Over at Eclectic Orthodoxy, Al Kimel has been going through David Bentley Hart’s That All Shall Be Saved, offering summarizing reflections on various sections. His most recent post is on the part of Hart’s book that puts forward arguments for universal salvation in the New Testament — and in tandem with this, arguments against the idea of eternal damnation. The bulk of Al’s post covers issues around the translation of several passages in the New Testament which have traditionally been taken to support the idea of eternal damnation. First he discusses 2 Thessalonians 1.5–10, in both a “traditional” translation and in Hart’s own, and then several verses in the Matthean parable of the sheep and goats: Matthew 25.41 and 25.46.

The main point of contention centers around the use of the adjective αἰώνιος (aiōnios) in these verses, and its meaning and translation. I covered this, along with 2 Thessalonians 1.5–10 in particular, pretty extensively in a post some days ago; so if anyone wants a little bit more background on these, they might want to take a quick look at that. In any case, Kimel summarizes that

Hart believes that “aionion punish­ment” need not signify duration of punishment but may intimate the kind of punishment the wicked will suffer (specifically, punishment proper to the final aeon). . . . Similarly, “aionion life” need not be speaking of duration but of the life that belongs to the Kingdom. Its intended meaning, in other words, is qualitative rather than quantitative: it points to the age to come

After this, he quotes various arguments and observation Hart makes in support of his interpretation and translation: for example, that

the adjective aiōnios, unlike the adjective ἀΐδιος (aïdios) or adverb ἀεί (aei), never clearly means “eternal” or “everlasting” in any incontrovert­ible sense, nor does the noun aiōn simply mean “eternity” in the way that the noun ἀϊδιότης (aïdiotēs) does; neither does aiōnios mean “endless,” as ἀτέλευτος (atelevtos) or ἀτελεύτητος (atelevtētos) does (Hart, The New Testament, 538)

Drawing on this and other things, Al then continues

Supporters of eternal perdition may feel that Hart is exploiting a lexical loophole to advance his universalist agenda; but the objection also works the other way, with perhaps even greater plausibility. Whereas Origen and Gregory recognized the polysemy of aionios, and therefore refused to interpret the word in eschatological con­texts as meaning “eter­nal,” other theologians had no problem importing their infernalist commitments back into Scripture itself. The 19th century scholar J. W. Hanson notes that when the Emperor Justinian wrote to the patriarch of Constantinople in 543/544 to convene a local synod to condemn the teachings of Origen, he stated: “The holy church of Christ teaches an endless aiónios (ATELEUTETOS aiónios) life to the righteous, and endless (ateleutetos) punishment to the wicked.” Hanson comments: “Aiónios was not enough in his judgement to denote endless duration, and he employed ateleutetos. This demonstrates that even as late as A. D. 540 aiónios meant limited duration, and required an added word to impart to it the force of endless duration.”

In the comment section of Al’s post, I offered just some brief critical comments on several of the claims made therein — and by extension, some of Hart’s own claims. Re: the word ἀτελεύτητος, and its meaning and usage (or lack thereof) in relation to Origen and other things, I noted that Origen himself actually does use ἀτελεύτητος to describe afterlife punishments, parallel/synonymous with αἰώνιος in Selecta in Ezechielem 7.26. Re: the understanding of αἰώνιος in Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, and that they “refused to interpret the word in eschatological con­texts as meaning ‘eternal,'” I clarified that neither

ever addresses the meaning of adjectival αἰώνιος itself anywhere, as far as I’m aware. At most we can make inferences/guess about how they understood it when they employ it, when they do; but as far as I’m aware they don’t actually discuss it explicitly.

(Actually, looking back to my [unpublished] analysis of Origen’s use of αἰώνιος and related issues, I found that this wasn’t accurate, and that Origen does raise it explicitly in the Commentary on Romans, 6.5.9. However, there he only does so in relation to “αἰώνιος life” in Romans 5.21, with no bearing on the issue of eschatological punishment or anything. Further, although the Greek of the Commentary on Romans is no longer extant, it appears that in 6.5.9 he focuses more on αἰών than αἰώνιος proper.)

Regarding Kimel’s quotation of Hart, in which he contrasted αἰώνιος and ἀΐδιος/ἀεί, and suggested that αἰώνιος “never clearly means ‘eternal’ or ‘everlasting’ in any incontrovertible sense” in the way that these other terms do, I wrote that

Not only is αἰώνιος demonstrably used synonymously to things like (adverbial) ἀεί on dozens and dozens of occasions — even in the Septuagint itself, as I’ve exhaustively catalogued (https://i.imgur.com/IJGfA8k.png) — but elsewhere Ramelli and Konstan themselves understand it to denote permanence on any number of occasions.

