aidios in romans

[erwan]

I don’t ask the question to mister pratt first because he is probably busy .
He said me (if i understand well, i learnt english only at school) that aidios should be translated INVISIBLE in romans ,why?
i don’t speak greek but maybe another word means invisible in the same verse, is this true?
if aidios was translated by eternal in romans , wouldn’t it be a CONTRAST with aionios later in romans? mister PRATT said me that there is no contrast , why ?
thank you for your help
Erwan

[erwan]

i wonder because in the young’s literal translation aidios is translated by eternal in romans and jude
so it seems that aidios can’t mean pertaing an age or aionian

[JasonPratt]

Hi Erwan!

Two words can be translated as “eternal” without one contrasting the other. So if {aidios} means eternal either at Romans 1:20 or at Jude 6, that makes no difference whether or not {aiônios} ever means eternal anywhere else. On the contrary, Romans describes God as {aidios} at 1:20 and also as {aiônios} at 16:26. Both or either of those might mean eternal; or neither of them might even though God is in fact eternal. (Translators who insist ‘eonian’ never means eternal would say Rom 16:26 is talking about Jesus Christ acting as the visible God for everyone during the period in which He reigns until everyone submits to Him and in Him to the Father, at which time He gives up the kingdom and stops reigning in some way.)

What I actually wrote to you was that {aidios} could mean invisible at Rom 1:20 but probably as a pun if so: a double-meaning play of words (double entendre) where the same word does double-duty for two meanings, in this case “invisible” and “eternal”. Paul was a rabbi and they were famous (and sometimes notorious) for using double-meaning words in their teaching.

(Note: in my original answer to your question I think I said the other occurrence in the NT was at 2 Thess 1:9; but I was misremembering. I meant Jude 6, but since I debated both verses last year a neuron misfired in my brain and misconnected me to 2 Thess instead by association. Sorry! )

I don’t recall if I’ve posted an article yet analyzing the meaning of {aidios} in Romans (and at Jude), but I discussed it in detail during my internet radio debate with TFan the thread of which can be found here (along with some further commentary from me on it later in the thread).

I’ll post it below in the next comment however.

[JasonPratt]

Note: the following was the text I composed for discussing {aidios} at Jude 1:6 during my debate with TFan last year, which has strong relation to its other occurrence at Rom 1, so I discuss that, too. I’ve bolded the paragraph about Romans 1, because mostly the article is about Jude 1:6 (or Jude v.6, since it has no multiple chapters).

There are actually two different words that those letters might spell in Greek, depending on whether the first two vowels are taken together as a dipthong, ai dios, or as two separate syllables, a idios. In Unical Greek, or even miniscule Greek, there’s no way to tell the difference by sight; later copyists would have to differentiate by putting a double-dot (like a German umlaut) over the iota or not, to indicate which term they thought the word meant.

If the term is ai-dios, then it means something roughly similar to high brightness (with the second part of the word related to the underlying primitive word behind Zeus, theos, deus, etc.), and is a metaphor relating uniquely to God Most High. By a second metaphor that could then mean eternal, as that’s one of God’s unique qualities (especially as the first syllable spatially pictures ongoing vertical height). In this sense the word would be a much stronger version of one way to interpret the adjective eonian–which is much more common in the Greek Old and New Testaments, and is used most often in the NT for eonian life. That would be life from God or from the heart of God or uniquely from God, or a little more colloquially God’s own life. Ai-dios would be an even more emphatic way of saying that same thing, thus a very strong way of saying that the bonds holding the rebel angels are divinely from God and uniquely related to God. That might mean they are as eternal as God (in a derivative way of course), or it might be more of an authoritative emphasis. It wouldn’t mean the bonds are eternal apart from God; they can only last as long as God keeps them on, but the meaning would emphasize that the bonds have God’s strength from God.

The other option, a-idios, has itself two potential meanings! One would be a variant way to say that the bonds cannot be seen.

Another meaning would be a negation of a common use of idios in the New Testament to mean “pertaining to one’s self”, “private” or “separate for one’s self”, or (by a colloquial extension) to possess for one’s self. The whole point of these angels of course is that they went their own way in rebellion against God, and now God has captured them with bonds enforcing the idea that these angels do not belong to themselves but belong to God. However, while that meaning isn’t impossible I acknowledge it does seem to be straining the usage of the term in connection with “bonds”: God has kept them in not-private bonds? (But the bonds are an unseen prison at least!–which would seem to be privation!) God has kept them in not-belonging-to-themselves bonds? Yeeeaahhhh, that’s true, but it seems a very weird way to say it. One (or both) of the other two meanings would fit more smoothly.

