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