were to make cold.

Reply Obj. 10: The first individual generable and corruptible things did not come into being through generation but through creation. Thus, it is not necessary for others to have preexisted from which they were created so as to lead to an infinite regress.

Reply Obj. 11: There are two kinds of agent. One kind acts by a necessity of nature. And it is determined to an action by what is in its nature. Hence it is impossible for it to begin to act unless it is brought from potency, whether essential or incidental, into act. The other kind of agent is voluntary, and here, too, a distinction should be made. One kind acts by an intermediate action that is not the essence of what is working. In such things, a new effect cannot follow without a new action, and the newness of the action produces a change in the agent as proceeding from inactivity to act, as is said in On the Soul 2.¹ But the other kind is without an intermediate action or instrument, and this is the kind of agent that God is. Hence his willing is his action, and just as his willing is eternal, so also is his action. And yet the effect does not follow except in keeping with the form of the will, which proposes to do something in this or that way. Thus, it does not go from potency to act. Rather, the effect that was in the potency of the agent becomes a being in act.

Reply Obj. 12: In all those things that act for an end outside the will, the will is regulated in accordance with that end. Hence in keeping with what impedes or helps it toward the end, it wills at one time to act and at another time not to act. But the will of God has not given being to the universe for another end existing outside his own will, just as he does not move the universe for another end, as philosophers concede, since what is more noble does not act for the sake of something baser than itself. Thus, from the fact that he does not always act, it does not follow that he has anything inciting or restraining him besides the determination of his own will, which proceeds from his wisdom exceeding all understanding.

Reply Obj. 13: The divine intellect understands all things at once. Thus, from the fact that it understands what is present at this or that time, there need not be any change in its understanding, granted that this cannot occur in our intellect. Thus, it is clear that the argument is sophistic. Likewise, we do not posit any motion on the part of the thing imagined, since God did not will to make the universe after a time, since there was no time before except as imagined, as was said before.

Reply Obj. 14: The divine will did not produce the universe from eternity because something was lacking in what was willed. For what can be understood as lacking to a thing willed, on account of which it is deferred, is its proportion to the end—for example, a man’s will defers taking medicine when the medicine is not proportionate to the health of the man. And so, I say that for the universe to have come to be from eternity lacked proportion to its end, which is the divine will. For God willed that it would have being after non-being, in duration just as in nature. And if it had existed from eternity, this would have been lacking to it. Hence it would not have been proportionate to the divine will, which is its end.

Reply Sed Contra 15: As the Commentator says in On the Substance of the Celestial Sphere,¹ Aristotle never meant that God was the cause of the motion of the heavens alone, but also that he was the cause of its substance and the one who gives it being. For since it is of finite power, due to the fact that it is a body, it needs another agent of infinite power from which it could have both perpetuity of motion and perpetuity of being, just as it has motion and being. But it does not follow from this that God precedes the heavens by duration, since he does not give being through motion, but rather through an eternal influence, insofar as his knowledge is the cause of things. And from the fact that he knows and wills from eternity, it follows that things exist from eternity, just as from the fact that the sun exists from eternity, it follows that its rays exist from eternity.

Reply Sed Contra 16: Avicenna replies to this in his Metaphysics,¹ for he says that all things have been created by God and that creation is from nothing or of that which has being after nothing. But this can be understood in two ways. It either designates the order of duration, and in this way, according to him, it is false. Or it designates the order of nature, and in this way, it is true. For according to its nature, what belongs to each thing from itself is prior to what belongs to it from another. But any thing besides God has being from another. Therefore, it is necessary that according to its nature it would be non-being if it did not have being from God, just as Gregory says as well that all things would fall into nothingness if the hand of his omnipotence did not uphold them.² And so, non-being, which it naturally has from itself, is prior to being, which it has from another, even if not by duration. And in this way, it is conceded by philosophers that things have been created and made by God.

Reply Sed Contra 17: The actually infinite is impossible, but the infinite through succession is not impossible. Now, of the infinite considered in this way, any given selection is finite. But what crosses over can only be understood as crossing from one determinate to another determinate, and thus, whatever determinate time is selected, there is always a finite time from this time to that. And so we can arrive at the present time.

Reply Sed Contra 18: An addition is made to the infinite not with respect to its whole succession—in respect of which it is infinite only in the potency of someone thinking about it—but rather to an actual finite selection, and nothing prevents something from being more or greater than this. And it is clear that this argument is sophistic, since it also does away with the infinite in the addition of numbers, as if someone were to say the following: some species of numbers are greater than ten that are not greater than a hundred. Therefore, more species are greater than ten than a hundred. Thus, since there are infinite species greater than a hundred, there will be something greater than the infinite. Therefore, it is clear that difference, addition, and going from point to point only pertain to something actual, either really existing or actually selected by the intellect or imagination. Hence these arguments are sufficient to prove that there is not an actual infinite, but this is not necessary for the eternity of the world. And these solutions are taken from the words of the Philosopher.¹

Reply Sed Contra 19: It is impossible for infinite causes to precede the same effect through themselves, or essentially, but it is possible in an incidental way. As such, an effect whose account includes that it proceeds from an infinity of causes is impossible, but there may be incidentally related to the effect an infinity of those causes whose multiplication is not relevant to the effect. For example, for the being of a knife some moving causes are necessary in themselves, such as a smith and an instrument. And it is impossible for these to be infinite, since it would then follow that an infinite was actual all at once. But it is incidental that a knife, made by an old smith who has switched instruments many times over, follows a successive multitude. And nothing prevents there being infinite instruments that precede that knife, if the smith had existed from eternity. And the case is likewise in the generation of animals, since the father’s seed is the moving cause instrumentally relative to the power of the sun. And since instruments of this sort, which are secondary causes, are generated and corrupted, it does happen that they are infinite. And in this way, too, it happens that infinite days have also preceded this day, since, according to them, the substance of the sun is from eternity and any revolution of it finite. And the Commentator sets out this argument in the Physics 8.¹

Reply Obj. 1: The account of effective principle is appropriated to the Father, but the account of exemplary principle after the manner of art is appropriated to the Son, who is the wisdom and art of the Father.

Reply Obj. 2: To be “in,” as in what contains and preserves, is appropriated to the Holy Spirit on account of the appropriation of goodness. But to be “in” according to the manner in which an artifact is in art, and a thing is in its likeness, is appropriated to the Son.

Reply Obj. 3: According to the opinion that posits that all things were created simultaneously in matter and form, things are said to be created at the beginning of the time that measures the motion of the first mobile, not as in what measures creation, but as in what goes together with creation, since the creation of things and the beginning of time were simultaneous. But according to another opinion, which holds that things were formed through the succession of time, this is not understood of a time that is a measure of that motion, but rather of a time that is the number of that alternation by which the being of the world followed its non-being. Or, according to others, time is taken for aeviternity, which was created simultaneously with heaven and earth.

Reply Obj. 4: Just as number is not counted by another number, neither is time measured by another time, nor is its coming-to-be, since its whole being is in coming-to-be. Hence it begins in the beginning of time, not as in what measures its being, but rather as in that from which its production begins, just as an animal begins from its heart, a house from its foundation, and lines from a point.

Reply Obj. 5: The Philosopher is speaking of the order of nature in the way that “animal” is said to be prior to “man,” and not of the order of duration. For the being of heaven and earth did not exist before time itself.

Reply Obj. 6: According to one opinion, all things are understood as being created simultaneously not in their species, but in formless matter. But, according to others, all things are said to have been created simultaneously even in their proper forms. But then some things are said to be created before others, not in duration, but by the order of nature, insofar as in the process of generation the incomplete comes before the complete. But there will be greater inquiry into these things below.

Reply Obj. 7: “Heaven” is also understood as referring to angelic nature, which is said to dwell in the heavens. And “earth” is understood as referring to the whole nature of generable and corruptible things.

In response to the first we must say that Aristotle does not posit privation as an essential principle, but as an incidental principle, and that not in the being of a thing, but only in its coming-to-be.

Reply Obj. 1: According to Avicenna,¹ just as there are two kinds of agent, one that acts through motion as a natural agent does, and one that acts without motion by giving being, so also there are two kinds of good. One kind is acquired through motion, and this only exists among natural things, while the other kind is acquired without motion in receiving the influence of an agent without motion, and such a good also exists among immovable things.

Reply Obj. 2: That which acts out of desire for the end has an end outside itself by which it is perfected. But this does not pertain to God, who acts because of love for the end, since he himself is for himself the end possessed and loved by himself. Thus, we say that the divine will is not perfect in virtue of another, but in itself, since this will itself is goodness.

Reply Obj. 3: Everything that acts out of a desire for the end is ordered by its action to the attainment of what is desired. Hence it necessarily makes a difference to him whether his work exists or not. But it does not make a difference to him who acts out of love for the end, since he does not act to acquire any good.

Reply Obj. 4: God’s action is his essence. And we are not asking about its end from this perspective, but from the perspective of that by which an effect of a created thing is denoted.

Reply Obj. 1: Even though a thing does not acquire the divine goodness, still it does acquire a likeness to it. And on this basis it is called the end.

Reply Obj. 2: Activity is itself the ultimate perfection in which a thing exists, for habit and potency possess imperfection. Thus, it is the same for a thing to exist for the sake of its activity and for the sake of the divine goodness, which it approaches most of all when it is most of all in perfect act. Likewise, too, sempiternity of being is itself an assimilation to the divine goodness. And on account of this, philosophers call the perpetuity of species “divine being.”

Reply Obj. 3: The end is the cause of a thing only insofar as it is in the will of the agent. Thus, the divine goodness itself is the end of things in accordance with the manner and order by which it is willed by him. And thus, each thing most of all approaches its end when it imitates the divine will in keeping with what God has ordained concerning that thing.

Reply Obj. 4: Though the goodness of God is the end of things, things are related to it in various ways. For God himself possesses it perfectly in his own existence; hence he is supremely good. And he also possesses it in his own activity, whereby he perfectly knows and loves it; hence he is blessed, since beatitude is perfect activity, according to the Philosopher.¹ But the intellectual creature does not attain to the goodness of God in its own existence, such that it itself would be the greatest good, but rather in its activity, by understanding and loving it. Hence the intellectual creature is a participant in beatitude and not only in the divine goodness. But the irrational creature approaches it in a certain assimilation, though it does not attain it either in activity or in existence. Hence the irrational creature is a participant in the goodness, but not in the beatitude.

Reply Obj. 1: Man is not said to be the end intended by the agent in this way, since this is the account of the last and principal end. Rather, he is said to be the last end as that to which the work of the agent is ordered in some way, as has been said.¹

Reply Obj. 2: Man is not the end of everything created as the last thing intended by everything created, but rather as that to whom benefit comes from everything created. And this happens because he has something in common with everything created, as Gregory says above.¹

Reply Obj. 3: Every physical thing created, no matter how great in quantity it might be, is still lower than man by reason of his intellect. Hence it is not unfitting if every such created thing also tends toward assimilation to him inasmuch as by this it is assimilated to the greatest good. But angels are more noble than man according to the condition of their nature. Hence they do not exist for man in the aforementioned way, but rather only as creatures from whom benefit accrues to man; it is like if one were to say that a king is set up for the sake of some country fellow who derives the benefit of peace from the king’s laws.

Reply Obj. 4: Things of this sort were not harmful to man from the beginning. But later they became harmful to him through sin. Nevertheless, they are still a benefit to him, since he thereby becomes more humble and considers even in such lower things the glory and wisdom of God. And in this way, even things that are not of use to his work yield a benefit, since he has some knowledge of them either in general or in particular.

Reply Obj. 1: If the soul were not able to be united to the body, then it would be of another nature. Hence in accordance with the nature that it does have, it cannot better approach the divine goodness than through being united to the body.

Reply Obj. 2: Whatever comes to a subsisting thing such that from its coming a new being is constituted, such a thing must come incidentally, since there can be only one essential being of one thing. Hence another being coming to it beyond that will be incidental. But the body coming to the soul is drawn into a sharing in the being by which the soul can subsist, though other forms cannot subsist in that being as the soul can.

Reply Obj. 3: As Gregory of Nyssa relates,¹ because of this objection Plato posited that the soul is in the body just as what moves is in what is movable, like a sailor in a ship, and not as form in matter. Hence he said that man is not something of soul and body, but rather that man is a soul using a body. And for this reason, too, others sought for certain intermediaries between the soul and body, such as a bodily spirit, a vegetative and sensible soul, and light, by the mediation of which the rational soul would be united to the body. These are all absurd according to philosophy and were disproved by the Philosopher in the Metaphysics 8.² Thus, we say that the essence of the rational soul is immediately united to the body as form is to matter and as a shape is to wax, as is said in On the Soul 2.³ Therefore, it should be known that agreement can be considered in two ways: either according to the particular qualities of nature, and in this way, soul and body stand far apart; or according to the proportion of potency to act, and in this way, soul and body greatly agree. And this is the agreement required for something to be united to another immediately as a form. Otherwise, an accident would not be united to a subject and no form would be united to matter, since accident and subject are even in different genera, and matter is potency whereas form is act.

