124

a salutation, which at the same time as the word brings the one who utters it to a conception 11.11.2 of the power of God. For God, as if greeting each of us who approach here, addresses us with "Know thyself," which is in no way less than "Hail." And we, in turn answering God, say "Thou art," thus rendering the salutation "Thou art" as true and without falsehood and alone fitting for Him alone. 11.11.3 For in reality we have no share in being, but every mortal nature, existing between corruption and generation, presents a phantom 11.11.4 and a faint and uncertain appearance of itself. But if anyone presses his thought upon it, wanting to grasp it, just as the forceful grasping of water, by squeezing and gathering together what is flowing apart, destroys what is being grasped, so also reason, in pursuing the excessive clarity of each of the passive and changeable things, is baffled, now toward its coming into being, now toward its perishing, being unable to grasp anything that abides or really is. 11.11.5 "For it is not possible to step into the same river twice," according to Heraclitus, nor to touch a mortal substance twice in the same state, but by the sharpness and speed of its change it scatters and again gathers, or rather, not again nor later, but at the same time it comes together and fails, and 11.11.6 approaches and departs. Therefore what comes to be of it never arrives at being, because its generation never ceases nor stops, but always changing from a seed it makes an embryo, then an infant, then a child, a youth in succession, a young man, a man, an elder, an old man, destroying the former generations and ages 11.11.7 by the ones that follow. But we ridiculously fear one death, though we have already died so many deaths and are still dying. For not only, as Heraclitus said, "the death of fire is the birth of air," but still more clearly in our own case: the man in his prime perishes when the old man comes to be, and the youth has perished into the man in his prime, and the child into the youth, and the infant into the child; and yesterday has died into today, and today dies into tomorrow; and no one remains nor is one, but we become many, around some one phantom and common mold of matter that is driven about and 11.11.8 slips away. For how, if we remain the same, do we delight in some things now, and in others before, love and hate and admire and blame the opposite things, use other words, other passions, no longer having the same appearance, or form, or thought? 