What that it does not already possess could (intelligible existence)
possess later? What could it be in the future, that it is not now?
There is nothing that could be added to or subtracted from its
present state; for it was not different from what it is now; and it
is not to possess anything that it does not necessarily possess now,
so that one could never say of it, "it was"; for what did it have
that it does not now have? Nor could it be said of it, "it will be";
for what could it acquire? It must therefore remain what it is. (As
Plato thought[438]), that possesses eternity of which one cannot say
either "it was," or "will be," but only, "it is;" that whose existence
is immutable, because the past did not make it lose anything, and
because the future will not make it acquire anything. Therefore, on
examining the existence of intelligible nature, we see that its life is
simultaneously entire, complete, and without any kind of an interval.
That is the eternity we seek.
ETERNITY IS NOT AN ACCIDENT OF THE INTELLIGIBLE, BUT AN INTIMATE PART
OF ITS NATURE.
3. (4). Eternity is not an extrinsic accident of (intelligible) nature,
but is in it, of it, and with it. We see that it is intimately inherent
in (intelligible nature) because we see that all other things, of which
we say that they exist on high, are of and with this (intelligible)
nature; for the things that occupy the first rank in existence must be
united with the first Beings, and subsist there. Thus the beautiful
is in them, and comes from them; thus also does truth dwell in them.
There the whole in a certain way exists within the part; the parts
also are in the whole; because this whole, really being the whole, is
not composed of parts, but begets the parts themselves, a condition
necessary to its being a whole. In this whole, besides, truth does
not consist in the agreement of one notion with another, but is the
very nature of each of the things of which it is the truth. In order,
really to be a whole, this real whole must be all not only in the sense
that it is all things, but also in the sense that it lacks nothing. In
this case, nothing will, for it, be in the future; for to say that,
for it, something "will be" for it implies that it lacked something
before that, that it was not yet all; besides, nothing can happen to it
against nature, because it is impassible. As nothing could happen to
it, for it nothing "is to be," "will be," or "has been."