For Alfred Only

Alfred, following are six versions of the same passage using the word “aionios”. I’ve noted where the word is found. It seems that almost no translators were willing to find it to mean eternal in this instance.
Ro 16:25 Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages (aionios)26 but is now disclosed,…NRSV

Ro 16:25 Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past (aionios),26 but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him—NIV

Ro 16:25 Now to Him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past,(aionios)26 but now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, [leading] to obedience of faith; NASB

Ro 16:25 Now to him that is able to establish you, according to my glad tidings and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to [the] revelation of [the] mystery, as to which silence has been kept in [the] times of the ages (aionios),26 but [which] has now been made manifest, and by prophetic scriptures, according to commandment of the eternal God, made known for obedience of faith to all the nations—DARBY

Ro 16:25 To Him who has it in His power to make you strong, as declared in the Good News which I am spreading, and the proclamation concerning Jesus Christ, in harmony with the unveiling of the Truth which in the periods of past Ages (aionios) remained unuttered,26 but has now been brought fully to light, and by the command of the God of the Ages has been made known by the writings of the Prophets among all the Gentiles to win them to obedience to the faith— WEYMOUTH

Ro 16:25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,(aionios)26 But now is made manifest, KJV

Here are more than a few Greek scholars who disagree with you regarding your understanding of aion and aionios.

Scarlett: "That aiónion, does not mean endless or eternal, may appear from considering that no adjective can have a greater force than the noun from which it is derived. If aión means age (which none either will or can deny) then aiónion must mean age-lasting, or duration through the age or ages to which the thing spoken of relates."
Maclaine, in his Mosheim: Aión or æon among the ancients, was used to signify the age of man, or the duration of human life."
Cruden: "The words eternal, everlasting, forever, are sometimes taken for a long time, and are not always to be understood strictly, for example, 'Thou shalt be our guide from this time forth, even forever,' that is, during our whole life."
Alex. Campbell: "ITS RADICAL IDEA IS INDEFINITE DURATION."
Whitby: "Nothing is more common and familiar in Scripture than to render a thorough and irreparable vastation, whose effects and signs should be still remaining, by the word aiónios, which we render eternal."Hammond, Benson, and Gilpin, in notes on Jude 7, say the same. Liddell and Scott also give to aión, in the poets the sense of life and lifetime, as also an age or generation.
Pearce (in Matt. vii:33) says: "The Greek word aión, seems to signify age here, as it often does in the New Testament, and according to its most proper signification." Clarke, Wakefield, Boothroyd, Simpson, Lindsey, Mardon, Acton, agree. So do Locke, Hammond, Le Clerc, Beausobre, Lenfant, Dodridge, Paulus, Kenrick and Olshausen.
T. Southwood Smith: "Sometimes it signifies the term of human life; at other times an age, or dispensation of Providence. Its most common signification is that of age or dispensation."
Even Professor Stuart is obliged to say: "The most common and appropriate meaning of aión in the New Testament, and the one which corresponds with the Hebrew word olam, and which therefore deserves the first rank in regard to order, I put down first: an indefinite period of time; time without limitation; ever, forever, time without end, eternity, all in relation to future time. The different shades by which the word is rendered, depend on the object with which aiónios is associated, or to which it has relation, rather than to any difference in the real meaning of the word."
J. W. Haley *says: "The Hebrew word 'olam' rendered 'forever,' does not imply the metaphysical idea of absolute endlessness, but a period of indefinite length, as Rambach says, a very long time, the end of which is hidden from us." Olam or olim is the Hebrew equivalent of aión.
Dr. Edward Beecher(11) remarks, "It commonly means merely continuity of action . . . all attempts to set forth eternity as the original and primary sense of aión are at war with the facts of the Greek language for five centuries, in which it denoted life and its derivative senses, and the sense eternity was unknown." And he also says what is the undoubted fact, "that the original sense of aión is not eternity. . . . It is conceded on all hands that this (life) was originally the general use of the word. In the Paris edition of Henry Stephens' Lexicon it is affirmed emphatically "that life, or the space of life, is the primitive sense of the word, and that it is always so used by Homer, Hesiod, and the old poets; also by Pindar and the tragic writers, as well as by Herodotus and Xenophon." "Pertaining to the world to come," is the sense given to "These shall go away into everlasting punishment," by Prof. Tayler Lewis, who adds(12) "The preacher in contending with the Universalist and the Restorationist, would commit an error, and it may be suffer a failure in his argument, should he lay the whole stress of it on the etymological or historical significance of the words aión, aiónios, and attempt to prove that of themselves they necessarily carry the meaning of endless duration. 'These shall go away into the restraint, imprisonment of the world to come,' is all we can etymologically or exegetically make of the word in this passage." [from John Wesley Hanson's Aion and Aionios]

As for Plato’s usage of the word, you base your dogmatic statement on a modern translation which is subject to the bias of the more recent definition. I have shown you that lexicographers didn’t apply the idea of eternity to aionios until long after the early church fathers were all dead in previous posts so I will not repeat that information here.

