Previous section (muddleplatonismx1.html) dealt with:
Here we deal with:
--------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------
Then, the ‘fun’ one—from my perspective (smile): Paul the Middle-Platonist?
“From your perspective, is there
any reason we should see Paul as using middle-platonic philosophy?”
My Response:
There are a couple of overlapping questions hiding in this, varying in ‘belief density’:
Let’s try to figure out how we would test this…
The first one on influence is the trickiest because the question often comes up about content versus vocabulary. In other words, was Paul influenced by the content of MP teachings (so that it shows up in his arguments as foundational beliefs or as boundary-setting beliefs), or only by the vocabulary of MP (so that he uses MP vocabulary but with altered meanings which would puzzle a true MPer)?
Vocabulary overlap is not very strong evidence for content influence, since terms could come in through general culture without any understanding of the content behind it. For example, when a modern Operations Manager for an assembly plant is arguing for installing robotics, he might use the phrase “we need this to make a quantum leap in productivity”. Chances are that he has no idea what content lies behind ‘quantum leap’. So, is he influenced by quantum theory? Not at the content level, but perhaps at the vocabulary level (although all he knows is that ‘quantum’ means something like ‘unusually big’). When business leaders began talking about ‘paradigm shifts’ in business models years ago, were they being influenced by philosophy of science? Probably few knew anything more than a paragraph or two about the Kuhnian discussions, and even less about the sociology of knowledge theories. Were they influenced by it at vocab level? Yes.
A second problem with vocabulary overlap
is that it can occur
without any content-overlap, as has been shown for alleged parallels between Hebrews and Philo of
“We will not find any parallel between Hebrews and Philo that demands a direct connection between the two. If anything, Ronald Williamson's classic study on Philo and Hebrews [note: Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews (1970)] shows that most parallels are somewhat superficial. Even when the two are using similar language or imagery, the conceptual framework behind the words is usually different.” [HI:BG2P,81]
So, if Paul uses MP terminology and MP-sounding phrases, we will have to work through the content-versus-vocabulary questions first.
And we need also to note that Paul could conceivably use MP-sounding phrases but in a polemical, anti-MP way. So, for example, might be the case in Colossians (which we will discuss below), in which his adversaries are propounding some very MP-sounding themes. Paul actually uses Platonic-sounding phrases to rebuke them:
“Using Platonic language, in v. 17 he describes them as the “shadow” rather than the “reality” (the sōma, the word he uses for the church in 1:18 and 2:19). They are “an appearance” (2:22), not the “real thing” found in Christ. Furthermore, they refer “to things which all perish” (2:22), thus enforcing bondage to the transient.” [Thurston, B. B. (2007). Reading Colossians, Ephesians, and 2 Thessalonians : A literary and theological commentary., p32]
Paul argues that it is the semi-Platonic position which is the ‘shadow’ and the ‘appearance’, as opposed to the true reality—of Christ. This, for example, would argue that Paul was familiar enough with Platonic thought/images to know the position, but that he rejected the basic content of the position.
Of course, if he does NOT use MP-sounding terminology, then the case will seem much simpler. [It won’t, however, be ‘closed’ by this. There would still be a possibility that he was trying to translate/port MP concepts into a Judeo-Christian word-space, so that the concepts would be obviously MP, but the vocabulary would sound ‘Jewish’. We will have to consider this also.]
And finally, if
Paul uses ‘reverse MP’ language (e.g., oxymoron-like phrases, MP terms in
decidedly non-MP ways), then this will count as fairly strong evidence that he
was not an MPer and perhaps (depending on the context) even trying to rebut
MP-like positions.
So, we can approach this by working through the following steps/issues:
Then, to test the concepts-without-the-vocab, we can ask this question:
How did MP writers react to Pauline-articulated doctrines of incarnation and bodily resurrection?
Then we might check some ‘circumstantial data’:
Okay, let’s start—
One. What terms and concepts are quintessentially
MP, and therefore to be expected in writings by anybody influenced (at a major
level) by or devoted to MP?
Since we are basically dealing with physics here—and not MP ethics or epistemology—we can confine our discussion to matters of the gods, the universe, and the inhabitants therein.
