Synonyms of the New Testament-R C Trench

SYNONYMS OF
THE NEW TESTAMENT

RICHARD CHEVENIX TRENCH, D.D.

PREFACE

THIS VOLUME, not any longer a little one, has grown out of a course of lectures on the Synonyms of the New Testament, which, in the fulfilment of my duties as Professor of Divinity at King’s College, London, I more than once addressed to the theological students there. The long, patient, and exact studies in language of our great Schools and Universities, which form so invaluable a portion of their mental, and of their moral discipline as well, could find no place during the two years or two years and a half of the theological course at King’s College. The time itself was too short to allow this, and it was in great part claimed by more pressing studies. Yet, feeling the immense value of these studies, and how unwise it would be, because we could not have all which we would desire, to forego what was possible and within our reach, I two or three times dedicated a course of lectures to the comparative value of words in the New Testament—and these lectures, with many subsequent additions and some defalcations, have supplied the materials of the present volume. I have never doubted that (setting aside those higher and more solemn lessons, which in a great measure are out of our reach to impart, being taught rather by God than men), there are few things which a theological teacher should have more at heart than to awaken in his scholars an enthusiasm for the grammar and the lexicon. We shall have done much for those who come to us for theological training and generally for mental guidance, if we can persuade them to have these continually in their hands; if we can make them believe that with these, and out of these, they may be learning more, obtaining more real and lasting acquisitions, such as will stay by them, and form a part of the texture of their own minds for ever, that they shall from these be more effectually accomplishing themselves for their future work, than from many a volume of divinity, studied before its time, even if it were worth studying at all, crudely digested and therefore turning to no true nourishment of the intellect or the spirit.
Claiming for these lectures a wider audience than at first they had, I cannot forbear to add a few observations on the value of the study of synonyms, not any longer having in my eye the peculiar needs of any special body of students, but generally; and on that of the Synonyms of the New Testament in particular; as also on the helps to the study of these which are at present in existence; with a few further remarks which my own experience has suggested.

The value of this study as a discipline for training the mind into close and accurate habits of thought, the amount of instruction which may be drawn from it, the increase of intellectual wealth which it may yield, all this has been implicitly recognized by well-nigh all great writers—for well-nigh all from time to time have paused, themselves to play the dividers and discerners of words—explicitly by not a few, who have proclaimed the value which this study had in their eyes. And instructive as in any language it must be, it must be eminently so in the Greek—a language spoken by a people of the subtlest intellect; who saw distinctions, where others saw none; who divided out to different words what others often were content to huddle confusedly under a common term; who were themselves singularly alive to its value, diligently cultivating the art of synonymous distinction (the ἀνόματα διαιρεῖν, Plato, Laches, 197 d); and who have bequeathed a multitude of fine and delicate observations on the right discrimination of their own words to the after-world. Many will no doubt remember the excellent sport which Socrates makes of Prodicus, who was possest with this passion to an extravagant degree (Protag. 377 a b c).

And while thus the characteristic excellences of the Greek language especially invite us to the investigation of the likenesses and differences between words, to the study of the words of the New Testament there are reasons additional inviting us. If by such investigations as these we become aware of delicate variations in an author’s meaning, which otherwise we might have missed, where is it so desirable that we should miss nothing, that we should lose no finer intention of the writer, as in those words which are the vehicles of the very mind of God Himself? If thus the intellectual riches of the student are increased, can this anywhere be of so great importance as there, where the intellectual may, if rightly used, prove spiritual riches as well? If it encourage thoughtful meditation on the exact forces of words, both as they are in themselves, and in their relation to other words, or in any way unveil to us their marvel and their mystery, this can nowhere else have a worth in the least approaching that which it acquires when the words with which we have to do are, to those who receive them aright, words of eternal life; while in the dead carcases of the same, if men suffer the spirit of life to depart from them, all manner of corruptions and heresies may be, as they have been, bred.

The words of the New Testament are eminently the στοιχεῖα of Christian theology, and he who will not begin with a patient study of those, shall never make any considerable, least of all any secure, advances in this: for here, as everywhere else, sure disappointment awaits him who thinks to possess the whole without first possessing the parts of which that whole is composed. The rhyming couplet of the Middle Ages contains a profound truth:

    ‘Qui nescit partes in vanum tendit ad artes;
    Artes per partes, non partes disce per artes.’

Now it is the very nature and necessity of the discrimination of synonyms to compel such patient investigation of the force of words, such accurate weighing of their precise value, absolute and relative, and in this its chief merits as a mental discipline consist.

Yet when we look around us for assistance herein, neither concerning Greek synonyms in general, nor specially concerning those of the New Testament, can it be affirmed that we are even tolerably furnished with books. Whatever there may be to provoke dissent in Döderlein’s Lateinische Synonyme und Etymologieen, and there could be scarcely an error more fatally misleading than his notion that Latin was derived from Greek, there is no book on Greek synonyms which for compass and completeness can bear comparison with it; and almost all the more important modern languages of Europe have better books devoted to their synonyms than any which has been devoted to the Greek. The works of the early grammarians, as of Ammonius and others, supply a certain amount of valuable material, but cannot be said even remotely to meet the needs of the student at the present day. Vömel’s Synonymisches Wörterbuch, Frankfurt, 1822, excellent as far as it goes, but at the same time a school-book and no more, and Pillon’s Synonymes Grecs, of which a translation into English was edited by the late T. K. Arnold, London, 1850, are the only modern attempts to supply the deficiency; at least I am not aware of any other. But neither of these writers has allowed himself space to enter on his subject with any fulness and completeness: not to say that references to the synonyms of the New Testament are exceedingly rare in Vömel; and, though somewhat more frequent in Pillon’s work, are capricious and uncertain there, and in general of a meagre and unsatisfactory description.

The only book dedicated expressly and exclusively to these is one written in Latin by J. A. H. Tittmann, De Synonymis in Novo Testamento, Leipsic, 1829, 1832. It would ill become me, and I have certainly no intention, to speak slightingly of the work of a most estimable man, and a good scholar—above all, when that work is one from which I have derived some, if not a great deal of assistance, and such as I most willingly acknowledge. Yet the fact that we are offering a book on the same subject as a preceding author; and may thus lie under, or seem to others to lie under, the temptation of unduly claiming for the ground which we would occupy, that it is not solidly occupied already; this must not wholly shut our mouths from pointing out what may appear to us deficiencies or shortcomings on his part. And this work of Tittmann’s seems to me still to leave room for another, even on the very subject to which it is specially devoted. It sometimes travels very slowly over its ground; the synonyms which he selects for discrimination are not always the most interesting; nor are they always felicitously grouped for investigation; he often fails to bring out in sharp and clear antithesis the differences between them; while here and there the investigations of later scholars have quite broken down distinctions which he has sought to establish; as for instance that between διαλλάσσειν and καταλλάσσειν, as though the first were a mutual, the second only a one-sided, reconciliation; or again as that between ἄχρι and μέχρι. Indeed the fact that this book of Tittmann’s, despite the interest of its subject, and its standing alone upon it, to say nothing of its translation into English, has never obtained any considerable circulation among students of theology here, is itself an evidence of its insufficiency to meet our wants in this direction.

Of the deficiencies of the work now offered, I am only too well aware; none can know them at all so well as myself. I know too that even were my part of the work much better accomplished than it is, I have left untouched an immense number of the Synonyms of the N. T., and among these many of the most interesting and instructive. I can only hope and pray that this volume, the labour sometimes painful, but often delightful, of many days, may, notwithstanding its many faults and shortcomings, not wholly miss its aim. That aim has been to lead some into closer and more accurate investigation of His. Word, in Whom, and therefore in whose words, ‘all riches of wisdom and knowledge are contained.’

I might here conclude, but having bestowed a certain amount of attention on this subject, I am tempted, before so doing, to offer a few hints on the rules and principles which must guide a labourer in this field, if the work is at all to prosper in his hands. They shall bear mainly on the proper selection of the passages by which he shall confirm and make good, in his own sight and in the sight of others, the conclusions at which he has arrived; for it is indeed on the skill with which this selection is made that his success or failure will almost altogether depend. It is plain that when we affirm two or more words to be synonyms, that is alike, but also different, with resemblance in the main, but also with partial difference, we by no means deny that there may be a hundred passages where it would be quite as possible to use the one as the other. All that we certainly affirm is that, granting this, there is a hundred and first, where one would be appropriate and the other not, or where, at all events, one would be more appropriate than the other. To detect and cite this passage, to disengage it from the multitude of other passages, which would help little or nothing here, this is a chief business, we may say that it is the chief business, of one who, undertaking the task of the discrimination of words, would not willingly have laboured in vain. It is true that a word can hardly anywhere be used by one who is at all a master, either conscious or unconscious, of language, but that his employment of it shall assist in fixing, if there be any doubt on the matter, the exact bounds and limitations of its meaning, in drawing an accurate line of demarcation between it and such other words as border upon it, and thus in defining the territory which it occupies as its own. Still it would plainly be an endless and impossible labour to quote or even refer to all, or a thousandth part of all, the places in which any much used word occurs; while, even supposing these all brought together, their very multitude would defeat the purpose for which they were assembled; nor would the induction from them be a whit more satisfactory and conclusive than that from select examples, got together with judgment and from sufficiently wide a field. He who would undertake this work must be able to recognize what these passages are, which, carrying conviction to his own mind, he may trust will carry it also to those of others. A certain innate tact, a genius for the seizing of subtler and finer distinctions, will here be of more profit than all rules which can before-hand be laid down; at least, no rules will compensate for the absence of this; and when all has been said, much must be left to this tact. At the same time a few hints here need not be altogether unprofitable, seeing that there is no such help to finding as to know beforehand exactly what we should seek, and where we should seek it.

It is hardly necessary to observe that the student in this field of labour will bestow especial attention on the bringing together, so far as they bear upon his subject, of those passages in good authors in which his work is, so to speak, done to his hand, and some writer of authority avowedly undertakes to draw out the distinction between certain words, either in a single phrase, or in a somewhat longer discussion, or in a complete treatise. To these he will pay diligent heed, even while he will claim the right of reconsidering, and it may be declining to accept, the distinctions drawn by the very chiefest among them. The distinguishing of synonyms comes so naturally to great writers, who are also of necessity more or less accurate thinkers, and who love to make sure of the materials with which they are building, of the weapons which they are wielding, that of these distinctions traced by writers who are only word-dividers accidentally and by the way, an immense multitude exists, a multitude far beyond the hope of any single student to bring together, scattered up and down as they are in volumes innumerable. I will enumerate a few, but only as illustrating the wide range of authors from whom they may be gathered. Thus they are met in Plato (θαῤῥαλέος and ἀνδρεῖος, Protag. 349 e; θάρσος and ἄνδρεια, Ib. 351b; ἰσχυρός and δυνατός, Ib. 350 c; πόλεμος and στάσις, Rep. v. 470 b; διάνοια and νοῦς, Ib. 511 d) μνήμη and ἀνάμνησις, Philebus, 34 b; cf. Aristotle, Hist. Anim. i. 1. 15; in Aristotle (εὑγενής and γενναῖος, Hist. Anim. i. 1. 14; Rhet. ii. 15; cf. Dio Chrysostom, Orat. 15, in fine; ἔπαινος and ἐγκώμιον, Ethic. Nic. i. 12. 6; Rhet. i. 9; ἁφή and σύμφυσις, Metaph. iv. 4; φρόνησις and σύνεσις, Ethic. Nic. vi. 11; ἀκόλαστος and ἀκρατής, Ib. vii. 7, 10; πνεῦμα and ἄνεμος, De Mund. iv. 10; cf. Philo, Leg. Alleg. i. 14; ὄμβρος and ὑετός, Ib. iv. 6; εὔνοια and φιλία, Ethic. Nic. ix. 5); in Xenophon (οἰκία and οἶκος, Œcon. i. 15; βασιλεία and τυραννίς, Mem. iv. 6. 12); in Demosthenes (λοιδορία and κατηγορία, xviii. 123); in Philo (μίξις, κρᾶσις, and σύγχυσις, De Conf. Ling. 36; δῶρον and δόμα, Alleg. iii. 70; δωρεά and δόσις, De Cherub. 25; θρασύτης and θαῤῥαλεότης, Quis Rer. Div. Hœr. 5; πνοή and πνεῦμα, Leg. Alleg. i. 14); in Plutarch (ἀκολασία and ἀκρασία, De Virt. Mor. 6; ἐγκράτεια and σωφροσύνη, ibid.); in Lucilius (‘poëma’ and ‘poësis,’ Sat. 9); in Cicero (‘vitium,’ ‘morbus,’ and ‘ægrotatio,’ Tusc. iv. 13; ‘gaudium,’ ‘lætitia,’ and ‘voluptas,’ Ib. iv. 6; cf. Seneca, Ep. 59; Aulus Gellius, ii. 27; ‘cautio’ and ‘metus,’ Tusc. iv. 6; ‘labor’ and ‘dolor,’ Ib.ii 15; ‘versutus’ and ‘callidus,’ De Nat. Deor. iii. 10; ‘doctus’ and ‘peritus,’ De Off.; ‘perseverantia’ and ‘patientia,’ De Inv. ii. 34; ‘maledictum’ and ‘accusatio,’ Pro Cœl. iii. 6; with others innumerable). They are found in Quintilian (‘salsus,’ ‘urbanus,’ and ‘facetus,’ Instit. vi. 3, 17; ‘fama’ and ‘rumor,’ Ib. v. 3; ἤθη and πάθη, Ib. vi. 2, 8); in Seneca (‘ira’ and ‘iracundia,’ De Irâ, i. 4); in Aulus Gellius (‘matrona’ and ‘materfamiliâs,’ xviii. 6. 4; ‘fulvus’ and ‘flavus,’ ‘ruber’ and ‘rufus,’ lb. ii. 26); in St. Jerome (‘pignus’ and ‘arrha,’ in Ephes. 1:14; ‘puteus’ and ‘cisterna,’ in Osee i. 1; ‘bonitas’ and ‘benignitas,’ in Gal. v. 22; ‘modestia’ and ‘continentia,’ ibid.); in St. Augustine (‘flagitium’ and ‘facinus,’ Conf. iii. 8, 9; ‘volo’ and ‘cupio,’ De Civ. Dei, xiv. 8; ‘fons’ and ‘puteus,’ in Joh. iv. 6; ‘senecta’ and ‘senium,’ Enarr. in Ps. lxx. 18; ‘æmulatio’ and ‘invidia,’ Exp. in Gal. 5:20; ‘curiosus’ and ‘studiosus,’ De Util. Cred. 9); in Hugh of St. Victor (‘cogitatio,’ ‘meditatio,’ ‘contemplatio,’ De Contemp. i. 3, 4); in Muretus (‘possessio’ and ‘dominium,’ Epist. iii. 80); and, not to draw this matter endlessly out, in South (‘envy’ and ‘emulation,’ Sermons, 1737, vol. v. p. 403; compare Bishop Butler’s Sermons, 1836, p. 15); in Barrow (‘slander’ and ‘detraction’); in Jeremy Taylor (‘mandatum’ and ‘jussio,’ Ductor Dubitantium, iv. 1. 2. 7); in Samuel Johnson (‘talk’ and ‘conversation,’ Boswell’s Life, 1842, p. 719); in Göschel (‘æequitas’ and ‘jus,’ Zerst. Blätter, part ii. p. 387); in Coleridge (‘fanaticism’ and ‘enthusiasm,’ Lit. Rem. vol. ii. p. 365; ‘keenness’ and ‘subtlety,’ Table Talk, p. 140; ‘analogy’ and ‘metaphor,’ Aids to Reflection, p. 198); and in De Quincey (‘hypothesis,’ ‘theory,’ ‘system,’ Lit. Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 299, American Ed.). Indeed in every tongue the great masters of language would rarely fail to contribute their quota of these.

