Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry

Their Function and Significance

Martin Lenz, Isabel Iribarren

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754658030
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317181088
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

The nature and properties of angels occupied a prominent place in medieval philosophical inquiry. Creatures of two worlds, angels provided ideal ground for exploring the nature of God and his creation, being perceived as 'models' according to which a whole range of questions were defined, from cosmological order, movement and place, to individuation, cognition, volition, and modes of language. This collection of essays is a significant scholarly contribution to angelology, centred on the function and significance of angels in medieval speculation and its history. The unifying theme is that of the role of angels in philosophical inquiry, where each contribution represents a case study in which the angelic model is seen to motivate developments in specific areas and periods of medieval philosophical thought.

PART I
Angels as Exemplars of World Order

Chapter 1

The Hierarchies in the Writings of Alan of Lille, William of Auvergne and St Bonaventure

David Luscombe

The Dionysian notion of hierarchy supported medieval visions of order which assumed that some, if not all, forms of being had a particular position and an appropriate function in a number of chains of being. For many Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages angels, human beings, animals, plants and minerals were divided vertically into different grades. God is the measure of all being: the more close creatures are to the likeness of God the higher is their being, and the more remote they are from God the lower is their being. Hierarchy, however, is a distinct idea with its own particular range of references. Its principal source and authority in the medieval West was always the writings of Denis the pseudo-Areopagite. Hierarchy offered a model derived from the arrangement into orders of purely spiritual beings in the celestial world. Hierarchy signified the graduated manifestation of God to the universe of spirits and their assimilation to God. Denis, writing in Greek around the year 500 A.D., defined hierarchy in Celestial Hierarchy III, 1: ‘Hierarchy, to me, is sacred order, knowledge and activity assimilating itself, as far as it can, to the likeness of God, and raising itself to its utmost, by means of the illuminations granted by God, to the imitation of God.’¹

Denis himself portrayed the harmonious angelic hierarchy as a magnificent arrangement of nine orders divided into three superimposed triads according to their levels of knowledge and purity and of participation in God’s secrets and goodness. Each triad, and within it each order, mediates purification, illumination and perfection between the order above and the order below. The process is both a descending and an ascending one, a going out and a coming back, as spirits are brought closer to God through being purified, illuminated and perfected by the higher orders. The celestial or angelic hierarchy provides the exemplar for another hierarchy which is ecclesiastical and human and in which bishops occupy the highest grade and communicate directly with the lowest order of angels above:

The celestial hierarchy²
Seraphim
Cherubim
Thrones

Dominations
Virtues
Powers

Principalities
Archangels
Angesl

The ecclesiastical hierarchy³
Bishops
Priests
Ministers

Monks
Holy People
Purified Orders

As far as I know, the first writer in the West to describe nine orders of just men and women, and nine offices in the church, and to base this enumeration upon the exemplar in heaven of nine orders of angels is Honorius Augustodunensis in his Libellus duodecim quaestionum which was written in the early twelfth century (see Table 1.1).⁴ Honorius may have been inspired by his interest in the cosmology of John the Scot (Eriugena) who had translated the writings of Denis into Latin in the ninth century.⁵

Hugh of St Victor (d. 1142) wrote an influential Commentary on the Celestial Hierarchy⁶ in which, in particular, he advanced the notion that the divine Trinity itself constituted a hierarchy, not in the sense that inequalities are found in the divine Persons but in the sense that their inter-communication impressed a divine likeness on created beings which caused them to be formed into hierarchies. ‘By these hierarchies or sacred powers the whole world is governed.’⁷ A small collection of definitions which circulated in the late twelfth century and which may have been composed by Alan of Lille, helped to disseminate the notion of hierarchy and also of theophany which means the manifestation or the apparition of divinity. In this collection three hierarchies are presented – supercelestial, celestial and subcelestial – and three angelic theophanies – epiphany, hyperphany and hypophany.⁸ The collection was surely the harbinger of an explosion of interest in hierarchical patterns of thought. To illustrate this, and just briefly, I offer three early examples of tableaux which are highly imaginative and impressive.

Table 1.1 Honorius Augustodunensis: Orders and Offices

In the writings of Alan of Lille and of William of Auvergne detailed, luxurious, innovative descriptions of the hierarchies blossomed. Alan of Lille, who died in 1203, having probably taught in Paris and in the south of France before becoming a monk, wrote a work called Hierarchia in which he made use of the collection of definitions just mentioned (see Table 1.2).⁹ Alan describes the chief characteristics of the angelic orders and then the specific functions of angels in relation to human beings who will, after receiving appropriate angelic tuition, join the angelic order which most suitably corresponds to their condition. To do this he dispenses with the ecclesiastical hierarchy arranged by Denis that runs down from the bishops to the purified orders. In a rather misty way he makes reference to actual social classes, professions and occupations in this world, in the church and in the state. Alan also constructs a table of nine demonic anti-orders which seek to wrench men away from their angelic guardians. This demonic anti-hierarchy struggles against the other hierarchies. One is reminded of a favourite motif in the art of the period which is the struggle between an angel and a demon for the soul of a person on the point of death. One’s attention is also particularly caught by Alan’s association of the Archangels and Angels with teachers and preachers, and of the anti-Archangels and the anti-Angels with the promotion of heresy, for Alan was himself a teacher and preacher who preached against the Cathars in the south of France and also wrote an Ars praedicandi.