Here’s some summary descriptions of what MP philosophers taught/held:
“From about 100 B.C. to about A.D. 200 there was a revival of Plato known as Middle Platonism, which reached its peak in the third century in the original work of Plotinus. It is genuinely Platonic but differs in many ways from Plato himself, developing matters he only touched on and showing the influence of Aristotle. Our only concern with this Platonic revival is as a background to the philosophy of Plotinus who deeply influenced Augustine and through Augustine subsequent theology… The Middle Platonists viewed the human soul as belonging to another realm but as now fallen into the sense world. The object of life is to purify the soul by philosophy so we may return to a disembodied life in which we enjoy the vision of true reality. This is highly familiar to us from Plato himself. The departure from Plato that concerns us is some modifications of the Timaeus. Middle Platonism places a Supreme Mind as the supreme reality at the head of a hierarchy of beings. The manner of this transformation is easily seen if we recall that Plato in the Timaeus said that the "father and maker of all this universe is past finding out" (28c). So Plato told a story of a craftsman making the visible world by using the world of Forms as the pattern. Because according to the Timaeus the visible world is the handiwork of intelligence or mind, the Middle Platonists quite naturally describe the supreme principle as mind. In the Republic Plato had the Form of the Good as head of the hierarchy of Forms; Middle Platonists identify the Form of the Good with the Supreme Mind itself. Since the "father and maker of all" is remote, they fill the gap between him and the visible world with a hierarchy of beings. Plato gave them ample precedent, for whenever he had trouble connecting one thing with another, he would place something between the two (metaxu)… The identification of the Form of the Good with the Supreme Mind reinforces the remoteness of the Supreme Mind since, as Plato said in the Republic, knowledge of the Good is only possible for a few people after a lifetime of effort. For the Middle Platonists, knowledge of the Good is reserved for the next life, except for a few of them who thought that occasional flashes of vision of the Good are possible in this life. But the remoteness took on a decidedly different character under the influence of Aristotle's "unmoved mover." The Middle Platonists, as Plotinus after them, sought to reconcile Plato and Aristotle and took from Aristotle some of the features of his unmoved mover and applied them to their Supreme Mind. Aristotle's unmoved mover is mind but is so remote from this world (even though it is its top story) as to be utterly unaware of it. It is aware only of its own thought as it engages in perpetual contemplation. It affects what is outside itself only indirectly through intermediaries. The Middle Platonists adopted the view of the Supreme Mind as absolutely free of all external activities and exalted it to such a height that it has no direct contact with the material world. The Supreme Mind is still head of a hierarchy of beings, or the top story of the universe, unlike the Christian God, who as Creator transcends the universe. This is a point we shall stress later in connection with Plotinus. … One can easily see the possibility of an enormous increase or an inflation of intermediary powers between the Supreme Mind and the sensible world. The more one stresses remoteness of the Supreme Mind from the material world, the more ingenuity one can expend in populating the world with entities in decreasing gradations of onto-logical reality to connect the top to the bottom of the universe. Plato's charming "likely story" of a craftsman copying the world of Forms is turned into a realistic description…. Philo, an Alexandrian Jew who died about A.D. 50, was affected by Middle Platonism's stress on intermediaries between the Supreme Mind and the world. He was saturated in hellenistic philosophy and sought to reconcile the Jewish Scriptures with Plato. As a Jew, he believed God was active in creating and ruling the cosmos, but he also stressed God's transcendence and saw God as acting through various Intermediary powers. Philo is vague about the relationship between these intermediaries and God, and he is not consistent in his description of them. Sometimes there are two, sometimes several, but often a single and great intermediary, the Logos. … Heraclitus first used the term logos in a philosophical sense. His logos is the principle or ratio or proportion that keeps a balance between the opposing pairs of things in the world process, and he described it as the principle of life and intelligence. The Stoics, in their eclectic physical theory of the cosmos, also spoke of a logos and used Heraclitus' image of fire for it. They believed that the formative principle of individual things in nature is part of a universal fiery principle. Individual things develop from "seeds" or logoi. For the Stoics, the seminal logoi are parts of the fire or logos (reason or nature) permeating all things, causing their growth, development, and action. The early Stoics believed in an endless cycle of worlds, somewhat as Heraclitus did, being generated by the divine