From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Aug 30 1995 - 15:31:56 EDT
At 1:40 PM 8/30/95, John Albu wrote:
>Concerning the meaning of parousia, Israel P. Warren, D.D., wrote in his
>work The Parousia, Portland, Maine (1879), pp. 12-15:
>
> "We often speak of the 'second advent,' the 'second coming,'
>etc., but the Scriptures never speak of a 'second Parousia.' Whatever was
>to be its nature, it was something peculiar, having never occurred
>before, and being never to occur again. It was to be a presence differing
>from and superior to all other manifestations of himself to men, so that
>its designation should properly stand by itself, without any qualifying
>epithet other than the article,--THE PRESENCE.
>
> "From this view of the word it is evident, I think, that neither
>the English word 'coming' nor the Latin 'advent' is the best
>representative of the original. They do not conform to its etymology;
>they do not correspond to the idea of the verb from which it is derived;
...
I won't cite more than that, but I do have to protest here that, in point
of fact, the Latin ADVENTUS really does express the meaning of the Greek
PAROUSIA. It DOES conform BOTH to the _etymology_ AND the _idea_ of the
Greek verb PAREINAI in its most common (albeit not sole) Hellenistic sense:
"arrive," "arrival." And this is quite consistent, I believe, with the
material that Edgar Krentz has cited.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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