Finding it [aionios] in Plato, Mr. Goodwin thinks that Plato coined it, and it had not come into general use, for even Socrates, the teacher of Plato, does not use it. Aidios is the classic word for endless duration.
Plato uses aión eight times, aiónios five, diaiónios once, and makraión twice. Of course if he regarded aión as meaning eternity he would not prefix the word meaning long, to add duration to it.
In all the ... (Writers of the Greek Classics) extending more than six hundred years, the word is never found. Of course it must mean the same as the noun that is its source. It having clearly appeared that the noun is uniformly used to denote limited duration, and never to signify eternity, it is equally apparent that the adjective must mean the same. The noun sweetness gives its flavor to its adjective, sweet. The adjective long means precisely the same as the noun length. When sweet stands for acidity, and long represents brevity, aiónios can properly mean eternal, derived from aión, which represents limited duration. To say that Plato, the inventor of the word, has used the adjective to mean eternal, when neither he nor any of his predecessors ever used the noun to denote eternity, would be to charge one of the wisest of men with etymological stupidity. Has he been guilty of such folly? How does he use the word?
PLATO'S USAGE.
1. He employs the noun as his predecessors did. I give an illustration*- "Leading a life (aióna) involved in troubles."
2. The Adjective.(30) Referring to certain souls in Hades, he describes them as in aiónion intoxication. But that he does not use the word in the sense of endless is evident from the Phædon, where he says, "It is a very ancient opinion that souls quitting this world, repair to the infernal regions, and return after that, to live in this world." After the aiónion intoxication is over, they return to earth, which demonstrates that the word was not used by him as meaning endless. Again,(31) he speaks of that which is indestructible, (anolethron) and not aiónion. He places the two words in contrast, whereas, had he intended to use aiónion as meaning endless, he would have said indestructible and aiónion.
Once more,(32) Plato quotes four instances of aión, and three of aiónios, and one of diaiónios in a single passage, in contrast with aidios (eternal.) The gods he calls eternal, (aidios) but the soul and the corporeal nature, he says, are aiónios, belonging to time, and "all these," he says, "are part of time." And he calls Time [Kronos] an aiónios image of Aiónos. Exactly what so obscure an author may mean here is not apparent, but one thing is perfectly clear, he cannot mean eternity and eternal by aiónios and aiónion, for nothing is wider from the fact than that fluctuating, changing Time, beginning and ending, and full of mutations, is an image of Eternity. It is in every possible particular its exact opposite.
In De Mundo,(33) Aristotle says: "Which of these things separately can be compared with the order of the heaven, and the relation of the stars, sun, and also the moon moving in most perfect measures from one aión to another aión,"- ex aiónos eis eteron aióna. Now even if Aristotle had said that the word was at first derived from two words that signify always being, his own use of it demonstrates that it had not that meaning then [B.C. 350.] Again,(34) he says of the earth, "All these things seem to be done for her good, in order to maintain safety during her aiónos," duration, or life. And still more to the purpose is this quotation concerning God's existence.(35) Life and an aion CONTINUOUS AND ETERNAL, "zoe kai aión, sunekes kai aidios, etc." Here the word aidios, [eternal] is employed to qualify aión and impart to it what it had not of itself, the sense of eternal. Aristotle could be guilty of no such language as "an eternal eternity." Had the word aión contained the idea of eternity in his time, or in his mind, he would not have added aidios. "For the limit enclosing the time of the life of every man, . . . is called his continuous existence, aión. On the same principle, the limit of the whole heaven, and the limit enclosing the universal system, is the divine and immortal ever-existing aión, deriving the name aión from ever-existing [aei ón.]"(36) In eleven out of twelve instances in the works of Aristotle, aión is used either doubtfully, or in a manner similar to the instance above cited, [from one aión to another, that is, from one age to another,] but in this last instance it is perfectly clear that an aión is only without end when it is described by an adjective like aidios, whose meaning is endless. Nobody cares how the word originated, after hearing from Aristotle himself that created objects exist from one aión to another, and that the existence of the eternal God is not described by a word so feeble, but by the addition of another that expresses endless duration. Here aión only obtains the force of eternal duration by being reinforced by the word immortal. If it meant eternity, the addition of immortal is like adding gilding to refined gold, and daubing paint on the petal of the lily.
In most of these the word is enlarged by descriptive adjectives. Æschylus calls Jupiter "king of the never-ceasing aión," and Aristotle expressly states in one case that the aión of heaven "has neither beginning nor end," and in another instance he calls man's life his aión, and the aión of heaven "immortal." If aión denotes eternity, why add "neither beginning nor end," or "immortal," to describe its meaning? These quotations unanswerable show that aión in the Classics, never means eternity unless a qualifying word or subject connected with it add to its intrinsic value.
Says Dr. Beecher: In Rome there were certain periodical games known as the secular games, from the Latin seculum, a period, or age. The historian, Herodian, writing in Greek, calls these aiónian games, that is, periodical, occurring at the end of a seculum. It would be singular, indeed, to call them eternal or everlasting games. Cremer, in his masterly Lexicon of New Testament Greek, states the general meaning of the word to be 'Belonging to the aión.'" Herodotus, Isocrates, Xenophon, Sophocles, Diodorus Siculus use the word in precisely the same way. Diodorus Siculus says ton apéiron aióna, "indefinite time." [from John Wesley Hanson's Aion and Aionios]