fire of all things returning and disappearing in a great conflagration. After a pause the cosmos will arise once again. Combined with their view of necessity or fate, they held for a time to the theory that each world in the cycle was exactly like the previous one, so each individual appeared again and again hi each successive world. … There are, of course, uses of the term "word" (dabar) in the Old Testament. There are even poetical personifications of the Word of God in Psalms 33:4-7; 107:20; and 147:15. These are augmented in the Targums, the expanded traditions of the Old Testament. Dabar is translated in the Septuagint as logos. So Philo had a term that was used in both of the traditions he was trying to bring together, Jewish and Platonic. … In Philo the Logos is not only an intermediary, or instrument by which God makes the world, but he frequently identifies the Logos with the Platonic world of Forms. We have just noted that Plato himself did not identify the world of Forms with the mind—either of the craftsman or the father of all things. The Middle Platonists did this. Philo follows them but in addition makes the important step of identifying the Logos with the Forms. Thus it is possible for the early Church Fathers to think of the three together: Divine Mind, Forms as the thoughts of the Divine Mind, and Logos as the Wisdom of God—the instrument of creation and the principle of its order. (See Proverbs 3:19-20; 8:22-31 where Wisdom is associated with creation.) … The identification of Jesus as the Logos in Revelation 19:13 (the Logos of God as eschatological victor and judge) owes nothing to Philo. The use of Logos for Christ in I John 1:1 and in John 1:1-18 has not been accounted for. But Philo clearly developed the meaning of Logos with an eye to Plato and the Platonists, whereas the Johannine material develops the theme by reference to Jesus. Still the term logos in both Heraclitus and the Stoics had cosmic import, and its tie to the Platonic world of Forms by Philo gave it even richer associations for theologians to explore. To connect Jesus with this philosophical material at all is to make Jesus not just Savior or Messiah in Jewish terms but to give him cosmic significance in hellenic terms. Clearly John 1:1-18 intends to elevate Jesus into a cosmic role, by relating him to the creation story of Genesis 1. It is by him and with him that the world was formed. This is the thrust of John, apart from any connection with the specific identification of the Supreme Mind and Plato's Forms, or the Logos, Supreme Mind, and the Forms. But Philo did make these specific connections, as did the Christian theologians who followed Philo's lead.” [PUT,70ff]
And
“The perceptible cosmos is a great sphere bounded by the sphere of the fixed stars. Inside it are the paths of the seven planets then known (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Moon - mostly in that order). From this supralunar region, in which all motions remain (essentially) equal, the sublunar region is separated, stretching from the moon to the earth, which lies in the middle of the cosmic sphere…. Here, the order of movements is continually interrupted by irregularity; here alone evil and wickedness have their place. In the space between moon and earth demons are located. They too consist of a soul and a (airy) body. Their task is mediation between gods and humans in sacrifices, prayers and prophecies. There are good and evil demons. The souls of the latter do not possess a perfect mind and hence are not emotionless like those of the gods, rather they are subject to passions. Hence they are responsible for wizardry and magic. … After demons come human beings. By their rational souls they are related to the world-soul and the gods. Yet they also possess an irrational part of the soul … consisting of the hot-tempered and the covetous, tempting them into moral misbehaviour. It is this irrational part of the soul that together with the etheric or pneumatic vehicle of the soul mediates between the rational soul and the body. After death, the soul is separated from the body, has to undergo judgment and is eventually reincarnated, either in a human being or an animal” [Brill’s New Pauly, s.v. “Middle Platonism”]
And
“The Middle Platonists exalted the absolute transcendence of the Supreme Mind (God). This is the head of a hierarchy of being, reached only through intermediary powers. The universe is animated by a World Soul. Direct knowledge of the transcendent Mind is impossible, but a ‘negative theology’ gives an indirect knowledge of God. Direct contemplation may bring a few brief flashes of intuition even in this life. Some, influenced by Neopythagoreans, gave a negative judgment on matter as evil. Others, closer to Plato, saw evil as the result of the embodiment of ideas. Another emphasis of the Middle Platonists was the immortality of the soul.” [HI:BOEC, 388]
And
“Besides the first principles, there is, as an intermediate and mediating entity, the World
Soul. This is basically
the entity whose creation is described in the Timaeus,
but traces appear, in such men as Philo and Plutarch, of a rather
more august figure, which almost seems to reflect, a Speusippean Dyad, a figure
not evil but simply responsible for multiplicity, and thus for all creation.
