Faith & RitualGreek → English
Eschatology
/ˌɛskəˈtɒlədʒi/noun
The part of theology concerned with death, judgement, and the final destiny of the world.
The Greek roots
ἔσχατος
éskhatos
last, farthest
λόγος
lógos
account, study
Literally: “the study of last things”
The story of the word
ἔσχατος in Greek is a plain spatial word: the far edge of a field, the last man in a line, the outermost island. Nineteenth-century German and English theologians gave it the weight of the end of time and built the discipline around the four last things, death, judgement, heaven and hell. The word has since escaped the seminary; climate writing and nuclear strategy both use eschatological with no religion attached.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
eschatonlogictheologyeschatological
In a sentence
Paul's eschatology expects the end soon, and the letters read differently once you notice that.