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In the context of human life, eternity and death are co-existing realities.
Etymology
Cicero used the word aeternitatis, in the work: De Inventione 1, 27, 39., written at some time between the years 88 - 81 BC which is an early or the earliest extant written form from which the English word is derived; first shown in history in a circa 1374 translation by Chaucer. The first usage in French is 1175: eternitez: B. de Ste-Maure, within 'ducs de Normandie.
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Philosophy
Eastern tradition
In traditional Chinese 永 (yǒng 'eternity') exists in the 論語 (Analects).
Western tradition
Classical
The concept of eternity formed in ancient philosophy was specifically from within the Platonic tradition. During the Classical period (8th-7th century BC - 473/529 AD) Plato (c. 428–423 BC - 348/347 BC) described time as a moving image of eternity (in Timaeus 37 D) using the word: αἰών. Plato stated the kosmos was ἁγἡρων (ageless) in Timaeus 33a, in 37e6–38a6 the eternal forms are contrasted with the temporality of the world. Aristotle (384–322 BC) stated οὐρανοῦ was eternal (in Book I of Περὶ οὐρανοῦ) and an eternal world (in Physics).
The ancient Greek word for everlastingness was ἀίδιος (aidios) as exists via Plotinus, who also used the word aoin (eternity), in Ennead III.7.
17th century
Thomas Hobbes was re-stating the sense of the definition of Boethius when published 1662, as a response to John Wallis, he wrote that he considered that "eternity is a permanent now".
19th century
In post revolution France, revolutionary Louis Auguste Blanqui wrote his 1872 cosmological prison literature hypothesis L'Éternité par les astres, while imprisoned in Fort du Taureau sea fortress.
Physics
Camille Flammarion (1893) described eternalness as being the absolute.
In 1983; Steinhardt proposed eternal inflation, the first of two models based on Guth's inflationary model of 1981 (originating with Староби́нский (Starobinsky) 1979) of the so-called big bang theory for the explanation of the orign of the universe; the second model chaotic inflation (1983) - eternal chaotic inflation (1986), was proposed by Линде (Linde)
The possibility of eternal universes with reference to General Relativity was a subject of physics since the 21st century.
Poetry
The kanji for eternity is used in the Japanese Manyōshū. The comments in The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare
- Who buys a minute's mirth to wail a week?
- Or sells eternity to get a toy?
are in a poem based on the work of Ovid and Livy of the history of Ancient Rome particularly the rape of Lucretia by Tarquin.
Popular culture
Comics
- 1976, July (Marvel Comics) The Eternals - Kirby
Computer games
- 2002 (Nintendo) Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - Dyack / Silicon Knights
Movies
- 1953 (Columbia Pictures: Taradash) From Here to Eternity - Jones 1951
- 1992, December (Warner Bros. Pictures) Forever Young - Abrams
- 1998, September (Trimark Pictures) The Eternal - Almereyda
- 2016 (Medusa Mediaset Group) Forever Young - Brizzi, Martani, Falcone
- 2021 (Marvel Studios) Eternals - Kirby 1976
- 2023 (Dark Matter Studios) Forever Young - Pretorius, Stang, Blyth
Music
- 1967, (performed by Ed Ames) Timeless Love - written by Sainte-Marie
- 1969, November (Jerry Lee Lewis) One Minute Past Eternity - Taylor and Kesler
- 1973, November (Asylum Records) Forever Young - Dylan
- 1974 (Capricorn Records) Forever Young - Dylan 1973; (Wells)
- 1979 (Sonet Records) För evigt ung - Strom
- 1984 (Warner-Elektra-Atlantic) Forever Young - Gold, Lloyd, Mertens
- 1988 (Emerald Music) Forever Young - Young
- 1989 (KLF Communications) 3AM Eternal - Cauty, Drummond
- 2009-2010 (Atlantic Records, Roc Nation - Jay-Z) Young Forever - Gold, Lloyd, Mertens 1984; Carter, West 2009
- 2010, January (Lucky 7 Records Madness): Forever Young - McPherson
- 2012 (Madness / Salvo/Union Square) Forever Young: The Ska Collection - McPherson (Madness)
Novels / Novella
- 1951 (chronology isn't known so are here placed alphabetically)
- 1962 (Dell Books) The Eternal Champion - Moorcock mid 1950s
Perfume
- Eternity - Calvin Klein / Calvin Klein Inc.
Sport
- 1999 (The Baseball Reliquary) Shrine of the Eternals - Cannon
Television
- 1983 (Goldcrest Films) Forever Young - Connolly
- 2013 (3 Ball Productions & Katalyst) Forever Young - Kutcher, Goldberg
- 2024 (GMA Entertainment Group) Forever Young - Nova
Religion
Eternity as infinite duration is an important concept in many lives and religions. God or gods are often said to endure eternally, or exist for all time, forever, without beginning or end. Religious views of an afterlife may speak of it in terms of eternity or eternal life.
Abrahamic religions
In Genesis 21:33 of the Old Testament El-Olam is God-Eternal.
Jesus In the Gospels explicitly threatens the wicked with an eternal punishment. In the context of Revelation 14: 9-11 of the Bible, the book Revelation describes how smoke from application of burning sulphur onto those who worship the beast will transit upwardly forever. The position onto which sinners are condemned for all time into hell, if the souls are punished in a conscious state of existence, is known as traditionalism, and annihilationism if the punishment on arrival in the infernal dominion is that their consciousness is then annulled-extincted. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225 – 1274) believed in an eternal God, without either a beginning or end; the concept of eternity is of divine simplicity, thus incapable of being defined or fully understood by humankind. Christian theologians may regard immutability, like the eternal Platonic forms, as essential to eternity.
In the Islamic context, while azal indicates eternity at the beginning of known time and abad at the end; sarmad indicates all (both) aspects, this latter as an adjectival form is in surah 28 parts 71 and 72 of the Qur'an. In Islamic culture the eternity of the universe was a subject in the writings of Abu Ali ibn Sīna (died 1037), Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Abu Walid Muhammad Ibn Rushd.
Egyptian
Ancient Egyptian eternity terms were neheh, for cyclical time, and djet, for linear. Rameses III (c.1187-1156 B.C.E.) funerary temple was: 'United-with -Eternity'.
Greco-Roman
Mythic Iliadical ἀθάνατος (athanatos) is the immortal.
The ancient greek word for everlasting, and/or eternal, exists in the Orphica Hymni.
The timelessness in divinity of classical period Augustine (354–430 AD), as exists in Book XI of the Confessions, and Boethius (c. 480–524), in Book V of the Consolation of Philosophy were adopted as the reality of the subject for later thinkers in the western tradition of philosophy. Boethius stated eternity was: interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio, which is translated as "simultaneously full and perfect possession of interminable life". and nunc permanens, which in English is a: permanent now.
Vedic
Within the Vedic Rigveda, Aditi, as a goddess, is eternal.
Images
Fine art
Folk art
Graphic art
Some of the works of MC Escher were explorations of the idea of eternity.
Symbolism
Eternity is often symbolized by the endless snake, swallowing its own tail, the ouroboros. The circle, band, or ring is also commonly used as a symbol for eternity, as is the mathematical symbol of infinity, . Symbolically, these are reminders that eternity has no beginning or end.