Time and Time-Before-Time: An Ancient Puzzle

Abstract

If time began, had a “time-before-time” ever existed? What kind of time could it be? Seneca (Ep. Mor. 88.33) considered this question as one of utmost importance, as far as the the concept of time was concerned: “discendum est [...] an aliquid ante tempus sit sine tempore; cum mundo coeperit an etiam ante mundum quia fuerit aliquid, fuerit et tempus”. In ancient times, this topic had to be debated, although our knowledge is unfortunately meagre. The discussion is likely to have been raised on cosmological grounds. A passage of text by Proclus (In Tim. 1.277.1 ss.) is worth examinig. There, both Atticus and Plutarch are told to have defined the “pre-cosmic time” as “the number of the disordered movement which existed before the birth of the world”. Such a definition seems to derive from the following theoretical assumptions. 1) Both of them proposed a “temporal” interpretation for the Timaeus‟ cosmogony: therefore, there should have been a time when the demiurge ordered the pre-cosmic matter and its movement, 2) thus making cosmic time begin. 3) Nevertheless, the two believed that any movement had to imply time somehow; but there had been a pre-cosmic movement, so there should have been a “pre-cosmic time”. Now, we are presented with two possibilities as to how to think of such a time. For the Epicurean Velleius (Cic.Nat.deor.1.21), time-before-time nulla circumscriptio temporum metiebatur, spatio tamen qualis ea fuerit intellegi potest. This aeternitas needs to be deemed as a spatium because the pre-cosmic time is not unidirectional. Instead, Plutarch (VIII PQ, 1007c) describes the pre-cosmic movement as “a kind of amorphous and indefinite matter ιε of time”. Thus, time-before-time turns out to be a potential reality in so far as it is numerically disordered.