The Embodiment of Angels: a Debate in Mid-Thirteenth-Century Theology

THE EMBODIMENT OF ANGELS: A DEBATE IN MID-THIRTEENTH-CENTURY THEOLOGY

Franklin T. HARKINS

Abstract

This article investigates how mid-thirteenth-century theologians grappled with questions of angelic embodiment and corporeal life-functioning. Regent masters such as Alexander of Hales, Richard Fishacre, Richard Rufus of Corn- wall, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure variously employed scriptural and patristic sources in conjunction with Aristotelian philosophy to develop a basic metaphysics of angels according to which these inherently incorporeal spiritual creatures assume bodies not on account of any necessity on their part, but rather simply so that we humans might understand their divinely-ordained ministries. Because the relationship between angels and their bodies is strictly occasional and extrinsic, aiming at human instruction, embodied life-functions that are natural to humans are not natural to angels. Rather, angels merely act in anthropomorphic ways in order to fittingly reveal the divine will to human comprehension.

1. Introduction In a 1995 essay in this journal surveying the doctrine on angels taught by early scholastic theologians (i.e., those teaching and writing c. 1130 – c. 1230), Marcia Colish observed that only toward the end of this period did thinkers begin to treat the metaphysical constitu- tion of angels1. Whereas twelfth-century considerations of angels were generally dominated by ethical and epistemological questions, around 1220 Alexander of Hales seems to have ushered in a new era by situ- ating questions of metaphysics and embodiment at the heart of his angelology and by employing Aristotelian philosophy in attempting

1. M. COLISH, «Early Scholastic Angelology», in: Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 62 (1995), pp. 80-109.

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to answer such questions2. Colish concluded her article by noting the need for a fuller study of the doctrine of angels propounded by theologians in the generation following Alexander of Hales, and by encouraging scholars to continue mapping the terrae incognitae in our knowledge of scholastic angelology3. In the decade and a half since Colish’s article, a number of scholars have done precisely this by studying specific themes related to the metaphysical nature and/or status vis-à-vis bodies of angels in the thought of medieval schoolmen. John Marenbon, for example, has considered Peter Abelard’s «highly distinctive and radical theory» of angelic corporeality and place according to which angels, naturally incorporeal creatures, are circumscribable and have a quasi-spatial position by virtue of their acting in only one place at any particular moment4. Relatedly, Thomas Marschler has studied how Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and John Duns Scotus understood angels as occupying place in the spatial cosmos, with a consideration of the implications of their teachings for theology, metaphysics, and natural philosophy5. Tiziana Suarez-Nani has also considered the localization of angels as a part of her larger study of the nature, individuation, and cosmological function of separated substances in the late- thirteenth century, particularly in the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Thierry of Freiberg6. Bernd Roling has conducted a major study of angelic speech in the Middle Ages — from its Neoplatonic and Augustinian beginnings to Jean Gerson and Thomas de Vio Cajetan — and its theoretical Nachleben in the early modern period7.

2. COLISH, «Early Scholastic Angelology», esp. pp. 106-109. 3. COLISH, «Early Scholastic Angelology», p. 109. 4. J. MARENBON, «Abelard on Angels», in: I. IRIBARREN – M. LENZ (eds.), Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry: Their Function and Significance, Aldershot 2008, pp. 63-71, here 63. This volume also contains significant studies on angelic location after the con- demnations of 1277 and on angelic language and cognition in Late Medieval thought. 5. T. MARSCHLER, «Der Ort der Engel. Eine scholastische Standardfrage zwischen Theologie, Naturphilosophie und Metaphysik», in: Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 53 (2006), pp. 41-76. On the motion of angels and their being in time, see further P. PORRO, Forme e modelli di durata nel pensiero medievale. L’aevum, il tempo discreto, la categoria «quando», Leuven 1996, pp. 267-383. 6. T. SUAREZ-NANI, Les anges et la philosophie. Subjectivité et fonction cosmologique des substances séparées à la fin du XIIIe siècle, Paris 2002. 7. B. ROLING, Locutio angelica. Die Diskussion der Engelsprache als Antizipation einer Sprechakttheorie in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, Leiden 2008. See also I. ROSIER-CATACH,

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Additionally, Maaike van der Lugt has offered an important treatment of the nature of demonic generation in scholastic theology in a central chapter of her 2004 monograph entitled Le ver, le démon et la vierge8. Also related to the issue of angelic embodiment, as we will see, is the question of whether and how separated spirits are able to suffer punishment by the corporeal fire of hell: in rather different ways, Kurt Flasch, François-Xavier Putallaz, and Pasquale Porro have treated this crucial metaphysical and eschatological question in such thirteenth- century figures as Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Siger of Brabant, Henry of Ghent, Matthew of Aquasparta, and Giles of Rome9. While drawing on these recent studies, the present article seeks to broaden the scope of inquiry to a more general consideration of angelic embodiment and life-functioning in the more temporally limited period of the mid-thirteenth century. By looking more widely at these questions in what Colish identified as the formative period of their treatment, we seek to illuminate the larger purpose or end of angelic embodiment as understood by a select group of contemporary scholastics. The scholastic thinkers whom we will consider were prominent Franciscan and Dominican regent masters of theology at Paris and Oxford around the middle of the thirteenth century,

«Le parler des anges et le nôtre», in: S. CAROTI – R. IMBACH – Z. KALUZA – G. STABILE – L. STURLESE (eds.), «Ad Ingenii Acuitionem». Studies in Honour of Alfonso Maierù, Lou- vain-la-Neuve 2006, pp. 377-401. 8. M. VAN DER LUGT, Le ver, le démon et la vierge. Les théories médiévales de la généra- tion extraordinaire, Paris 2004, pp. 209-292. See also M. VAN DER LUGT, «The Incubus in Scholastic Debate: Medicine, Theology and Popular Belief», in: P. BILLER – J. ZIEGLER (eds.), Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, Woodbridge 2001, pp. 175-200. 9. K. FLASCH, «Die Seele im Feuer: Aristotelische Seelenlehre und augustinisch-gre- gorianische Eschatologie bei Albert von Köln, Thomas von Aquino, Siger von Brabant und Dietrich von Freiberg», in: M.J.F.M. HOENEN – A. DE LIBERA (eds.), Albertus Magnus und der Albertismus. Deutsche philosophische Kultur des Mittelalters, Leiden 1995, pp. 107-131; F.-X. PUTALLAZ, «L’âme et le feu: Notes franciscaines sur le feu de l’enfer après 1277», in: J.A. AERTSEN – K. EMERY, Jr. – A. SPEER (eds.), Nach der Verurteilung von 1277. Philosophie und Theologie an der Universität von Paris im letzten Viertel des 13. Jahrhunderts. Studien und Texte / After the Condemnation of 1277. Philosophy and Theology at the University of Paris in the Last Quarter of the Thirteenth Century. Studies and Texts, Berlin 2001, pp. 889-901; and P. PORRO, «Fisica aristotelica e escatologia cristiana: il dolore dell’anima nel dibattito scolastico del XIII secolo», in: M. BARBANTI – G.R. GIAR- DINA – P. MANGANARO (eds.), ENWSIS KAI FILIA. Unione e amicizia. Omaggio a Francesco Romano, Presentazione di E. BERTI, CUECM, Catania 2002, pp. 617-642.

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namely, Alexander of Hales, Richard Fishacre, Richard Rufus of Corn- wall, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure. We will see how they variously employ the scriptural witness and the teachings of Augustine in combination with Aristotelian and Neoplatonic philosophy to construct a basic metaphysics of angels according to which these inherently incorporeal creatures assume bodies not because they themselves need bodies in order to fulfill their divinely- ordained ministries, but rather simply so that we humans — rational, corporeal, and sensible creatures — might understand the purpose for which they have been sent. Because the relationship between angels and their bodies is strictly occasional and extrinsic, aiming at human instruction, bodily functions of life that are natural to human beings such as eating, engaging in sexual intercourse, and generating offspring are not, properly speaking, natural to angels.

2. Demonic Generation, Hell Fire, and Assumed Bodies Questions of angelic bodies and bodily functioning were, of course, by no means new in the thirteenth century. In fact, when scholastic masters grappled with such questions, they did so on account of and in conversation with the preceding theological tradition, particularly in its myriad scriptural and patristic manifestations10. The canonical Scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity reveal angels, as divine messengers, engaged in a variety of apparently bodily activities in their interactions with humans. There is, for example, Gabriel’s annunciation of the birth of Christ to the Virgin Mary in the opening chapter of the Gospel of Luke. Moreover, according to Genesis 18, angels appeared in human form to Abraham, shared a meal with him, and announced that he and his wife Sarah, both very advanced in age, would have a son. Even more intriguingly, in Numbers 22 an angel speaks to the Mesopotamian soothsayer Balaam through the mouth

10. For an overview of angels and demons in Scripture and patristic thought, see S.-T. BONINO, O.P., Les anges et les démons. Quatorze leçons de théologie catholique, Paris 2007, pp. 15-71. For an inventory of scriptural and patristic texts dealing with angels and demons, see G. AGAMBEN – E. COCCIA (eds.), Angeli. Ebraismo – Cristianesimo – Islam, Vicenza 2009, pp. 55-133, 599-647, and 763-998. As its title indicates, this substantial work provides an impressive collection of traditional Jewish, Christian, and Islamic texts on angels and demons.

