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rather, it is the time-forming in the sense of the apportioning of time for all that is in time. We have previously thought this apportioning of time in the driving lightningbolt and in the fire of Ἥλιος. We may not determine the time of fire, which forms the times for τὰ πάντα, in a captious reference from concepts of being-in-time back to the most original time. The easy version runs: Fire was always and is and will be. Comprehended thus, fire is something standing, extant and merely lying there, which subsists through the course of time. This remaining is characterized by the temporal dimensions of having-been, being-now and coming-to-be. But then one already has time, and one brings temporal concepts to bear on the time-forming fire. The more difficult version, on the contrary, runs: That the ἦν, ἔστι, and ἔσται first arise from the time-allowing of fire.
HEIDEGGER: Fire is, thereby, not only as glow, but as light and warmth ...
FINK: ... and is, therefore, to be understood as the nourishing.
HEIDEGGER: Above all, the moment of shining is important to πῦρ ἀείζωον.
FINK: The fire is that which brings-forth-to-appearance.
HEIDEGGER: If we understand fire only as a flash in the pan, it would yield no shining.
FINK: From out of shining we must think back to κόσμος. It is what shines up in the shine of fire. First we must ask ourselves how, by way of the innertemporal characteristic of πῦρ ἀείζωον, can πῦρ ἀείζωον be referred to as that which first of all releases past, present, and future from out of itself?
HEIDEGGER: You speak of releasing. How is this usage to be understood more closely? Nature is also released with Hegel. {GA 15: 101} How does πῦρ ἀείζωον release past, present, and future? For me the question is whether that which subsequently comes in any way supports your interpretation, or whether that which comes makes your interpretation possible.
FINK: What troubles me is the taut relationship between ἀείζωον and ἦν, ἔστι, and ἔσται. The ἀεί of πῦρ and the three time determinations don't appear to me to go together so easily. What has been, is, and comes to be do not refer to fire. Rather, we must understand the springing up of having-been, being-now, and coming-to-be for τὰ πάντα from out of fire.
HEIDEGGER: I would like to have a clue for this step of your interpretation. So long as I do not see this clue, one could say that the step from πᾶν ἑρπετόν to πάντα ὡς ἑρπετά and from the night, which surrounds the stars and moon, to a more original night, which confines the domain of the sun, is indeed to be carried through. It is to be carried through because a clue is given, however, that the step from πῦρ ἀείζωον