CHAPTER XVII

WHAT MUST BE HELD ACCORDING TO THE CATHOLIC FAITH WITH

RESPECT TO THE ORIGIN OF THE ANGELS

             91.--Since therefore it has been shown what the foremost philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, believed about the spiritual substances as to their origin, the condition of their nature, their distinction and order of government, and in what respect others disagreed with them, through error, it remains to show what the teaching of the Christian religion holds about each individual point. For this purpose, we shall use especially the writings of Dionysius who excelled all others in teaching what pertains to spiritual substances.

             First, as to the origin of the spiritual substances, Christian tradition teaches most firmly that all spiritual substances--like all other creatures--were made by God, and this is proved by the authority of the canonical scriptures. For it is said in the Psalms, "Praise ye Him, all His angels; praise ye Him all His hosts". And after all the other creatures have been enumerated, it is added, "For He spoke and they were created: He commanded and they were created." And Dionysius explains this origin finely in the fourth chapter of the Celestial Hierarchy when he says, "In the first place, it is true to say that the super-essential dignity, by its universal goodness, in establishing the essences of all the things that are, brought them to being." And after a few words he adds that "The celestial substances are first and in many ways made in the participation of God." And in the fourth chapter of On The Divine Names, he says that "Because of the rays of divine goodness, all intelligible and intellectual substances and powers and operations were established. Because of these rays, they are and live and have an inexhaustible life."

             92.--Furthermore, that all spiritual substances and not only the highest were immediately produced he expressly states in the fifth chapter of On the Divine Names "The existing powers of the most holy and exalted and, as if, on the threshold of the super-substantial Trinity, have been established by It and in It they have both being and being in a God-like way. And after those they are subjected," that is the lower to the higher. "Subjected," that is they have being from God in a lower way; "and the lowest", that is at the bottom; "extremely", that is in the lowest manner with respect to the angels but the highest, however, with respect to us. Through this statement, he gives us to understand that all the orders of spiritual substances are established by divine disposition and not from the fact that one of them is caused by another. And this is said more expressly in the fourth chapter of the Celestial Hierarchy, "It is fitting", he says, "for the cause of all things and of the goodness which is above all, to call to its communion all those things which are, so that each being which is should be determined by a proper analogy." For He established each thing in the order which befits its nature.

             93.--Likewise, it is repugnant to Christian teaching that spiritual substances should have goodness, being, and life, and other such attributes that pertain to their perfection, from different principles. For in the canonical scriptures, it is attributed to the one and the same God that He is the very essence of goodness. Accordingly it is said in Matthew XIX, "One is good, God": and that He is being itself--therefore in Exodus III, God answers Moses who asks what is God's name, "I am Who am"; and that He Himself is the life of living beings--accordingly it is said in Deuteronomy XXX, "He is the life of the living."

             And this truth, Dionysius most expressly teaches in the fifth chapter of On the Divine Names, when he says that Sacred Scripture " . . . does not say that to be good is one thing and to be a being is another and that life or wisdom is something else, nor that there are many causes and lesser productive deities of whom some extended to some things and others to others." In this statement he removes the opinion of the Platonists who posited that the very essence of goodness was the highest God, under Whom there was another god who is being itself and so forth, with the rest as has been said above. And he adds, "But the opinion says that all the good processions belong to one, i.e., one deity," namely because both being and life and all other such characteristics proceed to things from the highest deity.

             This point he explains at greater length in the eleventh chapter of On the Divine Names saying, "For we do not say that a certain divine or angelic substance is through itself the esse which is the cause that all things are; for only the super-substantial being itself (namely of the highest God) is the principle and substance and cause that all things are by nature"--a principle which is indeed productive, a substance in the manner of an exemplary form and a cause which is final. And he adds: "Nor do we say that there is any other deity that generates life besides the super-divine life which is the cause of all things whatsoever that live, and of life itself in its essence, that life, namely which formally inheres in living things; nor, to say in conclusion, do we call causes the principles of existing things and the creative substances and persons, whom they have called both the gods of existing things and the self-acting creators."

             To exclude this position, moreover, "under the essential goodness", which the Platonists said was the highest god, Dionysius pointedly says "Spiritual substances have being, and life, and intelligence and all other such attributes pertaining to their perfection". He likewise repeats the same point in the individual chapters showing that they owe to the divine being that they are, and to the divine life that they are living and so forth.

