There are in all ten categories which can be universally predicated of
things, namely, Substance, Quality, Quantity, Relation, Place, Time,
Condition, Situation, Activity, Passivity. Their meaning is determined
by the contingent subject; for some of them denote substance in making
predication of other things, others belong to the class of accidents.
But when these categories are applied to God they change their meaning
entirely. Relation, for instance, cannot be predicated at all of God;
for substance in Him is not really substantial but supersubstantial. So
with quality and the other possible attributes, of which we must add
examples for the sake of clearness.
When we say God, we seem to denote a substance; but it is a substance
that is supersubstantial. When we say of Him, "He is just," we mention a
quality, not an accidental quality--rather a substantial and, in fact, a
supersubstantial quality.[20] For God is not one thing because He is,
and another thing because He is just; with Him to be just and to be God
are one and the same. So when we say, "He is great or the greatest," we
seem to predicate quantity, but it is a quantity similar to this
substance which we have declared to be supersubstantial; for with Him to
be great and to be God are all one. Again, concerning His Form, we have
already shown that He is Form, and truly One without Plurality. The
categories we have mentioned are such that they give to the thing to
which they are applied the character which they express; in created
things they express divided being, in God, conjoined and united being--
in the following manner. When we name a substance, as man or God, it
seems as though that of which the predication is made were substance
itself, as man or God is substance. But there is a difference: since a
man is not simply and entirely man, and in virtue of this he is not
substance. For what man is he owes to other things which are not man.
But God is simply and entirely God, for He is nothing else than what He
is, and therefore is, through simple existence, God. Again we apply
just, a quality, as though it were that of which it is predicated; that
is, if we say "a just man or just God," we assert that man or God is
just. But there is a difference, for man is one thing, and a just man is
another thing. But God is justice itself. So a man or God is said to be
great, and it would appear that man is substantially great or that God
is substantially great. But man is merely great; God is greatness.
The remaining categories are not predicable of God nor yet of created
things.[21] For place is predicated of man or of God--a man is in the
market-place; God is everywhere--but in neither case is the predicate
identical with the object of predication. To say "A man is in the
market" is quite a different thing from saying "he is white or long,"
or, so to speak, encompassed and determined by some property which
enables him to be described in terms of his substance; this predicate of
place simply declares how far his substance is given a particular
setting amid other things.
It is otherwise, of course, with God. "He is everywhere" does not mean
that He is in every place, for He cannot be in any place at all--but
that every place is present to Him for Him to occupy, although He
Himself can be received by no place, and therefore He cannot anywhere be
in a place, since He is everywhere but in no place. It is the same with
the category of time, as, "A man came yesterday; God is ever." Here
again the predicate of "coming yesterday" denotes not something
substantial, but something happening in terms of time. But the
expression "God is ever" denotes a single Present, summing up His
continual presence in all the past, in all the present--however that
term be used--and in all the future. Philosophers say that "ever" may be
applied to the life of the heavens and other immortal bodies. But as
applied to God it has a different meaning. He is ever, because "ever" is
with Him a term of present time, and there is this great difference
between "now," which is our present, and the divine present. Our present
connotes changing time and sempiternity; God's present, abiding,
unmoved, and immoveable, connotes eternity. Add _semper_ to
_eternity_ and you get the constant, incessant and thereby
perpetual course of our present time, that is to say, sempiternity.[22]
It is just the same with the categories of condition and activity. For
example, we say "A man runs, clothed," "God rules, possessing all
things." Here again nothing substantial is asserted of either subject;
in fact all the categories we have hitherto named arise from what lies
outside substance, and all of them, so to speak, refer to something
other than substance. The difference between the categories is easily
seen by an example. Thus, the terms "man" and "God" refer to the
substance in virtue of which the subject is--man or God. The term "just"
refers to the quality in virtue of which the subject is something, viz.
just; the term "great" to the quantity in virtue of which He is
something, viz. great. No other category save substance, quality, and
quantity refer to the substance of the subject. If I say of one "he is
in the market" or "everywhere," I am applying the category of place,
which is not a category of the substance, like "just" in virtue of
justice. So if I say, "he runs, He rules, he is now, He is ever," I make
reference to activity or time--if indeed God's "ever" can be described
as time--but not to a category of substance, like "great" in virtue of
greatness.
Finally, we must not look for the categories of situation and passivity
in God, for they simply are not to be found in Him.
Have I now made clear the difference between the categories? Some denote
the reality of a thing; others its accidental circumstances; the former
declare that a thing is something; the latter say nothing about its
being anything, but simply attach to it, so to speak, something
external. Those categories which describe a thing in terms of its
substance may be called substantial categories; when they apply to
things as subjects they are called accidents. In reference to God, who
is not a subject at all, it is only possible to employ the category of
substance.
[20] Gilbert de la Porrée in his commentary on the _De Trin._ makes
Boethius's meaning clear. "Quod igitur in illo substantiam nominamus,
non est subiectionis ratione quod dicitur, sed ultra omnem quae
accidentibus est subiecta substantiam est essentia, absque omnibus quae
possunt accidere solitaria omnino." (Migne, _P.L._ lxiv. 1283). Cf. Aug.
_De Trin._ vii. 10.
[21] i.e. according to their substance.
[22] The doctrine is Augustine's, cf. _De Ciu. Dei_, xi. 6, xii. 16; but
Boethius's use of _sempiternitas_, as well as his word-building, seem to
be peculiar to himself. Claudianus Mamertus, speaking of applying the
categories to God, uses _sempiternitas_ as Boethius uses _aeternitas_.
Cf. _De Statu Animae_ i. 19. Apuleius seems to use both terms
interchangeably, e.g. _Asclep._ 29-31. On Boethius's distinction between
time and eternity see _Cons._ v. pr. 6, and Rand, _i er dem B. zugeschr.
Trakt. de fide_, pp. 425 ff, and Brandt in _Theol. Littzg._, 1902, p.
147.