There is a vast number of other passages also, in worth secondary to those which I have just adduced, inasmuch as they do not draw these accurate lines of demarcation between the domain of meaning occupied by one word and that occupied by others bordering upon it; but which yet, containing an accurate definition or pregnant description of some one, will prove most serviceable when it is sought to distinguish this from others which are cognate to it. All such definitions and descriptions he will note who has taken this subject in hand. Such, for example, is Plato’s definition of διάνοια (Sophist. 263 e): ὁ ἐντὸς τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς αὑτὴν διάλογος ἄνευ φωνῆς γιγνόμενος: of νόμος (Legg. 644 d): ὃς [λογισμὸς] γενόμενος δόγμα πόλεως κοινὸν νόμος ἐπωνόμασται: with which that of Aristotle may be compared: νόμος δέ ἐστιν ὁμολόγημα πόλεως κοινὸν διὰ γραμμάτων, προστάττον πῶς χρῆ πράττειν ἕκαστα (Rhet. ad Alex. ii.); or, again, Aristotle’s of εὐτραπελία that it is ὕβρις πεπαιδευμένη, or ‘chastened insolence’ (Rhet. ii. 12); of σεμνότης that it is μαλακὴ καὶ εὐσχήμων βαρύτης (Rhet. ii. 19); or Cicero’s of ‘temperantia,’ that it is ‘moderatio cupiditatum rationi obtemperans’ (De Fin. ii. 19); or again of ‘beatitudo’ (Tusc. v. 10): ‘Secretis malis omnibus cumulata bonorum omnium possessio;’ or of ‘vultus,’ that it is ‘sermo quidam tacitus mentis;’ or of ‘divinatio,’ that it is ‘Earum rerum quæ fortuitæ putantur prædictio atque præsensio (Divin. i. 5, 9); again, of ‘gloria’ (Tusc. iii. 2), that it is ‘consentiens laus bonorum, incorrupta vox bene judicantium de excellente virtute;’ or once more (Inv. ii. 55, 156): ‘Est frequens de aliquo fama cure laude;’ or South’s of the same, more subtle, and taken more from a subjective point of view (Sermons, 1737, vol. iv. p. 67): ‘Glory is the joy a man conceives from his own perfections considered with relation to the opinions of others, as observed and acknowledged by them.’ Or take another of Cicero’s, that namely of ‘jactatio,’ that it is ‘voluptas gestiens, et se efferens violentius’ (Tusc. iv. 9). All these, I say, he will gather for the use which, as occasion arises, may be made of them; or, in any event, for the mental training which their study will afford him.

Another series of passages will claim especial attention; those namely which contain, as many do, a pointed antithesis, and which thus tell their own tale. For instance, when Ovid says severally of the soldier and the lover, ‘hic portas frangit, at ille fores,’ the difference between the gates of a city and the doors of a house, as severally expressed by the one word and the other, can escape no reader. This from Cicero (Verr. v. 66), ‘facinus est vinciri civem Romanum, scelus verberari,’ gives us at once what was his relative estimate of ‘facinus’ and ‘scelus.’ There are few distinctions more familiar than that existing between ‘vir’ and ‘homo’; but were this otherwise, a passage like that well-known one in Cicero concerning Marius (Tusc. ii. 22) would bring the distinction to the consciousness of all. One less trite which Seneca affords will do the same (Ep. 104): ‘Quid est cur timeat laborem vir, mortem homo?’ while this at once lets us know what difference he puts between ‘delectare’ and ‘placere” (Ep. 39): ‘Malorum ultimum est mala sua amare, ubi turpia non solum delectant, sed etiam placent;’ and this what the difference is between ‘carere’ and ‘indigere’ (Vit. Beat. 7): ‘Voluptate virtus sæpe caret, nunquam indiget.’ The distinction between ‘secure’ and ‘safe’ between ‘securely’ and ‘safely,’ is pretty nearly obliterated in our modern English, but how admirably is it brought out in this line of Ben Jonson,—

    ‘Men may securely sin, but safely never.

Closely connected with these are passages in which words are used as in a climacteric, one rising above the other, each evidently intended by the writer to be stronger than the last. These passages will at all events make clear in what order of strength the several words so employed presented themselves to him who so used them. Thus, if there were any doubt about the relation of ‘paupertas’ and ‘egestas,’ a passage like the following from Seneca (Ep. 58) would be decisive, so far at least as concerns the silver age of Latinity: ‘Quanta verborum nobis paupertas, imo egestas sit, nunquam magis quam hodierno die intellexi;’ while for the relations between ‘inopia’ and ‘egestas’ we may compare a similar passage from the younger Pliny (Ep. 4:18). Another passage from Seneca (De Irâ, ii. 36: ‘Ajacem in mortem egit furor, in furorem ira’) shows how he regarded ‘ira’ and ‘furor.’ When Juvenal describes the ignoble assentation of the Greek sycophant, ever ready to fall in with and to exaggerate the mood of his patron, ‘si dixeris, “æstuo,” sudat’ (Sat. iii. 103), there can be no question in what relation of strength the words ‘æstuo’ and ‘sudo’ for him stood to one another.
Nor in this way only, but in various others, a great writer, without directly intending any such thing, will give a most instructive lesson in synonyms and their distinction merely by the alternations and interchanges of one word with another, which out of an instinctive sense of fitness and propriety he will make. For instance, what profound instruction on the distinction between βίος and ζωή lies in the two noble chapters with which the Gorgias of Plato concludes, while yet he was certainly very far from designing any such lesson. So, too, as all would own, Cicero is often far more instructive here, and far more to be relied on as a guide and authority in this his passionate shifting and changing of words than when in colder blood he proceeds to distinguish one from another. So much we may affirm without in the least questioning the weight which all judgments of his on his own language must possess.

Once more, the habitual associations of a word will claim the special attention of one who is seeking to mark out the exact domain of meaning which it occupies. Remembering the proverb, ‘Noscitur a sociis,’ he will note accurately the company which it uses to keep; above all, he will note if there be any one other word with which it stands in ever-recurring alliance. He will draw from this association two important conclusions: first, that it has not exactly the same meaning as these words with which it is thus constantly associated; else one or the other, and not both, save only in a few exceptional cases of rhetorical accumulation, would be employed: the second, that it has a meaning nearly bordering upon theirs, else it would not be found in such frequent combination with them. Pape’s Greek Lexicon is good, and Rost and Palm’s still more to be praised, for the attention bestowed upon this point, which was only very partially attended to by Passow. The helps are immense which may here be found for the exact fixing of the meaning of a word. Thus a careful reader of our old authors can scarcely fail to have been perplexed by the senses in which he finds the word ‘peevish’ employed—so different from our modern, so difficult to reduce to that common point of departure, which yet all the different meanings that a word in time comes to obtain must have once possessed. Let him weigh, however, its use in two or three such passages as the following, and the companionship in which he finds it will greatly help him to grasp the precise sense in which two hundred years since it was employed. The first is from Burtos (Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. § 1): ‘We provoke, rail, scoff, calumniate, hate, abuse (hard-hearted, implacable, malicious, peevish, inexorable as we are), to satisfy our lust or private spleen.’ The second from Shakespeare (Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act III. Sc. 1):

         Valentine.      ‘Cannot your Grace win her to fancy him?’
         Duke.      ‘No, trust me, she is peevish, sullen, froward,
               Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty.’

Surely in these quotations, and in others similar which could easily be adduced, there are assistances at once safe and effectual for arriving at a right appreciation of the force of ‘peevish.’

Again, one who is considering and seeking to arrive at the exact value, both positive and relative, of words will diligently study the equivalents in other tongues which masters of language have put forward; especially where it is plain they have made the selection of the very fittest equivalent a matter of earnest consideration. I spoke just now of ‘peevish.’ Another passage from Burton—‘Pertinax hominum genus, a peevish generation of men’—is itself sufficient to confirm the notion, made probable by induction from passages cited already, that self-willedness (αὐθάδεια) was the leading notion which the word once possessed. Sometimes possessing no single word of their own precisely equivalent to that which they would render, they have sought to approach this last from different quarters; and what no single one would do, to effect by several, employing sometimes one and sometimes another. Cicero tells us that he so dealt with the Greek σωφροσύνη, for which he found no one word that was its adequate representative in Latin. Each of these will probably tell us some part of that which we desire to learn.

But then further, in seeking to form an exact estimate of ethical terms and their relation to, and their distinction from, one another, it will profit much to observe by what other names virtues and vices have been called, with what titles of dishonour virtues have been miscalled by those who wished to present them in an odious or a ridiculous light; with what titles of honour vices have been adorned by those who would fain make the worse appear the better, who would put darkness for light and light for darkness; since, unjust as in every case these words must be, they must yet have retained some show and remote semblance of justice, else they would scarcely have imposed on the simplest and the most unwary; and from their very lie a truth may be extorted by him who knows how to question them aright. Thus when Plato (Rep. 560 e) characterizes some as ὕβριν μὲν εὐπαιδευσίαν καλοῦντες, ἀναρχίαν δὲ ἐλευθερίαν, ἀσωτίαν δὲ μεγαλοπρέπειαν, ἀναίδειαν δὲ ἀνδρείαν (cf. Aristotle, Rhet. i. 9); or when Plutarch (Anim. an Corp. Aff. 3) says, θυμὸν δὲ πολλοὶ καλοῦσιν ἀνδρείαν, καὶ ἔρωτα φιλίαν, καὶ φθονον ἅμιλλαν, καὶ δειλίαν ἀσφάλειαν: or when he relates how the flatterers of Dionysius, not now giving good names to bad things, but bad names to good, called the σεμνότης of Dion ὑπεροψία, and his παῤῥησία αὐθάδεια (Dion, 8; cf. De Adul. et Am. 14); or, once more, when we have a passage before us like the following from Cicero (Part. Orat. 23): ‘Prudentiam malitia, et temperantiam immanitas in aspernandis voluptatibus, et liberalitatem effusio, et fortitudinem audacia imitatur, et patientiam duritia immanis, et justitiam acerbitas, et religionem superstitio, et lenitatem mollitia animi, et verecundiam timiditas, et illam disputandi prudentiam concertatio captatioque verborum’—when, I say, we have such statements before us, these pairs of words mutually throw light each upon the other; and it is our own fault if these caricatures are not helpful to us in understanding what are exactly the true features misrepresented by them. Wyttenbach, Animad. in Plutarchum, vol. i. pp. 461, 462, has collected a large group of similar passages. He might have added, trite though it may be, the familiar passage from the Satires of Horace, 1. 3. 41–66.

Let me touch in conclusion on one other point upon which it will much turn whether a book on synonyms will satisfy just expectations or not; I mean the skill with which the pairs, or, it may be, the larger groups of words, between which it is proposed to discriminate, are selected and matched. He must pair his words as carefully as the lanista in the Roman amphitheatre paired his men. Of course, no words can in their meaning be too near to one another; since the nearer they are the more liable to be confounded, the more needing to be discriminated. But there may be some which are too remote, between which the difference is so patent that it is quite superfluous to define what it is. ‘Scarlet’ and ‘crimson’ may be confounded; it may be needful to point out the difference between them; but scarcely between ‘scarlet’ and ‘green.’ It may be useful to discriminate between ‘pride’ and ‘arrogance’; but who would care for a distinction drawn between ‘pride’ and ‘covetousness?’ At the same time, one who does not look for his pairs at a certain remoteness from one another, will have very few on which to put forth his skill. It is difficult here to hit always the right mean; and we must be content to appear sometimes discriminating where the reader counts that no discrimination was required. No one will have taken up a work on synonyms without feeling that some words with which it deals are introduced without need, so broad and self-evident in his eyes does the distinction between them appear. Still, if the writer have in other cases shown a tolerable dexterity in the selection of the proper groups, it will be only fair toward him to suppose that what is thus sun-clear to one may not be equally manifest to all. With this deprecation of too hasty a criticism of works like the present, I bring these prefatory remarks to a close. DUBLIN, March 13, 1876.

CONTENTS

EXPLANATORY NOTE - For Trench's notes click the Roman numeral (e.g.,  i.  for Ἐκκλησία). The transliterated Greek link (e.g., ekklesia) to additional definitions on Preceptaustin.org. 

