In
Buddhism, and
Hinduism, aeon may be used as a translation of the term
kalpa or '''' (Sanskrit: ). A mahakalpa is often said to be 1,334,240,000 years, the life cycle of the world. Yet, these numbers are symbolic, not literal.
Christianity's idea of "
eternal life" comes from the word for life, '
(), and a form of ' (), which has been translated to mean immortality in the majority text, but is argued by some to mean life in the next aeon, the
Kingdom of God, or
Heaven, instead. According to some proponents of Christian
universalism, the
Greek New Testament scriptures use the word '
() to mean a long period (or age-long) and the word ' () to mean "during a long period" (or similarly, age-during); thus, there was a time before the aeons, and the aeonian period is finite. After each person's mortal life ends, they are judged worthy of aeonian life or aeonian punishment. That is, after the period of the aeons, all punishment will cease and death is overcome and then God becomes the all in each one (1 Cor 15:28). Another universalist reading, prevalent among neoplatonists due to its similarity to views expressed in Plato's
Timaeus, is that the "aeon" does not refer to a time, finite or infinite, but instead a Greek parallel of a Judaic view of distinct natures of time, between the χρόνος (chronos) of the present "age", or עולם הזה ('olam ha-zeh) and the αιώνιος (aionios) of the "age to come", or הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא ('olam ha-ba). Therefore, "aeonian life" and "aeonian punishment" would mean "life of the Age to Come" and "punishment of the Age to Come", and thus not necessarily "eternal life" and "eternal punishment".
Occultists of the
Thelema and
Ordo Templi Orientis (English: "Order of the Temple of the East") traditions sometimes speak of a "
magical Aeon" that may last for perhaps as little as 2,000 years.
Gnosticism In many
Gnostic systems, the various
emanations of
God, who is also known by such names as the
One, the
Monad,
Aion teleos ("The Broadest Aeon", Greek: ),
Bythos ("depth or profundity", Greek: ),
Proarkhe ("before the beginning", Greek: ), '
("the beginning", Greek: ), ' ("wisdom"), and ''
("the Anointed One"), are called Aeons''. In the different systems these emanations are differently named, classified, and described, but the emanation theory itself is common to all forms of Gnosticism. In the
Basilidian Gnosis they are called sonships ( '
; singular: '); according to
Marcus, they are numbers and sounds; in
Valentinianism they form male/female pairs called "" (Greek , from ''''). ==See also==