(I usually speak of the “permanence” often inherent in αἰώνιος, where others might more frequently use a colloquial “eternal” or “everlasting.” In any case, I’ve covered all these various nuances in meaning and translation for αἰώνιος in my work-in-progress lexical entry for the term — including a section on true eternality.)

Obviously my main interest in my original response comment was to address some of Kimel’s characterizations, as well as some of the specific claims and wording of Hart when applicable.

The first reply to my comment came from someone actually quoting Hart from a private email exchange. I don’t know what the original query of the email was, but they said they had gotten permission to post Hart’s response — which read

you don’t need to go far in reading the Greek literature of Greco-Roman Judaism, Christianity, and paganism to figure out that none of the adjectival forms is used with a precise consistent meaning. Sometimes they’re used hyperbolically and sometimes intentionally vaguely. There are times when “apeiros” for example, means “infinite”, but it sometimes just means “innumerable” or “indefinite” (as in Origen’s use in De Principiis, which Rufinus renders as “innumerabilis”). “Atelevton” literally means “endless” but is often used to mean “very very long” or “indefinite” while “aionios” literally means “over an age” or “for a long period” but can be used to mean “eternal”…

Hart continued by emphasizing the parallel between this and modern hyperbolic uses of “endless” and “forever,” and then sort of summed this up by stating that “being literal-minded here is pointless.”

Now, generally as for the issue of hyperbolic usage, I’d say there’s room for agreement. In fact, in my own lexical entry for αἰώνιος — in the subsection for its meaning as “constant or repeated in terms of frequency and not strictly used for longer durations” — I had written

As with several other uses, this also might seem to be the type of denotation that’s particularly susceptible to hyperbolic usage, such as being engaged in constant or never-ending toil (compare the use of ἀίδιος in Hesiod, Shield 310, οἳ ἀίδιον εἶχον πόνον; and perhaps ἀδιάλειπτος ὀδύνη in Romans 9.2); but in truth there are few instances where hyperbole is obvious.

As seen at the end, though, I suggested that it’s rather hard to detect any obvious hyperbole in most uses of αἰώνιος. Repeatedly throughout Greek literature, it appears to be used in a sense where there was a genuine expectation that there wouldn’t be an end to the thing or phenomenon in question.[1]

In another sense, though, this all seems to have been somewhat self-defeating for what Hart (and others) had originally suggested. If words like αἰώνιος, ἀεί/ἀίδιος, and ἀτέλευτος/ἀτελεύτητος are actually bound together in their being able to signify the same types of duration — or all similarly used hyperbolically on occasion, etc. — then the very basis for making such sharp distinctions between them is diminished; or certainly the common claim that if a New Testament author had truly wanted to point to the everlastingness of something, they would have have used another term besides αἰώνιος. What struck me the most about Hart’s reply, however, was him saying that “being literal-minded here is pointless” in practically the same breath that he said “’aionios’ literally means ‘over an age’ or ‘for a long period.'”

I’ve long been critical of the etymological reduction of αἰώνιος in relation to “age”; and I made a(n admittedly slightly snarky) comment in reply to this, intimating that that this seemed hypocritical, and that much of Hart’s entire approach to, say, eschatological punishment in the New Testament is distilled through the lens of an overly literal and “etymologizing” parsing of αἰώνιος. Specifically, I said that

so much of this argument about the “horizon of two ages” is understood by Hart to be precisely found and reflected in the morphological components of the word: punishment, etc., taking place “aionios” as “in the (eschatological) Age,” and not durationally at all (and certainly not permanently).

I also noted that

A corollary to this is that most Biblical scholars think that the New Testament authors (and others) conceived of the eschatological age as the true end of history. They wouldn’t have conceived of anything lying “beyond” this at all. Yet I’m pretty sure it was precisely the overly literal interpretation of phrases like εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα καὶ ἐπέκεινα (LXX Micah 4.5; cf. LXX Exodus 15.18 too) by those like Origen that led to this idea [of something, e.g. restoration, “beyond” the eschatological era to come] in the first place — an idea that Hart seems to perpetuate with varying degree of cognizance.

