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The concept of eternity in patristic theologyPaul PlassPublished online: 30 Jun 2010.

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Studia Theohgica 36 (1982) pp. 11-25.

The Concept of Eternity in Patristic TheologyPaul Plass

In early Christian theology 'eternal being' proved to be as elusivea category as it was important. Nevertheless, though theologians hadnot managed to sort everything out with complete conceptual pre-cision, from a fairly early date their definition of eternity is suffi-ciently nuanced to be useful in answering a variety of questions. Itresembles a broad spectrum composed of several bands which easilyshade into each other across faintly marked lines as occasion demands.'Eternity' can include:

1. God's own mode of absolutely unified existence, a state whichdisplays neither duration nor any sort of structure because God isbeyond all categories.

2. Duration which is both endless and changeless and distinct fromtime in so far as time, entails change.

3. Duration which is endless but admits change for the better (in-finite. approximation to - i.e., love for - God). Along with 2 this isakin to the Neoplatonic idea that intelligible being is itself non-temporal yet 'strives' in a kind of timeless ontological 'process' toreturn to its source.

4. The divine plan behind actual events occurring successively intime. All of the parts of time (past/present/future) are fully realizedand simultaneously present in the preexisting plan. This is analogousto the Platonic world of intelligible Forms, which was used in avariety of ways and especially to rationalize the biblical notions ofprovidence and predestination.

5. Endless time. Few theologians would have accepted this as aformal definition of eternity, but it was at points used as a functional,commonsense definition.

I propose to examine passages from several theologians to illustratein detail these phases and their relationships to each other. Discus-sions of eternity (and time) are notoriously artificial and highly ab-stract, the more so when taken out of context, but it is precisely

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those qualities which underscore the perennial difficulty of dealingwith something which lies beyond, or rather athwart human com-petence.

Gregory of Nyssa provides an initial example of how the defini-tions interlock to form a flexible tool for theological reflection. Theprime category of created being is extension (diastma), temporal andspatial, while the Creator is wholly without dimension (Against Eu-nomius) 1. 246.1 This contrast suggests simple opposition between the'line' of time and the 'point' (or something even less) of eternity.When Gregory says that God is 'always the same' (De Virgin. 296),God falls at once into our first two categories, for in his own essencehe is beyond man's dimensional grasp, though we are bound to thinkof him in terms of endless, changeless duration, 'Everything that isthought about him always remains the same' (Eunomius 2.186), andby the same token the highest love (agap) of which we are capableis a state which is 'equal to being forever the same' (PG 46. 96B).That is to say, for creatures eternity is conceptually changelessnessand existentially an endlessly enduring love which admits of changefor the better only in so far as it never ceases moving toward theCreator. Only God himself is truly changeless and, even then, ourgrasp of his permanence ('always the same') actually veils a radicalunity beyond duration or any other finite conception.

The conceptual difficulties of delimiting the various phases of trans-cendence come out again in the ontological scheme outlined in Eu-nomius 1. 134. Gregory distinguishes among (A) 'pre-eternal' (pro-aionios) God as cause, (B) the divine 'unextended hypostasis' derivedfrom the cause, and (C) temporal extended creation. The inter-mediate phase (B) linking the extremes is the Logos. Gregory grantsthat 'if it were possible to show that something beyond creation hadthe principle of its being in extension and if everyone could agreethat the notion of extension is applicable prior to created being, itmight make sense to deny the eternity of the Son.' But the Son is infact eternal in essence, and his eternity (like that of the Father) isunextended unity. Other theological principles then fit into placeto bridge the gap between pure eternity and time. The Son is alsodistinct from the Father (who is 'pre-eternal') and akin to time inso far as he is agent of creation and incarnate redeemer. Conversely,while creatures for their part are essentially extended, they will enjoypost-temporal endless love, i.e., a state of duration quite differentfrom ordinary temporal extension.

In Origen, eternity appears in virtually all of its forms and it does so

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with characteristic lack of sharp focus. Since it is inadmissible that Godwas ever not 'Creator', creation exists in the sense thatthe 'form and shape' of the divine plan are eternally present to himin Wisdom or the Logos. The substantial phenomenal creation thuspreexists in Wisdom as a world of Forms including 'genera, speciesand perhaps individuals as well' (De Princ. 188. 66, 13ff).2 Substan-tial creation itself has two aspects: an original intelligible realityconsisting of 'minds' (noes) and the spatial/temporal universe oc-casioned by the fall of minds from their original bliss. The fall iscaused by 'motions' rooted in free will (254. 98, 20), and time ac-cordingly is the 'unsure, fragile' motion of minds (260.102,5) whichcontrasts with their original state of stability.

