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Translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page.
Plotinus Resources OnLine and in Print
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» Contents of this Ennead
128 pages - You are on Page 125
8. Movement Time cannot be — whether a definite act of moving is meant or a united total made up of all such acts — since movement, in either sense, takes place in Time. And, of course, if there is any movement not in Time, the identification with Time becomes all the less tenable.
In a word, Movement must be distinct from the medium in which it takes place.
And, with all that has been said or is still said, one consideration is decisive: Movement can come to rest, can be intermittent; Time is continuous.
We will be told that the Movement of the All is continuous [and so may be identical with Time].
But, if the reference is to the Circuit of the heavenly system [it is not strictly continuous, or equable, since] the time taken in the return path is not that of the outgoing movement; the one is twice as long as the other: this Movement of the All proceeds, therefore, by two different degrees; the rate of the entire journey is not that of the first half.
Further, the fact that we hear of the Movement of the outermost sphere being the swiftest confirms our theory. Obviously, it is the swiftest of movements by taking the lesser time to traverse the greater space the very greatest — all other moving things are slower by taking a longer time to traverse a mere segment of the same extension: in other words, Time is not this movement.
Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/plotinus/enneads-3.asp?pg=125
