Romans – God’s Timeline VII: The Lexicography of ‘Aion’

Welcome, gents, to the lexicography of aion! In this article, we will be taking a look at various definitions of the word in some of the most popular and famous dictionaries to date.

First, as with etymology, I take these definitions with a grain of salt. Actually, no – I take these definitions with even less authority than etymology. And, especially because this word is so overwhelmingly disputed, I hesitate to contaminate the jury prior to considering its usage. Unfortunately, in reality, the jury is already contaminated, so it may be better to, at the very least, note man’s faulty definitions and opinions on the matter and allowing the actual use of the word in the scriptures to speak for itself.

The Oldest Surviving (Complete) Greek Lexicon

It is, admittedly, very difficult for me to consider how this study should end, considering the vast expansion of the human population over the past two centuries (and in turn, the vast expansion of faulty opinion.) But it is not difficult to discern where to begin, and this is with my man Hesychius. Now, look, he’s not the oldest (that would go to Philetas, in 300~ B.C.,) but most of the Greek lexicons before this are incomplete, and the lexicographers’ works all but lost.

In contrast, Hesychius comes to the rescue with a massive and substantial ancient Greek lexicon, Glossary of Explanations (Lexeis Exegematikai.) He defined aion as “The life of man, the time of life.” This early definition had not yet been tainted by the modern day theologian, so while this definition cannot be taken as “scriptural,” it is notable that “endless duration” is not found in its meaning. Even in the updated revision by Kurt Latte, this definition remains the same.

Nerds Already Know This, But…

Early church father Theodoret, in his work In Migne, writes in Volume 4, page 400, that “Aion is not any existing thing, but an interval denoting time, sometimes infinite when spoken of God, sometimes proportioned to the duration of the creation, and sometimes to the life of man.”

John of Damascus (750 A.D.), another early church father who was… rather obsessed with icons, I guess, defined aion as “The life of every man.” He simultaneously defined it as “The whole duration or life of this world,” and, in regards to the aion to come, calls aion “the life after the resurrection.”

We now have three older definitions, prior to 1000 A.D., which clarify that the word aion was not, for a long time, implied or denoted as “endlessness,” or “eternal.”

…So what went wrong?

I Dunno, Really

Something goes awry in the middle, there. Around 540 A.D., we get a notable, er, asterisk, I guess, by one Phavorinus of Constantinople, who also compiled a Greek lexicon including the word aion. He, too, defined aion as “time, also life,” and added “also habit, also way of life.” But he also says, “Aion is also the ‘eternal’ and ‘endless’ as it seems to the theologian.”

Um, excuse me, hi, what?

Okay, so the theologian came along and said, “This word means endless or eternal.” On whose authority did the theologian make such a claim? Who knows? But they did, and it evidently became popular enough for Phavorinus to notice it. His phrasing makes it abundantly clear that the theologian is the relative source of this change, and as such, like every other definition we have considered so far, it must be taken with a grain of salt. We are not democrats – the word is not defined by majority rule. We are not theologians – the word is not defined by personal assumption. We are students, and this should be our mentality when we begin to cover each use of the word in the scriptures.

There are, anyway, many expositors who dislike the idea that aion would be translated or defined as “eternal,” and for good reason (it is unproven, for one.) You may have heard of Rev. Ezra S. Goodwin, whose work on this subject is detailed and careful. He wrote, in The Christian Examiner, “Here I strongly suspect is the true secret brought to light of the origin of the sense of eternity in aion. The theologian first thought he perceived it, or else he placed it there. The theologian keeps it there, now. And the theologian will probably retain it there longer than any one else. Hence it is that those lexicographers who assign eternity as one of the meanings of aion uniformly appeal for proofs to either theological, Hebrew, or Rabbinical Greek, or some species of Greek subsequent to the age of the Seventy, if not subsequent to the age of the Apostles, so far as I can ascertain.”

