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17. At no time, therefore, hadst Thou not made anything, because
Thou hadst made time itself. And no times are co-eternal with
Thee, because Thou remainest for ever; but should these continue,
they would not be times. For what is time? Who can easily and
briefly explain it? Who even in thought can comprehend it, even to
the pronouncing of a word concerning it? But what in speaking do we
refer to more familiarly and knowingly than time? And certainly we
understand when we speak of it; we understand also when we hear it
spoken of by another. What, then, is time? If no one ask of me,
I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I
say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there
would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be
future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time.
Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when
even the past now is not; and the future is not as yet? But should
the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past,
time truly it could not be, but eternity. If, then, time present
if it be time only comes into existence because it passes into
time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is
that it shall not be namely, so that we cannot truly say that time
is, unless because it tends not to be?
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