We have, then, no less than four different levels: God, Wisdom,minds before the fall, minds fallen into time/space/matter. Thesejunctures naturally tend to generate intermediate stages of being.For our purposes the second last level - mind before the fall - is mostinteresting because it lies on the border between the absolute eternityof God and time.

If God creates eternally, if time is created along with our universeand if the created universe therefore has a beginning, there is sucha thing as pre-temporal created being lying between time and theradical eternity of the Creator. It is called 'mind' and its character-istic is unity. All rational beings (noes) were created the same (254.98,8f), and after their fallen temporal life they again become 'onespirit' (262.102,7) in returning to their original kensis with God(268.97,12; cf. 216.80,If). Mind's original mode of being is in somerespects like that of Platonic intelligible being, but Origen alsothought of it in dynamic terms, i.e., as a spirit world striving towardGod.3 When he says that in the intelligible world minds 'serve Godand do his will', he is in the first instance using biblical phraseologywith its typically temporal overtones, because he can in part thinkof the intelligible realm as temporal. At the same time, 'service' isalso a metaphor for a relatively abstract, more truly timeless stateof being described as 'before the aeons' (262.95,14f). Origen, in fact,borrowed the notion of 'sacred' time and space from Jewish andChristian Gnosticism.4 They make up a counterwork! combiningtemporal and timeless features. So far as the latter are concerned,sacred time is the pattern of our temporal world, and the use of theword 'intelligible' (notos) in connection with it indicates the rela-tionship of sacred time to the Platonic intelligible world. So far asthe former is concerned, the biblical tradition conceived of the

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counterworld - the Coming Age - in dynamic dramatic rather thanstatic structural terms. Hence Origen also speaks of a higher timeconsisting of 'aeons' strung together into vast stretches. He is thusin part simply working with a new scale of time rather than a newmode of being, but he also envisages something lying beyond theaeons: ['There is] something more than the aeon or more thanaeons or more than aeons of aeons, I mean that which [obtains]when all things are not in an aeon but when God is all in all.' (314.120.17). On the one hand, such language points to God himself,who is 'above all time, ages and eternity' {tempus, saecula, aetemitas)while everything else is in 'ages and times' (786.350,2If). Yet in factit describes created being: minds 'exist before this age and beforethey began to move' because 'God never began to create them' (266),i.e., though they are not fully coeternal with God they are pre-temporal in so far as they were not created at a point in tim. Theoriginal intelligible creation is thought of by Origen as differentfrom aeonic duration in quality and not merely in quantity; it ischangeless duration anchored in union with God, but changelessonly while it lasts, for a fall into time is possible.

The resurrection is naturally drawn into this complex scheme.One might expect that, at the resurrection, time would come to anend and man return to the supratemporal intelligible creation. Or-igen's peculiar eschatology, however, does not allow anything sosimple. We will not obtain perfected bodies in the twinkling of aneye. It is rather a progressive matter: 'It will not happen all of asudden but gradually and by degrees, during the lapse of infinite amidimmeasurable ages' (658.287,2If). Origen's eschatology is notori-ously obscure, but he apparently has in mind the transformationof body as we know it into a spiritual substance which will continueto exist in time (i.e., through aeons) until it finally returns as mindto God. We must envisage vast periods of time running up to arecapitulation of creation. Time (along with space and matter) isthen transfigured into some sort of supratemporal mode of being.Origen probably has changeless duration in mind, though he waslater criticized for allowing a degree of change which makes sub-sequent fall from bliss into material existence possible and thusrenders salvation unsure (cf. 306.117,15f).

