Select Works of Plotinus — trans. Thomas Taylor

sider who those are that have obtained it, and after what manner we also may acquire the same knowledge on these subjects. In the first place, however, it is requisite to investigate what those conceive eternity to be, who admit that it is different from time. For that which is established as the paradigm being known, that also which is the image of it, and which they say is time, will per¬ haps become manifest* But if some one, prior to the survey of eternity, should imagine what time is, it will happen to him, proceeding from hence thither by reminiscence, that he will behold the nature to which time is assimilated, if the latter has a simili¬ tude to the former.

II. What, therefore, is it requisite we should assert eternity to be ? Shall w?e say it is the intelli¬ gible essence itself, just as if some one should say that time is the whole heaven and the world ? Forp. 179 some are said to have had this opinion concerning time. For since we imagine and conceive eternity to be something most venerable, and an intelligible nature is also most venerable, we are unable to say which is the more venerable of the two ; and since also, that which is beyond these is not to be predi¬ cated in the same way, some one may he induced to consider eternity and an intelligible essence as the same. For again, both the intelligible world and eternity comprehend in themselves the same things. When, however, we say that the one is in the other, we place intelligibles in eternity ; and when we predicate the eternal of intelligibles, as when Plato in the Timaeus says, “ if the nature of the paradigm is eternal,” we then assert that the eternal is different from the intelligible. Never¬ theless, we say that it either exists about, or in, or is present with an intelligible essence. That each of them, however, is venerable, does not manifest a sameness of nature ; for perhaps the venerableness of the one is derived from the other. With respect to comprehension also, that of the intelligible is as of parts, but eternity comprehends the whole at once not as a part, but because all such things as are eternal subsist according to it. Shall we, therep. 180fore, say that eternity exists according to the per¬ manency which is in intelligibles ; just as here, time is said to exist according to motion ? It may, however, be very properly investigated, whether eternity is the same with permanency, or whether it is not simply the same, but is the same with the permanency which is about essence.

igibles ; just as here, time is said to exist according to motion ? It may, however, be very properly investigated, whether eternity is the same with permanency, or whether it is not simply the same, but is the same with the permanency which is about essence. For if it is the same with permanency [simply considered] in the first place, we cannot say that permanency is eternal, as neither do we say that eternity is eternal. For the eternal is that which participates of eter¬ nity. And in the next place, how is motion eter¬ nal ? For thus it will be stable. Farther still, how does the conception of permanency contain in itself ihe ever ? I do not mean the ever which is in time, but such as we intellectually perceive when we speak of the eternal. But if it contains the ever in the stability of essence, again, we shall separate the other genera of being from eternity. Besides, it is not only necessary to conceive eternity as sub¬ sisting in permanency, but also as subsisting in one. And in the next place, we must admit that eternity is without interval, in order that it may not be the same with time. Permanency, however, so far as it is permanency, neither contains in itself the conp. 181ception of unity, nor of that which is without interval. But we predicate of eternity that it abides in one. Hence, it will participate of permanency, but will not be permanency itself.

III. What, therefore, will that be according to which we say, the whole world which is there is eternal and perpetual ? And what is perpetuity ? Whether it is the same with eternity, or eternity subsists according to perpetuity. Shall we say, therefore, that it is necessary to conceive of eternity as one certain thing, but a certain intelligence or nature collected together from many things, whe¬ ther it be something consequent to the natures in the intelligible world, or existing together with, or perceived in them, but which is able to effect and is many things. Indeed, he who surveys an abundant power collected into one, according to this parti¬ cular thing which is as it were a subject, he deno¬ minates it essence ; afterwards, so far as he be¬ holds life in it, he denominates it motion ; and in the next place, he calls it permanency, so far as it entirely possesses an invariable sameness of sub¬ sistence. And he denominates it different and the same, so far as all these are at once one.

s he be¬ holds life in it, he denominates it motion ; and in the next place, he calls it permanency, so far as it entirely possesses an invariable sameness of sub¬ sistence. And he denominates it different and the same, so far as all these are at once one. Thus,p. 182 therefore, composing these, so as to be at once one life alone, contracting in them difference, and be¬ holding an unceasing sameness of ener gy, and which never passes from one intelligence or life to ano¬ ther, but always possesses the invariable, and is without interval ; — beholding all these, he will be¬ hold eternity. For he will perceive life abiding in sameness, and always possessing every thing pre¬ sent, and not at one time this, and afterwards ano¬ ther thing, but containing all things at once, and not now some things, and again others. For it is an impartible end ; just as in a point where all things subsist at once, and have not }ret proceeded into a [linear] flux. It likewise abides in the same, i. e. in itself, and does not suffer any change. But it is always in the present, because nothing of it is past, nor again will be in future, but this very thing which it is, it always is. Hence, eternity is not a subject, but that which as it were shines forth from a subject, according to sameness itself, which it announces not concerning the future, but that which is now present, indicating that it subsists in this manner, and in no other. For what can after¬ wards happen to this, which it now is not? Nor again, will it be in futurity what it is not at present.

p. 183

For there is not any thing from which it can arrive at the present time. For it is not another thing, hut this. Nor will it be this in future, which it does not now possess from necessity ; nor does it possess about itself that which was. For what is there which was present with it and is past? Nor does that which will be, belong to it. For what is there which will happen to it? It remains, there¬ fore, that in to be , it is that which it is. Hence, that which neither was, nor will be, but alone is, stably possessing its being, in consequence of not changing into will be, nor having been changed from the past, is eternity. The life, therefore, which is about being, and which in existence or to be , is at once total and full, and every where without interval, is the eternity which we investi-

7 *j gate.

IV. Nor must we think that this [eternity] happens externally to that nature, [viz. to being itself,] but that it is in it, and from it, and subsists together with it.