In Philo, as we shall see, the figure of Sophia appears, who is interchangeable
with the Dyad, and Plutarch, in the preface of his essay On Isis and Osiris, seems to describe such
a figure, whom he identifies with
Allright—let’s make a list of the terms and concepts to look for from these summaries:
…………………………………………………………………………………………
On to Two…
Two: To what extent does the Pauline literature
uses these terms and concepts—as if Paul actually held to them?
Well, the ‘terms’ part of this is very, very easy (smile)…
One: How many times does Pauline literature use the phrase “World Soul”?
Zero.
Is there some other phrase in Paul which might be the same as the Platonic concept of “World Soul”?
Well, the closest phrase might be the ‘spirit of the world’ (1 Cor 2.12), but this cannot be even close to the World Soul. The Platonic World Soul moves the sun, the moon and the stars around, and even us [cf. Laws X.898-89, for example]. No human can actually evade the Platonic world soul, but Paul says explicitly in this versus that Christians do NOT have this ‘world spirit’. So, these are not close. [Plus, in Platonic thought, souls and spirits are vastly different notions/terms.]
So, another Zero.
Two. Next, how many times does Paul describe the Supreme God as emotionless or unaware of the world’s state?
Another Zero.
Are there any concepts in Paul which might be close?
Nope—another zero…
Three. How about the “Logos”? Surely Paul uses the MP term Logos for some kind of agent or principle (as maybe happened in John 1?)?
Nope—Paul never uses the word Logos to refer to Christ, nor does it show up in any of the pre-Pauline hymnic/creedal material he uses in his epistles.
How about a MP Logos-type figure/concept in Paul?
Here we face a methodological problem—what WAS the MP Logos concept? We have noted that MP merged the Stoic Logos (a fiery principle of individuation) with the Demiurge figure. The Logos of Plutarch ‘woke the World Soul up’. In Philo, the OT/Tanaach Dabar (world) is merged with this demiurgic agent of God in the world. The MP Logos is an intermediary (but between God and what is not clear—a hierarchy of intermediates would mean that the Logos would related to a slightly-lower daimon, which would in turn related to another ever lower daimon, etc, etc, etc.) and God’s agent of creation.
Jesus is clearly the instrument of creation for God, but unlike the Logos, the creation was created FOR him (and not just for the Supreme God, Col 1.16). And even though Paul asserts that Christ has authority of all spiritual unseen forces, in no way are THEY intermediaries between Jesus and humans. So, although there are some similarities, they don’t seem close enough—especially given the lack of use of the prominent term Logos to describe Christ—to warrant an identification with the MP concept.
Four. Next—how about the term “demiurge”? How many times does Paul use this term?
Another zero.
How about the concept of demiurge?
Same answer as for Logos—too many differences between the cosmic Christ (i.e., the best candidate for identification with a demiurge) and the MP concept.
Here’s the core of the discussion in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
“The Timaeus is
Plato's attempt to carry out the program of rationalist cosmology that
Anaxagoras had promised but had failed to fulfill. The Demiurge
is portrayed as the agent who turns the initial chaos
into a cosmos. Like a human craftsman, he arranges
existing materials and does not create them. The conception of creation ex nihilo
is foreign to the whole tradition of Greek thought. The Demiurge shapes his
materials to conform as much as possible to the
eternal intelligible model of the Forms. First, he makes other gods, the world soul that the cosmos requires as its motive principle, and the immortal part of the human soul. The created gods then complete the work by making physical things, including human bodies. The Demiurge's success is necessarily limited: the Reason that constitutes his pattern is opposed by a recalcitrant Necessity that hinders his work in something
like the way in which a human craftsman may be frustrated by intractable
materials— and no material is perfectly tractable. This obstacle to a faultless achievement by the
Demiurge is also the main
reason why Plato cannot hope to give more than a "likely tale" of the
Demiurge's work. … It
has been widely believed, from ancient times to the present
day, that the Demiurge is a mythical figure and that Plato
did not believe
in the literal existence of such a creator-god. He is a personification of the Reason whose requirements he is represented as
trying to embody in the nature of the cosmos. Even if he is literally meant, he
must still be
sharply contrasted with the creator-god of the Judeo-Christian tradition, not only because he is not in that
sense a creator, but also because he is in no sense an object of worship. … The
concept of the Demiurge was taken over by the Neoplatonists
and by some Gnostic writers. To the Gnostics
he was the evil lord of the lower powers, creator of the despised material
world, and entirely separate from the supreme God. Their parody of the Demiurge
as a clumsy imitator is blended with hostile satire of the Old Testament
creator-God. Plotinus protested against their conception of the Demiurge as a
source of positive evil in the world.”