His eschatology also provides that at the last judgment God willcause us to recollect instantaneously the whole of our lives (PG 13:1204C). We will then transcend the ordinary limits of temporal Ufeto see its content spread out, present all at once. Origen similarly

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describes in great detail the expansion of our knowledge beyond itspresent temporal limitations once we escape our earthly body (444.186,22ff). (The expansion is finally complete when on reaching theintelligible world we no longer use 'food', i.e., knowledge of causes,to 'grow' but to 'maintain' ourselves in a state of perfection: 456.191, 20f. This distinction between 'growth' and 'maintenance' againsuggests that changing time (the aeons) is succeeded by steady,changeless duration.) In addition, as we have seen, a supratemporalsummation or simultaneity of events on a much larger scale is partof his conception of Wisdom as the pattern of creation. The sameidea of a timeless 'presence' of the whole of time appears in his treat-ment of free will in the Treatise on Prayer (PG 11.436C), where heargues that though God preserves his sovereign freedom to act as hesees fit, we can still exercise genuine free will because events in timeare arranged before actual creation to take account of our free will.In this way time is a chain in which our decisions at each momentand the foreknowledge of God are woven together. Prayers accord-ingly are in fact answered on two levels: (1) God foresees and haseternally answered all requests, (2) he responds at the particularmoment of request. The first level again constitutes a timeless timein which events that we experience successively stand together simul-taneously.5 But Origen's most influential elaboration of the idea ofa timeless pattern of history is the distinction which he makes betweentypological events and true 'events' corresponding to them point bypoint. The former are historical, the latter timeless.

One must not think that historical events are types of otherhistorical events . . . they are types of intelligible realities (PG14. 337D).

The pattern of history is not generated autonomously by the immanentflow of events but preexists all at once beyond time, and it becomesplausible to say that events match each other since on that planethey are simultaneous.

For Clement of Alexandria God himself is definable for the mostpart negatively (he is above space, time, name and thought, StromataV.XI.71), while the eternity accessible to creatures is thought of in thefamiliar terms of 'rest' from the disturbances of time. Accordingly in hiseschatological scheme when souls become equal to angels they reach 'theLord's rest and become immutable, eternally steady light, absolutelychangeless' (VII.X.57). Clement's thought is in many respects in-

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fluenced by contemporary Gnosticism, and in a passage from theEclogae where it is difficult to separate his views from the Gnosticexegesis of Scripture with which he is working, angels of the highestrank are said to turn from providential administration of certainareas of creation to 'rest and pure contemplation of God' (PG 9.725B). Again, eternity is 'rest'. Elsewhere Clement identifies theseven days spent by souk in the meadow [the fixed sphere] in Plato'smyth of Er with 'each motion of the seven [planets].' These sevendays are 'all the active creation [i.e., the created temporal universe]which hastens toward the goal of rest.' The next stage is the journeyto heaven, i.e., to 'the eighth motion and day' (V.XIV.106).e Sincethe eighth day is eternity, Clement appears to be introducing also adynamic factor (the eighth motion) into eternal 'rest.' In view of thefact that he employs the Origenist notion of progress toward perfec-tion after death, motion here may represent that progress. At thesame time the status of such progress is puzzling (is it temporal inthe ordinary sense?) and eighth motion may be designed morespecifically to bridge the gap between God's own mode of eternalexistence and time. It would then (as a 'moving rest' distinct fromboth time and God's eternal Ufe) vaguely foreshadow Gregory's con-ception of infinite love as unbroken uniform duration.

Clement interprets the rest on the seventh day of creation as man'srest from evils, a rest which prepares the way for the next day, de-scribed as 'primal (archegonon) and our true rest' and as .'the firstcreation of true light in which all things are seen and possessed' (VI.XVI. 138). That is to say, the eighth day is Christ's day of resurrec-tion and in reaching it we revert to the first day of creation. Sinceas creatures we cannot reach true unity, we see God only in theLogos, and 'all the things which we see and possess' in the final dayor true rest presumably include the fully realized plan for creation,since the content of the transtemporal first day of creation is theintelligible world which serves as a pattern for time. Clement hassomething of the sort in mind in another passage (VI.IX.75, 78f)when he contends that the true gnostic has knowledge of all of crea-tion from beginning to end. The Lord's words, which may be obscureto others but are clear to him, deal with past, present and future,and he can foreknow the future by focusing on 'intelligible reality'and 'copying from the transcendent archetypes his own dispensationof human affairs.' Information about the course of life can in someway be read off the fixed transcendent plan of history. As we haveseen, in the hands of Origen such a timeless Platonic overwork! be-

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came the basis for a sophisticated typological interpretation ofhistory.