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of his ass to make Balaam aware of God’s opposition to his plan to curse Israel. Finally, as we will see, Genesis 6:1-4, together with its subsequent interpretive tradition, had perhaps the most decisive influ- ence on scholastic considerations of angelic embodiment and embodied life-functioning, certainly on questions of sexual relations and reproduction. In Genesis 6:1-4, according to some ancient Jewish and Christian interpreters, demons or fallen angels came to earth, desired the beautiful women they found there, engaged in sexual intercourse with them, and thereby produced the giant offspring called Nephilim. According to this reading of the Genesis account, a reading found in the Second Temple Jewish text known as 1 Enoch, these lustful demons also introduced humankind to the magical arts and other forbidden knowledge, further examples of the great wickedness that led God to regret having created humans and to send the flood to destroy them11. It must be noted, however, that the ancient Christian exegetes to whom scholastic masters looked as authorities in their theological work tended to reject this angelic interpretation of Genesis 6 — which they understood as the «Jewish» interpretation — in favor of euhemeristic alternatives12. In De civitate Dei, for example, Augustine understands the «sons of God» and the «daughters of men» as human repre- sentatives of the metaphorical city of God and the city of man, respectively, rather than reading the former as fallen angels who illic- itly mated with human women. Augustine also aims to blunt the preternatural aspects of interpretations like that found in Enochic literature by noting that, according to the scriptural text, there were giants (which Augustine takes simply to be humans with unusually large bodies) on the earth both before and after the «sons of God» mated with the «daughters of men»13. That Manichean communities

11. See, e.g., A. YOSHIKO REED, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christi- anity: The Reception of Enochic Literature, Cambridge 2005; and J. C. VANDERKAM, «1 Enoch, Enochic Motifs, and Enoch in Early Christian Literature», in: J. C. VANDER- KAM – W. ADLER (eds.), The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity, Assen 1996, pp. 33-101. For a recent translation of 1 Enoch, see G. W. E. NICKELSBURG – J. C. VANDERKAM, 1 Enoch: A New Translation Based on the Hermeneia Commentary, Minneapolis 2004. 12. See REED, Fallen Angels, pp. 190-232. 13. AUGUSTINE, De civitate Dei XV, 22-23, ed. B. DOMBART – A. KALB, Turnholti 1955, pp. 487-492. The basic contours of the non-angelic, Sethite reading of Gen. 6:1-4

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in the Roman Empire appropriated and cultivated Enochic traditions such as the Book of the Watchers and its angelic reading of Genesis 6:1-4 may have decisively determined Augustine’s demythologizing inter- pretation14. Whatever contributed to Augustine’s exegesis, it in turn shaped scholastic thought in significant ways. Peter Lombard’s systematic treatment of angels in distinctions 2-11 of Book II of the Sentences provided a rich theological context within which subsequent thinkers were able to revisit scriptural texts on angels and demons such as Genesis 6. Scholastic theologians-in-training spilled much ink commenting on distinction 8 in particular, where the Lombard asks whether angels have bodies naturally united to them or whether they are incorporeal creatures who assume bodies at particular times simply to carry out specific services commanded by God15. Alexander of Hales, the first theologian to produce a formal commentary on the Sentences and the first Franciscan to hold a chair at the University of Paris (which he assumed c. 1220)16, sets the stage for and determines the categories of subsequent scholastic discussions of angelic embodiment with his brief comments on distinction 8: It is asked concerning the wicked angels who appear to humans in assumed bodies whether they are united to these bodies as souls [are united to bodies] or whether they assume the body as if it were a garment. It seems, though, that they are living beings [animalia]: they speak, they walk. Hence they do things that are consistent with living beings, for the voice is the sound of the mouth etc. Also, do not demons [acting as] incubi generate sons and daugh-

promulgated by Augustine can be found in the third-century Pseudo-Clementine Recog- nitions and in the Chronicle of Julius Africanus (c. 160-c. 240). See VANDERKAM, «1 Enoch», pp. 76-81 and 84, who observes: «It is abundantly clear that in the fourth century the so-called Sethite interpretation commended itself more and more to exposi- tors. The result was that soon it completely drove the older angelic understanding from the field» (p. 84). 14. On the relationship between the Manicheans and Enochic literature, see J. C. REEVES, Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions, Cincinnati 1992; and REED, Fallen Angels, esp. pp. 227 and 233-277. 15. Magistri Petri Lombardi Sententiae in IV Libris Distinctae, ed. I. BRADY, O.F.M., t. 2, Grottaferrata 1971, Bk. II d. 8 c. 1, vol. 1 pp. 365-67 (hereafter: Sent.). 16. On Alexander’s Sentences commentary, see H.P. WEBER, «The Glossa in IV libros Sententiarum by Alexander of Hales», in: Ph. ROSEMANN (ed.), Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 2, Leiden/Boston 2010, pp. 79-109; and Ph. ROSE- MANN, The Story of a Great Medieval Book: Peter Lombard’s Sentences, Orchard Park 2007, pp. 60-70.

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ters? And so demons are human, for it is consistent with nature that the parent and offspring are of the same species. It can be said that they assemble the nature with which the child is generated from the hidden seeds of things [ex occultis rerum seminibus] and pour it into women, but they do not cut it off [decidunt] from bodies that they assume. They [i.e., demons] are neither living beings [animalia] nor are they united [uniuntur] to bodies, although they move the body for the purpose of walking, just as God spoke to Moses in a subjected creature [e.g., in a cloud or a burning bush] but was not then a [created] living being [animal ]. Similarly, Gregory says in his homilies [on the Gospels]: ‘A rational animal, that is an angel, announced the birth of the Lord to the shepherds,’ which is explained thus: that is, an angel in the form of a human17. Alexander here aims to clarify the relationship between the wicked angels and the anthropomorphic bodies in which they appear in order to perform such human functions of life as walking, talking, and procreating. Are they living beings like humans whose bodies are animated by their souls, to which they are naturally united? Particu- larly noteworthy is the teaching that the nature of the offspring generated by demons who have intercourse with women is produced not naturally from their assumed bodies, but rather from their collecting and assembling the «seeds of things» (semina rerum) from within the earth. Alexander clarifies this doctrine in commenting on distinction 7, where Peter Lombard explains how it happened that Pharaoh’s magicians were able to miraculously produce such living species as

17. ALEXANDER OF HALES, Glossa in Quatuor Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi, ed. PP. COLLEGII S. BONAVENTURAE, t. II: In librum secundum, Quaracchi 1952, d. 8 n. 6, pp. 75-76 (hereafter: Glossa in II): «Quaeritur de malis angelis qui in corporibus assumptis apparent hominibus, an sint corporibus uniti ut animae, aut assumant corpus tamquam indumenta. Videtur autem quod sunt animalia: loquuntur, ambulant; unde faciunt quae animali conveniunt. Vox enim est sonus ab ore etc. – Item, nonne daemones incubi generant filios et filias? et ita daemones sunt homines. Consonum enim est naturae, ut eiusdem speciei sint parens et proles. – Potest dici quod naturam qua generatur puer, ex occultis rerum seminibus congregant et mulieribus infundant, non autem a corporibus quae induunt decidunt; nec sunt animalia, nec corporibus uniuntur, licet corpus moveant ad ambulandum; sicut Deus in subiecta creatura loquitur Moysi, non tamen fuit tunc animal. – Item, dicit Gregorius in Homiliis: ‘Rationale animal, id est angelus, pastoribus natum Dominum nuntiavit.’ Quod sic exponitur: id est angelus in forma hominis». Although the edition has «ex occultis rerum sinibus congregant et mulieribus infundunt» here, I have corrected it to read with MS B «ex occultis rerum seminibus…». Unless otherwise noted, all translations of all Latin texts will be my own. – On the various theophanies made to Moses through creatures, see AUGUSTINE, De Trinitate II, 13, 23 – 16, 27, ed. W. J. MOUNTAIN – F. GLORIE, Turnholti 1968, pp. 110-117 (hereafter: De Trin.), which text Alexander may have had in mind.

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serpents and frogs (Ex. 7-8)18. Quoting Augustine, the Lombard maintains in distinction 7 that by the keenness of their faculty of sense and fineness of body (pro subtilitate sui sensus et corporis), angels — both good and wicked — recognize the «seeds of things», which are hidden from human perception, and secretly sow them among suitable combinations of the elements in order to bring things to birth and hasten their growth19. Maaike van der Lugt has demonstrated that an Augustinian gloss on Exodus 7:11-12 concerning the demonic generation of serpents by Pharaoh’s magicians that made its way into the Glossa ordinaria became particularly determinative of the way in which Alexander of Hales and other scholastics working in the first half of the thirteenth century conceived of angelic reproduction by means of what she calls «artificial sperm/seed» («sperme artificiel»)20. What van der Lugt understands as the other major theory attested at Paris in the thirteenth century, which came to predominate in the 1240s, is what she describes as the «stolen sperm» («sperme subtilisé») theory and what I will call the succubus-incubus view21. Besides Alexander of Hales, the proponents of demonic generation by «artificial sperm/seed» include William of Auvergne, John of La Rochelle, and Hugh of St. Cher. It must be noted, however, that these thinkers generally restricted demonic generation to the production of inferior animals (as opposed to humans) based on the scriptural narrative of the magicians’ mira- cles and Augustine’s reading of it22. Hugh of St. Cher goes so far as

18. ALEXANDER OF HALES, Glossa in II, d. 7, n. 30, p. 70. 19. PETER LOMBARD, Sent., II, d. 7, c. 8, n. 3: «Sed pro subtilitate sui sensus et corporis, semina istarum rerum nobis occultiora noverunt, et ea per congruas temperationes elementorum latenter spargunt, atque ita et gignendarum rerum et accelerandorum incre- mentorum praebent occasiones» (p. 363). The Lombard is here quoting from De Trin. III, 8, 13, where Augustine explains that «certain hidden seeds of all things which come into being corporeally and visibly lie dormant in the corporeal elements of this world» (pp. 139-141, here 140). Augustine develops his theory of rationes seminales in De Genesi ad litteram, especially Bks. V and VI, where he explains, for example, how a fully devel- oped tree – with its trunk, branches, leaves, and fruit – originates in a seed and its caus- ative power. The seed, in combination with the elements of earth and water, produces the full-grown tree with all of its particular features (V, 23, ed. I. ZYCHA, Pragae/Vindobonae/ Lipsiae 1894, pp. 167, 14 – 168, 4). 20. VAN DER LUGT, Le ver, pp. 251-73. The Augustinian gloss is provided in abbreviated form in n. 171 on p. 251. 21. VAN DER LUGT, Le ver, p. 252. 22. VAN DER LUGT, Le ver, pp. 264-269.

