[ Aion ]

 BY [ aion ], age, seems to be meant duration, or the measure of duration, before or independent of the existence of motion, which is the measure of time. As motion, and therefore time, are creatures, so are the ages. Considered as the measure of duration, an age has a sort of positive existence, though not an [ ousia ] or substance, and means the same as "world," or an existing system of things viewed apart from time and motion. vid. Theodor. in Hebr. i. 2. Our Lord then is the Maker of the ages, thus considered, as the Apostle also tells us, Hebr. xi. 3, and God is the King of the ages, 1 Tim. i. 17, or is before all ages, as being eternal, or [ proaionios ]. However, sometimes the word is synonymous with eternity: "as time is to things which are under time, so ages to things which are everlasting," Damasc. Fid. Orth. ii. 1, and "ages of ages" stands for eternity; and then the "ages," or measures of duration, may be supposed to stand for the [ ideai ] or ideas in the Divine Mind, which seems to have been a Platonic or Gnostic notion. Hence Synesius, Hymn. iii., addresses the Almighty as [ aionotoke ], Parent of the Ages. Hence sometimes God Himself is called the Age, Clem. Alex. Hymn. Pæd. iii. fin., or the Age of ages, Pseudo-Dion. de Div. Nom. 5, p. 581, or again, [ aionios ]. Theodoret sums up what has been said thus: "Age is not any subsisting substance, but is an interval indicative of time, now infinite, when God is spoken of, now commensurate with creation, now with human life." Hær. v. 6. If then, as St. Paul says in Hebr. xi. 3, the Word is Maker of the ages, He is independent of duration altogether; He does not come to be in time, but is above and beyond it, or eternal. vid. Decr. 18. Elsewhere he says, "The words addressed to the Son in the 144th Psalm, 'Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages,' forbid any one to imagine any interval at all in which the Word did not exist. For if every interval is measured by ages, and of all the ages the Word is King and Maker, therefore, whereas no interval at all exists prior to Him, it were madness to say, 'There was once when the Everlasting ([ aionios ]) was not.'" Orat. i. 12. And so Alexander: "Is it not unreasonable that He who made times, and ages, and seasons, to all of which belongs 'was not,' should be said not to be? for, if so, that interval in which they say the Son was not yet begotten by the Father, precedes that Wisdom of God which framed all things." Theod. Hist. i. 3, p. 736. vid. also Basil. de Sp. S. n. 14. Hilar. de Trin. xii. 34.

 The subject is treated of at length in Greg. Nyssen. contr. Eunom. i. t. 2. Append. p. 93-101. vid. also Ambros. de Fid. i. 8-11. As time measures the material creation, so "ages" were considered to measure the immaterial, as the duration of Angels. This had been a philosophical distinction. Timæus says, [ eikon esti chronos toi agennatoi chronoi, hon aiona potagoreuomes ]. Vid. also Philo, p. 298, Quod Deus Immort. 6. Euseb. Laud. C. p. 501. Naz. Orat. 38. 8.