Day: September 21, 2024

Eternal, Perpetuity Classical Greek usage of Aionios and Aidios

*To know what something is – is to know what it is not*

-k.j.-

PREFACE

The Greek word for “time segment”, or, Aionios was contrasted with Adios – meaning “infinity”. These two terms were used throughout Homeric times down to the 1st century A.D. Christian Church. As we introduce the term “Adion” for infinity in this lecture piece we will see what Aeon is not.

I will be clear: Aeon, meaning “a segment of time”, “an era”, “an eon”, “an age” and “a limited/unknown ‘finite time”, was employed by the Biblical writer, John, in his Revelation – or, “Apocalypse”, for the usage of Hell within its “aeon of purpose”. Moreover, the “ontology” or “coming to be” of ‘an age’ of ‘being a sinful human’ requires AN aeon or “era” of hell to refine them to God; this intimates ‘direction’, therefore, INTENT of a GOD to create a passageway by which we will be refined, ready, and reserved for the final destination, i.e., UNION with GOD.

We, therefore look at our part 4 focusing on the ‘’vocabulary bank’’ by which the New Testament used its terms for Eternity, Perpetuity, Eons, Ages, and infinitude.

Parts 1-3 covered Aeon in all of its forms. We conclude that “Aeon” was used as an *finite undefined time segment*.

Our next focus is Adios (Adion). Since we have seen by its usage that Aeon is not an ‘unending’ term we therefore look to Adios.

We continue to go to the archaic authors of the Greek and Hellenized world to see that ‘Aidios’ was socially normalized in its usage. Again, words are used in their participation of the figuration of a culture. I reiterate from my past 3 lectures that the beginning New Testament community (ca 30 A.D.) had its rich linguistic heritage spanning at least 800 years, if not more, from the Classical Greek authors.

Examples of TIME: ETERNITY Adios and Chronos working together

Time (1)
One of the earliest cultural usages and accounts of Adios is found in Homer’s “Hymn to Hestia” (ca. 800 B.C.). Here, the ‘goddess resides on a throne’ with mortals. This, by context alone, should give us ample information to see that there is a kind of “time” that can ‘participate’ in this “throne realm” but is separate from….for …if mortality exists there, then ‘mortality’ requires sequential time or “chronos”—which is separate and distinguished from Aidion as we shall see.

Chronos is neither subsumed or supervened by Adios at this aforementioned juncture, rather, they (Chronos and Adios) share their ‘attributes’ at certain juncture points for a fuller gestalt of meaning. That is, time and eternity (chronos and Aidios) are ‘conjunctive’ as ‘time’ meets the eternal…or, relating to mortals → **the epiphanal**.

We see Hestia, the Goddess of the *Hearth/ Throne* sitting at her ‘permanent seat’….”edren aidion elaxes”. Such as ‘seat/ throne’ is the hearth at the fireplace. It is where the family convened to talk, eat, share, cook, stay warm, associate with HOME. Hestia, was considered LOVE, THE BELOVED…and, in this Maiden Housekeeper sense, she was Divinely Eternal Without End. Hestia was called, “She of the Public Hearth”. So, there is a sharing of the “time” of mortality and this AIDION throne. This is no more contradictory than when the Eternal God of the Bible talks with the Patriarchs, Matriarchs and Prophets. How About the answerable Platonic idea of “coming to be” to the FULLNESS of the UNIVERSAL found in the very NATURE of JESUS CHRIST ‘coming to HIS FULLNESS?!? I.e., When the UNIVERSAL meets the Particulars. The “participation” by which the gods, Gods act involves such a confluence of different “times”.

Time (2)
We find Aidios inscribed in Hesiod’s “Shield of Hercules” saying, “‘aidion eixon ponon”. This means that no one side can win in this athletic competition. It states the ‘stasis’ by which movability cannot be achieved, therefore, ‘without end’ —–in the duration of the game. But here’s the catch: it is in the ‘picture’ of stasis without resolution. This depiction fires on the mind a never ending battle for glory without resolve….a state of being…a longsuffering of worldly effort…the battle of the EPOS (‘epic ones’) or “eroes” (“heros”).

