Books/NT/latex/chapters/_glossary/telos.tex
2026-07-02 17:25:40 -07:00

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\ifdefiningfootnotes
\DeclareFixedFootnote{\fnTelos}{TELOS ``tel-AY-os'' ``complete'' or ``perfect''.
Aristotle said the TELOS (cognate word) of an acorn is the oak tree.
So TELIOS means 'perfect' in the sense of what it was meant to become.
\fnPar
Contrast with the Platonic sense — "perfect" in popular English almost always means Platonic ideal,
flawless, unattainable.
TELOS is almost the opposite: fully actualized, having arrived at what it was always becoming.
That inversion is the whole point and it's load-bearing across the Sermon on the Mount ("be ye therefore TELOS")
and John's "it is finished" — TETELESTAI, same root, meaning ``brought to its TELOS'',
not \textit{completed}.
}
\fi