From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Jan 19 2001 - 21:09:51 EST
One factor that might play a role in the phrase EIS AIWNAS AIWNWN is the
conception of cyclical time that dominated most ancient thinking about
time, at least in the Mediterranean. While I think it is generally true
that Jewish eschatology conceptually fosters a linear conception of time
moving from primal creation to ultimate consummation, yet most of the
ancient world thought in terms of recurrent astral cycles, "great years" as
the Romans called them in fact (MAGNI ANNI), and we find in Empedocles, for
instance, one formulation of the so-called "myth of the eternal
return"--the notion that the universe forms, grows, ages, and perishes in
fire or in water and is then rekindled or that dry land re-emerges yet once
more from the primal water and the cycle begins anew. If one thinks of
"forever" as the infinite continuation of the cyclical time periods, the
phrase EIS AIWNAS AIWNWN is perfectly intelligible--and it could, as a
phrase, influence "Jewish" thinking as an expression even if the user of
the expression did not really conceptually share that notion of cyclical
time.
--Carl W. Conrad Department of Classics/Washington University One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018 Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649 cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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