Time (3)
Anaximander’s ( A.NAX’.uh.MAN.der) Greek says, “Tayn Aidion Kinaysin” —i.e., “The Aidion is perpetual movement”, —-therefore, Aidion shows no retirement of motion, hence, no *aging*.

Time (4)
Anaximenes (A.NAXIMENEEZ) says,”Kinaysin de kai hootos aidion poiei” as to agree with Anaximander.

Time (5)
Anaximander went on to say, “There is a certain NATURE of the infinite” – “phusin tina tou apeirou” – “and that this NATURE is ETERNAL and UNAGING” – “Aidion ein kai a.gayro {“a” = “not” + gayro’ – aging/ i.e., ‘geriatric’}”.

Time (6)
Xenophanes (XSE.NAH’.fa.neez) attests Adios as “indestructable”, immortal, and ungenerated (i.e., uncreated). Xenophanes uses Adios in contrast to anything that is “coming to be” —or “generated”. To conclude Xenophanes: anything that segways to the next event is not Adios.

Time (7)
Diogenes (DIE-AH.jeh.neez) Laertius (Lay.er.ti.uhs) simply agreed with Xenophanes here.

Time (8)
Anaxagoras agreed with Aristotle that “Adios” is ‘without end’

Time (9)
Heraclitus says, “Adios is perpetual motion of things without end”. These “Things” therfore do not share in the attributes of Aeones.

Time (10)
Empedocles says, “There is a “THING OF NECESSITY”, an ancient DECREE of *gods ETERNAL*—- i.e., “Anankayce Krayma Theon Psaypheesma Palaion Aidion”. Conclusively brilliant, Empedocles continues to his conclusion that Aidion is “spherical, eternal, and immobile” – i.e., “Sphairo-eides Kai Aidion Kai Akin-ay-ton To Hen”.

Time (11)
Parmenides used the term Aidion to mean “ALL” in the sense of “ALL that will always be…ALL that is ungenerated and imperishable”.

Time (12)
Simplicius says, “nothing that has a beginning and end is Aidion”

*Time (13)
For me, maybe the most important statement was from Metrodorus of Chios who stated, “The ALL (TO’ PAN) is Eternal (AIDION), Because, If It Came Into Being At A Certain Moment, It Would Come To Be From Non-Being; And It Is Unlimited (Apeiron) Inasmuch As It Is Eternal: For It Does Not Have A Principle (Archay) From Which It Began, Nor A Limit (PERAS) Or An End (TELEUTAY)”.

For today I will end our section on the usage of Aidion in Greek Antiquity.

Thank you, Kyle Jones

 

Post Statement and Recap

Our job at fomcm.com is to search for historically overlooked material that substantiates the Bible to the regard that it should be given.

Often, the Westerm “orthodox approach” ‘limits’ the purview of the authentic linguistic content, a.k.a., “Message” of God’s Word by *Westernisms* or recognizable ideas that fit into ‘our sense’ of our Orthodox god. Sadly, the robbery is by and to the ‘church’ by which its failures are founded upon limitations of Eastern Understanding of the Biblical Text. One limitation after the next, always trying to ‘keep up’ with the ever reducing idea of the ‘so called biblical text’ which is currently founded upon man-made notions of God.

Fear is the engine by which ‘an orthodoxy’ fights not repent. Scientists have to secularly ‘repent’ when they find something that counters and finally disproves an older thesis–which becomes no-more-scientific…but simply, WRONG….. . Likewise, Theology SHOULD contain the same humility within their “orthodoxies” —as I speak ‘tongue and cheek’. And again, once there has been grounds for challenging the English Text of King James…one should be allowed to find answers to countertheses via an orthodox ‘council’ without agenda. It is here that I make mention of “rhetors” from the Paideia of the class Trivium.

I speak of “rhetors” in the classical sense by which the first grade of learning Greek and Latin language began the Trivium’s rite of passage to academic bliss. Then, from Language to logic. Finally, argumention (or rhetors) was taught by the very wise secular Greek and Hellenized Christian mothers of the first and second centuries.

These 3 phases (language, logic and rhetors) of the Trivium ( by which the educated Greek class lived) led facets of Greek culture to be strung together with respect and congruity of thought……and not as brute beast ‘authoritarians’ who ‘brawl’ over ideas for dominance and not truth. I need not discuss the brutal nature of this approach in today’s world.