Reply Obj. 4: Among forms there is a certain ranking of nobility. The more noble a form is, the more it predominates over matter. Hence the form of earth is more material than the form of air or fire. But among all forms the rational soul is the most noble. Hence it predominates over matter most of all. Now, everything that is united to another as prevailing and having dominion over it has an effect not only with reference to the joining of itself to the other, but also through itself absolutely, inasmuch as it does not depend on that to which it is united. This is clear, for example, in the fire of a candle, whose light is cast farther than the rising of its smoke and its heating. Hence certain powers can arise from the soul that are acts of the body, while others are from bodily organs in an absolute sense. For even though the essence of the soul is united to the body as its form, nevertheless it is not like a material form, which does not possess being absolutely in which it can subsist.

Reply Obj. 1: A heavenly body is more noble than a human body, and its perfection is more noble than the human soul. But, as the Commentator says in On the Substance of the Celestial Sphere 1,¹ a heavenly body is neither generable nor corruptible like the human body. Thus, it does not stand in need of a perfection completing it by making it sensitive and vegetative, but rather one that moves it locally. And whatever that power is, whether God or an angel, it is higher in nature than the human soul, which is the mover of the human body, and the corporeality of the heavens is higher than the corporeality of the human body.

Reply Obj. 2: Simple bodies are most removed from likeness to the heavens inasmuch as it is in their nature to have a contrary with intensity, and thus, the rational soul should not have been united to such a body.

Reply Obj. 3: The rational soul, even though it is simple in essence, is nevertheless complex in its powers and activities. Thus, its body must have many organs fit for different activities. And for this reason nature gave man hands, with which he can carry out very many activities. And for this reason, too, the less noble a soul is, the less differentiation in organs it requires, as is clear for example in plants and ringed animals.

Reply Obj. 4: The more the elements partake of species and active qualities, the more they partake of the power of acting. Hence there could not be a balance unless there were more of the material element in quantity or matter. Thus, the human body must have more from the earth in quantity, though not in quality, since what is hot dominates in a living body. Hence it says in On the Soul that nothing is sensitive without heat and that the heat of fire is the instrument of the soul.¹ And since heaviness and lightness, which are the principles of local motion, follow on the quantity of matter, the human body exhibits a heavy motion.

Reply Obj. 1: By this the reply to the first objection is clear, since in that place “eternity” is taken as meaning participated eternity, which is aeviternity. And God is said to be above eternity, as he is above being and above everything that is named.

Reply Obj. 2: Likewise, “aeviternity” is taken there as meaning eternity. But if it is taken as differing from eternity, in this case time is said to flow from aeviternity not as from an efficient cause, but as from an exemplar cause. For the more worthy among beings are in a certain way exemplars of the lower inasmuch as they approach closer to the first exemplar. Thus, aeviternity is the exemplar of time inasmuch as it is more like eternity.

Reply Obj. 3: “Motion” can be used univocally, at least in its generic intention. Thus, one measure can correspond to all moved things that are ordered to one another. But no created being can be spoken of univocally with uncreated being. Thus, we must posit two measures.

Reply Sed Contra 4: An angel can be considered in two ways. It is considered either with regard to its being—which is without alternation, and in this way, it is measured by aeviternity. Or it is considered with regard to its activity—and in this way, too, it is measured by aeviternity with respect to one activity: namely, insofar as it perceives things in the Word, since in this case there is not an alternation in its activity. But with regard to another activity, in which there is alternation, it is measured by time, namely, insofar as it perceives things through the multiple species it has among it. But this time is something other than the time that measures the motion of the first mobile, because the latter alternation is not ordered on the basis of the former and because this time is not a continuum, but rather the discrete numeration of a discontinuous alternation. For continuity accrues to time on the part of numbered motion and not with reference to its own form by which it is number, as the Commentator says on the Physics 4.¹

Reply Sed Contra 5: Every division of duration stems from the motion that gives rise to the succession of “before” and “after,” Thus, time is a measure after the manner of number. But aeviternity and eternity measure act in which newness through motion does not occur, and consequently they are indivisible measures after the manner of unity. For just as time is the number of “before” and “after” in motion, so also aeviternity is the unity of the permanence of an act that is the being or activity of a created thing, and likewise eternity for what is uncreated.

Reply Obj. 1: There are two kinds of measure. One is intrinsic, which is in what is measured, as an accident is in a subject. And this is multiplied when what is measured is multiplied, as, for example, there are several lines that measure the length of several equal bodies. But there is also extrinsic measure. And it is not necessary for this to be multiplied when the things that are measured are multiplied. Rather, it is in one as in a subject against which many things are measured, as, for example, many cloths are measured against the length of one arm. And in this way, many motions are measured against the number of a single first motion, and this number is time. And many permanent things are measured against the unity of a single permanent thing, which is aeviternity.

Reply Obj. 2: Spiritual and bodily things can be likened in the permanence of being and in this respect have one measure, though in others they stand at a great distance from one another.

Reply Obj. 3: Even though one angel is not the cause of another, it is, nevertheless, simpler than another. And this suffices for the account of a measure.

Reply Obj. 4: If there were not the first angel that there now is, there would be another first one after whom the others would be measured, just as if there were not this first mobile, there would be another, the measure of which would be time.

Reply Obj. 5: Since aeviternity is a participation in eternity, the more something participates in eternity, the more primarily it is measured by aeviternity. Thus, since a blessed angel participates more in eternity than one who fell through sin, it does not follow that a blessed angel would be measured against the aeviternity of a demon, but rather conversely.

Reply Obj. 1: If we wish to harmonize the statements of those whose opinions differ—which in fact is not necessary—it can be said that the authorities who seem to deny that they are of the same age should be explained by reference to the order of dignity and not of duration.

Reply Obj. 2: It is not a like case, since God precedes the created not only by dignity, but also by causality, which the beginning of the world shows. For, as Rabbi Moses says,¹ the easiest way to show that there is a God and that everything is from him, is on the supposition of the finite age of the world. Thus, it was established in the law that they would keep a feast on the seventh day, on which the world was consummated, so that by the finite age of the world, they would always keep God in mind. But the spiritual creation exceeds the bodily in dignity, not in causality. And to exclude the possibility that it would be believed to be the cause of it, it was appropriate that both be made at the same time.

Reply Obj. 3: Knowledge of a thing already made can be received as if it were still to be made, if it be considered in the causes from which it proceeds. And so the angels received their knowledge of things that would be made in the Word, which is the practical art of things.

Reply Obj. 4: The mover does not necessarily precede the moveable in duration, but rather in dignity, as is clear in the case of the soul and the body.

Reply Obj. 1: The empyrean heaven is called “intellectual” because it is not subject to our sight, but is grasped only by the intellect, not because it is not visible in itself.

Reply Obj. 2: The empyrean heaven is called “the place of contemplation” not as much with respect to necessity as with respect to appropriateness, as for example a church is called “the place of prayer.”

Reply Obj. 3: The Philosopher’s proofs demonstrate that there is no body outside the whole universe, not that outside this heaven there is no other heaven, since philosophers are also found to disagree on the number of the spheres.

Reply Obj. 4: The reason has already been stated why philosophers did not know of this heaven, since it is subject neither to sight nor to motion. And, nevertheless, many of the things they said on these matters they knew not demonstratively, but with probability. Hence the Philosopher himself attests that he resolves difficult questions with a probable solution.¹

Reply Obj. 1: This argument deals with what is luminous in such a manner that it emits rays visible to our senses, while even fire does not shine in its proper sphere for this reason. But we do not say that the empyrean heaven is luminous in this way, but rather because in its nature it has light by the fact that it is most formal.

Reply Obj. 2: From this the reply to the second objection is clear.

Reply Obj. 3: Place is not properly due to a thing that has size precisely as a thing having size, nor consequently is potency with respect to place due to it. Rather, this is due to it inasmuch as it has a determinate nature. Hence it says in On Generation and Corruption 1 that we must grant contact and place to mathematical things by way of similitude.¹

Reply Obj. 4: “Natural” can be understood in two ways. One way is as distinct from a being in the soul, and in this way, everything that has fixed being in nature is called “natural.” In this way, the empyrean heaven and angels are called “natural.” In the other way, something is called “natural” as distinct from divine being, which is withdrawn from matter and motion, and thus, only what is moved and has been ordered to generation and corruption among things is called “natural.” And in this way, the empyrean heaven is not a natural being, but rather a divine one, which has been ordered to the glory of the good. And it does not have matter determined to a motion, but rather to its end, since even mathematicians do not abstract from all matter but only from sensible matter, as is said in the Metaphysics 8.¹ Hence it is not necessary that wherever there is matter there be motion. But it is true that matter is in movable and unmovable things equivocally.

Reply Obj. 5: The empyrean heaven is the place of the angels, souls, and men. Now, it is obvious that in the empyrean there will be no vocal praise on the part of angels and separated souls. But there is a doubt about whether there will be vocal praise there on the part of men after the resurrection. Some say that there will not be vocal praise there, but only mental praise, which is more worthy, because no one will breathe there, and only those who breathe produce vocal sound, as is said in On the Soul 2.¹ But others say that there will also be vocal praise there, not because of any need, but rather so that nothing will be missing from divine praise among the saints, whether mind or tongue.

Reply Obj. 6: And in this way, the reply to the last objection is clear. Again, it can happen that two bodies are in a single place by a miracle, which is at least necessary while the glorified body is brought up to the empyrean heaven through an intermediate heavenly body without its being cut.

Reply Obj. 1: A body moved by direct motion, a body both generable and corruptible, needs a containing and preserving place. And this power of locating and preserving in one of the elements with respect to another arises from the power of the heavens influencing the elements through motion. But a body circularly moved and incorruptible does not need a place containing it extrinsically for motion or even for preservation. And that such a thing should have an extrinsic body containing it is incidental, as the Commentator says on the Physics 4.¹ Hence it does not depend on it except inasmuch as it revolves by its revolution. But no one holds that there is a revolution in the empyrean heaven. Hence no manner of influencing remains.

Reply Obj. 2: The empyrean heaven, as has been said,¹ does not have light after the manner of a refulgence that casts rays onto other bodies. And so, neither does it have an influx of illumination onto other bodies; the reason for this is that, since it is the most powerful of bodies and the greatest, it would illuminate all things without the light of the sun. And, moreover, the light of heaven is only a cause of effects in lower things on the supposition of motion, which is not present in the empyrean heaven.

Reply Obj. 3: Right and left are in heaven by the power of its mover, whatever it is, and not from the influence of a body, just as in the case of an animal this stems from the power of the soul.

Reply Obj. 4: The noblest disposition that can ever be in a body with regard to form is below the nobility of heaven. Hence it is the same heavenly power by which a body is disposed to the form of an element and a mixed body, as well as a vegetative, sensible, or rational soul. Nor is it necessary, if heaven disposes this to the vegetative soul, that it could not dispose it to the sensible soul, unless it is proved that this would be the extent of its power, which is false. Hence it is clear that this position is founded on three false premises. The first is that the disposition in the human body with regard to the soul cannot be from the power of the sun. The second is that light is a body that comes materially into composition with what is animated. The third is that there is a mean between soul and body. And these are absurd as far as all who have spoken reasonably on the matter are concerned. Thus, with one unsuitable premise granted, other such things follow. And this is no wonder.

Reply Obj. 1: It belongs to the account of substance that it subsists as a being by itself, as it were. Thus, form and matter, which are a part of the composite, since they do not subsist, are not in the category of substance as a species but only as principles. But that a subsisting thing has composite whatness does not belong to the account of substance. Hence it is not necessary for what is in the category of substance to have composite whatness. It is necessary for it to have a composition of whatness and being. For in the case of everything that is in a genus, its whatness is not its own existence, as Avicenna says.¹ Thus, God cannot be put in the category of substance. Hence what Boethius intends to say is that among these three things, namely, matter, form, and the composite, out of these only the composite is in the genus of substance as a species. But he does not intend to say that everything that is in the genus of substance must be a composite of matter and form.

Reply Obj. 2: Some things that are not of a single genus naturally are of a single genus logically speaking, such as those things that share in the intention of the genus that logic studies, and yet they have a different manner of being. Hence in the Metaphysics 10¹ it says that nothing is said in common of the corruptible and the incorruptible except by use of a common name. Thus, it is not necessary for angels to share the same principles with bodily things, except with respect to the intention alone, inasmuch as potency and act are found in all things, though analogically, as is said in the Metaphysics 12.²

Reply Obj. 3: As the Commentator says on On the Soul 3,¹ to receive, and all things of this sort, are said equivocally of matter and of intellect. For prime matter receives a form not insofar as it is form simply, but as being a “this.” Hence it is individuated by matter. But the intellect receives a form insofar as it is a form simply, not as individuating it, since a form in the intellect has a universal being. Hence the Philosopher also says in the same place² that to understand is in a certain way to undergo, though said in a common manner and equivocally. Hence on this basis we do not posit the composition or materiality of an intellectual substance.

Reply Obj. 4: The reply to the fourth objection is already clear from what has been said. For it has been shown that in an angel there is potency and act, though not as parts of the whatness. Rather, the potency is on the side of the whatness, while to-be is its act.

