2561: aorist Dec 17, 2021

People will be familiar with past or present tense, but fewer will have heard of the aorist tense. This is really only applied to Ancient Greek verbs which were simple and undefined. Unlike the typical understanding of tense, this exists outside a description of time, but still exists alongside all verbal moods (e.g. indicative; subjunctive), persons, voices (e.g. active; passive), etc.. This is used for many purposes, one narrative use being for stating things as truthful, or generally consistent, not bound by time per se.