ON INTERPRETATION.

for signifying energeias activities enteleis perfect/complete, as we say about God: hoti aei noei heauton that He always thinks of Himself. Likewise, it is also said about perfect action eu zē he lives well, although that is also true: eu ezhēke he has lived well. But it is not so with badizei he walks, if indeed bebadike he has walked. Therefore, the present time, by which we signify and declare eternal energeias and entelestatas most complete/perfect, is deservedly straight. We say that the past and future have fallen from that straight state: for the past does not persist, except with the present, as when we say about God: ho ōn kai ho ēn He who is and who was, and about perfect energies, eu ezhēke kai eu zē he has lived well and he lives well: ēudaimonēke kai eudaimonei he has been happy and he is happy. Therefore, by reason of the present, the other times are understood.

But verbs uttered by themselves are like nouns: for as with nouns, so also with verbs uttered by themselves, an act is signified, in the understanding of which the mind might acquiesce. But verbs uttered by themselves differ from nouns in that they signify their act with time, as has been said.

By verbs also understood simply, it is not signified whether things exist or not, and therefore they signify the true or the false. But indeed ("is" and "is not") signify only synthesin composition or the composition of simple noēmatōn thoughts/mental concepts synkeimenōn put together, namely of the predicate and the subject, they are not of the number of those signifying something by themselves (which are called keimena things laid down/subjects by Aristotle) nor are they counted among the parts of a statement: because what signifies nothing by itself cannot be a part of a statement. But that "is," as a copula, signifies nothing by itself other than synthesin.