Clement, then, uses not only the 'negative' eternity of God's ownineffable existence but also the 'positive' eternity of (A) timeless re-alized structure accessible to 'gnostic' insight and of (B) 'rest' com-bining at once changeless duration and continuing progress.7

When Gregory of Nazianzus speaks of eternity (ain) simply asbeginningless past and endless future (PG 36.320A), he is initiallyworking with a contrast between unmeasured infinity and the mea-sured finitude of time, i.e., extension, duration or flow remains acomponent of eternity.8 But ain is 'neither time nor a part of time' ;it is a 'time-like movement and extension coextensive with eternalbeings' (the definition reappears in numerous later writers, e.g., Johnof Damascus, PG 94.861B; Euthymius, PG 130.157A). Though thereis a fundamental distinction between God and all created beings(PG 36.248D), some creatures, too, are eternal, but in a 'time-like'way. The phrase 'time-like extension' points in the first instance tothe category of changeless duration, since true temporal extensioninvolves changing duration.

The complications implicit in 'time-like extension' come to thesurface in later commentaries on Gregory. Some remarks by Psellus(quoted in Nicetas' commentary, PG 127.132OBf) show how elusivethe matter is. If we make (he says) the mental experiment of thinkingaway the heavenly bodies, we ourselves still remain and our own lifestill is extended (cf. Enneads III.7.12.15f). It is true that there wouldbe no sun, moon and stars to mark intervals, nevertheless though themarkers which create time are absent 'we are still in motion andinterval, i.e., a time-like motion and interval which is the ain ofeternal things.' 'Time', then, is duration measured by external, ce-lestial bodies, and ain is a different sort of duration. The possibilitythat in such a denuded universe duration might be measured by ourinner consciousness and therefore still be temporal is not explored,because time is thought of as composed of parts and as a function ofthe visible universe. Duration not linked to external events accord-ingly is wholly free of change and of parts, and therefore is not 'time.'

Psellus proceeds to summarize the distinction among 'eternal' inthe primary sense of something atemporal both in essence and act,'temporal' in the sense of something in time both in essence and act,and 'eternal' in the secondary sense of something atemporal in es-sence, temporal in act (cf. Proclus, Elements of Theology 191). He notesthat Gregory rejects this because the heavens - which are to pagans

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'eternal' in the secondary, sense - are destined to perish accordingto Scripture. He (Gregory) prefers to distinguish between 'beginning-less' and 'eternal' ; only God is the former, while mind or soul is thelatter. This makes God eternal in the strong sense that he has nofinite measure at all because he has no beginning or end; creaturesare eternal in the weaker sense that though they may be without end,they do have a beginning. If God is without beginning in this sense,his eternity can be thought of simply as absolutely infinite and change-less duration. 'Beginningless' could also mean that he alone is un-derived from a higher 'principle' (arche), and within a vaguely Pla-tonic frame of reference that would suggest radical unity. But that isnot actually a factor in the discussion: eternity is simply unmeasured,infinite changeless duration.

The notion of radical unity is, however, specifically brought upearlier to be rejected on Gregory's behalf by Psellus (quoted in 127.1318Af). Plotinus and Porphyry, he says, introduced a new concep-tion of ain (in place of circular motion) :

Assigning ain to the Forms, which are motionless and withoutintervals, they held that it, too, was without motion and inter-vals . . . As the Forms which are immaterial are without past andfuture, so their measure, i.e., ain, is without past and future, andonly that which is remains, i.e., the present. The theologian [Gre-gory] in no way approves this doctrine. For if the mode of ainis such that it admits no measure or interval, it must also lackparts. From which it will follow that all eternal beings are in-cluded in a point, for that is the nature of what lacks parts.And what could be more preposterous than that?

Absence of 'interval' and concentration in a 'partless point' presum-ably would mean a phase of the intelligible world so unified that itscontent is, so to speak, telescoped into itself at one point and thushas no relationship to duration or to the serial order of time.9 Gregorydoes, in fact, hold that ain cannot be divided or measured by motionas time is (PG 36.77Af) but, as we have seen, that means simply thatit is wholly uniform duration, not that is it radically dimensionless.That appears to be the point which Psellus goes on to make; theeternity of the intelligible world is a bare 'present' without past orfuture in the sense that it endures changelessly.