Reply Obj. 5: The objection proceeds from a false understanding of the text. For the sense is not that a created being is composed of the definite and the indefinite as of integral parts, but rather as it were of subjective parts.¹ For a created being has a certain definite aspect, such as “incorruptible,” and a certain indefinite aspect, such as “corruptible,” which is not determined only to being, but rather is at one time, and is not at another time. Hence in one commentary on On Causes, the explanation is given that the indefinite is potential being or non-being.²

Reply Obj. 6: An entirely simple form that is its own being, as is the divine essence, about which Boethius speaks in that place, can in no way be a subject. But a form subsisting simply that is not its own being, by reason of the potentiality it has, can be a subject, though equivocally and not in the same way as “subject” is said of matter or the material, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 1: A form that can be participated is individuated only by matter, in which it receives determinate being. But a form that is not receivable does not need determining matter. Rather, in its own nature it is determined to being, which it acquires without depending on matter as do corruptible forms. Nor does it acquire being in matter though not dependent on matter, like the rational soul.

Reply Obj. 2: From this the reply to the second objection is also clear, since form has the account of universality from the fact that it is receivable in more than one thing.

Reply Obj. 3: A form received in the intellect can be considered in two ways. It can be considered either by comparison to the thing whose likeness it is, and in this way, it has universality. For it is not the likeness of man with respect to individuating conditions, but rather with respect to the common nature. Or it can be considered by comparison to the intellect in which it has being, and in this way, it is something individuated, just like the intellect. And so, one intellectual species of man numerically is in the intellect of Socrates while another is in the intellect of Plato. Hence it is not necessary for the intellect not to be something determinate and subsisting.

Reply Obj. 4: “Rational,” according to Dionysius, is in the angels and in God eminently, and in this way, the divine intellect and the angelic intellect are called by the name of “reason.”¹

Reply Obj. 1: As was said in Book I, “one” can be spoken of in two ways.¹ One way is as convertible with “a being,” which is not determined to a genus, and neither is the multitude that follows on this sort of “one.” And this sort of multitude is posited in the angels, since it does not follow on a division of quantity or of matter, but on a distinction of natures. In the other way, “one” is that which is the principle of number, which is a discrete quantity caused by the division of matter or a continuum. And this sort is only in material things.

Reply Obj. 2: Even according to the philosophers who distinguish the number of the separated substances by cause and caused, cause and caused are not the distinguishing factors in themselves. Rather, according to those philosophers, they follow on the principles of distinction. For since the distinction, essentially speaking, results from greater or lesser composition and with reference to the distance between potency and act, according to them it follows that what is more in act is the cause of what is less. This is the way they say that multitude proceeded from one simple first thing, although the Commentator calls this manner of procession insufficiently proved in the Metaphysics 11,¹ and he concedes that more than one thing could have proceeded immediately from one simple first thing. Thus, we also concede that all intellectual natures have proceeded immediately from God as distinct according to the order of the wisdom that ordains different ranks of spiritual natures. Thus, having removed what belongs to faithlessness, namely, the order of causality from the angels, and having retained what agrees with the faith, namely, the ranking of simplicity, we will have the same manner of distinction that they had.

Reply Obj. 3: This argument proves the simplicity of the angelic nature, and especially of that which is highest in it. But it does not exclude plurality of ranks from it. Moreover, we must not speak of the angels as of the divine nature, especially since the angels differ from one another not only numerically, but also in species, as will be said.

Reply Obj. 4: Angels were not made for the sake of bodily motions, since nothing is made for the sake of something baser than itself. Hence if there are some substances that do not move things, it does not follow that they are superfluous. Nevertheless, we must say that all these substances do provide some benefit or assistance to bodily things. For the lower angels minister to God in the motion of the spheres, as is said by some and seems probable, since Gregory says that the bodily creation is administered through the spiritual.¹ But the illumination of the lower angels comes from God through the first and the intermediate angels, as Dionysius says.² Thus, they all have an influence over the motion of bodily things, or at least as regards the guardianship of men, which pertains to the last order.

Reply Obj. 5: These words are interpreted differently by Gregory and Dionysius, though to some extent in the same way. For they agree that we do not know the number of the angels determinately. But they also differ. For when it says thousands of thousands, Dionysius is of the opinion that one thousand is multiplying another, as if saying “one thousand a thousand times.”¹ And in this way, an equal number is implied, since it says thousands of thousands first and ten times one hundred thousand second, as one text has it. For ten times one hundred thousand is as much as one thousand times one thousand. And in this respect we can understand the number of those ministering and of those attending as equal. Or, according to another text that has thousands of thousands ministered to him, and ten thousand times a hundred thousand stood before him, we can understand that the number of those attending exceeds the number of those ministering on account of their nobility. This agrees with what was said above according to the understanding of Dionysius—namely, that more noble creatures are greater in number. Hence he says that in this word, namely, “one thousand,” the greatest number in our vocabulary that has a proper name is multiplied by all the greatest numbers, meaning the named limits: that is, it is multiplied by itself when it says thousands of thousands, by ten when it says ten thousand times, and by a hundred when it says a hundred thousand. In this way, an exceedingly great numerousness exceeding our understanding is shown. Gregory is of the opinion that it is a partitive construction when it says thousands of thousands, as if saying, “thousands from the number of the thousands.” Hence he wishes us to understand that there is a greater number of those who minister than of those who attend by the fact that an indeterminate number is applied to those who minister and a determinate number to those who attend.

Reply Obj. 1: Although the soul is a simple form, as is an angel, nevertheless the soul does not receive being from God except in a body. For, according to Augustine, it is both created at its infusion and infused at its creation. Hence from the body it receives individuated being such that, since it does not depend on the body, the individuation remains even after the destruction of the body. Thus, Augustine says that the position of those heretics who say that multiple souls were created before the body is impossible.¹ But this is not the case with angels, and thus the argument is not comparable.

Reply Obj. 2: This holds in perfections that pertain to the nature of the thing, but not in superadded perfections, which do not follow from the principles of the nature, such as are grace and glory. For even in bodies, things that differ in species can possess a single color of species.

Reply Obj. 3: The essential perfection of the universe is not estimated on the basis of individuals, the multiplication of which is ordered to the perfection of the species, but rather on the basis of the species through itself. Hence the divine goodness is more readily apparent by the fact that there are many angels of different species than if they were of only a single species.

Reply Obj. 4: According to the Philosopher in the Ethics, delight follows on a perfected activity.¹ Thus, for joyfulness a sharing is required in that nature in which there cannot be a complete activity in one without the help of another, as in men, among whom one by himself is not sufficient for the activity of his species. But we cannot hold this regarding the angels, and thus such an objection is in vain. Even so, we do not deny that one angel may be assisted by another, since the lower are enlightened by the higher. And in this society there is the joyfulness of the citizens of the heavenly court. Yet a unity of species is not required for this, but rather the conformity of grace.

Reply Obj. 1: It is not necessary for them to agree except in the one intention of potency, which is the possibility of receiving being from God, in whom they subsist without quantity and matter.

Reply Obj. 2: In this way, the reply to the second objection is clear. For there need not be a single potency numerically that is divided among all the angels or in which they existed potentially before they existed actually.

Reply Obj. 3: The genus is predicated equally of its species with regard to intention,¹ but not always with regard to its existence, as in the case of shape and number, as is said in the Metaphysics 3.² But this does not happen with species, as is said in the same place. Hence this would be sufficient to prove that they are not of a single species, but not that they are not of the same genus, since they agree in the genus to which all angels are related, just as different species of numbers, of which one is prior to another with respect to existence, are related to number.

Reply Obj. 4: The reply is clear from what has been said.

Reply Obj. 1: Difference is not more noble than genus in the way one nature is more noble than another, or one form is more noble than another, since a difference indicates no form that is not contained implicitly in the nature of the genus, as Avicenna says.¹ For genus does not signify a part of a thing’s essence, but rather the whole. But it is said to be more noble than genus as determinate is more noble than indeterminate. As such, to have intellect in such a way is more noble than to have intellect simply, and to have senses in such a way is more noble than to have senses simply. Thus, the soul and an angel do not agree in that which is most noble in them in this particular way. Hence it is not necessary for them to agree in the ultimate specific difference and thus be the same in species.

Reply Obj. 2: In man there is intellect, but he is not for this reason placed in the order of intellectual things. For something is called an “intellectual substance” whose whole knowledge is based in intellect, since everything it knows is immediately available to it without inquiry. But this is not the case with the soul’s knowledge, since it arrives at knowledge of a thing through inquiry and discursive reason. And in this way, it is called “rational,” since its knowledge is intellectual only with reference to its end and beginning: with reference to the beginning, since it knows first principles at once without inquiry, for which reason the habit of indemonstrable principles is called “understanding”; with reference to the end, since the inquiry of reason is terminated in understanding of the thing. Thus, it does not have intellect as its proper nature, but rather by way of a certain participation. Now, we also speak of “reason” in the case of God and the angels, though it is taken in a different sense, namely, insofar as all immaterial knowledge can be called “reason”—reason being distinguished here from the senses and not from the intellect.

Reply Obj. 3: Unitability is not a proper essential difference. Rather, it is a kind of designation of an essential difference through its effect, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 4: From this the reply to the fourth objection is also clear. For what befits the soul, inasmuch as it is a form, is the effect of an essential difference.

Reply Obj. 5: Things that differ in species differ with respect to their proximate end, which is a thing’s permanence or activity, as is said in On the Heavens 2.¹ But they can still agree in the last end, and beatitude is such an end.

Therefore, to the first we say that the principle of activity is the angel itself. And so this is not numbered among the things conferred on it from creation.

To the second we say that these two attributes are like two of its powers. Hence they are reduced to the final attribute and to the third in different ways.

To the third we say that reason and will are set down as the third attribute, not insofar as they are powers following on essence, but instead to designate by them the species of the essence from which they proceed, just as “rational” is given as the difference of man. But they pertain to the fourth attribute insofar as they are powers.

Reply Obj. 1: In the vessels of dishonor God does not make the wickedness, but rather the nature. But he does order the wickedness to punishment. And it is this order that is designated when it says unto dishonor. For the order can be designated either as the order of punishment with regard to fault, and this order is from God, or the order of fault with regard to nature, and this joining is not from God. Hence this proposition is understood in a consecutive, not a causative, manner.

Reply Obj. 2: This refers to the evil of punishment, not the evil of fault. And this will be addressed in greater detail below.¹

Reply Obj. 3: Even on the supposition that man was created at the same time as the angels, it is not necessary that man be created with an angel already existing as wicked. For the reparation of the ruin of angels is not the principal end of the man’s creation, but is rather a certain subsequent benefit, as was said above.¹ God foresaw this benefit, whose foreknowledge encompassed the outcomes of all things.

Reply Obj. 4: At the instant of its creation, it could have had an act of the will, yet its first act could not have been wicked, just as its first knowledge could not have been false.

Reply Obj. 5: According to some, in the same instant an angel was first good and later wicked, and this instant, although one in reality, differs in account insofar as it is the end of the past and the beginning of the future. But the different frames of reference do not remove the connection between the things that exist in a single instant. Hence it would follow that its innocence and malice would be conjoined, which is impossible.

Reply Obj. 1: The soul is called the “species of species” inasmuch as it makes species actually intelligible through the agent intellect and receives them in accord with the potential intellect, just as in that same place the senses are called the “species of sensible things” and the hand is called the “organ of organs” inasmuch as all artifacts are made by the hands.¹ Hence it says in History of Animals 14² that hands were given to man in place of horns and all those other things that are of aid to other animals. Hence it does not follow that the essence of the soul or of an angel is the sort of species in which everything is known.

Reply Obj. 2: The likenesses of things existing in the intellect of an angel are not received from things, since the intelligible species is not received from a thing except by the mediation of a phantasm, which is related to the intellect as color is to sight, as is said in On the Soul 3.¹ Yet neither are they the causes of things by way of creation, though maybe they are by way of motion, if perhaps we posit that they move the spheres, the motion of which is the cause of natural forms. Nevertheless, they must know certain things of which they are not the cause, such as the spheres themselves and other angels. Hence we must say that it can come about in two ways that they are like one another. One way is such that one is the cause of another, impressing its likeness on it, as in the case of fire and heated air; and this is how the divine intellect and the human intellect have assimilated the things understood, though in a converse manner, since the divine intellect impresses onto the thing the form by which the thing is made like it, whereas the human intellect receives from the thing the species through which it is made like the thing. The other way is in such a manner that both are from one cause impressing a like form on both. And in this way, the angelic intellect is likened to the things known because the forms that are impressed on things by God for subsistence are also impressed on angels to be known.

Reply Obj. 3: A thing is not known perfectly in an exemplar except one from which it is derived with respect to all that is in it. This is how things are known in the first exemplar, which things imitate with respect to the being that is in a thing. But this is not the case with the essence of an angel, since it is not the cause or exemplar of all that is in the thing, namely, of its matter and form, except through the fact that its potency is completed by light cast into it by God, as has been said.¹

Reply Obj. 4: The angelic intellect, even if it is posited as always in act with respect to natural things known, does not have actual existence from itself, but from another. Hence just as in it existence and what-is differ, on account of the fact that the being that it has, it has it from another, so also in it the intellect and that by which it actually understands differ, on account of the fact that it has understanding from another.

Reply Obj. 1: There are three kinds of universal. One is in the thing, namely, the nature itself, which is in particulars, even though it is not in them under the aspect of actual universality. There is another kind of universal that is received from the thing through abstraction, and this is secondary to the thing. In this way, the forms of the angels are not universal. But there is also a kind of universal with regard to the thing, which is prior to the thing itself, even as the form of a house is in the mind of the builder. And this is how the forms of things existing in the mind of the angels are universal, not in such a manner that they are practical, but rather that they are similar to practical forms, as in the case of someone who possesses practical knowledge in a speculative manner.