Several disconnects here from Paul: (a) Jesus is said to have ‘created’ not simply ‘arranged’; (b) no ‘world soul’ to make; (c) no mention of Christ using ‘other gods’ to finish the work; (d) no implication of a ‘flawed due to materials’ outcome.
And the demiurge was generally (in the MP writers) not a personal agent:
“Middle Platonism, in contrast to Stoicism and in keeping with its Platonic roots, emphasized the primary reality of the immaterial, intelligible realm. In keeping with this emphasis, one of the characteristics of Middle Platonism was its distinction between two aspects of the divinity. The first aspect of the divinity was essentially transcendent and basically inner-directed. The second aspect was an active, demiurgic power which was responsible for the ordering of everything else in the universe. The distinction was not simply metaphorical, but was meant as a metaphysical explanation which both preserved the transcendence of God and accounted for the relatively orderly character of the universe. Middle Platonists sometimes adopted the Stoic logos into their systems as the term for this active force of God in the world (Dillon 1977: 46). More often, however, they gave this demiurgic aspect of divinity a name other than logos (e.g., idea, mind). [ABD, s.v. logos]
And the intermediary function is just not specific enough to tie this to MP (or Platonism generally). The OT/Tanaach are filled with intermediaries, long before Plato was even born (e.g. Moses, the Aaronic priesthood, Melchizedek, the Angel of YHWH, even some of the prophets functioned this way).
[Note: when Origen comes along—a fullscale MPer—he will identify Jesus with the demiurge, but no one before him does, in the Christian tradition.]
Five. How about a statement about a ‘hierarchy of intermediaries’ between God and humanity?
No such phrase or concept.
The concept of intermediary is present—obviously in the person of the mediating Redeemer—but there is no hierarchy. It’s just God/Jesus/humans. The angels/demons are not in the Pauline redemptive scheme. Humans do not ask angels to ask bigger angels to ask Jesus to ask God the Father for our rescue from judgment/sin.
God/Jesus may use angels to perform tasks on our behalf (maybe even being a messenger of the good news at times—Galatians 1.8?), and there might be chain-of-command within the ranks of angels/demons, but these are never represented as being part of our access to God. In fact, in the closing doxology of Romans 8, Paul assures us that the ‘emotionless God’ (chuckle) has a love for us so strong, so tenacious, and so pervasive that NOTHING can “free us from the grip” of His unrelenting warmth and ever-giving heart for us:
And I am convinced that nothing can
ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers
of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above
or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that
is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. [New Living
Another zero.
Six. Moon (with a semi-divine--in Platonic thought--soul of its own) as separator between ‘heaven and earth’
The Pauline literature does use the word ‘moon’ twice, once in Col 2.16 and once in 1 Cor 15.41.
The passage in Col 2.16 is simply a reference to a ‘new moon festival’, and is about the regular agricultural-based festivals that the ancient world celebrated a millennium or two before Plato.
The passage in 1 Cor 15 is more interesting, though:
All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. [NAS]
Well, not really much here, I guess… ‘glory’ is not ‘soul’, and the moon is just glupped in with the other heavenly bodies (sun, stars). Certainly no reference (or implication) for the moon being ‘between’ anything (except between, maybe, the sun and the stars in terms of ‘relative glory’—from the word order?).
Again, another zero.
Seven. Sub-Lunar as a description of the daimonic living-space and area of operation.
With only two mentions of ‘moon’, its gonna be hard to get any ‘below-moon’ references also… this is an easy ‘zero’ at the vocab level.
But at the concept level, we might have something different. Paul uses the term ‘air’ two times, once describing an evil agent and once about us meeting the Lord ‘in the air’.
