A powerful way of accentuation and exaggeration. I’ll try to think of an similar figure of speech.
How about this one: “forever and a day”? “She took forever to write the paper”; “we had to wait forever and a day”,
or he wants it done yesterday.
Forever and a day could be a poetic way of saying forever, but not when used in the sentence “we had to wait forever and a day.”
If the wait is over, it wasn’t forever (so it’s a poetic way of simply saying it was a long time.)
So your figure of speech can mean “forever,” or “a long time.”
Do translators normally try to be poetic when translating phrases from one language to another, or do they normally aim for something a little more precise?
I wont argue the point, but literally speaking, forever and further makes no sense.
On the other hand–if aeternum had reference to an age (ages, or a period of indefinite duration) it would make perfect sense to say that Israel would walk in the name of God aeternum and beyond.
And the translator himself made some interesting comments:
…those who maintain that punishment will one day come to an end, and that torments have a limit, though after long periods, use as proofs the following testimonies of Scripture:–‘When the fullness of the Gentiles shall have come in, then all Israel shall be saved;’ and again, ‘God hath concluded all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all;’ and again, ‘I will praise thee, O Lord, for Thou wast angry with me; Thou hadst turned thy face from me; but Thou hast comforted me.’ The Lord Himself also says to the sinner, ‘When the fierceness of my wrath hath passed, I will heal him.’ And this is what is said in another place:–‘Oh, how great is thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee.’ All which testimonies of Scripture they urge in reply against us, while they earnestly assert that after certain sufferings and torments there will be restoration. All which nevertheless they allow should not now be openly told to those with whom fear yet acts as a motive, and who may be kept from sinning by the terror of punishment. But this question we ought to leave to the wisdom of God alone, whose judgments as well as mercies are by weight and measure, and who well knows whom, and how, and how long, He ought to judge. (St. Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah.)
He doesn’t say aeternum means without end, and scripture says those on Christ’s left hand will go off into “supplicium aeternum” (as if that settled the matter once and for all.)
He says “this question we ought to leave to the wisdom of God alone, whose judgments as well as mercies are by weight and measure, and who well knows whom, and how, and how long, He ought to judge.”
It seems to me that he could have expressed himself much more strongly than that, if he knew that the only meaning aeternum could have was one of endless duration.
That’s a good point, Mike. He didn’t appeal to what he considered a knock down argument (by referring to Mt 24).
How do you go about these studies? Do you have the Church Fathers on disc or something?
I wish I did.
I usually just google key words that I think might be fruitful, use the “search within results” option until I find something that looks interesting, and send myself emails (if I don’t have the time to really get into what I find immediately, which I usually don’t.)
Thank’s Roofus.
You might find these entries from Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary of the English Language interesting.
Evite’rnal. a. [aviternus. Latin.] Eternal in a limited fenfe; of duration not infinitely, but indefinitely long.
Evite’rnity. f. [aviternitus. Low Latin] Duration not infinitely, but indefinitely long.
P.S. Crosswalk has (or had) a searchable online Patristc library that I had bookmarked at one time (back when I had a working computer at home.)
Ive seen this footnote quoted many times, but have never been able to verify the citation.
**
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:
**
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.
P.S. My interest in the Athanasian Creed is largely due to the wording of the following statement ( from the affirmation of St. Louis, which is one of the founding documents of my denomination. )
Though I have no real problem with the Athanasian Creed itself, I must confess to having had some real reservations about the Affirmation of St. Louis ( because of the Athanasian Creed’s damnatory clauses, the conotations sometimes associated with aeternum, and the words “in the sense they have had always in the Catholic Church.” )
How can I accept this statement?
First, the damnatory clauses are capable of a universalist interpretation.
This was pointed out by a 19th century Anglican Universalist in these words:
Universalism Asserted, by Rev. Thomas Allin.
( And since this point is important, here’s a quote to the same effect from a non-universalist Anglican source. )
The Three Creeds, By Edgar Charles Sumner Gibson.
Secondly, even in the 7th century ( and the Athanasian Creed probably goes back at least as far as the 5th century ), the meaning of scriptural terms like aionian and aeternum retained enough ambiguity for St. Isaac the Syrian ( Bishop of Ninevah ) to teach Universal Reconciliation
As St. Isaac died in communion with Contantinople and Rome, is regarded as a Saint in the East, and would have to be recognized as “Catholic” by traditional Anglicans–I would argue that the sense the Athanasian Creed has always had in the Catholic Church leaves room for a universalist interpretation of the damnatory clauses.
And even if some in my denomination might disagree with me, I believe my view is entirely consistent with traditional Anglicanism ( and even with the Affirmation of St. Louis. )
Incidentally, Ignatius publishes a really nice “Faith Database” for Windows systems (and supposedly for the Mac, although mine was backordered and has never come in!) It doesn’t have many of the Fathers after the split, of course, but for our purposes it’s still pretty good: 88 Council Docs from all 21 Ecumenical Councils; 400 early Church writings; 165 writings from Doctors of the Church; 1300 Papal writings/encyclicals. Plus 10 Bible Translations (approved by the RCC I suppose.)
