II. To the First Question

84. To the other question, about illumination [n.1], I say that illumination in an angel is a sort of speaking about a truth that is perfective in second existence; for just as not every intellection is simply the perfection of the angelic intellect but the vision of the Word is, and not the vision of quiddities (whether through habitual species or intuitively), so not every knowledge of singulars - knowledge other than vision of the Word and knowledge of quiddities - equally perfects the angelic intellect in a secondary way as it were; but vision of a revealed truth perfects it in second existence, while knowledge of a singular in its proper genus does not so perfect it.

85. I say then that a superior angel, to whom some particular is in the common course first revealed, causes a certain concept in an inferior angel - a concept about the thing revealed - which is called ‘hearing’; and this causing, which is a sort of spiritual speaking, is illumining. It also seems probable that the illumining angel causes something in the angel illumined and not in himself, because God too - illumining the first angel -causes nothing in himself but in the angel illumined [n.48].

86. But there is a doubt whether a superior angel can make an inferior see anything in the Word [n.46] - and whether an inferior angel can illumine a superior (it seems that he can, if something is first revealed to him).

87. To the first it seems that just as knowledge of the Word is purely supernatural, such that it is not subject to the causality of any created cause, so neither is the vision of anything in the Word thus subject. Yet a superior angel, when illumining an inferior in the way stated [n.85], can act dispositively so that the inferior see something in the Word; for the hearing makes disposition that the hearer turn himself to the intellect of the speaker and see there what the speaker is speaking about (and this seeing is in some way more perfect than the hearing); and makes disposition further that the inferior angel, seeing something in the superior angel, see the same in the Word, because, if he desires to see in a perfect mirror what he sees in the superior angel as in an imperfect mirror, he will see it, rejoicing, and then he is perfectly illumined (perfectively by the Word indeed and dispositively by the superior angel).

88. To the second doubt [n.86] I say that God, of his absolute power, could reveal something to an inferior angel that was not revealed or known to a superior, and then the inferior could in some way speak to the superior about what the superior does not know -and this speaking would in some way be illumination; but he could not have as much efficient power over the intellect of a superior as the superior has over the intellect of an inferior, and so he could not necessarily make the superior hear (the way it works the other way around), because if the superior were considering something in its proper genus, the inferior would not make him hear simply [n.71] (but the superior can make an inferior hear simply, and can prevent his understanding some intelligible thing). In fact, however, it is likely that God distributes his illuminations in ordered fashion (just as he distributes the angels in their orders), first to the superior indeed, and then to the inferior.