  1.  i.      Ἐκκλησία, συναγωγή, πανήγυρις - ekklesia, sunagoge, paneguris
  2. ii.      θειότης, θεότης  - theiotes, theotes
  3. iii.      ἱερόν, ναός - hieron, naos
  4. iv.      ἐπιτιμάω, ἐλέγχω (αἰτία, ἔλεγχος) - epitimao, elegcho(aitia, elegchos)
  5. v.      ἀνάθημα, ἀνάθεμα - anathema, anathema
  6. vi.      προφητεύω, μαντεύομαι - propheteuo, manteúomai
  7. vii.      τιμωρία, κόλασις - timoria, kolasis
  8. viii.      ἀληθής, ἀληθινός - alethes, alethinos
  9. ix.      θεράπων, δοῡλος, διάκονος, οἰκέτης, ὑπηρέτης - therapon, doulos, diakonos, oiketes, huperetes
  10.  x.      δειλία, φόβος, εὐλάβεια - deiliaphoboseulabeia
  11. xi.      κακία, κακοήθεια kakia kakoetheia
  12. xii.      ἀγαπάω, φιλέω agapao phileo
  13. xiii.      θίλασσα, πέλαγος thilassa pelagos
  14. xiv.      σκληρός, αὐστηρός sklepos austeros
  15. xv.      εἰκών, ὁμοίωσις, ὁμοίωμα eikon homoiosis  homioma
  16. xvi.      ἀσωτία, ἀσέλγεια asotia aselgeia
  17. xvii.      θιγγάνω, ἅπτομαι, ψηλαφάω  thiggano hapto/haptomai pselaphao
  18. xviii.      παλιγγενεσία, ἀνακαίνωσις paliggenesia anakainosis
  19. xix.      αἰσχύνη, αἰδώς, ἐντροπή aischune aidos  entrope
  20. xx.      αἰδώς, σωφροσύνη  aidos sophrosune
  21. xxi.      σύρω, ἑλκύω suro elkuo
  22. xxii.      ὀλόκληρος, τέλειος, ἅρτιος  holokleros teleios artios
  23. xxiii.      στέφανος, διάδημα stephanos diadema
  24. xxiv.      πλεονεξία, φιλαργυρία pleonexia  philarguria
  25. xxv.      βόσκω, ποιμαίνω bosko poimaino
  26. xxvi.      ζη̄λος, φθόνος zelos phthonos
  27. xxvii.      ζωή, βίος zoe bios 
  28. xxviii.      κύριος, δεσπότης kurios  despotes
  29. xxix.      ἀλαζών, ὑπερήφανος, ὑβριστής alazon  huperephanos  hubristes
  30. xxx.      ἀντίχριστος, ψευδόχριστος antichristos pseudochristos
  31. xxxi.      μολύνω, μιαίνω moluno miaino
  32. xxxii.      παιδεία, νουθεσία paideia nouthesia
  33. xxxiii.      ἄφεσις, πάρεσις aphesis  paresis
  34. xxxiv.      μωρολογία, αἰσχρολογία, εὐτραπελία morologia  aischrologia  eutrapelia
  35. xxxv.      λατρεύω, λειτουργέω   latreuo   leitourgeo
  36. xxxvi.      πένης, πτωχός  penes  ptochos
  37. xxxvii.      θυμός, ὀργή, παροργισμός   thumos  orge  parorgismos
  38. xxxviii.      ἔλαιον, μύρον (χρίω, ἀλείφω)  elaion muron chrio aleipho
  39. xxxix.      Ἑβραῑος, Ἰουδαῑος, Ἰσραηλίτης  hebraios (HebraisIoudaios israelites
  40. xl.      αἰτέω, ἐρωτάω  aiteo  erotao
  41. xli.      ἀνάπαυσις, ἄνεσις anapausis anesis
  42. xlii.      ταπεινοφροσύνη, πραότης  tapeinophrosune  praotes
  43. xliii.      πραότης, ἐπιείκεια  praotes epieikeia
  44. xliv.      κλέπτης, λῃστής  kleptes lestes
  45. xlv.      πλύνω, νίπτω, λούω  pluno nipto louo
  46. xlvi.      φω̄ς, φέγγος, φωστήρ, λύχνος, λαμπάς   phos pheggos  phoster  luchnos/lychnos  lampas
  47. xlvii.      χάρις, ἔλεος charis eleos
  48. xlviii.      θεοσεβής, εὐσεβής, εὐλαβής, θρη̄σκος, δεισιδαίμων theosebes eusebes eulabes threskos deisidaimon
  49. xlix.      κενός, μάταιος kenos  mataios
  50. l.      ἱμάτιον, χιτών, ἱματισμός, χλαμύς, στολή, ποδήρης  himation chiton  himatismos chlamus stole  poderes
  51. li.      εὐχή, προσευχή, δέησις, ἔντευξις, εὐχαριστία, αἴτημα, ἱκετηρία  euche proseuche  deesis  enteusis  eucharistia aitema hiketería
  52. lii.      ἀσύνθετος, ἄσπονδος asunthetos aspondos
  53. liii.      μακροθυμία, ὑπομονή, ἀνοχή makrothumia  hupomone  anoche
  54. liv.      στρηνιάω, τρυφάω, σπαταλάω   streniao  truphao  spatalao
  55. lv.      θλῑψις, στενοχωρία thlipsis  stenochoria
  56. lvi.      ἁπλοῡς, ἀκέραιος, ἄκακος, ἄδολος haplous akeraios  akakos  adolos
  57. lvii.      χρόνος, καιρός  chronos  kairos
  58. lviii.      φέρω, φορέω phero  phoreo
  59. lix.      κόσμος, αἱών  kosmos  aion
  60. lx.      νέος, καινός  neos  kainos
  61. lxi.      μέθη, πότος, οἰνοφλυγία, κω̄μος, κραιπάλη  methe  potos  oinophlugia  komos kraittale
  62. lxii.      καπηλεύω, δολόω  kapeleuo  doloo
  63. lxiii.      ἀγαθωσύνη, χρηστότης agathosune  chrestotes
  64. lxiv.      δίκτυον, ἀμφίβληστρον, σαγήνη diktuon  amphiblestron sagene
  65. lxv.      λυπέομαι, πενθέω, θρηνέω, κόπτω  lupeomai  pentheo threneo  kopto
  66. lxvi.      ἁμαρτία, ἁμάρτημα, ἀσέβεια, παρακοή, ἀνομία, παρανομία, παράβασις, παράπτωμα, ἀγνόημα, ἥττημα hamartia  hamartema  asebeia  parakoe  anomia  paranomia parabasis  paraptoma agnoema
  67. lxvii.      ἀρχαῑος, παλαιός  archaios  palaios
  68. lxviii.      ἄφθαρτος, ἀμάραντος, ἀμαράντινος  aphthartos  amarantos amarantinos
  69. lxix.      μετανοέω, μεταμέλομαι metanoeo  metamellomai
  70. lxx.      μορφή, σχη̄μα, ἰδέα morphe  schema idea
  71. lxxi.      ψυχικός, σαρκικός psuchikos  sarkinos
  72. lxxii.      σαρκικός, σάρκινος sarkikos  sarkinos
  73. lxxiii.      πνοή, πνεῡμα, ἄνεμος, λαῖλαψ, θύελλα
  74. lxxiv.      δοκιμάζω, πειράζω
  75. lxxv.      σοφία, φρόνησις, γνω̄σις, ἐπίγνωσις
  76. lxxvi.      λαλέω, λέγω (λαλιά, λόγος)
  77. lxxvii.      ἀπολύτρωσις, καταλλαγή, ἱλασμός
  78. lxxviii.      ψαλμός, ὕμνος, ῷδή
  79. lxxix.      ἀγράμματος, ἰδιώτης
  80. lxxx.      δοκέω, φαίνομαι
  81. lxxxi.      ζω̄ον, θηρίον
  82. lxxxii.      ὑπέρ, ἀντί
  83. lxxxiii.      φονεύς, ἀνθρωποκτόνος, σικάριος
  84. lxxxiv.      κακός, πονηρός, φαῡλος
  85. lxxxv.      εἰλικρινής, καθαρός
  86. lxxxvi.      πόλεμος, μάχη
  87. lxxxvii.      πάθος, ἐπιθυμία, ὁρμή, ὄρεξις
  88. lxxxviii.      ἱερός, ὅσιος, ἅγιος, ἁγνός
  89. lxxxix.      φωνή, λόγος
  90. xc.      λόγος, μῡθος
  91. xci.      τέρας, σημεῖον, δύναμις, μεγαλεῖον, ἔνδοξον, παράδοξον, θαυμάσιον
  92. xcii.      κόσμιος, σεμνός, ἱεροπεπής
  93. xciii.      αὐθάδης, φίλαυτος
  94. xciv.      ἀποκάλυψις, ἐπιφάνεια, φανέρωσις
  95. xcv.      ἄλλος, ἕτερος
  96. xcvi.      ποιέω, πράσσω
  97. xcvii.      βωμός, θυσιαστήριον
  98. xcviii.      λαός, ἔθνος, δη̄μος, ὄχλος
  99. xcix.      βαπτισμός, βάπτισμα
  100. c.      σκότος, γνόφος, ζόφος, ἀχλύς
  101. ci.      βέβηλος, κοινός
  102. cii.      μόχθος, πόνος, κόπος
  103. ciii.      ἄμωμος, ἄμεμπτος, ἀνέγκλητος, ἀνεπίληπτος
  104. civ.      βραδύς, νώθρος, ἀργός
  105. cv.      δημιουργός, τεχνίτης
  106. cvi.      ἀστεῑος, ὡραῑος, καλός
  107. cvii.      1. ἐλπίς, πίστις
  108.       2. πρεσβύτης, γέρων
  109.       3. φρέαρ, πηγή
  110.       4. σχίσμα, αἵρεσις
  111.       5. μακροθυμία, πραότης
  112.       6. ἀνάμνησις, ὑπόμνησις
  113.       7. φόρος, τέλος
  114.       8. τίπος, ἀλληγορούμενον
  115.       9. λοιδορέω, βλασφημέω
  116.       10. ὀφείλει, δεῑ
  117.       11. πραΰς, ἡσύχιος
  118.       12. τεθεμελιωμένος, ἑδραῑος
  119.       13. θνητός, νεκρός
  120.       14. ἔλεος, οἰκτιρμός
  121.       15. ψιθυριστής, καταλάλος
  122.       16. ἄχρηστος, ἀχρεῖος
  123.       17. νομικός, νομοδιδάσκαλος, γραμματεύς

SEE ALSO SYNONYMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT BY ROBERT GIRDLESTONE

CHAPTER 1 - ON THE TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION OF BIBLICAL TERMS.

  1. Need of accuracy in the translation and interpretation of Scripture.
  2. Text and linguistic peculiarities of the Hebrew O.T.
  3. The LXX a connecting link between the Hebrew O.T. and the Greek N.T.
  4. Our Lord’s method of interpreting the O.T.
  5. Illustrations of the use of the LXX in translating the N.T.

CHAPTER 2 THE NAMES OF GOD.

  1. The name Elohim.
  2. The name Elohim and the Trinity.
  3. Secondary uses of the name Elohim
  4. The application of the name Elohim to Angels.
  5. Difficulties in translating the name Elohim.
  6. Other names for God.
  7. The Almighty.
  8. The Lord.
  9. The Most High.
  10. Jehovah.
  11. The Lord of Hosts.
  12. The Angel of the Lord.
  13. How translators deal with the name Jehovah

CHAPTER 3 THE NAMES OF MAN.

  1. The name Adam.
  2. The word Ish.
  3. The word Enosh.
  4. The word Gever.

CHAPTER 4 THE SOUL AND THE SPIRIT.

  1. The Soul.
  2. The Spirit.
  3. The Spirit of God.
  4. Meanings of the word Spirit in N.T.

CHAPTER 5 HEART, WILL, CONSCIENCE, UNDERSTANDING.

  1. The Heart.
  2. The hardening of the Heart.
  3. The Will.
  4. Freedom of the Will.
  5. Conscience.
  6. Words marking Intelligence

CHAPTER 6 SIN.

  1. Sin.
  2. Wrong.
  3. Travail.
  4. Iniquity.
  5. Transgression.
  6. Evil.
  7. Rebellion.
  8. Wickedness.
  9. Breach of Trust.
  10. Vanity.
  11. Guilt.
  12. Words for Sin in the N.T.

CHAPTER 7 REPENTANCE, CONVERSION, AMENDMENT.

  1. Repentance.
  2. Comfort.
  3. Conversion.
  4. Amendment.

CHAPTER 8 PERFECTION.

  1. Words signifying Perfection.
  2. The word Shalam.
  3. The word Thamam.
  4. Teaching of the N.T.

CHAPTER 9 RIGHTEOUSNESS, FAITH, HOPE.

  1. Uprightness.
  2. Righteousness.
  3. Judgment.
  4. Truth.
  5. Trust.
  6. Hope.
  7. Teaching of the N.T.

CHAPTER 10 GRACE, MERCY, LOVE.

  1. Grace.
  2. Pity.
  3. Love.
  4. Mercy.

CHAPTER 11 REDEMPTION AND SALVATION.

  1. Redemption.
  2. N.T. teaching on Redemption.
  3. Salvation.
  4. Teaching of the N.T. on Salvation.

CHAPTER 12 ATONEMENT, FORGIVENESS, ACCEPTANCE.

  1. The Hebrew word for Atonement.
  2. N.T. teaching on Atonement and Substitution.
  3. Forgiveness.
  4. Sin-bearing.
  5. Acceptance.

CHAPTER 13 PURIFICATION, BAPTISM.

  1. Purification.
  2. Purification according to the N.T.
  3. Washing.
  4. Purity.
  5. Sprinkling.
  6. Baptism.

CHAPTER 14 JUSTIFICATION.

  1. Justification.
  2. Righteousness in relation to Justification.
  3. N.T. teaching on Justification and Righteousness.
  4. Innocence.
  5. Imputation.

CHAPTER 15 SANCTIFICATION, ANOINTING.

  1. Sanctify, Sacred, Holy.
  2. Teaching of the N.T. on Sanctification.
  3. Anointing.

CHAPTER 16 OFFERINGS, ALTAR.

  1. The Korban.
  2. N.T. Teaching on the Offerings.
  3. Burnt-offering.
  4. The Meat or Meal Offering.
  5. The Sacrificial Feast.
  6. The Altar.
  7. Altar and Sacrifice in the N.T.
  8. Technical sense of the word ‘do.’
  9. To slay a victim.
  10. The Passover.
  11. The Peace-Offering.
  12. The Sin-Offering.
  13. The Trespass-Offering.
  14. Fire-Offering.
  15. Drink-Offering.
  16. Incense.
  17. The Freewill-Offering.
  18. The Wave-Offering and Heave-Offering.

CHAPTER 17 WORD, LAW, COVENANT.

  1. The Word.
  2. The Law.
  3. The Commandment.
  4. The Charge or Precept.
  5. Combination of words in the 119th Psalm.
  6. Teaching of the N.T.
  7. The Covenant.

CHAPTER 18 WORSHIP, PRAISE, PREACH.

  1. Worship.
  2. N.T. teaching on Worship.
  3. Prayer.
  4. Praise and Blessing.
  5. Preaching.
  6. Teaching

CHAPTER 19 TEMPLE, TABERNACLE:, CONGREGATION, CHURCH.

  1. The Temple.
  2. The Tabernacle.
  3. The Congregation.
  4. The Convocation.
  5. N.T. teaching on the Temple and Tabernacle.
  6. The Ecclesia.

CHAPTER 20 PROPHET, PRIEST, ELDER, MINISTER.

  1. The Prophet.
  2. The Seer.
  3. N.T. use of the word Prophet.
  4. The Priest.
  5. The Elder.
  6. The office of Elder in the N.T.
  7. The Ministry.
  8. Service.

CHAPTER 21 KING, JUDGE, PUNISH.

  1. Kings and Rulers.
  2. Judgment and Condemnation.
  3. Judgment in the N.T.
  4. Punishment and Vengeance.

CHAPTER 22 NATION, PEOPLE.

  1. Gentile or Heathen.
  2. The People.
  3. Nations and People in the N.T.
  4. Tribe or Family.

CHAPTER 23 EARTH, WORLD, HEAVEN.

  1. The Soil or Land.
  2. The Earth.
  3. The World.
  4. Heaven.
  5. The Host of Heaven.
  6. The Firmament.

CHAPTER 24 DESTRUCTION, DEATH, HELL.

  1. Various words signifying Destruction.
  2. The root Avad.
  3. Destruction as taught in the N.T.
  4. The root Shachath.
  5. The root Shamad.
  6. The root Charam.
  7. Meaning and use of the word Sheol or Hades.
  8. The word Gehenna.
  9. Death
  10. Use of the word Death in the N.T.

CHAPTER 25 SATAN, TEMPTER.

  1. The words Devil and Satan.
  2. Temptation.
  3. Temptation in the N.T.

CHAPTER 26 WITCHCRAFT, DIVINATION, SOOTHSAYING.

  1. Witchcraft.
  2. Divination.
  3. The Familiar Spirit.
  4. The Wizard and Magician.
  5. The Soothsayer and Enchanter.

CHAPTER 27 IDOL, GROVE, HIGH PLACE.

  1. Idols.
  2. The Image.
  3. N.T. teaching on Images.
  4. Other Objects of Worship.
  5. The Grove.
  6. The High Place.
  7. The Teraphim.

CHAPTER 28 ETERNAL, AGE TO COME.

  1. Various words marking Duration.
  2. The word ʾOlam.
  3. Use of the word Eternal in the N.T.

 i. Ἐκκλησία, συναγωγή, πανήγυρις - ekklesia, sunagoge, paneguris

THERE are words whose history it is peculiarly interesting to watch, as they obtain a deeper meaning, and receive a new consecration, in the Christian Church; words which the Church did not invent, but has assumed into its service, and employed in a far loftier sense than any to which the world has ever put them before. The very word by which the Church is named is itself an example—a more illustrious one could scarcely be found—of this progressive ennobling of a word. For we have ἐκκλησία in three distinct stages of meaning—the heathen, the Jewish, and the Christian. In respect of the first, ἡ ἐκκλησία (= ἔκκλητοι, Euripides, Orestes, 939) was the lawful assembly in a free Greek city of all those possessed of the rights of citizenship, for the transaction of public affairs. That they were summoned is expressed in the latter part of the word; that they were summoned out of the whole population, a select portion of it, including neither the populace, nor strangers, nor yet those who had forfeited their civic rights, this is expressed in the first. Both the calling (the κλῆσις, Phil. 3:14; 2 Tim. 1:9), and the calling out (the ἐκλογή, Rom. 11:7; 2 Pet. 1:10), are moments to be remembered, when the word is assumed into a higher Christian sense, for in them the chief part of its peculiar adaptation to its auguster uses lies. It is interesting to observe how, on one occasion in the N. T., the word returns to this earlier significance (Acts 19:32, 39, 41).

Before, however, more fully considering that word, it will need to consider a little the anterior history of another with which I am about to compare it. Συναγωγή occurs two or three times in Plato (thus Theœt. 150 a), out is by no means an old word in classical Greek, and in it altogether wants that technical signification which already in the Septuagint, and still more plainly in the Apocrypha, it gives promise of acquiring, and which it is found in the N. T. to have fully acquired. But συναγωγή, while travelling in this direction, did not leave behind it the meaning which is the only one that in classical Greek it knew; and often denotes, as it would there, any gathering or bringing together of persons or things; thus we have there συναγωγὴ ἐθνῶν (Gen. 48:4); συναγωγὴ ὑδάτων (Isai. 19:6); συναγωγὴ χρημάτων (Ecclus. 31:3), and such like. It was during the time which intervened between the closing of the O. T. canon and the opening of that of the New that συναγωγή acquired that technical meaning of which we find it in full possession when the Gospel history begins; designating, as there it does, the places set apart for purposes of worship and the reading and expounding of the Word of God, the ‘synagogues,’ as we find them named; which, capable as they were of indefinite multiplication, were the necessary complement of the Temple, which according to the divine intention was and could be but one.

