Ive seen this footnote quoted many times, but have never been able to verify the citation.
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From what I just stumbled on, it seems to be from the 1972 Loeb Classical Library edition of Augustine’s “City of God” (Footnote 1, book 22, part 1; page 173.)
1 The words “eternal” and “eternity,” from Latin aeternus, aeternitas, are related to aevum, which means both “unending time” and “a period of time”; for the second meaning the commoner word is aetas. Augustine seeks to make it clear that the “eternal” happiness of the saints is unending happiness, that is, an unending immortality for each individual.
The comment is on this part of Augustine’s text:
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The term “eternal,” as applied here**, does not refer to a long period of time lasting through many ages, but still at some time bound to end. 1
(City of God, book 22, part 1; page 173)
In other words, Augustine argued from context because he recognized that aeternum didn’t necessarily denote endless duration.
BTW: Augustine’s contextual argument was that we’d have no scriptural promise of everlasting life if aionian/aeternum didn’t mean unending–and I think that argument is clearly fallacious for the following reason.
I see unending life and happiness promised clearly enough in passages that don’t use aionian/aeternum (passages like Luke 20:35-36; John 16:22; 1 Cor. 2:9; and 1 Cor. 15:26,42,48,54)
Here are the words of of a 19th century Anglican laywoman who hoped for eternal life, and must have taken aionian/aeternum in much the way we do.
…there lives within my heart
A hope long nursed by me,
(And should its cheering ray depart
How dark my soul would be)
That as in Adam all have died
In Christ shall all men live
And ever round his throne abide
Eternal praise to give;
That even the wicked shall at last
Be fitted for the skies
And when their dreadful doom is past
To life and light arise.
I ask not how remote the day
Nor what the sinner’s woe
Before their dross is purged away,
Enough for me to know
That when the cup of wrath is drained,
The metal purified,
They’ll cling to what they once disdained,
And live by Him that died.
(A WORD TO THE CALVINISTS, by Ann Bronte.)
She’s buried in ST Mary’s Parish Church, Scarborough England.
flickr.com/photos/stowegarth/3366310012/**