As the existence of begotten things consists in perpetually acquiring
(something or another), they will be annihilated by a removal of their
future. An attribution of the future to the (intelligible) entities of
a nature contrary (to begotten things), would degrade them from the
rank of existences. Evidently they will not be consubstantial with
existence, if this existence of theirs be in the future or past. The
nature ("being") of begotten things on the contrary consists in going
from the origin of their existence to the last limits of the time
beyond which they will no longer exist; that is in what their future
consists.[442] Abstraction of their future diminishes their life, and
consequently their existence. That is also what will happen to the
universe, in so far as it will exist; it aspires to being what it
should be, without any interruption, because it derives existence from
the continual production of fresh actualizations; for the same reason,
it moves in a circle because it desires to possess intelligible nature
("being"). Such is the existence that we discover in begotten things,
such is the cause that makes them ceaselessly aspire to existence
in the future. The Beings that occupy the first rank and which are
blessed, have no desire of the future, because they are already all
that it lies in them to be, and because they possess all the life they
are ever to possess. They have therefore nothing to seek, since there
is no future for them; neither can they receive within themselves
anything for which there might be a future. Thus the nature ("being")
of intelligible existence is absolute, and entire, not only in its
parts, but also in its totality, which reveals no fault, which lacks
nothing, and to which nothing that in any way pertains to nonentity
could be added; for intelligible existence must not only embrace in
its totality and universality all beings, but it must also receive
nothing that pertains to nonentity. It is this disposition and nature
of intelligible existence that constitutes the aeon (or eternity);
for (according to Aristotle)[443] this word is derived from "aei on,"
"being continually."