Dist. 2, Part 1, Art. 2, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/2/q/bon-sent-II-d2-p1-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether between time and the age there is any middle measure.*

Secondly it is asked whether between time and the age there is any middle measure. And that there is not seems true:

1. First, through the Philosopher, who divides measured substances, in the book *de Causis*, thus, that «between a substance whose substance and action is in the moment of eternity, and a substance whose substance and action is in the moment of time, there is a middle substance, whose substance is in the moment of eternity, and whose action [is] in the moment of time». If, then, every created substance has to be reduced to one of these; and to measure these, time and the age suffice: therefore, etc.

2. Likewise, this same thing seems so through Dionysius, *On the Divine Names*: «It is the property of the age to be measured without alteration and according to the whole; but of time, that which holds itself otherwise and otherwise in alteration; but the middle of beings, which partake on the one side of the age, on the other of time». Therefore all things that are, are measured either wholly by the age, or wholly by time, or partly by the age and partly by time: therefore there is no third measure other than these.

3. Likewise, every created thing is either stable and incorruptible, or variable and corruptible; but the first is measured by the age, and the second by time: therefore there is nothing middle between the age and time.

4. Likewise, the *being* of every created thing is either *terminable* or *interminable*. If it is *terminable*, then it is measured by time, which is the principle of corruption, because it makes apart that which is. But if *interminable*, then by the age: therefore it does not seem that there is any third [thing] measuring besides these two.

**On the contrary:**

1. Before the fourth day there was no time, because it is said, at the making of the luminaries: *Let them be for signs and for times and for days and years*; and it is evident that there was not only the age, since there were some corporeal things, like herbs and shrubs: therefore there was another measure: therefore, etc.

2. Likewise, after the day of judgment there will be no time, according to what the Angel swears in the Apocalypse; yet there will be succession and variation in the torments, which cannot be measured by the age: therefore it is necessary to posit a third measure besides these.

3. Likewise, in the affections of the Angels there is intensity and variation, and they themselves are above time, as is said in the book *de Causis*: therefore that measure of the affections is above time; but it cannot be the age, since in the age no variation falls: therefore it is necessary that there be another measure.

4. Likewise, an Angel, when it is converted to God, is elevated above time: therefore that conversion, and that which it receives in that conversion, is above time; and a thing above time must be measured [by something above time]; but the Angel there knows something which it can cease to think: therefore at least that cannot be measured by the age, which is the measure of an interminable thing, nor by time: therefore, etc.

### Conclusio

> If time is taken properly, then between the age and time there is nothing middle in reality, but [something] differing only in reason; but if [taken] more properly, then there is a middle measure differing [from both], called by the ancients the saeculum.

**I respond:** It must be said that, according as time is divided over against the age, namely in the two last acceptations posited before, it can be taken in two ways: either, that is, insofar as it states the measure of *any* varied duration or of successive variation; and thus between the age and time there is nothing middle *in reality*, but only *in reason*; not, I say, is there something middle differing from both in the genus of *measure*, but [something] middle in the genus of *the measured*, partaking of both, as is that substance which is in the confine of eternity and of time. — And thus all the reasons proceed to the first part, as is easily plain to one looking.

But in another way time is taken insofar as it is the measure of variation, in which there is succession having *continuation* and *regulation* from the motion of the first orb; and this measure has an end and will cease to be. And between this and the age one must posit a middle measure, in which there is *variation*, [but] it need not be [that there is] *cessation*, or *regulation* of the first motion; of which kind there was in the three days of the founding of things, and such as there will be in hell after the last day. And this has been called by the ancient doctors the *saeculum*. — And this the reasons to the contrary conclude; and thus the whole is plain.