Nicetas' own remarks deal with the same issues (127.1317A). Ainis properly applied only to God, who like an endless ocean has neitherbeginning nor end, while angels and souls have only no end. Nicetas

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then observes that the word ain applies to various lengths of time,including a length not measured by any part of time (e.g., not evenby the sun's motion). This last ain (which we cannot define exactly)is a quasi-time, 'for what time is to things subject to time ain is toeternal things.' Ain in this sense is 'coextensive' with the pre-crea-tion state. So far the discussion has focused on infinity of duration,but Nicetas also notes that ain is 'one', that God is actually 'pre-eternal' (proainios) since he creates ain,10 and that changelessness isalso an essential feature of eternity. Oneness' here might seem tobe a gesture in the direction of a radical unity beyond duration, butit again is no more than another way of describing the uniformityof changeless duration.

The use of 'ain' to cover a wide range of meanings is remarkedon by Dionysius, who observes that in Scripture ainion is appliednot only to things which are truly without beginning but also towhat is very old or to what does not change; thus there can be 'ainiostime' or 'temporal ain', though commonly ain applies to what trulyexists and chronos to what comes to be. Ain in the full sense lies beyondduration in so far as God is beyond all categories. Yet when Dionysiussays that God 'is unchanging and motionless in all motion and re-mains in himself in his endless motion' (PG3.931B), God's modeof being might seem to be changeless duration, for that can well bedescribed in the paradox of motionless motion. At any rate, Dionysiusproceeds to distinguish four levels: (A) God (beyond ain); ainiathings which are not actually co-eternal with God; (G) things whichparticipate in both ain and time; (D) things in time (PG 3.937C).

Pachymeres' paraphrase touches on the possibility that God's eter-nity is changeless duration (945Af). God can be called 'time' or 'day'because time itself is changeless in so far as it persists while eventsoccurring in it change. For if time itself underwent change it wouldhave to do so in time and that leads to an infinite regress. Thus bothGod and one aspect of time 'remain the same in changing', i.e., area changeless substrate or background, God being an infinite, time afinite substrate. Despite this similarity between God and time, how-ever, Pachymeres assigns an eternity beyond duration to God. It isthe eternity of angels in the first instances which is durative. Theyare ainioi in the sense that they share in ain and are older thanother creatures. 'This extension of time is called ain' in Scripture.At the same time angels' eternity is not simply a vast stretch of time.We are told (948A) that the sign of their ain is not merely antiquitybut 'changelessness and measure-by-the-whole or, as Gregory says,

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the extension of that which truly exists/ Hence we have (A) ainiaor hyptraionia, which are divine and beyond all creation and go with; purely temporal things; (G) intermediate angels and soulswhich share in ain in so far as they are immortal but are also in timein so far as they 'are seen in genesis' (PG 3.945D).11 The relationof A here to A and in Dionysius is not entirely clear. It is clearthat the higher phase of G is not merely endless time but a distinctontological mode, and the phrase 'measured as a whole' suggeststhat the distinction lies in a wholly changeless duration in whichpast, present and future are effectively present all at once. By thesame token, still higher, more specifically divine modes would involvea more radical unity beyond duration. For the fusion of rest andmotion in God is not changeless duration but transcends both mo-tion and rest (PG 3.853A).

A similar scheme appears in PG 3.853B. (A) God is autoain sincehis being is measured neither by time nor by ain. He is, in fact,hib own ain. Angels and intelligible^ are ainia, and are measuredby and share in ain. (C) Time arises fiom the motion of cosmicbodies and is again itself said to be 'one', i.e., stable in so far as itis the 'one extension by which temporal things are measured.' Hereainia are 'prior' to time and lie between it and the Creator. He isbeyond 'measure', while ain measures intelligible extension, i.e., thethe changeless duration of created being which Dionysius refers toalso as the angels' 'eternal motion' (aei kinsia, 856A).

