Question VI. In what garment did the Angel appear?

Question VI. In what garment did the Angel appear?

After this it is asked: in what garment did he appear, since elsewhere Angels are described as clothed?

§ I. And it seems that in a white garment, because 1. The same one is conceived and announced who also later rose; therefore he ought to have been announced in a similar garment and habit. But in the resurrection Angels appeared in white garments; therefore also now. 2. Likewise, Gregory says: "The whiteness of the garment signifies the joy of the future solemnity." But here was the greatest feast, when divinity was joined to humanity in one person. Therefore the Angel ought to have announced that feast in the whiteness of a garment. 3. Likewise, in the transfiguration his garments were made white as snow ¹, such as a fuller cannot make on earth. And the Gloss says that then he showed the appearance that he had by nature. Therefore a white garment by nature.

§ II. But it seems that he ought to have had a filthy and black garment. 1. For Zechariah saw Jesus the high priest clothed in filthy garments ², and the Gloss explains this of the putting-on that was made in the Incarnation; therefore also the Angel announcing this ought to have appeared clothed in filthy garments. 2. Likewise, Psalm XXIX, 12: You have torn my sackcloth, etc. Therefore the Lord in the Incarnation put on the sackcloth of our mortality, in which he carried the treasure of our redemption; therefore the Angel announcing this ought to have been clothed in sackcloth. 3. Likewise, if in the resurrection Angels appeared in white garments ³ because they announced Christ released from the Passion, then they ought to have announced in a black garment the incarnate one who would suffer.

§ III. But it seems that in a two-colored garment. 1. Hence in Canticles V, 10, it says: My beloved is white and ruddy, etc. Whiteness signifies innocence, redness patience. But this is properly the Lord's garment, so that it is neither angelic nor human. For Angels have innocence but not patience; human beings have patience but not innocence, for all have sinned; but he alone had innocence who did not commit sin, and patience who bore our sins in his body upon the wood. Therefore that garment is proper to him alone; therefore the Angel announcing him ought to have been clothed in a white and ruddy garment. 2. Likewise, the man whom Ezekiel saw, who figured Christ as man, was like the appearance of electrum ⁴; but electrum has silver, which is white, and gold, which is red; therefore the Angel announcing this ought to have been clothed in a white and ruddy garment. 3. Likewise, when the Angels asked: Who is this who comes from Edom, with dyed garments ⁵? the Lord answered: I who speak justice ⁶, etc., as if he were saying: I alone am he who has innocence. And they replied: Why then is your clothing red ⁷? etc., as if wondering over the beauty of white and red, that is, of innocence and patience. Therefore that is properly the garment of the Lord; therefore also of the Angel, etc.

§ IV. But it still seems that the garment ought to have been white, because it is read in Ezekiel ⁸ that he saw a man clothed in linen and six others with him. And Gregory explains that one alone was clothed in linen, that is, that one alone was conceived without sin.

§ V. Response. For the solution of these and similar things, one must note what Dionysius says when speaking about this matter: "It happens also that those things which have been done by the holy Angels as instruments are symbols of divine judgments. Some declare corrective discipline or punishing justice. Others declare liberation from distress, or the end of discipline, or the presumption of an earlier beneficence, or the appearance of other gifts, small or great, sensible or invisible. And altogether perhaps the discerning mind does not doubt beautifully to unite visible things to invisible things ⁹." From this it is gathered that all things which are done around the assumption of the form in which the apparition is made ought visibly to declare that invisible thing which the Angel came first and principally to announce.

Therefore I say that this Angel ought to have come in a bright garment, both on account of himself announcing, and on account of the receiver, and on account of the one announced. On account of himself, because the whiteness of the garment designates the innocence of the Angel. And for this reason a white and red garment does not fit the Angel, because he is not apt by nature to have innocence with suffering. Likewise, as to the receiver, a bright garment was fitting because she who conceived was without sin, and without sin conceived him who could not sin; therefore all was white and nothing there was black. Likewise, she conceived without lust and gave birth without pain; therefore this conception and nativity were consummated without the red of lustful and painful passion. Therefore since this Angel first and principally and through himself did not intend to announce anything except the Incarnation, he ought not to have had a red or two-colored garment, but only a white one. Likewise, as to the one announced: here he is announced who received the first-fruits of our mass with release from punishment and immunity from fault, and thus in first purity and brightness. Likewise, the mode of taking and proceeding in this Incarnation was without corruption, without diminution, without commixture, as light proceeds from light; therefore with respect to all things that were in this announcing, it was fitting for the Angel to come in a bright garment. But all the reasons and authorities which prove that the Lord was clothed in sackcloth, or a many-colored tunic, or in white or red or a stained garment, speak of the Lord's body according to the state of the Passion and not according to the property of the Incarnation.