The first one is the most interesting one (Eph 2). Here’s the literal construction:
“And you were dead in/by the trespasses and the sins of you all, in which sins you all once formerly walked, according to the age (aeon) of this world (kosmos), according to the ruler (archon, accusative singular) of the authority (exousia, genitive singular) of the air (aer), of the spirit (pneuma, genitive singular) which now is at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also all lived, once, in the desire of the flesh (sarx) to do the will of the flesh and the mind (dianoia)…”
Although this might look promising at first, it is all wrong from a Platonic and MP perspective, and basically just looks ‘street folk Jewish’ (or actually, given the common Graeco-Roman demonology, ‘street folk Mediterranean’ would also be accurate):
“Most Jewish people
believed that Satan or the chief of the heavenly angels of the nations ran the
whole world except for
“Here the realm of the ruler’s authority is said to be the air.
Elsewhere in Ephesians, hostile powers inhabit the heavenly realms (cf 3:10;
6:12). This notion has
its background in OT
and Jewish thought
where angels and spirit powers were often represented as in heaven (e.g., Job 1:6; Dan
10:13, 21; 2 Macc 5:2; 1 Enoch
61.10; 90.21, 24); it was also developed in Philo (cf. De
Spec. Leg. 1.66; De Plant. 14; De Gig. 6, 7). What is the relationship
of “the air” to “the heavenly realms”? It may be that the writer is
using terminology from different cosmological schemes, but it is fairly certain that he intends the two terms to indicate the same realm
inhabited by malevolent agencies. If there is any distinct
connotation, it could be that the “air” indicates the lower reaches of that
realm and therefore emphasizes the proximity of this evil power and his
influence over the world. In
later Judaism the air is in fact thought of as the region under the firmament as
in 2 Enoch 29.4,5, “And I threw
him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air
continuously above the abyss.” (Cf. also T.
Benj. 3.4; Targum of Job
5.7; and Asc. Isa. 7.9; 10.29;
11.23 where the firmament is called the air and the ruler of this world and his
angels are said to live in it.” [WBC, in loc]
Even three of the other terms don’t make any sense in MP (or general
Hellenistic terms): pneuma, dianoia,
and aeon. A good Platonist would use the
word soul (psyche) here instead of spirit (pneuma), since pneuma was a
different sort of thing than a soul. Flesh and mind (dianoia) were always opposed to one
another in MP—they didn’t really ‘co-operate in evil’ as Paul
is stating here (a ‘soul’ would cooperate with the flesh in sinning, but a
mind/nous would not). And aeon is problematic, no matter how the word is
understood.
Aeon
is sometimes understood as a time-period phase (“age”). The problem for MP in
this passage is that aeon is used negatively—as a ‘bad thing’. But in Platonism
in general (including MP), aeon meant something very,
very good.
“Under Plato’s influence, Philo gives the following definition of áἰþí:
ôὸ ÷ñüíïõ ðáñÜäåéãìá êáὶ ἀñ÷Ýôõðïí [Tankxl8: “aion: the time
span of Forms and Ideas/Archetypes”] Mut. Nom., 267;
Deus Imm., 32; cf. Rer. Div.
Her., 165. ÷ñüíïò is the âßïò of the êüóìïò áἰóèçôüò, áἰþí
the âßïò of God and the êüóìïò íïçôüò. [TankXl8: chronos is the life of the
perceptible world; aion
is the life of God
and the world of the mind] It is of the
nature of aion to be the eternal to-day, Fug., 57. [TDNT, s.v. aion]
Other interpreters of the passage see “aeon” as the name of the ‘second god’ in some systems (which, incidentally, would be in competition with understanding Paul’s view of Christ as the MP ‘second god’… smile):
“αἰών is a complex term normally
indicating a period of time whether brief or lengthy (the two ages) but
occasionally the universe (Heb 1:2; 11:3). However both prior to and after the
beginning of the Christian movement it
was used of deities. In the singular, and
especially in
In either version, MP
would see aion as a very good thing, but Paul is clearly using it in a very
negative way.
So, nothing really in this passage supports an “MP concept sighting” (smile)
The second passage in which ‘air’ is used in an unusual way (perhaps) is the Rapture passage—1 Thess 4.16ff: