EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY This paper surveys the doctrine on angels taught by theologians in the first century of scholasticism (ca. 1130-ca. 1230). This topic has received virtually no scholarly attention; but it is of interest for the light it sheds on the concerns of school theologians during this formative stage of their discipline. We can subdivide our tar- get century into three parts, the first half of the twelfth century closing with the Sentences of Peter Lombard, the second half of the twelfth century, and the first quarter of the thirteenth century. In the first of these three stages, scholastic theologians, for the first time, faced the challenge of creating a syllabus for the teach- ing of systematic theology and developed the sentence collection as their genre of choice for that purpose. The question of where to place angels within that context and genre, or even if they should be placed there at all, was the single most heavily debated topic on their angelological agenda. Another major matter on that agenda on which agreement reigned as to the desired outcome, although different masters proposed different itineraries to their common destination, was the felt need to refute Origen’s claim that back- sliding and conversion remained eternal options, so that Lucifer and the fallen angels might even be saved.' Other issues that attracted attention had to do with the psychology of angels and their exercise of reason and will both before and after their fall or confirmation in glory. By comparison, the interest in angels displayed by scholastics in the second sub-period is quite muted. The more speculative among them were eager to make use of the logica nova now availl- able, and focused on topics like Trinitarian theology and Christol- ogy where theological language is critical and where, in their view, this new technical semantic and logical equipment could A shorter version of this paper was presented at the 29th Intemational Con- gress of Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University. Kalamazoo, MI, 8 May 1994 1. For a general orientation on this issue, see Jean LecLeRco, Origene au Xile siécle in Irénikon 24, 1951, p. 425-439; Jeffrey Burton RUSSELL, Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, 1984), p. 110.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 81 best be put to use. Since angelology seemed remote from this con- cern, it shrank in importance in their eyes. With one notable exception, most masters in our second sub-period, whether express followers of Peter Lombard or not, were content to repeat his teaching on angels for the most part, thereby attesting to the swiftness with which his theology had become the consensus pos tion on angels. On the other hand, the early thirteenth-century scholastics developed angelologies remarkable for their amplitude and detail. Their emphasis might rest on ethical, epistemological, or metaphysical questions regarding angels. Either way, their teachings reflect a notable interest in applying philosophy to angelology, whether Neoplatonic or Aristotelian or both, a ten- dency visible even in the case of theologians who have impressed modem scholars as being cool to philosophical theology. For the first generation or two of scholastics, the fact that the angelological question par excellence was where to put angels in a systematic theology is itself an index of the larger problem they faced in developing coherent systematic theologies as such, a problem that they were confronting for the first time. Did an account of creation belong in a systematic theology at all? If one provided an account of creation, whether in a systematic theology or not, should one follow the Book of Genesis, which omits angels, or some alternative cosmological model? Early in the cen- tury, Anselm of Laon and his school took a decisive stand on these questions. They chose not to place their creation account within a systematic theology and they did not follow the Book of Genesis, substituting a hierarchical cosmogenesis in which angels, as purely spiritual beings, were created first, already in nine orders of descending rarefaction, followed by human beings, animals, plants, and inorganic creatures, While they ignore creation by emanation and exemplary causes, the Laon masters otherwise reflect an affinity to Platonism here.” But there was more than one 2. ANSELM OF LAON, Sententie divine pagine 4; Sententie Anselmi 2, ed, Franz BLIEMETZRIEDER in Anselms von Laon systematische Sentenzen, Beitrige zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 18:2-3 (Miinster, 1919), p. 12, 13-14, 29; Semences of the School of Laon no. 308, ed. Odon LorTN in Psychologie et morale aux Xile et Xie siécles (Louvain, 1959), 5: 244; Deus de cuius principio et fine tacetur, ed. Heinrich WeisWeiLeR in Recherches de théolo gie ancienne et médiévale 5, 1933, p. 260.82 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE version of Platonism abroad in the land at this time. The major proponents of this philosophy were the members of the school of Chartres, with their project of reviving Plato’s cosmogenesis in the Timaeus and with seeing how, or if, it squared with the cre- ation account in Genesis. The Chartrains, however, were not inter- ested in systematic theology. Nor were they interested in angels. The only Chartrain even to mention them, Clarenbald of Arras, does so in passing and in order to make a point, against other members of the school who assigned creative roles to emanations. or sub-divine entities, that God creates everything personally; angels, although they are spiritual and intelligent beings, play no role in the creation.* Another master who gives his fullest position on creation not in his systematic theology but elsewhere, in a commentary on Gene- sis, is Peter Abelard. His Hexaemeron, which follows traditional Genesis exegesis, omits angels; and while he mentions them briefly in his Theologia christiana, or at least the ranks of angels, archangels, and dominations, created first and before men and other corporeal beings, he does so in defense of his larger argu- ment for the claim that the Platonic anima mundi is a fabula stand- ing for the Christian Holy Spirit. Only one of Abelard’s disciples, the author of the Ysagoge in theologiam, mentions angels. He includes them in his sentence collection, in a scheme of organiza- tion unique to him. Beginning with man, the fall, the redemption, ethics, and sacraments, he treats the rest of creation, including angels and God, at the end.> The author of the Sententiae divini- 3. CLARENBALD OF ARRAS, Tractatus super librum Genesis 9-10, ed. Nikolaus M. Harine in Life and Works of Clarenbald of Arras, A Twelfih-Century Master of the School of Laon Toronto, 1965), p. 229-230. Cf. BERNARD SILVESTRIS, Cosmographia, ed, Peter DRoNkE (Leiden, 1978) 4. A Critical Edition of Peter Abelard’s ‘Expositio in Hexameron’, ed. Foster RomiG, Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, 1981. A printed edition incorporating Romic’s work and adding other MSS. to it is forthcoming from CCCM. For a description of this work, see Romic’s preface and Eileen Keaaney. Peter Abelard as a Biblical Commentator: A Study of His Expositio in Hexaemeron in Petrus Abaelardus (1079-1142): Person, Werk und Wirkung, ed. Rudolf THomas (Trier, 1980), p. 199-210; PETER ABELARD, Theologia christiana LIL, ed. Bligius M. Buytaert, CCCM 12 (Turnhout, 1969), p. 118. For the wider argument in which this point is made, see ibid. 1.68-122, p, 100-122. 5. Ysagoge in theologiam, ed. Artur Michael Lanparak in Ecrits shéologi- ques de I’école d’Abélard (Louvain, 1934).EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 83 tatis, generally regarded as a follower of Gilbert of Poitiers, omits angels from his sentence collection altogether;® while two other early Porretans, like the author of the Ysagoge, place angels, and the rest of creation, in the next-to-last of the fourteen books in their sentence collections, sandwiched idiosyncratically between the liturgy of Advent and Lent.” None of these schematic decisions found favor with other mas- ters writing between the late 1130s and 1160. A much more popu- lar choice was to place angels in a creation account located closer to the beginning of a sentence collection. At the same time, the early scholastics achieved no consensus, before Peter Lombard, on when the angels were created. Hugh of St. Victor illustrates this uncertainty. He tries, unsuccessfully, to combine a hierarchical account of creation, with exemplary causes and angels created before the material world, with a hexaemeral account derived from Genesis that perforce omits angels. Confusing matters still further, he backpedals to include the deity, proofs of His exis- tence, and Trinitarian theology in the midst of his creation account. Hugh ends by seizing on Augustine’s doctrine of creation simul as a life-preserver saving him from the intellectual ship- wreck he has produced, and moves thankfully on to the creation of man$ Robert of Melun is heavily dependent on Hugh's scheme of organization and compounds its difficulties. He begins his Sen- tences with the nature of biblical revelation, the interpretation of the Bible, and the relationship between the data on God it provides. 