Table 1.2 The Hierarchies according to Alan of Lille

With William of Auvergne, the Parisian university master who became Bishop of Paris in 1228, the new approaches developed by Alan were expanded and in particular the idea of hierarchy became politicised.¹⁰ William wrote a vast encyclopaedia from c.1223 onwards embracing knowledge of the Trinity, the universe of spirits and of mankind, of planets, stars and the elements, as well as of the realms of faith, law, sacraments, virtues and vices. In the second of the seven treatises which constitute his encyclopaedia, and which was written between 1231 and 1236, William described the ‘universe of creatures’. He wrote of heaven as a kingdom which enjoys peace and which has many and varied orders of ministers who preside over the nations on earth. William tells us that when he was young he had the idea of comparing the ranks of angels with those of a well-ordered earthly kingdom. So he compares the nine orders of angels with two human hierarchies (together called the ‘third hierarchy’), one the clerus, the other consisting of the offices found in the secular kingdom (see Table 1.3). Over each of the two hierarchies is placed a monarch, in the one case the pope, in the other a king, just as over the angelic hierarchy there is the hierarchy of the divine Trinity. William insists that the offices of state in the earthly kingdom are not casual resemblances to the heavenly order; they are actually modelled upon the heavenly order, for the orders in heaven provide the exemplars of secular government. In addition, William portrayed the church as being well-ordered under monarchical rule such as obtained in both the secular and in the heavenly kingdom. Like Alan, William details nine anti-orders of demons and, in addition, he left an incomplete list of three human anti-orders.

Table 1.3 The Hierarchies according to William of Auvergne

The correspondences that William found between the sets of nine orders in heavenly, ecclesiastical, secular and demonic society are detailed. It is worthy of note that William does not subordinate the lay and secular hierarchy to the ecclesiastical hierarchy nor derive the former from the latter. Lay holders of secular offices directly reflect the tasks of their angelic counterparts in the court and kingdom of heaven. Although William represents the secular hierarchy using antique Roman terms such as centuriones, duces legionum and equites, his account bears some traces of modern developments. He reflects the development of royal government in France from reliance on a small household of palatini, including a butler and a chamberlain, to the stage being reached in the thirteenth century when the king recruited professional lawyers to the court. William certainly puts the king’s friends at the heart of royal government but close to them he places men who make laws, sapientes and judges, iudices, who settle legal disputes in a pacific way. Only beneath these professional office holders come magnates and barons.

Also remarkable is William’s description of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Like Alan, William compared the qualities found in the clerus with those possessed by the angelic hierarchy. But he has a more governmental and administrative perspective. His ecclesiastical hierarchy is strictly priestly, ranging from cardinals at the top who serve the pope down to ordinary priests on the lowest grade. Members of the religious orders and students of the sacred page do not qualify for inclusion as they did for Alan. The fact that the top three grades are all filled by different ranks of cardinals indicates how important papal government and the papal court had become in William’s mind. The fact also that the remaining grades of William’s priestly hierarchy run down from the grades of patriarchs, archbishops and bishops to those of archdeacons, archpriests and priests is a clear reflection of the vision offered by the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 of the church as an ordered pyramid containing at the top a busy papal court which gives central direction and then (moving downwards) consisting of provinces, then of dioceses and finally of parishes at the bottom. This was a natural outlook for a prominent diocesan bishop of the 1230s, especially one who owed his nomination and his consecration as Bishop of Paris in 1228 to Pope Gregory IX and who was frequently employed by the Roman curia as a papal judge-delegate.

As for heaven William portrays it as a throbbing court busy with both the tasks of government and the settlement of legal disputes. Heaven includes a tribunal of justice, a consistory court to which accusations may be brought to be considered by judges and by defendants. Just as in an earthly republic advocates are appointed by the prince to assist litigants and to remedy the mistakes of government, so too in heaven Christ acts as the public advocate of the human race. William frequently calls Christ ‘the legislator for Christians’. Many legal decisions regarding the human race are made in heaven by the angelic order of Thrones.

The birth and growth of the orders of friars during the thirteenth century presented challenges to the place and work within church and society of the diocesan and parochial clergy. William, for example, did not include friars or monks in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Friars retaliated vigorously to clerics who denied them a place and a role in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Vigorous quarrels occurred during the 12...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• List of Contributors
• List of Tables
• Abbreviations
• Introduction The Role of Angels in Medieval Philosophical Inquiry
• Part I Angels as Exemplars of World Order
• Part II Angelic Location
• Part III Angelic Cognition and Language
• Part IV Demonology
• Part V Angels in the Renaissance and the Early Modern Period
• Bibliography
• Index