From: Warren Fulton (warren@inlingua.at)
Date: Sun Jan 21 2001 - 20:22:59 EST
Steve Puluka wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
>
> > One factor that might play a role in the phrase EIS AIWNAS AIWNWN is the
> > conception of cyclical time that dominated most ancient thinking about
> > time, at least in the Mediterranean.
> >>>> Snip<<<<<
> > more from the primal water and the cycle begins anew. If one thinks of
> > "forever" as the infinite continuation of the cyclical time periods, the
> > phrase EIS AIWNAS AIWNWN is perfectly intelligible--and it could, as a
> > phrase, influence "Jewish" thinking as an expression even if the user of
> > the expression did not really conceptually share that notion of cyclical
> > time.
>
> This is very interesting. Could you suggest and reading material on this
> concept. [snip] I had always assumed we inherited this cyclical thought
> from our Jewish forebears.
John of Damascus devotes the first section of his second book on the
Orthodox Faith to the concept of the age(s). Many of his ideas here
are derived from Gregory of Nazianzus and others writing during the
time the liturgies were being formed. After citing the 89th psalm APO
TOU AIWNOS EWS TOU AIWNOS SU EI, he goes through the the various uses
of the term AIWN as he understands it:
1. H hEKASTOU TWN ANQRWPWN ZWH
2. hO TWN CILIWN ETWN CRONOS
3. hOLOS hO PARWN BIOS
4. hO MELLWN hO META THN ANASTASIN hO ATELEUTHTOS
5. TO SUMPAREKTEINOMENON TOIS AIDIOIS
The last item, from what I gather, is sort of a unit of eternity. In
the same way time clocks the temporary, hO AIWN measures TA AIDIA.
He goes on to explain the term AIWNES AIWNWN. As there are hEPTA
AIWNES TOU KOSMOU TOUTOU APO THS OURANOU KAI GHS KTISEWS MECRI THS
KOINHS TWN ANQROPWN SUNTELEIAS KAI ANASTASEWS, and as each of these
seven cosmic ages span the fleeting ages of men (shades of
Shakespeare), we thus have ages within ages or "ages of ages."
That's your mystical Greek perspective on a term which by now had
taken on a life of its own as a dramatic finale to the liturgical
formula:
--NUN
--KAI AEI
--KAI EIS TOUS AIWNAS TWN AIWNWN
In its dignified tripartite rhythm, this doxology nicely balances
various trinitarian formulas which often precede it.
Warren Fulton
Inlingua School of Languages
Vienna, Austria
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