6. Bemhard Geyer, ed., Die Sententiae divinitatis: Ein Sentenzenbuch der Gilbertischen Schule, Beitrige zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 7:2-3 (Minster, 1909). 7. Nikolaus M. HARING, ed., Die Sententie Magistri Gisleberti Pictavensis episcopi I, in Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen age 45, 1978, P. 83-180; IDEM, ed., Die Sententie magistri Gisleberti Pictavensis episcopi IL: Die Version der florentiner Handschrift, in AHDLMA 46, 1979, p. 45-105. 8, HuGH OF St. VicroR, De sacramentis fidei christianae 1.1.2, 1.1.4-11, 15.2-3, 1.5.4-5, 1.5.6, 1.13.30, PL 176, 187C-188B, 189C-195C, 197B-206A, 247A-248C, 249B-C. On these inconsistencies, see Charlotte Gross, Twelfth: Century Concepts of Time: Three Interpretations of Creation simul, in Journal of the History of Philosophy 23, 1985, p. 325-334.; A. MIGNON, Les origines de la scolastique et Hugues de Saint-Victor (Patis, 1895), 1: 321-328; Jakob KUGEN- sTeIN, Die Gotteslehre des Hugo von St. Viktor (Wirzburg, 1897), p. 37-57.84 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE with that supplied by philosophy and the artes. He then discusses the ages of the world, taking up this topic before the world’s cre- ation. He then backs up to treat the divine nature and follows it with an account of creation that moves from unformed matter to formed matter to man, omitting angels. Robert then returns to the issue of how the divine nature and the Trinity may be known. After a lengthy consideration of theological language in that con- nection, he finally introduces the creation of angels, thus present- ing it as if it had occurred after the creation of man.’ ‘Another sentence collector strongly influenced by Hugh who emerges with a different, if equally problematic, answer to the question of when the angels were created is the author of the Summa sententiarum. While his schema is sui generis, he makes a positive and important contribution to mid-twelfth-century angelology of his own, which was taken up by Peter Lombard and others. The author of the Summa sententiarum leads off with the theological virtues, the Trinity, and the incarnation, before treating the creation in Book 2 of his work. There, he rejects the doctrine of exemplary causation in all its forms and presents a modified version of creation simul, in which angels and unformed matter are created by God ex nihilo, first, and at the same time, and then followed by the creation of other beings in the hexaemeral order of Genesis.'? While his schema is peculiar in presenting Christ’s incarnation before the fall of man it was meant to remedy, the author has indeed found a successful way of combining a hierarchical with a hexaemeral account of cre- ation that includes angels coherently. He makes another influen- tial point in his explanation of how angels differ from God, although they are pure spiritual beings and immortal. Unlike the deity, he notes, angels live in time and are mutable, capable of learning what they did not know already and of experiencing joy and sorrow. And, while they are sent on divine missions through- out the world, he points out that they lack the divine attribute of ubiquity."! 9, ROBERT OF MELUN, Sententie, ed. Raymond-M. MARTIN (Louvain, 1947- 52). 10. Summa sententiarum 2.1, PL 176, 81A-B. 11. Ibid. 1.5, PL 176, S0C-51A.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 85 Other authors, such as Robert Pullen and Roland of Bologna, !? follow the Summa sententiarum in placing the creation of angels along with prime matter at the head of a hexaemeral account of the rest of creation, although they preface creation with a discus- sion of the divine nature only and reserve Christology for a later chapter of their sentence collections. But the scholastic who really put this solution on the map was Peter Lombard. In Peter’s cre- ation account, following on the heels of his treatment of the Trin- ity and the divine nature, exemplary causes are likewise pointedly ignored and God creates everything directly and ex nihilo; the “heaven” and “earth” mentioned at the beginning of Genesis stand for the angels and the primordial matter that are created first, and simul, with all other creatures presented according to the hexaemeral account. But, more than simply repeating the Summa sententiarum here, Peter is also concerned with attacking Origen’s view, as reported by Jerome, Augustine, and John Cassian, that angels existed before the creation of time and that they, and not Christ as the logos of creation, can be identified with the uncre- ated wisdom of God referred to in Ecclesiastes 1:4.? The Lom- bard thus yokes the question of when the angels were created, on which he helps a new consensus to emerge, with the anti-Origenist brief that informs the other major topics in his angelology and that of his contemporaries. Much less controversial, in the first half of the twelfth century, was the theme of the angelic hierarchy. Everyone who mentions angels, apart from Clarenbald and Abelard, agrees that they are arranged in nine orders headed by the seraphim, to signify that charity is the greatest of virtues. All are aware of the fact that the two leading authorities on this subject, Gregory the Great and Pseudo-Dionysius, while they agree on the placement of the 12, ROBERT PULLEN, Sententiarum libri octo, PL. 186; ROLAND OF BOLOGNA, Die Sentenzen Rolands, ed. Ambrosius M. GteTL, (Amsterdam, 1969 [repr. of, Freiburg, 1891 ed.) 13, PETER LOMBARD, Sententiae in IV libris distinctae 2. d. 1. ¢. 1-3, ¢. 6. 1- 5,4. 8. ¢. 16, d. 12. ¢, 1.2, 3rd rev. ed., ed. Ignatius M. Brapy (Grottaferrata, 1971-81), 1: 334-335, 336-341, 384-385. For more on this point, see Ermene- gildo Berto.a, I! problema delle creature angeliche in Pier Lombardo, in Pier Lombardo, 1:2, 1957, p. 33-54; Marcia L. CoLish, Peter Lombard (Leiden, 1994), 1: 347-353,86 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE, seraphim, disagree in their organization of the rest of the hierarchy. The scholastics in this period may cite Gregory or Pseudo-Diony- sius or both; but they reflect no felt need to make a preclusive choice between the two hierarchical schemes offered by these two authorities." That angels are purely spiritual in their makeup is also a consensus position.'® There was some disagreement on when the gradations in the angels’ spiritual nature were imposed on them and in what it consisted. As noted, the members of the school of Laon hold that the nine ranks of angels were part of the original creation. Hugh of St. Victor thinks that, in the original creation, the angels, although equally spiritual, were unequal in their degrees of reason and will.!° The Lombard draws on both of these positions while amplifying the point. In the original creation, he holds, the angels were equal in their rationality, their nature as persons, their spiritu- ality, their simplicity, and their immortality. But they had differing degrees of wisdom and will. At the same time, he thinks that the hierarchical ranking of the nine orders, while it has a metaphysical substratum in the original creation, was not imposed on them until the fallen angels had fallen and the good angels had been confirmed in goodness. While adding his own twist to the theme of the grad: tion of angels, Peter at the same time confirms the consensus pos tion that the fallen angels are also ranked, which the author of the Summa sententiarum is the only contemporary scholastic to reject. Of far greater interest to the scholastics of this period is the intellectual and moral life made possible by the angels’ possession. and use of reason and free will. Their central concern here is to refute Origen on the possible salvation of Lucifer and the fallen angels. Agreed as they are on this position, the theologians yet dis- agree on how best to defend it. In the late eleventh century, one solution had been proposed by Anselm of Canterbury. In his Cur Deus homo, Anselm argues that God could not have extended His. chosen method of redeeming mankind to the angels, since each 14, Hua oF St. Victor, De sac. 1.5.33, PL 176, 262B-D: Sent. mag. Gisle- berti 113.29, 13.37-47, p. 166, 167-169; Ysagoge in theol. p. 230; ROLAND, Sent p. 103-104. 15. See, for example, Sentences from the School of Laon no. 305, 5: 243; ROLAND, Sent. p. 85-86. 16, HuGH oF St. VicToR, De sac. 1.5.9-14, PL 176, 250D-252A.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 87 angel is a genus unto himself, Had Christ assumed the nature of this or that angel, the only angel who could have been saved thereby would have been the individual angel whose nature Christ had assumed. In any event, Anselm notes that, since angels are immortal by nature, salvation, understood as salvation from death, would be meaningless in their case.'* This Anselmian argument was accepted by the monastic theologian Honorius Augusto- dunensis and by the Abelardian author of the Ysagoge in theolo- giam."° On the other hand, the Laon masters find Anselm’s argu- ment unconvincing. Noting that, since God is omnipotent, He would not have been constrained to save the fallen angels in a manner analogous to the one He ordains for human salvation, they argue that, unlike the sin of Adam, the sin of the fallen angels is irremissible. This is so because, as purely spiritual beings, the angels suffered no physical temptations and they were not tempted from without, issues which the Laon masters think are mitigating factors in man’s case but not in the case of the angels. This Laon school position is also followed by the Porretans.”