(“Augustine breaks off the history of the mode whereby God led him to holy Orders, in order to ‘confess’ God’s mercies in opening to him the Scripture. Moses is not to be understood, but in Christ, not even the first words In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth . Answer to cavillers who asked, what did God before He created the heaven and the earth, and whence willed He at length to make them, whereas He did not make them before. Inquiry into the nature of Time.”)

(It is in considering the question of God’s actions before the Creation, and of his delay in not bringing about the Creation sooner, that Augustine comes to consider the nature of Time.)

( xiv ) 17. At no time then hadst Thou not made anything, 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?

( xv ) 18. And yet we say, “a long time” and “a short time;” still, only of time past or to come. A long time past (for example) we call an hundred years since; and a long time to come, an hundred years hence. But a short time past, we call (suppose) ten days since; and a short time to come, ten days hence. But in what sense is that long or short, which is not? For the past is not now; and the future is not yet. Let us not then say “it is long”; but of the past, “it hath been long”; and of the future, “it will be long.”

(But the past, being no more, cannot be long, for what ceases to be, ceases also to be long. Yet can the present be long? Say, a hundred years? No, for a hundred years is never present at once, nor even a month, or a day, or an hour—only the smallest conceivable instant is present. What then of the future? The future is not yet, so is not long; and when the future is here, it is the present, which has been shown to be the briefest conceivable instant.)

( xvi ) 21. And yet, Lord, we perceive intervals of times, and compare them, and say some are shorter and others longer. We measure also how much longer or shorter this time is than that; and we answer, “This is double, or treble; and that, but once, or only just so much as that.” But we measure times as they are passing, by perceiving them; but past, which now are not, or the future, which are not yet, who can measure? unless a man shall presume to say that can be measured which is not. When then time is passing, it may be perceived and measured; but when it is past, it cannot, because it is not.

( xx ) 26. What now is clear and plain is that neither things to come nor past are. Nor is it properly said, “there be three times, past, present, and to come”: yet perchance it might be properly said, “there be three times; a present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future.” For these three do exist in some sort, in the soul, but otherwhere do I not see them; present of things past, memory; present of things present, sight; present of things future, expectation. If thus we be permitted to speak, I see three times, and I confess there are three. Let it be said too, “there be three times, past, present, and to come”: in our incorrect way. See, I object not, nor gainsay, nor find fault, if what is so said be but understood, that neither what is to be, now is, nor what is past. For but few things are there which we speak properly, most things improperly; still the things intended are understood.

( xxi ) 27. I said then even now, we measure times as they pass, in order to be able to say, this time is twice so much as that one; or, this is just so much as that; and so of any other parts of time, which be measurable. Wherefore, as I said, we measure times as they pass…​.

( xxiii ) 30. I desire to know the force and nature of time, by which we measure the motions of bodies, and say (for example) this motion is twice as long as that…​.

( xxiv ) 31. Dost Thou bid me assent, if any define time to be “motion of a body?” Thou dost not bid me. For that no body is moved, but in time, I hear; this Thou sayest; but that the motion of a body is time, I hear not; Thou sayest it not.

(For it is quite possible to measure the time a body stands still, as, for instance, in the expression: “It stood still twice as long as it moved.” Time, therefore, is not the motion of a body.)

( xxvi ) 33. Does not my soul most truly confess unto Thee that I do measure times?…​ That I measure time, I know; and yet I measure not time to come, for it is not yet; nor present, because it is not protracted by any space; nor past, because it now is not. What then do I measure? Times passing, not past? for so I said.

(Time is measured between the beginning and end of something, as between the beginning and end of a sound. The sound cannot be measured before it begins, while it is sounding, or after it has stopped. But, by noting the beginning and ending, the interval can be determined.)

( xxvii ) 36. It is in thee, my mind, that I measure times. Interrupt me not, that is, interrupt not thyself with the tumults of thy impressions. In thee I measure times; the impression, which things as they pass by cause in thee, remains even when they are gone; this it is which still present, I measure, not the things which pass by to make this impression. This I measure, when I measure times. Either then this is time, or I do not measure times. What when we measure silence, and say that this silence hath held as long time as did that voice? do we not stretch out our thought to the measure of a voice, as if it sounded? that so we may be able to report of the intervals of silence in a given space of time?…​

( xxviii ) 37. …​ It is not future time that is long, for as yet it is not: but a “long future” is “a long expectation of the future,” nor is it time past, which now is not, that is long; but a long past is “a long memory of the past.”

( xxx ) 40. And now I will stand and become firm in Thee, in my mold, Thy truth; nor will I endure the questions of men, who by a penal disease thirst for more than they can contain, and say, “what did God before He made heaven and earth ?” “Or, how came it into His mind to make anything, having never before made anything?” Give them, O Lord, well to bethink themselves what they say, and to find that “never” cannot be predicated, when “time” is not. This then that He is said “never to have made;” what else is it to say, then “in ‘no time’ to have made?” Let them see therefore that time cannot be without created being, and cease to speak that vanity . May they also be extended towards those things which are before ; and understand Thee before all times, the eternal Creator of all times, and that no times be coeternal with Thee, nor any creature, even if there be any creature before all time.