In contrast to this last mentioned civil unrest…. the Paidea of the Greek’s Trivium created learned scholiasts of the Biblical Text to find their ‘senses’ in historical comparitive hermeneutics, Biblical Greek analysis and parsing of the stems of Greek Grammar, socially-contextualizing and examining the socio-linguistic understanding by which the geographical ‘neighbors’ of the Palestinian Jews and Christians understood their God. THIS IS of the Hebrews and New Testament Christ, and, finally, exegete the Biblical Textus Receptus or “Received Authoritative Greek and Hebrew Bible”—as well as the LXX or Septuagent, i.e., the Greek Old Testament by which we have transferable Greek terms with Hebrew.

Finally, fomcm.com gathers writers of Greek pagan antiquity to show that the ‘vocabulary bank’ of the New Testament was not out of a ‘vaccum’. Rather, the Greek New Testament used the Greek language that the ENTIRE Greek world had been baptized in, saturated, steeped in since the inception of Greek culture. This is nothing to overlook, and yet, the Western American Orthodox Church has somehow or another concluded to not deem it important to know what the New Testament REALLY WAS SAYING IN THEIR DAY, THEIR CULTURAL CONTEXT, THEIR SEMIOTIC AGREEMENT, THEIR SLANG, THEIR WAY OF SAYING THINGS, IDIOMS,

DIALECTS, etc…. I hear from western ‘authorities’ of the ‘orthodox churches’ saying that “devotion is over theology”. You can’t ‘devote’ to something ill-defined. Why fear exegeting while ‘working on your *devotion*?’. *What IF, ….the “MATHETIKON” (in the Greek) meant “TOTAL DEVOTEE” to the LOGOS or Christ as He spoke on Earth?!!—Well, it does! Lastly, I say….”if you *know* the God you serve then you will serve HIM correctly; otherwise, there will be a false sense by which you relate to the WORDS that HE has spoken and YOU have so neglectfully handled in your isoglossed cultural *SENSE* of “”devotion””.

RECAP

Remember, “Indefinite time” does not have to mean “infinity”, though it could. The WAY in which Aeon and Aidion were used as ‘indefinite times’ were poetically and philosophically expressed a complimentary union of ideas.

Such poetical employment of words could be used to create the seemingly “irrational” mental state of either the poet or the characters by which participate. Therefore, subsuming the ‘rational’ for a beautiful alien ‘irrationality’, if conveyed by the poet correctly, could arrest one’s senses and lure one’s self out of the lust, greed, covet, anger world.

This “irrationality” created words fit for philosophical treatise for the words has concretized into ‘meaning’ and a correlative ‘semiotic commitment’. Hence, the mathematician-philosophers had a ground to work from.

It is not so strange to look at a word complex if we understand ‘pictographic societies’ as our ancestral origins. Herein lies the genius of the Greeks that was not so different, if not related, to the pictographic societies of the Egyptians, Sumerians and the Original Ancient Hebrew pictographic texts of the Pre-Sinaitic Israelites. Such ‘radicals’ as “fire, serpent, toxic, 6 wings, etc.” did indeed mean the “Seraph” or angels that flew with the temple of God in HIS ETERNAL “Train” or Verb of Perpetual – unending Motion through and into this “temporal state”. This is the “Parousia”, per se, of the Old Testament God who condescends to us.

Nonetheless, the force of each archaic Greek word was known by a millennia of usage for the exact purpose to specify categories of thought, therefore, distinguishing one term FROM the other.

The richness of Greek vocabulary is found in how one word can dance around the other, never stepping on the other’s semiotic ‘toes’ —- only reinforcing the other’s role, creating a union of ideas and images due to the strength and value the Greeks held to word care.

To paraphrase Edward Gibbon, the author of the Decline of the Roman empire, “Empires Fall when the study, usage, retention, and guarding of their language is no longer preserved. Double entendres, business-speak, cultural popular slang, etc. are the beginnings of this sorrow”.