John of Scythopolis in his commentary on Dionysius (PG4.313C)restates several central points.12 (1) God is the ain of the whichhe creates. They are 'eternal' in so far as they share in ain, whichitself is not 'ainios', for as God creates time without being temporal,so he creates aeons without himself being ainios. (2) Ain itself is'a fixed present which changes neither from a present nor to a future. . . All that exists must be present to it as a whole.' It is 'endlessbecause it already exists as a whole . . . it is endless life . . . a lifestable and all together, already endless without variation and fixedin unity.' (3) As visible things are images of intelligibles, so 'timerested in what always exists and later appeared in diminished form(kath' hypobasin) when the visible creation appeared.' Hence time isnot the actual 'motion of the intervals that are parts of time but theprocession of God's goodness into visible cieation.' That ?s to ay:(1) The general ontological schema runs in descending order: God/aton/eternal, intelligible creation/time. So far as the relation of thefirst two stages is concerned, God is sometimes treated as prior to

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ain, sometimes as virtually identical with it. (2) The connection be-tween 'endless' and 'already' in this characterization of eternity isintended to point to a duration so uniform that all of its momentsare 'already' presently realized at any point aud therefore carcelydurational at all. The intelligible aeons which partake of ain aieless unified than it is because they are a stage closer to the actualextension of time. (3) As we have seen, time as a whole is ontologicallyprior to the finite periods of time, and this transcendent aspect ishere closely associated with eternity. The last stage in the four-partscheme outlined in (1) is followed by 'things in time' as ain is fol-lowed by 'things in eternity,' and so the full hierarchy is muchlike that in later Neoplatonism: the One/eternity/things in eternity= intelligible being/time/things in time.13

Many of the threads that go to make up the idea of eternity inits various aspects are woven together in the discussion {Peri Ainos)appended to Psellus' De Omni/aria Doctrina.1* It begins with formal(Platonic) definitions: time is the image of eternity {ain) and eternityis the pattern of time. The author insists that he is not introducingPlatonic Forms and that things in the higher world are, in any case,only images of the ultimate cause, which 'in truth is not eternityor being or stasis or kinesis or identity but is beyond conceptionand language.' The images which make up the content of the trans-cendent world are ainia, and their eternity consists of 'togethernessand unity.' The 'present' reality {to estos) of eternity is not separatefrom the extremities of past and future; it is, rather, both the 'middleand what is around the middle' [i.e., it is a fully realized structureembracing all of time at once]. Time, on the other hand, 'runs out'from eternity and can imitate its stability only in its continuous flow.This is its transcendent, timeless aspect. One part is past, one future,and the present has only false being. That is to say, the fully realizedscope of etemitiy is in time so narrowed down that it vanishes in anillusory knife-edge present. Since the reality of time consists in itssheer flow, measurement of specific spans is not an essential part oftime itself. We now are in a position to work out a complete hier-archy again like that of late NeoPlatonism: (A) the cause beyondain; ain; (G) eternal things; (D) time; (E) temporal things.Time here is 'between what is beyond time and what is in time.'Soul is midway between ain and time, its essence being eternal, itsactivity temporal (cf. De Omnifaria Doctrina, 107, p. 59).

All of this then provides a metaphysical framework for the Christiandoctrine of a renewed creation. For if it makes sense to say (as Neo-

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platonists did) that soul can lay aside its temporal mode and becomeatoraos when it regains the unity of mind, why should not 'time as awhole be resolved into eternity from which it came and under whichit was motionless? Some kind of ambition put it into motion, orrather soul was too weak to maintain its [original] intelligible unityand as it unwound in its search for being it created time' (cf. Ploti-nus, Ennead III.7-ll.20f). Thus 'the errant child will once againbe under its father.' This image is used to introduce a rather awk-ward interpretation of the parable of the Prodigal Son: the primecause is the father, eternity is the elder son who stayed at home,time is the prodigal, and the new heaven and earth are the resultof the reunion of time and eternity.

Several phases of eternity come out in this synthesis. God, theultimate hyperaeonic cause, is timeless in the most radical sense., too, is highly unified and along with God exemplifies the ab-sence of the dispersion characteristic of time. At the same time, ainembodies the multiple patterns (the aionia) which time imitates. Inthis respect it can figure as a simultaneous whole embracing past,present and future. But this is not worked out. The distinctions be-tween and ainia and between time and things in time appearearlier in Proclus (Elements of Theology, 53), but while Proclus alsodistinguishes transcendent and immanent forms of time, here wefind elaboration neither of the transcendent aspect of time nor ofthe precise nature of the eternity of the new heaven and earth intowhich time will flow (probably to be transfigured into changelessduration).