There were a few more replies of less relevance after this, seemingly plagued by miscommunication and mistaken assumptions. But the crux centered around the relationship between the “two ages doctrine” in the New Testament and αἰώνιος as a potential signifer of this. The first instructive reply after this read

…Hart’s translation “of the Age” is intentionally vague. As he says, he sees aionios as perhaps referring to the last age or to the divine aeon above or as meaning for a long time or eternity. He actually doesn’t decide on one meaning–that’s why he doesn’t render it “of the Age to come.” As for Mark 10:30 and Luke 18:30, it’s pretty clear that it would be hard to write those verses without there being some explicit lexical connection between the aion to come and the aionios life it brings.

In response, I mentioned a number of problems with understanding αἰώνιος in Mark 10.30 as a signifier of the eschatological era; but in the interest of space, I’ll just leave it to anyone to read in full here, and also my follow-up here.

Which brings us to Hart’s own reply to these comments, which I’m posting in full. (Note that I’m “SF,” and that Hart was also responding to a comment by the person who had originally relayed his email.)

Thanks, but SF is not going to get your point. He’s arguing tautologously, you’re arguing conceptually. Either one thinks the NT idiom of “ages” inflects “aionios” and suggests a particular reference or one doesn’t. So who cares? I will confirm one point you made. If SF had read my notes to my translation with care, he would have seen that I do not claim that “aionios” in the New Testament is a clear reference to the olam ha-ba, but only that such an association is in keeping with the two ages language in the synoptics and Paul. Neither was my translation meant—again, as should be clear from my notes—to suggest that the only reading on offer was a reference to the coming age. I take “of the Age” to be open to numerous readings: for an age, for the totality of chronos that the aeon comprises, eternal or indeterminately long, of the Age to Come, of the divine aeon of the superlunary or supercelestial realms, of the Age Above as opposed to the Age of the Cosmos, and so on. And, as I also said, I wanted a phrase that would preserve the echo and seeming association between the language of the two ages and the adjective (understood as a rendering of an Aramaic idiom). I do not, incidentally, think that aionios means the same thing in John as in the synoptics. I also think there are Pauline uses that fit neither model. But, again, who cares? SF’s argument is that this has not been the way of dealing with intertestamental or NT texts, which is a tautology. I agree with a handful of NT scholars whose arguments are speculative and based on their own understandings of the intertestamental, NT, and late antique rabbinic texts. No one can win an argument between prejudice and speculation.

There are a number of things to address here. First, I’m not sure I even fully understand several of the comments Hart made in this, which seem to almost express an interpretive agnosticism/defeatism (“who cares?”). Second, it’s unusual that Hart accuses me of having not read his book carefully, and that as such I have the mistaken impression that he believes “that ‘aionios’ in the New Testament is a clear reference to the olam ha-ba” (the eschatological “era to come”), instead of “only that such an association is in keeping with the two ages language in the synoptics and Paul.”

In fact, my main concern — as expressed clearly throughout my comments on Eclectic Orthodoxy, and especially in my main post linked earlier — is with some of Hart’s translations which seem to push the reader precisely into the notion of αἰώνιος as signifying the eschatological era to come, where I offer arguments that this isn’t warranted at all. Further, as stated earlier, I think any language of “age” at all in relation to explaining the meaning of αἰώνιος is misleading; and instead, the semantic domain(s) of αἰώνιος should be primarily understood in relation to permanence, things lasting “as long as possible,” and occasionally endurance more generally.[2]

And when Hart offered his list of what all he thinks αἰώνιος can suggest, the very multivalence that Hart claims to accept here doesn’t actually seem to be very multivalent at all — most of which is still seemingly centered around the concept of a rather specific “age” or “aeon.” Again, among the main suggested meanings he listed were “for an age, for the totality of chronos that the aeon comprises, eternal or indeterminately long, of the Age to Come, of the divine aeon of the superlunary or supercelestial realms, of the Age Above as opposed to the Age of the Cosmos.” I hesitate to say that an overemphasis on this (in tandem with confident assertions about the true “literal” meaning of αἰών in relation to this) is also fairly clearly expressed by Hart elsewhere, too:

