  Philip also considers the relationship between time and eternity. He is concerned with Plato’s position, which he quotes, that “time is a part of eternity.” This is a claim that Philip wishes to deny. Although time and eternity are found in the same genus, they differ in character, as I noted above. Philip appeals to Boethius’s definition of eternity from The Consolation of Philosophy: “Eternity is the possession of unending life, wholly present and perfected.” Philip argues that the notion of “wholly present” removes the idea of succession from the concept of eternity while the notion of “wholly perfected” removes the idea of division into parts from the concept of eternity. Succession and division into parts are of course part of the notion of time. Thus, it is incompatible with the nature of eternity that time be a part of it. Rather, Philip views them as two separate durations, each differing in character. No doubt Philip’s positions on time and eternity and his interpretation of Aristotle raise a number of pressing questions and objections, but as Dales notes, his distinctions greatly influenced thinkers later in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (Dales 1990).