If we return now to our list of conceptions of eternity available totheologians, we can see that the first was often used in conjunctionwith negative theology. In a sense, it raises the least conceptualdifficulty because it need not and cannot be discussed. For thatmatter, is does not depend on a formal negative theology becauseit can be a simple expression of awareness of God's transcendence.For the most part, however, the second and third definitions providedthe working notion of eternity, especially in depictions of eternallife. The doctrine of the Logos rested on the fourth definition, whichis very close to the Platonic understanding of the intelligible worldas a timeless structure or pattern for time. It has often been remarkedthat while the hope of biblical writers is typically based on a meaningof history which emerges from a limitless future, the Greek (or atleast the Platonic) tradition saw the future largely in terms of knowl-edge already learned in the past, which exemplifies reality exhaust-

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ively because it reflects a timeless paradigm (the path to eternitymay lead through memory, as Augustine knew). In its treatmentof time and eternity patristic theology took account of both of theseviews.15

The root of the problem was that eternity ultimately means oureternity and thus carries with it the enigma of the human self. Theself was in the Greek tradition primarily 'soul'. In Plato, soul issomething ambivalent, linking time and eternity often in obscureways, and later in Plotinus its elusive, 'amphibian' status reappearsmore formally in the various levels of emanation which can be iso-lated. Iamblichus and other Platonists finally recognized that soulin fact breaks through clearly defined categories, because while thedistinction between time and eternity is a fundamental reality, thereality of soul equally dictates a new category in which time andeternity run together ('The essence of soul is simultaneously temporaland eternal . . . the category cf time is somehow eternalized andeternity is temporalized').18 If with all their sophisticated categoricalapparatus the Neoplatonists were brought to this pass, it is not sur-prising that theologians should have worked out a functional under-standing of 'eternity' centering around the twin notions of a timeless,fully realized plan which guarantees the coherence of time by ex-pressing the Creator's sovereign intention and a uniform durationwhich guarantees the reliability of what follows time because it en-dures endlessly and is free of time's uncertainties.

NOTES

1 References are to pages of the Jaeger/Langerbeck edition of Gregory of Nyssaexcept where PG refers to volume and column of the Migne edition.

2 References are to page, paragraph and line numbers of the Grgemanns/Karppedition of Origen's De Principiis.

3 For a (presumably) later Origenist view of the relation between Forms andminds cf. De Prin. 280 and 282.

4 Cf. J. Danilou, Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, tr. J.A. Baker (London1973) 458 f, 469 f.

5 E.G. Jay (Origen's Treatise on Prayer, London 1954) 101 cites C.S. Lewis: 'ToGod (though not to me) I and the prayer I make in 1945 were just as muchpresent at the creation of the world as they are now and will be a million yearshence. God's creative act is timeless and tunelessly adapted to the 'free' ele-ments within it : but this timeless adaptation meets our consciousness as a sequenceof prayer and answer.' Jay holds that Origen himself does not use the notionof a simultaneous eternity.

6 J. Danilou (above, note 4) 125, 447f.

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7 On Clement's eschatology cf. W. Vlker, Der wahre Gnostiker nach Clemens Alexan-drmus (Berlin 1952) 392f.

8 Cf. PG 37.946i : eternity (ain) is 'dimension forever flowing timelessly,' time is'the measure of the sun's motion.' For time as essentially finite and measureable cf.Hilary of Poitiers (PL 10.62B): the Creator is infinite, while time is signifcalamoderatio, i.e., 'articulated arrangement' or 'definite measure of extension lo-cated in time and not space.' Arnobius defines time as the 'measure of a certainextension embraced in an unbroken, continuous series' (PL5.977A). Eternityaccordingly can be simply endless (immeasurable) duration. Isidore (PG78.842B) contrasts God's aidiotes with the athanasia of angels and souls whichhave no end but do have a beginning. When he goes on to say that there is nonumber, no 'before' or 'after', no 'first', 'second' or 'third' in God because heis 'higher than number, times or thought,' God is infinite in the sense that thereis no 'first' or 'second' because there is no beginning which can count as 'first'.Infinite quantity in effect becomes absence of quantity and is transformed intosomething qualitatively different, i.e., into eternity. Or absence of distinctionsmight point to a more radical unity beyond uniform duration. Cf. the discus-sion in the notes at PG 3.939f : aevum (= ain) is 'the duration of angels notsubject to time because it is whole and invariable all at once.' Cf. also JohnCyparissiotes, PG 152.892f. For Augustine's concept of an angelic 'supertime'cf. H. Urs von Balthasar, Man in History: A Theological Study (London 1968)15f. Endless stable duration is again a factor in descriptions of eternity as 'oneday': PG 38.1029; Plotmus, Ennead IV.4.7.11.