° Related to this point is the issue of whether, in their state a fallen or confirmed in goodness, the angels retain the faculty of free will. There is some debate on this question. Robert Pullen, arguing that the state of non posse peccare applies to God alone, maintains that the good angels must have some capacity to sin, even though they have become so habituated to virtue that they do not actually exercise it.?’ On the other hand, Hugh of St. Victor and the author of the Summa sententiarum, wishing to stress the unchanging character of the angels’ states once fallen or con- firmed, argue that, as a corollary of this point, both sets of angels must have to undergo a serious limitation on their free will.” The 17, Perer Lomparp, Sent. 2. d. 3. ¢, 1.2-2.2, d. 6. ¢. 1-7, d. 9. ¢. 1-7, 1: 342, 352, 354-358, 370-76; cf. Summa sent. 2.5, PL 176, 85C-87D. 18. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY, Cur Deus homo 2.21, in Opera ommia, ed. Franciscus Salesius Scumirt (Edinburgh, 1946), 2: 132. 19. Honorius AUGUSTODUNENSIS, Elucidarium 1.38-44, 1.48-49, 1.50-56, ed. Yves Lefevre (Paris, 1954), p. 367-368, 369-370; Ysagoge in theol. pp. 227-228. 20. ANSELM OF Laon, Sent. div. pag. 4; Sent. Anselmi 2, p. 15-18, 50-54; Deus de cuius p. 256-257; Sent. mag. Gisleberti I 13.74, p. 105. 21. ROBERT PULLEN, Sent. 2.3.6, PL 186, 719A-726A. 22. HucH oF Sr. Victor, De sac. 1.5.31-32, PL 176, 261A-262B; Summa sent, 2.3.4, PL 176, 83A-85C.88 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE Lombard rejects Anselm’s claim that every angel is a genus unto himself, He agrees with Robert Pullen that the confirmed angels lack the absolute non posse peccare of the deity. He also rings some changes on the Victorines’ position, although he is as eager as they are to refute Origin. He does so by focusing on the defini- tion of free will itself and by adding the factor of divine grace to the equation. In describing angelic free will, he gives the same definition that he later applies to human free will before the fall. It is the capacity of the moral agent to will whatever he wills with- out violence or constraint. Before their fall, he states, all angels could use this faculty to will good or evil. But, in order to progres beyond their natural innocence, to develop in virtue (proficere) and not merely to stay as they are (stare) with their aptitude for virtue unrealized, the angels needed operating and cooperating grace, working in tandem with their free choice of the good. Now, Peter continues, God gave this grace to the good angels and they chose the good, in which they are confirmed. In that state, they have no desire for evil. So, they continue to will the good freely, without violence or constraint. As for the fallen angels, God removed or subtracted His grace from them, Following Augustine on this point, the Lombard notes that God’s reasons for doing so are, ultimately, a mystery. In any event, lacking grace, the only moral choice they can make is the choice for evil. And, they con- tinue to will the rejection of God, freely. They continue to will evil, and evil alone, without violence or constraint, Thus, they too retain free will. In contrast with Hugh and the author of the Summa sententiarum, the Lombard holds that the free will of the angels after their confirmation in goodness and their fall alike is not reduced but intensified, since both groups continue to will good or evil, respectively, without conflicting desires. Hence, he concludes, they continue to merit their rewards and punishments. ‘And, as confirmed or fallen, they continue to grow in virtue or vice. In developing this argument, Peter accomplishes several things at once. First, he provides an explanation for the inability of the 23, PETER LOMBARD, Sent. 2. d. 3. ¢. S-d. 5. ¢. 1-5, d. 7. ¢. ba, 1: 348- 359-361, For the parallel with the blessed and damned human souls in the next life, see Sent. 4. d. 49-d. 50. ¢. 1-4, 2: $47-557.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 89 good angels to fall as well as for the inability of the fallen to improve that is theologically much richer than the solutions pro- posed by Anselm of Canterbury and Anselm of Laon and their fol- lowers. At the same time, with respect to angelic free will and its interaction with grace in the attainment of merit-bearing virtue, and with respect to the capacity of spiritual beings to undergo change over time, he combines the notion of angelic mutability found in the Summa sententiarum with a broad treatment of the psychological, ethical, and intellectual life of angels that has its parallels in his treatment of human beings, the human Christ, and the blessed and damned in the life to come. The foregoing analy- sis also lays the foundation for the answer Peter gives to the ques- n of whether the angels confirmed in good continue to grow in knowledge and virtue, or whether they are perfected at their con- firmation and undergo no further change. He supports the first position while importing into it a distinction not found in the Summa sententiarum. Since angels live in time and since they do not have foreknowledge, he observes, the good angels can and do grow in knowledge, since they will learn about events that occur in time when these events come to pass. On the other hand, with respect to their contemplation of God, the good angels are per- fected and do not change. Likewise, the love and merit of the good angels is not enlarged, over time, with respect to its quality. But, since they live in time, they can grow in love and merit with respect to the quantity of their virtues, in the unfolding of new opportunities for their exercise. The Lombard here expands on a point not dealt with to any noticeable extent by his immediate pre- decessors, and one which connects his angelology organically with other areas of his theology. There are, finally, two other topics pertaining to angels which some scholastics in our first period take up, although they inspire far less general interest than those discussed above. Both concern the interactions of angels with human beings. Are all angels sent on missions to men, irrespective of their rank in the angelic hier- archy, or are only some ranks sent? Hugh of St. Victor gives a thorough review of the positions that have been taken on this issue 24, Ibid. 2. d. U1. c. 2, 1: 381-383.90 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE by the leading patristic authorities, without taking a stand on it himself.?> But the author of the Summa sententiarum is certain that all ranks are sent, a position which the Lombard confirms while adding that angels in the highest ranks receive the choicest assign- ments.” There is a thorough consensus on the point that one such mission, which has its parallel among the demons, is to guard indi- vidual human beings. All the theologians who mention this subject agree, anchoring the point with the authority of Gregory the Great. Since he thinks that these guarding and tempting missions must be one-on-one, Hugh of St. Victor asserts that there must be the same number of angels and demons in existence at any given moment as there are human beings.” He ignores the metaphysical problem which the expansion and contraction of the size of the angelic and demonic hosts, driven by human population statistics, bring in their train. The Summa sententiarum agrees with the general prin- ciple that everyone has his personal guardian and tempter and does not comment on the issue of numbers.’* Peter Lombard is in accord with the consensus and resolves the dilemma propounded by Hugh by observing that angels and demons are capable of guasding and tempting more than one person at the same time.?? Drawing even less interest, in this period, is the question of angels or demons acting as incwbi and the status of the bodies they inhabit when interacting with human beings. The author of the Summa sententiarum bears witness to the fact that earlier theolo- gians had conducted a lively inquiry into these matters, debating in particular about the metaphysical status of a child fathered by an angelic incubus upon a human woman. He himself regards the topic as frivolous and irrelevant.” The Lombard agrees, to the point of not mentioning it at all. He does state, however, that demons can enter the minds and bodies of men in tempting them. When this happens, he emphasizes, they are present in human beings in their effects, not substantialiter. As for the status of the 25. HucH oF St. Victor, De sac. 1.5.31-33, PL 176, 261A-262D. 26. Summa sent. 2.6, PL 176, 87C-88C; PETER LOMBARD, Sent. 2. d. 10. ¢. 1+ 2, 1: 377-379. 27. HucH oF St. Victor, De sac, 1.5.31-33, PL 176, 261A-262D. 28. Summa sent. 2.6, PL 176, 87C-88C. 29. PETER LOMBARD, Sent. 2. d. LI. c. 1, 1: 379-381. 30. Summa sent. 2.6, PL 176, 87C-88C.