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to maintain that by using the «seeds of things» or seminal reasons (i.e., by spontaneous generation) demons can even produce completely new species that were not on the Ark of Noah. He denies, however, the tale that Merlin was produced by a demonic incubus, nor does he believe more generally that demons can generate at all by the secre- tion of sperm23. Bonaventure, the most well-known student of Alexander of Hales at Paris, continues his master’s line of thought when he treats the power of demons (de virtute daemonum) in his own commentary on distinction 7 of Book II of the Sentences. After establishing that creatures can produce the substantial or corporeal form of things since these forms are in matter according to «seminal reasons» (rationes seminales), Bonaventure asks whether demons can induce the true forms of things24. His determination of the question rests on two important distinctions, namely that between artificial and natural forms, on the one hand, and that between proper and alien power, on the other. Bonaventure explains that whereas demons are able to induce artificial forms (i.e., images or figures) by means of a power proper to themselves, they can induce the natural forms of things (i.e., a true snake or a true frog) only by an alien power25. Relying on Augustine’s doctrine of seminal reasons (rationes seminales), Bonaven- ture explains that what is meant by the induction of forms by an alien power (virtute aliena) is that a created agent joins several elements, each of which has its own natural power, together to produce a new thing. A farmer, for example, causes his crop to grow simply by plant- ing a seed in the earth and watering it regularly: since the crop is produced by a power proper or natural to the seed in combination with soil and water (and the power proper to each of these elements), the farmer is said to produce the crop only by a power alien to himself. Properly speaking, then, the natural forms of things are produced only by the divine Creator or by the created natures themselves. Only God and the things God has created (in this case, a seed, earth, and water) operate according to the mode of nature (per modum naturae).

23. VAN DER LUGT, Le ver, pp. 263-269. 24. BONAVENTURE, Commentaria in quatuor libros sententiarum magistri Petri Lom- bardi, ed. PP. COLLEGII A S. BONAVENTURA, t. 2: In secundum librum, Quarrachi 1885, d. 7 p. 2 a. 2 qq. 1 and 2, pp. 196-204 (hereafter: Comm. in II). 25. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II, d. 7, p. 2, a. 2, q. 2 corpus, pp. 201-202.

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A farmer, by contrast, operates in relation to his crop according to the mode of an art (per modum artis), namely agriculture or hus- bandry, and so works as an artifex rather than a creator. Similarly, Bonaventure affirms, evil spirits operate according to the mode of an art, namely magic, in producing the natural forms of things such as snakes, frogs, and presumably offspring from human women26. In his third and final question on the power of demons, Bonaventure asks whether anyone can use the magical arts without sinning. «It must be said», he concludes, «that the magical arts or divination are not able to exist without sin, nor can the counsel or even the help or ministry of the devil be sought without sin»27. That the magical arts represent the forbidden ministry of the demons whereby miraculous works can be performed was a medieval commonplace, one that clearly echoes the Enochic tradition of the fallen angels’ having introduced humankind to sorcery, magic, astrology, and similar arts28. If we return to Alexander’s comments on distinction 8 and reread them in light of Bonaventure’s treatment and the «artificial seed» theory more generally, the former’s explanation of demonic generation becomes clearer. By using the magical arts, the wicked angels combine natural elements — and the powers proper to them — to produce offspring that appear to be human. But exactly who the wicked angels are vis-à-vis the bodies that are somehow theirs and precisely how they do what they do in these bodies — including engage in sexual intercourse with women — are questions that Alexander does not answer definitively. His language does suggest, however, a rather loose and temporally limited link between the

26. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II, d. 7, p. 2, a. 2, q. 2, corpus, p. 202. Cf. THOMAS AQUINAS, Scriptum super libros sententiarum magistri Petri Lombardi episcopi Parisiensis, ed. R.P. MANDONNET, O.P., t. 2: In secundum librum, Paris 1929, d. 7, q. 3, a. 1, pp. 193- 196, esp. corpus, p. 195 (hereafter: Scriptum in II), who similarly maintains that demons are not able truly to produce effects that are not «in the force of some natural active power» such as raising the dead to life, although they can create an illusion of such effects. 27. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II d. 7 p. 2 a. 2 q. 3 corpus, p. 204: «Dicendum, quod huiusmodi artes magicae sive divinationes non possunt esse absque peccato; nec potest a diabolo requiri consilium vel etiam auxilium sive ministerium absque peccato…». 28. See 1 Enoch 7:1 and 8:1-4. On the magical arts and evil spirits in the Middle Ages, see C. RIDER, Magic and Impotence in the Middle Ages, Oxford 2006; K. JOLLY – C. RAUDVERE – E. PETERS (eds.), Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: The Middle Ages, Phila- delphia 2002; R. KIECKHEFER, Magic in the Middle Ages, Cambridge 1990; and N. CACI- OLA, Discerning Spirits: Divine and Demonic Possession in the Middle Ages, Ithaca 2003.

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demons as such, on the one hand, and their bodies and bodily functions of life, on the other. Confirmation and further explanation of this relationship is found in the Summa theologica or Summa fratris Alexandri that has been traditionally attributed to Alexander of Hales, a synthesis perhaps begun and redacted by Alexander but completed by others in the Franciscan school after his death29. The Summa fratris Alexandri divides its general treatment of the movement of angels in assumed bodies in the First Part of his Second Book into two chapters, the first on the assumption of bodies and the second on particular acts that angels perform in their assumed bodies30. The author begins the first chapter by establishing that an angel does not naturally possess a body, but simply assumes one for the sake of performing those activities or operations that he works among and for the sake of humankind. The assumption of a body, then, is not a necessity insofar as the angel himself is concerned, but it is required in order for the angel to imprint on our senses31. Noting that the Lord sometimes spoke to the Patriarchs of the Old Testament through angelic media- tion, the author makes clear that the angel assumes a created body to himself for the purpose either of making himself, an innately spiritual and incorporeal creature, manifest or of revealing God32. The union of the angel to the body is not like that of perfection to its perfectible,

29. On the dating and authenticity of the Summa fratris Alexandri, see M. GORCE, «La somme théologique d’Alexandre de Hales est-elle authentique?», in: New Scholasticism 5 (1931), pp. 1-72; C. M. CULLEN, «Alexander of Hales», in: J. J. E. GRACIA – T. B. NOONE (eds.), A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Malden 2003, pp. 104-108; and especially the prolegomena to the Quarrachi edition: Alexandri de Hales Summa Theologica, ed. PP. COLLEGII S. BONAVENTURAE, t. 4, Quaracchi 1948, pp. LIX-LXXXI. Although the questions of Alexander himself likely served as one source for the material that came to constitute the first three books of the Summa fratris Alexandri, which books were compiled prior to Alexander’s death in 1245, so many questions of authorship and authenticity remain unanswered that we certainly cannot assume that Alexander is the author or even compiler of the entire Summa. Hereafter the Summa fratris Alexandri will be abbreviated SfA. 30. SfA, ed. PP. COLLEGII S. BONAVENTURAE, t. 2, Quaracchi 1928, Lib. II, pars 1, inq. 2, tract. 3, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, mem. 2, pp. 238-247. 31. SfA, Lib. II, pars 1, inq. 2, tract. 3, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, mem. 2, cap. 1, aa. 1-2, esp. a. 2 corpus, p. 240, where the author notes that the angel does not need a body in order to imprint on the human intellect or imagination. 32. SfA, Lib. II, pars 1, inq. 2, tract. 3, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, mem. 2, cap. 1, a. 3, corpus, p. 240.

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but rather like that of a mover to the movable33. Furthermore, according to the Summa fratris Alexandri, the angel does not assume every body that he moves, but rather only those that he moves for the purpose of self-manifestation or divine revelation34. The author explains that the body that the angel assumes is taken or formed from air: whereas the good angels assume bodies from the purer upper atmosphere or ether, the wicked angels assumed bodies from the lower atmosphere which is properly called air35. Here the Summa fratris Alexandri follows Augustine, who teaches that demons are «airy animals» (aeria animalia) who prior to their transgression either inhabited the higher region of the air and as such had bodies of purer air, on the one hand, or inhabited the celestial region and had bodies of fire, on the other. Either way, in Augustine’s view, after their sin they were «thrust down into this misty darkness, where there is nevertheless air but it is interwoven with a little moisture»36. These foggy regions serve as a prison (carcer) for them until the time of judgment, Augustine teaches37. When Bonaventure asks, in commenting on distinction 6 of Book II of the Sentences, «into what the fallen angels fell», this Augus- tinian understanding appears determinative. Invoking Ephesians 2:1-3, which describes the devil as the ruler of the power of the air, Bon- aventure teaches that the ordinary place of the demons after the fall and until the judgment day is not the subterranean region known as hell, but rather the foggy air. «Whether some of them were thrust down into hell», he concedes, «I do not know, nor do I find it determined by the saints. But I certainly believe that some descend [there] in order to torment souls according to the duties of punishment that

33. SfA, Lib. II pars 1, inq. 2, tract. 3, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, mem. 2, cap. 1, a. 3, corpus, p. 240: «quoniam angeli ad suum corpus non est unio sicut perfectionis ad suum per- fectibile, sed sicut motoris ad mobile». Although the author provides no examples of unions of «perfection to its perfectible», he likely has in mind the hypostatic union of the divine Word to human nature in Christ or the rational soul to the body in ordinary humans. 34. SfA, Lib. II, pars 1, inq. 2, tract. 3, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, mem. 2, cap. 1, a. 3, corpus, p. 240. 35. SfA, Lib. II, pars 1, inq. 2, tract. 3, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, mem. 2, cap. 1, a. 4, corpus, p. 241-242. 36. AUGUSTINE, De Genesi ad litteram, III, 10, pp. 72, 22 – 74, 22: «… non mirum, si post peccatum in istam sunt detrusi caliginem, ubi tamen et aer sit et humore tenui con- texatur,…» (p. 73, 18-20). 37. AUGUSTINE, De Genesi ad litteram, III, 10, p. 74, 9-11.

