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Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430

"The Confessions of St. Augustine"

Most manifest and ordinary
they are, and the self-same things again are but too deeply hidden,
and the discovery of them were new.
I heard once from a learned man, that the motions of the sun,
moon, and stars, constituted time, and I assented not. For why
should not the motions of all bodies rather be times? Or, if the
lights of heaven should cease, and a potter's wheel run round,
should there be no time by which we might measure those whirlings, and
say, that either it moved with equal pauses, or if it turned sometimes
slower, otherwhiles quicker, that some rounds were longer, other
shorter? Or, while we were saying this, should we not also be speaking
in time? Or, should there in our words be some syllables short, others
long, but because those sounded in a shorter time, these in a
longer? God, grant to men to see in a small thing notices common to
things great and small. The stars and lights of heaven, are also for
signs, and for seasons, and for years, and for days; they are; yet
neither should I say, that the going round of that wooden wheel was
a day, nor yet he, that it was therefore no time.


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