Or, in other words, they will not appeal to the scriptures for the uniform use of the word aion. While they could technically subvert aion into “eternal” or “everlasting” in some scriptural contexts, it is well nigh impossible to transfer this meaning into every context, as we will see. One is forced to take an external source in theology apart from observing the usage of the word (and its relation to others) in Holy Writ to obtain its meaning.

The second definition from Phavorinus is found in the Etymologicon Magnum, a giant compendium of Greek words defined in the 12^th century. This helps us ascertain the definition of the word between the fifth and sixteenth centuries.

Yes, read that again – do you see the problem? How, pray tell, does the general definition of the word go from “the duration of life” or “a limited duration” to “eternal/endless” and then back to “duration of life??” How does this do anything except perjure the theologian’s intellectual integrity??

Chaos Ensues

Well, from here all hell breaks loose. We suddenly have two opposing camps, from the thus-discussed lexicons to the theologian’s definition of the word. From the sixteenth century onward, we are relegated to a plethora of definitions of the word, from the briefest of durations to endlessness to a lack of duration at all. We will now point at a long list of varying definitions, most of them contradictory in nature. This list is rather long, and if you’d like to skip over it, I couldn’t blame you. This is simply to show the inadequacy of relying on human scholarship to consider the definition. Observe:

-       Benjamin Hederich (Greek Classical Lexicon, 1722) – “An age, eternity, an age as if always being; time of man’s life, in the memory of men, (wicked men, NT) the spinal marrow. Aionios, eternal, everlasting, continual.”

-       Archibald Maclaine (An Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern, from the Birth of Christ to the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century, 1765) – “Aion or aeon among the ancients, was used to signify the age of man, or the duration of human life.”

-       Johann Schleusner (Lexicon of the New Testament, 1792-97) – “Any space of time whether longer or shorter, past, present or future, to be determined by the persons or things spoken of, and the scope of the subjects; the life or age of man. Aionios, a definite and long period of time, that is, a long enduring, but still definite period of time.”

-       Greville Ewing (A Greek Grammar, and Greek and English Lexicon, 1812) – “Duration, finite or infinite; a period of duration, past or future; an age; duration of the world; ages of the world; human life in this world, or the next; our manner of life in the world; an age of divine dispensation, the ages, generally reckoned three, that before law, that under the law, and that under the Messiah. Aionios, (from preceding,) ages of the world, periods of the dispensations since the world began.”

-       Franz Passow (Concise Dictionary of the Greek Language, 1819) – “Aionios, long, continued, eternal, everlasting, in the classics.”

-       Thomas Hincks (Greek and English Scripture Lexicon, 1831) – “A period of time, an after-time, eternity. Aionios, lasting, eternal, of old, since the beginning.”

-       John Pickering (A Greek and English Lexicon… 1846) – “An age, a long period of time; indefinite duration, time, whether longer or shorter, past, present or future; also, in the New Testament, the wicked men of the age, life, the life of man. Aionios, of long duration, lasting, sometimes everlasting, sometimes lasting through life.”

-       John Groves (A Greek and English Dictionary: Comprising All the Words in the Writings of the Most Popular Greek Authors… 1855) – “Eternity; an age, life, duration, continuance of time; a revolution of ages, a dispensation of Providence, this world or life; the world or life to come. Aionios, eternal, immortal, perpetual, former, past, ancient.”

-       Donnegan (A New Greek and English Lexicon… 1830-1860) – “Time; space of time; life time and life; the ordinary period of man’s life; the age of man; man’s estate; a long period of time; eternity; the spinal marrow. Aionios, of long duration, lasting, eternal, permanent.”

-       Edward Beecher, of aforementioned Christian Union fame – “[Aion] commonly means merely continuity of action . . . all attempts to set forth eternity as the original and primary sense of aion are at war with the facts of the Greek language for five centuries, in which it denoted life and its derivative senses, and the sense eternity was unknown.”

