Creation

Andrew Louth
from St. John Damascene: Tradition and Originality in Byzantine Theology
(Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2002), 118-119.

John prefaces his discussion of the created order with a chapter each on the meaning of aion (aeon) and on creation. There are probably two reasons for the preliminary chapter on aion. First, in Platonic and Neoplatonic usage aion belongs before creation, creation being based on an eternal model ( the word aion being translated either ‘eternity’ or ‘age’ ), time itself being a “moving image of eternity’.92Against this John asserts the transcendence of the Christian God, ’who exists before the ages’, and indeed is their creator (Expos. 15. 2). Secondly, he comments on the different ways in which aion is used, and puts forward what he regards as its true metaphysical meaning. He thus lists some of these ways: of a human life, a millennium, the present age, the age to come being ‘that age without end after the resurrection’ (Expos. 15. 8 – 9). He mentions the notion of the seven ages of the universe, the eighth being that which is to come. But the most important use of aion is in distinction from time ( chronos): the latter is measured by the course of the sun, by days and nights, whereas aion is a ‘kind  of temporal movement and extension that embraces everlasting ( aidiois) beings; what time is for those subject to time, aion is for everlasting beings ( Expos. 15. 11 – 13). This was the ‘time’ before creation, and so God can be called aionios, but he can also be called proaionios, ‘pre-eternal’, for he transcends the aion, which he created. But the aion is also the ‘time’ after this age has passed away: it is ‘eschatological time’, the time without end that characterizes the age to come, where there is no measuring of time by days and nights, but ‘rather there is one day without evening where the sun of justice shines brightly on the just, while for sinners there is a deep interminable night’ (Expos. 15. 33 – 5). But the fundamental point that John wants to make is that aion , or eternity, belongs to the created order, distinct from time by virtue of being beyond measure, but ‘ of all the ages God is the one creator, who fashioned the universe, who exists before the ages’ ( Expos. 15. 36 – 8).This teaching on eternity is very similar to that found in earlier Christian theologians, such as  Dionysios93 and Maximos,94 save that Maximos tends to reserve the term aidiois ( translated above as ‘everlasting’) for God himself.95