Chapter XIX
St. Anselm The Devotions of Saint Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury
CHAPTER XIX
BUT if Thou wast and art and shalt be by reason of Thine eternity; and past being is other than present being, and present being than past or future being: how can Thine eternity be said to be wholly at all times?39 Or shall we say that nothing has passed away from Thine eternity so as now not to be, though once it was; nor anything to come, as though it were not as yet? Thou then wert not yesterday nor shalt be to-morrow; but yesterday and to-day and to-morrow Thou art. Nay, not even art Thou yesterday and to-day and to morrow; but Thou art, without any qualification, apart from all time; for yesterday, to-day and to-morrow are distinctions in time; but Thou, although nothing is without Thee, art nevertheless Thyself neither in place nor in time, but all things are in Thee; nothing comprehendeth Thee but Thou comprehendest all things.
CHAPTER XX
THOU therefore dost fill and embrace all things; Thou art before and beyond all things. And indeed
Thou art before all things; because before they were made, Thou art.40 But how art Thou before all things? For in what manner art Thou beyond those things which are to have no end?41 Is it because they can in no wise be without Thee; but Thou, even though they should return into nothingness, no less art? In this way then Thou art in a manner of speaking beyond them. Or is it again because they can be conceived of as having an end, but Thou canst not? For in this way indeed they have in some sense an end;42 but Thou in no sense. And certainly that which in no sense hath an end is beyond that which in any sense hath an end. Dost Thou then thus also transcend all things, even divided which we cannot actually cut up into parts; and many things which we always find together we can think of as separate; but we must think of God as so perfectly one that no division or dissolution into constituent elements or parts can for a moment be thought of in His case. Otherwise He would not be the original and ultimate Reality, but would have grown out of the coalescence of simpler elements into one complex being.
Because if the divine eternity be thought of merely as a continual passing of time which did not begin and will not end, it will be made up, just as time is, of successive parts of duration, which cannot be all there at once.
John viii. 58.
He has probably in view angels and human souls.
That is, they might possibly have an end, though they will not. God who created them out of nothing, might annihilate them; though such is not His will.