Letters & Polemics (CSEL) 1 part 17/22

But who teaches us, save the abiding Truth? For even when we are admonished through a changeable creature, we are led to the abiding Truth, where we truly learn, when we stand and hear him and rejoice with joy because of the voice of the Bridegroom, restoring ourselves to him from whom we are. And therefore he is the Beginning, because, unless he abided, when we erred there would be no place to which we might return. But when we return from error, we surely return by knowing; and that we may know, he teaches us, because he is the Beginning and speaks to us. In this Beginning, O God, you made heaven and earth—in your Word, in your Son, in your power, in your wisdom, in your truth—speaking in a wondrous way and making in a wondrous way. Who shall comprehend it? Who shall recount it?

What is that which shines through to me and strikes my heart without injury? And I shudder and I burn: I shudder, insofar as I am unlike it; I burn, insofar as I am like it. It is Wisdom, Wisdom itself, that shines through to me, cleaving asunder my cloud, which again covers me over as I fail away from it into the gloom and the heap of my punishments; for so weakened in want is my vigor that I cannot bear my good, until you, O Lord, who have become gracious to all my iniquities, also heal all my sicknesses—because you will both redeem my life from corruption, and crown me with compassion and mercy, and satisfy my desire with good things, so that my youth shall be renewed like the eagle's.

For in hope we were saved, and your promises through patience we await. Let him who can hear you speaking within; I will confidently cry out from your oracle: How are your works magnified, O Lord! you have made all things in wisdom! And that wisdom is the Beginning, and in that Beginning you made heaven and earth. Are not those full of their own oldness who say to us: What was God doing before he made heaven and earth? For if, they say, he was at leisure and was not doing anything, why did he not continue thus always and henceforth, just as he had always before rested from work? For if any new motion arose in God and a new will, that he should establish a creature which he had never established before, how then is it true eternity, where a will arises which was not there before?

For the will of God is not a creature, but is before the creature, since nothing would be created unless the Creator's will preceded. The will of God therefore pertains to the very substance of God. But if something arose in the substance of God which was not there before, that substance is not truly called eternal; if, however, the will of God was everlasting that the creature should be, why is not the creature also everlasting? Those who say these things do not yet understand you, O Wisdom of God, light of minds; they do not yet understand how those things come to be which come to be through you and in you, and they attempt to taste eternal things, while as yet their heart flits about amid the past and future motions of things, and is still vain.

Who shall hold it fast and fix it, that it may stand still a little, and a little snatch the splendor of ever-standing eternity, and compare it with times that never stand still, and see that it is incomparable; and see that a long time is not long save through many passing motions, which cannot be extended together; that in the eternal nothing passes away, but the whole is present; whereas no time is wholly present: and see that all the past is driven on from the future, and all the future follows from the past, and all the past and future is created and runs its course from that which is ever present?

Who shall hold fast the heart of man, that it may stand still and see how eternity, standing still, dictates times future and past, being itself neither future nor past? Is my hand strong enough for this, or does the hand of my mouth accomplish so great a thing by speeches? Behold, I answer him who says: "What was God doing before he made heaven and earth?" I answer—not that which someone is reported to have answered jestingly, evading the force of the question: "He was preparing," he said, "hells for those who pry into deep things." It is one thing to see, another to scoff. These things I do not answer. For I would more willingly answer, "I do not know, what I do not know," than that whereby he who asked deep things is mocked and he who answered false things is praised.

But I say: O our God, Creator of every creature; and if by the name of heaven and earth every creature is understood, I boldly say: before God made heaven and earth, he was not making anything. For if he was making something, what was he making but a creature? And would that I knew whatever I usefully desire to know, even as I know that no creature was being made before any creature was made. But if anyone's flitting sense roams through the images of bygone times, and marvels that you, the almighty and all-creating and all-sustaining God, the Maker of heaven and earth, rested from so great a work through innumerable ages before you made it, let him awake and give heed, for he marvels at falsehoods.

