C. To the Principal Arguments

21. To the arguments of this question.

As to the first [n.8], it is conceded that angels merit some accidental blessedness; but ‘submissions’ are as it were certain works redounding from the perfection of blessedness - as is true of acts ‘generated and proceeding from a perfect, generated habit’, which generate no perfection (nor do they intensify the habit because it is not intensifiable), but they only proceed from the full perfection of the habit; so it is here. But I concede that, in the way they merit accidental blessedness, they do not have it when they merit it; nor is there any ‘affliction’ from this, because they have essential blessedness, which they most of all will.

22. To the second [n.19] I say that the angels’ greatest merit was by their willing the ultimate end with an intrinsic act - when the bad were turned away from that end by being proud, as will be plain in distinction 4 [n.46]. But a multitude of merits is not required for a great reward, but one intense merit is much more required than a hundred thousand weak ones; and so there was in them a very intense movement of merit for that little interval during which they merited, to so great an extent, perhaps, that no man -according to common law - could have as intense an act of merit as they had.