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they have assigned among themselves”38. Invoking Augustine’s view that God turns the evil committed by creatures to good use, Bonaven- ture explains that God provided the region of the foggy air for most of the fallen angels, rather than consigning them to hell, in order that they might both help to train humans in obedience and have a context for their own training in obedience39. The misty air was a fitting destination not only because its fogginess is appropriate to the darkness of the angels’ fault, but also because its fluidity and fineness is conducive to the speed of angels, who «as has been revealed to certain holy men, frequently circle around us like flies»40. Bonaventure’s teaching concerning the place of the fallen angels echoes not only Augustine’s, on which it directly depends, but also that of Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 which teach that God has cast the fallen angels into darkness until the day of judgment41. Bonaventure teaches that the punishment of the fallen angels by fire will be postponed until after the judgment. The fact that the majority of wicked angels have not fallen into hell prior to the judgment, but rather into the foggy air, poses a problem for the view of some medieval thinkers that the angels are tortured by material fire immediately following their fall. It does not make sense (non intelli- gibile), Bonaventure notes, that the fallen angels would move themselves around (everywhere they roam) in a burning fire unless from the time of their first fall they had bodies inseparably fitted to them in which they are punished42. The problem with this view, particularly in light of Bonaventure’s previous question, seems to be twofold:

38. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II, d. 6, a. 2, q. 1, corpus, p. 164: «Utrum autem aliqui detrusi sint in infernum, hoc ego nescio nec invenio a Sanctis determinatum. Hoc autem bene credo, quod aliqui descendunt ad torquendas animas, secundum quod habent depu- tata inter se maledictionis officia». 39. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II, d. 6, a. 2, q. 1, corpus, p. 164; and d. 6, a. 2, q. 2, corpus, p. 166. 40. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II, d. 6, a. 2, q. 1, corpus, p. 164: «Aër enim caliginosus propter caliginem convenit tenebrositati culpae, sed propter mobilitatem et subtilitatem convenit velocitati angelicae: unde, sicut aliquibus viris sanctis ostensum est, frequenter circa nos volitant sicut muscae». Cf. the opening lines of De civitate Dei, XI, 18, p. 337, which Bonaventure quotes as an authority here. 41. Although neither Augustine nor Bonaventure invokes Jude 6 or 2 Peter 2:4 in their discussions, in describing the place of the angels’ punishment prior to judgment they both use forms of the word caligo, darkness or fog, which is the very word used in the Vulgate of Jude 6. 42. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II, d. 6, a. 2, q. 2, corpus, p. 166.

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first, angels do not have bodies inseparably attached to them, but rather assume bodies for the sole purpose of performing specific functions commanded by God; and second, the wicked angels fell not into the region of fiery torment (viz., hell), but into the foggy air. With regard to the first difficulty, Bonaventure elsewhere explains, in line with the teaching of the Summa fratris Alexandri, that angels (whether good or evil) have bodies neither naturally united to them nor inseparably attached43. As evidence, he cites the Gerasene demonic of Mark 5, who was possessed by a great multitude of demons (in fact, by a «legion», understood as 6,666): «If demons had bodies, they could have in no way entered by stealth so small a body [as this man’s] with their own bodies»44. What Bonaventure takes to be the more probable thirteenth-century position on when the angels will undergo punishment by fire maintains that it will be postponed until after the judgment, «not only so that their training [in obedience] might not be omitted, but also so that divine mercy might be shown»45. The question of how fallen angels, inherently incorporeal creatures, are able to experience the torments of material fire still remains, however, and is taken up by Bonaventure in his commentary on distinction 44 of Book IV of the Sentences. The more basic philosophical problem of how purely spiritual substances like separated human souls are able to suffer the fire of hell is an ancient one, dating back at least to the second century C.E. The early Christian apologist Jus- tin Martyr, for example, maintained that hell fire can act on the evil human person only after the general resurrection when he or she again possesses a body; the separated soul, as pure spirit, simply has no capacity to experience the effects of physical fire46. The different approaches that Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Siger of Brabant,

43. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 1, q. 1, corpus, p. 211. 44. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 1, q. 1, corpus, p. 211: «Unde, si daemones corpora haberent, cum suis corporibus nullo modo possent subintrare corpus ita modi- cum». 45. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in II, d. 6, a. 2, q. 2, corpus, p. 166: «Ideo aliorum positio est, quod daemonibus differtur poena ignis usque post iudicium, tum ut eorum exercitium non omittatur, tum etiam ut divina misericordia ostendatur, quae sustinet vasa irae apta in interitum in multa patientia [Rom. 9:22] usque in diem, quo retribuet omnibus secundum fructum adinventionum suarum [Ier. 17:10; 32:19]». 46. See FLASCH, «Die Seele», p. 109.

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and Dietrich of Freiberg took to the question of «die Seele im Feuer» over a millennium after Justin variously exemplify, according to Kurt Flasch, the human desire to eliminate philosophical inconsistency and make their world more intellectually «elastic»47. In the case of Bonaventure, too, we see an attempt at such doctrinal elasticity. In commenting on Book IV distinction 44, he sets forth the various views concerning «whether the fire of hell afflicts the spirit» before determining the question himself48. Whereas some thinkers (most notably, Aristotle and Averroes) denied that an incorporeal spirit such as an angel or a separated human soul could suffer torment at all on account of its immutability and incorruptibility, the position of «other modern philosophers» such as the Muslim Al-Ghazali (whom Bonaventure explicitly names) was that a spiritual substance can suffer through the privation of something that it desires (like the highest Good) although not through the action of some agent (like material fire)49. Against both of these views, Bonaventure invokes Matthew 25:41 (in which Christ says, «Go, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels») as evidence that «the Christian faith declares that separated spirits suffer punishment not merely through the absence of the highest Good, but also through the presence of a tormenting agent»50. Central to Bonaventure’s explanation of how this happens is the distinction between the order of nature (ordo naturae) and the order of divine justice (ordo divinae iustitiae). Whereas a spirit without a body cannot suffer the torments of material fire according to the order of nature by virtue of the fact that such spirits are naturally superior to fire, torture by fire is a possibility for a spirit according to

47. FLASCH, «Die Seele», passim, esp. pp. 107-108 and 126-129. 48. BONAVENTURE, Commentaria in quatuor libros sententiarum magistri Petri Lom- bardi, ed. PP. COLLEGII A S. BONAVENTURA, t. 4: In quartum librum, Quarrachi 1889, d. 44 p. 2 a. 3 q. 2, pp. 931-35 (hereafter: Comm. in IV). 49. On both categories of thought and their proponents, see F.-X. PUTALLAZ, «L’âme et le feu», pp. 889-891. It is important to note that subsequent to Bonaventure’s Sentences commentary, Étienne Tempier twice condemned the proposition that after death the separated soul in no way suffers from corporeal fire (viz., on 10 December 1270 and 7 March 1277). 50. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in IV, d. 44, p. 2, a. 3, q. 2, corpus, p. 933: «Et ideo dicit fides christiana, quod spiritus separati cruciantur non tantum per summi Boni absentiam, sed etiam per afflictivi praesentiam. Ad quod credendum sufficit auctoritas Veritatis, Mat- thaei vigesimo quinto: Ite maledicti in ignem aeternum etc.».

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the order of divine justice. For the sake of justice, God binds the spirit and the fire indissolubly, shutting the spirit up in the fire as in prison (ut in carcere)51. Locking the spirit into a fiery prison, «divine justice… makes transgressors tremble by sending them into panic and dread [terrorem et horrorem] of a thing to which by nature they are superior»52. Thus, the spirit experiences genuine terror and horror, and through these true pain, from material fire. Although this happens according to the order of divine justice, Bonaventure is quick to point out that such a purposeful uniting of incorporeal spirit with a material substance is not contrary to the order of nature. In fact, just as God joins the spiritual soul with a body in order to give every person life and enable the human soul to experience love, so too does God join the spirit to fire in hell as the means of eternal punish- ment53. For several of our scholastics, the fact that the devil and his min- ions would be tormented in hell suggested that angels do, in fact, have bodies. For example, Richard Rufus of Cornwall, a Franciscan master at Oxford who lectured on the Sentences around 125054, maintains: «It seems that the devil is not able to suffer from corporeal fire in hell unless he has a body. But he suffers without a doubt, and the fire of hell is corporeal. Proof: Augustine says On the City of God Bk. 21 ch. 6: ‘That hell, which is called the lake of fire and of sulphur [Rev. 20:19], will be a corporeal fire.’ Therefore … it follows that they [i.e., angels] have bodies»55. After offering reasons both for and

51. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in IV, d. 44, p. 2, a. 3, q. 2, corpus, p. 934. 52. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in IV, d. 44, p. 2, a. 3, q. 2, corpus, p. 934: «Hoc divinae iustitiae est, quae facit trepidare peccatores, immittendo terrorem et horrorem eius rei, qua per naturam sunt superiores». 53. BONAVENTURE, Comm. in IV, d. 44, p. 2, a. 3, q. 2, corpus, p. 934. Cf. AUGUS- TINE, De civitate Dei, XXI, 10, pp. 775-776, which Bonaventure invokes here. For other medieval, particularly scholastic, views on the suffering of the separated soul, see D. MOW- BRAY, Pain and Suffering in Medieval Theology: Academic Debates at the University of Paris in the Thirteenth Century, Woodbridge 2009, pp. 104-130. 54. See R. WOOD, «Early Oxford Theology», in: G.R. EVANS (ed.), Mediaeval Com- mentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, vol. 1, Leiden/Boston/Köln 2002, pp. 289-343. 55. RICHARD RUFUS, Sententia Oxoniensis (hereafter: Sent. Oxon.), Bk. II, d. 8 B (Oxford, Balliol College 62, fol. 120va). I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Rega Wood, the Director of the Richard Rufus Project, for generously sharing with me the preliminary unpublished transcription of the Richard Rufus of Cornwall Project and the relevant folios of Oxford Balliol College 62.

