Annotation VII

”Magi come from the East.” — Matthew 2:1

Whether angels are living beings.

Gregory, in the tenth homily on the Gospels, at its beginning — inquiring why an angel appeared to the shepherds, but a star to the Magi — answers that to the Jews, as [people] using reason, a rational animal (that is, an angel) ought to make the proclamation. St. Thomas, in part 1 of the Summa Theologica, question 51, notes that this passage is appealed to by those who hold that angels are living beings composed of soul and body. Refer back, above, to Annotation 8 of book 5.