-       E.W. Bullinger (The Companion Bible, 1909) – “an age, or age-time, the duration of which is indefinite, and may be limited or extended as the contest of each occurrence may demand. The root meaning of aion is expressed by the Heb. olam (see App. 151 I. A and II. A) which denotes indefinite unknown or concealed duration; just as we speak of the ‘patriarchal age,’ or ‘the golden age,’ etc.”

There are many, many more definitions from various expositors, lexicons, and studies which we could engage with, but a brief overview of these definitions should suffice to show that the scholarship over the last 1,500 years has been full of controversy, thanks in part to the theologians’ opinion of aion. In summary, the word has come to mean life, the length of life, an indefinite length of time, a definite length of time, and anywhere in between. The KJV even translates the word as world on occasion, which discards the “time” aspect altogether and deals instead with a construct.

Which One is Correct?

The only definition which will still have merit by the end of this whole shindig, as we will discover by simply considering its use in the Old and New Testaments, is the portion of Johann Schleusner’s definition underlined above, that aion means “any space of time whether longer or shorter, past, present or future, to be determined by the persons or things spoken of, and the scope of the subjects.”

A simple comparison would be the word “great.” The adjective “great” can be applied to most anything. A “great” mountain, however, is not a “great” tree. What is “great” in one case may not be “great” in the other. A “great” truth is more abstract. A “great” book is more qualitative. And so on. The same is true for the word aion, which, when in an adjectival form, is applied to fire (Matt. 18:8,) life (John 3:16,) an evangel (Rev. 14:6,) different “times” (Rom. 16:25,) and even God Himself (Rom. 16:26.) The qualitative duration of these objects differs, and thus the scope of the word aion is flexible. The only Object here in view which would be “eternal” is God, but the text cited (Rom. 16:26) does not claim this. It does not impart “aionion” anything toward God, but derives anything concerning an “eon” from Him (Rom. 11:36, 2 Cor. 5:18.) This would mean that God lasts through the entirety of every eon, which implies His eternal quality, but does not directly state it here, or elsewhere in the text. It is understood relationally as He is not bound to any aion.

So, We Can’t Be Absolutely Certain of its Definition from Historic Dictionaries. But What Can We Learn?

When we look at these definitions comparatively, it is a more modern conception that the word aion and its adjectival form are “eternal” or “boundless.” Yet Paul tells us not to conform to the fashion of the world, which is passing by (1 Cor. 7:31,) not to be blown about by every wind of teaching, by human sleight (Eph. 4:14,) and especially that we should not be despoiled through philosophy and empty seduction, in accord with human tradition and the elements of this world, as opposed to Christ, the living Word of God (Col. 2:8-9.)

I’ll pause here, and we’ll (finally) get into the usage of this word aion in the next articles. But before we do, let’s stop and ask, for a moment: if there is a strong disagreement concerning this word, and a significant amount of evidence pointing to a time sensitive term, instead of an anti-time concept, within aion and its derivative, then how can we “confidently” found a belief in eternal torment as some critical belief we must accept from the scriptures?? It seems a belief, even at this point, from the etymology and lexicography and prior to any consideration of its usage, founded entirely on emotional reasoning. We feel as though we have the grounds to condemn people to such a horrific idea, while simultaneously creating a fictional worldview which the likes of Hitler would accept. Nay, arguably that Satan would accept, as he is the one who would wish to keep as many creatures apart from God as possible! If this were a numbers game, Satan would undoubtedly have emerged victorious by now, what with his plethora of religions and divisions and mistranslations against the word of God!

Thankfully, this is not a numbers game, but a story which would signify that, no matter how dark things get, light is supreme, and can draw even the blackest of hearts into purity (Rom. 5:18-19.) We have seen that the etymology of the word could easily denote a limited continuity. We have seen that the lexicography of the word could easily denote a limited continuity. We will, in the next few articles, finally consider each and every use of the word in the New Testament, and interlace some considerations of the word from the Old Testament as well.

- GerudoKing