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 91 bodies taken on by angels in performing their missions, and what happens to them when the missions are completed, he concludes that the information at our disposal does not permit a clear resolu- tion of these questions, irrespective of the certitude which some authorities are willing to claim in this area.! The repressiveness of the Summa sententiarum and the Lom- bard on these metaphysical matters is an excellent index of the aspects of angelology that ranked low on the agenda of mid- twelfth-century scholastics, even though both masters see the importance of providing a metaphysical answer to the question of how the angelic nature differs from the divine nature. At the same time, the keen interest they show in the question of where to posi- tion angels in a systematic theology and in the angels’ psycho- logical, intellectual, and moral attributes and destinies is likewise an authentic index of the dominant place which these topics held in the angelology of the day. On the matter of when the angels were created, the popularity of the Lombard’s schema made his solution a consensus position, whether or not later theologians chose to include the exemplary causes he rejects. The fullness of his angelology, in comparison with the angelologies of his imme- diate predecessors and contemporaries, and the thorough integra- tion of his doctrine on angels with other leading themes in his Sentences, made it clear that angelology, by 1160, was there to stay as a topic that systematic theologians could not afford to ignore. But if scholastic theologians after the Lombard found that they could not ignore angels, the masters of the second half of the twelfth century found them far less interesting than is true of the Lombard, his contemporaries, and his immediate predecessors. In our second sub-period, whether the masters are card-carrying Lombardians or not and whether they write sentence collections, abbreviations or commentaries on the Lombard’s Sentences, col- lections of theological quaestiones, summae, or other types of the- ological literature, they tend, for the most part, to accept the Lom- bard’s angelology as a given and ring very few changes on it. Alan of Lille is the exception who proves this rule. 31. Perer LomBarp, Sent. 2. d. 8. ¢. 1-2, ¢. 4, 1: 365-368, 369-370.92 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE Two of the Lombard’s abbreviators in this period are Gandulf of Bologna and Bandinus, The latter ignores the creation of angels and questions about their nature, except to say that they are not corporeal, although he agrees that they can take on bodies in the conduct of their missions and that there are nine orders of them; he cites both Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius as authorities.*? Gan- dulf is a bit fuller. He retains the Lombardian idea that angels and primordial matter were created simu/. Having made that point, he proceeds at once to the angels’ fall or confirmation in goodness, agreeing with the Lombard’s point that both groups are ranked and retain free will, But he omits the Lombard’s analysis of the angelic nature and psychology and the psychogenesis of angelic moral choices. Peter’s most influential disciples in the second half of the twelfth century, who go well beyond his abbreviators as theolo- gians, have little more to say on angels. But they do manage to convey their views with somewhat more independence. In what proved to be the last of the major sentence collections, Peter of Poitiers, typically regarded as the Lombard’s most faithful fol- lower, treats only a selected number of points in his angelology and feels free to disagree with his master.¥ He adheres to the Lombard’s version of angelic creation simul along with primordial matter and the notion that, in the original creation, some angels were more rarefied than others and that they differed in their wis- dom and will. Agreeing with the substance of the Lombard’s teaching but using his own vocabulary, he states that, as originally created, angels were perfect secundum tempus but not secundum naturam or simpliciter, to provide room for their later moral and intellectual development and to distinguish them from the deity. Peter of Poitiers follows the Lombard in both doctrine and lan- guage in noting that angels needed operating and cooperating grace in order to proficere and not just to stare in the state of inno- cence. As for their retention of free will after their fall or confir- 32. BANDINUS, Sententiae 2. d. 8-9, PL 192, 1036D-1039A. 33. GanbuLr oF BoLoGNa, Magistri Gandulphi Bononiensis Sententiarum libri quatour 2.6-46, ed. Johannes de WALTER (Wien, 1924), 34, Peer oF PorTiers, Sententiae 2.1-6, ed. Philip S. Moore, Marthe DULONG, and Joseph N. Garvin (Notre Dame, 1961), p. 1-33.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 93 mation in goodness, Peter of Poitiers, here disagreeing with the Lombard, holds that free will remains in the good angels only, and not in the fallen ones. At the same time, he argues that both sets of angels continue to will good or evil, respectively, and hence to merit their eternal glory or punishment, respectively, a position which appears to imply the exercise of free will in both groups. This inconsistency aside, he omits the Lombard’s point about the subtraction of divine grace from the fallen angels as the reason why their sin is irremissible. Peter of Poitiers agrees with the con- sensus view that there are nine orders of angels, and, like theolo- gians in the two preceding generations, is more interested in the fact that Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysus concur in placing the seraphim at the head of the list, and for the same reason, than he is in taking a stand on the discrepancies between the two authori- ties elsewhere on this subject. He departs from the Lombard and harks back to the position of the school of Laon in affirming that the nine ranks were part of the original creation of angels and not a hierarchy imposed on them after their confirmation, on the basis of the metaphysical, intellectual, or psychological gradations which with they had been created. 5 He agrees that all ranks of angels are sent on missions and that angels and demons can be assigned to more than one human being at a time. All in all, Peter of Poitiers is much less interested in the nature and inner life of the angels than in the roles that they, and the demons, play in the moral lives of men, a feature of his angelology that makes it of a piece with a theology that gives much more space and attention to ethics in general than is true of the Lombard’s. Peter Comestor is another important follower of the Lombard in our second sub-period. He is known to have written a commentary on the fourth book of the Sentences, dealing with the sacraments and last things, along with his more famous Historia scholastica or handbook of biblical history. In addition, he produced theolog- ical quaestiones, which were confused with those of Odo of Ourscamp by Odo’s editor* several of which deal with angels. 35. Ibid. 2.5, p. 24. 36. The best and most recent guide to the works of PETER COMESTOR, super- seding previous accounts, is James H. MoREY, Peter Comestor, Biblical Para- phrase, and the Medieval Popular Bible, in Speculum 68, 1993, p. 6-35. OF the94 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE Comestor is not concerned with the timing of the angels’ creation or in their nature. He agrees that they were perfected according to their ranks and that they differ in their attributes. But he does not comment on whether the nine orders, which he outlines in Grego- ty’s hierarchy, were instituted before or after the confirmation of the good angels.*” This aside, Comestor’s only other real interest in this area of theology is the moral lives of the good angels, on which subject he sometimes amplifies on the Lombard and some- times mis-cites him. Comestor agrees with the Lombard’s view that grace and angelic free will must interact in the development of merit-bearing virtues in the good angels, citing the master by name. He transfers the analogy which the Lombard had developed to explain the relationship between grace and free will in the moral lives of men to the psy- chogenesis of virtue in angels. In this analogy, free will is com- pared with the soil; grace is the rain or dew; virtue as a mental disposition is the seed; and virtue as a conscious intention or action grows like the fruit of that seed, as an attribute of the moral agent in whom it inheres.* This amplification is certainly in the Lombardian spirit. But elsewhere Comestor asks whether the good. angels continue to grow in merit after their confirmation. In his response, he states that the Lombard had left this question open, which is not the case. He also omits the issue of grace here, although the other questions he treats indicate his awareness of its importance in the moral lives of angels in Lombardian theology. And, in the same question, he states that, as with the blessed in heaven, the merits of the glorified angels will not increase, claim- ing that this conclusion meshes with the Lombard’s, a statement that propounds an inconsistency even as it reflects an erroneous reading of the Lombard.” In addition to writing sentence collections and collections of theological quaestiones, masters in the second half of the twelfth ‘quaestiones ascribed to Ovo that belong to ComesToR, MOREY has identified q. 288-334 in Prrra’s edition as CoMESTOR’S. 37. Oo OF Ourscame, Quaestiones magisiri Odonis Suessionensis q. 313, ed, Joannes Baptista Prrra, in Analecta novissima spicilegii Solesmensis, altera continuatio (Paris, 1888), 2: 138-144. 38. Ibid. p. 140, 39. Ibid. q. 322, p. 157-159.