But to return to ἐκκλησία. This did not, like some other words, pass immediately and at a single step from the heathen world to the Christian Church: but here, as so often, the Septuagint supplies the link of connexion, the point of transition, the word being there prepared for its highest meaning of all. When the Alexandrian translators undertook the rendering of the Hebrew Scriptures, they found in them two constantly recurring words, namely, עדָה and קָהָל. For these they employed generally, and as their most adequate Greek equivalents, συναγωγή and ἐκκλησία. The rule which they seem to have prescribed to themselves is as follows—to render עדה for the most part by συναγωγή (Exod. 12:3; Lev. 4:13; Num. 1:2, and altogether more than a hundred times), and, whatever other renderings of the word they may adopt, in no single case to render it by ἐκκλησία. It were to be wished that they had shown the same consistency in respect of קהל; but they have not; for while ἐκκλησία is their more frequent rendering (Deut. 18:16; Judg. 20:2; 1 Kin. 8:14, and in all some seventy times), they too often render this also by συναγωγή (Lev. 4:13; Num. 10:3; Deut. 5:22, and in all some five and twenty times), thus breaking down for the Greek reader the distinction which undoubtedly exists between the words. Our English Version has the same lack of a consistent rendering. Its two words are ‘congregation’ and ‘assembly;’ but instead of constantly assigning one to one, and one to the other, it renders עדה now by ‘congregation’ (Lev. 10:17; Num. 1:16; Josh. 9:27), and now by ‘assembly’ (Lev. 4:13); and on the other hand, קהל sometimes by ‘assembly’ (Judg. 21:8; 2 Chron. 30:23), but much oftener by ‘congregation’ (Judg. 21:5; Josh. 8:25).

There is an interesting discussion by Vitringa (De Synag. Vet. pp. 77–89) on the distinction between these two Hebrew synonyms; the result of which is summed up in the following statements: ‘Notat proprie קהל universam alicujus populi multitudinem, vinculis societatis unitam et rempublicam sive civitatem quandam constituentem, cum vocabulum עדה ex indole et vi significationis suæ tantum dicat quemcunque hominum cœtum et conventum, sive minorem sive majorem’ (p. 80). And again: ‘Συναγωγή, ut et עדה, semper significat cœtum conjunctum et congregatum, etiamsi nullo forte vinculo ligatum, sed ἡ ἐκκλησία [= קהל] designat multitudinem aliquam, quæ populum constituit, per leges et vincula inter se junctam, etsi sæpe fiat non sit coacta vel cogi possit’ (p. 88). Accepting this as a true distinction, we shall see that it was not without due reason that our Lord (Matt. 16:18; 18:17) and his Apostles claimed this, as the nobler word, to designate the new society of which He was the Founder, being as it was a society knit together by the closest spiritual bonds, and altogether independent of space.

Yet for all this we do not find the title ἐκκλησία wholly withdrawn from the Jewish congregation; that too was “the Church in the wilderness” (Acts 7:38); for Christian and Jewish differed only in degree, and not in kind. Nor yet do we find συναγωγή wholly renounced by the Church; the latest honorable use of it in the N. T., indeed the only Christian use of it there, is by that Apostle to whom it was especially given to maintain unbroken to the latest possible moment the outward bonds connecting the Synagogue and the Church, namely, by St. James (2:2); ἐπισυναγωγή, I may add, on two occasions is honorably used, but in a more general sense (2 Thess. 2:1; Heb. 10:25). Occasionally also in the early Fathers, in Ignatius for instance (Ep. ad Polyc. 4; for other examples see Suicer, s. v.), we find συναγωγή still employed as an honorable designation of the Church, or of her places of assembly. Still there were causes at work, which led the faithful to have less and less pleasure in the appropriation of this name to themselves; and in the end to leave it altogether to those, whom in the latest book of the canon the Lord had characterized for their fierce opposition to the truth even as “the synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 3:9; cf. John 8:4). Thus the greater fitness and dignity of the title ἐκκλησία has been already noted. Add to this that the Church was ever rooting itself more predominantly in the soil of the heathen world, breaking off more entirely from its Jewish stock and stem. This of itself would have led the faithful to the letting fall of συναγωγή, a word with no such honorable history to look back on, and permanently associated with Jewish worship, and to the ever more exclusive appropriation to themselves of ἐκκλησία, so familiar already, and of so honorable a significance, in Greek ears. It is worthy of note that the Ebionites, in reality a Jewish sect, though they had found their way for a while into the Christian Church, should have acknowledged the rightfulness of this distribution of terms. Epiphanius (Hœres. xxx. 18) reports of these, συναγωγὴν δὲ οὗτοι καλοῦσιν τὴν ἑαυτῶν ἐκκλησίαν, καὶ οὐχὶ ἐκκλησίαν.

It will be perceived from what has been said, that Augustine, by a piece of good fortune which he had no right to expect, was only half in the wrong, when transferring his Latin etymologies to the Greek and Hebrew, and not pausing to enquire whether they would hold good there, as was improbable enough, he finds the reason for attributing συναγωγή to the Jewish, and ἐκκλησία to the Christian Church, in the fact that ‘convocatio’ (= ἐκκλησία) is a nobler term than ‘congregatio’ (= συναγωγή), the first being properly the calling together of men, the second the gathering together (‘congregatio,’ from ‘congrego,’ and that from ‘grex’) of cattle. See Field, On, the Church, i. 5.

The πανήγυρις differs from the ἐκκλησία in this, that in the ἐκκλησία, as has been noted already, there lay ever the sense of an assembly coming together for the transaction of business. The πανήγυρις, on the other hand, was a solemn assembly for purposes of festal rejoicing; and on this account it is found joined continually with ἑορτή, as by Philo, Vit. Mos. ii. 7; Ezek. 46:11; cf. Hos. 2:11; 9:5; and Isai. 66:10, where πανηγυρίζειν = ἑορτάζειν: the word having given us ‘panegyric,’ which is properly a set discourse pronounced at one of these great festal gatherings. Business might grow out of the fact that such multitudes were assembled, since many, and for various reasons, would be glad to avail themselves of the gathering; but only in the same way as a ‘fair’ grew out of a ‘feria,’ a ‘holiday’ out of a ‘holy-day.’ Strabo (x. 5) notices the business-like aspect which the πανηγύρεις commonly assumed (ἥ τε πανήγυρις ἐμπορικόν τι πρᾶγμα: cf. Pausanias, x. 32. 9); which was indeed to such an extent their prominent feature, that the Latins rendered πανήγυρις by ‘mercatus,’ and this even when the Olympic games were intended (Cicero, Tusc. v. 3; Justin, xiii. 5). These with the other solemn games were eminently, though not exclusively, the πανηγυρεις of the Greek nation (Thucydides, i. 25; Isocrates, Paneg. 1). Keeping this festal character of the πανήγυρις in mind, we shall find a peculiar fitness in the word’s employment at Heb. 12:23; where only in the N. T. it occurs. The Apostle is there setting forth the communion of the Church militant on earth with the Church triumphant in heaven,—of the Church toiling and suffering here with that Church from which all weariness and toil have for ever passed away (Rev. 21:4); and how could he better describe this last than as a πανήγυρις, than as the glad and festal assembly of heaven? Very beautifully Delitzsch (in loc.): ‘Πανήγυρις ist die vollzählige zahlreiche und inbesondere festliche, festlich fröhliche und sie ergötzende Versammlung. Man denkt bei πανήγυρις an Festgesang, Festreigen und Festspiele, und das Leben vor Gottes Angesicht ist ja wirklich eine unaufhörliche Festfeier.’

 ii. θειότης, θεότης - theiotes, theotes

NEITHER of these words occurs more than once in the N. T.; θειότης only at Rom. 1:20 (and once in the Apocrypha, Wisd. 18:9); θεότης at Col. 2:9. We have rendered both by ‘Godhead;’ yet they must not be regarded as identical in meaning, nor even as two different forms of the same word, which in process of time have separated off from one another, and acquired different shades of significance. On the contrary, there is a real distinction between them, and one which grounds itself on their different derivations; θεότης being from Θεός, and θειότης, not from τὸ θεῖον, which is nearly though not quite equivalent to Θεός, but from the adjective θεῖος.

Comparing the two passages where they severally occur, we shall at once perceive the fitness of the employment of one word in one, of the other in the other. In the first (Rom. 1:20) St. Paul is declaring how much of God may be known from the revelation of Himself which He has made in nature, from those vestiges of Himself which men may everywhere trace in the world around them. Yet it is not the personal God whom any man may learn to know by these aids: He can be known only by the revelation of Himself in his Son; but only his divine attributes, his majesty and glory. This Theophylact feels, who on Romans 1:20 gives μεγαλειότης as equivalent to θειότης; and it is not to be doubted that St. Paul uses this vaguer, more abstract, and less personal word, just because he would affirm that men may know God’s power and majesty, his θεῖα δύναμις (2 Pet. 1:3), from his works; but would not imply that they may know Himself from these, or from anything short of the revelation of his Eternal Word. Motives not dissimilar induce him to use τὸ θεῖον rather than ὁ θεός in addressing the Athenians on Mars’ Hill (Acts 17:29).

But in the second passage (Col. 2:9) St. Paul is declaring that in the Son there dwells all the fulness of absolute Godhead; they were no mere rays of divine glory which gilded Him, lighting up his person for a season and with a splendour not his own; but He was, and is, absolute and perfect God; and the Apostle uses θεότης to express this essential and personal Godhead of the Son; in the words of Augustine (De Civ. Dei, vii. 1): ‘Status ejus qui sit Deus.’ Thus Beza rightly: ‘Non dicit: τὴν θειότητα, i.e. divinitatem, sed τὴν θεότητα, i.e. deitatem, ut magis etiam expresse loquatur; … ἡ θειότης attributa videtur potius quam naturam ipsam declarare.’ And Bengel: ‘Non modo divinæ virtutes, sed ipsa divina natura.’ De Wette has sought to express the distinction in his German translation, rendering θειότης by ‘Göttlichkeit,’ and θεότης by ‘Gottheit.’

There have not been wanting those who have denied that any such distinction was intended by St. Paul; and they rest this denial on the assumption that no such difference between the forces of the two words can be satisfactorily made out. But, even supposing that such a difference could not be shown in classical Greek, this of itself would be in no way decisive on the matter. The Gospel of Christ might for all this put into words, and again draw out from them, new forces, evolve latent distinctions, which those who hitherto employed the words may not have required, but which had become necessary now. And that this distinction between ‘deity’ and ‘divinity,’ if I may use these words to represent severally θεότης and θειότης, is one which would be strongly felt, and which therefore would seek its utterance in Christian theology, of this we have signal proof in the fact that the Latin Christian writers were not satisfied with ‘divinitas,’ which they found ready to their hand in the writings of Cicero and others; and which they sometimes were content to use (see Piper, Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1875, p. 79 sqq.); but themselves coined ‘deitas’ as the only adequate Latin representative of the Greek θεότης. We have Augustine’s express testimony to the fact (De Civ. Dei, vii. 1). ‘Hanc divinitatem, vel ut sic dixerim deitatem; nam et hoc verbo uti jam nostros non piget, ut de Græco expressius transferant id quod illi θεότητα appellant, &c.;’ cf. x. 1, 2. But not to urge this, nor yet the different etymologies of the words, that one is τὸ εἰναί τινα θεόν, the other τὸ εἰναί τινα [or τι] θεῖον, which so clearly point to this difference in their meanings, examples, so far as they can be adduced, go to support the same. Both θεότης and θειότης, as in general the abstract words in every language, are of late introduction; and one of them, θεότης, is extremely rare. Indeed, only two examples of it from classical Greek have hitherto been brought, forward, one from Lucian (Icarom. 9); the other from Plutarch (De Def. Orac. 10): οὕτως ἐκ μὲν ἀνθρώπων εἰς ἥρωας, ἐκ δὲ ἡρώων εἰς δαίμονας, αἱ βελτίονες ψυχαὶ τὴν μεταβολὴν λαμβάνουσιν. ἐκ δὲ δαιμόνων ὀλίγαι μὲν ἔτι χρόνῳ πολλῷ διʼ ἀρετῆς καθαρθεῖσαι παντάπασι θεότητος μετέσχον: but to these a third, that also from Plutarch (De Isid. et Osir. 22), may be added. In all of these it expresses, in agreement with the view here asserted, Godhead in the absolute sense, or at all events in as absolute a sense as the heathen could conceive it. Θειότης is a very much commoner word; and its employment everywhere bears out the distinction here drawn. There is ever a manifestation of the divine, of some divine attributes, in that to which θειότης is attributed, but never absolute essential Deity. Thus Lucian (De Cal. 17) attributes θειότης to Hephæstion, when after his death Alexander would have raised him to the rank of a god; and Plutarch speaks of the θειότης τῆς ψυχῆς, De Plac. Phil. v. 1; cf. De Is. et Os. 2; Sull. 6; with various other passages to the like effect.

It may be observed, in conclusion, that whether this distinction was intended, as I am fully persuaded it was, by St. Paul or not, it established itself firmly in the later theological language of the Church—the Greek Fathers using never θειότης, but always θεότης, as alone adequately expressing the essential Godhead of the Three several Persons in the Holy Trinity.

iii. ἱερόν, ναός - hieron, naos

WE have in our Version only the one word ‘temple’ for both of these; nor is it easy to perceive in what manner we could have marked the distinction between them; which is yet a very real one, and one the marking of which would often add much to the clearness and precision of the sacred narrative. (See Fuller, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, p. 427.) Ἱερόν (= templum) is the whole compass of the sacred enclosure, the τέμενος, including the outer courts, the porches, porticoes, and other buildings subordinated to the temple itself; αἱ οἰκοδομαὶ τοῦ ἱεροῦ (Matt. 24:1.) But ναός (= ‘ædes’), from ναίω, ‘habito,’ as the proper habitation of God (Acts 7:48; 17:24; 1 Cor. 6:19); the οἶκος τοῦ Θεοῦ (Matt. 12:4; cf. Exod. 23:19), the German ‘duom’ or ‘domus,’ is the temple itself, that by especial right so called, being the heart and centre of the whole; the Holy, and the Holy of Holies, called often ἁγίασμα (1 Mace. 1:37; 3:45). This distinction, one that existed and was acknowledged in profane Greek and with reference to heathen temples, quite as much as in sacred Greek and with relation to the temple of the true God (see Herodotus, i. 181, 183; Thucydides, iv. 90 [τάφρον μὲν κύκλῳ περὶ τὸ ἱερὸν καὶ τὸν νεὼν ἔσκαπτον]; 5:18; Acts 19:24, 27), is, I believe, always assumed in all passages relating to the temple at Jerusalem, alike by Josephus, by Philo, by the Septuagint translators, and in the N. T. Often indeed it is explicitly recognized, as by Josephus (Antt. viii. 3. 9), who, having described the building of the ναός by Solomon, goes on to say: ναοὺ δʼ ἔξωθεν ἰερὸν ᾠκοδόμησεν ἐν τετραγώνῳ σχήματι. In another passage (Antt. xi 4. 3), he describes the Samaritans as seeking permission of the Jews to be allowed to share in the rebuilding of God’s house (συγκατασκευάσαι τὸν ναόν). This is refused them (of. Ezra 4:2); but, according to his account, it was permitted to them ἀφικνουμένοις εἰς τὸ ἰερὸν σέβειν τὸν Θεόν—a privilege denied to mere Gentiles, who might not, under penalty of death, pass beyond their own exterior court (Acts 21:29, 30; Philo, Leg. ad Cal. 31).
The distinction may be brought to bear with advantage on several passages in the N. T. When Zacharias entered into “the temple of the Lord” to burn incense, the people who waited his return, and who are described as standing “without” (Luke 1:10), were in one sense in the temple too, that is, in the ἱερόν, while he alone entered into the ναός, the ‘temple’ in its more limited and auguster sense. We read continually of Christ teaching “in the temple” (Matt. 26:55; Luke 21:37; John 8:20); and we sometimes fail to understand how long conversations could there have been maintained, without interrupting the service of God. But this ‘temple’ is ever the ἱερόν, the porches and porticoes of which were excellently adapted to such purposes, as they were intended for them. Into the ναός the Lord never entered during his ministry on earth; nor indeed, being ‘made under the law,’ could He have so done, the right of such entry being reserved for the priests alone. It need hardly be said that the money-changers, the buyers and sellers, with the sheep and oxen, whom the Lord drives out, He repels from the ἱερόν, and not from the ναός. Profane as was their intrusion, they yet had not dared to establish themselves in the temple more strictly so called (Matt. 21:12; John 2:14). On the other hand, when we read of another Zacharias slain “between the temple and the altar” (Matt. 23:35), we have only to remember that ‘temple’ is ναός here, at once to get rid of a difficulty, which may perhaps have presented itself to many—this namely, Was not the altar in the temple? how then could any locality be described as between these two? In the ἰερόν, doubtless, was the brazen altar to which allusion is here made, but not in the ναός: “in the court of the house of the Lord” (cf. Josephus, Antt. viii. 4. 1), where the sacred historian (2 Chron. 24:21) lays the scene of this murder, but not in the ναός itself. Again, how vividly does it set forth to us the despair and defiance of Judas, that he presses even into the ναός itself (Matt. 27:5), into the ‘adytum’ which was set apart for the priests alone, and there casts down before them the accursed price of blood! Those expositors who affirm that here ναός stands for ἰερόν, should adduce some other passage in which the one is put for the other.

