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Dear Photius:
Can you comment on the definite article and singular plural in "ages of ages"? I have seen "unto ages of ages", "unto the age of ages" and "unto the ages of ages" and "unto ages and ages". All four were in an English (UK) rendering of a Greek Orthodox wedding service. Are all of these variations meaningful and found in the Greek?

Perhaps I am not as learned as our brother Photius, (sorry), but I do know Greek fluently in that I can read, think, speak, express myself and feel in it...

'Eis tous aiones ton aionon' means, in my best translational proximation of feeling both languages equally, 'Unto the ages of the ages'.

Alice

Wow, thanks for all the responses!

Amado, these questions arose during a secular Franciscan meeting when we recited the crown rosary. Evidently their parish priests instructed them in the "correct new" version - which, by the way, they said it was not used during their Mass.

Thanks again

Thanks Alice,
Here is a link to the text that had the many variations:
http://www.weddingguide.co.uk/articles/ceremonies/greekorthodox.asp
In the GOA link, it is always "the ages of ages"
http://www.goarch.org/en/chapel/liturgical_texts/wedding.asp

I think 'ages' is plural, and I don't think there are any definite articles in Greek, so the translator has his choice, whichever he feels renders the meaning clearer from the context.

Dear Nicholas,

As far as I can surmise from the knowledge of the Greek language, you are indeed correct...'unto the ages of ages' or 'unto the ages of the ages' are both generally the same, and up to the discretion of the translator.

In the Greek Orthodox church, as you probably know, and as DJS pointed out, we generally say "unto the ages of ages".

In Christ,
Alice

Just a linguistic note:

There ARE, most certainly, definite articles in Greek.

Prof. J. Michael Thompson
Byzantine Catholic Seminary
Pittsburgh, PA

There's a nice table from monachos.net

http://www.monachos.net/greek/8_definite_articles.shtml

Hard for me to tell because my computer doesn't get all of the greek characters, but is it correct that one of the "ages" is singular and the other plural?

Note that BOTH are plural: Eis TOUS aiones TON aionon....and I can't help but add AMIN! (as that always comes after that *wink*)

Prof. Thomson is correct, as shown on the table provided by DJS at Monachos.net...articles are definitive in Greek.

Dear Alice, so I take it that "ton" is tau omega-circumflex nu, rather than tau o-prime nu? Half of the vowels used at goarch are not in my computer's Greek character set. Thanks for the help. Andrew Rubis once suggested that you really need to know Greek to understand Byzantine Christianity; I am starting to get the bug.

Here it is transliterated and parsed, for whatever it is worth:

eis is a preposition = to/unto, tous aionas is the ages - accusative plural, twn aiwnwn is the ages - genitive plural. Here o = o mikron and w = o mega.

If any typos or mistakes please point them out, I am having an allergy attack manifested by incessant sneezing

Thanks Tony.
Now I get this at goarch:
... εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ἀμήν.
Before, ῶ was a blank even though ώ and ω were there. Solution... get off the PC and onto a Mac.

The fear of Windows is the beginning of Wisdom.

I thought it was the fear of dx#x Microsoft period !

james, looking for a good PC exorcism program or prayer.

All these diclensions and definite articles are getting me dizzy! :rolleyes:

I now know for sure that I am not that young anymore...

I used to love analyzing written language so much (just like you guys) that it got me an almost perfect score on the New York State Regents Examination in Modern Greek in High School---no easy task for someone who didn't speak Greek at home and who was born and raised in the U.S.

So here goes (for my pal DJS)....

Eis tous aiones T O N ( the 'o' here is 'omega' not 'omikron': 'omega' being the possesive plural 'o' used in articles) AIONON (the last 'o' again being 'omega' which is plural and which needs to compliment the article)....

Good news: all the various accent marks used in Greek (now THAT was a feat memorizing them and getting them right! ) have recently been eliminated in modern Greek in favor of just one simple accent mark where the emphasis of the word lies.

Hope this helps...and I will bow out now before I start confusing myself! :p

Good luck guys, and God bless you for the great intellects and interest you have in learning!

Your sister in Christ,
Alice