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 95 century also produced summae and magisterial Sentence com- mentaries as vehicles for the author's enunciation of his own personal position. An excellent example of the latter of these two genres of theological literature is the Sentence commentary of Stephen Langton, dating to the turn of the thirteenth century. While in this work, as in his biblical exegesis, Stephen is heav- ily influenced by the Lombard, he feels no need to comment on each chapter of the Sentences. Rather, he displays his own inter- ests and emphasis, and disagrees freely with the Lombard. On the creation of angels, he rejects the Lombard’s modified version of creation simul and substitutes Augustine’s view that all crea- tures were created simul. Stephen has a particular, and polemi- cal, reason for making this move, one similar to the rationale inspiring Augustine himself in his anti-Manichean Genesis com- mentaries. Against the Cathars, Stephen wants to argue that darkness did not exist from all eternity, as a negative metaphys- ical entity, but that it only came into being when light was cre- ated, as its absence.*” Also, in a major departure from the Lom- bard and the theologians of the mid-twelfth century, Stephen drops from his agenda both the nature of angels and the reasons why the fallen angels cannot be saved. His lack of interest in the latter of these two topics is striking. The one other point his angelology addresses is the angels’ ethical capacities, an interest he shares with Peter Comestor, Peter of Poitiers, and the Lombard alike. He agrees with these masters that the angels had a natural aptitude for virtue before the fallen angels fell but that they could not activate it without the collaboration of grace with angelic free will, needed to produce virtues that are meritorious. But, taking a line opposed to Comestor, Peter of Poitiers, and the Lombard, and to many other theologians of his century, Stephen claims that this grace was part of the original creation and not a gift given by God to the angels after He had brought them into being. He ascribes the posi- tion that he maintains on this point to the Lombard, although it 40, STEPHEN LANGTON, Der Sentenckommentar des Kardinals Stephan Lang- ton, In 2 Sent. d. 12. ¢, 2-3, ed. Artur Michael Lanpcrar, Beitrige zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters 37:1 (Miinster, 1952), p. 84-85. On the date of this work, see the editor's preface, p. xxviii96 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE contradicts what the Lombard and his more faithful followers had taught.4! Although he is regarded as a non-Lombardian and as an adher- ant of the teachings of rival masters, Alan of Lille is actually more. faithful to the Lombard on the moral lives of angels, and more accurate in reporting his views, than are Stephen Langton, Peter Comestor, and Peter of Poitiers. At the same time, he is the only master in the second half of the twelfth century to display interest in the intellectual life of angels, and moves this topic forward, in comparison with his contemporaries. In Alan’s Summa, written fairly soon after the last edition of the Lombard’s Sentences, he offers an analysis of the moral state of angels that is thoroughly Lombardian. Alan states that angels, as created, had a plenitude of natural goods, They were perfect in the sense that thay possessed everything they needed by nature to proceed to their glorification. But, he continues, while the angels by nature could stare in their state of innocence, they could not proficere without the grace needed for virtues that are meritorious. Before receiving that grace, the angels possessed natural goods only, the naturalia, but not yet the gratuita, It was not their natural endowment alone but its interaction with grace that enabled them to merit their confir- mation in goodness.*? Alan does not pursue the the theme of the ongoing moral lives of the good angels after their confirmation. But, in several works, he does consider the state of angelic knowI- edge. Alan agrees with the Lombard that, with respect to their contemplation of God, the good angels have attained a cognitive state that cannot improve and that does not change, a state he describes as scientia in order to contrast it with the partial knowl- edge of God by faith available to human beings in this life. As to the nature of angelic scientia, drawing on John Scottus Eriugena and Boethius, Alan describes it as theophanic. A theophany, as he understands it, is the direct, simple, immediate, rational apperce- 41. Ibid. d. 3. ¢. 1-3, p. 72-73. 42. Philémon GLorieux, ed., La somme ‘Quoniam homines' d’Alain de Lille 2.1140, 2.1.142, in AHDMLA 20, 1953, p. 276-277, 278. The editor gives the date as 1155-60, p. 116; Marie-Thérése d’ALVERNY, Alain de Lille: Textes inédits avec une introduction sur sa vie et ses oeuvres (Paris, 1965), p. 64, gives the date as 1170-80. See also ALAN OF LILLE, De sex alis cherubim 174, PL 210, 270C.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 97 tion of the deity, not mediated by any sense data, mental images, or concepts, and not involving a ratiocinative process. Contrasting the angelic theophany with all forms of knowledge available to human beings, Alan subdivides it into three types, each possessed by one tercet within the nine angelic orders as outlined by Pscudo- Dionysius. Epiphany is the theophanic knowledge of God enjoyed by the seraphim, cherubim, and thrones; the next three orders of angels enjoy hyperphany; while the lowest three orders enjoy hypophany.” While it does not consider the ongoing moral lives of the angels confirmed in goodness, and while it does not contrast the unchanging theophanic knowledge of God unique to angels with the expansion of the number of things they know in time, Alan’s angelology does elaborate considerably on the angelic epistemology, adding a Neoplatonic coloration to the Lombardian position. As such, it reflects the appeal of the Lombard’s angelol- ogy as a point of departure for theologians in the next generation who were not his disciples. On the other hand, a more preclusively ethical focus on angels is found in the Summa theologica of Prepositinus of Cremona, written toward the end of a teaching career that ended in 1206, when he became chancellor of the University of Paris. Prepositi- nus mentions angels only obliquely, to shed light on a different topic, the ethical aptitudes of human beings before the fall. He presents three positions on this question as current options. According to the first, or Lombardian, view, Adam was created with the naturalia and could have then received the gratuita, According to the second, Adam was created with both the natu- ralia and the gratuita. This second view is the one, we recall, that was put forth with respect to angels by Stephen of Langton. According to the third view, attributed to Anselm of Canterbury, Adam received no grace after his fall. Prepositinus thinks that the 43. ALAN OF LILLE, Expositio super symbolum apostolorum et Nicenum; Expositio prosae de angelis; Hierarchia Alani, ed. d’ ALVERNY, Teates inédits,p. 84 for the definition of angelic scientia; p. 202-209, 226-235 for the three modes of angelic theophanic knowledge. On the latter, I would like to thank Nancy VAN DEUSEN for bringing these references to my attention. More on this subject, tak- ing it from ALAN OF LILLE to RoBERT GROSSETESTE, can be found in her Theo!- ogy and Music at the Early University: The Case of Robert Grosseteste and Anonymous IV (Leiden, 1994), ch. 6.98 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE first opinion is the likliest. In defending it, he appeals to the Lom- bard’s angelology. Had the angels been created with grace as well as with a natural aptitude for virtue, he argues, the fallen angels would not have fallen. But the reverse is the case. Therefore, he concludes, as with men, angels needed the gift of grace super- added to their natural moral aptitudes in order to improve morally. Omitting here a point central to the Lombard and his contemporaries, the idea that grace is not irresistible and that it can be rejected, Prepositinus adverts simply to the angels’ created aptitudes and to their fall because this topic provides a parallel to his analysis of the operative conditions of moral choice in prelap- sarian man. Standing, like Stephen Langton, at the turn of the thir- teenth century, Prepositinus thus serves as a good index of the nar- rowness of the interests of most scholastic theologians on angelology since 1160 and the reduction of the scope of their inquiry into this field to ethics alone. Ina way, this fact is surprising, given the increasing number of Aristotelian works that had become available in Latin by 1200. By then, in addition to the logica nova, Aristotle's Physica, Meteors logica, De anima, De generatione et corruptione, and De sensu, had been fully translated. All but Book 11 of the Metaphysica was also available in Latin as well as Books 2 and 3 of the Nico- machean Ethics. A considerable chunk of the Aristotelian corpus had thus been placed in circulation during the second half of the twelfth century; and, in some cases, the texts had been available for decades.