01.1.0. Etymology

I. ETYMOLOGY

We are aware that nothing is more unsafe and treacherous than the guidance of etymology. An ounce of usage is worth a pound of it. Etymology is theory, usage is fact. For instance, our common word prevent is compounded of præ and venio, to come or go before, and once it had that meaning, but it has long since lost it in common usage, in which it now means to hinder. Suppose two thousand years hence some one should endeavor to prove that in the year 1875 the word prevent meant to go before. He could establish his position by the etymology of the word, but he would be wholly wrong, as would appear by universal usage in our current literature. So that if we agree that the etymology of Aión indicates eternity to have been its original meaning, it by no means follows that it had that force in Greek literature. But its derivation does not point in that direction.

LENNEP ("Etymologicum Linguæ Græcæ")

Says that it comes from Aó (to breathe) which suggests the idea of indefinite duration. He says: It was transferred from breathing to collection, or multitude of times. From which proper signification again have been produced those by which the ancients have described either age (ævum), or eternity (æternitatem,) or the age of man (hominis ætatem). Commenting on Lennep’s derivation of the word, Rev. E. S. Goodwin, says ("Christian Examiner," Vol. X, p.42. He quotes the ancient Phavorinus as defining it thus: "The comprehension of many times or periods."): "It would signify a multitude of periods or times united to each other, duration indefinitely continued. Its proper force, in reference to duration, seems to be more that of uninterrupted duration than otherwise; a term of which the duration is continuous as long as it lasts, but which may be completed and finished, as age, dispensation, sæculum, in a general sense." Mr. Goodwin entertained the theory that the word is from the verb aió, its active participle converted into a substantive.

ARISTOTLE’S ETYMOLOGY

But this etymology is not the popular one. Aristotle, the great Greek Philosopher, explained the derivation as a combination of two Greek words (aei ón) which signify always existing (De Cælo, lib. i. cap. 9). As there is a great deal of controversy on this famous passage, we will give

THREE TRANSLATIONS OF ARISTOTLE

I. Dr. Pond (Christian Union): In describing the highest heaven, the residence of the gods, Aristotle says: "It is therefore evident that there is neither space, nor time, nor vacuum beyond. Wherefore the things there are not adapted by nature to exist in place; nor does time make them grow old; neither under the highest (heaven) is there any change of any one of these things, they being placed beyond it; but unchangeable, passionless - they continue through all aióna (eternity). For indeed, the word itself according to the ancients, divinely expressed this. For the period which comprehends the time of every one’s life, beyond which, according to nature, nothing exists, is called his aión, (eternity). And for the same reason, the period of the whole heaven, even the infinite time of all things, and the period comprehending that infinity is aión, eternity, deriving its name from aei, einai, always being, immortal and divine."

II. Dr. J. R. Boise, (Chicago Tribune, quoted by Hon. C. H. Reed,) Professor of Greek in the University of Chicago: "Time is a notation of motion; and motion without a physical body is impossible. But, beyond the heaven, it has been shown that there is neither a body, nor can there be. It is plain, therefore, that there is neither space, nor void, nor time beyond. Therefore, the things there are not by nature in space, nor does time make them grow old, nor is there any change in any one of those things placed beyond the outermost sweep (or current); but, unchangeable and without passion, having the best and most sufficient life, they continue through all eternity (aión); for this name (i.e., aión) has been divinely uttered by the ancients. For the definite period (to telos), which embraces the time of the life of each individual, to whom, according to nature, there can be nothing beyond, has been called each ones’s eternity (aión). And, by parity of reasoning, the definite period also of the entire heaven, even the definite period embracing the infinite time of all things and infinity, is an eternity (aión), immortal and divine, having received the appellation (eternity, aión) from the fact that it exists always (apo tou aei einai).

III. Dr. Edward Beecher (Christian Union; a series of remarkable papers was published in the Christian Union in 1873-4, by Edward Beecher, D.D., on the "History of Future Retribution"): "The limit of the whole heaven, and the limit enclosing the universal system, is the divine and immortal existing (aei ón) (God) deriving his name Aión from his ever existing (aei ón)." Dr. B. adds: "From the time of Homer to Plato and Aristotle, about five centuries, the word aión is used by poets and historians alongside of various compounds of aei, for the compounds of aei retain the diphthong ei, but aión drops the e. There is a verb aió - to breathe, to live. The passage of Aristotle in which his etymology occurs, has been mistranslated, for it does not give the etymology of the abstract idea eternity, but of the concrete idea God, as an ever-existing person, from whom all other personal beings derived existence and life. What Aristotle has been supposed to assert of aión, in the sense of eternity, he asserts of aión in the sense of God, a living and divine person. That the word aión in the classic Greek sometimes denotes God is distinctly stated in Henry Stephens’ great lexicon, (Paris edition,) and the passage referred to in Sophocles (Herac. 900), fully authorized his statement. In that passage Jupiter is called ’Aión, (the living God) the Son of Kronos.’ Moreover, the whole context of Aristotle proves that he is speaking of the great immovable first mover of the universe, the Aión, immortal and divine".