Reply Obj. 2: They are more universal both with regard to knowledge and with regard to activity: with regard to knowledge, both on the part of the species themselves, since they extend to many things; and on the part of the things known, since the higher know the same thing that the lower know, but more perfectly and clearly. Hence they illuminate them, just as one who knows a conclusion because he demonstrates it knows the same conclusion in a different way from one who knows it dialectically. Nor is it far from the truth that more things should come under the natural knowledge of the higher than of the lower.

Reply Obj. 3: Perfect knowledge is not possessed through a universal medium that is not effective for the knowledge of all proper attributes. But if all proper attributes were known effectively through a universal medium, this would be the most perfect knowledge. For the more something is one and simple, the more powerful and noble it is. This is how we say the higher angels know things sufficiently through universal forms, even as God knows all things perfectly through his essence.

Reply Obj. 4: The argument would follow if the universal forms of the higher angels were not sufficient for the knowledge of proper attributes, which is false. For a higher angel knows through universal forms everything that a lower angel knows through particular forms, and even more besides. Because particulars receive confirmation from universal causes, so it is that the knowledge of the lower angels is perfected by the higher.

Reply Obj. 1: The human intellect is last in rank among intellectual substances. Thus, there is in it the greatest potentiality with respect to other intellectual substances. For this reason it receives intelligible light from God as weaker and less like the light of the divine intellect. Hence the intellectual light received in it is not sufficient for deriving proper knowledge of a thing except through species received from things, which species must be received in it formally in accord with its mode. And so, since singulars are individuated by matter, they only know singulars through a kind of turning back of the intellect to the imagination and the senses, namely, when the intellect applies the universal species, which it has abstracted from singulars, to the singular form preserved in the imagination. But in an angel the species that give rise to proper knowledge of things are derived from the light itself, without receiving anything else. Thus, since that light is the likeness of the whole thing inasmuch as it is drawn from God after the manner of exemplars, proper knowledge of singulars can be had through species of this sort. And thus, it is clear that, in accord with the ranking of intellectual nature, there are different modes of understanding.

Reply Obj. 2: The divine essence, even though it is pure act, is still the likeness of matter insofar as every being, no matter how imperfect, is deduced from the first being after the manner of an exemplar. Thus, the immaterial forms that are in the intellect of an angel are also the likenesses of things, even with regard to material principles.

Reply Obj. 3: As is clear from what has been said,¹ the higher an angel is, the more things it can know by a single species. But there is no angel in whom species must be multiplied to keep up with the number of individuals, since through one species it knows all the individuals of that species. And that species is rendered the proper account of this or that thing in this or that respect after the manner in which ideas are multiplied in the divine intellect. Thus, neither will the intellect of an angel be equal to the divine intellect, nor will there be infinite species in the intellect of an angel. However, it is not a problem for the relations that follow on the acts of reason or of the intellect to be multiplied to infinity.

Reply Obj. 4: Through species implanted in them at their creation, the angels know causes which have an order in nature and everything determined in those causes either simply or as coming about frequently. Because future contingents are not determined in their causes, but rather are rendered actually present after the determination of the causes has been accomplished, therefore they do not know them so long as they are in the future. Rather, this knowledge belongs to God alone, who perceives all the successions of time by a single act.

Reply Obj. 1: The intellect of the angels is called “God-like” due to the fact that it conforms to the divine intellect, not because it understands all things by a single act and so at the same time. Rather, it conforms to the divine intellect in the fact that it does not receive knowledge from things, but rather knows without the investigation of reason and the support of the senses.

Reply Obj. 2: Thoughts are called “shifting” that turn things over in accord with the discursive process of reason, proceeding from caused to causes or vice versa in order to arrive at the knowledge of the unknown from what is known. But this does not exclude a succession of thoughts from the angels and the saints except with respect to the contemplation of the Word, as they are brought into perfect assimilation to God. And this is what their essential happiness consists in.

Reply Obj. 3: Hence the reply to the third objection is clear.

Reply Obj. 4: The potential intellect and the agent intellect are in the angels as in us, though in a different way. For the potential intellect in us is in potency with respect to the species received from things through the light of the agent intellect which makes them intelligible actually, but in them it is in potency with respect to the light flowing into them from God. Similarly, the light of the agent intellect in us is not sufficient to have distinct knowledge of things, except in accord with the received species, which it informs as light does colors. But the intellectual light in the angels is sufficient to have distinct knowledge of things. For this is the very light on the basis of which those intellectual forms are multiplied with which the intelligences are said to be full. Consequently, their agent intellect is always said to be in act, since in the angels, as in us, it shines unceasingly for the actual consideration of something as far as it lies within. But it is not then necessary that it always be turned toward a single species such that a single thing is always understood actually.

Reply Obj. 1: The act of charity can be spoken of in two ways: either as the act that arises from charity, and this only exists in one who possesses charity; or as the act that is for charity, not as meritorious or generative, but as preparatory, and in this way, the act of charity can be possessed before charity is possessed, just as to do just things comes before the habit of justice.

Reply Obj. 2: Nature is said to be curved back on itself because it always loves its own good. But it is not necessary that the intention rest in the fact that it is its own, but rather in the fact that it is good. For unless it were good for it in some way, either truly or apparently, it would never love it. But this does not mean that it loves it because it is its own, but rather because it is good. For the good is through itself the object of the will.

Reply Obj. 3: Even though in any created nature some advantage redounds to the agent from its action, it is not necessary that this advantage be what is intended, as is clear in a friendship between upright men.

Reply Obj. 4: There are two kinds of end. One kind is proportionate to a thing and is received in it as a perfection inherent it, such as, for example, health in medical procedures. And because this end has no being except in that for which it is acquired, it is not loved by anyone above himself absolutely. Rather, being oneself along with such a perfection is something that is loved above being oneself simply. But there is also a kind of end subsisting in itself, not dependent for being on the thing that is directed toward the end. One does indeed desire to acquire this end, but one loves it above what one acquires from it. And God is such an end, as has been said above.¹

Reply Obj. 5: Natural goods, considered absolutely in the being of nature, remain intact after sin, yet they are perverted with regard to the right order that they possessed toward grace or virtue. And to love God above all things followed on this uprightness.

Reply Obj. 1: Augustine¹ calls the natural vision of God “beatitude,” although through it they were not blessed simply. For they were capable of greater perfection, but rather in a qualified sense, namely, as befit that time, just as the Philosopher says that some are blessed in this life, not simply, but rather as men.²

Reply Obj. 2: They saw the Word through the likeness of the Word impressed on them. But their ultimate beatitude does not consist in this, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 3: That knowledge is not properly said to be “in a mirror,” just as a man is not said to see “in a mirror” that whose likeness remains in his eye—unless the eye itself in which the species of the thing is reflected were called a “mirror.” Nor yet is it the blessed vision, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 4: The turning of the cognoscitive power to the species of the thing, and its turning to the thing itself, are one turning. Hence the fact that someone knows a thing through the species of the thing that he has within him does not mean that he makes a comparison. Rather, he is said to make a comparison when he grasps one thing from the likeness of another thing. Thus, it is clear that we need not hold that the angels’ intellect is comparative or inquisitive.

Reply Obj. 1: Peter received the Lord’s announcement in advance not with certitude, but rather as something said as a warning. Moreover, the situation with men is not like with the angels. For man falls in a reparable manner, and so foreknowledge of his fall does not compel him to despair, as in the case of an angel, whose fall is irreparable.

Reply Obj. 2: When a consequence can come about through many different antecedents, it can happen that the consequence is known without the antecedents being determinately known. For example, Joseph foresaw his dominion over his brothers, but he did not see being sold or the other circumstances which resulted in his dominion. So also the demon could have foreseen its preeminence over the wicked without foreknowing its fall, since it could have been the prince of the wicked even while existing as good.

Reply Obj. 3: The conjectural knowledge, by which they presumed concerning their goodness, removed all doubt and anxiety from them, along with the fact that there was not anything in them inducing them to fall, as there is in us.

Reply Obj. 4: They could not have known in their causes those natural effects that do not have causes determined to a single outcome, but only those that proceed from natural causes determined to a single outcome. Thus, they knew in themselves the things that were determinate in their nature, but not those that depended on free will, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 1: According to Augustine, the distinction of works that is recounted at the beginning of Genesis does not designate a succession of time, but only the order of nature.¹ Hence it is not necessary that the substance of heaven’s body preceded the creation of light in time, or that the angelic nature preceded grace, but only in the order of nature, insofar as in the process of generation the imperfect comes before the perfect and with regard to the same thing potency comes before act, even though act precedes potency simply.

Reply Obj. 2: The angels are said not to have been able to progress, not because they could not merit, but rather because they could not be transferred to glory through their own power, without a fuller infusion of light.

Reply Obj. 3: We must say that the angels who sinned fell from something they possessed, whether they were created in grace or not—at the least, they fell from innocence or natural uprightness. Thus, when it is said that they fell from what they had not yet received, this must be taken as referring to the fall from glory, which is clear from what is stated before: they did not taste the sweetness of the blessed life, etc.

Reply Obj. 4: Just as in the transparent there is something of the nature of light, even though present imperfectly, that is completed when it becomes actually luminous, so also at the beginning of the creation of the angels there was in them something of the nature of the light, either of grace or at least of the natural intellect alone. Hence when it is said, let there be light, this should be understood of perfect light, which is glory, which was not in the good prior to their being separated from the wicked, if we understand the heavens to be made prior in time to light. But if we understand it to have been made prior not in time but in nature, as Augustine explains in On Genesis 1,¹ then it can be understood of the light of grace. And then by “darkness” we will understand not the sin of the angels, but rather the formlessness of the bodily creation, which remained in need of formation, as Augustine himself explains in the same place.

Reply Obj. 5: The inclination of grace to the good does not necessitate that one who has grace cannot be diverted from the good, even if he has nothing to draw him away, unless it is the perfect grace that joins one to the end, as is the case in the blessed. For one who has grace does not act out of a necessity of grace any more than out of a necessity of nature, which is also ordered to the good, but rather out of the freedom of the will.

Reply Obj. 1: In the nature of the angels there is no potency with respect to a form that they could acquire and lose, as there is in generable and corruptible things. Thus, no natural evil can be in them, just as neither in ungenerable and incorruptible things like the heavenly bodies. Even so, their free will is potential with respect to ordered motion. And so, in this regard there can be a disordering toward evil.

Reply Obj. 2: Just as passion and reception are said equivocally of intellectual and natural works, so is motion. Hence there does not have to be matter for such motion, but it suffices to have potency, such as we have said is in the angels.

Reply Obj. 3: The statement of the Philosopher should be understood as pertaining to the virtues and vices that concern the passions and to knowledge acquired by the senses. And these are not found in the angels.

Reply Obj. 4: Even though the intellect cannot err such that it judges a thing to be what it is not, in regard to what it perceives of the thing, nevertheless, since the created intellect does not encompass all things at the same time, it can fail when it judges a thing to be suitable on the basis of a consideration of an aspect of the thing, which thing is not suitable on the basis of other aspects that the created intellect does not consider. This is like a physician judging something expedient for a sick person on the basis of a consideration of one infirmity of his when it is not expedient for him, simply speaking, on account of another sickness that the physician either does not know about or does not take into consideration.

Reply Obj. 1: The angel did not will equality simply, just as man does not, but rather in the aforementioned way. Still, some say that Adam was more endowed with a spiritual mind than the angel. This is not based on rank of nature but on the divine revelation he is believed to have had when the Lord cast a deep sleep upon him.

Reply Obj. 2–3: These arguments hold concerning equality taken simply, which we do not say that the angel desired.

Reply Obj. 4: Likeness to God is the end of each created thing according to the mode determined for it by the Creator. Hence without a disordering, it cannot be that an appetite would tend to likeness to God beyond the limit established by God for its nature.

Reply Obj. 5: In any sinner, turning away from God is outside his intention. For evil cannot be intended. Rather, a good is always intended, in which there is a likeness to God. Thus, it was outside the angels’ intention that they would turn away from God, to whom they willed to be likened.

Reply Obj. 1: Cupidity can also be spoken of in three ways. In one way, it is spoken of as the root of all sin, and in this way, it is a certain inclination to the inordinate desire of each desirable object, either due to the corruption of the fomes or due to the condition of nature, which is capable of being turned on account of the fact that it is made from nothing. In another way, it is spoken of as a condition following on every sin on the side of conversion, as indicating an actually inordinate desire for any desirable object, whether honor or knowledge, and so forth. In the third way, it is spoken of as a special vice and one of the seven capital vices, namely, an inordinate desire for possessing what promises sufficiency in life, such as money, and other things whose worth is measured financially. And it is self-evident that the devil did not sin by the desire for such things.

Reply Obj. 2: Hatred and envy with respect to God presuppose depravity of the will in the angel, as Augustine says in On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis, book 11,¹ which is clear in the following way. For nothing can be hated unless it is at odds with and contrary to the will. But what is most good, having no admixture of defect, is only contrary to a will that is not upright. Likewise, envy is sadness at another’s prosperity, inasmuch as it impedes one’s own proper good. But the divine happiness does not impede anyone’s own proper good, unless this good is inordinately desired, since every good comes down from it. Thus, hatred and envy presuppose a sin through which the will becomes disordered.