** Yet, it is remarkable how little of this substantive Aristotelian material was put to use by the scholastics in our sec- ond sub-period, however eagerly they may have embraced the /og- ica nova with the aim of using it to hone their theological lan- guage and theological argumentation. Equally noteworthy is the degree to which the substance of Aristotelian philosophy was taken up and used positively by the two thinkers we have selected 44, PREPOSITINUS OF CREMONA, Summa theologica 2, as quoted and discussed by Albert FRIES, Urgerechtigkeit, Fall und Erbsunde nach Prapositin von Cre- ‘mona und Withelm von Auxerre (Freiburg, 1940), p. 9-15. 45, Bemard G. Dos, Aristoteles Latinus, in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. Norman KRET2MANN et al. (Cambridge, 1982), p. 46- 48, 69-16,EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 99 to represent the third sub-period of early scholasticism, whose works date to the first quarter of the thirteenth century. Our exam- ples, Alexander of Hales and William of Auxerre, have been cho- sen because they are mainstream thinkers, representatives of a generation at the University of Paris typically seen as conserva- tive, or as less than enthusiastic about the reception of Aristotle. Accounts in standard reference works describe Alexander as “not influenced by it [i. e. Aristotelianism]” and portray William as a “pre-Aristotelian” thinker.*® But, in comparison with their imme- diate predecessors, both Alexander and William reveal a serious interest in philosophy and a positive willingness to apply it to their angelologies. Indeed, it is often the philosophical traditions of Neoplatonism and Aristotelianism that set the agendas and pro- vide the lexicons used by these early thirteenth-century theolo- gians in their treatises on angels. William of Auxerre’s angelology is found in the second book of his Summa aurea, composed between 1215 and 1229.7 While it follows the Lombardian scheme of organization, William's summa gives the reader the immediate sense that he has stepped into a different intellectual environment, not only because of the freedom with which William disagrees with the Lombard but also because of the amplitude of his discussion of angels, quite striking in comparison with the lean treatment given to this topic by his immediate predecessors. William is not particularly interested in the angels’ metaphysical constitution. What does interest him is their nature as intelligent beings, moral agents, and ministers to mankind, While metaphysics is secondary to this concern, William none the less brings exemplary causes back into play in his account of the creation, following Augustine by identifying 46, Conrad Harkins, Alexander of Hales, in Dictionary of the Middle Ages, ed. Joseph R. STRAYER (New York, 1982), 1: 148; Gideon GaL, William of Aux- erre, in New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1967), 14: 922. As recently as 1993, Gillian R. EVANS, Philosophy and Theology in the Middle Ages (London, 1993), p. 45-46, could treat WILLIAM OF AUXERRE as dismissive of Aristotelian: ism, On the other hand, Alain de LiBERA, La philosophie médiévale (Paris, 1993), p. 377-379, 382, sees both WILLIAM and ALEXANDER as being more receptive to philosophy in general and to Aristotelianism in particular. None of the scholars cited in this note discusses the angelology of either figure. 47, WILLIAM OF AUXERRE, Summa aurea, ed, Jean RIBAILLER (Paris/Grotta- ferrrata, 1980-87). Evidence for the date is given by the editor, 1: 7.100 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE exemplars with ideas in the mind of God. In his treatment of this doctrine his principal concern is to refute the Platonic view of the exemplars as standing above God or as existing independently of Him, and also the view that God had, perforce, to create the uni- verse in virtue of having the rationes of all things in His mind. William also wants to refute the doctrine of the eternity of the world, and does so by drawing a clear distinction beween the exemplars of all things in God’s mind, eternally, and the reifica- tion of the creatures whose forms they become in time when God wills that these creatures should come into being. While William agrees that Christ is the supreme /ogos of creation, the supreme exemplar, he expressly rejects a chain of being or emanationist model of creation, Still, he begins his account of creation with the exemplars because a hierarchical treatment of creation, starting with them and continuing with angels as spiritual beings, human beings, and then the material world, appeals to him.* We can thus see in William’s account of creation a selective use of the Platonic tradition, some of whose features he plainly rejects while others he finds attractive. With the Lombard, William treats the angels as the “heaven” that God created at the beginning of the Genesis account. On the other hand, dispensing with the creation simul theory in any of its forms, he presents angels simply as the first beings created and moves directly to their psychological and moral characteris tics and their fall or confirmation in goodness. William revie the debate summarized by Prepositinus on whether the angels had virtues by means of grace as well as nature in their original state, and joins him in supporting the Lombardian position that the gratuita, when added to the naturalia, enabled the angels to acquire merit-bearing virtues. This teaching, he says, is the com- mon one; if he is correct in making that observation, a consen- sus had emerged on the point quite soon after Prepositinu day.” 48, Ibid. 2. tract. 1. c. 1-3, 2: 12-30. William is here drawing on an argument against the etemity of the world derived from PSéUDO-DionysiUS, On the Divine Names, as is noted by Richard C. Dates, Medieval Discussions of the Eternity of the World (Leiden, 1990), p. 78 n. 68. 49, WILLIAM OF AUXERRE, Stunna aurea 2. tract. 3. ¢. 1, 2: 3: 5,EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 101 In describing what the angelic naturalia actually were, William expands the catalogue of their natural virtues and displays his philosophical proclivities in so doing. These givens of the angelic nature, he states, included free will, the ability to love God, and also self-love. With self-love, he strikes a new note. For William, self-love is a natural moral aptitude and a natural moral inclina- tion. It includes the desire to live, the desire to know oneself, and the desire for self-preservation. In an aside he notes that this type of love is also natural to human beings and that it is not sinful. Here, William distinguishes natural self-love, on the one hand, from self-love that is sinful in that it is proud or disordered, and, on the other hand, from charity as a theological virtue. In addition to having self-love as a natural virtue, he holds, the angels also had a natural love of God, and for His own sake, not merely for their own. To be sure, he adds, this natural love of God was also useful to the angels, and supremely so. Thus, while this natural virtue can also be distinguished from charity, he sees the natural love of God and charity as quite compatible.” Altogether, while he accepts the consensus position that grace is needed for merito- rious virtue, in this analysis William makes a significant contribu- tion to the doctrine of natural virtue and narrows the gap between natural and supernatural virtue. As for the angels’ fall, William agrees with the substance of the common teaching of the day while adding a few elements of his ‘own, some theological and others philosophical. In speaking of the pride that led to Lucifer’s fall, he frames the point in Aristotelian causal language. Free will, he says, was the efficient cause, the vol- untary consent to temptation that constitutes sin. At the same time, he brings into his account a Neoplatonic understanding of evil as a privation of the good, in this case, the privation of good will. Either way, he situates Lucifer’s fall within the context of a eudaimonis- tic view of ethics that is compatible with both philosophi schools. Moral agents, he notes, are motivated by what they judge to be good, even if their assessment of it may be erroncous.’! 50. Ibid. 2. tract. 2. c. 2-5, 2: 36-46. The definition of self-love is at c. 2, p. 38: “Amor naturalis sui est amor quo aliquis vult naturaliter sibi bonum, scilicet esse, vivere, intelligere, et talis amor non tendit nisi ad conservationem sui, ad utilitatem sui.”102 — RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE, William aligns himself with the Lombardian idea that, in the state of innocence, the angels could stare on their own but that they needed grace in order to proficere, and that God granted that grace to the good angels. But, he departs sharply from both the Lombar- dian and Augustinian traditions alike by rejecting the theory that the fallen angels fell because, for some mysterious reason, God withdrew His grace from them. In William’s view, on the contrary, God granted the grace of perseverance to all the angels. Those who fell did so because they rejected God’s grace.