So I hope this helps you see that the arguments in favor of aion and aionios being translated as Age and ‘pertaining to age” are far from baseless imaginations, but are well supported in history, lexicography and philology. If Plato meant aionios to be eternal in the poem you gave me, then he was apparently very inconsistent in his usage of the word at best.

As I have meticulously explained elsewhere - and you have still to respond…

I wish you truly were looking forward to my response with a hungry heart for truth instead of with the attitude of …”I got you here!”

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often WOULD I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and YE WOULD NOT! “ (Matthew 23:37)

How do you reconcile the “Jerusalem, Jerusalem verse with this?

Ro 11:7 What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded
8 (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.
9 And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them:
10 Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway.
11 I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
12 Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
13 For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
14 If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them.
15 For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?
16 For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches.
17 And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;
18 Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
19 Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be graffed in.
20 Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear:
21 For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.
22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again.
24 For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.
29 For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
30 For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
31 Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
In this passage of Scripture, I wish to point out several things, in case you missed them.
1. Verse 8 – “spirit of slumber” slumber is not permanent. “unto this day” again a reference to something that has an end.
2. Verse 11 – “have they stumbled that they should fall?” “God forbid.” (that would mean “no”.)
3. The purpose of this judgment is that the FULLNESS of the Gentiles might come in. (That’s everyone who isn’t a Jew.)
4. Verse 12 – “how much more their fullness?” Paul is expecting their full return to the Lord.
5. Verse (15- 24)-branches can be broken and replaced.
6. Ro 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. (Blindness is until…)


7. 26 And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: 27 For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. (ALL Israel includes those that will need to be grafted back in. Which includes those in Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Jesus mourned that they had to go the hard way. He sympathized with the difficulty of their plight. He was subject to the Father’s will in this as well as to the Father's will regarding His own path which was not easy.)(For this is my covenant “when” I “shall” take away their sins. Not “if” but when I shall.)
8. 28 As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. (Here we have confirmation of exactly who this Israel is that Paul is speaking of. Not the spiritual Israel of God but the enemies of the gospel, those who are Israel by physical birth, and even though they crucified God’s son Jesus, He still loves them and they are still elect. All Israel shall be saved.

This should answer your challenge adequately. Just because Jesus, in time, lamented the stubbornness of Israel, did not mean that He would not have His way with them, and His way is the way of life. He still loves them and He always will. Thank God that He has also promised to bring the fullness of the rest of us unto Himself too, for if He doesn’t bring us solely by His power then you can be sure we will not make it at all.

11. Christian Union.
12. Lange's Ecclesiastes.
30. De Repub. Lib. ii.
31. De Leg., Lib. x.
32. Timæus.
33. Cap. 5, p. 609 C.
34. Cap. 5, p. 610 A.
35. Metaph., Lib. xiv, cap. 7.
36. De Cælo., i, 9.