iv. ἐπιτιμάω, ἐλέγχω (αἰτία, ἔλεγχος) - epitamao, elegcho (aitia, elegchos)

ONE may ‘rebuke’ another without bringing the rebuked to a conviction of any fault on his part; and this, either because there was no fault, and the rebuke was therefore unneeded or unjust; or else because, though there was such fault, the rebuke was ineffectual to bring the offender to own it; and in this possibility of ‘rebuking’ for sin, without ‘convincing’ of sin, lies the distinction between these two words. In ἐπιτιμᾶν lies simply the notion of rebuking; which word can therefore be used of one unjustly checking or blaming another; in this sense Peter ‘began to rebuke’ his Lord (ἤρξατο ἐπιτιμᾶν, Matt. 16:22; cf. 19:13; Luke 18:39):—or ineffectually, and without any profit to the person rebuked, who is not thereby brought to see his sin; as when the penitent robber ‘rebuked’ (ἐπετίμα) his fellow malefactor (Luke 23:40; cf. Mark 9:25). But ἐλέγχειν is a much more pregnant word; it is so to rebuke another, with such effectual wielding of the victorious arms of the truth, as to bring him, if not always to a confession, yet at least to a conviction, of his sin (Job 5:17; Prov. 19:25), just as in juristic Greek, ἐλέγχειν is not merely to reply to, but to refute, an opponent.

When we keep this distinction well in mind, what a light does it throw on a multitude of passages in the N. T.; and how much deeper a meaning does it give them. Thus our Lord could demand, “Which of you convinceth (ἐλέγχει) Me of sin?” (John 8:46). Many ‘rebuked’ Him; many laid sin to his charge (Matt. 9:3; John 9:16); but none brought sin home to his conscience. Other passages also will gain from realizing the fulness of the meaning of ἐλέγχειν, as John 3:20; 8:9; 1 Cor. 14:24, 25; Heb. 12:5; but above all, the great passage, John 16:8; “When He [the Comforter] is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:” for so we have rendered the words, following in our ‘reprove’ the Latin ‘arguet;’ although few, I think, that have in any degree sought to sound the depth of our Lord’s words, but will admit that ‘convince,’ which unfortunately our Translators have relegated to the margin, or ‘convict,’ would have been the preferable rendering, giving a depth and fulness of meaning to this work of the Holy Ghost, which ‘reprove’ in some part fails to express. “He who shall come in my room, shall so bring home to the world its own ‘sin,’ my perfect ‘righteousness,’ God’s coming ‘judgment,’ shall so ‘convince’ the world of these, that it shall be obliged itself to acknowledge them; and in this acknowledgment may find, shall be in the right way to find, its own blessedness and salvation.” See more on ἐλέγχειν in Pott’s Wurzel-Wörterbuch, vol. iii. p. 720.

Between αἰτία and ἔλεγχος, which last in the N. T. is found only twice (Heb. 11:1; 2 Tim. 3:16), a difference of a similar character exists. Αἰτία is an accusation, but whether false or true the word does not attempt to anticipate; and thus it could be applied, indeed it was applied, to the accusation made against the Lord of Glory Himself (Matt. 27:37); but ἔλεγχος implies not merely the charge, but the truth of the charge, and further the manifestation of the truth of the charge; nay more than all this, very often also the acknowledgment, if not outward, yet inward, of its truth on the part of the accused; it being the glorious prerogative of the truth in its highest operation not merely to assert itself, and to silence the adversary, but to silence him by convincing him of his error. Thus Job can say of God, ἀλήθεια καὶ ἔλεγχος παρʼ αὐτοῦ (xxiii. 7); and Demosthenes (Con. Androt. p. 600): Πάμπολυ λοιδορία τε καὶ αἰτία κεχωρισμένον ἐστὶν ἐλέγχου· αἰτία μὲν γάρ ἐστιν, ὅταν τις ψιλῷ χρησάμενος λόγῳ μὴ παράσχηται πίστιν, ὧν λέγει· ἔλεγχος δέ, ὅταν ὧν ἂν εἴπῃ τις καὶ τάληθὲς ὁμοῦ δείζῃ. Cf. Aristotle (Rhet. ad Alex. 13). Ἔλεγχος ἔστι μὲν ὃ μὴ δυνατὸν ἄλλως ἔχειν, ἀλλʼ οὕτως, ὡς ἡμεῖς λέγομεν. By our serviceable distinction between ‘convict’ and ‘convince’ we maintain a difference between the judicial and the moral ἔλεγχος. Both indeed will flow together into one in the last day, when every condemned sinner will be at once ‘convicted’ and ‘convinced;’ which all is implied in that “he was speechless” of the guest found by the king without a marriage garment (Matt. 22:12; cf. Rom. 3:4).

 v. ἀνάθημα, ἀνάθεμα - anathema, anathema

THERE are not a few who have affirmed these to be merely different spellings of the same word, and indifferently used. Were the fact so, their fitness for a place in a book of synonyms would of course disappear; difference as well as likeness being necessary for this. Thus far indeed these have right—namely, that ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα, like εὕρημα and εὕρεμα, ἐπίθημα and ἐπίθεμα, must severally be regarded as having been once no more than different pronunciations, which issued in different spellings, of one and the same word. Nothing, however, is more common than for slightly diverse pronunciations of the same word finally to settle and resolve themselves into different words, with different orthographies, and different domains of meaning which they have severally appropriated to themselves; and which henceforth they maintain in perfect independence one of the other, I have elsewhere given numerous examples of the kind (English Past and Present, 10th edit. pp. 157–164); and a very few may here suffice: θράσος, and θάρσος,  ‘Thrax’ and ‘Threx,’ ‘rechtlich’ and ‘redlich,’ ‘fray’ and ‘frey,’ ‘harnais’ and ‘harnois,’ ‘allay’ and ‘alloy,’ ‘mettle’ and ‘metal.’ That which may be alarmed of all these, may also be affirmed of ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα. Whether indeed these words had secured each a domain of meaning of its own was debated with no little earnestness and heat by some of the great early Hellenists, and foremost names among these are ranged on either side; Salmasius among those who maintained the existence of a distinction, at least in Hellenistic Greek; Beza among those who denied it. Perhaps here, as in so many cases, the truth aid not absolutely lie with the combatants on either part, but lay rather between them, though much nearer to one part than the other; the most reasonable conclusion, after weighing all the evidence on either side, being this—that such a distinction of meaning did exist, and was allowed by many, but was by no means recognized or observed by all.

In classical Greek ἀνάθημα is quite the predominant form, the only one which Attic writers allow (Lobeck, Phrynichus, pp. 249, 445; Paralip. p. 391). It is there the technical word by which all such costly offerings as were presented to the gods, and then suspended or otherwise exposed to view in their temples, all by the Romans termed ‘donaria,’ as tripods, crowns, vases of silver or gold, and the like, were called; these being in this way separated for ever from all common and profane uses, and openly dedicated to the honour of that deity, to whom they were presented at the first (Xenophon, Ahab. v. 3. 5; Pausanias, x. 9).

But with the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, a new thought demanded to find utterance. Those Scriptures spoke of two ways in which objects might be holy, set apart for God, devoted to Him. The children of Israel were devoted to Him; God was glorified in them: the wicked Canaanites were devoted to Him; God was glorified on them. This awful fact that, in more ways than one things and persons might be חֶרֶֽם (Lev. 27:28, 29)—that they might be devoted to God for good, and for evil; that there was such a thing as being “accursed to the Lord” (Josh. 6:17; cf. Deut. 13:16; Num. 21:1–3); that of the spoil of the same city a part might be consecrated to the Lord in his treasury, and a part utterly destroyed, and yet this part and that be alike dedicated to Him (Josh. 6:19, 21), “sacred and devote” (Milton);—this claimed its expression and utterance now, and found it in the two uses of one word; which, while it remained the same, just differenced itself enough to indicate in which of the two senses it was employed. And here let it be observed, that they who find separation from God as the central idea of ἀνάθεμα (Theodoret, for instance, on Rom. 9:3: τὸ ἀνάθεμα διπλῆν ἔχει τὴν διάνοιαν· καὶ γὰρ τὸ ἀφιερώμενον τῷ Φεῷ ἀνάθημα ὀνομάζεται, καὶ τὸ τούτου ἀλλότριον τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχει προσηγορίαν),—are quite unable to trace a common bond of meaning between it and ἀνάθημα, which last is plainly separation to God; or to show the point at which they diverge from one another; while there is no difficulty of the kind when it is seen that separation to God is in both cases implied.

Already in the Septuagint and in the Apocryphal books we find ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα beginning to disengage themselves from one another, and from a confused and promiscuous use. How far, indeed, the distinction is observed there, and whether universally, it is hard to determine, from the variety of readings in various editions; but in one of the later critical editions (that of Tischendorf, 1850), many passages (such for instance as Judith 16:19; Lev. 27:28, 29; 2 Macc. 2:13); which appear in some earlier editions negligent of the distinction, are found observant of it. In the N. T. the distinction that ἀνάθημα is used to express the ‘sacrum’ in a better sense, ἀνάθεμα in a worse, is invariably maintained. It must be allowed, indeed, that the passages there are not numerous enough to convince a gainsayer; he may attribute to hazard the fact that they fall in with this distinction; ἀνάθημα occurring only once: “Some spake of the how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts” (ἀναθήμασι, Luke 21:5; even here Codd. A and D and Lachmann read ἀναθέμασι); and ἀνάθεμα no more than six times (Acts 23:14; Rom. 9:3; 1 Cor. 7:3; 16:22; Gal. 1:8, 9). So far however as these uses reach, they confirm this view of the matter; while if we turn to the Greek Fathers, we shall find some of them indeed neglecting the distinction; but others, and these of the greatest among them, not merely implicitly allowing it, as does Clement of Alexandria (Coh. ad Gen. 4: ἀνάθημα γεγόναμεν τῷ Θεῷ ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ: where the context plainly shows the meaning to be, “we have become a costly offering to God”); but explicitly recognizing the distinction, and tracing it with accuracy and precision; see, for instance, Chrysostom, Hom. xvi. in Rom., as quoted by Suicer (Thes. s. v. ἀνάθεμα).

And thus, putting all which has been urged together,—the anterior probability, drawn from the existence of similar phenomena in all languages, that the two forms of a word would gradually have two different meanings attached to them; the wondrous way in which the two aspects of dedication to God, for good and for evil, are thus set out by slightly different forms of the same word; the fact that every passage in the N. T., where the words occur, falls in with this scheme; the usage, though not perfectly consistent, of later ecclesiastical books,—I cannot but conclude that ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα are employed not accidentally by the sacred writers of the New Covenant in different senses; but that St. Luke uses ἀνάθημα (21:5), because he intends to express that which is dedicated to God for its own honour as well as for God’s glory; St. Paul uses ἀνάθεμα because he intends that which is devoted to God, but devoted, as were the Canaanites of old, to his honour indeed, but its own utter loss; even as in the end every intelligent being, capable of knowing and loving God, and called to this knowledge, must be either ἀνάθημα or ἀνάθεμα to Him (see Witsius, Misc. Sac. vol. ii. p. 54, sqq.; Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. ii. p. 495, sqq.; Fritzsche on Rom. 9:3; Hengstenberg, Christologie, 2nd ed. vol. iii. p. 655; Cremer, Biblisch-theologisches Wörterbuch, 2nd ed. p. 550).

