At no time then hadst Thou not made any thing, because time itself
Thou madest. And no times are coeternal with Thee, because Thou
abidest; but if they abode, they should not be times. For what is
time? Who can readily and briefly explain this? Who can even in
thought comprehend it, so as to utter a word about it? But what in
discourse do we mention more familiarly and knowingly, than time? And,
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 asks me, I know:
if I wish to explain it to one that asketh, I know not: yet I say
boldly that I know, that if nothing passed away, time past were not;
and if nothing were coming, a time to come were not; and if nothing
were, time present were not. Those two times then, past and to come,
how are they, seeing the past now is not, and that to come is not yet?
But the present, should it always be present, and never pass into time
past, verily it should not be time, but eternity. If time present
(if it is to be time) only cometh into existence, because it passeth
into time past, how can we say that either this is, whose cause of
being is, that it shall not be; so, namely, that we cannot truly say
that time is, but because it is tending not to be?
And yet we say, "a long time" and "a short time"; still, only of
time past or to come.
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