CHAPTER XXXIII: QUESTION 106 THE ILLUMINATION OF THE ANGELS


INTRODUCTION

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]