 vi. προφητεύω, μαντεύομαι

Προφητεύω is a word of constant occurrence in the N. T.; μαντεύομαι occurs but once, namely at Acts 16:16; where, of the girl possessed with the “spirit of divination,” or “spirit of Apollo,” it is said that she “brought her masters much gain by soothsaying” (μαντευομένη). The abstinence from the use of this word on all other occasions, and the use of it on this one, is very observable, furnishing a notable example of that religious instinct wherewith the inspired writers abstain from words, whose employment would tend to break down the distinction between heathenism and revealed religion. Thus εύδαιμονία, although from a heathen point of view a religious word, for it ascribes happiness to the favour of some deity, is yet never employed to express Christian blessedness; nor could it fitly have been thus employed, δαίμων, which supplies its base, involving polytheistic error. In like manner ἀρετή, the standing word in heathen ethics for ‘virtue,’ is of very rarest occurrence in the N. T.; it is found but once in all the writings of St. Paul (Phil. 4:8); and where else (which is only in the Epistles of St. Peter), it is in quite different uses from those in which Aristotle employs it. In the same way ἤθη, which gives us ‘ethics,’ occurs only on a single occasion, and, which indicates that its absence elsewhere is not accidental, this once is in a quotation from a heathen poet (1 Cor. 15:33).
In conformity with this same law of moral fitness in the admission and exclusion of words, we meet with προφητεύειν as the constant word in the N. T. to express the prophesying by the Spirit of God: while directly a sacred writer has need to make mention of the lying art of heathen divination, he employs this word no longer, but μαντεύεσθαι in preference (cf. 1 Sam. 28:8; Deut. 18:10). What the essential difference between the two things, ‘prophesying’ and ‘soothsaying,’ ‘weissagen’ (from ‘wizan’ = ‘wissen’) and ‘wahrsagen,’ is, and why it was necessary to keep them distinct and apart by different terms used to designate the one and the other, we shall best understand when we have considered the etymology of one, at least, of the words. But first, it is almost needless at this day to warn against what was once a very common error, one in which many of the Fathers shared (see Suicer, s. v. προφήτης), namely a taking of the προ in προφητεύειν and προφήτης as temporal, which it is not any more than in πρόφασις, and finding as the primary meaning of the word, he who declares things before they come to pass. This foretelling or foreannouncing may be, and often is, of the office of the prophet, but is not of the essence of that office; and this as little in sacred as in classical Greek. The προφήτης is the outspeaker; he who speaks out the counsel of God with the clearness, energy and authority which spring from the consciousness of speaking in God’s name, and having received a direct message from Him to deliver. Of course all this appears in weaker and indistincter form in classical Greek, the word never coming to its full rights until used of the prophets of the true God. But there too the προφήτης is the ‘interpres Deorum;’ thus Euripides (Ion, 372, 413; Bacch. 211): ἐπεὶ σὺ φέγγος, Τειρεσία, τόδʼ οὐχ ὀρᾷς, ἐγὼ προφήτης σοι λόγων γενήσομαι: and Pindar (Fragm. 15), μεντευέο, Μοῖσα, προφατεύσω δʼ ἐγώ: while in Philo (Quis Rer. Div. Hœr. 52) he is defined as ἑρμηνεὺς Θεοῦ, and again, ὄργανον Θεοῦ ἐστιν ἠχοῦν, κρουόμενον καὶ πληττόμενον ἀοράτως ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ̀. From signifying thus the interpreter of the gods, or of God, the word abated a little of the dignity of its meaning, and προφήτης was no more than as interpreter in a more general sense; but still of the good and true; thus compare Plato, Phœdr. 262 d; and the fine answer which Lucian puts into the mouth of Diogenes, when it is demanded of him what trade he followed (Vit. Auct. 8 d). But it needs not to follow further the history of the word, as it moves outside the circle of Revelation. Neither indeed does it fare otherwise within this circle. Of the προφήτης alike of the Old Testament and of the New we may with the same confidence affirm that he is not primarily, but only accidentally, one who foretells things future; being rather one who, having been taught of God, speaks out his will (Deut. 18:18; Isai. 1; Jer. 1; Ezek. 2; 1 Cor. 14:3).
In μαντεύομαι we are introduced into quite a different sphere of things. The word, connected with μάντις, is through it connected, as Plato has taught us, with μανία and μαίνομαι. It will follow from this, that it contains a reference to the tumult of the mind, the fury, the temporary madness, under which those were, who were supposed to be possessed by the god, during the time that they delivered their oracles; this mantic fury of theirs displaying itself in the eyes rolling, the lips foaming, the hair flying, as in other tokens of a more than natural agitation. It is quite possible that these symptoms were sometimes produced, as no doubt they were often aggravated, in the seers, Pythonesses, Sibyls, and the like, by the inhalation of earth-vapours, or by other artificial excitements (Plutarch, De Def. Orac. 48). Yet no one who believes that real spiritual forces underlie all forms of idolatry, but will acknowledge that there was often much more in these manifestations than mere trickeries and frauds; no one with any insight into the awful mystery of the false religions of the world, but will see in these symptoms the result of an actual relation in which these persons stood to a spiritual world—a spiritual world, it is true, which was not above them, but beneath.
Revelation, on the other hand, knows nothing of this mantic fury, except to condemn it. “The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets” (1 Cor. 14:32; cf. Chrysostom, In Ep. 1 ad Cor. Hom. 29, ad init.). The true prophet, indeed, speaks not of himself; προφήτης γὰρ ἴδιον οὐδὲν ἀποφθέγγεται, ἀλλότρια δὲ πάντα, ὑπηχοῦντος ἑτέρου, (Philo, Quis Rer. Div. Hœr. 52 d; cf. Plutarch, Amat. 16); he is rapt out of himself; he is ἐν Πνεύματι (Rev. 1:10); ἐν ἐκστάσει (Acts 11:5); ὑπὸ Πνεύματος Ἁγίου φερόμενος (2 Pet. 1:21), which is much more than ‘moved by the Holy Ghost,’ as we have rendered it; rather ‘getrieben,’ as De Wette (cf. Knapp, Script. Var. Argum. p. 33); he is θεόληπτος (Cyril of Alexandria); and we must not go so far in our opposition to heathen and Montanist error as to deny this, which some, above all those engaged in controversy with the Montanists, St. Jerome for example, have done (see the masterly discussion on this subject in Hengstenberg’s Christologie, 2nd ed., vol. iii. part 2, pp. 158–188). But then he is lifted above, not set beside, his every-day self. It is not discord and disorder, but a higher harmony and a diviner order, which are introduced into his soul; so that he is not as one overborne in the region of his lower life by forces stronger than his own, by an insurrection from beneath: but his spirit is lifted out of that region into a clearer atmosphere, a diviner day, than any in which at other times it is permitted him to breathe. All that he before had still remains his, only purged, exalted, quickened by a power higher than his own, but yet not alien to his own; for man is most truly man when he is most filled with the fulness of God. Even within the sphere of heathenism itself, the superior dignity of the προφήτης to the μάντις was recognized; and recognized on these very grounds. Thus there is a well-known passage in the Timœus of Plato (71 e, 72 a, b), where exactly for this reason, that the μάντις is one in whom all discourse of reason is suspended, who, as the word itself implies, more or less rages, the line is drawn broadly and distinctly between him and the προφήτης, the former being subordinated to the latter, and his utterances only allowed to pass after they have received the seal and approbation of the other. Often as it has been cited, it may be yet worth while to cite it, at least in part, once more: τὸ τῶν προφήτων γένος ἐπὶ τοῖς ἐνθέοις μαντείαις κριτὰς ἐπικαθιστάναι νόμος· οὓς μάντεις ἐπονομάζουσί τινες, τὸ πᾶν ἠγνοηκότες ὅτι τῆς διʼ αἰνιγμῶν οὗτοι φήμης καὶ φαντάσεως ὑποκριταὶ καὶ οὔτι μάντεις, προφήται δὲ τῶν μαντευομένων δικαιότατα ὀνομάζοιντʼ ἄν. The truth which the best heathen philosophy had a glimpse of here, was permanently embodied by the Christian Church in the fact that, while it assumed the προφητεύειν to itself, it relegated the μαντεύεσθαι to that heathenism which it was about to displace and overthrow.

§ vii. τιμωρία, κόλασις

OF these words the former occurs but once in the N. T. (Heb. 10:29; cf. Acts 22:5; 26:11), and the latter only twice (Matt. 25:46; 1 John 4:18): but the verb τιμωρεῖν twice (Acts 22:5; 26:11); and κολάζειν as often (Acts 4:21; 2 Pet. 2:9). In τιμωρία, according to its classical use, the vindicative character of the punishment is the predominant thought; it is the Latin ‘vindicatio,’ by Cicero (Inv. ii 22) explained as that act ‘per quam vim et contumeliam defendendo aut ulciscendo propulsamus nobis, et a nostris; et per quam peccata punimus;’ punishment as satisfying the inflicter’s sense of outraged justice, as defending his own honour, or that of the violated law. Herein its meaning agrees with its etymology, being from τιμή, and οὖρος, ὁράω, the guardianship or protectorate of honour; ‘Ehrenstrafe’ it has been rendered in German, or better, ‘Ehrenrettung, die der Ehre der verletzten Ordnung geleistete Genugthuung’ (Delitzsch). In κόλασις, on the other hand, is more the notion of punishment as it has reference to the correction and bettering of the offender (see Philo, Leg, ad Cai. I; Josephus, Antt. ii. 6. 8); it is ‘castigatio,’ and naturally has for the most part a milder use than τιμωρία. Thus Plato (Protag. 323 e) joins κολάσεις and νουθετήσεις together: and the whole passage to the end of the chapter is eminently instructive as to the distinction between the words: οὐδεὶς κολάζει τοὺς ἀδικοῦντας ὅτι ἠδίκησεν, ὅστις μὴ ὥσπερ θηρίον ἀλογίστως τιμωρεῖται, … ἀλλὰ τοῦ μέλλοντος χάριν ἵνα μὴ αὖθις ἀδικήσῃ; the same change in the words which he employs, occurring again twice or thrice in the sentence; with all which may be compared what Clement of Alexandria has said, Strom. iv. 24; and again vii. 16, where he defines κολάσεις as μερικαὶ παιδεῖαι, and τιμωρία as κακοῦ ἀνταπόδοσις. And this is Aristotle’s distinction (Rhet. i. 10): διαφέρει δὲ τιμωρία καὶ κόλασις· ἡ μὲν γὰρ κόλασις τοῦ πάσχοντος ἕνεκά ἐστιν· ἡ δὲ τιμωρία, τοῦ ποιοῦντος, ἵνα ἀποπληρωθῇ: cf. Ethic. Nic. iv. 5: τιμωρία παύει τῆς ὀργῆς, ἠδονῆν ἀντὶ τῆς λύπης ἐμποιοῦσα. It is to these and similar definitions that Aulus Gellius refers when he says (Noct. Att. vi. 14): ‘Puniendis peccatis tres esse debere causas existimatum est. Una est quæ νουθεσία, vel, κόλασις, vel παραίνεσις dicitur; cum pœna adhibetur castigandi atque emendandi gratiâ; ut is qui fortuito deliquit, attentior fiat, correctiorque. Altera est quam ii, qui vocabula ista curiosius diviserunt, τιμωρίαν appellant. Ea causa animadvertendi est, cum dignitas auctoritasque ejus, in quem est peccatum, tuenda est, ne prætermissa animadversio contemtum ejus pariat, et honorem levet: idcircoque id ei vocabulum a conservatione honoris factum putant.’ There is a profound commentary on these words in Göschel’s Zerstreute Blätter, part 2, p. 343–360; compare too an instructive note in Wyttenbach’s Animadd. in Plutarch. vol. xii. p. 776.

It would be a very serious error, however, to attempt to transfer this distinction in its entireness to the words as employed in the N. T. The κόλασις αἰώνιος of Matt. 25:46, as it is plain, is no merely corrective, and therefore temporary, discipline; cannot be any other than the ἀθάνατος τιμωρία (Josephus, B. J. ii. 8. II; cf. Antt. xviii. 1. 3, εἰργμὸς ἀΐδιος), the ἀϊδίοι τιμωρίαι (Plato, Ax. 372 a), with which the Lord elsewhere threatens finally impenitent men (Mark 9:43–48); for in proof that κόλασις with κολάζεσθαι had acquired in Hellenistic Greek this severer sense, and was used simply as ‘punishment’ or ‘torment,’ with no necessary underthought of the bettering through it of him who endured it, we have only to refer to such passages as the following: Josephus, Antt. xv. 2. 2; Philo, De Agric. 9; Mart. Polycar. 2; 2 Macc. 4:38; Wisd. 19:4; and indeed to the words of St. Peter himself (2 Pe. 2:9). This much, indeed, of Aristotle’s distinction still remains, and may be recognized in the scriptural usage of the words, that in κόλασις the relation of the punishment to the punished, in τιμωρία to the punisher, is predominant.

§ viii. ἀληθής, ἀληθινός

THE Latin ‘verax’ and ‘verus’ would severally represent ἀληθής and ἀληθινός, and in the main reproduce the distinctions existing between them; indeed, the Vulgate does commonly by aid of these indicate whether of the two stands in the original; but we having lost, or nearly lost, ‘very’ (vrai) as an adjective, retaining it only as an adverb, have ‘true’ alone whereby to render them both. It follows that the difference between the two disappears in our Version: and this by no fault of our Translators—unless, indeed, they erred in not recovering ‘very,’ which was Wiclif’s common translation of ‘verus’ (thus John 15:1, “I am the verri vine”), and which to recover would not have been easy in their time (indeed they actually so use it at Gen. 27:21, 24); as it would not be impossible in ours. We in fact do retain it in the Nicene Creed, where it does excellent service—‘very God of very God’ (Θεὸν ἀληθινὸν ἐκ Θεοῦ ἀληθινοῦ). It would have been worth while to make the attempt, for the differences which we now efface are most real. Thus God is ἀληθής, and He is also ἀληθινός: but very different attributes are ascribed to Him by the one epithet, and by the other. He is ἀληθής (John 3:33; Rom. 3:4; = ‘verax’), inasmuch as He cannot lie, as He is ἀψευδής (Tit. 1:2), the truth-speaking, and the truth-loving God (cf. Euripides, Ion, 1554). But He is ἀληθινός (1 Thess. 1:9; John 17:3; Isai. 65:16; = ‘verus’), very God, as distinguished from idols and all other false gods, the dreams of the diseased fancy of man, with no substantial existence in the world of realities (cf. Athenæus, vi. 62, where one records how the Athenians received Demetrius with divine honours: ὡ σεἴη μόνος θεός ἀληθινός, οἱ δʼ ἄλλοι καθεύδουσιν, ἢ ἀποδημοῦσιν, ἢ οὐκ εἰσί). “The adjectives in -ι-νος express the material out of which anything is made, or rather they imply a mixed relation, of quality and origin, to the object denoted by the substantive from which they are derived. Thus ξύλ-ι-νος means ‘of wood,’ ‘wooden;’ [ὀστράκ-ι-νος, ‘of earth,’ ‘earthen;’ ὑάλ-ι-νος, ‘of glass,’ ‘glassen;’] and ἀληθ-ι-νός signifies ‘genuine,’ made up of that which is true [that which, in chemical language, has truth for its stuff and base]. This last adjective is particularly applied to express that which is all that it pretends to be; for instance, pure gold as opposed to adulterated metal” (Donaldson, New Cratylus, p. 426).

It will be seen from this last remark that it does not of necessity follow, that whatever may be contrasted with the ἀληθινός must thereby be concluded to have no substantial existence, to be altogether false and fraudulent. Inferior and subordinate realizations, partial and imperfect anticipations, of the truth, may be set over against the truth in its highest form, in its ripest and completest development; and then to this last alone the title ἀληθινός will be vouchsafed. Kahnis has said well (Abendmahl, p. 119): ‘Ἀληθής schliesst das Unwahre und Unwirkliche, ἀληθινός das seiner Idee nicht Entsprechende auf. Das Mass des ἀληθής ist die Wirklichkeit, das des ἀληθινός die Idee. Bei ἀληθής entspricht die Idee der Sache, bei ἀληθινός die Sache der Idee.’ Thus Xenophon affirms of Cyrus (Anab. i. 9. 17), that he commanded ἀληθινὸν στράτευμα, an army indeed, an army deserving the name; but he would not have altogether refused this name of ‘army’ to inferior hosts; and Plato (Tim. 25 a), calling the sea beyond the Straits of Hercules, πέλαγος ὄντως, ἀληθινὸς πόντος, would say that it alone realized to the full the idea of the great ocean deep; cf. Rep. i. 347 d: ὁ τῷ ὄντι ἀληθινὸς ἄρχων; and again vi. 499 c: ἀληθινῆς φιλοσοφίας ἀληθινὸς ἔρως. We should frequently miss the exact force of the word, we might find ourselves entangled in serious embarrassments, if we understood ἀληθινός as necessarily the true opposed to the false. Rather it is very often the substantial as opposed to the shadowy and outlinear; as Origen (in Joan. tom. ii. § 4) has well expressed it: ἀληθινός, πρὸς ἀντιδιαστολὴν σκιᾶς καὶ τύπου καὶ εἰκόνος. Thus at Heb. 8:2, mention is made of the σκηνὴ ἀληθινή into which our great High Priest entered; which, of course, does not imply that the tabernacle in the wilderness was not also most truly pitched at God’s bidding, and according to the pattern which He had shown (Exod. 25); but only that it, and all things in it, were weak earthly copies of heavenly realities (ἀντίτυπα τῶν ἀληθινῶν); the passing of the Jewish High Priest into the Holy of Holies, with all else pertaining to the worldly sanctuary, being but the σκιὰ τῶν μελλόντων ἀγαθῶν, while the σῶμα, the so filling up of these outlines that they should be bulk and body, and not shadow any more, was of Christ (Col. 2:17).

So, too, when the Baptist announces, “The law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17), the antithesis cannot lie between the false and the true, but only between the imperfect and the perfect, the shadowy and the substantial. In like manner, the Eternal Word is declared to be τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν (John 1:9), not denying thereby that the Baptist was also “a burning and a shining light” (John 5:35), or that the faithful are “lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15; Matt. 5:14), but only claiming for a greater than all to be “the Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Christ proclaims Himself ὁ ἄρτος ὁ ἀληθινός (John 6:32), not suggesting thereby that the bread which Moses gave was not also “bread of heaven” (Ps. 105:40), but only that it was such in a secondary inferior degree; it was not food in the highest sense, inasmuch as it did not nourish up unto eternal life those that ate it (John 6:49). He is ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινή (John 15:1), not thereby denying that Israel also was God’s vine (Ps. 80:8; Jer. 2:21), but affirming that none except Himself realized this name, and all which this name implied, to the full (Hos. 10:1; Deut. 32:32). It would be easy to follow this up further; but these examples, which the thoughtful student will observe are drawn chiefly from St. John, may suffice. The fact that in the writings of this Evangelist ἀληθινός is used two and twenty times as against five times in all the rest of the N. T., he will scarcely esteem accidental.

