The Aorist tense is a problem to translate. There is no English equivalent. It is not a time tense. It is not a past, present or future tense. It is usually translated by the Simple Past, but this can be misleading. The emphasis is on the happening, not on when it happens.

The aorist tense is characterized by its emphasis on punctiliar action; that is, the concept of the verb is considered without regard for past, present, or future time. There is no direct or clear English equivalent for this tense, though it is generally rendered as a simple past tense in most translations." [On Line Bible}

Interestingly, Koine Greek (the Greek of the New Testment) has no Simple Present, only Continuous Present. As far as they were concerned, as soon as an action happened it was already in the past.

Curiously, the Aorist tense is very much like the English simple present when used excitedly by an eyewitness of an incident. Note the emphasised words in the this example: "The bus is early and this man runs to catch it and just manages to grab the handrail and get on the bus as it moves away. To the eyewitness, that it happened in the past is not important. It is what happened that is important. Also notice that each emphasised verb is punctiliar.

The apostle John, on the isle of Patmos, in a vision, as though observing a religious drama as presented in the theatres in Ephesus, sees everything happening before his eyes. Unless specifically stated it is not whether the time of the event but the nature of the event of the event that is important.