This passage from Aristotle is obscure, and if he were authority, it would not settle the question of the meaning of the word. If we adopt this theory, we may claim that aión had the primary meaning of continuous existence, such being the signification of aei and ón, but there is no warrant even in such an origin for ascribing to it duration without end. But Aristotle does not say or intimate that the word had the meaning of eternity in his day, nor does his statement of its derivation prove that it had that meaning then. On the contrary, Aristotle’s use of the word, as we shall hereafter show, clearly proves that it had no such meaning in his mind, even if it is compounded of aei and ón.

AEI

The word aei from which aión is claimed to grow, is found eight times (perhaps more, though I have not found it oftener) in the New Testament, and in no one instance does it mean endless (Mark 15:8; Acts 7:51; 2 Corinthians 4:11; 2 Corinthians 6:10; Titus 1:12; Hebrews 3:10; 1 Peter 3:15; 2 Peter 1:12). I give two instances. The multitude desired Pilate to release a prisoner "as he had ever done with them" (Mark 15:8). "They do always err in their heart" (Hebrews 3:10). An endless duration growing out of a word used thus, would be a curiosity. It is alway, or always, or ever, in each text. Liddell and Scott give more than fifty compounds of aei.

Concerning Aristotle’s use of the word in his famous sentence, "Life, an aión continuous and eternal," it is enough to say that if aión intrinsically meant endless, Aristotle never would have sought to strengthen the meaning by adding "continuous" and "eternal," any more than one would say, God has an eternity, continuous and endless. He has a life, an existence, an aión endless, just as man’s aión on earth is limited; just as Idumea’s smoke in the Old Testament is aiónios. Nor, had Aristotle considered aión to mean eternity, would he have said in this very passage: "the time of the life of each individual has been called his aión."

Cremer, Liddel and Scott, Donnegan, and Henry Stephens adopt the Aristotleian origin of the word. Grimm rejects it, and Robinson in his latest editions gives both etymologies without deciding between them. Stephens says: "Aristotle, and after him many other philosophers, as Plotinus and Proclus, introduced the etymology of aión from aei, and thus added the idea of eternity to the word."

But we have shown that the famous passage in Aristotle refers to God, (apo tou aei einai) and not to abstract duration. We have shown that aei is used eight times in the New Testament, and not in the sense of endless, once. We shall prove that Aristotle himself uniformly used the word in the sense of limited duration, and under the head of Classic Usage will hereafter prove that at the time the Old Testament was rendered into Greek, this was the only meaning the word had with any Greek writer. If aeión is its origin, which is more than doubtful, it cannot mean more than continuous existence, the precise length to be determined by accompanying words. Adopt either derivation, and indefinite duration is the easy and natural meaning of the word, if we suffer ourselves to be guided by its etymology. Eternity can only be expressed by it when it is accompanied by other words, denoting endless duration, or by the name of Deity.

All will agree that words may change their meaning, and therefore that etymology is an uncertain guide. If etymology point in one direction, and usage in another, the former must yield; but if both utter one fact, each reinforces and strengthens the other. This we have illustrated by the etymology of ’prevent.’ Hundreds of words teach the same truth. Words start out with a certain meaning, and change it in process of time. If aión really meant eternity when it was first pronounced, it would not follow that it has this meaning now. That it had not that meaning at first would not hinder it from being thus used subsequently. Etymology proves nothing one way or the other, its evidence is but prima facie; usage is the only decisive authority. But etymology gives no warrant for applying the idea of eternity to the word.

THE PLATONIC DERIVATIONS

We have proceeded on the ground that Aristotle’s etymology is authoritative. But nothing is further from the truth. The scholarship of to-day, possessed by an average educated philologist, is far more competent to trace this or any Greek word to its real source, than Plato or Aristotle was able to do. In his analysis of Plato’s Cratylus (Volume 2, pp. 500-550), Grote accurately observes of Plato’s etymologies: "Though sometimes reasonable enough, they are in a far greater number of instances forced, arbitrary, and fanciful. The transitions of meaning imagined, and the structural transformations of words, are alike strange and violent. Such is the light in which these Platonic etymologies appear to a modern critic. But such was not the light in which they appeared either to the ancient Platonists or critics earlier than the last century. The Platonists even thought them full of mysterious and recondite wisdom. So complete has been the revolution of opinion that the Platonic etymologies are now treated by most critics as too absurd to have been seriously intended by Plato, even as conjectures. It is called ’a valuable discovery of modern times’ (so Schleiermacher terms it) that Plato meant most of them as mere parody and caricature."

The character of Aristotle as an etymologist is thus stated by Grote: "Nor are they more absurd than many of the etymologies proposed by Aristotle." A slender hook this, whereon to hang such a doctrine as that of the immortal woe of countless millions of souls.

CONCLUSIONS

The conclusions to which any judicial mind must arrive are these: 1, It is uncertain from what source the word aión sprang; 2, It is of no consequence how it originated; 3, Aristotle’s opinion is not authority; and 4, It is probable that he was not defining the word, but was alluding to that being whose aión, or existence is continuous and eternal. That he did not understand that aión signified eternity, we shall demonstrate from his uniform use of the word, in the sense of limited duration. And we find no reason in its etymology for giving it the sense of endless duration. And if it did thus originate, it does not afford a particle of proof that it was subsequently used with that meaning.