1. Exposition of the Opinion

147. Here it is said [by Henry of Ghent] that the intrinsic operation of an angel is measured by discrete time. And it is posited in the following way:

The measure that is of the duration of a thing is a way in which the thing is measured, and it is proportioned to the thing measured (as the measure of a permanent thing is permanent and of a flowing thing is flowing); therefore such a proportion must be found between the thoughts or operations of an angel and the measures of them. Now these thoughts are transient, because an angel does not have always wholly one intellection that is possible for him but many, and these intellections flow and pass by in a certain order, so that one is after another; and yet this happens without connection, so that an angel does not have one thought after another or from another because he is not discursive; it is also without succession, because none of these operations is in a process of being acquired or lost but is, while it is, whole at once and indivisible. So there will correspond to them a measure having indivisible, ordered, transient parts; but such is discrete time;     therefore etc     .

148. This reason is confirmed by Augustine Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.22 n.43, where he maintains that ‘God moves the spiritual creature in time’.

149. But if it be asked what this ‘discrete time’ is - the response is that it is a ‘true quantity’, distinct in species from number and speaking; for the parts of number indeed are permanent (so that if they are not permanent this is incidental), but a part of speaking is necessarily not permanent and yet is not continuous with another part. Therefore ‘discrete time’ agrees with speaking in that its parts are not permanent, but differs from speaking in that any part of vowelled speaking is continuous with vowelled speaking and of consonantal with consonantal (and this can be in our time truly and be measured by some part of time), although it is not continuous with another part of speaking; but no thought of an angel can in itself be measured by time (because it is indivisible), nor can it be continuous with another thought.

150. But if it be asked why this ‘discrete quantity’ is not put by Aristotle among the species of quantity, the response is that he posited the intelligences to be certain gods [Metaphysics 12.8.1073a14-b1, 1074a38-b13], and for this reason he did not posit any measure corresponding to such operation of them that was whole at once.

151. And if it be asked how this ‘discrete time’ relates to our time, the answer is that the ‘now’ of discrete time necessarily coexists with some part of our time and consequently with all the parts that exist along with that instant; for if an angel has some thought first along with this instant of ours, he does not at once have another thought in a next instant but he has the previous one in the time following, and in the last instant of the time following he can have another thought in continuity with our time.

152. And in addition, this instant does not have any proportion to our instant, because the same ‘now’ of that discrete time can coexist with any amount of our time, whether a greater or a lesser, according as the angel can continue the same indivisible intellection with a greater or lesser part of our time, without any other new intellection.