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against angelic bodies, Rufus notes that authorities on both sides seem equally reasonable to him and he defends his indecision by observing that Augustine himself did not determine the question56. Similarly, Albert the Great, the Dominican teacher of Thomas Aquinas who delivered his Sentences lectures before becoming a master in 1245,57 maintains: «The Fathers seem to think different things concerning this [question], and it is not clear to me which position I should teach, and I admit that I do not know»58. Albert proceeds to side with many «Catholic doctors» who hold that whereas angels do not have their own natural bodies, they do assume bodies «according to the will and ordination of God» ( pro voluntate et ordinatione Dei)59. According to Albert, an angel’s adjoined body, which he uses to carry out the divine purpose, can be either organic (i.e., he can operate through an ass or a serpent, for example) or formed exclusively according to his mission (as was the case with the bodies of the three visitors to Abraham)60. Roughly contemporary with Albert’s Sentences commentary and the Summa fratris Alexandri is the commentary of the English Dominican Richard Fishacre, the first Oxford theologian to comment on Peter Lombard’s collection, likely producing his work between 1241 and 124561. Not surprisingly, then, Fishacre resolves the question of angelic bodies in much the same way as Alexander and Albert: «Therefore we say that they [i.e., angels] do not have bodies naturally united to them, but [rather] for a great diversity of

56. RICHARD RUFUS, Sent. Oxon., Bk. II, d. 8 B: «Rationes multiplicatae in hac quaestione, vel pro vel contra, ab Augustino sumptas, satis parum mihi videtur, nam ipse idem in eodem libro et capitulo satis docet, et exemplo nos instruit, quod in hac quaestione neutram partem definit. Ait enim: ‘Si quisquam nulla daemones habere corpora asseve- rat, non est de hac re aut laborandum aut certandum’» (Oxford, Balliol College 62, fol. 120va). 57. WOOD, «Early Oxford Theology», p. 310 n. 83. 58. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Commentarium in II librum sententiarum (ed. P. JAMMY, t. 15: Commentarii in II. et III. Lib. Sentent., Lyon 1651; hereafter: Comm. in II ), d. 8, a. 1, sol., p. 94: «Videntur Patres de huiusmodi diversa sensisse, nec mihi perspicuum est unde alterutrum doceam, et nescire me fateor». 59. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 2, sol., p. 95. 60. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 2, ad 1, p. 95. 61. See R.J. LONG – M. O’CARROLL SND, The Life and Works of Richard Fishacre OP: Prolegomena to the Edition of his Commentary on the Sentences, Müchen 1999, pp. 39-48; and R.J. LONG, «The Beginning of a Tradition: The Sentences Commentary of Richard Fishacre, OP», in: EVANS (ed.), Mediaeval Commentaries on the Sentences, vol. 1, pp. 345- 57.

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ministries they produce bodies for themselves and clothe themselves with them, just as we make and clothe ourselves with garments. Since, however, there is no union between me and my garment, it is not natural to me»62. All of our theologians, then, understand the bodies of angels to be assumed and occasional rather than natural and permanent: each angel takes to himself a particular kind of body that is well-suited to his divinely-ordained task, much as we humans put on shorts and a T-shirt to exercise but a suit for a job interview.

3. Convenientia ad nos: Angelic Embodiment and Human Instruction But here a philosophical conundrum arises: namely, if angels are naturally incorporeal, spiritual creatures (as Augustine, John Dama- scene, Pseudo-Dionysius, and many other prominent Christian theologians had taught), isn’t their assumption and use of a material body necessarily unfitting, even problematic? Isn’t there a fundamental disproportionality between an angel and a body? After all, Aristotle teaches that the operation of a purely intellectual creature can neither depend on nor derive from a body63. Furthermore, the Aristotelian principle that the simpler way is better implies that angels, who certainly are able to operate without bodies, should in fact do precisely that64. Albert the Great addresses these objections in question 75 of the First Part of his Summa theologiae, where he treats questions of angelic bodies and their operations in considerable detail. «It must be said», Albert begins the solution of membrum or article 1, «that on this question the Philosopher is able [to say] little or nothing. And therefore we must rely wholly on the authority of the saints and the biblical writings»65. Scripture clearly teaches, he proceeds to explain,

62. RICHARD FISHACRE, In secundum librum sententiarum, ed. R.J. LONG, München 2008, d. 8, «Utrum omnes angeli corporei sint», sol., p. 161: «Propterea dicamus quod non habent corpora sibi naturaliter unita, sed pro diversitate ministeriorum diversa sibi componunt et induunt corpora, sicut nos nobis vestimenta. Cum tamen nulla sit unio inter me et vestimentum meum, nec sit mihi naturale». 63. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Summa theologiae (ed. P. JAMMY, t. 17: Prima Pars Summae Theologiae, Lyon 1651; hereafter: ST), I, q. 75, mem. 1, obj. 2, p. 426. 64. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, ST, I, q. 75, mem. 1, obj. 2, p. 426. 65. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, ST, I, q. 75, mem. 1, sol., p. 427: «Dicendum quod in quaestione hac parum potest Philosophus vel nihil: et ideo omnino innitendum est aucto- ritatibus Sanctorum et Scripturae Bibliae».

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that angels perform their ministries in bodies «on account of our material understanding» (propter nostrum materialem intellectum). Because we are corporeal creatures and, as such, are instructed more easily concerning heavenly things by means of corporeal likenesses, it is «fitting for us» (convenientia ad nos) that angels assume bodies66. And indeed, the bodies assumed by angels indicate to us humans what they have come to do concerning us. If they come to protect us from ambush, Albert explains, they assume the forms of agents of war, as in 2 Kings 6:17: «Behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha». Or in Tobit 5, Raphael appeared as a young man ready for walking in order to teach Tobit that he would lead his son Tobias safely to Media67. This seems quite reasonable. But why an angel spoke through the mouth of Balaam’s ass in Numbers 22 still remains inexplicable. Because the tongue of an ass is certainly not the necessary instrument for the formation of speech, objection 6 makes clear, this angel did not need to assume the organized body of an ass. Albert responds to this objection by maintaining that angels with respect to themselves in no way need bodies and the natural faculties of these bodies in order to carry out particular functions; they can utter articulate expressions, for example, without forming them by means of a tongue (e.g., they can speak through burning bushes or clouds, as Scripture attests). But with respect to us they do need bodies, in order that we might be taught in the way that is «most fitting» for us68. And we are most accustomed to hearing and understanding language produced by means of the corporeal mouths of animals (albeit ordinarily the mouths of rational animals). Genesis 6:1-4, together with other canonical texts in which angels appear to eat and speak (e.g., Gen. 18:1-15 and Tob. 12:19), provided the occasion for scholastic theologians to reflect on the functions of life that angels are able to perform in their assumed bodies.

66. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, ST, I, q. 75, mem. 1, ad 1, p. 427: «Licet enim quantum est de natura sua incorporei sint et simplices, nullam habentes inclinationem vel proportio- nem ad corpus: tamen quia nos corporei sumus et corporalibus similitudinibus facilius instruimur de caelestibus, ex convenientia ad nos, ut scilicet nobis congruant, utile est eos assumere corpora…». 67. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, ST, I, q. 75, mem. 1, sol. and ad 1, p. 427. 68. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, ST, I, q. 75, mem. 1, obj. 6 and ad 6, pp. 427-428.

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Can angels with their assumed bodies walk, speak, eat, engage in sexual intercourse, and generate offspring? Thomas Aquinas addresses such questions in several of his works, from his early Scriptum on the Sentences (originating as lectures delivered at the University of Paris in 1252-56) to his mature Summa theologiae69. In the Scriptum Aqui- nas, like Alexander of Hales before him, explains that the relationship between an angel and his assumed body is a metaphysically loose and extrinsic one, which has consequences for corporeal function on the part of the angel: It must be said that… angels do not pour life into their assumed bodies, but rather merely movement: and therefore it must be held that no operations which accompany a living body inasmuch as it is living can pertain to angels in their assumed bodies, but only those which accompany a mobile body inasmuch as it is movable, such as moving, pushing, dividing, and things of this sort70. For Thomas, then, embodied angels can perform only those functions of life that require motion and only to the extent that those functions can be accomplished by means of simple motion. He explains, for example, that an angel is not able to truly eat by virtue of the fact that he cannot perform all of the operations that are essential to eating: namely, cutting food with the teeth, swallowing it with the throat, digesting it in the stomach, and converting it into fuel for the body. Whereas the embodied angel can chew and swallow his food, his body simply does not have the capacity of a truly living body to process food and incorporate it into that selfsame body (although Thomas is quick to point out that «by some power of the angel» the swallowed food is dissolved into previously inactive or unformed matter)71.

69. For introductions to the Scriptum and Summa theologiae, see respectively J.-P. TOR- RELL, O.P., Saint Thomas Aquinas, vol. 1, rev. ed., trans. R. ROYAL, Washington D.C. 2005, pp. 36-47; A. OLIVA, Les débuts de l’enseignement de Thomas d’Aquin et sa conception de la sacra doctrina, avec l’édition du Prologue de son commentaire des Sentences, Paris 2006, pp. 187-287; and J.-P. TORRELL, O.P., Aquinas’s Summa: Background, Structure, & Recep- tion, trans. B.M. GUEVIN, Washington D.C. 2005. 70. THOMAS AQUINAS, Scriptum in II, d. 8, q. 1, a. 4, sol. 1, pp. 211-212: «Respondeo dicendum, quod, ut praedictum est, angeli corporibus assumptis vitam non influent, sed tantum motum: et ideo considerandum est quod omnes operationes quae sequuntur corpus vivum, inquantum vivum, non possunt angelis in corporibus assumptis convenire; sed tantum illae quae consequuntur corpus mobile inquantum hujusmodi, ut movere, impellere, dividere, et hujusmodi». 71. THOMAS AQUINAS, Scriptum in II, d. 8, q. 1, a. 4, sol. 1, p. 212.