To sum up then, as briefly as possible, the differences between these two words, we may affirm of the ἀληθής, that he fulfils the promise of his lips, but the ἀληθινός the wider promise of his name. Whatever that name imports, taken in its highest, deepest, widest sense, whatever according to that he ought to be, that he is to the full. This, let me further add, holds equally good of things as of persons; πιστοί and ἀληθινοί are therefore at Rev. 21:5 justly found together.

§ ix. θεράπων, δοῦλος, διάκονος, οἰκέτης, ὑπηρέτης

THE only passage in the N. T. in which θεράπων occurs is Heb. 3:5: “And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant” (ὡς θεράπων). The allusion here to Num. 12:7 is manifest, where the Septuagint has given θεράπων as its rendering of עֶבֶד; it has done the same elsewhere (Exod. 4:10; Deut. 3:24; Josh. 1:2), yet has not made this its constant rule, frequently rendering it not by θεράπων, but by δοῦλος, out of which latter rendering, no doubt, we have at Rev. 15:3, the phrase, Μωϋσῆς ὁ δοῦλος τοῦ Θεοῦ. It will not follow that there is no difference between δοῦλος and θεράπων; nor yet that there may not be occasions when the one word would be far more fitly employed than the other; but only that there are frequent occasions which do not require the bringing out into prominence of that which constitutes the difference between them. And such real difference there is. The δοῦλος, opposed to ἐλεύθερος (1 Cor. 12:13; Rev. 13:16; 19:18; Plato, Gorg. 502 d), having δεσπότης (Tit. 2:9), or in the N. T. more commonly κύριος (Luke 12:46), as its antithesis, is properly the ‘bond-man,’ from δέω, ‘ligo,’ one that is in a permanent relation of servitude to another, his will altogether swallowed up in the will of the other; Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 1. 4): οἱ μὲν δοῦλοι ἄκοντες τοῖς δεσπόταις ὑπηρετοῦσι. He is this, altogether apart from any ministration to that other at any one moment rendered; the θεράπων, on the other hand, is the performer of present services, with no respect to the fact whether as a freeman or slave he renders them; as bound by duty, or impelled by love; and thus, as will necessarily follow, there goes habitually with the word the sense of one whose services are tenderer, nobler, freer than those of the δοῦλος. Titus Achilles styles Patroclus his θεράπων (Homer, Il. xvi. 244), one whose service was not constrained, but the officious ministration of love; very much like that of the squire or page of the Middle Ages. Meriones is θεράπων to Idomeneus (xxiii. 113), Sthenelus to Diomed, while all the Greeks are θεράποντες Ἄρηος (ii. 110 and often; cf. Nägelsbach, Homer. Theologie, p. 280). Hesiod in like manner claims to be Μουσάων θεράπων: not otherwise in Plato (Symp. 203 c) Eros is styled the ἀκόλουθος καὶ θεράπων of Aphrodite; cf. Pindar, Pyth. iv. 287, where the θεράπων is contrasted with the δράστης. With all which agrees the definition of Hesychius (οἱ ἐν δευτέρᾳ τάξει φίλοι), of Ammonius (οἱ ὑποτεταγμένοι φίλοι), and of Eustathius (τῶν φίλων οἱ δραστικώτεροι). In the verb θεραπεύειν (= ‘curare’), as distinguished from δουλεύειν, and connected with ‘faveo,’ ‘foveo,’ θάλπω, the nobler and tenderer character of the service comes still more strongly out. It may be used of the physician’s watchful tendance of the sick, man’s service of God, and is beautifully applied by Xenophon (Mem. iv. 3. 9) to the care which the gods have of men.

It will follow that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, calling Moses a θεράπων in the house of God (3:5), implies that he occupied a more confidential position, that a freer service, a higher dignity was his, than that merely of a δοῦλος, approaching more closely to that of an οἰκονόμος in God’s house; and, referring to Num. 12:6–8, we find, confirming this view, that an exceptional dignity is there ascribed to Moses, lifting him above other δοῦλοι of God; ‘egregius domesticus fidei tuæ’ Augustine (Conf. xii. 23) calls him; cf. Deut. 24:5, where he is οἰκέτης κυρίου. In agreement with this we find the title θεράπων κυρίου given to Moses (Wisd. 10:16), but to no other of the worthies of the old Covenant mentioned in the chapter; to Aaron indeed at 18:21. It would have been well if our Translators had seen some way to indicate the exceptional and more honourable title here given to him who “was faithful in all God’s house.” The Vulgate, which has ‘famulus,’ has at least made the attempt (so Cicero, ‘famulœ Idææ matris’); Tyndal, too, and Cranmer, who have ‘minister,’ perhaps as adequate a word as the language affords.

Neither ought the distinction between διάκονος and δοῦλος to be suffered to escape in an English Version of the N.T. There is no difficulty in preserving it. Διάκονος, not from διά and κόνις, one who in his haste runs through the dust—a mere fanciful derivation, and forbidden by the quantity of the antepenultima in διᾱκονος—is probably from the same root as has given us διώκω, ‘to hasten after,’ or ‘pursue,’ and thus indeed means ‘a runner’ still (so Buttmann, Lexil. i. 219; but see Döderlein, Lat. Syn. vol. v. p. 135). The difference between διάκονος on one side, and δοῦλος and θεράπων on the other, is this—that διάκονος represents the servant in his activity for the work (διακονεῖν τι, Eph. 3:7; διάκονος τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, Col. 1:23: 2 Cor, 3:6); not in his relation, either servile, as that of the δοῦλος, or more voluntary, as in the case of the θεράπων, to a person. The attendants at a feast, and this with no respect to their condition as free or servile, are διάκονοι (John 2:5; Matt. 22:13; cf. John 12:2). The importance of preserving the distinction between δοῦλος and διάκονος may be illustrated from the parable of the Marriage Supper (Matt. 22:2–14). In our Version the king’s “servants” bring in the invited guests (ver. 3, 4, 8, 10), and his “servants” are bidden to cast out that guest who was without a wedding garment (ver. 13); but in the Greek, those, the bringers-in of the guests, are δοῦλοι: these, the fulfillers of the king’s sentence, are διάκονοι—this distinction being a most real one, and belonging to the essentials of the parable; the δοῦλοι being men, the ambassadors of Christ, who invite their fellow-men into his kingdom now, the διάκονοι angels, who in all the judgment acts at the end of the world evermore appear as the executors of the Lord’s will. The parable, it is true, does not turn on this distinction, yet these ought not any more to be confounded than the δοῦλοι and θερισταί of Matt. 13:27, 30; cf. Luke 24:24.

Οἰκέτης is often used as equivalent to δοῦλος. It certainly is so at 1 Pet. 2:18; and hardly otherwise on the three remaining occasions on which it occurs in the N. T. (Luke 16:13; Acts 10:7; Rom. 14:4); nor does the Septuagint (Exod. 21:27; Deut. 6:21; Prov. 17:2) appear to recognize any distinction between them; the Apocrypha as little (Ecclus. 10:25). At the same time οἰκέτης (= ‘domesticus’) does not bring out and emphasize the servile relation so strongly as δοῦλος does; rather contemplates that relation from a point of view calculated to mitigate, and which actually did tend very much to mitigate, its extreme severity. He is one of the household, of the ‘family,’ in the older sense of this word; not indeed necessarily one born in the house; οἰκογενής is the word for this in the Septuagint (Gen. 14:14; Eccles. 2:7); ‘verna,’ identical with the Gothic ‘bairn,’ in the Latin; compare ‘criado’ in the Spanish; but one, as I have said, of the family; οἰκέτης ἐστὶν ὁ κατὰ τὴν οἰκίαν διατρίβων, κἂν ἐλεύθερος ᾖ, κοινόν (Athenæus, vi. 93); the word being used in the best times of the language with so wide a reach as to include wife and children; so in Herodotus (viii. 106, and often); while in Sophocles (Trach. 894) by the οἰκέται the children of Deianira can alone be intended. On the different names given to slaves and servants of various classes and degrees see Athenæus, as quoted above.

Ὑπηρέτης, which only remains to be considered, is a word drawn from military matters; he was originally the rower (from ἐρέσσω, ‘remigo’), as distinguished from the soldier, on board a war-galley; then the performer of any strong and hard labour; then the subordinate official who waited to accomplish the behests of his superior, as the orderly who attends a commander in war (Xenophon, Cyrop. vi. 2, 13); the herald who carries solemn messages (Euripides, Hec. 503). Thus Prometheus, as I cannot doubt, intends a taunt when he characterizes Hermes as Θεῶν ὑπηρέτης (Æschylus, Prom. Vinct. 990), one who runs the errands of the other gods. In this sense, as an inferior minister to perform certain defined functions for Paul and Barnabas, Mark was their ὑπηρέτης (Acts 13:5); and in this official sense of lictor, apparitor, and the like, we find the word constantly, indeed predominantly used in the N. T. (Matt. 5:25; Luke 4:20; John 7:32; 18:18; Acts 5:22). The mention by St. John of δοῦλοι and ὑπηρέται together (18:18) is alone sufficient to indicate that a difference is by him observed between them; from which difference it will follow that he who struck the Lord on the face (John 18:22) could not be, as some suggest, the same whose ear the Lord had just healed (Luke 22:51), seeing that this was a δοῦλος, that profane and petulant striker a ὑπηρέτης, of the High Priest. The meanings of διάκονος and ὑπηρέτης are much more nearly allied; they do in fact continually run into one another, and there are innumerable occasions on which the words might be indifferently used; the more official character and functions of the ὑπηρέτης is the point in which the distinction between them resides. See Vitringa, De Synagogâ Vetere, pp. 916–919, and the Dictionary of the Bible, art. Minister.

§ x. δειλία, φόβος, εὐλάβεια

OF these three words the first, δειλία, is used always in a bad sense; the second, φόβος, is a middle term, capable of a good interpretation, capable of an evil, and lying indifferently between the two; the third, εὐλάβεια, is quite predominantly used in a good sense, though it too has not altogether escaped being employed in an evil.

Δειλία, equivalent to the Latin ‘timor,’ and having θρασύτης or ‘foolhardiness’ for its contrary extreme (Plato, Tim. 87 a), is our ‘cowardice.’ It occurs only once in the N. T., 2 Tim. 1:7; where Bengel says, exactly on what authority I know not, ‘Est timor cujus causæ potius in animo sunt quam foris;’ but δειλιάω at John 14:27; and δειλός at Matt. 8:26; Mark 4:40; Rev. 21:8: the δειλοί in this last passage being those who in time of persecution have under fear of suffering denied the faith; cf. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 3. It is joined to ἀνανδρεία (Plato, Phœdr. 254 c; Legg. ii. 659 a), to λειποταξία (Lysias, Orat. in Alcib. p. 140), to ψυχρότης (Plutarch, Fab. Max. 17), to ἔκλυσις (2 Macc. 3:24); is ascribed by Josephus to the spies who brought an ill report of the Promised Land (Antt. iii. 15. 1); being constantly set over against ἀνδρεία, as δειλός over against ἀνδρεῖος: for example, in the long discussion on valour and cowardice in Plato’s Protagoras, 360 d; see too the lively description of the δειλός in the Characters (27) of Theophrastus. Δειλία seeks to shelter its timidity under the more honorable title of ὐλάβεια (Philo, De Fort. 739); pleads for itself that it is indeed ἀσφάλεια (Plutarch, An. an Cor. App. Pej. 3; Philo, Quod Det. Pot. Insid. 11).

Φόβος, very often united with τρόμος (as at Gen. 9:2; Deut. 11:25; Exod. 15:6; 1 Cor. 2:3; Phil. 2:12), and answering to the Latin ‘metus,’ is, as has been said, a middle term, and as such used in the N. T. sometimes in a bad sense, but oftener in a good. Thus in a bad sense, Rom. 8:15; 1 John 4:18; cf. Wisd. 17:11; but in a good, Acts 9:31; Rom. 3:18; Ephes. 6:5; Phil. 2:12; 1 Pet. 1:17. Being this μέσον, Plato, in the Protagoras as referred to above, adds αἰσχρός to it, as often as he would indicate the timidity which misbecomes a man. On the distinction between ‘timor,’ ‘metus,’ and ‘formido’ see Donaldson, Complete Latin Grammar, p. 489.

Εὐλάβεια only occurs twice in the N. T. (Heb. 5:7 [where see Bleek]; and 12:28), and on each occasion signifies piety contemplated as a fear of God. The image on which it rests is that of the careful taking hold and wary handling, the εὖ λαμβάνεσθαι, of some precious yet fragile vessel, which with ruder or less anxious handling might easily be broken (ἡ γὰρ εὐλάβεια σώζει πάντα, Aristophanes, Aves, 377), as in Balde’s sublime funeral hymn on the young German Empress—

    ‘Quam manibus osseis tangit,
    Crystallinam phialam frangit;
    O inepta et rustica Mors,
    O caduca juvenculæ sors!’

But such a cautious care in the conducting of affairs (the word is joined by Plutarch to πρόνοια, Marc. 9; χρησιμωτάτη Θεῶν it is declared by Euripides, Phœn. 794); springing as in part it will from a fear of miscarriage, easily lies open to the charge of timidity. Thus Demosthenes, who opposes εὐλάβεια to θράσος (517), claims for himself that he was only εὐλαβής, where his enemies charged him. with being δειλός and ἄτολμος: while in Plutarch (Fab. 17) εὐλαβής and δυσέλπιστος are joined together. It is not wonderful then that fear should have come to be regarded as an essential element of εὐλάβεια, sometimes so occupies the word as to leave no room for any other sense (Josephus, Antt. xi. 6. 9), though for the most part no dishonorable fear (see, however, a remarkable exception, Wisd. 17:8) is intended, but one which a wise and good man might fitly entertain. Cicero (Tusc. iv. 6): ‘Declinatio [a malis] si cum ratione fiet, cautio appelletur, eaque intelligatur in solo esse sapiente; quæ autem sine ratione et cum exanimatione humili atque fractâ, nominetur metus.’ He has probably the definition of the Stoics in his eyes. These, while they disallowed φόβος as a πάθος, admitted εὐλάβεια, which they defined as ἔκκλισις σὺν λόγῳ (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. ii. 18), into the circle of virtues; thus Diogenes Laertius (vii. 1. 116): τὴν δὲ εὐλάβειαν [ἐνατίαν φασὶν εἶναι] τῷ φόβῳ, οὖσαν εὔλογον ἔκκλισιν· φοβηθήσεσθαι μὲν γὰρ τὸν σοφὸν οὐδαμῶς, εὐλαβηθήσεσθαι δέ: and Plutarch (De Repugn. Stoic. 11) quotes their maxim: τὸ γὰρ εὐλαβεῖσθαι σοφῶν ἴδιον. Yet after all, these distinctions whereby they sought to escape the embarrassments of their ethical position, the admission for instance that the wise man might feel ‘suspiciones quasdam etiam iræ affectuum,’ but not the ‘affectus’ themselves (Seneca, De Irâ, i. 16; cf. Plutarch, De Virt. Mor. 9), were nothing worth; they had admitted the thing, and were now only fighting about words, with which to cover and conceal the virtual abandonment of their position, being ὀνοματομάχοι, as a Peripatetic adversary lays to their charge. See on this matter the full discussion in Clement of Alexandria, Strom. ii. 7–9; and compare Augustine, De Civ. Dei, ix. 4. On the more distinctly religious aspect of εὐλάβεια there will be opportunity to speak hereafter (§ 48).

