THIRD ARTICLE: WHETHER THE ANGELS INTELLECTIVE FACULTY IS ITS ESSENCE

The reply is in the negative, because a faculty is understood with reference to the act, and because of the different acts there are different faculties which are essentially ordered to these acts. But the essence is ordered to being or existence, whereas the intellect is ordered to intellection, which in the angel is distinct from being since it presupposes being. In the same intellective faculty and within the same specific and adequate object there may be many acts of intellection, either simultaneous and subordinated or successive.