Shalom means far more than peace, including hello, goodbye and good health
From around 1300, English speakers began using peace in greetings as a rendering of the Hebrew shalom. But shalom, related to Arabic salaam, carries a crowd of other meanings: justice, safety, prosperity, equity, friendliness, good fortune and well-being, as well as hello and goodbye. Its root verb means to be complete.
The English word itself travelled from Latin pax, meaning a compact, treaty or tranquillity, through Old French pais and Anglo-French pes, which by the eleventh century could mean reconciliation, silence or agreement. By around 1200 Europeans also spoke of being at peace in one's own mind, and early English used it simply to mean quiet. Many languages use their word for peace as a greeting or farewell, like Hawaiian aloha, and English keeps it in rest in peace and the casual peace out.
Peace has often been arranged through marriage. Two early examples are Hermodike I, who married a king of Phrygia around 800 BCE, and Hermodike II, wed to a king of Lydia around 600 BCE, both Greek princesses. Just as often it was imposed by conquerors. In his Agricola, Tacitus portrayed Roman greed and arrogance, putting a bitter indictment of imperial peace in the mouth of the Caledonian chieftain Calgacus.
That history explains why thinkers separate two kinds. One is a mere silence of arms, the absence of war. The other adds justice, mutual respect, respect for law and goodwill between parties. The United Nations, founded in 1945 to replace the League of Nations, was meant to settle disputes without fighting, though nations have fought many wars since.
Peace also has an inner dimension. Psychological peace, meaning calm thoughts and emotions, is harder to define but may be a precondition for peaceful behaviour. Qualities such as patience, compassion, self-control, forgiveness and equanimity are said to foster it whatever a person's circumstances. The ideal runs through Buddhism, Christianity, Jainism and Islam, through Kant's essay Perpetual Peace and Morihei Ueshiba's The Art of Peace, and through the lives of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Source: Peace
