Topic
Aeon
from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 0 references
e'-on: This word originally meant "duration," "dispensation." In the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle the word is aion, from which this word is transliterated. In the Gnostic philosophy it has a special meaning and is there used to solve the problem of the world order. In the infinite separation between God and the world, it was taught, there must of necessity be mediating powers. These powers are the eons and are the successive emanations from God from eternity. They are spiritual, existing as distinct entities. They constituted the Divine fullness or the Divine Pleroma. The name was applied to these beings for two reasons: because they were thought to partake of the eternal existence of God and because they were supposed to govern the various ages. The idea of the eons in various forms may be found in nearly all oriental philosophy that attempted to deal with the problem of the world order. It appears in the writings of Philo, in Shintoism, in the old Zoroastrian religion.
See GNOSTICISM.
Jacob W. Kapp
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.