Comparing and Collecting: Gilbert of Poitiers’s Analysis of the Category of Time (“When”) in His Commentary on Boethius’s De trinitate

Thus, Gilbert’s reflections on time in his commentary on Boethius’s De trinitate are to be understood as reflections about similarities and differences—that is, analogies—between predications in the category of “when” (quando) in the natural faculty (in naturalibus) and predications in the category of “when” in the discourse about God (in theologicis). But Gilbert also follows suggestions from the sections concerning time and eternity included in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy. As in the case of where-place (locus ubi), if one says something of a natural thing in the category of when-time (tempus quando), one does not thereby say that that thing is something “according to the true definition of being,” although receiving a predication in when-time presupposes the being of what one is talking about. Rather, the predication of tempus quando regarding natural entities expresses the connection of that something with something else that has been “placed beside it” (ei accesserit), thus thanks to a comparison (collatio) with the external world. When we say of the sky that “it is always,” we collect and compare all possible times of all real or just possible things. However, when we say, “God is always”, we are making no comparison (collatio) and no collection (collectio) of times of natural things, nor are we speaking of perpetuity. In fact, by saying “God is always,” we compare time and eternity, since God is what he is according to a duration of eternity (mora aeternitatis).