A major difficulty in the study of the language of the powers in the NT is that there is no immediately obvious source from which it derives or background into which it fits. Evidence that is adduced in various lexicons and word studies is often taken from the second century A.D. or later.

Moulton and Milligan (The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (London, 1929)) offer no examples of ἀρχή, ἃρχων, ἀξουσιαι or δύναμις prior to the second century A.D. in any other meaning than the recognised classical uses, among which a supernatural sense, when the words are used absolutely, is not found. There is a similar lack of evidence in the LXX, where the words all occur, but not necessarily in an explicitly angelic sense. One exception may be noted: in Dan. 10 there are references to οιἄρχοντες, ‘the princes of the nations’, and in 7: 27 the ἀρχαι are mentioned. But immediately to relate the two words here, as does Delling, does not take account of the different provenance of these two sections of the book. In the absence of further evidence it is doubtful whether such an association may validly be made, as will be demonstrated, ἃρχοντες also appear in Ecclus. 10: 14 and elsewhere in that book. Again, however, there is no obvious reason why in any passage they should necessarily be interpreted in an angelological sense.