It is not the case, as is falsely translated, i.e., falsely understood, that the things pay retribution to one another (no individual being has to exact compliance from another). Instead, if there is indeed to be payment, then the compliance is attested with reference to the superior power of the ἄπειρον—yet such that this giving way to one another acquiesces to the correspondence in which beings stand to one another according to their respective kind.
With this, the first pronouncement has once again been carefully discussed in its context, up to the last topic—the τάξις τοῦ χρόνου. The first task is now silence, but not without keeping in sight the inescapable, namely, the fact that what empowers beings in their Being is connected to the essential occurrence and power of time and thus precisely not to the eternity which is usually brought together with infinity. For ἄπειρον does not mean infinity, at least provided we do not let slip into this work some sort of later, Christian notion.
We have now brought the two pronouncements into their intrinsic unity. They throw light on each other. The second elucidates noncompliance and compliance; the first provides insight into the ἀρχή-character of the ἄπειρον. Both in their unity testify that the concern here is to say what beings as beings are. Being is no longer merely “appearance.” The essence of Being is τὸ ἄπειρον as the empowering power of appearance and of disappearance, i.e., as the ordaining of the noncompliance which recedes into compliance. |
c) τὸ ἄπειρον, or, the difference between Being and beings
The two pronouncements have now been brought into their intrinsic unity. They throw light on each other. From the second, briefer one, we first understand the core of the first, namely, the meaning of noncompliance and compliance. And we now see how indeed the word γάρ does usher in a grounding of the fact that Being is not merely in general appearance and disappearance, but that the whence and whither must be the same.
Conversely, from the first-discussed statement we now understand in what sense the ἄπειρον is ἀρχὴ τῶν ὄντων, namely with respect to the way they are, i.e., with respect to their Being, and thereby at the same time we understand how the ἄπειρον holds sway as this sovereign source: disposing of the noncompliance and ordaining the compliance.
From the intrinsic unity of the two pronouncements, we first see what is said here about the Being of beings. We must now no longer be content with the introductory characterization according to which Being is appearance. That is not wrong but is insufficient; the essence of Being is to be understood on the basis of the ἄπειρον. Being is the