I'm not quite confident about this, but having read over the BDF article
you've referenced, it appears to me that "they" are saying (implying,
perhaps) that AIWN PONHROS may very well be a common expression, and
indeed, it does seem to be conceptually identical to hAUTH hH GENEA PONHRA
which appears several times in the Synoptic gospels, such that the two
words constitute a single notion. Now IF that's what's meant, they MAY be
saying that EK TOU ENESTWTOS AIWNOS PONHROU is a collocation more natural
because the two words are retained in juxtaposed position (as, for instance
Latin RES PUBLICA is quite regularly written as a single word RESPUBLICA,
and it's hard to conceive of sticking another adjective or demonstrative
between the two, e.g. RES HAEC PUBLICA or RES NOSTRA PUBLICA, although one
might well write HAEC RES PUBLICA or RES PUBLICA NOSTRA). IF that is the
reasoning, then, EK TOU AIWNOS TOU ENESTWTOS PONHROU sticks TOU ENESTWTOS
between AIWNOS PONHROU which are felt to require immediate juxtaposition,
and so is "harsher" than EK TOU ENESTWTOS AIWNOS PONHROU.
That's an elaborate piece of guesswork, and as I said before, I'm not
altogether sure that this is the right answer.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/