and First is like calling Him Most High and Manifest. His being Time, in the sense of His precedence, is like His being a locus for attributes, meaning that He possesses them. Thus, through His beginninglessness and self-subsistence, He—glorified be He—is independent of everything else, whether time, place, or anything besides them.

To say that an existing thing either precedes another or is brought into existence after it is like saying that an existing thing is either above another and separate from it, or within it, occupying the same locus and subsisting in it. Whatever precedes another is independent of it, just as what subsists in itself is independent of what subsists in another. Whatever is brought into existence after nonexistence necessarily entails a time, or a posited place, after which it comes to be. Whatever subsists in another necessarily entails a place—a locus in which it exists. What is absolutely beginningless is independent of time, and what subsists in itself is independent of place. Whatever is brought into existence after another accompanies time, which depends on the concurrence of one originated thing with another; whatever subsists in another depends on a place and a locus.

He—glorified be He—is the First, with nothing before Him; indeed, He is before all times and everything within them. He is the Manifest, with nothing above Him; indeed, He is above all places and everything within them.

Whoever says that He is within created places is like someone who says that His essence is not before times. On that view, His essence is neither separate from those places nor above them. This is like saying that He is alongside created times, concurrent with them: His essence is not before them and has no precedence. The former denies that He is the Manifest, above them; the latter denies that He is the First, before them.