{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>As to those who are always asking why man was not\r\ncreated during these countless ages of the infinitely extended\r\npast, and came into being so lately that, according to Scripture,\r\nless than 6000 years have elapsed since he began to be, I\r\nwould reply to them regarding the creation of man, just as I\r\nreplied regarding the origin of the world to those who will\r\nnot believe that it is not eternal, but had a beginning, which\r\neven Plato himself most plainly declares, though some think\r\nhis statement was not consistent with his real opinion.<a id=\"FNanchor_537_537\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_537_537\">[537]</a> If it<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_497\">[Pg 497]</a></span>\r\noffends them that the time that has elapsed since the creation\r\nof man is so short, and his years so few according to our\r\nauthorities, let them take this into consideration, that nothing\r\nthat has a limit is long, and that all the ages of time being\r\nfinite, are very little, or indeed nothing at all, when compared\r\nto the interminable eternity. Consequently, if there had\r\nelapsed since the creation of man, I do not say five or six, but\r\neven sixty or six hundred thousand years, or sixty times as\r\nmany, or six hundred or six hundred thousand times as many,\r\nor this sum multiplied until it could no longer be expressed\r\nin numbers, the same question could still be put, Why was\r\nhe not made before? For the past and boundless eternity\r\nduring which God abstained from creating man is so great,\r\nthat, compare it with what vast and untold number of ages\r\nyou please, so long as there is a definite conclusion of this\r\nterm of time, it is not even as if you compared the minutest\r\ndrop of water with the ocean that everywhere flows around\r\nthe globe. For of these two, one indeed is very small, the\r\nother incomparably vast, yet both are finite; but that space of\r\ntime which starts from some beginning, and is limited by some\r\ntermination, be it of what extent it may, if you compare\r\nit with that which has no beginning, I know not whether to\r\nsay we should count it the very minutest thing, or nothing at\r\nall. For, take this limited time, and deduct from the end of it,\r\none by one, the briefest moments (as you might take day by day\r\nfrom a man's life, beginning at the day in which he now lives,\r\nback to that of his birth), and though the number of moments\r\nyou must subtract in this backward movement be so great\r\nthat no word can express it, yet this subtraction will some\r\ntime carry you to the beginning. But if you take away from\r\na time which has no beginning, I do not say brief moments\r\none by one, nor yet hours, or days, or months, or years even\r\nin quantities, but terms of years so vast that they cannot be\r\nnamed by the most skilful arithmetician,—take away terms of\r\nyears as vast as that which we have supposed to be gradually\r\nconsumed by the deduction of moments,—and take them away\r\nnot once and again repeatedly, but always, and what do you\r\neffect, what do you make by your deduction, since you never\r\nreach the beginning which has no existence? Wherefore, that<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_498\">[Pg 498]</a></span>\r\nwhich we now demand after five thousand odd years, our\r\ndescendants might with like curiosity demand after six hundred\r\nthousand years, supposing these dying generations of men\r\ncontinue so long to decay and be renewed, and supposing posterity\r\ncontinues as weak and ignorant as ourselves. The same\r\nquestion might have been asked by those who have lived before\r\nus, and while man was even newer upon earth. The first man\r\nhimself, in short, might, the day after, or the very day of his\r\ncreation, have asked why he was created no sooner. And no\r\nmatter at what earlier or later period he had been created, this\r\ncontroversy about the commencement of this world's history\r\nwould have had precisely the same difficulties as it has now.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK TWELFTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-856"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"b4f36c39f262653021ed5d51e00056457108548cc15397a940d40475726ef632","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_537_537","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_537_537","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_537_537\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_537_537\"><span class=\"label\">[537]</span></a> The Alexandrian Neo-Platonists endeavoured in this way to escape from\r\nthe obvious meaning of the <i>Timæus</i>.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_537_537","text_sha256":"bce4ef0e1b6cda4a4118b064edbfc2f9ff709735280f0b5a57363868f86330ef","verified":false,"work_id":null}