Reply Obj. 3: Angels do not expend effort or suffer fatigue by the fact that they minister to God and merit. Thus, the sin of acedia has no place with them. But they are said to have willed to achieve glory without effort by willing to pursue it by their own power, according to how what exceeds the capacity of the one acting is said to require effort.

Reply Obj. 4: Omission is sometimes a special sin, namely, when something is neglected that should be done because it was specifically commanded. But sometimes omission is a condition that follows on every sin as being the neglect of some circumstance that ought to be observed in a work. And in this way, it is not unfitting that there was omission in the angel’s first sin.

Reply Obj. 5: It is not necessary that things first in generation be first in destruction. Hence it does not follow that if faith is the first of the virtues, then infidelity is the first of the vices.

Reply Obj. 1: Even though the power of free will can of itself suffice for the substance of the act, it does not suffice for the form of it, by which it is meritorious.

Reply Obj. 2: The motions of defection and conversion, insofar as they are from free will, precede the infusion of grace in some and the fall of the others, not in time but in nature, after the manner of matter and generation, just as a disposition precedes form.

Reply Obj. 3: In this way, the solution to the third objection is clear.

Reply Obj. 4: Something is said to come to be or to have been worked in two ways.

Reply Obj. 1: It is not necessary that merit precede reward in time but only in nature. For any meritorious act has a reward connected with it, just as any inordinate act has a punishment, as Augustine says.¹

Reply Obj. 2: Even if the higher angels are not sent, nevertheless they direct the lower angels in their ministries. Thus, the merit with respect to incidental reward is common.

Reply Obj. 3: In this way, the reply to the third objection is clear. And besides, the orders are distinguished with regard to rank in the essential reward, which is not increased by the ministries.

Reply Obj. 4: The angels’ acts of ministry have efficacy for meriting by reason of their effect, namely, the salvation of the men to whom they minister, from which joy redounds to them, which is an incidental reward.

Reply Obj. 1: The gifts of the lower orders, by which they are named, are also present in the higher orders by way of eminence. Hence a higher order can be referred to by the name of a lower order. Thus, I say that this angel is not called a “cherub” because he was from the order of the cherubim; rather, he was from the order of the seraphim. But he is called a “cherub” to express the quality of his fault. For he fell through the vice of vainglory and thus is referred to by knowledge, which is what the name “cherub” designates, of which the Apostle says, knowledge puffs up (1 Cor 8:1).

Reply Obj. 2: According to some people, Damascene is relating the opinion of some rather than asserting the truth.

Reply Obj. 3: The divine ordering concerning any created thing cannot be frustrated. For even if it falls short of one order, it falls back into another order, as was said in Book I.¹ This is why Boethius says, in Consolation 4, for order brings together all things such that it allows within the reign of providence what might have deviated from an assigned account of order still to slide back into another order.²

Reply Obj. 4: The angels do not act in accord with a necessity of nature. Thus, one in which there is less disposition to sin can sin more. Thus, the sin of the first angel was also more grave than the rest, inasmuch as it was inherently less likely that he would turn to sin.

Reply Obj. 1: Deformity ensued in the first angel from its act simultaneously with the act of the others. Now, the lower angels’ vision was not turned to the first angel insofar as its act left it deformed, but rather insofar as the act proceeded from it. For things that are joined together in time are separated by the act of the soul, especially when one precedes the other in nature.

Reply Obj. 2: The lower angels also sinned through pride, yet they still willed to be subject to the higher angel, as he wished. Hence they were prideful inasmuch as they desired something for themselves, namely, to acquire glory for themselves in accord with the power of their own natural endowments—though under God and under the higher angels—and that they would be the ones to transfuse glory to the lower angels. And they desired something for the higher angel, in which they agreed with him, namely, that he would achieve the aforementioned dignity. For there was the same account for one as for all of them. This is similar to the case of those who all equally stand to gain something, and thus all conspire together, with each of them desiring for himself and for the others.

Reply Obj. 3: This is not the real reason why the sin of the angel was unforgivable, though there is a certain appropriateness that the sin of man would be more readily remedied. Besides, the case is not comparable. For man sinned through someone tempting him, but the lower angels sinned through someone presenting them with the occasion.

Reply Obj. 4: Conversion had its efficacy through grace, which is not from any created thing. But for defection the power of the created thing is sufficient. Moreover, it is not far from the truth that the conversion of one angel would be the occasion and example for the conversion of others. Rather, this even seems to be what is meant where it says, war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon (Rev 12:7).

Reply Obj. 1: They are not said to be in a place as if receiving anything from a bodily place, but rather as working something concerning a place that is consonant with the properties of that place.

Reply Obj. 2: Among other generable and corruptible bodies, fire is the most subtle and possesses more light. Hence it is not suitable for angels shrouded in darkness. Hence God and the good angels are more aptly described by metaphors taken from fire, as Dionysius says.¹ But Pythagoras is speaking of the fire that he posited as being in the middle of the universe, which is the same place that we now refer to as the fire of hell, which is dark and terrible, and is the demons’ place of punishment.

Reply Obj. 3: The portion of the air that is close to the earth is more luminous and warmer than that which is the middle region of the air. For the splendor and heat in the air near the earth is multiplied by the reflection of the rays of the sun. Hence vapors released from water and earth rise up, and where less heat is found, due to distance from the place of reflection, the vapor loses its nature and thereby becomes cooler and condenses, as when water that has been heated is separated from what heats it. For this reason that place is cold and dark, and from there rains, hail, gusts of wind, and things of this sort descend. Thus, the argument presupposed something false.

Reply Obj. 4: The fact that they are near us in no way lessens their punishment, except that they reckon it a punishment for themselves that they are not able to do us harm when they are in hell.

Reply Obj. 5: The error of the Greeks is in positing that before the judgment day no soul goes to hell or to heaven. This is derived from the myths of Pythagorean poets, who posited that the souls of those who are slain haunt their tomb until their death is avenged, and as well that they do not return to their own proper star before the completed period of their life, which was cut short from its terminus by an early death. But that the souls of the damned descend immediately to hell is proved in the text¹ on the basis of the just who descended there, and by: they spend their days in prosperity, and in a moment they go down to hell (Job 21:13)² and the rich man also died: and he was buried in hell (Luke 16:22).³ Likewise, that the saints immediately ascend to heaven is proved by what is said in Scripture: for we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (2 Cor 5:1). Even so, both groups sometimes appear to us for our benefit, as when the blessed angels and demons come to us here. Nor is the situation of the souls of the damned and demons the same. For demons were established as above us in accord with the rank of their nature in order to provide a benefit to us. And this should not have been altogether lost by their sin. Hence they have been given to us for the sake of training, which is not the case with the souls of the damned.

Reply Obj. 6: Some say that the sensible punishment of the demons themselves was deferred until judgment day. But this seems to be both contrary to the authority of the saints and the account of divine justice, which immediately condemns the souls of the damned to the punishment of hellfire, and their sin is not greater than the sin of the demons. Thus, others say that they always burn in hellfire, which they also always bear with themselves. Yet this fire does not burn up other bodies, since it acts as an instrument of divine justice only on those upon whom it is inflicted as such a punishment. But since they are incorporeal, it does not seem probable that they bear a bodily fire around with themselves. Hence we must say that they always burn in hellfire, yet it is not always present to them locally. For it does not act in a bodily manner by heating up and drying out, but rather in a spiritual manner. Hence a specific distance is not required as it is in bodily action.

Reply Obj. 7: The three places mentioned are due to any given demon in accordance with different conditions, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 1: The order directed to the end of beatitude is altogether taken away there, since they have irreparably fallen from it. But there is still among them an order of authority, which is more from God than from them.

Reply Obj. 2: Just in themselves, the demons would never have harmony. Rather, they harmonize to carry out a single undertaking. For it is not probable that they have any benevolence toward one another, but rather only agreement regarding some act.

Reply Obj. 3: Just as in any evil some good must remain, since it is not wholly corrupted by evil, so also in acts of injustice some order of right can remain. This is clear, for example, in the case of thieves who, after unjustly robbing others, have a certain form of justice among themselves when each remains faithful to the others. And it can be the same way among the demons.

Reply Obj. 4: The authority that they possess does not lessen the punishment of any of them. Rather, the higher their office, the more severe the torment to which they are subject. Hence it is said: mighty men will be mightily tormented (Wis 6:6).¹ Nor is authority given to them as a reward but rather as a service to the divine wisdom.

Reply Obj. 5: Men are not preeminent with respect to one another in the order of nature. Neither are the damned ordered to the training or punishment of others. Thus, the argument concerning men is not like the argument concerning demons.

Reply Obj. 1: The will of the demons always remains equally obstinate with regard to harming men. Thus, it is a greater help that they be removed from the fight, since in this way, their power to assault is held in check, even though their wicked will is neither lessened nor increased.

Reply Obj. 2: Even those who hold that the demons cease from all tempting understand that there is a determined time after which they again return to the fight.

Reply Obj. 3: And in this way, the reply to the third objection is clear.

Reply Obj. 4: Their evil is always ordered by way of punishment, which they both always undergo themselves and inflict on the damned in hell.

Reply Obj. 1: A rational power is said to be a power for opposites that fall under choice, to which free will properly pertains. But choice does not concern the end, but rather what is directed to the end. These are only chosen in accord with the rule of the end that lies in the estimation. Thus, the will cannot relate to the end in a contrary manner. For the will cannot be for wretchedness or for evil precisely as evil. Rather, it is always for the good and beatitude. Yet to obtain this, men can choose different paths, namely, insofar as they judge that by them they can better obtain happiness. Consequently, there can be an error in the choice of what is directed toward the end. Thus, among those who possess an unfailingly correct estimation of the end, as among the angels who are perfected in the end itself, it is impossible for them to will anything that would disorder them from the end, such as the will to sin. But when neither this nor that disorders them from the end, they can still will this or that. In this way, the property of a rational power is preserved, inasmuch as they can do this or not do this, even though they do not have the capability to choose between the opposites of good and evil.

Reply Obj. 2: It is not possible in the same subject for corruptibility and incorruptibility, or movability and immovability, to follow each other in such a manner that both are traced back to its natural principles. And so we also say that the free will of an angel, which was movable by nature, is not made immovable by nature but by glory.

Reply Obj. 3: An angel’s power is only determined to a single thing in acts that join it to the end, so it can do this or not do it, or do this or that. Even so, it cannot for this reason sin. For according to Anselm in the Proslogion,¹ to be able to sin is not free will nor part of freedom. For free will is the freedom of choosing this or that means to the end.

Reply Obj. 4: Praiseworthiness does not depend essentially on the power to sin, but rather on a will that clings to the good. Otherwise a virtuous person, who does not move as easily to sin, would be less praiseworthy in his act than someone lacking virtue and yet doing a good work. But the power to sin is a sign of praiseworthiness for those who give the praise, inasmuch as it manifests a will that does not cling to the good by compulsion.

Reply Obj. 1: A natural power for the good remains in the demons, though remote, indisposed, and depraved by contrary habit. By this power they could do the good if they so willed. But they cannot will it, since the habit of malice cannot be removed from their will, since it is no longer in the wayfaring state.

Reply Obj. 2: Since in the angels, nature is good, their natural appetite must be good. Yet it is depraved by circumstances, which the deliberate will applies inasmuch as they will to be and to live under such a deformity of sin, as when a lustful man desires to live in his shameful delight.

Reply Obj. 3: According to some, synderesis in the demons objects not to their fault, but to the punishment, and that they sin more in this by resisting the decree of the divine justice. Yet this does not seem true, since it is impossible for something not to resist its contrary. But in synderesis are found the universal principles of the natural law. Hence it must object to everything that is contrary to the natural law. Nonetheless, this objection is an act of nature. For the demons’ perverse will is resistant, and following it they close off their powers of examination from consideration of the good, as Dionysius says.¹

Reply Obj. 4: Even though these acts are good in themselves, they do not perform them in a good manner. For any good work they do is under compulsion and not by choice.

Reply Obj. 5: Some say that their fault and punishment can increase until judgment day. But this does not seem true. For, since they are not in the wayfaring state, just as they cannot be changed for the good, so also they cannot be changed for the worse. Hence we must say that their fault or pride is said to grow, not with regard to the intensity of malice, but rather with regard to the multiplication of the act. The essential punishment does not grow, but rather the incidental punishment, which is based on the multitude of the damned, in like manner to the reward of the good angels.

Reply Obj. 1: Fury, concupiscence, and fantasy are not in the demons in the proper sense, but rather metaphorically, since these things pertain to the sensitive part, which does not exist in angels. For every defect of soul that occurs in us either is due to imagination, with regard to knowledge, whose property is falsity, according to the Philosopher,¹ or is due to the irascible and concupiscible passions, with regard to affection. Thus, the will of the demons inordinately detesting or desiring something is called “fury” and “concupiscence,” and their disordered intellect is called “fantasy.” But this disordering of the intellect is from a perverse will, and thus it is called a “wanton fantasy,” since he is wanton who vehemently resists the truth. But irrationality and senselessness, fury and concupiscence imply that the will has gone astray from the right judgment of intellect or reason. And they imply ignorance not of speculation but of choice, in respect of which every wicked person is ignorant.