(Also 74 books from John Henry Newman, 112 books(!!!) from G. K. Chesterton–I didn’t know he had written that many–over 100 maps, 1000 art images, and a good selection of RCC literature.)
I wish my Mac version would come in; I’d like to research some things for posting here on EU. I could use the Win version at home, but most of my research material is here at the office.
I will add that my problem with the framework statements of the AthCreed isn’t whether they can be interpreted according to leeway about aeturnus etc., but because the language is blatantly gnostic and thus technically heretical in comparison with the material it surrounds.
(We’re discussing that contention over here every once in a while when I get around to it… 
)
Only given a certain interpretation of those framework statements ( i.e. that individuals will be punished “for being logically inept and/or for having accidentally gotten some data incorrect.” )
I’ve rarely ( if ever ) seen the damnatory clauses interpreted in that way.
I tried to reproduce the Old English “s” the way it appears in the online google text I cited, but that really should be “Eternal in a limmited sense; of duration not infinitely, but indefinitely long.”
Also, now that I finally have a working home computer again, I can bookmark ( and I don’t have to send myself those emails anymorre. )
One of the reasons I started this thread is that there are critics of UR who conceed that aeternum originally meant indefinite duration, but argue that the only meaning it had in the 6th century A. D. (when the Athanasian Creed was received by the Church) was that of endless duration.
I didn’t have access to the Latin text when I posted on this earlier, but I believe a quote from Isidore of Seville (western bishop–who presided at the local synod of Toledo, and who wrote the first encyclopedia) refutes that argument.
In the 7th century (Etymologies, Book 5, Chapter 38, section 4) he defined aeternum as follows:
Nam aevum est aetas perpetua, cuius neque initium neque extremum noscitur, quod Graeci vocant αἰῶνας; quod aliquando apud eos pro saeculo, aliquando pro aeterno ponitur. Unde et apud Latinos est derivatum.
penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/R … re/5*.html
Translation:
The eon, avum, is an uniterrupted age, whose beginning and end is unknown. The Greeks call them aions, eons, a term they sometimes use for saeculum, sometimes for aeternum; Whence the Latins derrived it.
Which personally brings me back to a quote fron a fellow Anglican named Thomas Allin:
Whatever we may think of the Athanasian Creed - its want of conciliar authority - its comparatively late date - its uncertain origin - its doubtful acceptance in the East - when it speaks of “everlasting,” that term can mean no more than the Scriptural aionios, which it represents: and as it is clear that everlasting is not the necessary or even the usual meaning of aionios, this Creed is really quite consistent with the larger hope.
I wonder if the crafters of all these various and sundry creeds gave a thought to the biblical injunction against swearing (giving oath) by anything. (Including, presumably, creeds such as these)
Mat 5:34 Yet I am saying to you absolutely not to swear, neither by heaven, for it is the throne of God,
Mat 5:35 nor by the earth, for it is a footstool for His feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King;
Mat 5:36 nor by your head should you be swearing, for you are not able to make one hair white or black.
Mat 5:37 Yet let your word be ‘Yes, Yes,’ ‘No, No.’ Now what is in excess of these is of the wicked one. 
I recall the words “I believe,” but where do the words “I swear” (by anything) ocur in any of the creeds?
I fail to see how a simple statement of faith violates the prohibition against oaths.
We even have one here.
I don’t think that they used the word “swear”, but by giving assent to these creeds, is that not what we’re doing? These creeds go beyond simple statements of faith, in my opinion. When we say, “I swear by this product”, we mean that we believe the product is the best, or most useful, etc. We are willing to stake something on it, such as whatever effect we rely on it for, or even our reputation in recommending it to others. When we assent to a creed, we are essentially doing the same.
When we say “i’d swear by that product,” we’re using a figure of speech–an English idiom that has nothing to do with what Jesus or James were talking about in the passages you quoted.
They were talking about calling on a higher power, or a sacred thing that represents the higher power, to testify to the truthfulness of a statement (“yea yea,” or “nay nay.”)
That’s not what we do when we say “I’d swear by that product,” it’s not what we do when we tell visitors to this forum what we believe (as Evangelical Universalists), and it’s not what the Church did in the formulation of the creeds.
The Church was simply telling the world what it believes, and I don’t see how that violates the prohibition against swearing.
I’d say these creeds fit your description of a “sacred thing representing a higher power”, even though that doesn’t quite match up with the examples given in scripture either.
I don’t see a problem with the church telling the world what it believes, but it didn’t stop there, did it? It turned into, if you don’t believe this, you’re not one of us/a heretic/ going to “hell”. (Whatever that is). I’d say that’s staking something on the truthfulness of a statement.
Actually, the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts these creeds as statements of what the Church believes, and it did stop there for them.
To this day they retain a hope in universal salvation.
theandros.com/restoration.html
So if by “hell” you mean eternal punishment, they have never dogmatically said that all who reject these creeds go there (and especially not if this is done out of ignorance, as opposed to arogance.)
Then the EOx certainly have more sense than most churches that adopt these creeds (or parts of them) when those churches don’t outright create their own…
I’m going to go with Jason’s technical gnosticism charge… 