Hell, Duration, Passage of Time, Predetermined Intention, Eternal, Eternity, Permanence, Forever, Aeturnum, Aeon Part 1

Part One:

One could safely say that until the past century, especially at the point of understanding Einstein’s equation E=mc2 , “time” was relatively not understood. Moreover, the Universe was not understood as to how it worked. To the ancient Israelites, “spatiality” was expressed in “rwb” or cubes, more or less, those simple concepts that “measured” objects *relatable* to the purview of the ancient participant.

 “Limitations” to particular analysis of distance and time can also create a ‘genius’ or ‘collective sense’ by which the participant of observation makes sense out of. The earth might have been seen as ‘round’ but as a globe probably not. Therefore, to the ‘primitive’ genius, the ‘water-course’ of the seas ‘circled’ the flat-circular earth. It is within these waterways that our primitive-genius ancestors find the lore, of sorts, that “Leviathan” swims his course ‘round the earth. What a great story to tell your children when not wanting them to get too close to the water!

Though their skill set is ‘limited’, the ‘tribal collective’ sense was non analytically consistent.

“Spatiality” was time and time was the space or distance travelled. Examples might be: “to the top of the mountain from here”, “where the land meets the ocean”, “the darkness created by the depth of an abyss”, “the unseen in the darkness of the waters”, etc. With this in mind, “relatable” objects such as the horizon (i.e. sky touching earth) would have been used to express *where* heaven meets the earth (Hebrew: “Olam”), hence, “eternity” was a ‘spatial understanding’ in that the earth stopped accounting for spatiality, or more simply put, the ancient Jewish Semites did not have enough ‘mental *rwb* by which to implement measurement. The *when* would have been *where* the distance met its end. Though these are simple concepts to us the ancient Israelites only had a few tools of conception by which they operated. Might I add here that “sky” was not a concept yet, only “heaven” or the “abode” of that which is above earth. Though simplistic, literal, and naturalistic, these particulars added to the collective consciousness of the early Israelite tribe to make ‘sense’ of Heaven, God, cutting off point, Holy, etc. These are human’s tools masterfully created by YHVH to set the groundwork for HIS evolving “meta-language” and unfurling relationship with not just Israel but the world. 

“Permanence”

These were “permanent” ideas that the ancient Israelites held to. That is, ‘permanence’ being the groundwork that all other parts of the structure of the ‘house’ are built to their ‘abstraction’, or “off-from-structure”. Furthermore, any ‘structure’ built from the foundation is technically/ linguistically an ‘abstraction’ ‘from the foundation we build off of’. These permanent ideas established our pagan heritage by which we exist today in abstraction. I shouldn’t have shocked you to say “pagan” ideas since it is the Jew that held to them. But I said what I said. The ancient Israelites were “coming out  (‘coming off/ from’ – ‘abstracting’)” of very naturalistic pastoralist and agricultural views. If there were ‘revelations’ from God they were His Revelations and not our ancestor’s nor His Holy Writ…rather, cultural participation and ‘reaching’ for the eternal through limitations, did our ancestors use as tools to ‘divine’ and see the Divine.

 The ancient Jews were being ‘pulled out’ of necessary primitive participations. The entire Bible is an account of ‘being pulled out of’ the primacy by which they were launched necessarily. This cannot be fully understood, in my opinion, unless “Intent” of a Sovereign and Omniscient God did not Predestinate a collective Gestalt for all of humanity to come to the fullness of Reason in due time. Answerably, “Divine Intent” would reasonably implement two elements that necessitate one another: Permanence and Eternity (I Declare the End from the Beginning – Isaiah 46:10). Permanence and Eternity are therefore two distinguished terms. One is necessary to carry the other one. If these placements of permanence and trajectories of eternity are rogue-random events there is no sense for the natural human to ‘evolve’ to higher means.  A trajectory needs a point of fixity, reason, obedience to the ‘will’ or ‘boule’ of the mathematical laws set to find the arrow’s “fixity” at its INTENDED point of landing, i.e. the “Bulls-eye” or “boulesthai”. The ontology, or being, of something can be observed in the motions it has taken from a permanent fixture, a starting point. 

 These primitive views were literal views, concrete views, natural views, and they set the precedent. This means the ‘first’ or ‘prime’ views established the permanent foundation. They were base or first. They were foundational but they were not stupid.