For whence could innumerable ages pass by which you yourself had not made, since you are the Author and Founder of all ages? Or what times could there have been which were not established by you? Or how could they pass by if they had never been? Since, then, you are the maker of all times, if there was any time before you made heaven and earth, why is it said that you rested from work? For that very time you had made, nor could times pass by before you made times. But if before heaven and earth there was no time, why is it asked what you were doing then? For there was no "then" where there was no time. Nor do you precede times by time: otherwise you would not precede all times.

But you precede all past things by the loftiness of an ever-present eternity, and you surpass all future things, because they are future, and when they have come, they will be past; but you are the same, and your years shall not fail. Your years neither go nor come; but these our years go and come, that all may come. Your years all stand together, because they stand still, nor are the going excluded by the coming, because they do not pass away; but these our years shall all be when all shall not be. Your years are one day, and your day is not daily, but today, because your today does not yield to tomorrow; for neither does it succeed yesterday. Your today is eternity: therefore you begot the Coeternal, to whom you said: This day have I begotten you.

You made all times, and you are before all times, nor was there any time in which there was no time. At no time, then, had you not made something, because time itself you had made. And no times are coeternal with you, because you abide; but those times, if they abided, would not be times. For what is time? Who can easily and briefly explain this? Who can comprehend it even in thought, so as to utter a word concerning it? Yet what do we mention in our speaking more familiarly and more knowingly than time? And we surely understand when we speak of it; we understand also when we hear another speaking of it. What then is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain it to one who asks, I do not know.

Yet confidently I say that I know this: that if nothing passed away, there would be no past time; and if nothing came on, there would be no future time; and if nothing were, there would be no present time. Those two times, then, the past and the future, how are they, when the past now is not, and the future is not yet? But as for the present, if it were always present and did not pass into the past, it would no longer be time, but eternity. If, therefore, the present, in order to be time, comes to be only because it passes into the past, how do we say that this too is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be—so that, namely, we may not truly say that time is, save because it tends not to be?

And yet we say a long time and a short time, nor do we say this except of the past or the future. A past time we call long, for example, a hundred years ago; a future time likewise long, a hundred years hence; a short past, as if we should say, ten days ago, and a short future, ten days hence. But in what way is that long or short which is not? For the past now is not, and the future is not yet. Let us not therefore say, "It is long," but let us say of the past, "It was long," and of the future, "It will be long." My Lord, my light, shall not your Truth here too deride man? For that past time which was long—was it long when it was already past, or before, while it was still present?

For it could be long only when it was, the thing that was long; but the past already was not, and so what was utterly nothing could not be long. Let us not, then, say, 'The past time was long,' for we shall not find what it was that was long, since, from the moment it became past, it is not. Rather let us say, 'That present time was long,' because, while it was present, it was long. For it had not yet passed away into nonexistence, and therefore it was something that could be long; but after it had passed away, it ceased at once to be long, since it ceased to be at all. Let us see, then, O human soul, whether present time can be long; for to you it has been granted to perceive durations and to measure them. What will you answer me?

Are a hundred present years a long time? First see whether a hundred years can be present. For if the first of them is in progress, that one is present, but ninety-nine are still to come and therefore do not yet exist; but if the second year is in progress, one is already past, another is present, and the rest are future. And so, whichever of the intermediate years of this number of one hundred we set down as present, before it there will be past years, after it future ones. Wherefore a hundred years cannot be present. See, at least, whether the single year that is in progress is itself present. For if its first month is in progress, the rest are future; if the second, the first has already passed and the rest do not yet exist.

Therefore not even the year that is in progress is wholly present; and if it is not wholly present, it is not the year that is present. For a year is twelve months, of which whichever single month is in progress, that one is present, the rest being either past or future. And yet not even the month that is in progress is present, but a single day: if the first, with the rest future; if the last, with the rest past; if any of the middle ones, between past and future days. Behold the present time, which alone we found could be called long, is scarcely contracted to the span of a single day. But let us examine even that, for not even a single day is wholly present.

