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The higher angels illuminate the lower angels. According
to St. Thomas, to illuminate is not only to make
manifest a truth, which may be done by simple speech even
when an inferior being speaks to a superior being, but to
manifest a truth with authority, referring the truth to
higher principles and to the first truth, that is,
arranging truths so that another will understand them more
clearly than he would be able to do by his own powers.
This the higher angels are able to do because they possess
more universal species which represent greater areas of the
intelligible world in a more simple manner. Thus the
higher angels have a higher understanding of truth and are
able to explain their more perfect concepts.
The higher angels, however, cannot infuse a new light of
nature or grace as God does. The higher angels, like a
teacher, propose the object and illuminate an inferior
angel by shedding their higher light on the object
proposed. A human teacher, in proposing a demonstrative
middle to his pupils, objectively supports the thinking of
his pupils without infusing a new light. A higher angel
can a fortiori do this because it is of a higher species
with regard to a lower angel. The higher angel therefore
not only strengthens the lower angel's intellect in the
degree of knowledge but it also elevates the lower angel to
a more perfect manner of intellection. The angel that is
illuminated, as well as a man who is illuminated by an
angel, is to some extent elevated to the mode of
intellection of the superior being, and thus attains to
something that is "per se" unknown to him,
something beyond the light of his own intellect. Such is
not the case with a pupil illuminated by a human teacher
who makes manifest only what is "per accidens"
unknown.
The higher angels illuminate the lower angels about all
those things which pertain to the state of nature, the
state of grace, and accidental glory, since good is
essentially diffusive of itself.
The devils direct the manifestation of truth to their own
iniquity, and therefore they do not illuminate but rather
darken the truth.[1234]
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