Certainly the noun αἰών, aiōn (or aeon), from which it [sc. αἰώνιος] is derived, did come during the classical and late antique periods to refer on occasion to a period of endless or at least indeterminate duration; but that was never its most literal acceptation. Throughout the whole of ancient and late antique Greek literature, an “aeon” was most properly an “age,” which is simply to say a “substantial period of time” or an “extended interval.” At first, it was typically used to indicate the lifespan of a single person, though sometimes it could be used of a considerably shorter period (even, as it happens, a single year). It came over time to mean something like a discrete epoch, or a time far in the past, or an age far off in the future. (That All Shall Be Saved, 121)

Further, even beyond the confines of Judaism and early Christianity, he also goes on to suggest that even Platonic philosophical use of αἰών might also be understood in much the same sense as in the late Jewish notion of the procession of the cosmic ages:

…for Platonic tradition as a whole, it may very well be the case that the aeon above is thought to persist only so long as the present world-cycle endures, and that at the end of the Platonic Year, when the stars begin their great rotation anew, one heavenly Age will succeed another. (122)

(This seems to me to be along much the same lines as the suggestion of Ilaria Ramelli re: the use of αἰών in Stoicism, too — which Heleen Keizer criticizes in her review of Ramelli’s Terms for Eternity: cf. The Studia Philonica Annual 23 [2011], 205.)

This of course isn’t to deny the idea of the multivalence of αἰώνιος. In my own lexical entry for the term, I reached as far as I could to delineate a number of different categories and descriptors of its use: perpetual, endless, permanent; pertaining to the longest amount of time possible for something to last; colloquially eternal as everlasting or permanent, or more properly eternal in a fuller or technical sense; used in relation to things of a kind of lasting and/or permanent ultimacy; permanent in effect or terminal; permanent so as to suggest immutability; used to suggest something which will be of permanently/continuously enduring benefit or significance (as e.g. used in connection with a gift or new state of affairs); continuing uninterrupted from the past into the future, invariable; pertaining to time immemorial (especially as a Septuagintalism); constant or repeated in terms of frequency. The biggest difference is that there’s been no truly viable argument that it acquires the particular nuance of denoting the eschatological αἰών in early Jewish and Christian usage — even when it’s used in proximity to an explicit mention of the eschatological αἰών, such as in Mark 10.30.[3]

In any case, when we look at the appendix of Hart’s New Testament translation (which I’ve in fact read carefully a number of times since its publication), he writes that

I have generally rendered aiōnios as “of” or “in” either “that Age” (ekeinos aiōn) or “the Age,” using the unqualified noun alone to suggest a long, if indeterminate, duration, but using the uppercase letter to suggest something of its eschatological or otherworldly resonance. (543)

As he says, his capitalization is specifically meant to suggest “its eschatological or otherworldly resonance.” However, although one might think that this is a fairly distinct and idiosyncratic resonance, Hart doesn’t offer this capitalization only sparingly for αἰώνιος throughout his New Testament translation, but rather it appears ubiquitously. (In fact, I’m not sure if he ever renders αἰώνιος with a non-capitalized “age.”) Further, even if the capitalization were set aside, I think one would be hard-pressed to argue that the idea of αἰώνιος signifying something taking place in something allows for much of a durational sense for this. In no spoken or written language of which I’m aware is an adjectival durational descriptor like this conceived as being “in” something — or especially not a definite “the” <something>.[4] Similarly, needless to say, the use of a demonstrative pronoun like “that” also clearly points in the direction of a specific era — though this doesn’t stop Hart from indeed rendering such for the anarthrous ζωή αἰωνία in Mark 10.30 (“the life of that Age”), nor in Matthew 25.46, where’s no potential αἰών antecedent at all!

As I’ve repeatedly emphasized, “age” is no more “neutral” or “literal” a translation of αἰών in general than some of the other senses in which αἰών is used — such as denoting spinal marrow in Homer, which of course no one would inclined to suggest as a “neutral” meaning, much less to describe it in relation to “age” in any way, “literally” or otherwise. To the extent that the particular meaning of αἰών from which adjectival αἰώνιος is derived can be inferred from the broader attested usage of αἰώνιος (and in turn related back to usage of αἰών itself), this is clearly found in αἰών’s well-attested sense of signifying a totality of time and/or perpetuity. This makes adjectival αἰώνιος more or less exactly parallel with Latin aeternus, which is derived from aevum in much the same way αἰώνιος is from αἰών, and similarly doesn’t relate to aevum as any sort of specific era. As such, there really is no succinct way to describe αἰώνιος “literally”; and even employing the Latinized transliteration “aeon” here can clearly mislead, such as in translating αἰώνιος a la “of an aeon” — and perhaps even when Hart describes αἰώνιος in relation to “the totality of chronos that the aeon comprises” (in light of the potentially misleading sense of “the aeon”).