11.11.9 For it is not likely to experience different things without changing, nor is he who changes the same. But if he is not the same, he does not exist, but is becoming another from another by his very changing; but sensation 11.11.10 is deceived through ignorance of what is, into thinking that what appears, exists. What then is that which really is? The eternal and ungenerated and incorruptible, to which no time brings change. For time is something mobile and that appears together with matter in motion, ever flowing and not holding firm, like a vessel of corruption and of generation. Of which, indeed, the "after" and the "before" and what is called "will be" and "has been" are in themselves a confession 11.11.11 of not-being. For to say that that which has not yet come into being or that which has already ceased from being, is, is foolish and absurd. But that on which we most fix our thought concerning time, what we call 'the present' and 'is here' and 'the now,' 11.11.12 this again reason, in turn, unravels and destroys. For it is squeezed out into the future and the past, being of necessity split apart, like a flash of lightning for those wishing to see it. But if the nature that is measured has suffered the same as that which measures it, it too is neither abiding nor being, but is becoming and perishing according to its correspondence with 11.11.13 time. Therefore it is not possible to say any such thing about that which is, as that it "was" or "will be"; for these are certain inclinations and transitions and alterations 11.11.14 of that which is not by nature constituted to remain in being. But God is, if one must say so, and He is in no time, but in eternity, the motionless and timeless and unswerving, and of which nothing is before or

124

προσφώνησις, ἅμα τῷ ῥήματι τὸν φθεγγόμενον εἰς ἔννοιαν 11.11.2 καθιστᾶσα τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ δυνάμεως. ὁ γὰρ θεὸς ἕκαστον ἡμῶν τῶν ἐνταῦθα προσιόντων οἷον ἀσπαζόμενος προσαγορεύει τὸ γνῶθι σαυτόν, ὃ τοῦ χαῖρε δὴ οὐθὲν μεῖόν ἐστιν· ἡμεῖς δὲ πάλιν ἀμειβόμενοι τὸν θεὸν εἶ φαμεν, ὡς ἀληθῆ καὶ ἀψευδῆ καὶ μόνην μόνῳ προσήκουσαν τὴν τοῦ εἶ προσαγό11.11.3 ρευσιν ἀποδιδόντες. ἡμῖν μὲν γὰρ ὄντως τοῦ εἶναι μέτεστιν οὐδέν, ἀλλὰ πᾶσα θνητὴ φύσις ἐν μέσῳ φθορᾶς καὶ γενέσεως γενομένη φάσμα παρέχει 11.11.4 καὶ δόκησιν ἀμυδρὰν καὶ ἀβέβαιον αὑτῆς. ἂν δὲ τὴν διάνοιαν ἐπερείσῃ τις λαβέσθαι βουλόμενος, ὥσπερ ἡ σφοδρὰ περίδραξις ὕδατος τῷ πιέζειν καὶ εἰς ταὐτὸ συνάγειν διαρρέον ἀπόλλυσι τὸ περιλαμβανόμενον, οὕτω τῶν παθητῶν καὶ μεταβλητῶν ἑκάστου τὴν ἄγαν ἐνάργειαν ὁ λόγος διώκων ἀποσφάλλεται, τῇ μὲν εἰς τὸ γινόμενον αὐτοῦ, τῇ δὲ εἰς τὸ φθειρόμενον, οὐδενὸς λα11.11.5 βέσθαι μένοντος οὐδὲ ὄντος ὄντως δυνάμενος. «ποταμῷ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐμβῆναι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ» καθ' Ἡράκλειτον οὐδὲ θνητῆς οὐσίας δὶς ἅψασθαι κατὰ ἕξιν, ἀλλ' ὀξύτητι καὶ τάχει μεταβολῆς σκίδνησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει, μᾶλλον δὲ οὐδὲ πάλιν οὐδὲ ὕστερον, ἀλλ' ἅμα συνίσταται καὶ ἀπολείπει καὶ 11.11.6 πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισιν. ὅθεν οὐδὲ εἰς τὸ εἶναι περαίνει τὸ γινόμενον αὐτῆς, τῷ μηδέποτε λήγειν μηδ' ἵστασθαι τὴν γένεσιν, ἀλλ' ἀπὸ σπέρματος ἀεὶ μεταβάλλουσαν ἔμβρυον ποιεῖν, εἶτα βρέφος, εἶτα παῖδα, μειράκιον ἐφεξῆς, νεανί σκον, ἄνδρα, πρεσβύτην, γέροντα, τὰς πρώτας φθείρουσαν γενέσεις καὶ ἡλικίας 11.11.7 ταῖς ἐπιγινομέναις. ἀλλ' ἡμεῖς ἕνα φοβούμεθα γελοίως θάνατον, ἤδη τοσούτους τεθνηκότες καὶ θνήσκοντες. οὐ γὰρ μόνον, ὡς Ἡράκλειτος ἔλεγε, «πυρὸς θάνατος ἀέρι γένεσις», ἀλλ' ἔτι σαφέστερον ἐπ' αὐτῶν ἡμῶν· φθείρεται μὲν ὁ ἀκμάζων γενομένου γέροντος, ἐφθάρη δὲ ὁ νέος εἰς τὸν ἀκμάζοντα καὶ ὁ παῖς εἰς τὸν νέον, εἰς δὲ τὸν παῖδα τὸ νήπιον, ὁ δὲ χθὲς εἰς τὸν σήμερον τέθνηκεν, ὁ δὲ σήμερον εἰς τὸν αὔριον· μένει δὲ οὐδὲ εἷς οὐδὲ ἔστιν εἷς, ἀλλὰ γινόμεθα πολλοί, περὶ ἕν τι φάντασμα καὶ κοινὸν ἐκμαγεῖον ὕλης περιελαυνομένης καὶ 11.11.8 ὀλισθαινούσης. ἐπεὶ πῶς οἱ αὐτοὶ μένοντες ἑτέροις χαίρομεν νῦν, ἑτέροις πρότερον, τἀναντία φιλοῦμεν καὶ μισοῦμεν καὶ θαυμάζομεν καὶ ψέγομεν, ἄλλοις χρώμεθα λόγοις, ἄλλοις πάθεσιν, οὐκ εἶδος, οὐ μορφήν, οὐ διάνοιαν 11.11.9 ἔτι τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχοντες; οὔτε γὰρ ἄνευ μεταβολῆς ἕτερα πάσχειν εἰκὸς οὔτε μεταβάλλων ὁ αὐτὸς ἂν εἴη. εἰ δὲ ὁ αὐτὸς οὐκ ἔστιν, οὐδ' ἔστιν ἀλλ' ἢ ἐκ τοῦ αὐτὸν μεταβάλλειν, γινόμενος ἕτερος ἐξ ἑτέρου· ψεύδεται δὲ ἡ 11.11.10 αἴσθησις ἀγνοίᾳ τοῦ ὄντος εἶναι τὸ φαινόμενον. τί οὖν ὄντως ὄν ἐστιν; τὸ ἀΐδιον καὶ ἀγένητον καὶ ἄφθαρτον, ᾧ χρόνος οὐδεὶς μεταβολὴν ἐπάγει. κινητὸν γάρ τι καὶ κινουμένῃ συμφανταζόμενον ὕλῃ καὶ ῥέον αἰεὶ καὶ μὴ στέγον ὥσπερ ἀγγεῖον φθορᾶς καὶ γενέσεως ὁ χρόνος. οὗ δὴ τὸ μὲν ἔπειτα καὶ τὸ πρότερον καὶ τὸ ἔσται λεγόμενον καὶ τὸ γέγονεν αὐτόθεν ἐξομολόγησίς ἐστι 11.11.11 τοῦ μὴ ὄντος. τὸ γὰρ ἐν τῷ εἶναι μηδέποτε γεγονὸς ἢ πεπαυμένον ἤδη τοῦ εἶναι λέγειν ὡς ἔστιν, εὔηθες καὶ ἄτοπον. ἐν ᾧ δὲ μάλιστα τὴν νόησιν ἐπερείδοντες τοῦ χρόνου τὸ ἐνέστηκε καὶ τὸ πάρεστι καὶ τὸ νῦν φθεγ11.11.12 γόμεθα, τοῦτ' αὖ πάλιν ἐκδυόμενος ὁ λόγος ἀπόλλυσιν. ἐκθλίβεται γὰρ εἰς τὸ μέλλον καὶ τὸ παρῳχημένον, ὥσπερ αὐγὴ βουλομένοις ἰδεῖν, ἐξ ἀνάγκης διιστάμενον. εἰ δὲ ταὐτὰ τῷ μετροῦντι πέπονθεν ἡ μετρουμένη φύσις, οὐδὲ αὐτὴ μένον οὐδὲ ὄν ἐστι, ἀλλὰ γινομένη καὶ φθειρομένη κατὰ τὴν πρὸς 11.11.13 τὸν χρόνον συννέμησιν. ὅθεν οὐδὲν τοιοῦτον ἔστιν ἐπὶ τοῦ ὄντος λέγειν ὡς ἦν ἢ ἔσται· ταῦτα γὰρ ἐγκλίσεις τινὲς καὶ μεταβάσεις καὶ παραλλάξεις 11.11.14 τοῦ μένειν ἐν τῷ εἶναι μὴ πεφυκότος. ἀλλ' ἔστιν ὁ θεός, εἰ χρὴ φάναι, καὶ ἔστι κατ' οὐδένα χρόνον, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνα τὸν ἀκίνητον καὶ ἄχρονον καὶ ἀνέγκλιτον καὶ οὗ πρότερον οὐδέν ἐστιν οὐδὲ