(Golitsis2023)
It will be helpful to the reader to know from the beginning that, in contrast with the modern straightforward distinction between absolute and relative time, or objective and subjective time, the late ancient Platonists accepted a plurality of times. They quickly overruled Aristotle’s subjective time and thought that time exists objectively but at many levels. The most characteristic account in this respect is perhaps to be found in a passage of Proclus’ commentary on the Timaeus. Reflecting upon Plato’s dismissal of the use of tensed words when it comes to the divine intelligible Forms, Proclus gives a panorama of the existing times, which culminates in Time as god (or “fontal” time). This god, he explains, comes from Hecate, the great Goddess who presides over all life and motion, and is itself the monad that presides over all times, even over the time that measures the existence of completely perishable things (such as hair and nails):
For what reason, therefore, do [the words] ‘was’ and ‘will be’ not apply to the intelligibles? It is because the very measure of the intelligibles [i. e. eternity] is both unshaken and unmoved and this measure makes what is measured by it wholly transcend change. For what reason, then, does “solely [the word] ‘is’ apply” to the intelligibles “according to true speech”? Because what the intelligibles are, they always are. They neither lose anything nor do they gain: not with respect to essence or life or cognition—much less with respect to their very unification. Is it therefore the case that of these three—‘was’, ‘is’, and ‘will be’—it is not fitting to apply the extreme in the case of the intelligibles but only the middle? Or is it the case that none [of these words may be used]? The reason for the latter is that the sense of ‘is’ that is coordinate with ‘was’ and ‘will be’ is not fitting for the intelligibles, but only [the sense of ‘is’] that transcends all of these. Only the sense of ‘is’ that has no trace whatsoever of time and is determined in accordance with the eternal measure itself ought to be assigned to the gods and the intelligibles. The case is parallel to that of [the meaning of the word] ‘always’ where there was one sense that was eternal and another that was temporal. So, too, there is a dual sense of ‘is’ where one sense applies to genuine beings [i. e. the intelligibles], while the other applies to things within the cosmos. Therefore, when Plato says that “solely [the term] ‘is’ applies to the eternal essence according to true speech”, by changing the position of ‘solely’ we may discover a more scientific statement: ‘that which solely is applies to the eternal essence’—that is, the sense of ‘is’ that is in itself and transcends any relation to the forms of time [i. e. the past, the present, and the future]. How then did it turn out that human beings came to be so mistaken as to project back up toward the intelligible gods [words] that are not at all fitting for them? The general cause is the forgetting about divinity that in our case supervenes upon the shedding of [the soul’s] wings, falling down, and associating with mortal bodies. It was for this reason that Plato said: “We apply them [sc. the tensed words] wrongly, without noticing, to eternal essence”. But the Theurgists are surely not affected in this way: it is not licit for them. Rather, they celebrate Time himself as a god, and they regard (v) one time as ‘connected with the zones’, as we said, and (iv) another as ‘independent of the zones’, [i. e. the time] which measures the period of the third of the aetherial worlds. Yet (iii) another [time] is set over the intermediate one among these worlds, a certain archangelic time. (ii) Another [time that is called] archic rules over the very first of the aetherial worlds, while above all these [times] is (i) another [time], the fontal [time], which directs and rotates the empyrean world and also determines its period. This [fontal time] proceeds from the fontal goddess [i. e. Hecate] who gives birth to all life, as well as to all motion. This goddess brought forth also the fontal time and set it over all things in motion as a measure of the periods of every one of them right down to the ultimate [generated things]. After all, these too are measured by periods, even if they are entirely destroyed.
Proclus distinguishes here between five different times—(i) the fontal time, (ii) the archic time, (iii) the archangelic time, (iv) the azonic time, and (v) the zonic time—in accordance with the sacred theology revealed by the Chaldean theurgists, a theology that was fully espoused by the last Hellenes (such as Proclus and Damascius). In fact, the Chaldeans distinguished between seven ‘worlds’—one empyrean, three aetherial, and three hylic (according to the Neoplatonist interpretation)—to which seven different times should correspond. The time firstly mentioned by Proclus, i. e. the time “connected with the zones”, probably corresponds to the times of the first two hylic worlds, i. e. the time that measures the motion of the outermost sphere of the fixed stars (i. e. the sidereal time) and the time of the (supralunary) planetary motions (the year, the month, and other ‘unknown’ temporal units). Further down is the time of the third hylic world, i. e. the sublunary time. Although Damascius believed that the source of all time(s), i. e. Time as god, is to be found not in the great Hecate but in the Demiurge, there can be no doubt that he accepted this plurality of times. But he seems to have been mostly concerned with the times of the ‘hylic’ worlds, as well as with a further time which he himself grasped, a time that should perhaps be situated between what Proclus calls the ‘azonic time’ and the ‘zonic time’.