Published in The Time and the Eternity in the Ancient and Medieval World

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Augustine's reflection on time, from the level of individual salvation and the transcendence of the heavenly city located from the beginning on Earth, able to characterize or shape of medieval culture, but it is also clear that the expectations generated apocalyptic positions – better known as millenarian sects – and the Gnostics did not fail to weigh heavily in the collective imagination that went through the end of the Roman Empire and the so-called Middle Ages. So the contrast between conceived notions about the future in these three directions, it allows you to understand the full extent the meaning and significance of the choice of linear and finite time, hidden under mythical notions as Revelation, Last Judgment, Kingdom of God, eternal salvation, is at the bottom of the beliefs that have been – and somehow still blowing – life to Western culture.