For it is completed by all the hours of night and day, twenty-four in all; of these the first has the rest as future, the last has them as past, and any of the intervening ones has those before it past, those after it future. And even one single hour passes in fleeting particles: whatever of it has flown away is past, whatever remains is future. If any portion of time be conceived which can no longer be divided into even the smallest particles of moments, that alone is what may be called present; yet this flies so swiftly from future into past that it is extended by no least interval. For if it is extended, it is divided into past and future: but the present has no span. Where, then, is the time that we may call long? Is it the future? Indeed we do not say:

'It is long,' because that which would be long does not yet exist; but we say, 'It will be long.' When, then, will it be? For if even then it will still be future, it will not be long, because that which is to be long will not yet exist; but if it will be long at the time when, out of the future which is not yet, it has begun to be and has become present, so that it can be that which is long, then present time cries out in the words already spoken that it cannot be long. And yet, O Lord, we perceive intervals of time, and we compare them with one another, and call some longer and others shorter. We even measure how much longer or shorter that time is than this, and we answer that this is double or triple, but that is single, or that this is just as much as that.

But it is passing times that we measure when we measure them by perceiving; as for past times, which now are not, or future times, which are not yet, who can measure them, unless perchance someone will dare to say that he can measure what does not exist? When, then, time is passing, it can be perceived and measured; but when it has passed, since it is not, it cannot. I am asking, Father, I am not asserting: my God, watch over me and rule me. Who is there to tell me that there are not three times, as we learned as children and as we taught children, the past, the present, and the future, but only the present, since those two do not exist? Or do they too exist, but proceed from some hidden place when, out of the future, the present is made, and recede into some hidden place when, out of the present, the past is made?

For where did those who foretold the future see it, if it does not yet exist? For that which does not exist cannot be seen. And those who narrate the past would surely not narrate truths, if they did not discern those things in the mind; and these, if they were nothing, could not be discerned at all. Therefore both future and past things exist. Permit me, O Lord, to inquire further, my hope; let not my purpose be confounded. For if future and past things exist, I wish to know where they are. But if I am not yet able to know this, I know nevertheless that, wherever they are, they are not there as future or past, but as present. For even if there the future things exist, they are not yet there; if there too the past things exist, they are already not there. Wherever, then, they are, whatever they are, they are not save as present.

And yet, when past things are narrated truly, it is not the things themselves which have passed away that are brought forth out of memory, but words conceived from the images of those things, which, in passing through the senses, fixed themselves in the mind as it were like footprints. My boyhood, for instance, which is now no more, is in past time, which is now no more; but its image, when I recall it and speak of it, I behold in present time, because it is still in my memory. Whether the cause is likewise similar in the foretelling of future things, namely that images, already existing, are presented beforehand of things that do not yet exist, I confess, my God, I do not know.

This indeed I know, that we generally premeditate our future actions, and that this premeditation is present, but the action which we premeditate does not yet exist, because it is future; and when we shall have set about it and begun to do what we were premeditating, then that action will exist, because then it will be not future but present. In whatever manner, then, this hidden presentiment of future things is constituted, nothing can be seen save what exists. But what already exists is not future but present. When, therefore, future things are said to be seen, it is not they themselves, which do not yet exist, that is, which are future, but perhaps their causes or signs are seen, which already exist: and so, to those who see them, these are not future but present, and from them the future is foretold, being conceived in the mind.

These conceptions, again, already exist, and those who foretell those things behold them present within themselves. Let some example out of so great a multitude of things speak to me. I behold the dawn: I foretell that the sun will rise. What I behold is present, what I foretell is future: not the sun, which is future, since it already exists, but its rising, which does not yet exist; yet unless I imagined its rising in my mind, as I do now while I speak of it, I could not foretell it. But neither is that dawn, which I see in the sky, the rising of the sun, although it precedes it, nor is that imagination in my mind: these two are discerned as present, that the future one may be told beforehand. Future things, then, do not yet exist; and if they do not yet exist, they are not; and if they are not, they cannot be seen at all;

but they can be foretold from present things, which already exist and are seen. You, therefore, O Ruler of your creation, what is the means by which you teach souls the things that are to come? For you taught your prophets. What, then, is that means by which you, to whom nothing of future things is future, teach the future? Or rather, do you teach present things concerning the future? For that which does not exist surely cannot be taught. Far too remote is this means from my gaze; it has prevailed against me, and I cannot reach to it; but I shall be able by you, when you grant it, O sweet light of my hidden eyes. But that which is now clear and plain is this: things future and past do not exist, nor is it properly said that there are three times, past, present, and future. But perhaps it might properly be said:

