B. Rejection of the Opinion

130. But this opinion seems to posit plurality without necessity. Therefore it seems one should speak against it as was done in the preceding question [n.123]:

That either aeviternity is said to be the actual existence of the aeviternal angel, and in this way there are as many aeviternities as there are angels.

131. Or it is said to be a thing intrinsic to something actually existent and measuring that existence - and in this way it is nothing, as was proved in the preceding question [n.122].

132. Or aeviternity is said to be something extrinsic, different from the actual existence of the aeviternal thing, which extrinsic thing, from the nature of itself, is however of a nature to measure the actual existence of the very aeviternal thing - and then this can be posited in three ways:

Either that one can deny that any such thing is, from the nature of itself, of a nature to measure the existence of the very aeviternal thing, by positing that all aeviternal things have an existence equally invariable, because, although one existence is more perfect than another and, for this reason, can measure it by that sort of quidditative measuring (the way the Philosopher speaks in Metaphysics 10.2.1054a9-11), yet in the case of a measuring of duration - which is in some way reduced to the genus of quantity - no invariable existence seems to be more invariable than another, because a succession of parts within itself is altogether repugnant to any of them; and then one should say that, since aeviternity is posited as the measure of something insofar as this something endures unvaried, and since the extrinsic measure should, from the nature of the thing, be more known in idea of invariability, and since there is no such difference [sc. in idea of invariability] among existences of aeviternal things, then nothing will be thus an aeviternity.

133. Or one can say in another way that any superior existence is simpler than any inferior existence, and is of a nature, from the nature of the thing, to give certainty about that inferior existence, and to this extent any existence of a superior could be called aeviternity in respect of an inferior; and then there will be as many aeviternities as there are aeviternal things, excepting that there is no aeviternity in the last aeviternal thing since its existence does not measure any other invariable existence; and likewise the existence of the highest angel is only an aeviternity with respect to the other inferior angels, because his invariable existence measures all the others and does not have himself any aeviternity in this way, because he has no other existence above him.

134. Or one can say in a third way that, if aeviternity is not said to be any existence simpler than another and to be of a nature to give certainty about it, but is said to be the simplest existence which, by its own formal idea and in itself, is most certain and is first known and of a nature to give certainty about the others - and in this way one can say that there is only one aeviternity, namely the existence of the first angel with respect to all the other aeviternals.

135. Now whichever of these ways [nn.130-34] is posited, there is not in any aeviternal its own aeviternity [n.129]; nor is there in the last aeviternal any aeviternity

[n.133] - nor is the one in which is the first aeviternity measured by any aeviternity [n.133], because it has nothing such in itself (from the preceding question [nn.122-23]) -nor is aeviternity in any other aeviternal from the nature of it, because any other [sc. being inferior to the first] is less certain.