<i>Omnis intelligentia est plena formis</i>. Repleción intelectual y mito de los ángeles en el medioevo tardío

Abstract

According to the ix(x) proposition of Liber de causis, every intelligence is full of forms. But neither the Liber nor Proclus’ Elementatio Theologica (the original context of this doctrine) attribute such repletion to the human intellect. The nóes are the ones that are full of forms, i. e., the incorporeal intelligences located in the intermediate grade between the One and the souls. Despite this, centuries later, Dante Alighieri and, especially, Nicholas of Cusa do not hesitate to assert that the human intellect is also full of forms. Furthermore, this proposition is the subject of many interpretations after the middle of the thirteenth-century, when the Liber becomes compulsory reading for university studies. What transformations —we will investigate in the present paper— were made by the thirteenth-century interpreters in the doctrine of repletion forms? Is it possible that these transformations have shaped the condition of possibility that some time later the human intellect also becomes full of forms? In this context, we will argue that the christian myth of angels had a decisive influence on this doctrine.