Another example of culturally participative – yet, ‘primitive’ (I say “primitive-genius {prime -joining}”) understanding: the sun was the roving eye of God searching the hearts of humankind and scanning the actions of humankind as it appeared in the sky or heavens where God abided. Hence the Proto Indo European, Sanskrit, Avestan, Armenian held roughly the same root name: “dyaus”— from where we later received dei, dea, deity, theos, zeus, etc. So, “day” and “deity” and “eye” were all from such a source. It is from earlier pictographic societies such as the Proto-Syunik (Proto-Ararat/ Proto Armenian/) that give us pictographs/ logograms that predate and absolutely determined the Sumerian pictographs as their *source*. The Proto Syunik/ Syunik pictographs ‘collectively’ had the ‘circle’ drawn as the Sun = Son = God. Such a glyph found on the hills of Ararat was found to have various drawings inside this circle. Such circles were referred to a white tablet or tablet by which ‘events’ inside of ‘god/ God’/ the Sun-Son God roved across the sky. The ‘tales’ or ‘signifiers’ within this roving God were held inside the context of God. A simple dot, for instance, was the ‘porthole’ by which God’s eye designated as the entrance and exit to eternity or the beyond. Names such as igi in Sumerian, Ayin in Hebrew, Oyo, Eye, Oculus, etc. were all related due to such antiquity as the parent and progenitor of semiosis or signifiers of means. 

Truths of God were not the same as the Biblical Patriarch’s understanding of their surroundings. Nonetheless, there was a symbiosis between YHVH and Israel through YHVH’s ‘metalogue’.

God might say “forever” concerning HIS statutes …yet, there was no example of specific ***relatable*** ‘Time-mapping’, only conceptualizing of ‘referred continuance’ by the tools given to the primitive sense, not a lesser ‘sense’. Furthered, humankind has a ‘lifetime’, a ‘durative’ notion to the Cosmos by which humankind is cosmologically – agriculturally ‘related’ by not fully conceptualized or mentally ‘relatable’ as ‘comprehensible’. Therefore, “forever” is a toss at the unseen as the unseen is conceptualized. (“Forever”: Hebrew: Olam: Genesis 9:12; Ecclesiastes 12:5; Isaiah 26:4; Psalm 145:13; etc. { all such usages allude to a ‘duration’ of non-accounting-rather, an era or aeon}). This “non-accounting” does not mean that the concept of ‘accountable’ is dismissed, it is not that at all.

So, “forever” is an idea that is beyond the scope of one person’s lifetime. “Forever” was ‘participated’ in hierarchical festivities, agricultural observances, and various religious observances in order to ‘partake’ of the mask of eternity. “Representation” becomes the practical approach. 

“Forever”, looked at as an exact time frame, is a very interesting philosophical topic, yet, it is a cosmological, astrological and agricultural ‘event’ as ‘representation’.

As I stated, eternal time was mythically *signified* through the temporal practices of village participants. Such ‘eternal’ participation involved dancing, usage of the ‘masks of eternity’, celebrations of God’s eternal Order such as was found in the Jewish “Hag”. The Hag was a “procession” around the Dabar (Hebrew: “Thing of Order”; “Stone of Order”; prophecy, judge, bee {animal of the ordered dances}). Likened dances are the Debka of the Arabs and Ancient European agricultural/ cosmological dances called this ‘dance of eternity’ the “Horo” (by which I play in a Bulgarian band who does this very thing). The “horo” is linguistically tied to the Greek “horos” or “horizon” which is where “eternity” meets earth. It is the ‘boundary line’ between the two. None of these dances were considered ‘in the abstract’ by the participants because it is was *how* they participated and celebrated “time-eternal”. Though, we might call such elaborate dances and festivities, in ‘modern’ terms, primeval acts of participation. These dances of eternity set the ‘permanence’ by which our later parents could embellish and traject back to an earlier root and claim to the earth as it was understood. As to ‘when’ the *originations (‘horos’) of such observational dances of eternity began, well, we can’t place a ‘timestamp’ on it, only an indefinite time, —-an ‘aeon’ ago. I remember reading an academic paper written on the ‘ecstatic dances’ of Dionysis and Bacchus. Within the ‘collective’ efforts of the drunken dance and the cheap particulars (“plastikos”) used to express the greater ‘sense’ of the dance such as the feathers, the tassels, the shakers, the drums, shawms, anklets, painted bodies moving in processional order, actively leading the participation of the observer and initiate to ‘witness’ the condescension and yoking with the Deity of the dance–i.e., the “Lord of the Dance”. The Verb of the Dance represented the Noun aspect of God’s appearance (‘parousia’ – ‘physical appearance’). Shared dimensions of Time occured at ‘the event’ within the ‘HORO” ←-the *point where earth ( that which is spatial and tangible)  meets sky (Heaven), “eternity”. 

