Meaning
Optasia names the thing that shows itself to the eye. It is less about the act of looking and more about what comes into view: an appearance, a sight, a vision.
- 1An appearance or apparition; something made visible.
- 2A vision, especially one received rather than sought.
- 3In modern Greek (οπτασία): a vision, or a sight almost too striking to be real.
Origin
The word grows from the Greek root op-, “to see”. From that root come the verb forms meaning “I shall see” and “I was seen”, and a whole family of words about sight.
The same root survives in English:
- optic
- optical
- optics
- synopsis
- autopsy
- panopticon
In the texts
Optasia is a word of later Greek. It appears in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures and in the New Testament, where it is the usual word for a vision that is shown to someone.
“I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.”
It is also found in Luke 1:22, Luke 24:23 and 2 Corinthians 12:1.