Reply Obj. 2: The will is master of its own act more than is the intellect, which is compelled by the very truth of the thing. Thus, a man is called “wicked” or “good” in reference to an act of the will, since the act of the will is the act of the man, as being in his power. But he is not so called in reference to an act of the intellect, of which he is not the master.

Reply Obj. 3: The highest spirits’ revelation to the demons is not made by way of illumination such that the intellectual light of a demon would be strengthened through the application of the clarity of angelic light. Rather, it is made by way of locution, such that they express to one another knowable things in a way they did not express before, as will be clear below in Distinction 11.¹

Reply Obj. 4: Even though a demon does not receive knowledge from things, its knowledge still grows more acute over a length of time. For through the innate species it possesses of a thing, it knows the thing and what is in the thing. But before a contingent cause is determined, especially one that can go either way, its effect is not in it. Hence the effect cannot be known in it. But by knowing the cause, the demon knows the effect once the cause has been determined to its effect.

Reply Obj. 1: Future things, insofar as they have a determination in their causes, approach the account of present things to the degree that they already exist in a way determinately in their causes. Thus, foreknowing them is not properly called “divination,” such as when a physician predicts future health, and an astronomer predicts an eclipse or rain, and such things—except perhaps to one ignorant of the order of cause to caused. Hence no one says that there is divination regarding things that are known to all, such as that the sun will rise tomorrow. Rather, divination is properly of things that do not have determinate causes. For to know these things belongs to God alone. And it is by a usurpation of his act that those who intend to announce future things in advance are called “divines.”

Reply Obj. 2: False prophets are distinguished from true prophets in at least three ways. The first way is with regard to the author of the revelation. For the good prophets predict future things by divine light and are inspired by the mediation of the good angels. But false prophets either follow their own spirit, seeing nothing and concocting lies, or they follow the revelation of an unclean spirit. The second is with regard to the intention behind their prediction. For the false prophets aim at some temporal gain. Hence it is said: you have profaned me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread (Ezek 13:19). Or at least the intention of the demon who gives the revelation is perverse, intending deceit. But the whole intention of the good prophets is ordered to an upright end. The third way is with regard to the certitude of the predictions. For the prophecy of the good rests on the divine prescience, which perceives all future outcomes, but the wicked prophets’ advance announcements rest on the prescience of demons, which is conjectural.

Reply Obj. 3: A demon can manifest something unknown without causing a new species in two ways: either by eliciting other intentions¹ from the species that are kept in the imagination composed and divided in different ways, as well as enlightened by a stronger light, or even by forming new species in the imagination through a transmutation of the bodily organ.

Reply Obj. 4: Only God forms the mind of a man by justification. Yet he is not the only one who immediately enlightens it with intellectual light, unless by this we understand connatural light, which is from God alone.

Reply Sed Contra 5: The astronomers cannot announce occurrences in advance unless they are traced back to the motion of heaven as to a cause—either a cause through itself, as in the case of transmutations that take place in bodily things, such as storms, blights, pestilences, and things of this sort, which can still be impeded by the intervention of stronger motions, as the Philosopher says in On Sleep and Sleeplessness¹—or a cause incidentally, as when one’s temper is disposed to some acts more than to others on the basis of a transmutation of the body. An example is when some, due to their natural makeup, are prone to lust or wrath and things of this sort, though such a disposition of the body does not impose a necessity on the soul. Hence in matters depending on free will, their judgments are more often deceived. Likewise, too, physicians know lower causes by signs that appear outwardly, from which health or death follow, either always or for the most part. All these things the demons can foreknow, but not all future things are of this kind.

Reply Obj. 1: At the time of the Antichrist some true miracles will be done by the power of demons, with divine permission, though in things to which the power of the demons extends. Even so, they are all called “false” from the perspective of the end, since they are done in order to deceive.

Reply Obj. 2: Signs done through the good can be distinguished from those done through the wicked in at least three ways. The first difference is from the efficacy of the operating power. For signs done through the good by the divine power include things to which the active power of nature in no way extends, such as raising the dead and things of this sort. Demons cannot do such things truly, but only as illusions, which cannot last for a long time. The second difference is from the benefit of the signs. For signs done through the good concern beneficial things, such as the curing of the sick and things of this sort. But signs done through the wicked concern harmful or vain things, such as flying through the air or rendering the limbs of men senseless and things of this sort. Blessed Peter gives this difference in the Journey of Clement.¹ The third difference is with regard to the end. For the signs of the good are ordered to the edification of faith and good character. But the signs of the wicked are a manifest harm to faith and upright living. And they differ with regard to mode. For the good work miracles by piously and reverently invoking the divine name, but the wicked do so by deranged methods, such as by slashing themselves with knives and shameful things of this sort. Thus, the signs done through the good can manifestly be discerned from those done by the power of demons.

Reply Obj. 3: A local motion precedes such an alteration inasmuch as they gather active powers and apply them to determined passive powers. But such a local motion is not traced back to a heavenly motion, since it does not follow a natural moving power, but rather exists inasmuch as it obeys the demon’s power for local motion. This derives from the power of its nature, which has a capability over bodies not to infuse a form, but to move them locally. For local motion does not regard the acquisition of something else in the thing that is moved, since place is extrinsic to what is placed.

Reply Obj. 4: The heavenly bodies do not make an impression on demons that might render them subject. Rather, the demons come when invoked under a given constellation because they know that the power of that constellation aids the required effect, or in order to lead men to venerate some divinity in the stars, which gives rise to idolatrous rituals.

Reply Obj. 5: Artifice cannot confer substantial form by its own power, though it can do it by the power of a natural agent, as is clear when the form of fire is introduced in wood by artifice. But there are some substantial forms that artifice cannot in any way introduce, since it cannot find proper active and passive principles. However, it can make something similar to these things, as when alchemists make something similar to gold with respect to its outward accidents, though they do not make true gold. For the substantial form of gold is not introduced by the heat of the fire that the alchemists use, but through the heat of the sun on a specific place where there is an apt mineral power. Thus, such gold does not possess the activity following on the species. It is likewise in other things that are produced by their activity.

Reply Obj. 1: Paul and certain other saints are read to have done things through demons, not by entering into a pact with them, but rather as exercising divine power over them, as the heavenly powers are said to have the task of constraining demons.

Reply Obj. 2: Sinners, for as long as they are living in this life, can become members of Christ, no matter how obstinate in malice they seem to be. Thus, they must be loved out of charity, and good things can be received and entreated from them, as long as they are not contrary to charity. But after they descend from the body to damnation, our judgment concerning them must be the same as that concerning the demons.

Reply Obj. 3: We must not believe that the demons are subject to any bodily powers. Thus, they are not compelled by invocations and certain magical deeds, except inasmuch as by them one enters into a covenant with them, as it is said: we have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol we have an agreement (Isa 28:15).

Reply Obj. 4: There can be no benefit for which we should do something that wrongs God. But this is what happens when we do not ask of him that which belongs to him, and instead enter into a covenant with his adversary.

Reply Obj. 1: What Apuleius said is false, and Augustine did not dispute the point because he did not want to assert much concerning angels.

Reply Obj. 2: According to Dionysius,¹ animal and human properties are attributed to angels in a more eminent way. For what a lower nature possesses, the higher also possesses, not in the same way, but more eminently. Hence an angel is called an “animal,” not because it is a composite of soul and body, but rather by the fact that it has the power of knowing sensible things, yet not in a sensible way but an intellectual way.

Reply Obj. 3: The angels are called “corporeal” in comparison to God because they have a certain property in common with bodily things, namely, to be bounded by a place, in which bodies differ greatly from God, and not because angels have a bodily nature in any way.

Reply Obj. 4: The more absolutely something has being or life, the more noble it is. Thus, since every form has being in its conjunction to matter, life that is not united to a body is more noble than that which is the form of a body. But what infuses life after the manner of an efficient cause alone, and not as a conjoined form, is even more noble. But this belongs neither to the soul nor to angels, but rather to God alone.

Reply Obj. 1: An assumption of this kind ends in a union of the mover to the moved, like the union of a sailor to the ship, not like that of form to matter.

Reply Obj. 2: A joined spirit, namely, the soul, is united to a body as its form in a single being. Thus, it cannot be separated at will, but rather by nature, if the body becomes indisposed. But a separated spirit can be joined through his will to a body, not as its form, but as to an instrument. Hence by the power of its nature it can assume and set aside the body when it wills, just as a man does with his instrument.

Reply Obj. 3: An angel’s power is not impeded by the body assumed. For it is not assumed as matter proportionate to a form, and it does not benefit from the assumption. Rather, it is assumed as an instrument for the consolation of those to whom it appears, so that they can be led by the hand from visible things to the knowledge of invisible things.

Reply Obj. 4: To move a body is not enough to assume it; rather, it must be formed, as has been said.

Reply Obj. 5: An angel who assumes a body is completely in any given part of it, yet it is not in more than one place. For a whole that is moved by one movement is related to the angel as one indivisible place, since it is only in a place through its activity, as was said in Book I.¹

Reply Obj. 1: Falsity is not implied by the fact that metaphorical expressions are not spoken to signify the things for which the names were originally coined, but rather things that have a likeness to the things said. Similarly, there is no fiction in the angels’ apparitions, since those figures are not manifested to signify the natural being of that thing, but rather the properties of the angel.

Reply Obj. 2: Even though the true properties of man are only in bodily nature, there can still be likenesses of those properties in other things. Such likenesses suffice for the goal of the apparition.

Reply Obj. 3: According to Dionysius,¹ a higher and a lower angel are sometimes manifested in the same figure. For a single thing has different properties, through some of which it can represent the higher and through others the lower. Furthermore, the higher and the lower also have properties that are the same, though they have them in different ways, according to Dionysius.

Reply Obj. 4: Air that is condensed in some way can be given a shape and distinguished from the other air.

Reply Obj. 5: In a way it is of earth, inasmuch as it has the property of earth by being condensed. But this density is dissolved at once when the causes of the density depart.

Reply Obj. 6: Since they only assume bodies for our sake, it is not probable that they bear the assumed bodies to the empyrean heaven or make use of them except insofar as necessary to carry out activities that concern us.

Reply Obj. 7: The properties of fire, especially with regard to brightness, appear in the bodies assumed by the good angels, just as do the properties of man. But this does not necessitate that they materially assume this sort of body from fire.

Reply Obj. 8: Since the body of the heavens is incorruptible, it cannot be divided, except in the imagination, and it does not receive foreign impressions. Hence it cannot be formed into an angel’s body.

Reply Obj. 1: The complete account of “eating” includes not only dividing food and putting it into one’s mouth, but also that this act proceeds from a power able to digest it and convert it into nourishment. Thus, the angels did not truly eat. But there was in that case a true division of food and putting it into the assumed body, though it was not afterwards converted into that body, but was instead dissolved into underlying matter by the angel’s power. However, Christ truly ate, even though the food was not converted, since this biting off of food belonged to one possessing nutritive and convertive power. And it is not unfitting in the case of Abraham that, even if he knew they were angels in the end, this was hidden to him at the beginning, or that, if he did know, he offered them food to call to mind some mystery.

Reply Sed Contra 3: Since here demons are moved with exceeding speed on account of the moving power’s dominance over the thing moved, they can arrange things so as to preserve the seed such that its vital warmth does not dissipate.

Reply Sed Contra 4: The demons can know the power of the extracted seed based on the disposition of the man from whom it was extracted, and likewise the woman proportionate to the reception of that seed, as well as any constellation assisting the bodily effect, namely, that which helps the offspring to be put together in an optimal way. When all these factors come together, it is possible for the offspring to be larger or stronger in body.

Reply Obj. 1: A demon is said to be not present within an idol as a power joined to it in such a way that from the demon and the idol there would arise a single thing, as idolaters thought there was a divine power in bodily images.

Reply Obj. 2: The soul is not in the body as in a place, but rather as a form is in matter. Thus, the activity that the soul effects in the body and that of a demon do not have the same account. Consequently, both can be in the same part of the body at the same time without any confusion of activities.

Reply Obj. 3: To be within something is to be within its bounds. Now, the body has bounds in two ways, namely, boundaries of quantity and boundaries of essence. Thus, an angel at work within the bounds of the body’s quantity enters into the body, though not in such a way that it is within the bounds of its essence, either as a part or as a power that gives being. For being comes through creation by God. However, a spiritual substance does not have bounds of quantity, but only those of essence. Thus, no one enters into it except him alone who gives being, God the Creator, who has an activity intrinsic to the essence, whereas other perfections are added over and above the essence. Hence an angel that illuminates is not said to be in another angel or in the soul, but rather is spoken of as working something from without.

Reply Obj. 4: The forms that are seen in these illusions are only in the senses. Now, demonic activity can cause this in two ways. One way is such that species that are kept in the imagination by the activity of demons would flow into the sense organs, as occurs in sleep. Thus, when those species come into contact with the organs of the external senses, they seem as if they were things externally present and are actually being sensed. The other way can be based on the changing of the organs that, when they are changed, cause the senses to be deceived in their judgment, as in the case of someone who has a corrupt sense of taste, and so to him everything seems bitter. But they can do this by the power of natural things, just as the floorboards of a house look like snakes when some vapor rises. And experiences of this sort are common.

Reply Sed Contra 5: To know the thoughts of hearts belongs to God alone. Even so, angels can deduce some of them from external bodily signs, such as a change of facial expression, as it is said: the secret will of a man can be read on his face. So too it can be deduced from the motion of the heart, as a doctor knows the soul’s passions by the way the heart pulses.