             94.--Furthermore, it is contrary to Christian teaching that spiritual substances should be said to derive their origin from the highest deity in such a way that they should have been from eternity--as the Platonists and the Peripatetics held. But, on the contrary, the declaration of the Catholic faith has it that they began to be after they had previously not existed. Accordingly, it is said in Isaias XL, "Lift up your eyes on high and see who hath created these things,"--namely, all the higher beings. And lest it be understood about the bodies alone, he adds, "Who bringeth out their host by number." Now Sacred Scripture is in the habit of calling the heavenly host of spiritual substances, "the heavenly army" because of their order and power in carrying out the divine will. Therefore it is said in Luke II "There was with the angel a multitude of heavenly army." It is therefore given to be understood that not only bodies but also spiritual substances were brought into being from non-being by creation. Accordingly, it is said in Romans IV, "He calleth those things that are not as those that are." Therefore Dionysius says in the tenth chapter of On the Divine Names "Sacred Scripture does not exclusively apply the name 'eternal' to that which is absolutely ungenerated and truly eternal, but the incorruptible and immortal and invariable and unchanging, it calls 'eternal', as when it says, 'Lift up, O eternal gates' and the like, which seems especially to be said concerning spiritual substances". And afterwards he adds, "Therefore the eternal beings cannot be thought to be absolutely coeternal with God, Who is before eternity".

             95.--But because in the succession of the creation of things, Sacred Scripture in Genesis I makes no explicit mention of the production of spiritual substances--lest an occasion of idolatry be given to an unlettered people to whom the law was proposed, if the divine work should bring in many spiritual substances above all corporeal creatures--it cannot be expressly ascertained from the canonical Scriptures when the angels were created. That they indeed should not have been created after the corporeal beings, reason itself makes clear, for it was not fitting that the more perfect should be created later. This point is also expressly gathered from the authority of Sacred Scripture, for it is said in Job XXXVIII, "When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody, . . . " through which are understood the spiritual substances.

             Furthermore, Augustine argues in Book XI of On the City of God "Therefore the angels already existed when the skies were made. The latter, however, were created on the fourth day. Do we therefore say that the angels were created on the third day? No. For it is well known what was made on that day: the earth was separated from the waters. Perhaps on the second day? Indeed not, for the firmament was made then." And afterwards he adds, "No wonder, therefore, if the very angels pertain to these works of God, just as that light which receives the name of day."

             Therefore according to Augustine's opinion, the spiritual creature, which is signified by the name "heaven", was created along with the corporeal beings, when it is said in the beginning of Genesis, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." But the formation and perfection of this spiritual creature is signified in the production of light, as is described many times at length in the second book of A Literal Commentary on Genesis.

             96.--But as Damascene says in the second book, certain thinkers say that the angels were begotten before all creation, namely, of corporeal creatures--as Gregory the Theologian says, "First, indeed, He thought out the angelic and celestial powers and His thinking was the deed." And Damascene himself agreed with this opinion. And Jerome, a pupil of the aforementioned Gregory Nazianzen, follows the same opinion, for he says in commenting on the Epistle to Titus, "Six thousand years of our time are not yet completed and how many eternities, how many times, how many origins of ages are we to think first existed in which the Angels, Thrones, and Dominations and the other orders served God without the succession and measurement of time and did God's bidding."

             But I do not consider either one of these positions to be contrary to sound teaching because it seems too presumptuous to assert that such great doctors of the Church had strayed from the sound teaching of faith. Nevertheless, Augustine's opinion seems to agree more with his position according to which he posits that in the production of things, there was no order of time according to the six days which Scripture recounts; but on the contrary, he refers those six days to the understanding of the angels brought face to face with the six kinds of things. The opinion of Gregory Nazianzen, of Jerome, and of Damascene, however, is more fitting according to the position of those who posit in the production of things, a succession of time according to the aforesaid six days. For if all the creatures were not made at the same time, it is quite probable that spiritual creatures preceded all bodies.

             97.--If, however, it should be asked where the angels were created, it is clear that such a question has no place if they were created before all corporeal creatures, since place is something corporeal, unless perhaps, we should take for place, a spiritual clarity by which the angels are illumined by God. Accordingly, Basil says in II Hexaemeron, "We believe that if anything did exist before the establishment of this sensible and corruptible world, it was effected in light. For neither the dignity of the angels nor the armies of all the heavenly beings, whether named or unnamed, whether some rational power or ministration of the spirit, could have endured in darkness but it was fittingly clothed in light and joy. No one, I think, will contradict this point." If, however, the angels had been created at the same time as the corporeal creature, the question can have a place only in that way in which it befits the angels to be in a place--about which we shall speak below.

             And according to this position, certain individuals said that the angels were created in a certain highest, brilliant heaven which they call the empyrean heavens, that is, the fiery heavens--not from the heat but from the brilliance. And it is of this heaven that Strabo and Bede interpret the words, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth," though this interpretation is not touched upon by Augustine and the other more ancient doctors of the Church.