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It is important to note here, in the context of Aquinas’s denial of true eating among the angels, his relatively strong view of food vis-à-vis the human body and human nature. In commenting on distinction 30 of Book II of the Sentences, Thomas discusses three opinions on the question of «whether food passes over into the truth of human nature»72. According to the first position, that of Peter Lombard, food is not converted into the truth of human nature at all; rather the truth of human nature consists completely in the original seminal material that the indi- vidual received from his or her parents. On Thomas’s reading of this position, food simply protects the flesh from being consumed by vital heat rather than either augmenting or restoring the body73. The second position maintains that the human body possesses a primary seminal component that is fixed and endures throughout one’s life, but that the rest of the body (i.e., the secondary component) consists of material that is subject to wastage and renewal. On this account, food is converted into the truth of human nature only secondarily, that is, only with respect to this second component74. The third position, that of Aristotle and Averroes, holds that food truly and completely becomes the truth of human nature precisely because there is no material part of the body that is fixed and permanent; rather, all bodily matter is susceptible to wastage and restoration75. Aquinas claims this third view as his own, thereby highlighting the indispensable role of eating to both nourish- ment and nature among humans. Finally, it is significant, as a prelude to our consideration of his teaching on demonic reproduction, that Thomas also follows Aristotle in maintaining that human semen is entirely a byproduct of food and the digestive process76. Because angels

72. THOMAS AQUINAS, Scriptum in II, d. 30, q. 2, a. 1, sol., pp. 778-787. For an analysis of Aquinas’s treatment here, see P.L. REYNOLDS, Food and the Body: Some Peculiar Questions in High Medieval Theology, Leiden 1999, pp. 361-371, on whom the following summary depends. 73. THOMAS AQUINAS, Scriptum in II, d. 30, q. 2, a. 1, sol., p. 778. 74. THOMAS AQUINAS, Scriptum in II, d. 30, q. 2, a. 1, sol., p. 780-784. 75. THOMAS AQUINAS, Scriptum in II, d. 30, q. 2, a. 1, sol., p. 784-785. Thomas does make clear that whereas, according to this position, no material part of (i.e., no matter in) the human body is permanent, the form and species of the human is permanent. Instructive here is Aristotle’s analogy of the stoking of a fire: as the fire burns up logs, one adds new logs to replace them, but the form of the fire always remains (REYNOLDS, Food and the Body, p. 369). 76. THOMAS AQUINAS, Scriptum in II, d. 30, q. 2, a. 2, sol., p. 790-794. Cf. REY- NOLDS, Food and the Body, pp. 371-376.

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do not really eat and nourish their bodies, they are wholly unable to produce sperm. Thomas’s refusal to admit that angels truly eat accords with the Summa fratris Alexandri, which had earlier arrived at a similar conclusion regarding angelic eating by a different route. The author of the Summa fratris Alexandri, following Augustine, distinguishes between the necessity and the power of eating. Whereas angels do not eat out of any necessity of nourishing their assumed bodies (which are constituted of air, it must be recalled), they do truly eat inasmuch as eating pertains to the power of revealing God to those humans with whom angels share meals77. As one of the objections affirms, it is an abomination (nefas) to believe that in angels food moves into the stomach and is expelled through the intestines (i.e., that these divine messengers digest and defecate)78. The precise words of the archangel Raphael to Tobit, «I appeared [videbar] to eat with you, but I use invisible food» (Tob. 12:19), provide compelling scriptural evidence in support of the view of the Summa fratris Alexandri — and Aquinas — that angels eat only insofar as they chew and swallow their food (i.e., divide and move it locally)79. Thomas’s teaching on angelic eating (or non-eating, more properly) is in line with that of his master, Albert. Albert begins article 5 on distinction 8 of Bk. II of his Sentences commentary (which asks whether angels are able to eat) with this affirmation: «They seem to truly eat because Abraham the Patriarch, who was spiritual and prob- ably had discernment, offered them food and they ate»80. A second objection Albert raises is that it is not fitting or suitable for angels,

77. SfA, Lib. II, pars 1, inq. 2, tract. 3, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, mem. 2, cap. 2, a. 2, corpus, pp. 245-246. 78. SfA, Lib. II, pars 1, inq. 2, tract. 3, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, mem. 2, cap. 2, a. 2, obj. 2, p. 245. Cf. Mt. 15:17. 79. SfA, Lib. II, pars 1, inq. 2, tract. 3, sect. 2, q. 2, tit. 2, mem. 2, cap. 2, a. 2, obj. 1 and ad 1, pp. 245-246. Emphasis mine. Cf. THOMAS AQUINAS, who invokes Tob. 12:19 to support his argument concerning angelic eating in Summa theologiae (hereafter: ST), I, q. 51, a. 3, ad 5 (ed. P. CARAMELLO, vol. 1, Turin/Rome 1952, p. 260); and Quaestiones disputatae de potentia Dei (hereafter: De potentia), q. 6, a. 8, corpus (Quaestiones disputatae et quaestiones duodecim quodlibetales, vol. 1, Editio Quinta Taurinensis, Turin/Rome 1931, p. 211). 80. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, obj. 1, p. 97: «Videbantur autem vere comedere: quia Abraham patriarcha qui spiritualis erat, et probabile est quod discre- tionem habuerit, obtulit eis cibos et illi comedebant».

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who are heralds of divine truth, to deceive humans by merely appearing to eat when in fact they are not actually eating81. On the other hand, to believe that angels digest and incorporate food before excret- ing waste is absurd82! Echoing the Summa fratris Alexandri, Albert answers that angels do not truly eat. But neither do they deceive us in appearing to eat, he explains, since they intend such corporeal actions to refer to «some spiritual and moral [reality]»83. The three angelic visitors to Abraham, for example, appeared in anthropomorphic bodies in which they seemed to eat in order to show forth the ministry of the Triune God and His communion with us humans. Abraham served his guests food, Albert explains, because he did not recognize that they were angels with such a purpose until after the meal. That he did not recognize their angelic nature and ministry right away is «not unfitting [for a patriarch], nor does it demonstrate less sanctity [on his part]», Albert teaches84. Finally, let us return to the question with which we began, namely whether angels can procreate or generate offspring. Here Aquinas’s thinking is guided by the aforementioned principle that angels can perform only those life-functions that require simple movement. Furthermore, it is this metaphysical hermeneutic that helps Thomas navigate the contested intellectual terrain between the strictly human Sethite interpretation of Gen. 6:1-4 represented by Augustine, on the one hand, and the angelic Enochic one, on the other. In the Scriptum, Aquinas writes: Some say that demons in their assumed bodies are in no way able to procreate; and that ‘the sons of God’ do not signify angels [acting as] incubi, but rather the sons of Seth, and that ‘the daughters of men’ signify those who descended from the race of Cain. But because the contrary is held by many, and [because] what seems true to many cannot be entirely false according to the Philosopher…, it can therefore be said that by their [i.e., the demons’] action generation is completed inasmuch as they can put human semen in a place appropriate to the corresponding matter, just as they can also bring

81. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, obj. 2, p. 97. 82. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, sed contra, p. 97. 83. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, ad 2, p. 98. 84. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, ad 1, p. 98: «Ad id autem quod obiicitur de Abraham, dico quod recognouit quidem ministerium Trinitatis in eis figurari, sed non recognouit esse Angelos usque post mensam: et hoc non est inconueniens, nec minorem sanctitatem ostendens».

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together the seeds of other things in order to bring certain effects to frui- tion…. So only what is local motion is attributed to them, not however generation itself, the beginning of which is not the power of the demon or of the body assumed by him, but rather the power of that one whose semen it was. Hence the one born is not the demon’s, but rather is the son of a certain human85. Although Thomas in no way rejects the Sethite reading of Genesis 6 here, he appears to give greater credence to what he understands as the more popular angelic interpretation found in 1 Enoch (whereas «some» or «certain people» teach the former, «many» hold the lat- ter). Just as canonical Scripture reveals that angels eat and speak, so too the sacred text depicts the fallen angels engaging in sexual relations with women and thereby producing offspring. For Thomas, as for Alexander of Hales, however, the embodied demon acts merely as an angelic instrument of what is essentially human generation. The reader of Genesis 6 must recognize, as Tobit failed to do regarding Raphael, that where angelic functions of life are concerned appearances can be quite deceiving, an issue to which we will return momentarily. In the First Part of the Summa theologiae and in the disputed questions on the power of God (De potentia Dei), both of which date to the period 1265-68, Thomas further explains what appears to be angelic intercourse as recounted in Genesis 6. In article 3 of question 51 of the First Part (which asks simply whether angels in assumed bodies exercise the functions of life), Aquinas briefly describes the succubus-incubus theory, which relies on Augustine’s doctrine of seminal reasons: just as demons artificially collect and bring together the seeds of things in combinations that enable these seeds to naturally produce certain effects, so too can they move human semen from a

85. THOMAS AQUINAS, Scriptum in II, d. 8, q. 1, a. 4, sol. 2, p. 212: «Ad id quod secundo quaeritur, dicunt quidam quod daemones in corporibus nullo modo generare possunt; nec per filios Dei angelos incubos significari dicunt, sed filios Seth, et per filias hominum eas quae de stirpe Cain descenderunt. Sed quia contrarium a multis dicitur, et quod multis videtur non potest omnino falsum esse, secundum Philosophum, in VII Ethic., cap. xiv, et in fine De somn. et vig., ideo potest dici quod per eorum actum comple- tur generatio, inquantum semen humanum apponere possunt in loco convenienti ad materiam proportionatam, sicut etiam semina aliarum rerum colligere possunt ad comp- lendum aliquos effectus, ut in praecedenti distinctione dictum est; ut attribuatur id tantum eis quod est motus localis, non autem ipsa generatio cujus principium non est virtus daemonis, aut corporis ab eo sumpti, sed virtus illius cujus semen fuit; unde et genitus non daemonis, sed alicujus hominis filius est».