9 An interesting line of argument in pseudo-Justin, Quaestiones ad Graecos (PG6.1415f) apparently uses a similar conception of eternity. A Christian criticwonders how God can exist, if (A) the universe is uncreated (as the Greeksmaintain) but (B) a God who does not create is impossible. The answer isthat since God's eternity is changeless duration, he always sustains the uni-verse, though he has not created it at any point. The Christian then objectsthat such an eternity is merely disguised time: 'If there is nothing temporalin God, how can he always do the same thing? For 'do' cannot be thoughtapart from present time. How does God have perfect dynamis and energeia ifhe does the same thing endlessly?' (1421Af). One does not really dissociateGod from time simply by saying that past and future are present to him, forhis timeless present is then still grasped in temporal terms. The author himself(1423Df) makes a distinction between God's changeless dynamis or ousia and hisenergeia, which expresses itself in entirely free temporal creation and in thatform embodies a finite emanation (probol)r restriction (systol). 'The energeiaof God has a beginning and end because of emanation and restriction, notbecause of any change in his dynamis.' Thus the divine energeia causes us to passfrom infancy through youth to old age without any corresponding change in thebeing of God. If God's energeia were not restricted, there would be an infinityof universes. In view of the denial of any temporal structure in God in 1415fGod's eternal dynamis may exclude even duration, though perhaps it is sup-posed simply to exclude tense distinctions.

10 John of Damascus similarly uses 'proainios' to separate God's mode of beingfrom ordinary time and from the unmeasured, time-like extension of aion.'Before the creation of the universe when no sun divided day from night, therewas no measurable ain but only that which extended along with eternal things

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in a time-like motion and extension (to symparekteinotnenon tots aidiois hoion tichronikon kinma kai diastma). In this respect aion is one - as God is called ainiosor rather proainios since he made ain' (De Fide Orthodoxica II. 1 = PG 94.864A).Nicephorus (PG 142.1224Cf) treats past, present and future as 'prototypically'parts of ain and defines ain as a 'gathered, eternal extension containing 'for-ever' before and after time.' That is, time is linked to the existence of the uni-verse, and when there is no universe there is only 'aeonic extension' (ainikparatasis). The property of being 'gathered' is probably changeless duration,while 'prototypical' past, present and future are the ontological roots of time'schanging duration.

11 In PG 4.389Af John of Scythopolis mentions two groups in the intermediateclass: angels and souls/the heavenly bodies.

12 Cf. PG 3.836Cf for Pachymeres' paraphrase of this passage in Dionysius.13 P. Plass, 'Timeless Time in NeoPlatonism,' The Modem Schoolman LV (1977) 5.

For 'time resting in what always exists' cf. Plotinus 111.7.11.13: before timeexisted 'it was at rest with itself in what [truly] exists.'

14 Michael Psellus, De Omnifaria Doctrina, ed. L.G. Westerink (Utrecht 1948) 102-104.

15 For the relation between the 'vertical' Greek and 'horizontal' biblical per-spectives cf. Klappert, Die Eschatologie des Hebraerbriefs (Munich 1969). C.H.Dodd (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, Cambridge 1953, 144f) notes thatrabbinic thought itself worked out a dual perspective: the horizontal 'twoages' and a vertical contrast between life on earth and life in heaven. For astralor heavenly eschatology cf. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel(Missoula 1977) 146f, 176f. Cf. H. Jonas, 'The Soul in Gnosticism and Ploti-nus,' in Philosophical Essays (Englewood Cliffs 1974) 327; D. Hill, Greek Wordsand Hebrew Meanings (Cambridge 1967) 163f ; J. Chaix-Ruy, 'La Cit de Dieuet la Structure du Temps chez saint Augustin,' in Augustinus Magister (Paris)II 925f.

16 Damascius, quoted in C.G. Steel, The Changing Self: A Study on the Soul in LaterNeoPlatonism (Verhandlingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschap-pen, Letteren en Schone Knsten Van Belgie. Klasse den Lettern. XL Nr85) 101.

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