"Sign" (semeion) is a key term in the Fourth Gospel. There, in Greek as in English, the implication of calling a miracle a "sign" rather than a "wonder" is that its importance lies not in its spectacular nature ("What a wonderful thing!") but in what it signifies about something else (such as the person of the wonder-worker, or the advent of the Kingdom of God, or the breadth of divine compassion, or the like). Would Eliot have been reading the Gospel in Greek?
Jerry Walsh
From: Terry Traynor <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Fri, March 12, 2010 10:29:48 AM
Subject: signs and wonders
from "Gerontion":
Signs are taken for wonders. "We would see a sign!"
Does anybody know the difference between signs and wonders?
Terry