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man into a woman in order that offspring might be generated. Such simple local motion, which for Thomas clearly is the purview of embodied angels, is achieved when the wicked angel assumes a female body in which he receives the man’s semen in ordinary intercourse (thereby acting as succubus), before then assuming a male body from which he deposits the same semen into a human woman through another sexual encounter (in which he acts as incubus)86. Thomas’s Latin here reveals his understanding of the relationship between the «artificial sperm/seed» and «stolen sperm» views of demonic generation. In question 51 of the Prima Pars of the Summa theologiae, he explains: Si tamen ex coitu daemonum aliqui interdum nascuntur, hoc non est per semen ab eis decisum, aut a corporibus assumptis, sed per semen alicuius hominis ad hoc acceptum, utpote quod idem daemon qui est succubus ad virum fiat incubus ad mulierem; sicut et aliarum rerum semina assumunt ad ali- quarum rerum generationem, ut Augustinus dicit, III de Trin.; ut sic ille qui nascitur non sit filius daemonis, sed illius hominis cuius est semen acceptum87. Similarly, in question 6 of De potentia, Thomas writes: Quibusdam vero videtur quod generare possunt, non quidem per semen a corpore assumpto decisum, vel per virtutem suae naturae, sed per semen hominis adhibitum ad generationem, per hoc quod unus et idem daemon sit ad virum succubus, et semen ab eo receptum in mulierem transfundit, ad quam fit incubus. Et hoc satis rationabiliter sustineri potest, cum etiam alias res naturales causent, propria semina adhibendo, ut Augustinus dicit (in III de Trin., cap. VIII et IX)88. That Thomas twice invokes Augustine’s doctrine of seminal reasons as a basic template for understanding putative demonic generation by means of a succubus-turned-incubus suggests that van der Lugt’s conception of «sperme artificiel» and «sperme subtilisé» as two compet- ing and mutually exclusive theories should be reconsidered. Of mid-thirteenth-century thinking on this issue, van der Lugt writes: «La théorie de la semence artificielle étant définitivement réfutée, les théologiens se concentrent alors sur l’hypothèse de l’insémination de sperme humain par les démons. Avec les commentaires d’Albert le

86. THOMAS AQUINAS, ST, I, q. 51, a. 3, ad 6, p. 260; and De potentia, q. 6, a. 8, ad 5, p. 212. 87. THOMAS AQUINAS, ST, I, q. 51, a. 3, ad 6, p. 260. 88. THOMAS AQUINAS, De potentia, q. 6, a. 8, ad 5, p. 212.

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Grand, d’Eudes Rigaud, de Bonaventure et de Thomas d’Aquin cette théorie acquiert sa forme définitive»89. Whereas these thinkers certainly found «stolen sperm» or artificial insemination a more compelling explanation, particularly in light of the long tradition that denied demons the ability to produce superior creatures by «artificial sperm/ seed», Thomas’s accounts of this theory in the Summa theologiae and De potentia clearly indicate that he understood it as complementary to, rather than in competition with, the notion of «artificial seed». Indeed, in both works he simply assumes the wide acceptance among his readers of the truth that demons generate natural realities from the seeds of things that they obtain, and seeks to use the truth of this view as a kind of proof for demonic procreation by artificial insemination. For both Thomas and Albert, then, the succubus-incubus theory can aptly be read as a technical explanation of precisely how, in the specific case of a human male and female, demons gather the seeds of things and combine them to produce a new being. For Albert, however, succubi and incubi are not simply explanatory realities that remain safely confined to the realm of theory. In fact, Albert intriguingly relates having heard about people who actually have had sexual encounters with demons in this way. He writes: «We see persons known carnally by them, and places in which a man is hardly ever able to sleep through the night without a demonic succubus coming to him. Similarly, public rumor concerning Merlin, the son of an incubus, bears witness to this, so it seems»90. In formulating his own teaching on angelic intercourse and generation, it appears that Thomas learned much from his master’s detailed treatment of this question in his Sentences commentary. Albert begins by asking where the semen used in angelic generation originates. According to Aristotle and consequently the medicine of Albert’s day, the spirit of life is contained in the viscosity of semen, so knowing the source of the sperm is vitally important. It does not originate in the body of the incubus by virtue of the fact that assumed angelic bodies do not

89. VAN DER LUGT, Le ver, p. 273. 90. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, quaest., p. 97: «Ex opposito etiam quaeritur de angelis malis, utrum generent. Videtur autem quod sic: quia verissime legitur de incubis et succubis daemonibus: et vidimus personas cognitas ab eis, et loca in quibus vix unquam per noctem potest dormire vir, quin veniat ad eum daemon succubus. Item, rumor publicus de Merlino filio incubi testatur hoc, ut videtur».

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have the natural power to produce sperm. (Albert sets forth a fascinating theory according to which human semen is produced from the largest organs in the body — the brain, the liver, and the heart — organs that the assumed bodies of angels do not need and therefore do not have91.) Albert also makes clear that the sperm used by the incubus does not come from the body of a dead human assumed by the demon. The theory of some apparently was that the demon makes the sperm from a dead human body by moving and liquefying elements of this deceased body which he had assumed. «Contrary to this view», Albert affirms, «is [the fact] that [the body assumed] is dead: and if the demon were to melt the entire [body by means of motion], he could not produce semen suitable for generation»92. Another view maintains that semen is, in fact, not necessary for reproduction. This view is supported by Isidore of Seville’s teaching that mares on the island off of Portugal, presumably San Miguel or Madeira, conceive from the wind. Against this view, Albert declares: «This is not worth mentioning because he does not say that women are able to do this from the wind, and we are discussing the conception of women by demons. Furthermore, Isidore says many things in his book on animals [de animalibus] that have not been well proven»93. The final view, which Albert eventually affirms as probable and hands on to Aquinas, is the succubus-incubus theory: the semen originates in a human male from whom the demonic succubus takes it and then as incubus he transfers it into the human mother-to-be. At first glance,

91. On the production and information of semen according to Albert, see REYNOLDS, Food and the Body, pp. 250-253. Like Thomas after him, Albert maintained that semen was a byproduct or superfluity of food in its final stage of digestion. For Albert, this superfluity comes from all over the body, but especially from large organs such as the brain. Reynolds here explains what Albert and other scholastics intend by the verb «to separate» (descindere) or «to cut off» (decidere) when used of semen: «To separate (descindere) semen, therefore, is to do three things: to attract highly digested, superfluous nutriment to a particular organ [namely, the testicles]; to cause it to ‘ripen’ (maturare) there; and to infuse into it a formative power that is able to transmit the likeness of [the] generator’s species to the mother’s womb» (p. 251). 92. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, quaest., p. 97: «Contra hoc est, quod mortuum est: et si totum liquesceret, non faceret semen aptum generationi». 93. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, quaest., p. 97: «Hoc nihil est: quia non dicit, quod mulieres possint hoc facere ex vento: et nos loquimur de conceptu mulieris a daemonibus. Praeterea, Isidorus dicit multa in libro illo de animalibus, quae non bene probata sunt».

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this way of doing things seems unlikely to produce offspring, Albert explains. Indeed, even on its long and inhospitable journey toward the unfertilized egg, semen released during normal human intercourse often evaporates and loses its life-giving spirit en route so that it is not suitable for generation. Surely, many more sperms would die, Albert notes, if they were transported a much longer distance from one body to another and then to yet a third prior to fertilization94. In light of such uncertainties, Albert determines the question in this way: In reply to what was asked concerning generation, I do not know for sure what I ought to say, but it seems more probable that they [i.e., demons] are succubi to one and incubi to another. In fact, I understand most truly from one who is still living in our own day that when he was subject to the sin of masturbation, on a certain occasion an infinite number of cats appeared around him while he was polluted, and with the greatest yelling and noise they licked up his semen and carried it off95. From these brief words, which constitute his entire solution, it is less than completely clear how Albert understands the demonic acquisition of the sperm with which they inseminate a human female. The succubus-incubus theory generally assumes, as its name indicates, that the demon assumes a body like that of a human female in order to receive the seed directly from an actual human male during sexual intercourse. And yet the example Albert provides is one in which demons assume the bodies of cats and lick up the semen spilled during masturbation; presumably, each of these demons subsequently assumed a body like that of a human male by means of which the human sperm was deposited into a human female through intercourse. In discussing this fascinating passage, Maaike van der Lugt understands these two possibilities — namely, that the demonic succubus receives the sperm directly and internally, on the one hand, or that the demon in some other corporeal form collects the sperm externally, on the other — as mutually exclusive theories, only one of which Albert chose. Based on no other text of Albert than the few lines

94. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, quaest., p. 97. 95. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, ad quaest., p. 98: «Ad aliud quod quaeritur de generatione, nescio secundum veritatem quid dicam: sed hoc videtur probabilius, quod succubi sint ad unum, et incubi ad alium: tamen verissime ab eo nuper qui adhuc vivit intellexi, quod dum mollitiei vitio subiaceret, quodam tempore infiniti cati circam eum pollutum apparuerunt maximo eiulatu et strepitu semen lingentes et deportantes».

