Non abest nec distat. Place and Movement of Angels according to Robert Grosseteste, Adam Marsh and Roger Bacon

Abstract

This contribution deals with the discussion on angelic location and movement by focusing on Robert Grosseteste and Adam Marsh as sources of Roger Bacon. Grosseteste’s De intelligentiis claims that angels are essentially present in a place or body for accomplishing their ministerium, in line with the coeval theory of angelic location per operationem. Roger Bacon was inspired by the same view, which saved the Aristotelian notion of place without implying any undue convergence with Christian doctrines. In rejecting the theories about angelic location in a physical space or in relation to a mathematical space, both scholars illustrated the topic through negative sentences, which qualified Bacon as a target of the Parisian syllabus of 1277. In the Opus tertium, which he sent to Clement IV shortly after 1268, he inserted an autobiographical testimony of a conversation with friar Adam Marsh on this theme for illustrating to the pope the original Franciscan doctrine on angels, against the misinterpretation of his confreres, whose tenets eventually inspired the Parisian condemnations.