"It may be said with reason that the angels operate two things in the celestial empyrean. The first is the illumination by which the intrinsic splendor of the empyrean is perfected, according to St. Thomas and various testimonies of Holy Scripture in which certain places are said to have been sensibly illuminated by the angels. For although an angel cannot immediately produce alterative qualities, as heat or cold, he can produce light, because light is a celestial quality and the highest of corporeal qualities, and the summit of the inferior nature is touched by the superior nature.
"In the second place, the angels operate on the empyrean heaven, so that it may more perfectly and efficaciously communicate a suitable perpetuity and stability to all inferior things. For as the supreme angels who are permanently stationed there have an influence over the intermediate and lowest angels who are sent forth, although they themselves are not sent forth, so the empyrean heaven, although it is itself motionless, communicates to those things which are in motion the requisite stability and permanence in their being. And that this may be done more efficaciously and permanently the angels aid by their operation in it. For, the whole universe is one in unity of order; and this unity of order consists in that by a certain arrangement corporeal things are regulated by those which are spiritual, and inferior bodies by the superior; therefore, as this order demands that the empyrean spheres influence the inferior ones, it demands also that the angels influence the empyrean sphere." [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: De Angelis. Diss. IL Art. I.]
Whatever may be thought of this as philosophy, it is certainly brilliantly poetical, as is the whole treatise of the learned Dominican from which it is extracted. The physical theory of the universe maintained by the scholastics was a magnificent conception, although it has been supplanted by a sounder scientific hypothesis. There appears to be no reason, however, for rejecting the notion of angelic influence over the movement of the universe. The modern hypothesis of a central point of revolution for the universe being substituted for the ancient one of the empyrean, the entire scholastic theory of the influence of the angels upon the exterior order of the universe may remain untouched in its intrinsic probability.
The consideration of man has been reserved, because, although he is inferior to the angels in intelligence, he sums up in himself the three grades of existence, and therefore the consideration of the three as distinct ought to precede the consideration of their composition in the complex human nature. The human nature includes in itself the material, vegetative, animal, and intelligent natures, which represent respectively the divine esse, vivere, and intelligere. For this reason man is called a microcosm or universe in miniature. In certain special perfections of the material, sentient, and intelligent natures, he is inferior to each; but the combination of all gives him a peculiar excellence and completeness, and qualifies him to stand in the most immediate relation to the final cause of the universe, or to the consummation of its end.
What this end is, we must now more closely examine. It is plain at first sight that this end must be attained by creation through its intelligent portion, or through the angelic and human natures. As God is final cause as well as first cause; of necessity, these intelligent natures in themselves, and all inferior natures through them, must, in some way, terminate on God as their ultimate end. God is final cause as the supreme good participated in and attained to by the creation, through the overflow of the plenitude of the divine being. The divine complacency in this voluntary overflow of the fount of being and good was the ultimate and determining motive to the creative act. The good of being thus given is a similitude of the divine esse, vivere, and intelligere. As it is real, or existence in act, it must copy, as far as its grade of existence permits, the most pure act of God in the blessed Trinity. That is, the creature must reflect from its own essence an image of the divine essence, or a created similitude of the uncreated Word, in which its existence is completed and its act consummated. In the material world this is a mere dead image, like the representation of a living form made by a statue or picture. In the sentient world, so far as we can understand this most inscrutable and baffling of all parts of the creation, there is an apprehension by the sensitive soul of a kind of shadow of the intelligible object in sensible forms, and the imperfect resemblance of the life and felicity of an intelligent nature which corresponds to this imperfect apprehension. In the intelligent creature, its spiritual essence, by virtue of the rationality in which it is created, and is its constitutive principle, reflects an image of the divine Word in the contemplation of which its intelligent life is completed. So far as intelligent nature is merely potential, it is potential to this act of intelligent life; and when its potentiality is reduced to act, so as to produce the nearest similitude to the divine intelligence in act, which God has determined to create, intelligent nature, and in it all nature, has attained its finality. Intelligent nature has attained the highest good attainable; and, the different intelligent species and individuals existing together in due order and harmony in the participation of the common good, with all inferior grades of existence subordinated to them, the universe has unity and is determined to a common final end.
Thus, creation returns back to the principle from which it proceeded by the consummation of the creative act. As the Father is united to the Word in the Holy Spirit, or in love and complacency, so the creation is united to God by the possession of good and the complacency of God in this good. It is actualized in the intelligent nature capable of knowing and loving God, and therefore having a similitude to the Son or Word. When it is ascertained what the highest union to the Father, or that approaching nearest to the union of the Son to him of which created nature is capable, is, it will be ascertained what is the end metaphysically final to which created nature can attain, if God wills to bring it to the summit of possibility. When it is ascertained what this summit of possibility is, it is ascertained what the end of creation is which is metaphysically final; and when it is ascertained how far toward this summit God has actually determined to elevate his creation, it is ascertained what is the end of creation actually final, and how far it coincides with the end metaphysically final.
This knowledge cannot be deduced from any first principle given to reason. It is communicated by revelation, and by this revelation we learn that God has determined to bring the creation to the end metaphysically final in the incarnation of the Word.