What were the egyptians conveying in reference to Seshat, the goddess of time. She is pictured putting notches in the palm to determine the times that kings would rule. Her headress was aligned with the stars. She had a science to her that related both to astronomy and the heavens, and ages or times on earth here in the physical. The terms ae and others that relate to time go back etymologically to Seshat. We should look into this connection of the greek terms as well as the hebrew terms in their reference to Seshat or lineage from those teachings in Egypt to better understand what early writers were conveying.
æ (upper case
Æ)
Æ, letter of the Old English (Anglo-Saxon) alphabet, listed in 24th and final position by Byrhtferð (1011). Called
æsc "ash tree" after the Anglo-Saxon
ᚫ rune.
Etymology 1
Cognate with Old Saxon êo, Ol Frisian ewa, êwe, ê, â, Old German êwa, êha, êa, ê (German
Ehe).
[
edit]Noun
ǣ f
law,
scripture
God is wisdom and æ woruldbuendra. God is the wisdom and law of world-dwellers.
ceremony,
custom,
marriage
[
edit]Declension
aei onta
always (aei) Aei means habitually or continually within the limit of the subject’s life.
The adjective aionios in like manner carries the idea of time.
‘Aion, transliterated aeon, is a period of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle (peri ouravou, i. 9,15) says: “The period which includes the whole time of one’s life is called the aeon of each one.” Hence it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one’s life (aion) is said to leave him or to consume away (Iliad v. 685; Odyssey v. 160). It is not, however, limited to human life; it signifies any period in the course of events, as the period or age before Christ; the period of the millennium the mythological period before the beginnings of history. The word has not “a stationary and mechanical value” (De Quincey). It does not mean a period of a fixed length for all cases.
Aion corresponds with the Old Testament (Hebrew) word OLAM. (As translated in the Septuagint).
GRS Mead in his "Fragments of a Faith Forgotten" summarizes the second book of "IEAO" in such a way as to imply that Aion refers to "worlds" or "spaces" in the visionary or "out of the body" state.
In "Maximus Confessor : He divided wisely the Ages" there is a passage where it appears the word "aiones" might be understood in two senses. One as referring to this (physical) life, this (physical) world or this physical existence and secondly in reference to the "future" spiritual life or world(s).
The word aeon, also spelled eon or æon, originally means "life", and/or "being", though it then tended to mean "age", "forever" or "for
eternity". It is a
Latin transliteration from the
koine Greek word ὁ
αἰών (ho aion), from the archaic αἰϝών (aiwon). In
Homer it typically refers to life or lifespan. Its latest meaning is more or less similar to the
Sanskrit word
kalpaand
Hebrew word
olam. A
cognate Latin wordaevum or aeuum (cf. αἰϝών) for "age" is present in words such as longevity and mediæval.
[1]
Although the term aeon may be used in reference to a period of a billion years (especially in
geology,
cosmology or
astronomy), its more common usage is for any long, indefinite, period of time.
Contents
1 In Cosmology
eon 
1640s, from L. aeon, from Gk. aion "age, vital force, lifetime," from PIE root *aiw- "vital force, life, long life, eternity" (cf. Skt. ayu"life," Avestan ayu "age," L. aevum "space of time, eternity," Goth. aiws "age, eternity," O.N. ævi "lifetime," Ger. ewig"everlasting," O.E. a "ever, always").
cosmos
c.1200 (but not popular until 1848, as a translation of Humboldt's Kosmos), from Gk. kosmos "order, good order, orderly arrangement," a word with several main senses rooted in those notions: The verb kosmein meant generally "to dispose, prepare," but especially "to order and arrange (troops for battle), to set (an army) in array;" also "to establish (a government or regime);" "to deck, adorn, equip, dress" (especially of women). Thus kosmos had an important secondary sense of "ornaments of a woman's dress, decoration" (cf. kosmokomes "dressing the hair") as well as "the universe, the world." Pythagoras is said to have been the first to apply this word to "the universe," perhaps originally meaning "the starry firmament," but later it was extended to the whole physical world, including the earth. For specific reference to "the world of people," the classical phrase was he oikoumene (ge) "the inhabited (earth)." Septuagint uses both kosmos and oikoumene. Kosmos also was used in Christian religious writing with a sense of "worldly life, this world (as opposed to the afterlife)," but the more frequent word for this was aion, lit. "lifetime, age."
Fig. 2. Byrhtferb's diagram of the physical and physiological fours supplied from MS. 17 of St. John's College, Oxford, written in the year 1110.
This figure exhibits the twelve signs [of the Zodiac] and the two solstices and the two equinoxes and the four seasons of the year; and there are designated therein the four names of the elements and the titles of the twelve winds and the four ages of man. And, moreover, these are conjoined with the four letters of the name of Adam the first created. Furthermore, it shows which months have thirty moons and which have twenty-nine."
Turning to the details of the diagram itself, we may note first that it has the usual mediaeval arrangement of the East at the top instead of the North as in our modern system. The diagram is bounded by a curve divided into three bands or layers. The outside band gives the twelve signs of the zodiac. Within this are ranged the solar months
The main part of the Handboc is occupied by a scientific treatise on the calendar and on mathe
baet ys manualis on Iyden handboc on cnglisc" which may be translated:
"We set down this encheiridion, that is manual in Latin and handbook in English."9 matics. Following on this are three tractates on "The Ages of the World," "The Loosing of Satan," and "The Seven Deadly Sins."
