II. 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, whether 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 particular thing which is as it were a subject, he denominates it essence ; afterwards, so far as he beholds 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 subsistence. And he denominates it different and the same, so far as all these are at once one. Thus, therefore, composing these, so as to be at once one life alone, contracting in them difference, and beholding an unceasing sameness of energy, and which never passes from one intelligence or life to another, but always possesses the invariable, and is without interval; — beholding all these, he will behold eternity. For he will perceive life abiding in sameness, and always possessing everything present, and not at one time this, and afterwards another 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 yet 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 afterwards happen to this, which it now is not? Nor again, will it be in futurity what it is not at present. For there is not any thing from which it can arrive at the present time. For it is not another thing, but 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, therefore, 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 investigate.