Reply Obj. 1: In this way, the reply to the first objection is clear. For the angel who immediately forms the body is not said to appear, but rather God, whose properties are signified in the figure of the body displayed.

Reply Obj. 2: The response to the second objection is similar. For even though an angel forms or moves a body, it itself is not said to appear for the reason already mentioned, but rather God.

Reply Obj. 3: God was in those creatures in a new way, just as the thing signified is present in the sign.

Reply Obj. 4: The visible sending of a divine person differs from an apparition. This difference was explained in Book I.¹

Reply Obj. 1: The end is the cause of causes. Consequently, a definition based on the end is the most formal of all definitions and is the means of demonstrating the others. Thus, the description of hierarchy as unity and likeness to God is like a definition that is a means of demonstration. But this phrase: a hierarchy is order, knowledge, and action, if nothing is added, is like the conclusion of the demonstration, since it includes the essential principles of hierarchy. Hence Dionysius draws it as a conclusion from the aforementioned. But the definition set out is complete, since it encompasses both. Hence it is like a demonstration differing in position.

Reply Obj. 2: “Order” can be understood in two ways: either as naming one rank only, as when those who belong to a single rank are said to belong to a single order—understood this way, order is a part of hierarchy—or as naming the relation among different ranks, as when the ordering itself is called “order.” This latter is, as it were, an abstract way of understanding it. And this is how it is included in the definition of hierarchy, whereas in the first way it is taken concretely, such that an ordered rank is called a “single order.”

Reply Obj. 3: The soul introduces one kind of effect, such as being, in the body immediately in all its members, inasmuch as it is the form of the body. But it introduces another kind of effect, such as motion, in one member by means of another. In the same way, God introduces immediately the life of nature, grace, and glory in all the orders of the celestial hierarchy, but in order to carry out the divine offices he moves them in an ordered fashion: the middle-ranking through the first, and the last through the middle-ranking. This is why neither nature, nor grace, nor glory is included in the definition of hierarchy, but rather knowledge as directing action in the divine offices.

Reply Obj. 4: The action carried out concerning us is proper to those who minister, and this is not included in the definition of hierarchy. But the action of knowing, as signifying the transfusion of perceived light coming from God to another, is common to all.

Reply Obj. 5: Dionysius does not intend to put the definition in order, but rather to touch on the essential principles of hierarchy. Of these, one is like a material principle, standing in the role of genus, namely, “order.” But the others are like formal principles, completing the account of hierarchy by way of difference. Of these the first is the very reception of the divine light, which is implied in the word “knowledge,” since this knowledge follows on receiving the divine light. The second is its communication to another, which “action” designates. And the third is the obtaining of the end, in “likeness to God.” In this way, it is clear that what follows is always formal with respect to what precedes. Hence if a definition should be given in order, it can be said in this way: “a hierarchy is a divine order according to knowledge, action, and so on.”

Reply Obj. 6: According to some, there is a kind of hierarchy among the divine persons, which they call super-celestial, which follows the order of nature in the divine persons, to which the celestial hierarchy of angels and the sub-celestial hierarchy of men are likened. But this does not work, nor does it follow Dionysius’s intention, since it is heretical to posit among the divine persons a preeminence of one over another, or that the Father purifies the Son or illuminates or perfects him, or that what belongs to the Father is received by the Son in an inferior way. But these are required by the account of hierarchy, according to Dionysius’s intention and according to the meaning of the word. Thus, we must say otherwise, namely, that it “approaches God-likeness” inasmuch as perceived light is likened to the divine clarity, not indeed as on a level but in its own proportion—which is why he says, insofar as possible. And every created perfection is a likeness to the divine goodness, but some are more clearly so than others.

Reply Obj. 7: A receiver can be likened to some agent or what makes an impression in two ways: either with respect to form alone, or with respect to form and action, just as when something is illuminated by the sun in such a way that it also illuminates other things after a likeness to the sun, as does the moon. This is assimilation that agrees in both form and action. But some things are illuminated in such a way that they shine in their very selves, but do not transfuse light to another, such as colored earthly bodies, since color is something of light. This is also how angels are likened to God by the reception of the divine light. This assimilation is shown where he says, approaching likeness to God insofar as possible, as well as in the transfusion of the same to others, which is shown when he says, in accord with the implanted illuminations, that is, ascending to the likeness of God in accord with the power and rule of the illuminations given them by working on others in their own proportion. This is why he calls it ascent, since the perfection of likeness consists in this, and of all possible likenesses it is more divine to become co-workers with God, as Dionysius says in the same place. This is why even philosophers posited that the end of the intelligences moving the spheres (as they understood it) was an assimilation to the divine in causation. And so, it is clear that the first likeness corresponds to knowledge, while the second corresponds to action.

Reply Obj. 1: Purification from fault happens through grace, but purification from ignorance through the light of teaching. This can also be from one another rather than from God.

Reply Obj. 2: The angels are not purified from uncleanness, but rather from the confusion of unlikeness, as is said in the Celestial Hierarchy 3,¹ or from ignorance, as is said in the Celestial Hierarchy 6.² These two amount to the same thing. For confusion of the intellect stems from the fact that it is in potency with respect to more than one thing. In this it is unlike the first, namely, the divine, intellect, which has no admixture of potentiality. Therefore, through the light received from God, by the mediation of a higher angel, the intellect of an angel is freed from this confusion of unlikeness inasmuch as it is brought to a single ending point, to which it more strongly adheres to the degree that the means of knowledge is more efficacious. This is clear in the case of one who does not know which side of a contradiction to choose. But with the understanding of a probable means, he is more inclined to one side, and with the addition of a demonstrative means, he is confirmed in it.

Reply Obj. 3: And so, to the third objection that God alone can form the mind, we must say that it is true of justification through grace, but this kind of formation is not relevant to the present discussion.

Reply Obj. 4: Just as in natural actions a lower agent has efficacy in the production of an effect only through the power of the first agent, which makes an even stronger impression on the effect, so also in intellectual actions a lower illuminator can effect nothing except through the power of the first illuminator. For this reason it is God himself who teaches all—and yet illumination is not excluded from others, just as natural action is not excluded from natural agents.

Reply Obj. 5: Even though they all see God, they do not comprehend him. Thus, it is not necessary that they all know all things in him. For this reason the possibility is not excluded that one angel who knows something in the Word of God can in that respect illuminate an angel who does not know it in the Word of God.

Reply Obj. 6: Just as among bodily things, that which is in act, acts through leading the patient’s potency to act, so also when the intellect of a lower angel is in potency with respect to various things, it can be led to a like act through a higher angel that is in more perfect act—but not by the creation of a new light, nor through there being the same light numerically in the higher as is received by the lower. It is not necessary for there to be any medium carrying the power of the agent. For it is false to imagine distance of place between them. Rather, what placement is among bodily things, order is among spiritual things, according to Augustine.¹

Reply Obj. 7: Perfection is here said to be that to which the motion of illumination is directed as its term, not the perfection of glory or nature.

Reply Obj. 8: These three actions are sometimes joined together and thus differ only according to account. For everyone who perfects, illuminates and purifies by the fact that he perfects, and everyone who illuminates, purifies. But this is not convertible, as is clear especially in our hierarchy, according to Dionysius. For the reception of light does not follow on just any purification, but rather a perfect one. Likewise the perfection of knowledge does not follow on just any illumination, but rather a completed one.

Reply Obj. 1: The division of a hierarchy into orders is that of a potestative whole into its potential parts, just as the soul is divided according to its powers.¹ This whole is like a middle between the universal whole and the integral whole. For a universal whole exists in any given part both in essence and in complete power, and so it is predicated equally of them all. But an integral whole does not exist in each of its parts, either in essence or in total power, and so it is in no way predicated of a part. But a potential whole is present to any given part in essence, while as to complete power it is present in the highest part, since a higher power always has in itself more completely what belongs to a lower power. This is how a hierarchy compares to the orders.

Reply Obj. 2: All men belong to a single species. Thus, in them all there is one common mode of receiving divine illuminations. For this reason there is one hierarchy for them all. But the angels belong to different species. For this reason they are ordered in different hierarchies on the basis of different modes of reception, as has been said. But it is true that any given nature among the angels is more unified and simple than human nature, which is the last intellectual nature.

Reply Obj. 3: In this way, the reply to the third objection is clear. For just as there are three orders of the hierarchy of men according to Dionysius,¹ so also are there three orders of any celestial hierarchy. Hence for the three hierarchies there are nine orders, so that in this way, the likeness of the Trinity may be reflected in all things, with respect to their beginning, middle, and end.

Reply Obj. 4: In our hierarchy, orders are distinguished in accord with three hierarchical actions. For it belongs to ministers to purify, to priests to illuminate and purify at the same time, and to bishops to perfect. But there cannot be such a distinction in the celestial hierarchy, since the lowest order of angels is higher than the highest order of our hierarchy. Hence it can perfect, illuminate, and purify.

Reply Obj. 5: Difference of proportion can be understood in several ways. It can be understood either with reference to different genera of proportion, as in the case of double and sesquialterum, of which the first is a multiple and the second a superparticular.¹ For there is a difference between the proportion of 4:2, since this is a double proportion, and that of 3:2, since this is a sesquialtern proportion. Or it can be understood with reference to different species of the same genus, as in the case of double and triple, which belong to the same genus of proportion, namely the multiple. Or it can be understood with reference to different numbers in the same species of proportion, such as 4:2 and 6:3.² The first difference belongs to the distinction of hierarchies, the second to the distinction of orders, and the third to the distinction of persons of a single order.

Reply Obj. 6: The gifts on whose basis the orders are distinguished are gifts that are perfective in hierarchical acts, and these are varied, as has been said.¹ But gifts and powers are perfective with respect to personal acts. Thus, they are not the basis of the distinctions between orders.

Reply Obj. 7: The ordering Dionysius sets out is more reasonable, since he distinguishes the second hierarchy from the third with reference to the universal and the particular, the unlimited and the limited. This is why he places the virtues in the second hierarchy and the principalities in the third. But Gregory intends not so much to give an order as to enumerate the orders. Nonetheless, this ordering can be taken in accord with external acts and in accord with its conformity to our hierarchy. Because in our hierarchy those who have preeminence are above private persons, so in the second hierarchy he orders those whose names imply an office of preeminence, namely, dominations, principalities, and powers, whereas in the third he places the orders whose acts are those of even private persons, such as to work wonders, which belongs to the virtues, to announce great things, which belongs to the archangels, and to announce lesser things, which belongs to the angels.

Reply Obj. 1: A principate taken generally, with reference to an office of any kind of preeminence, is referred to by the name “hierarchy.” But a principate taken specifically, with reference to the governance of a determinate province, has the name of a single specific order.

Reply Obj. 2: The name “angel” designates manifestation, since an angel is said to be a messenger. For the ability to manifest belongs to all the orders simply inasmuch as, going down through the orders, the intellectual light is less simple in them and more proportionate to the intellect of those that follow. Thus, Dionysius says that a lower angel is always able to manifest a higher to all those ordered below itself.¹ And it belongs to the last order to be manifestive of all the higher orders with respect to us. For this reason, we signify the last order by the name “angels,” naming the other orders after what denotes a more excellent mode of announcing or manifesting. In this way, “angel” is the name of the nature, since it expresses a condition of nature. But if announcing is taken with reference to the external ministry they exercise, then in this way, “angel” is the name of the office, not the nature, as Gregory says.²

Reply Obj. 3: The name “virtues,” as naming a specific order, is taken for a specific gift or act, which is to carry out and perfect whatever is arduous or very difficult in the divine ministries. But as applicable to all the heavenly spirits, it is taken from the virtue that follows on nature.

Reply Obj. 4: Some names of the angels are common to all the orders, but some are proper to certain orders. Of the common names, some are taken from the essence or a natural condition, as when they are called “heavenly essences,” “angels,” “spirits,” “divine minds,” “divine intellects,” and “heavenly spirits.” But some are taken from virtue, as when they are called “heavenly virtues.” And some are taken from their activity, as when they are called “angels.” Yet the names of specific orders are taken from superadded gifts and from offices consequent on those gifts. Thus, the names of the specific orders can more readily be equivocated with the general names that are taken from virtue and activity, which are superadded to the essence, than with those that are taken from nature, which is not superadded, but rather underlies.

Reply Obj. 5: The seraphim are not said to enkindle as if they infused the habit of charity, but rather because they illuminate things pertaining to the love of charity.

Reply Obj. 6: The names of the higher orders are not taken from the acts of enjoyment simply, but from their excellences, which are found only in the higher angels, although enjoyment is common to all the angels. For the seraphim are not called “those who love,” but “those who burn,” which expresses the consummation of charity. Likewise the cherubim are not called simply “those who see” or “those who know,” but rather “those who are full of knowledge.” Hence to have knowledge in this way is not common to all, even though knowledge or vision is common to all. For this reason they cannot all be called “cherubim,” as Dionysius says.¹

Reply Obj. 7: The names ending in -in, such as “cherubin” and “seraphin,” are neuter in gender and plural in number and are set down for the whole group of a single order. But those ending in -im are masculine in gender and plural in number and are set down for more than one person of a single order. But “cherub” and “seraph” are masculine in gender and singular in number, and signify a single person of that order.

