Tradition calls Thomas Aquinas the «Angelic Doctor». The title alludes to the purity of his life and thought, but also to the depth with which he reflected on angels. In the Summa Theologiae he devotes a substantial treatise to them, which remains one of the most rigorous attempts to think about the nature of pure spirits with the tools of philosophy.
The method: reasoning about the invisible
Thomas does not describe angels on the basis of visions or marvellous tales. His method is philosophical: he starts from the data of Scripture and tradition, then asks what must be true of a being that is intelligence without a body. To do so he uses Aristotle's categories, such as matter and form, potency and act, and applies them to an object Aristotle had not considered in these terms.
The result is a sober, almost geometric angelology, far removed from the popular image of the winged angel.
Spirits without matter
The first fixed point is that angels are entirely immaterial creatures. They have no body, no subtle body and no «spiritual matter».
On this Thomas differs from other masters of his time. Bonaventure and part of the Franciscan school held that angels too were composed of spiritual matter and form. Thomas replied that the angel is pure form, and that its composition is of another kind: between its essence and its act of being, which it receives from God. Only in God do essence and being coincide.
Each angel is a species
A surprising consequence follows from this thesis. For Thomas, what distinguishes two individuals of the same species, for example two human beings, is matter. If angels have no matter, there cannot be two angels of the same species. Each angel is therefore a species of its own, as unique as an entire animal species.
| Being | Principle of individuation | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Human | matter | many individuals in the same species |
| Angel | no matter | each angel is a distinct species |
| God | no composition | unique, subsistent being itself |
This explains why, in the Thomist vision, the angelic hierarchies are not mere career grades: each angel differs from the others by nature.
Where an angel is
An angel, having no body, occupies no space. Where, then, is it? Thomas answers that an angel is in a place in the sense that it acts there: it is present where it exercises its power. It is not contained by the place but, in a certain way, contains it.
Some precise theses follow:
- an angel cannot be in several distinct places at the same time;
- several angels cannot act in the same place in the same way at the same moment;
- an angel's movement can be continuous or instantaneous, since it is not bound by the resistance of bodies.
It is worth remembering that the famous question of «how many angels can dance on the head of a pin» does not appear in Thomas's works. It is a caricature that arose later to mock scholasticism.
How an angel knows
Human beings know by starting from the senses, abstracting concepts and reasoning step by step. Angels do not. According to Thomas, from its creation the angel receives intelligible forms infused by God, through which it knows things. Its knowledge is intuitive: in a single glance it sees the conclusions contained in the principles, without having to deduce them.
Yet the angel does not know everything:
- it does not know the contingent future, except by conjecture or revelation;
- it does not read the secret thoughts of the human heart, which remain visible to God alone;
- it does not know the mysteries of grace except by revelation.
Higher angels communicate what they know to lower ones through a kind of illumination. This is the heart of the hierarchical model inherited from Dionysius the Areopagite.
The time of angels
Angels do not live in our time, which measures the change of bodies, but neither are they eternal like God. Thomas speaks of the aevum: an intermediate measure, proper to beings whose being does not change but who can perform successive acts of thought and will.
The final choice
Precisely because it knows without obscurity, the angel chooses definitively. A human being can repent because he decides under conditions of uncertainty; the angel, seeing clearly, adheres or refuses once and for all. That is why, according to Thomas, the fall of the rebel angels is irrevocable.
Why read him today
The Studio Esoterico Cornelio regards the Thomist treatise as a school of disciplined thought. Those who approach angelology risk getting lost among images and names; Thomas reminds us that spirit can also be understood through precise concepts. Some starting points for study:
- always distinguish between the symbol and the nature of what the symbol points to;
- recognise the limits of knowledge, even the highest;
- appreciate the difference between knowing by degrees and seeing at a single glance;
- reflect on the weight of choices made with full awareness.
In short
- Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, treats angels with the method of Aristotelian philosophy.
- Angels are pure forms, without matter, composed only of essence and being.
- Each angel is a distinct species, because the matter that individuates is lacking.
- An angel is present where it acts, knows intuitively and lives in the aevum, between time and eternity.
- Its choice, made with full clarity, is final.