Which leads to the third overall option: that the word is a pun that means multiple things! We can see this at work in the first chapter of Romans where Saint Paul is talking about the aidios power of God. The point there is that God is rightfully angry at even pagans because even pagans know something about the invisible God from the manifest display of the visible works aside from His aidios power and divinity. Here the word clearly means a-idios, a variation of invisible; but it probably also means a variation of theotes or divine nature. In other words, philosophical pagans are without excuse because they are in some position to know about God’s divinity and divine power, but even non-philosophical pagans can see something of the invisible power of the invisible God by the visible results which cannot be accounted for otherwise. (We may also, by the way, see a contextual possibility here that the term means public results, not private results, or a-idios, of the unseen power of God!–even though on analysis I doubt this is the meaning intended at Jude 6.)

It’s possible Jude is making a similar rabbinic double-meaning here: after all no one denies that the bonds are uniquely from God and so are going to hold until when-if-ever God frees them. Although that leaves open the question of whether God will ever free them!–the answer isn’t a built-in no by meaning of the term.

But if I had to guess from exegetics whether only one meaning was intended, I would probably go with imperceptible; mainly because the parallel statement in 2 Peter 2:4 definitely uses the term hades (which means ‘unseen’ and is closely related to the unusual term a-idios) and “pits of darkness” or zophos. Also because, when Jude himself compares the false teachers oppressing the church to rebel angels again a few verses later (v.13), he specifically describes them as “wandering stars for whom the zophos of the skotos (or the “gloom of the darkness”) has been reserved into (or for) an eon”.

The contextual weight for Jude v.6 meaning “imperceptible” by a-idios, is therefore very strong.

Still, it’s certainly possible that Jude rephrased 2 Peter 2:4 in such a way that it also held the meaning of being specially from God. I can’t rule that out, and I am not even interested in ruling that out, since I agree with the concept anyway!

The only thing I am pointing out here is that the term does not intrinsically mean the bonds will certainly last forever. At most it means the bonds will last as long as God chooses for them to last, and the contexts of Jude 1:6 (if anyone cares to look) do not in themselves indicate that God will choose for them to keep on lasting forever. Indeed, even on a non-universalist systematic theology, we’re told toward the end of RevJohn, in the second half of chapter 20, that God will set these demons free at the end of the Messiah’s millennial rule (whatever that may mean in itself), for their final rebellion and defeat right before the same judgment which Jude 1:6 is talking about!

So, in fact, those bonds can and will end. Even if they are replaced with bonds that do not end. But that’s a whole other question.

(By the way, that phrase at the end of verse 13, {eis aiona}, has been replaced in very late copies by {eis TON aiona}, into/for the age, probably because that sounded stronger than the rather weak way of phrasing it originally! This phraseology is directly paralleled on the same topic in 2 Peter 2:17–except without even a weak {eis aiona}! The term should therefore not be translated more than “for an age”. That would at first glance mean the current age before the day of the Lord to come, the age they’re already being bound in. Although, neither would that necessarily exclude them also continuing to be bound in the age to come, of course. Based on parallel contexts, the “into/for an age” probably means they’re being kept for the day of the judgment of the Lord, so it wouldn’t only mean this age. Neither, however, does it necessarily mean they will be kept in bonds all throughout the subsequent age: the term is much weaker than any fair reading of that from the term.)

[JasonPratt]

Looking back over it, I see I didn’t actually talk about Rom 1 much (because Jude 6 was much more important to the debate).

Paul’s writes about “that which is known of God is apparent among them, for God manifests it to them. For His invisible-things ({aorata}, invisible plural, literally “invisibles”) are observed from the creation of the world, being apprehended (or understood) by His achievements, besides His [X] {aidios} power and divinity”.

His point is that even though God Himself in His divinity and power is invisible to the pagans, they ought to have been able to recognize (and sometimes did recognize) from the characteristics of Nature, which they could see, that He exists. And so they ought to worship the Creator rather than the creation, but they worship the creation anyway putting its various characteristics up in the place of God. His invisibility per se is not an excuse for them.

In the quote (and summary) above from Rom 1:18-23, I left the disputed translation as [X] and only provided the Greek word. {Aidios} could mean “eternal” power and divinity there; but Paul’s whole point elsewhere in the sentence (to which this phrase is a parallel) involves detecting the invisible God and the invisible-things {aorata} of God by means of what they can observe and understand. The visible things include His achievements; the invisible things include His invisible divinity and His power; and His power happens to be described by {aidios}, which in turn can be translated “unseen”.

Thematically it’s appropriate to translate it as “unseen” in thematic parallel with {ta aorata} “the invisibles”.

But since we’re talking about God, and since {aidios} can (and outside the NT usually does) mean eternal or uniquely high and godly, and since after all His power and divinity are both eternal (and uniquely high-bright) and invisible, it is also appropriate to translate it as “eternal” (and/or maybe “Godly”)–much as “eonian” can sometimes mean.

Thus my inference in favor of {aidios} meaning “invisible” there, maybe also as a pun with “eternal”.

(The evidence in favor of “invisible” is, I believe, contextually much stronger at Jude 1:6; but even if St. Jude meant “invisible” that doesn’t necessarily mean St. Paul would use the term that way. From his sentence construction I expect he does, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary.)