Chapter Two of the Third Decade
On the simplicity of demons, concerning which five little questions will be resolved
Question One of Chapter Two of the Third Decade
Whether demons possess bodies naturally united to them as form to matter
It is asked whether demons possess bodies naturally united to them as form to matter.
To this many persons respond in different ways.
For certain persons say first that the Lord God, for the punishment and confusion of the sinning angels, lowered and inclined their natures and made them the substantial forms of some deformed body, such as those of frogs or serpents, and so forth.
And thus, in the time of the first human beings, there could have been certain corporeal demons composed of essential parts. In this way they would have been the formal or essential part of some body, and so would have possessed bodies naturally united to themselves.
But if this was done, it was done absolutely by the omnipotence of God and from the obediential potency of the evil angels, not naturally.
For, speaking naturally, an incorporeal intellectual nature cannot be united to a corporeal nature in the manner of a form or of a vivifying soul, because the nature of each demon is a rational substance personally subsisting in itself, possessing no natural or proximate aptitude for adhering to another or for constituting something with another, although demons possess obediential potency, as has been said.
There were others, secondly, who said that, although good and evil angels do not possess bodies naturally united to themselves which are compacted from bones, nerves, and flesh, as we commonly see perfect animals to possess—for Christ said that a spirit does not possess flesh and bones—nevertheless they possess aerial bodies naturally united to themselves.
And they prove this with three arguments.
First, through Augustine, who says in Book II On Genesis that it is a good of the spirit of a rational creature that it lives and that it vivifies a body, whether an aerial body, as does the spirit of the devil or of demons, or an earthly body, as does the soul of a human being. But a body which it vivifies is naturally united to the spirit vivifying it. Therefore, and so forth.
Likewise, in chapter Sciendum, cause 26, question 3, it is said that demons are animals in genus, passible in mind, aerial in body, and eternal in duration, as was said immediately above.
Likewise Augustine says in Book XXI of The City of God: “Demons also possess certain bodies, as it has seemed to learned human beings, made from this thick and humid air whose impulse is perceived when the wind blows.” Therefore, and so forth.
But that this cannot be so is proved because, since air is a homogeneous body and similar in the whole and in its parts, it is necessary that, if some parts of the air are held to be animate, the whole air should similarly be animate. This plainly appears false, because no operation of life is detected in the whole air, either through motion or through anything else.
And therefore we say that demons do not possess aerial bodies naturally united to themselves so that one thing simply and in itself should be made from them. For such an aerial body joined to a demon would not live, since it would not be formally vivified by the demon.
Nor would a demon be joined to such a body as a formal part, since a demon, as has been said, possesses in itself the integral nature of its species.
This is confirmed because angels and demons are of a simpler nature and essence than the soul. But the soul is simple, not composed of matter and form, although it is composed of act and potency, or of that by which it is and that which it is. Therefore angels are of a nature much more simple and subtle.
But to the three arguments it is said that Augustine speaks there according to the opinion of Apuleius and of the Platonists, whose imitator he was, and adduces those things by reporting them, not by asserting them.
There were others, thirdly, who said that angels and demons neither possess bodies naturally united to themselves nor can assume them or have assumed them. Rather, all the things which are read in the divine Scriptures concerning apparitions of angels occurred in a prophetic vision, that is, according to the imagination.
But this manifestly appears false and is repugnant to the intention of Scripture.
For Scripture sometimes introduces angels appearing so that they are commonly seen by human beings, as were the angels who were seen by Abraham and by his whole household, and by Lot and the citizens of Sodom. Likewise, the angel who appeared to Tobias was seen by everyone.
In such a vision, however, nothing is seen unless it is a body placed outside the one seeing, while those things which are seen in an imaginary vision are seen solely in the imagination of the one seeing.
Therefore, since angels and demons appear, yet are not corporeal and do not possess bodies naturally united to themselves, it follows that there is some other manner in which good and evil angels are said to be corporeal and to be united to bodies.
It must therefore be said, fourthly, according to the theologians, that angels assume bodies and are united to those bodies, although not as form to matter, because in that way they would make one thing in itself and the body thus assumed would live.
Nor are they united to bodies as a mover to a movable thing, as the intelligences are united to the heavens and the orbs, or as a sailor to a ship, because the orbs do not represent the properties of the intelligences or angels moving them, nor does a ship teach the properties of the sailor.
Rather, angels are said to be joined and united to assumed bodies as to movable things formed in this way by the angels through divine power, so that they are suitable for representing the intelligible properties of the angels.
For example, they assume a human body with hands so that they may represent that they are able and know how to operate; with a mouth, because they can manifest concepts; with eyes because they see the natures of things in the Word or in themselves, and so forth.
And they assume bodies not on account of their own need, but on account of us.
The good angels do so in order that, by conversing familiarly with human beings, they may demonstrate the intelligible society which they expect to have with them in the future life, and in order that they may advance human beings toward the good in diverse ways.
Demons, however, do so in order that they may appear to human beings in assumed bodies, tempting them in diverse ways and placing many impediments before them.
These things are from Thomas in the disputed questions concerning demons, Lord Bonaventure in Book II of the Sentences, distinction 8, and Lord Johannes de Turrecremata, Cardinal, upon the Decretum in the place cited above. See Richard in Book II, distinction 8, questions 2, 3, and 4.