5. (6). As this nature that is eternal and radiant with beauty refers
to the One, issues from Him, and returns to Him, as it never swerves
from Him, ever dwelling around Him and in Him, and lives according
to Him, Plato was quite right[438] in saying not casually, but with
great profundity of thought, that "eternity is immutable in unity."
Thereby Plato not only reduces the eternity to the unity that it is
in itself, but also relates the life of existence to the One itself.
This life is what we seek; its permanence is eternity. Indeed that
which remains in that manner, and which remains the same thing, that
is, the actualization of that life which remains turned towards, and
united with the One, that whose existence and life are not deceptive,
that truly is eternity. (For intelligible or) true existence is to
have no time when it does not exist, no time when it exists in a
different manner; it is therefore to exist in an immutable manner
without any diversity, without being first in one, and then in
another state. To conceive of (existence), therefore, we must neither
imagine intervals in its existence, nor suppose that it develops or
acquires, nor believe that it contains any succession; consequently
we could neither distinguish within it, or assert within it either
before or after. If it contain neither "before" nor "after," if the
truest thing that can be affirmed of it be that it is, if it exist as
"being" and life, here again is eternity revealed. When we say that
existence exists always, and that there is not one time in which it
is, and another in which it is not, we speak thus only for the sake
of greater clearness; for when we use the word "always," we do not
take it in an absolute sense; but if we use it to show that existence
is incorruptible, it might well mislead the mind in leading it to
issue out from the unity (characteristic of eternity) to make it run
through the manifold (which is foreign to eternity). "Always" further
indicates that existence is never defective. It might perhaps be better
to say simply "existence." But though the word "existence" suffices to
designate "being," as several philosophers have confused "being" with
generation, it was necessary to clear up the meaning of existence by
adding the term "always." Indeed, though we are referring only to one
and the same thing by "existence" and "existing always," just as when
we say "philosopher," and "the true philosopher," nevertheless, as
there are false philosophers, it has been necessary to add to the term
"philosophers" the adjective "true." Likewise, it has been necessary to
add the term "always" to that of "existing," and that of "existing" to
that of "always;" that is the derivation of the expression "existing
always," and consequently (by contraction), "aion," or, eternity.
Therefore the idea "always" must be united to that of "existing," so as
to designate the "real being."
THE CREATOR, BEING OUTSIDE OF TIME, PRECEDES THE UNIVERSAL ONLY AS ITS
CAUSE.
"Always" must therefore be applied to the power which contains no
interval in its existence, which has need of nothing outside of what
it possesses, because it possesses everything, because it is every
being, and thus lacks nothing. Such a nature could not be complete
in one respect, but incomplete in another. Even if what is in time
should appear complete, as a body that suffices the soul appears
complete, though it be complete only for the soul; that which is in
time needs the future, and consequently is incomplete in respect to
the time it stands in need of; when it succeeds in enjoying the time
to which it aspires, and succeeds in becoming united thereto, even
though it still remain imperfect it still is called perfect by verbal
similarity. But the existence whose characteristic it is not to need
the future, not to be related to any other time--whether capable
of being measured, or indefinite, and still to be indefinite--the
existence that already possesses all it should possess is the very
existence that our intelligence seeks out; it does not derive its
existence from any particular quality, but exists before any quantity.
As it is not any kind of quantity, it could not admit within itself
any kind of quantity. Otherwise, as its life would be divided, it
would itself cease to be absolutely indivisible; but existence must
be as indivisible in its life as in its nature ("being"). (Plato's
expression,[446]) "the Creator was good" does indeed refer to the
notion of the universe, and indicates that, in the Principle superior
to the universe, nothing began to exist at any particular time. Never,
therefore, did the universe begin to exist within time, because though
its Author existed "before" it, it was only in the sense that its
author was the cause of its existence. But, after having used the word
"was," to express this thought, Plato immediately corrects himself,
and he demonstrates that this word does not apply to the Things that
possess eternity.