son

[Lat. œon eternity, fr. Gr. αἰών ( aiōn ) = (1) a period of time, ( spec.) a life-time, a generation; (2) a long space of time, eternity; (3) a space of time clearly marked out, a period, an age, a dispensation. ( Liddell & Scott.) The Lat. œon, given above, which is simply the Gr. αἰών (αϊōn), with the substitution of the Lat. diphthong æ for the Gr. one al, is rare. The common Lat. word is ævum, which is used in poetry in most of the senses of αἰών, and is simply that Gr. term Latinised, the inserted v being the remains of the Æolic digamma (q.v.). Cognate words are Goth. aws, crude form awa. Bopp, Graff, and Kuhn derive all these terms from Sansc. ito go.] I. Ancient Philosophy and Theology: Among the Gnostics: A virtue, attribute, or perfection of God, personified and regarded as an inferior sort of god or godde . Thus Val ent in i an, in the second century, taught that in the pleroma (the Gnostic name for the habitation of God) there were thirty œons, fifteen male and fifteen female; besides these there were four unmarried-Horus, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. (Mosheim: Ch. Hist., 2nd cent., pt. ii., ch. v.) II. Modern Science and Literature : A period of immense duration, specially one of those which geology makes known. the Silurian and Devonian wons."-Owen: Cla if. of Mammal i a, p. 58. "Having waited through those Fons until the proper conditions had set in, did it send the fiat forth, Let life bel'"- Tyndall : Frag. of Science, vii. 163.