Cap. 3, Vers. 1
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/15/d/3/q/bon-eccl-c3-v1
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### Chapter III.

#### *Member II of the first part. The vanity of things is shown as to their variety in time, and this in three articles.*

*All things have their time* etc. Above he treated of the vanity of things, showing that there is in them variability by reason of *motion*; here secondly he wishes to show their vanity as to their determination and variety *in time*. And because he shows the mutability and variety of things not to their contempt, according as they are the works of God, but according as they are loved by us; therefore in this part he shows first *the variety of times*; secondly he reproves *our curiosity*, there: *What hath a man more*; thirdly he shows *the perpetuity of the divine works*, there: *And I have learned that the works of God.*

#### Art. 1. *On the variety and mutability of things in time, both generally and specially.*

The first part has two, for first he treats of the variety and mutability of things in time *generally*, secondly *specially*, by inducing and proving, there: *A time to be born.*

#### The variety and mutability of things in time is proposed and proved in general.

(V. 1.). He proposes, therefore, *generally*, saying: *All things have their time*, that is, the variety of time, because to the Romans, the eighth chapter: « The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly ». *And in their own spaces all things pass under the sun*, as to the determination of the time appointed beforehand; Wisdom, the eleventh chapter: « Thou hast ordered all things in number, weight and measure »; the first to the Corinthians, the seventh chapter: « The fashion of this world passeth away »; and most of all within this space of time appointed to it; Job, the fourteenth chapter: « Thou hast appointed his bounds, which cannot be passed ».

### Questions

I. Here is a question concerning that which he says: *All things have their time.*

1. There is an instance against it: since « spiritual substances, as Jerome says, are contained neither by place nor by time ».

2. Likewise, everything that is in time and has time is corporeal; but spiritual substances are incorporeal: therefore they are not in time nor have they time.

But that they are in time, it seems: 1. Because Augustine says to Dardanus: « Uncreated spiritual substance is not moved through time nor through place; created spiritual substance is moved through time, but not through place; created corporeal substance through time and place ».

2. Likewise, what is in place is in time; but « God alone is uncircumscribable », as Damascene says, therefore he alone is untemporal: therefore all other things have time.

I respond: it must be said to this, that that *distribution* is an *accommodated* one, just as, when it is said: heaven covers all things, it is understood of those things which are under heaven; and therefore the instance is not to be pressed in the case of *spiritual* substance. — But if we wish to extend the distribution, we shall say that *time* is spoken of in three ways: *commonly* and *properly* and *more properly*. *Commonly*, according as it states the measure of the going forth from *non-being* to *being*; and in this way it is in all things, since all things had a beginning. And this the letter seems to hint, since he himself says that *all things have their time*, but not that all things *pass* except *under the sun*. — In another way *properly*, inasmuch as it implies variation either in substance or in affection; and thus even spiritual substance has time as to the change of its affections. — In a third way *more properly*, inasmuch as it is an excelling measure; and thus it belongs to corruptible things, and not to all.

That, therefore, which is asked, whether spiritual substances have time; it is to be solved that in the first way they do have it as to *substance*; in the second way, as to certain *affections*; in the third way they do not have it. — And through this the contrarieties of both sides are solved.

II. There is a question concerning the second part of the proposition: *And in their own spaces all things pass under the sun*, whether the elements pass away. — That they do, it seems.

1. The Apocalypse, the twenty-first chapter: *I saw a new heaven and a new earth*: therefore the old had passed away.

2. Likewise, the first of John, the second chapter: *The world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof*; and Matthew, the twenty-fourth chapter: *Heaven and earth shall pass away.*

**On the contrary:** They belong to the constitution of the universe: therefore, since the universe remains, it is manifest that the elements also remain.

I respond: it must be said that for a thing *to pass* in its own space is threefold: either as to corruption according to the *whole substance*, as brute animals are corrupted; or as to the corruption of itself according to a *part*, as the elements are generated and corrupted in their own boundaries, in which they touch one another; or *to pass*, that is, to be transmuted from the state of corruptibility to another state, and in this way this sensible world will be made new. — What therefore is said here, that *in their own spaces they pass*, is understood in one or other of those three ways.

2. As to what is objected again: *The world passeth away, and the concupiscence thereof,* the determination solves it, namely the world inasmuch as it is the occasion of pleasure.

1. As to what is said: *I saw a new heaven;* the Gloss: « that is, made new ».

2. As to what is said in Matthew: *Heaven and earth shall pass away;* the Gloss expounds: they shall pass away, from a mutable form to an immutable one.

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