Presence or Coming?
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Jun 7 08:23:27 EDT 1999
At 9:59 PM -0500 6/6/99, Linda Gray wrote:
>Hello,
>Would the word "parousia" mean "coming" or "presence"?
It most commonly does mean "arrival" or "coming", although when one sees
the participial form PARWN, PARONTES or the like, it may indeed mean no
more than "being present." But PAREIMI came to be the equivalent of the
earlier classical perfective verb hHKW, "I have arrived."
In the GNT PAROUSIA frequently (but by no means always) refers to the
apocalyptic return of Christ (e.g. Mt 24:3). And it is worth knowing that
the word we use at Christmastime, "Advent" derives from the Latin ADVENTUS,
which translates the Greek PAROUSIA.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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