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quoted above, van der Lugt maintains that Albert opted finally, though not without hesitation, for the basic succubus scenario96. It seems in light of his solution, however, that Albert understands the scenario of external sperm collection as also falling under the general succubus-incubus rubric, and that he is less concerned with the how of semen-acquisition than with affirming the larger theory of demonic generation. Albert’s reply to the objection concerning evaporation of the semen, which reply immediately follows his solution, seems to provide support for our reading. Here he affirms that in order to prevent evaporation (presumably during the process of transfer) the demon places the collected semen adjacent to similar semen possessing natural heat (undoubtedly semen collected internally or more recently) in order to keep it warm and preserve it until the time of its use97. This reply aims to explain the real technical possibility of the external collection of semen within the larger succubus-incubus theory. Furthermore, that Albert concludes his discussion of whether demons are able to generate and from where they take the semen for this purpose with this reply suggests that this possibility of external collection from a polluted human was for him a compelling one. Regardless of Albert’s preferred theory of semen-gathering by demons, however, it is the more general succubus-incubus view of angelic generation (or, more properly, non-generation) that Thomas inherits from his master and seeks to explain philosophically. In De potentia question 6 article 8, Aquinas draws an important distinction which helps him to clarify why generation is not, properly speaking, an action performed by the angelic succubus-turned-incubus: namely, that between the species and nature of an operation or action. Whereas an action, such as motion, takes its species from its term or end, it takes its nature or what is natural to it from its principle. Thus, «movements and actions which proceed from an intrinsic principle are called natural»98. We have seen in the case of eating that a

96. VAN DER LUGT, Le ver, pp. 275-276. 97. ALBERTUS MAGNUS, Comm. in II, d. 8, a. 5, ad obj., p. 98: «Ad hoc autem quod obiicitur de evaporatione seminis, potest dici quod circumponunt illud seminibus simili- bus calore naturali, et ita fovent et retinent, sicut reservatur quandoque post decisionem in vasis seminariis ad tempus, quod non perit». 98. THOMAS AQUINAS, De potentia, q. 6, a. 8, corpus, p. 211: «Proprie tamen actio, sicut et motus, a termino speciem habet; a principio autem habet proprie quod sit natu- ralis. Motus enim et actiones naturales dicuntur quae sunt a principio intrinseco».

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particular movement performed by an angel may terminate in an effect that has a certain likeness to natural human eating (e.g., food is chewed and swallowed); but angelic eating cannot be said to be natural by virtue of the fact that it does not proceed from a principle intrinsic to the angel, nor does it terminate in a soul and in a body animated by a soul (as, e.g., true human digestion does)99. Similarly, although demonic sexual intercourse terminates in a human-like offspring, generation cannot be said to be natural to the demon. In fact, what is quite clear is that the offspring produced by the twofold sexual union of the demon with the male and female human, respectively, is natural only to the human man and woman. In short, Thomas is here explicitly drawing out the philosophical implications for life-functioning of the basic medieval understanding of angels as innately incorporeal creatures whose union to bodies is never hypostatic, never natural, as is the union between soul and body in a human. In light of Thomas’s treatment, we might well ask why angels appear to have bodies like humans in which they appear to perform certain natural human operations if in fact they neither have bodies nor naturally function in them in the same way that humans do. Do angels in assumed bodies deceive, whether intentionally or not, the humans with whom they interact? Is divine Scripture, in which we read about angels performing various functions of life, less than completely trustworthy? Aquinas anticipates these important questions in the first objection of article 3 of question 51 of the First Part, in which he notes that it is not fitting that «angels of truth» (angelos veritatis) should feign possessing living bodies and engaging in natural human behaviors. It is not contrary to the truth, Thomas explains in replying to the objection, that Scripture describes certain intelligible realities under sensible figures since this is done not for the purpose of demonstrating that these intelligible realities are sensible, but rather so that the properties of intelligible things might be better understood according to likeness. «In this way it is not incompat- ible with the truth of the holy angels», Aquinas argues, «that the bodies assumed by them seem to be living humans, although they are not. For they [i.e., the bodies] are assumed only so that the spiritual

99. THOMAS AQUINAS, De potentia, q. 6, a. 8, corpus, p. 211.

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properties and operations of the angels might be indicated through the properties and operations of the human»100. Although question 51 article 3 of the First Part provides no further explanation of how human properties and functions manifest the spiritual properties and operations of angels, Thomas appears to offer an example to the careful reader of De potentia question 6 article 8: namely, the generation of offspring. The seventh objection points out that if angels in assumed bodies merely transferred human semen from a human male to a human female in order to facilitate natural human reproduction, the offspring said to be generated by demons would be proportionate to the power of the seed and thus would be no taller and stronger than those produced according to the normal mode of human reproduction. But Genesis 6:4 clearly teaches that «giants» (gigantes) were born when the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of men101. In response to the objection, Thomas makes perfectly clear that because the offspring produced by a demon acting as succubus-turned-incubus is generated by the power of the human seed, he is not the son of the demon but rather of the human male whose semen the demon transferred. He proceeds to explain, then, how giants can be produced: And nevertheless it is possible that stronger and bigger humans could be produced in such a way because demons, wishing to appear miraculous in their deeds, are able to actively contribute to this by observing the designated positions of the stars and the disposition of the man and woman, and particularly if the seeds that are used as instruments achieve a certain increase of power through such use102.

100. THOMAS AQUINAS ST, I, q. 51, a. 3, ad 1, p. 260: «Ita non repugnat veritati sanctorum angelorum quod corpora ab eis assumpta videntur homines, licet non sint. Non enim assumuntur nisi ut per proprietates hominis et operum hominis spirituales proprietates angelorum et eorum spiritualia opera designentur». Thomas further explains here that it would be less fitting if angels were to assume true humans since their properties would then lead us to humans rather than to angels. 101. THOMAS AQUINAS, De potentia, q. 6, a. 8, obj. 7, p. 211: «Praeterea, secundum hoc, ex tali semine homo non generaretur nisi secundum virtutem humani seminis. Ergo illi qui dicuntur a daemonibus generari, non essent majoris staturae et robustiores aliis qui communiter per semen humanum generantur; cum tamen dicatur Genes. VI, 4 (aliis verbis), quod cum ingressi essent filii Dei ad filias hominum illaeque genuerunt, nati sunt gigantes, potentes a saeculo, viri famosi». 102. THOMAS AQUINAS, De potentia, q. 6, a. 8, ad 7, p. 212: «Et tamen possibile est quod per talem modum homines fortiores generentur et majores; quia daemones volentes in suis effectibus mirabiles videri, observando determinatum situm stellarum, et viri et

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It is by such magical arts as astrology, according to Thomas, in combination with the power of natural human semen that demons are able to facilitate the generation of giants. It is through this operation of procreation — an operation that remains ultimately a natural human action even in this extraordinary case — that the spiritual properties and operations of the demons are demonstrated: that an offspring is generated is a naturally human operation, a function of the power of the human father and mother; that this offspring is a giant is a demonic operation, a consequence of joining the power of the human seed with that of the magical arts. In identifying the magical arts as a cooperative source of demonic generation, Aquinas’s teaching not only recalls the position of Alexander of Hales in his Gloss on distinction 8 of Book II of the Sentences but also represents a significant scholastic echo of 1 Enoch.

4. Conclusion We have aimed to survey how prominent masters of theology at Paris and Oxford in the middle of the thirteenth century understood angelic bodies and the functions of life that angels can and cannot perform in these bodies. Our consideration has highlighted the various ways that Alexander of Hales, Richard Fishacre, Richard Rufus, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure employed Augustinian doctrine in combination with Aristotelian and Neo- platonic thought to construct a metaphysics according to which angels, inherently incorporeal and spiritual creatures, assume bodies not on account of any necessity on their part, but rather in order to successfully instruct humans concerning the divine will. It is, as Albert teaches, «on account of our material understanding» that angels take bodies to themselves and appear to perform various life-functions in them. Although Aristotle suggests that embodiment is wholly unneces- sary and indeed inappropriate for a purely intellectual creature, Albert and his colleagues gleaned from Scripture that angels sometimes

mulieris dispositionem, possunt ad hoc cooperari. Et praecipue si semina, quibus utuntur sicut instrumentis, per talem usum aliquod augmentum virtutis consequantur». On this passage, see also H. C. LEA, Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft, ed. A. C. HOWLAND, 3 vols., New York 1957, Vol. 1, pp. 155-156.

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appear to function in bodies because it is «fitting for us». They seem to eat, as in Genesis 18 and Tobit 12:19, and to engage in sexual intercourse and generate offspring, as in Genesis 6:1-4. But particular details in these texts, read through the lens of certain traditional philosophical assumptions about angels, revealed to our mid-thirteenth-century schoolmen that angels do not truly eat, have sex, and reproduce in the way humans do. Rather, angels act in anthropomorphic ways, as Aquinas makes clear, in order to indicate their own spiritual properties and operations through human attributes and actions. Our theologians took pains, then, to preserve the bright line of metaphysical distinction between angels and humans, while at the same time teaching that scriptural accounts of the embodied missions of angels often blur this line103. This dynamic gave rise in mid- thirteenth-century thought, as we have seen, to what Tiziana Suarez- Nani has aptly described as «un lien étroit et fécond entre la doctrine angélologique et l’anthropologie»104. The questions our theologians posed — whether angels and demons have bodies, what kind of bodies they have, how and why their bodies are united to them, whether they can perform basic life-functions in their bodies — and the answers they gave to these questions highlight their concern to eluci- date and defend the basic metaphysical bifurcation between angels and human beings that they had inherited. All of our theologians agree that angels do not, in fact, have bodies in the way that we humans do, that is, bodies that are naturally or hypostatically united to them in such a way that they are moved by the rational soul. Rather, their bodies are extrinsic instruments that angels assume in order to carry out the ministerial work that God has commanded. Because these divine labors are performed for the sake of us humans, rational beings whose bodies and sensible faculties are constitutive of our beings, angels and demons must merely appear to engage in functions of life that are altogether natural for us. The result is that the mode of the divine ministries that they carry out for our sakes is

103. For another example (only tangentially related to our present consideration of angelic embodiment) of how Aquinas’s teaching maintains the metaphysical distinction between humans and angels, see E. ROUSSEAU, «Essence and Supposit in the Angels according to St. Thomas», in: The Modern Schoolman 33 (1955), pp. 241-256. 104. SUAREZ-NANI, Les anges, p. 12.

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corporeal, whereas naturally they are utterly spiritual and incorporeal. In this way, through angelic intermediaries, God instructs us humans precisely according to our capacity to comprehend105.

Franklin T. HARKINS Department of Theology Fordham University Bronx, New York [email protected]

105. I would like to thank the journal’s anonymous referees and Angela Kim Harkins for their many helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. Mis- takes and oversights that remain are, of course, my own.

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