power of existing, and that which it possesses is finite, but it is perpetual by always receiving, the ability of existing infinitely, being numbered in that which is finite, it is evident that it is at a certain time; from _a certain time_ always possessing existence; and in consequence of that which is imparted to it never ceasing, always becoming to be;[191] but in its own nature existing at a certain time, and having, as Plato says in the Politicus, a renovated immortality. For subsisting in rising into existence, the whole of it does not at once participate of the whole of being, but again and again, not existing without an extension of being. Unless, perhaps, the expression _at a certain time_, signifies the _whole_ of time. For the evolution of time, as with reference to an _eternal infinity_ is ποτε _a certain time_. And the whole of time has the same ratio to eternity, that a part of time the ποτε has to the whole. If, also, you are willing, it may be said after another manner, that Plato denominates the world “a God that at a certain time would exist,” since he has now fashioned a corporeal nature, and given subsistence to intellect, but not yet to soul, because the world also as a God will have a subsistence in the course of his narration. For divinity produces at once both parts and the whole, but language divides things that are consubsistent, generates things that are unbegotten, and distributes eternal natures according to time. The God, therefore, that at a certain time would exist, is that which is fashioned in the narration of Plato, and according to which there are division and composition. For this, also, the Pythagoric Timæus himself indicates to those who are able to understand him, when he says in his treatise [On the soul of the world], “Before heaven (i.e. the world) was generated in words, there were idea and matter, and God the demiurgus.” For he clearly manifests that he fashions in words the generation of the world.