Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 9:26 pm
Michael wrote:He seems to have taken timelesness/Divinity to be the essential meaning of "aion."
http://anglicanhistory.org/maurice/jelf_letter1854.html
And this would seem to make gibberish of the expression translated "forever and ever" in our English Bible ("aion tou aionios," if my memory serves me correctly.)
Let me say from the outset that I side with Maurice in thinking that aion/aionios often functions as an epithet of divinity in the NT. That noted, I am inclined to see an important connection between the phrases, "king of kings" "holy of holies" and "aion of aions", and I don't see how Maurice's understanding of aion would render "aion of aions" gibberish.
Remember, idioms need not make literal sense.