nothing, unless the hand of the Almighty preserved
them." But what can be brought to nothing is corruptible. Therefore,
since the angels were made by God, it would appear that they are
corruptible of their own nature.

_On the contrary,_ Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that the
intellectual substances "have unfailing life, being free from all
corruption, death, matter, and generation."

_I answer that,_ It must necessarily be maintained that the angels
are incorruptible of their own nature. The reason for this is, that
nothing is corrupted except by its form being separated from the
matter. Hence, since an angel is a subsisting form, as is clear from
what was said above (A. 2), it is impossible for its substance to
be corruptible. For what belongs to anything considered in itself can
never be separated from it; but what belongs to a thing, considered in
relation to something else, can be separated, when that something else
is taken away, in view of which it belonged to it. Roundness can never
be taken from the circle, because it belongs to it of itself; but a
bronze circle can lose roundness, if the bronze be deprived of its
circular shape. Now to be belongs to a form considered in itself; for
everything is an actual being according to its form: whereas matter is
an actual being by the form. Consequently a subject composed of matter
and form ceases to be actually when the form is separated from the
matter. But if the form subsists in its own being, as happens in the
angels, as was said above (A. 2), it cannot lose its being.
Therefore, the angel's immateriality is the cause why it is
incorruptible by its own nature.

A token of this incorruptibility can be gathered from its intellectual
operation; for since everything acts according as it is actual, the
operation of a thing indicates its mode of being. Now the species and
nature of the operation is understood from the object. But an
intelligible object, being above time, is everlasting. Hence every
intellectual substance is incorruptible of its own nature.

Reply Obj. 1: Damascene is dealing with perfect immortality, which
includes complete immutability; since "every change is a kind of
death," as Augustine says (Contra Maxim. iii). The angels obtain
perfect immutability only by favor, as will appear later (Q. 62).

Reply Obj. 2: By the expression 'gods' Plato understands the heavenly
bodies, which he supposed to be made up of elements, and therefore
dissoluble of t