Cyclical Time

I believe it was Arnaldo Momigliano who pointed out that the idea of linear time entered European thought with the judeo-christian influences in late Antiquity. Linear time proceeds from Creation to Salvation to Final Judgment and the end of times, and all of this is pre-ordained ab initio.

But what is interesting to me here is the smaller scale of daily experience. In daily experience, time was essentially cyclical for all pre-modern societies:

The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to his place where he arose.
 

... To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.

(Ecclesiastes, 1:5 and 3:1-2)

Anonimous - The Flammarion Engraving