Exaiphnēs

The timeless instant

In Plato’s Parmenides the exaiphnēs, “the sudden,” is the strange instant outside time at which a thing passes between rest and motion. The Neoplatonists seized on it for the moment of mystical union: the vision of the One comes not by degrees but all at once, a sudden light that Plotinus says breaks upon the soul when it least expects it.