9 Page 133. The Handboc is not numbered in folios, as is usual with MSS., but in pages like a modern book.
The Greek word encheiridion is commonly encountered in Anglo-Saxon works and is used to describe a treatise of any kind.10 It does not seem especially confined to short works and thus resembles the modern German Handbuch. We find the word in the writings of Bede, King Alfred and Alcuin.
Of Byrhtferb' little is known. He was a monk of Ramsey in Huntingdonshire and he lived during the reign of Aethelred (reigned
979-1016). The literary output of Byrhtfero" included commentaries on the writings of Bede. One of these commentaries is on the "De temporum ratione," 11 a work dealing mainly with the divisions of time as deduced from astronomical data and largely occupied with the fixation, by such means, of the Church festivals. The Handboc of Byrhtfer'S contains very similar material and includes sections on the concurrents,
ByrhtferS wrote a commentary on Bede's "De natura rerum," two works entitled "De principiis mathematicis" and "De institutione monachorum," together with a small unpublished "Prœmium super Bedam de temporibus." This last is in MS., St. John's College, Oxford, 17, fo. I2v-i3r
Within the outer diagonal bands are inner diagonal bands showing similar qualities for the four elements. Related to these again are the four points of the compass, arranged to illustrate the "four letters of the name of the protoplast Adam."
A Anathole Oriens East
D Disis Occidens West
A Arcton Aquilo North
M Mesembrios Meridies South
We will not here attempt to trace fully this elaborate custom of associating what we have called the physical and physiological fours.We may, however, make some remarks on the development of the conception.
The earliest division of the ages of man is not into four but into seven, and in this form it appears in the pre-Hippocratic treatise, irepl ifidonadwv. Hippocrates himself in the" Aphorisms" (111 18) has a triple division, trcudes, p&ooi and yipovrts. Nevertheless, in his "De victus ratione" (I, 33) there appears a fourfold division connected with the four elementary qualities thus:...
We would lay some stress on the diagram accompanying our text or rather on the formula which it represents. It is one of the few passages in the scanty Anglo-Saxon medical literature which give us an insight into the theories on which the minds of the early Englishphysici were working. These theories were Greek in origin and the presence of this Greek element separates such writings from a yet earlier stratum in which the point of view remains truly Teutonic and barbarian. We have shown that, in spite of the profound Greek influence, certain primitive Anglo-Saxon elements survive in the Byrhtfero" diagram of the physical and physiological fours. The formula of the diagram is of wider interest than to the special student of Anglo-Saxon literature, since the comprehension of the theory on which it is based is necessary to anyone who seeks to understand mediaeval science and especially pre-scholastic medicine.
The figure exhibits to perfection the fundamental doctrine of the interrelation of macrocosm and microcosm, a theory which may be followed as a guiding thread through
u The simpler scheme suggested by Isidore and Bede is also reproduced in St. John's College, Oxford, MS. 17, fo. 39 v. An early example of a graphic expression of this scheme is encountered in a document of French workmanship in rustic capitals, dating from not later than the ninth century, Bibliotbeque nationale MS., Iat. 5543, fo. 136 v. This figure is reproduced by Charles Singer: "Studies in the History and Method of Science," Oxford, 1917, Plate xiv.
the bewildering labyrinth of mediaeval science. This doctrine, whether frank and open, as in many Neoplatonic writings and in the document before us, or whether allegorized, overlaid and developed, as in much of the later Arabian and scholastic literature, was yet ever present in the minds of such mediaeval writers as concerned themselves with natural phenomena. These men were imbued with ideas inherited perhaps from the Stoic school of philosophy and interpreted by a simplified Greek astrology under the syncretic influence of the Hermetic writings. To them the principle of universal solidarity, that is of the interrelation of all parts of the universe and their mutual interdependence, was the ruling motive of philosophia naturalis. They considered that ancient authority, both divine and profane, had provided them with a key to the structure of the great outer universe. With this key they believed themselves able to unlock also the secrets of the lesser inner world. Thus the investigation of the details of the human mechanism came to be regarded as superfluous or even misleading, since the necessarily partial character of such an enquiry might lead to misrepresentation of that great whole towards the comprehension of which every mind must strive. Anatomy and physiology were, therefore, altogether neglected or rather replaced by such mnemonic systems as that before us. At times the theologians, seeking to demonstrate the direct influence of God upon his world, would break through the charmed circle of universal solidarity. At other times again, the theory of macrocosm and microcosm was given a Christological interpretation by mystical writers, more or less unconsciously under neo-PIatonic influence. In the main, however, this view of the interdependence of man and his world held its own in the Dark Ages, and persisted little changed, right through the period of scholasticism and of the Arabian revival, on through the Renaissance, and down to the time when the human intellect was relieved from its long thraldom to ancient philosophy by the rise of the experimental method.
The innermost part of the diagram is intended to portray the prototype of man, Adam, the protoplast, the first created. In certain other similar early schemes the outermost part of the diagram suggests either actually or allegorically Him in whose image man was made. It was thus intended to suggest that just as we may know something of God, the Creator, from the world that he has wrought, so by a knowledge of that world there is revealed to us something of the nature of man the creature.26
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