*? Here, although William departs from one aspect of the Lombard’s teaching, he does so to buttress another feature of that same teaching, the idea that grace is not irresistible. In William’s eyes, the angels’ fall was spiritual and local. The fallen angels lost spiritual and intellectual gifts which they had enjoyed in the creation and they were also physically ejected from heaven and sent to a fiery hell. Here it must be noted that, while William agrees with the position that the fallen angels cannot be redeemed because they sinned in spirit only, hav- ing no bodies, as well as because they had no external tempter, his lack of any real discussion of the metaphysical constitution of angels makes it difficult to see how beings regarded as purely spir- itual could have a local habitation at all, whether before of after their fall. William revives an early twelfth-century concern with refuting Origen on this topic; his strategy, however, is to attack Origen with Pseudo-Dionysius on angels as a counter-authority.°? William devotes a great deal of attention to the states of both sets of angels after their fall or confirmation in goodness, intro- ducing some new topics in this context and attaching to it themes sounded already by earlier scholastics but not under this heading. An excellent case in point is the doctrine of synderesis or con- science, which the Lonbard had reintroduced into ethics and which had received extended consideration in the second half of the twelfth century.** William is the first scholastic to apply this 31. Ibid. 2. tract. 3. ¢. 1, 2: 46-50, 58 52. Ibid. 2. tract. 3. c. 4, 2: 60-61. 53. Ibid. 2. tract. 3. €. 5, ¢. 7, 2:64, 66-67. 54. PETER LOMBARD, Sent. 2. d. 39. c. 3.3, 1: 556; for the discussions about conscience in the following decades, see Odon Lorri, Les premiers linéaments du traité de la syndérése au moyen age, in Revue néo-scolastique de philosophie 28, 1926, p. 422-459,EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 103 idea to the fallen angels. As with human sinners, he argues, con- science in angels can be defined as the spark of reason and desire for the good that is not extinguished by the fall. He holds that, while it is present in the psychology of fallen angels, conscience has been reduced to the point where it cannot inspire them to seek the good and to reject their disobedience to God. Still, he observes, Lucifer himself suffers the remorse of conscience (con- scientiam remordentem), a situation that makes his punishment still worse, since he recognizes that he has cut himself off from. God forever and that, in some sense, he has made his own hell. If they are like fallen men in the possession of conscience, the fallen angels are unlike fallen men, for William, in their lack of the ‘fomes peccati, or inclination to sin that is a consequence of the fall in mankind.55 The reason William gives for this asymmetry is the idea that the inclination to sin resides in the body, in human beings. Lacking bodies, angels cannot have this affliction. But, this conclusion, while it would appear to reflect the appeal of a Platonizing anthropology to William, is inconsistent with his loca- tion of sin in the voluntary choice of the will, a mental faculty, and his recognition that temptations can be spiritual, as they were in the case of the fallen angels. Turning his attention, finally, to the good angels, William describes their hierarchy in exhaustive detail. It is not sufficient, for him, merely to specify that seraphim constitute the highest rank of angels, and why this is the case. Rather, the characteristics and functions of all the angels in all the ranks are deemed to require an extremely thorough treatment. And, it is no longer sat- isfactory to adduce both Gregory and Pseudo-Dionysius as author- ities of equal weight. William quite pointedly rejects the Grego- rian hierarchy and regards the Dionysian position as the only acceptable one, revealing, in so doing, a careful and attentive read- ing of his Celestial Hierarchy.5 In addressing the ministry of the good angels to man, he expands on the Lombard, and in a Lom- bardian spirit. We recall that Peter had argued that demons, in tempting men, enter their minds and bodies through their effects, 55. WILLIAM OF AUXERRE, Summa aurea 2. tract. 3. ¢. 7. q. 4, 2: 76-77. The quotation is on p. 77. 56, Ibid. 2. tract. 4. c. 1, 2: 85-103,104 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE, but not substantialiter. William extends the same analysis to the ministry of the guardian angels and sharpens the point. As he sees it, neither personal angels nor personal demons enter into the human beings to whom they are assigned. Further, neither angels nor demons are the causes of human moral actions. William thinks that this point is especially important to make with respect to the guardian angels, lest they be seen as taking God’s place in the conversion of human hearts from sin.’ William adds two other points here. In working for the salvation of the people they guard, the guardian angels do not and cannot act in contravention of God’s eternal decree concerning which people He will save. And, another new topic that William takes up under this heading is the question of whether the human Christ had a personal guardian angel. No, he responds, with respect to Christ’s knowl- edge, which was greater than any angel's knowledge; but yes, with respect to the comfort and solace which His angel gave the human Christ in the midst of His fears and sorrows. Like the Lombard, William is interested in the continuing condition of the good angels after their confirmation, But, like Alan of Lille, he confines himself to their knowledge, omitting their virtue. He agrees that the angels lack foresight. Adding more authorities than were brought to bear on this point by the Lombard, William con- cerns himself with some new issues relative to the angelic episte- mology that develop this subject farther than Alan of Lille had taken it. Agreeing with Alan, although without using his theo- phanic terminology or his trifold subdivision of angelic knowl- edge, William thinks that angels know what they know by an instantaneous act of direct intellectual perception, without having to undergo any process of ratiocination. At the same time, he adds. the condition that the angels need divine illumination in order to know in this way.’ This interest in angelic knowledge, which concludes William’s treatise on angels, accounts for an apparent 57. Ibid. 2. tract. 5. ¢. 1-5, ¢. 8, c. 10, 2: 103-116, 118-119, 122-123. 58. Ibid. 2. tract. 5. c. 8, ¢. 10, 2: 118-119, 122-123. 59. Ibid. 2. tract. 5. c. 1-4, 2: 103-111, For the passage in the LOMBARD in its original context of man's ethical activity, see PETER LOMBARD, Sent. 2. d. 27. c. 1-2,3, 1: 480-482, ‘60. WILLIAM OF AUXERRE, Summa aurea 2. tract. 3. ¢. 1, tract. 6, 2: 46-50, 124-141.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 105 anomaly in Book 2 of his summa, a discussion of prophesy inserted between angels and the rest of the creation. His rationale for this unusual schematic decision is the felt need to contrast angelic knowledge with the knowledge possessed by prophets. While prophets, unlike angels, are permitted to see the future, their knowledge he judges to be otherwise far less extensive than that of the angels.°! In sum, William shares with the scholastics of the late twelfth. century an interest in angels that is primarily ethical, although he joins Alan of Lille in his concern with the angelic epistemology and agrees with the substance of his teaching. At the same time, he reprises some major topics that had been treated by the Lom- bard and that his more immediate successors had scanted or ignored, sometimes agreeing with the master of the Sentences and sometimes not. William draws philosophy into the analysis of the points he covers in some cases, appealing to Aristotelianism, to Neoplatonism, and, indirectly, to the Stoicism from which the idea of synderesis derives. He knows exactly what he agrees and dis- agrees with in the Platonic tradition. Its position on hierarchy, human nature, and the privative theory of evil attracts him; but he dissociates himself pointedly from cosmological doctrines advanced by the Platonists that would undercut the freedom and power of the deity in the creation. In treating the moral state of angels before the fall, he widens appreciably the scope of natural virtue. His treatment of this topic shows an affinity for Aris- totelian ethics, as does his use of Aristotelian causal language in describing the role of angelic free will in the making of moral choices. When it comes to the angelic hierarchy, he reflects a clear and preclusive preference for the Dionysian account, as well as for the idea that the rankings of angels were instituted after the good angels’ confirmation. William’s most notable innovation as an angelologist is his attribution of conscience to Lucifer and the fallen angels. His most serious weakness is his lack of an overt consideration of the metaphysical status of angels, although he assumes, without discussing the point, that they are spiritual beings. This notion makes highly problematic his localization of 61. Ibid. 2. tract. 