ABSTRACT
In the Tertia Pars of the Summa Theologiae, Thomas Aquinas addresses the question, “Should the angel of the announcement have appeared bodily to the Virgin?” Aquinas takes it as read that Mary, as reported in the account of the Annunciation in Luke's gospel, actually and physically saw the angel. Indeed, this seeing is what creates the theological problem. “It would seem not,” he continues, for “Augustine notes that intellectual vision is better than physical vision and this is especially true in the case of the apparition of the angel…. Thus if it was right to have the divine conception announced by the best kind of messenger, it should follow that he present himself in the best kind of vision. So then the angel of the Annunciation should have appeared to the Virgin in an intellectual vision.”