The same holds for εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, too: an adverbial clause that’s for all intents and purposes semantically identical to αἰώνιος. Although most well-known as a Septuagintalism, this is nothing other than a twist on the well-known ancient Greek accusative of time τὸν αἰῶνα, which ubiquitously signifies permanence and perpetuity. In light of this, Hart’s attempt to deal with εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα in the New Testament falters in much the same way as his approach to αἰώνιος. At first it might seem that Hart could pick up warrant for understanding εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα in line with a more particular “age”/aeon via fixating on ὁ αἰών; but again broader Greek usage of accusative τὸν αἰῶνα clearly establishes its meaning, revealing Hart’s parsing of this is nothing more than a red herring that comes from his misguided principle to “scrupulously” treat (all) articular items as definite.

In terms of a “literal” translation of εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, we’re in much the same boat as with αἰώνιος: any parsing along the lines of “until the age” seems to be meaningless, unless one understands this to signify something like “until the dawn of the eschatological era” — which, again, it’s been argued that it precisely doesn’t.[5] However, there may be more options available to us if we wanted to replicate this in English by similarly using a preposition + abstract noun: the phrase “unto eternity” isn’t entirely unknown, and seems to express much the same idea semantically; or better, “in perpetuity.” But of course “forever” is by far the most common and fitting translation, whether understood colloquially as “permanently” or as something more in line with actual eternality. (Or “as long as possible,” in even more dynamic language.)

Finally, as for Hart’s mention of αἰώνιος in the Gospel of John: it’s true there are several places in this gospel where the concept of ζωὴ αἰώνιος seems to be employed in unique ways. However, the focal point of its (re-)interpretation doesn’t seem to pertain to any sense of αἰών in relation to the eschatological age, or even particularly to αἰώνιος at all, but instead seems to be centered around “life” itself. I’ve also covered this in my lexical entry (subsection Idiosyncratic or special interpretations of αἰώνιος?):

It’s sometimes thought that the Gospel of John has an idiosyncratic conception of αἰώνιος, based on its creative use of “αἰώνιος life,” etc. However, not only is ζωὴ αἰώνιος clearly associated with immortality at several points throughout the gospel (3.16; 6.47–50), but to the extent that it has an idiosyncratic conception of ζωὴ αἰώνιος elsewhere, it appears that ζωή is the focal point of meaning and reinterpretation — or the compound phrase as a whole, as somewhat semi-“fossilized” —, but not αἰώνιος itself. By the time of the Gospel of John, the concept of everlasting life had, of course, become ubiquitous in early Judaism and Christianity. When this particular gospel creatively reinterprets this, it appears in various capacities: 1) as something like a metonym for salvation (compare also Mark 10.17 with Acts 16.30); 2) where acceptance of Christ, under various metaphors, e.g. as food or drink, yields everlasting life as that state enduring beyond all transitory phenomena (John 4.14; 6.27; and again cf. John 3.16; 6.47–50); 3) on one occasion as something synonymous with the “conditions” for salvation, in the sense of these conditions leading to salvation and life (John 17.3); or 4) perhaps even as a metonym for the afterlife itself insofar as everlasting life is attained within it (cf. perhaps John 12.25 vis-à-vis other instances where the concept of eternal life in the age to come, or even just the eschatological age itself, seems to be metonymically referred to as the “life to come” as a quasi–spatio-temporal event: Apology of Aristides 16; John Chrysostom, Commentary on Psalm 49.6).

Notes

[1] One can argue that there are a number of instances in which it was naive of people to think that something described as αἰώνιος might last forever. But that’s different from saying that they didn’t in fact think so.

[2] See part of my full treatment here.

[3] Needless to say, if elsewhere one were to tempted to describe αἰώνιος using any sort of language of “for a period of time” — perhaps even if it’s acknowledged that this might be a substantial one — this seems to risk conflating it with πρόσκαιρος: a term to which αἰώνιος is actually very commonly contrasted in religious and secular literature.

[4] In terms of adverbial phrases, however, there are obviously those like “in perpetuity” or “in eternity” — though, again, to my knowledge never definite.

[5] I covered εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα and other phrases in a bit more detail in my previous post. This would also be self-evidently absurd in instances like 1 Corinthians 8.13.