To conclude:

The Biblical Patriarch/ Matriarch was a recipient of God’s Word and had a limited skill set for a specific purpose. Nonetheless, the conveyed Words were relayed by God while the recipient of God’s Words participated in obedience. Obedience is the key word. Obedience is necessary to have completion of God’s telegraphed ending to HIS Narrative = our Marriage to Him. 

For the Primitive-Genius to ‘analyze’ or ‘parse’ the etymologies of God’s Rema or divine expressions would be not only ludicrous but, in Old Testament Times, idolatrous. This is the evolution of consciousness and levels over time of “how” a tribe is to participate with the God of Ancient Israel. “Analysis” would begin the VERY YEAR that Judah was taken captive (last of the 3 deportations) by Babylon. Thales would introduce deductive thinking and jumpstart a new ‘era’ of ‘anatomizing’ versus ‘collectively participating’. Genius would leave and Wit (Greek: ‘eido’ = “to see”/ “observe”) would begin.

As we delve into the concept of “permanence” vs. “eternal” we will see ‘relational differences such as ‘being with God in a “RELATIONSHIP” that never ends versus a ‘PERMANENT’ ordinance that “NEVER ENDS” only superseded by it’s fulfilments as the original ordinances becomes the stronger “archetype” for its “exponential ‘primacy’ “. All to say, the ‘stacking’ of meaning needs the other to build. The foundation of this “house” requires permanence first, then, eternal trajectory. 

Finally to reiterate:

 “Primitive” is the strongest-purest foundation-generator by which all other mental structures are established. So, as I stated- “primitive-genius”– I meant it. “Genius” means to ‘be joined’, ‘to be connected’ to everything and ‘act’ or ‘participate’ within this *connectivity* or *genius*.  For each level of evolution of participation of the figurations of WORD signaling, we have deeper fulfillment to the higher complexity of the original generative WORD. The “Genius” is Pregnant with higher fulfillments yet to come both  semiotically and spiritually. Therefore, I witness that each Biblical epoch/ era/ aeon/ etc. was needed to fulfill a greater archetype (as do we need the grace to ‘evolve’) as a ‘new time segment’ became necessitated.

 We shall see in our future studies that the terms“permanence” and “eternity” will use the terms ‘epoch’, ‘era’, and ‘aeon’ to substantiate coherency of the Biblical Text and shed light on Western Orthodoxy’s ostensible vagaries of contextual confusion. Establishing terms with substantiate linguistic agreement between the Biblical text and pagan authors by which the Bible borrowed.

As Abraham was willing to pimp for profit ( and saving his hide) his wife out in Genesis 12: 12 – ff, he was still influenced by the Ancient Near East way of doing things. It would take time to be called out of acting upon Israel’s seeming immoral irregularities—especially Abraham’s erratic actions as the Grand Patriarch of Judeo-Christianity. But, had it not been the Patristic dominating society that the Jews flourished in, looking at their wives as chattel, then Hosea 2:16 (ca. 785 B.C.) would have never completed the Face of Jesus: “AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS, saith the Lord, THAT THOU SHALL CALL ME *ISHI*, AND SHALT CALL ME NO MORE BA’ALI”. The Jews participated with the God of them as a “Chattel Owner”…ONE who could dismiss, pimp out, sell off, HIS Wife. “ISHI” was the Hebrew Name of an Endearing-Loving-Protecting Husband. What a contrast spoken by the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ!!! Was this ‘necessary pagan horror’ needed in the Grand Scheme to evaluate the worth and contrast the Christ of Grace to the permanence of hard pagan practices. It was just the Laws of God but the creation of paganism by God that established the Eternal Christ.