7, 2: 142-166106 RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE them before and after the fall as well as his exempting of fallen angels from the inclination to sin as a consequence of their fall What we have seen as the most salient weakness of William of Auxerre’s angelology emerges as the most noteworthy strength of the angelology of Alexander of Hales. His focus on the metaphys- ical status of angels is what gives his teaching its special charac- ter. In addition, that teaching makes it clear that, by the time Alexander had written his Glossa on the Sentences of Peter Lom- bard (1220-25), Aristotelian metaphysics has settled in for the duration and was informing the thought of scholastic theologians not hitherto regarded as hospitable to this new philosophy. It is true that Alexander lacks an interest in some of the cosmological questions that had agitated scholastics in the first half of the twelfth century and that continued to be of interest to William of Auxerre, such as when the angels were created and the issue of creation simul, or, for that matter, exemplary causes and the cre- ation of primordial matter, all of which he omits. He begins his creation account with the angels; following them he presents the standard hexaemeral version from the Book of Genesis. Having ushered angels onto the scene, what he emphasizes is their meta- physical constitution. This is the single most important subject that Alexander’s angelology seeks to address. Given their nature as simple and as purely spiritual beings, he asks, how can angels be undertood as created substances? How can such beings be dis- tinguished from the deity? And how can they have location? In answering these questions, Alexander shows his awareness of the fact that the term substantia is defined differently by different schools of philosophy. At the same time, the definition that clearly sets the terms of the debate, for him, is the Aristotelian one, He acknowledges the fact that angels, understood as simple and spiri- tual beings, simply do not square with the Aristotelian notion of creatures as substances made up of matter and form. He sees, and poses, this problem quite clearly. Given the philosophy of Aristo- tle, which he refuses to fudge, angels are a metaphysical anomaly: from an Aristotelian perspective, simplicity and pure spirituality 62. ALEXANDER OF HALES, Glossa in quatuor libros Sententiarum Petri Lom- bardi, ed. Collegii S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi, 1951-57). The date is given by the editors in 1:65*, 110*-114*.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 107 would appear to be attributable to the deity alone. Alexander's solution to this dilemma — and it is a solution that forecasts the essence-existence distinction applied to angels later in the century by Thomas Aquinas — is to invoke the distinction made by Boethius between the quo est, or essential character of a being, and its quod est, or current manifestation of its being, which can differ in actuality from its quo est. This possibility extends to angels, and to all other creatures, while it does not apply to God, Whose quo est and quod est are identical. We may recall that, taking a cue from the Summa sententiarum, the Lombard had also offered a metaphysical explanation of the differences between angels and the deity, based on the distinction between angelic mutabilty and divine immutability. Alexander’s argument is equally metaphysical. But it an argument addressed specifically to the Aristotelian doctrine of the structure of being, within whose parameters he finds it necessary to make his case. Another index of Alexander’s wish to come to grips with the metaphysical questions surrounding angels is his reversion to a topic that had been in abeyance in the angelologies of scholastics since the time of Peter Lombard, and which Alexander sees as nei- ther irrelevant nor frivolous, the status of the bodies used by angels on their missions; whether, as embodied, they can beget offspring upon human women; and, if so, what the metaphysical status of those children would be. Alexander concedes that he cannot answer the first of these questions. He admits the possibil- ity of angelic incubi and thinks that their offspring are hybrid in nature, doubting that they are really human beings.“ This discus- sion harks back to the larger metaphysical question of how spiri- tual beings can be given location, or bodily habitations, even on an ad hoc basis. What is striking about Alexander's handling of these questions is his refusal to fall back on the Bible or religious authority in order to answer them. In his view, they have to be 63. Ibid. In 2 Sent, d. 3. c. 7, 2: 27. CF. THOMAS AQuinas, In 2 Sent. d. 3. q 1.4.1 solutio, in Opera omnia (New York, 1948 (repr. of Parma, 1866 ed.]). 6: 411-412. THoMAS yokes this point, in d. 3. q. 1. a. 2 solutio and d. 11. q. 2. a. 1 solutio, 6: 429, 482, with the doctrine of angelic mutability taught by the author of the Summa sent, and the LOMBARD. 64, ALEXANDER OF HALES, In 2 Sent, d. 8. c. 6, 2: 75-76.108 — RECERCHES DE THEOLOGIE ANCIENNE ET MEDIEVALE, addressed philosophically; and it is better to leave them open than to compromise that principle. The other topics that Alexander takes up in his treatise on angels show him as less original than he turns out to be in his treatment of the angelic nature. With William of Auxerre, he finds it important to discuss the angelic hierarchy in painstaking detail, to comment on the functions of angels in all its ranks, and to rely exclusively on Pseudo-Dionysius as his source. His similarities with William here suggest that this amplitude on the angelic hier- archy is an authentic note of early thirteenth-century angelology On the angels as moral agents, Alexander is far briefer than William, and less innovative. He agrees with the Lombardian dis- tinction between the naturalia and the gratuita and the angels’ need for the latter in order to develop virtue, merit, and glory. He is interested in the angels’ fall, their exercise of free will both before and after it, and the permanence of the condemnation of the fallen angels, although the anti-Origenist brief has dropped com- pletely from his agenda on that last point.” Alexander agrees with the Lombard’s analysis of the good angels’ quantitative growth in knowledge after their confirmation, although he omits their growth in virtue; he adds nothing fresh to that topic. What is most remarkable about Alexander's angelology, on the whole, is the contribution he makes to framing the metaphysical issues and problems that angels present for him in terms of Aris- totelianism, and the solution he provides to their anomalous status as creatures although they are not composite beings made up of matter and form. He remains true to his philosophical colors and does not try to bend Aristotelianism to make it fit a type of being which that school did not envision and for which it did not provide an explanation. Even in the case of the embodiment of angels, and the problems it brings in its train, which he admits he cannot resolve conclusively, what is noteworthy is the fact that Alexander prefers to acknowledge defeat in the effort to find a philosophi- cally satisfactory answer rather than to resort to theological mys- 65. Ibid. d. 9, d, 10. ¢, 6, 2: 83-97, 120. 66. Ibid. d. 3. c. 19, 2: 35. 67. Ibid. d. 5. c. 2, d. 7. c. 6-10, 2: 42, 60-62. 68. Ibid. d. U1. ¢. 8, 2: 113.EARLY SCHOLASTIC ANGELOLOGY 109 tery or miracle. If soluble at all, these questions, for Alexander, have to be settled in the light of the Aristotelian doctrine of being. This finding shows Alexander of Hales to have been much more open to Aristotelianism in the field of metaphysics than he is typically credited with being, just as our consideration of William of Auxerre has shown him to be knowledgeable and deliberate as he picks and chooses from among available philosophical options, Aristotelian and Neoplatonic alike, in developing the moral and epistemological approach that he takes to angels, We have like- wise seen how the schematic concerns of the systematic theolo- gians in the first half of the twelfth century play a critical role in making the place of angels in the creation account the major issue they feel a need to address, just as their interest in angels as intel- ligent and moral beings is controlled by their desire to attack Ori- genism. As for the theologians of the second half of the twelfth century, whose angelologies have been ignored even more than those of their immediate predecessors and successors, they show, even in their abbreviated consideration of this subject, and even in their occasional misreadings of, departures from, or expansions on the angelology of Peter Lombard, how swiftly his treatment of this topic became a standard one, influencing masters whether they were disciples of his or not. Their angelologies are thus part of the larger history of the emergence of Lombardian theology as main- stream Paris theology during their period. While confined to angels and to the figures and works here sur- veyed, this study thus points to the need for a fuller investigation of the writings of the scholastic theologians who wrote between the Lombard’s day and the generation following William of Auxerre and Alexander of Hales, as well as for an appreciation of the shift- ing generational concerns that informed them, no less than their particular solutions to the problems they addressed. It is our hope that this brief and limited investigation of angelology, as a litmus paper test of the interests of the early scholastics, will encourage other scholars to map what still remain some of the terrae incogni- tae in our knowledge of the first century of scholasticism. Oberlin College Marcia L. CoLisH