IV. He, however, will know that eternity thus subsists, who by the projecting a energies of intellect is able to speak concerning it: or rather, he who sees it to be a thing of such a kind, that nothing in short has ever been generated about it; for otherwise it would not be perpetual being, or would not always be a certain total being. Is it therefore now perpetual ? It is not, unless a nature of such a kind is inherent in it, as to procure credibility concerning it, that it thus subsists, and no longer in any other way. So that if again you survey it by the projecting energies of intellect, you will find that it is such a thing as this. What then, if some one should never depart from the contemplation of it, but should incessantly persevere in admiring its nature, and should be able to do this through the possession of an unwearied nature, such a one perhaps running to eternity, would there stop, and never decline from it, in order that he might become similar to it, and eternal, surveying eternity and the eternal by that which is eternal in himself. If, therefore, that which thus subsists is eternal, and always being, which does not decline in any respect to another nature, but the life which it possesses is now all, neither having received, nor receiving, nor being about to receive any thing in future; — that which thus subsists, will indeed be perpetual. And perpetuity is such a collocation as this of a subject, subsisting from it, and being inherent in it. But eternity is the subject in conjunction with a collocation of this kind presenting itself to the view. Hence eternity is venerable, and as our intellectual conception of it says, is the same with deity. But it says that it is the same with that God (whom we call by the appellation of being and life.) And eternity may be properly denominated a God unfolding himself into light, and shining forth, such as he essentially is, viz. as immutable and the same, and thus firmly established in life. It ought not, however, to be considered as wonderful, if we say that it consists of many things. For every thing in the intelligible world is many, on account of the infinite power which it possesses; since the infinite receives its appellation from a never-failing essence. And this properly, because nothing pertaining to it is consumed. Hence, if some one should thus denominate eternity, calling it life which is now infinite, because it is all, and nothing of which is consumed, because nothing pertaining to it is either past or future, since otherwise it would not be all things at once ; — if some one should thus denominate it, he will be near to the true definition1 of it. For what is afterwards added, viz. that it is all things at once, and that nothing of it is consumed, will be an exposition of the assertion, that it is now infinite life.
This definition of eternity is justly admired by Proclus in his 3rd book “On the Theology of Plato,” of which see my translation. Boetius, likewise, as I have elsewhere observed, has adopted this definition in lib. 5, ” De Consol. Philosoph.” ↩