there are three times: a present of things past, a present of things present, a present of things future. For these three exist somehow in the soul, and elsewhere I do not see them: the present of things past is memory, the present of things present is direct attention, the present of things future is expectation. If we are permitted to say these things, I see three times and I confess that there are three. Let it also be said: there are three times, past, present, and future, as common usage misapplies the words; let it be said. Behold, I do not care, nor do I resist, nor do I rebuke, provided that what is said is understood: namely, that neither that which is future already exists, nor that which is past. For few are the things we speak of properly, more improperly; yet what we mean is recognized.

I said, then, a little while ago, that we measure passing times, so that we can say that this length of time is double that single one, or that this is just as much as that, and whatever else we can report by measuring concerning the parts of times. Wherefore, as I was saying, we measure passing times; and if anyone should say to me, 'How do you know?' I would answer: I know, because we measure them, and we cannot measure things that do not exist, and past or future things do not exist. But how do we measure present time, since it has no span? It is measured, then, as it passes; but when it has passed, it is not measured; for there will be nothing for it to measure. But whence and by what way and whither does it pass, when it is measured? Whence, save out of the future? By what way, save through the present? Whither, save into the past?

Out of that, then, which does not yet exist, through that which lacks span, into that which already is not. But what do we measure save time in some span? For we do not speak of single and double and triple and equal portions, or anything in this manner with respect to time, save spans of times. In what span, then, do we measure passing time? In the future, whence it passes? But what does not yet exist, we do not measure. Or in the present, by which it passes? But we do not measure that which has no span. Or in the past, into which it passes? But that which already is not, we do not measure. My mind burned to know this most intricate riddle.

Do not shut up, O Lord my God, good Father, through Christ I beseech you, do not shut up these things, both the familiar and the hidden, from my longing, that it may penetrate into them and they may grow clear as your mercy shines upon them, O Lord. Whom shall I question about these things? And to whom shall I more fruitfully confess my ignorance than to you, to whom my studies, fervently aflame for your Scriptures, are not troublesome? Give what I love: for I love, and this you have given. Give, O Father, who truly know how to give good gifts to your children; give, for I have undertaken to know, and toil is before me until you open. Through Christ I beseech you, in the name of him, the Holy of holies, let no one make an uproar against me. For I have believed, wherefore also I speak. This is my hope; for this I live, that I may contemplate the delight of the Lord.

Behold, you have made my days old, and they pass away, and how, I know not. And we say 'time' and 'time,' 'times' and 'times': 'How long did that man say this,' 'How long did that man do this,' and 'How long a time it is since I saw that,' and 'This syllable has double the time of that single short one.' We say these things and we have heard these things, and we are understood and we understand. They are most manifest and most familiar, and yet again these same things are too deeply hidden, and the discovery of them is new. I have heard from a certain learned man that the very motions of the sun and moon and stars are times, and I did not assent. For why should not rather the motions of all bodies be times?

Or, in truth, if the lights of heaven should cease and a potter's wheel were turning, would there be no time by which we might measure those revolutions and say either that they were carried on at equal intervals, or, if the wheel were moved now more slowly, now more swiftly, that some revolutions were longer, others shorter? And when we said these things, would we not ourselves be speaking in time? Or would there not be in our words some syllables long, others short, except because the former sounded for a longer time, the latter for a shorter? O God, grant to men to see in a small thing the common notions of things small and great. There are stars and luminaries of heaven 'for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years.' There are indeed;

but neither would I say that the revolution of that little wooden wheel is a day, nor yet on that account would he say that there is no time. I desire to know the force and the nature of time, by which we measure the motions of bodies and say, for example, that this motion is twice as long in duration as that. For I ask, since 'day' is so called not only as the period of the sun's stay above the earth, according to which day is one thing and night another, but also as its entire circuit from east to east, according to which we say, 'So many days have passed'—for they are called so many 'days' together with their nights, nor are the spans of the nights reckoned apart.

