176 JAMES A. WEISHEIPL 



motion, but also the absolute efficient cause, formal principle 

 and ultimate end of all being. He produces not only the hier- 

 archy of conjoined celestial movers, their bodies and motion, 

 but he is also the first efficient cause, formal principle and final 

 end of each intelligence. The first principle of universal being 

 is commonly designated by St. Albert as the intellectus univer- 

 saliter agens, who, as has already been noted, is God Himself. 

 As first mover of the heavens He is attained in natural science; 

 as first cause of being He is attained in metaphysics. 



Once Albert has established in his reply to the Master 

 General that angels are not the same as intelligences discovered 

 by the philosophers, he can easily dismiss the first five ques- 

 tions as fatuous. The existence of angels, the messengers of 

 God, cannot be proved in philosophy; they have nothing to do 

 with problems of natural science; and even if God were not 

 the first mover of the heavens — which He really is — the exist- 

 ence of angels would still not be demonstrated. God, for St. 

 Albert, is the first cause of celestial motions, not as a form 

 conjoined to the universe, but as a separated active intelligence 

 commanding the motions of all, " since Aristotle says that the 

 first cause moves the first heaven, to the motion of which all 

 motions of celestial bodies are referred, as all movements of 

 organic members are referred to the movement of the heart." ^^ 

 The only body which God moves immediately as conjoined 

 to Himself is the body of Christ, joined hypostatically to the 

 Word. 



Robert Kilv^ardby 



The approach of Kilwardby is very different from that of St. 

 Albert. Kilwardby, in fact, reflects much more the schools of 

 Oxford than those of Paris, despite his own regency in arts at 

 Paris (c. 1237-c. 1245) . He had been a Master in Theology of 

 Oxford about fifteen years when he was asked to reply to the 

 questionnaire of John of Vercelli. We cannot be certain that 

 Kilwardby always maintained the views presented in the reply 

 of 1271, but we can be certain of his views at that date. 



''^ Problemata determinata, q. 1, ed. cit., p. 321; cf. Aristotle, De caelo et mundo, 

 II, c. 2, 284b6-286a2. 



