Semper esse (I.2; MS 14i, Oxford, 36)

Discussing divine attributes after divine names, Milton moves from Hebrew to New Testament Greek, in explaining God's fourth attribute as everlastingness. Clariora sunt novi foederis testimonia, eo quod vox Graeca semper esse significat. (“The witness of the New Covenant is clearer, because the Greek word means everlastingness.”) This Greek word is aionios, which means “ever existing.” He does not, however, give the Greek word or etymologize it. Aionios is formed adjectivally from aion, “age,” cognate with Latin aevum. So etymology is underdone or at least short-circuited. This need not surprise us if he is working it out for his own use alone, but would need spelling out for readers upon publication. He does spell it out in his Artis Logicae, where he sometimes uses theology as source for a point of logic, reversing the procedure whereby theology argues from logic. Yet even the Logic does not hammer the etymological point, if it is saying that aionios comes from or means aiei on. Deo tamen aevum sive aeternitas, non tempus attribui solet: quid autem est aevum proprie, nisi duratio perpetua, Graece αἴων, quasi αἴϵι ὤν, semper existens.”2With what degree of finality does quasi (“as if”) mean that aionios derives from aei wn? Or what is the exact relation? Does Milton quite know, since quasi asserts both resemblance and difference? Is Milton in De Doctrina writing a note to himself, or reminding himself of a previous rumination? From our present standpoint, we do not meet etymology head on after all. This sort of near miss will recur. But at least we meet the same uncertainty in De Doctrina as in Artis Logicae, which points to shared authorship. At all events, we are assembling a diversity of his uses of etymology. Having skirted round etymology for haeresis, and used it straightforwardly for the names of God, he uses it obliquely and self-referentially for aionios.

Satan (I.9)

In I.9 Milton records Satan's titles: Antipalos (“antagonist”); and in a little volley as the chapter closes, “diabolus, i.e. calumniator” and κατήγορος τῶν ἀδϵƛϕῶν (accuser of the brethren) in Revelation 12:10; then “et Abaddon, Apollyon, I e, perdens. Apoc. 9.11.” All straightforwardly gloss the Greek into Latin.