Since, then, a day is completed by the motion and circuit of the sun from east to east, I ask whether the motion itself is the day, or the duration in which it is accomplished, or both. For if the first were the day, then there would be a day even if the sun should complete that course in so small a span of time as is one hour. If the second, then it would not be a day if from one sunrise to another the duration were as brief as one hour, but the sun would have to go round twenty-four times to complete a day. If both, then neither could be called a day if the sun should go round its whole circuit in the span of an hour, nor that other, if, while the sun stood still, as much time passed as the sun is accustomed to take to accomplish its whole orbit from morning to morning.

I will not, therefore, now ask what that is which is called a day, but what time is, by which, in measuring the sun's circuit, we should say that it had been accomplished in half the span of time it usually takes, if it had been accomplished in such a span of time as twelve hours are accomplished in; and, comparing the two times, we should say that the one was single, this one double, even if at one time in that single span and at another in this double span the sun should go round from east to east. Let no one, then, tell me that the motions of the heavenly bodies are times, since, when at a certain man's prayer the sun had stood still, so that he might complete a victorious battle, the sun stood still, but time went on. For through its own span of time, which sufficed for it, that battle was fought and finished.

I see, therefore, that there is some sort of distension. But do I see it? Or do I only seem to myself to see it? You will show me, O Light, O Truth. Do you bid me approve, if anyone should say that time is the motion of a body? You do not bid me. For I hear that no body is moved save in time: this you say. But that the motion itself of a body is time, I do not hear: this you do not say. For when a body is moved, by time I measure how long it is moved, from when it begins to be moved until it ceases. And if I did not see when it began, and it continues to be moved, so that I do not see when it ceases, I cannot measure it, except perhaps from the time when I begin to see until I cease. But if I see it long, I only report that the time is long, not, however, how long it is, because, when we say 'how long,' we say it by comparison, as:

'This is as much as that,' or 'This is double that,' and anything else in this manner. But if we could mark the spans of places, whence and whither the body that is moved comes, or its parts, if it is moved as on a lathe, we can say how much time it is from when the motion of the body or of its part is accomplished from that place to that place. Since, therefore, the motion of a body is one thing, and that by which we measure how long it is, is another, who does not perceive which of these is rather to be called time? For if a body is sometimes moved variously, sometimes stands still, we measure by time not only its motion but also its rest, and we say, 'It stood still as long as it was moved,' or:

'It stood still for double or triple the time it was moved,' and whatever else our measuring may have either grasped or estimated, as it is wont to be said, more or less. Time, therefore, is not the motion of a body. And I confess to you, O Lord, that I still do not know what time is; and again I confess to you, O Lord, that I know that I am saying these things in time, and that I have now been speaking of time for a long while, and that this very 'long while' is not a long while save by the duration of time. How, then, do I know this, when I do not know what time is? Or do I perhaps not know how to express what I do know? Woe is me, who do not even know what I do not know! Behold, my God, before you, that I do not lie: as I speak, so is my heart. You will light my lamp, O Lord; my God, you will lighten my darkness.

Does not my soul confess to you with truthful confession that I measure times? Yes, O Lord my God, I measure, and I do not know what I measure. I measure the motion of a body by time. Do I not likewise measure time itself? Or could I indeed measure the motion of a body, how long it is and how long it takes to come from here to there, unless I measured the time in which it is moved? Time itself, then, by what do I measure it? Or do we measure a longer by a shorter time, as we measure the span of a transom by the span of a cubit? For thus we see the span of a long syllable measured by the span of a short one and called double.

Thus we measure the spans of poems by the spans of verses, and the spans of verses by the spans of feet, and the spans of feet by the spans of syllables, and the spans of long syllables by the spans of short ones—not on the pages, for in that way we measure places, not times—but when the utterances, in being pronounced, pass by, and we say, 'It is a long poem, for it is woven of so many verses; the verses are long, for they consist of so many feet; the feet are long, for they are stretched out into so many syllables; the syllable is long, for it is double the short one.' But not even thus is a fixed measure of time grasped, since it can come to pass that a shorter verse may sound for a greater span of time, if it is pronounced more drawn out, than a longer one, if it is pronounced more clipped. So with a poem, so with a foot, so with a syllable.