Pseudo-Dionysius: The Divine Names · 2 of 4 · tr. C.E. Rolt
Chapter 10, Section 1b
For where Scripture speaks of things as “eternal” it doth not always mean things that are absolutely Uncreated or verily Everlasting, Incorruptible, 171 Immortal, Invariable, and Immutable ( e.g.
“Be ye lift up, ye eternal doors,” 461 461 Ps.
xxiv.
7 .
and suchlike passages).
Often it gives the name of “Eternal” to anything very ancient; and sometimes, again, it applies the term “Eternity” to the whole course of earthly Time, inasmuch as it is the property of Eternity to be ancient and invariable and to measure the whole of Being.
The name “Time” it Gives to that changing process which is shown in birth, death, and variation.
And hence we who are here circumscribed by Time are, saith the Scripture, destined to share in Eternity when we reach that incorruptible Eternity which changes not.
And sometimes the Scripture declares the glories of a Temporal Eternity and an Eternal Time, although we understand that in stricter exactness it describes and reveals Eternity as the home of things that are in Being; and Time as the home of things that are in Birth.
462 462 We cannot help thinking of Eternity as an Endless Time, as we think of infinite number as an endless numerical process.
But this is wrong.
Eternity is timeless as infinite number is superior to all numerical process.
According to Plato, Time is “incomplete life” and Eternity is “complete life.” Thus Eternity fulfils Time and yet contradicts it, as infinite number fulfils and contradicts the properties of finite numbers.
If Time be thought of as an infinite series of finite numbers Eternity is the sum of that series and not its process.
But the name may be applied loosely to the process, though this is generally to be avoided.
According to St.
Thomas, Eternity measures Rest, and Time measures Motion: Eternity is a totum simul and Time is successivum.
The difference between them is not, he says, that Time has a beginning and an end whereas Eternity has neither, though he admits that each of the particular objects existing in Time began and will end.
(Summa, Pars I.
Q.
x.
Art.
iv.) But this is, he says, not essential to the nature of time: it is only per accidens (ibid.
Art.
v.).
Cf.
Aristotle’s distinction between “unlimited Time” and limited Time.
We must not, therefore, think of the things which are called Eternal as being simply co-ordinate with the Everlasting God Who exists before Eternity; 463 463 He alludes to Angels and the perfected souls of men and to their celestial abode.
172 but, strictly following the venerable Scriptures, we had better interpret the words “Eternal” and “Temporal” in their proper senses, and regard those things which to some extent participate in Eternity and to some extent in Time as standing midway between things in Being and things in Birth.
464 464 St.
Thomas speaks of aevum as standing between Eternity and Time and participating in both.
Time, he says, consists in succession, Aevum does not but is capable of it, Eternity does not and is incapable of it (Summa, Pars I.
Q.
x.
Art.
v.).
Thus the heavenly bodies, he says, are changeless in essence, but capable of motion from place to place; and the angels are changeless in nature, but capable of choice and so of spiritual movement.
Maximus’s note on the present passage explains this to be D.‘s meaning.
There is in each one of us a timeless self.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The distinction between things in Being and things in Birth implies a hierarchical structure of existence.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Time is described as 'incomplete life' and Eternity as 'complete life,' framing temporal existence as a lack compared to divine perfection.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The text describes humans as circumscribed by Time and destined to share in Eternity when they reach it.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The text states that humans are destined to share in Eternity when they reach incorruptible Eternity.