; He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent.’ Then let him spit to his left three times.”

He may also be told: The time within which we have observed things coming into being is the measure of the motion of the sun and moon, or something similar. We have witnessed no time other than the measure of motion, or something close to that, given the varied expressions people use to explain time.

If time is an accident dependent on motion and on that which moves—assuming it exists outside the mind—then it is clear that we have witnessed the coming into being of the cause that necessitates time and is intrinsically prior to it, namely, motions. Motion and time are closely connected in existence, while motion is intrinsically prior to time. If each accompanies the other inseparably, then the claim that motion—which is coming into being and transition—depends on time is no more warranted than the claim that time depends on motion and coming into being. Indeed, the latter is more plausible, because the dependence of an effect on its cause, of a conditioned thing on its condition, and of a result on what brings it about is more evident than the former dependence.

To clarify this, “time” may mean night and day, just as “place” may mean the heavens and the earth. This is what various groups mean, including