Reply Obj. 1: The angels of a single hierarchy are said to be equal in power not simply, but rather in a qualified sense, namely, with regard to the mode of receiving divine illuminations that is proper to that hierarchy. Likewise, the angels of a single order are equal in power with respect to their agreement in the act of that order and not simply.

Reply Obj. 2: It is not any distinction of rank that creates the distance between orders, as has been said above,¹ but rather one that corresponds to different acts.

Reply Obj. 3: Even though they all have one gift, they do not all participate in it equally, but rather to a greater or lesser extent.

Reply Obj. 4: In natural things, differing quantity and differing intensity of quality do not cause a difference of species; rather, such is a disposition to a different species, inasmuch as each species requires a determinate quantity of dimension, as is said in On the Soul 2.¹ Likewise, for the species of fire a determinate intensity of heat is required. For this reason it is possible for something that is more distant by species to be less distant in quantity or intensity of quality. So it is also in the angelic orders that if we consider distance with reference to the account of quantity alone, it is not unfitting for the lowest angel of an order to be more distant from the highest in its own order than from the highest of the lower order. This is so even while also being more distant from the lower by a formal difference and in species, inasmuch as it possesses the account of the higher order, which the other does not have. This would be the case, for example, if it were said that the coldest man is less distant from the hottest woman than from the hottest man, with whom he nevertheless has more in common by reason of his sex. And this is found to be universally true in each thing that allows for a range of different degrees.

Reply Obj. 1: The distinction that belongs to the account of a hierarchy is that of things ordered to one another and to one common thing. Such a distinction does not exclude connection; rather, it requires it.

Reply Obj. 2: More than one hierarchy has the one common end and one common perfection and account. Thus, things that differ in hierarchy are connected by their last end, by the common account of hierarchy, and by the light that perfects the hierarchy. But besides all this, the orders of a single hierarchy are connected by what is proper to that hierarchy. And those angels belonging to a single order are connected by what is proper to that order.

Reply Obj. 3: The angels are perfected by two lights: by natural light, insofar as they are intelligences, and by a gratuitous light that perfects them with respect to hierarchical acts. Both lights are one in all the angels on the side of the principle from which they derive, and of the end to which they are ordered. But both are distinguished and appropriated differently according to the different capacities of the receivers. Yet even this distinction is ordered, and the order itself requires a connection. Thus, such a distinction does not exclude connection.

Reply Obj. 4: A certain common boundary exists among the hierarchies and among the orders, not that there is one single element in different areas, but rather inasmuch as the properties of different areas are found in a single element through a resemblance and in accord with the ordering of the divine wisdom, which joins the end of first things with the beginnings of second things, as Dionysius says.¹ This is clear if we consider in order each individual hierarchy. For the first order of the first hierarchy in a certain way draws nearest to the divine properties. Hence they are named seraphim after the property of fire, which most of all signifies the divine properties, as Dionysius says.² But the last order of that hierarchy has a kind of connection with the orders of the second hierarchy. And so it is named not only after an act concerning God, but also after an act that regards lower things. Thus, they are called “thrones” inasmuch as God is seated on them as the judge of all. Similarly, in the second hierarchy the first order, namely that of dominations, has something in common with the first hierarchy, namely, to preside and not to carry out. So also the first order of the third hierarchy, namely principalities, has something in common with the orders of the second hierarchy. Consequently, its name implies preeminence. Similarly, the highest order of our hierarchy has something in common with the last order of the celestial hierarchy. This is why the priest is called an “angel”: the lips of a priest shall guard knowledge, and men shall seek the law from his mouth, for he is the angel of the Lord of hosts (Mal 2:7).³

Reply Obj. 1: Even in the angelic nature there is a certain likeness to God as being the first and most noble among created natures, and more closely approaching likeness to the divine in its natural properties. But complete likeness to God comes from gifts of grace.

Reply Obj. 2: In the angels, prior to the infusion of grace, there was also natural love and knowledge. The cherubim and seraphim could have been named after this ardor and fullness, though not in accord with their complete account.

Reply Obj. 3: The men of our hierarchy are all of a single species and nature formally, since the differentiation of individuals in the same species is wholly based on material principles. Thus, there is no distinction of order in us based on nature, but rather based on power gratuitously granted. It is not necessary for our hierarchy to correspond to the celestial hierarchy in every respect, even if it is patterned after it in its own way.

Reply Obj. 4: If the angels had natural endowments alone, the light of one would still exceed the light of another. Thus, there could be a kind of illuminating and perfecting, though not in the complete sense.

Reply Obj. 1: Reason is at a greater distance from the senses than the intellect is from reason. For the senses and reason do not share a single object, since the senses grasp the images of things together with the conditions of matter, but reason and intellect grasp the images of things as separated from the conditions of matter. Hence they agree in object, while they differ in mode. For reason arrives by inquiring at the knowledge of the truth that the intellect sees with simple intuition. Hence reason comes to rest in the intellect. This is why certitude in demonstrations arises from resolution into first principles, which are grasped by the intellect. Thus, it is not unfitting if men, who are in the last rank when it comes to intellect, attain to the rank of the intelligences.

Reply Obj. 2: Man’s merit is more efficacious than the merit of an angel. This is both on account of difficulty, which is an occasion of greater effort, and also on account of the continuous growth of grace that can occur in man such that he goes from strength to strength (Ps 84:7 [83:8]), since man is a wayfarer for a longer time than the angels were. This is also inasmuch as our merits have their efficacy from the merit of Christ, whose grace is, in a certain way, infinite: for nowhere does he take hold of the angels, but of the seed of Abraham (Heb 2:16).¹ Thus, men can be transferred by the power of merit to the rank of a higher nature more than even the angels.

Reply Obj. 3: In man natural action can never attain equality with the angels. But the superabundant light of glory will take away every shadow, not indeed by taking away nature, but by perfecting the light of the intellect, in which we partake in a deficient manner by our nature.

Reply Obj. 4: According to Dionysius,¹ our hierarchy or Church is related to the celestial hierarchy as the hierarchy of the Old Law is related to ours. The old hierarchy was a way to ours and signified it, and consequently, when the New Law came, the Old was taken up into it and its orders. In the same way, our hierarchy is a way to the celestial and a sign of it. Hence in our homeland there will not be separate hierarchies of men and angels, but rather one and the same hierarchy, and men will be spread among the orders of the angels.

Reply Obj. 5: The acts of angels on us follow on the orders of the angels more with regard to the rank of nature (because angelic nature is as a mean between God and us) than based on the essential properties of an order. Thus, just as the souls of the damned are not given to us for our training, neither are the souls of the saints given for our guardianship, since this does not belong to them according to the rank of their nature.

Reply Obj. 1: Although they all immediately contemplate the divine essence, they cannot all perceive in it what pertains to their order, that is, their hierarchy. Thus, not all attend, properly speaking.

Reply Obj. 2: Someone can be said to contemplate in an intimate manner in three ways. Either this is insofar as his consideration is not drawn away to external sensible things, and in this way, all the angels, good and wicked, contemplate intimately, since they do not receive knowledge from the senses; or this is by the fact that they do not need an external likeness in which to contemplate God, that is, something outside of his essence, but rather see him in his essence. In this way, all the blessed contemplate intimately, though not in the state of creation, and not the wicked angels. Or this is by the fact that they not only see the essence of God but, penetrating into it, perceive in it its effects, which are reflected in it by way of likeness. To contemplate in an intimate manner in this way is properly “to attend.” This belongs only to the angels of the first hierarchy, whereas in the other ways to attend is spoken of in a qualified sense.

Reply Obj. 3: Enjoyment is the noblest act of our homeland; yet, although it is common to all, still it does not belong to all of them equally. Rather, there are different degrees of enjoyment and the highest enjoyment is in attending. Hence it does not follow that all those who enjoy also attend.

Reply Obj. 4: The demons are described as among those who attend inasmuch as they have the first mode of intimate contemplation in common with them.

Reply Obj. 1: To be sent is said of the divine persons and angels equivocally. For the divine persons are not sent by changing place, but rather through a new effect of sanctifying grace in holy souls. But the angels are sent by changing place and working in us, not as the primary agent, but rather as secondary agents determinate and proportionate with respect to their proper recipients. Thus, the argument proceeds on the basis of an equivocation.

Reply Obj. 2: Dionysius¹ resolves this objection in two ways. The first is by saying that he who was sent to purge the lips of Isaiah belonged to a lower order and was said to be of the seraphim equivocally, since he had come to purge by means of fire. The second is by saying that he did indeed belong to the order of seraphim, yet the angel who revealed the vision did not belong to a higher order but instead a lower one. But since the hierarchical power that is in the lower angels is first of all from God and subsequently descends from the higher angels, the angel forming the vision brought the prophet to knowledge not only of the power of the immediate agent but also of the divine power, for which reason he shows the Lord seated upon his throne. Consequently, he brought the prophet to knowledge of the power of the highest among the angels, for which reason he shows the seraphim standing around the throne. He shows that the purgative power comes from them, through the lower angels, down to men by the fact that the seraphim was seen to arrive at him by flying. And he puts forth the example of a priest, who absolves by power coming from the bishop, as if to say, “the bishop, who passed on to me the power of absolving you, absolves you.” So also the angel shows the seraphim as purging, since it purged by his power.

Reply Obj. 3: In this way, the reply to the third objection is also clear. For they are all said to minister inasmuch as the lower carry out their ministry by the power of the higher.

Reply Obj. 4: According to Dionysius,¹ all the heavenly spirits are called “angels.” This is not because they are sent to announce anything to us, but rather because the divine light—which is compared to gloom and darkness due to the simplicity and the overwhelming intensity of its brightness at its source—is received in them with less simplicity, and thus it is more proportionate to the intellects that follow. For this reason they are said to announce or manifest the divine light. Thus, each lower angel manifests the one above it, just as clouds announce the light of the sun, which cannot be gazed upon at its source. However, if they are called “angels” on account of external announcement, as Gregory seems to say,² then this befits even the higher angels inasmuch as they illuminate the lower concerning the matters to be announced.

Reply Obj. 5: The higher angels, on account of the charity they bear toward us, move the lower and direct them to work for our salvation. Nothing is taken away from perfect charity if they do not immediately carry out a ministry.

Reply Obj. 1: Properly speaking, no order of the middle hierarchy has the disposition of those who attend. Rather, it pertains to the disposition of those who minister. In artificial things we find an artisan who only works with his hands, following another’s order and commanding nothing himself, like the one who prepares the matter. There is another who commands the one preparing the matter, and who himself also works to introduce the form. But there is still another who does no work, but rather commands, because he is the coordinator of the work and has the rationale behind the work based on the end. This one is called the “architect,” meaning the chief of the artisans, or the “user,” inasmuch as he makes use of the ministry of his subordinates for his end, as related in the Physics 2.¹ In the same way, as regards the divine ministries, the dominations are like artisans who direct and command, while the others are like those who carry out the work according to their rank and mode. Even so, they are all called “ministers,” just as those men are all called “artisans.”

Reply Obj. 2: This position confirms Gregory’s statement,¹ since there will be more orders of those who minister than those who attend, as is clear from what has been said.²

Reply Obj. 3: A middle, precisely as a middle, is not immediately operative, since action follows on contact or location in bodily things, or on order in spiritual things. But if something stands as a middle to something else and as last to yet another thing, it can act immediately. Now, this occurs when several who differ in degree of power have an activity on the same thing. For there will be an action concerning the thing that the higher can effect whereas a lower cannot perform it, and with regard to this action the highest is the last. On the other hand, there is another action that the lower could do, and in this action it is the highest worker but not the last. Rather, it is a middle between the first who directs and the last who works. Hence the middle agent will only perform this action by the mediation of the last, as is clear in the example previously given. For an artisan who introduces a form is the last in this activity, since no one lower than him can do this, such as, for example, fastening together planks of wood to complete the form of a ship. Thus, he does this immediately. But he accomplishes the preparation of the matter, the hewing of the planks, by the mediation of a lower artisan, inasmuch as he gives him the schematics for how the planks ought to be fitted for the construction of the ship.

Reply Obj. 4: The fact that the orders of the second hierarchy are named from power indicates that they have a ministerial disposition. But it is not necessary that they all immediately carry out a ministry.

Reply Obj. 1: An angel is said to depart from God not through the interruption of contemplation or by a change of place (because they have their course within God wheresoever they are sent, as the venerable Bede says,¹ since God is everywhere), but rather by the fact that it appears as visible, receding from invisibility, just as the Son went forth from the Father and came into the world, having been made visible to men (John 16:5–7). They are likewise said to return to God when, having laid aside their visible appearance, they, like God, turn back to their original invisibility.

Reply Obj. 2: The contemplation of the angels is more a way of receiving than a way of acting. Thus, just as the moon at the same time receives light from the sun and illuminates lower bodies, so also an angel at the same time is illuminated by a higher angel and illuminates a lower one or exercises a ministry concerning us.

Reply Obj. 3: The intellect cannot simultaneously consider things that are known by different accounts, since it cannot be impressed with different likenesses at the same time, just as a body cannot be determined by different figures. But when things are known by a single account, or when one is the account of the other, nothing prevents their being understood at the same time.

Reply Obj. 4: The empyrean heaven is not the place of contemplation by necessity, but rather by appropriateness, just as a church is called “a house of prayer.” Thus, the argument does not follow.