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Objection 1: It would seem that local distance affects the angelic
speech. For as Damascene says (De Fide Orth. i, 13): "An
angel works where he is." But speech is an angelic operation.
Therefore, as an angel is in a determinate place, it seems that an
angel's speech is limited by the bounds of that place.
Objection 2: Further, a speaker cries out on account of the
distance of the hearer. But it is said of the Seraphim that "they
cried one to another" (Is. 6:3). Therefore in the angelic
speech local distance has some effect.
On the contrary, It is said that the rich man in hell spoke to
Abraham, notwithstanding the local distance (Lk. 16:24).
Much less therefore does local distance impede the speech of one angel
to another.
I answer that, The angelic speech consists in an intellectual
operation, as explained above (Articles 1,2,3). And the
intellectual operation of an angel abstracts from the "here and now."
For even our own intellectual operation takes place by abstraction from
the "here and now," except accidentally on the part of the
phantasms, which do not exist at all in an angel. But as regards
whatever is abstracted from "here and now," neither difference of
time nor local distance has any influence whatever. Hence in the
angelic speech local distance is no impediment.
Reply to Objection 1: The angelic speech, as above explained
(Article 1, ad 2), is interior; perceived, nevertheless, by
another; and therefore it exists in the angel who speaks, and
consequently where the angel is who speaks. But as local distance does
not prevent one angel seeing another, so neither does it prevent an
angel perceiving what is ordered to him on the part of another; and
this is to perceive his speech.
Reply to Objection 2: The cry mentioned is not a bodily voice
raised by reason of the local distance; but is taken to signify the
magnitude of what is said, or the intensity of the affection,
according to what Gregory says (Moral. ii): "The less one
desires, the less one cries out."
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