§ xi. κακία, κακοήθεια

IT would be a mistake to regard κακία in the N. T. as embracing the whole complex of moral evil. In this latitude no doubt it is often used; thus ἀρετή and κακία are virtue and vice (Plato, Rep. 444 d); ἀρεταὶ καὶ κακίαι virtues and vices (Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 12; Ethic. Nic. vii. 1; Plutarch, Conj. Prœc. 25, and often); while Cicero (Tusc. iv. 15) refuses to translate κακία by ‘malitia,’ choosing rather to coin ‘vitiositas’ for his need, and giving this as his reason: ‘Nam malitia certi cujusdam vitii nomen est, vitiositas omnium;’ showing plainly hereby that in his eye κακία was the name, not of one vice, but of the viciousness out of which all vices spring. In the N. T., however, κακια is not so much viciousness as a special form of vice. Were it viciousness, other evil habits of the mind would be subordinated to it, as to a larger term including the lesser; whereas in fact they are coordinated with it (Rom. 1:29; Col. 3:8; 1 Pet. 2:1). We must therefore seek for it a more special meaning; and, comparing it with πονηρία, we shall not err in saying that κακία is more the evil habit of mind, the ‘malitia,’ by which Cicero declined to render it, or, as he elsewhere explains it. ‘versuta et fallax nocendi ratio’ (Nat. Deor. iii. 30; De Fin. iii. 11 in fine); while πονηρία is the active outcoming of the same. Thus Calvin says of κακία (Eph. 4:31): ‘Significat hoc verbo [Apostolus] animi pravitatem quæ humanitati et æquitati est opposita, et malignitas vulgo nuncupatur,’ or as Cicero defines ‘malevolentia’ (Tusc. Quœst. iv. 9): ‘voluptas ex malo alterius sine emolumento suo.’ Our English Translators, rendering κακία so often by ‘malice’ (Eph. 4:31; 1 Cor. 5:8; 14:20; 1 Pet. 2:1), show that they regarded it very much in this light. With this agrees the explanation of it by Theodoret on Rom. 1: κακίαν καλεῖ τὴν ψυχῆς ἐπὶ τὰ χείρω ῥοπήν, καὶ τὸν ἐπὶ βλάβῃ τοῦ πέλας γινόμενον λογισμόν. Not exactly but nearly thus the author of what long passed as a Second Epistle of Clement’s, but which now is known not to be an Epistle at all, warns against κακία as the forerunner (προοδοίπορος) of all other sins (§ 10). Compare the art. Bosheit in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopädie.

While κακία occurs several times in the N.T., κακοήθεια occurs but once, namely in St. Paul’s long and terrible catalogue of the wickednesses with which the heathen world was filled (Rom. 1:29); but some four or five times in the Books of the Maccabees (3 Macc. 3:22; 7:3; 4 Macc. 1:4; 3:4); κακοήθης there as well (4 Macc. 1:25; 2:16); never in the Septuagint. We have translated it ‘malignity.’ When, however, we take it in this wider meaning, which none would deny that it very often has (Plato, Rep. i. 384 d; Xenophon, De Ven. xiii. 16), or in that wider still which Basil the Great gives it (Reg. Brev. Int. 77: κακοήθεια μέν ἐστιν, ὡς λογίζομαι, αὐτὴ ἡ πρώτη καὶ κεκρυμμένη κακία τοῦ ἤθους), making it, as he thus does, exactly to correspond to the ‘ill nature’ of our early divines (see my Select Glossary, s. v.), just as the author of the Third Maccabees (3:22) speaks of some τῇ συμφύτῳ κακοηθείᾳ τὸ καλὸν ἀπωσάμενοι, διηνεκῶς δὲ εἰς τὸ φαῦλον ἐκνεύοντες when, I say, its meaning is so far enlarged, it is very difficult to assign to it any domain which will not have been already preoccupied either by κακία or πονηρία. I prefer therefore to understand κακοήθεια here in the more restricted meaning which it sometimes possesses. The Geneva Version has so done, rendering it by a periphrasis, “taking all things in the evil part;” which is exactly Aristotle’s definition, to whose ethical terminology the word belongs (Rhet. ii. 13): ἔστι γὰρ κακοήθεια τὸ ἐπὶ τὸ χεῖρον ὑπολαμβάνειν ἅπαντα: or, as Jeremy Taylor calls it, ‘a baseness of nature by which we take things by the wrong handle, and expound things always in the worst sense;’ the ‘malignitas interpretantium’ of Pliny (Ep. 5:7); being exactly opposed to what Seneca (De Irâ, ii. 24) so happily calls the ‘benigna rerum æstimatio.’ For precisely such a use of κακοήθως see Josephus, Antt. vii. 6. 1; cf. 2 Sam. 10:3. This giving to all words and actions of others their most unfavorable interpretation Aristotle marks as one of the vices of the old, in that mournful, yet for the Christian most instructive, passage, which has been referred to just now; they are κακοήθεις and καχύποπτοι. We shall scarcely err then, taking κακοήθεια, at Rom. 1:29, in this narrower meaning; the position which it occupies in that dread catalogue of sins entirely justifying us in treating it as that peculiar form of evil which manifests itself in a malignant interpretation of the actions of others, a constant attribution of them to the worst imaginable motives.

Nor should we take leave of κακοήθεια without noticing the deep psychological truth attested in this secondary meaning which it has obtained, namely, that the evil which we trace in ourselves makes us ready to suspect and believe evil in others. The κακοήθης, being himself of an evil moral habit, projects himself, and the motives which actuate him, into others round him, sees himself in them; for, according to our profound English proverb, ‘Ill doers are ill deemers;’ or, as it runs in the monkish line, ‘Autumat hoc in me quod novit perfidus in se;’ and just as Love on the one side, in those glorious words of Schiller,

    ‘delightedly believes
    Divinities, being itself divine;’

so that which is itself thoroughly evil finds it impossible to believe anything but evil in others (Job 1:9–11; 2:4, 5). Thus the suitors in the Odyssey, at the very time when they are laying plots for the life of Telemachus, are persuaded that he intends at a banquet to mingle poison with their wine, and so to make an end of them all (Odyss. ii. 329, 330). Iago evidently believes the world to be peopled with Iagoes, can conceive of no other type of humanity but his own. Well worthy of notice here is that remarkable passage in the Republic of Plato (iii. 409 a, b), where Socrates, showing the profit that it is for physicians to have been chiefly conversant with the sick, but not for teachers and rulers with the bad, explains how it comes to pass that young men, as yet uncorrupted, are εὐήθεις rather than κακοήθεις, ἅτε οὐκ ἔχοντες ἐν ἑαυτοῖς παραδείγματα ὁμοιοπαθῆ τοῖς πονηροῖς.

§ xii. ἀγαπάω, φιλέω

WE have made no attempt to discriminate between these words in our English Version. And yet there is often a difference between them, well worthy to have been noted and reproduced, if this had lain within the compass of our language; being very nearly equivalent to that between ‘diligo’ and ‘amo’ in the Latin. To understand the exact distinction between these, will help us to understand that between those other which are the more immediate object of our inquiry. For this we possess abundant material in Cicero, who often sets the words in instructive antithesis to one another. Thus, writing to one friend of the affection in which he holds another (Ep. Fam. xiii.47): ‘Ut scires illum a me non diligi solum, verum etiam amari;’ and again (Ad Brut. 1): ‘L. Clodius valde me diligit, vel, ut ἐμφατικώτερον dicam, valde me amat.’ From these and other like passages (there is an ample collection of them in Döderlein’s Latein. Synon. vol. iv. pp. 98 seq.), we might conclude that ‘amare,’ which answers to φιλεῖν, is stronger than ‘diligere,’ which, as we shall see, corresponds to ἀγαπᾶν. This is true, but not all the truth. Ernesti has successfully seized the law of their several uses, when he says: ‘Diligere magis ad judicium, amare veto ad intimum animi sensum pertinet.’ So that, in fact, Cicero in the passage first quoted is saying,—‘I do not esteem the man merely, but I love him; there is something of the passionate warmth of affection in the feeling with which I regard him.’

It will follow, that while a friend may desire rather ‘amari’ than ‘diligi’ by his friend, there are aspects in which the ‘diligi’ is more than the ‘amari,’ the ἀγαπᾶσθαι than the φιλεῖσθαι. The first expresses a more reasoning attachment, of choice and selection (‘diligere’ = ‘deligere’), from a seeing in the object upon whom it is bestowed that which is worthy of regard; or else from a sense that such is due toward the person so regarded, as being a benefactor, or the like; while the second, without being necessarily an unreasoning attachment, does yet give less account of itself to itself; is more instinctive, is more of the feelings or natural affections, implies more passion; thus Antonius, in the funeral discourse addressed to the Roman people over the body of Cæsar: ἐφιλήσατε αὐτὸν ὡς πατέρα, καὶ ἠγαπήσατε ὡς εὐεργέτην (Dion Cassius, xliv. 48). And see in Xenophon (Mem. ii. 7. 9. 12) two passages throwing much light on the relation between the words, and showing how the notions of respect and reverence are continually implied in the ἀγαπᾶν, which, though not excluded by, are still not involved in, the φιλεῖν. Thus in the second of these, αἱ μὲν ὡς κηδεμόνα ἐφίλουν, ὁ δὲ ὡς ὠφελίμους ἠγάπα. Out of this it may be explained, that while men are continually bidden ἀγαπᾶν τὸν Θεόν (Matt. 22:37; Luke 10:27; 1 Cor. 8:3), and good men declared so to do (Rom. 8:28; 1 Pet. 1:8; 1 John 4:21), the φιλεῖν τὸν Θεόν is commanded to them never. The Father, indeed, both ἀγαπᾷ τὸν Υἱόν (John 3:35), and also φιλεῖ τὸν Υἱόν (John 5:20); with the first of which statements such passages as Matt. 3:17, with the second such as John 1:18; Prov. 8:22, 30, may be brought into connection.

In almost all these passages of the N. T., the Vulgate, by the help of ‘diligo’ and ‘amo,’ has preserved a distinction which we have let go. This is especially to be regretted at John 21:15–17; for the passing there of the original from one word to the other is singularly instructive, and should by no means escape us unnoticed. In that threefold “Lovest thou Me?” which the risen Lord addresses to Peter, He asks him first, ἀγαπᾷς με; At this moment, when all the pulses in the heart of the now penitent Apostle are beating with a passionate affection toward his Lord, this word on that Lord’s lips sounds far too cold; to very imperfectly express the warmth of his affection toward Him. The question in any form would have been grievous enough (ver. 17); the language in which it is clothed makes it more grievous still. He therefore in his answer substitutes for the ἀγαπᾷς of Christ the word of a more personal love, φιλῶ σε (ver. 15). And this he does not on the first occasion only, but again upon a second. And now at length he has triumphed; for when his Lord puts the question to him a third time, it is not ἀγαπᾷς any more, but φιλεῖς. All this subtle and delicate play of feeling disappears perforce, in a translation which either does not care, or is not able, to reproduce the variation in the words as it exists in the original.

I observe in conclusion that ἔρως, ἐρᾶν, ἐραστής, never occur in the N. T., but the two latter occasionally in the Septuagint; thus ἐρᾶν, Esth. 2:17; Prov. 4:6; ἐραστής generally in a dishonorable sense as ‘paramour’ (Ezek. 16:33; Hos. 2:5); yet once or twice (as Wisd. 8:2) more honorably, not as = ‘amasius,’ but ‘amator.’ Their absence is significant. It is in part no doubt to be explained from the fact that, by the corrupt use of the world, they had become so steeped in sensual passion, carried such an atmosphere of unholiness about them (see Origen, Prol. in Cant. Opp. tom iii. pp. 28–30), that the truth of God abstained from the defiling contact with them; yea, devised a new word rather than betake itself to one of these. For it should not be forgotten that ἀγάπη is a word born within the bosom of revealed religion: it occurs in the Septuagint (2 Sam. 13:15; Cant. 2:4; Jer. 2:2), and in the Apocrypha (Wisd. 3:9); but there is no trace of it in any heathen writer whatever, and as little in Philo or Josephus; the utmost they attain to here is φιλανθρωπία and φιλαδελφία, and the last never in any sense but as the love between brethren in blood (cf. Cremer, W. B. d. N. T. Gräcität, p. 12). But the reason may lie deeper still. Ἔρως might have fared as so many other words have fared, might have been consecrated anew, despite of the deep degradation of its past history; and there were tendencies already working for this ill the Platonist use of it, namely, as the longing and yearning desire after that unseen but eternal Beauty, the faint vestiges of which may here be everywhere traced;2 οὐράνιος ἔρως, Philo in this sense has called it (De Vit. Cont. 2; De Vit. Mos. 1). But in the very fact that ἔρως (= ὁ δεινὸς ἵμερος, Sophocles, Trach. 476), did express this yearning desire (Euripides, Ion, 67; Alcestis, 1101); this longing after the unpossessed (in Plato’s exquisite mythus, Symp. 203 b, Ἔρως is the offspring of Πενία), lay its deeper unfitness to set forth that Christian love, which is not merely the sense of need, of emptiness, of poverty, with the longing after fullness, not the yearning after an unattained and in this world unattainable Beauty; but a love to God and to man, which is the consequence of God’s love already shed abroad in the hearts of his people. The mere longing and yearning, and ἔρως at the best is no more, has given place, since the Incarnation, to the love which is not in desire only, but also in possession. That ἔρως is no more is well expressed in the lines of Gregory Nazianzene (Carm. ii. 34, 150, 151):

    Πόθος δʼ ὄρεξις ἢ καλῶν ἢ μὴ καλῶν,
    Ἔρως δὲ θερμὸς δυσκάθεκτός τε πόθος.

§ xiii. θάλασσα, πέλαγος

THE connexion of θάλασσα with the verb ταράσσειν, that it means properly the agitated or disturbed, finds favour with Curtius (p. 596) and with Port (Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 56). Schmidt dissents (vol. 1. p. 642); and urges that the predominant impression which the sea makes on the beholder is not of unrest but of rest, of quietude and not of agitation; that we must look for the word’s primary meaning in quite another direction: θάλασσα, he says, ‘ist das Meer nach seiner natürlichen Beschaffenheit, als grosse Salzflut, und dem Sinne nach von dem poetischen ἅλς durch nichts unterscheiden.’ It is according to him ‘the great salt flood.’ But not entering further into this question, it will be enough to say that, like the Latin ‘mare,’ it is the sea as contrasted with the land (Gen. 1:10; Matt. 23:15; Acts 4:24); or perhaps more strictly as contrasted with the shore (see Hayman’s Odyssey, vol. 1. p. xxxiii. Appendix). Πέλαγος, closely allied with πλάξ, πλατύς ‘plat,’ ‘plot,’ ‘flat,’ is the vast uninterrupted level and expanse of open water, the ‘altum mare,’ as distinguished from those portions of it broken by islands, shut in by coasts and headlands (Thucydides, vi. 104; vii. 49; Plutarch, Timol. 8). The suggestion of breadth, and not depth, except as an accessory notion, and as that which will probably find place in this open sea, lies in the word; thus Sophocles (Œd. Col. 659): μακρὸν τὸ δεῦρο πέλαγος, οὐδὲ πλώσιιμον: so too the murmuring Israelites (Philo, Vit. Mos. 35) liken to a πέλαγος the illimitable sand-flats of the desert; and in Herodotus (ii. 92) the Nile overflowing Egypt is said πελαγίζειν τὰ πεδία, which yet it only covers to the depth of a few feet; cf. ii. 97. A passage in the Timœus of Plato (25 a, b) illustrates well the distinction between the words, where the title of πέλαγος is refused to the Mediterranean Sea: which is but a harbour, with the narrow entrance between the Pillars of Hercules for its mouth; while only the great Atlantic Ocean beyond can be acknowledged as ἀληθινὸς πόντος, πέλαγος ὄντως. Compare Aristotle, De Mun. 3; Meteorol. ii. 1: ῥέουσα δʼ ἡ θάλαττα φαίνεται κατὰ τὰς στενότητας [the Straits of Gibraltar], εἴπου διὰ περιιέχουσαν γῆν εἰς μικρὸν ἐκ μεγάλου συνάγεται πέλαγος.

It might seem as if this distinction did not hold good on one of the two occasions upon which πέλαγος occurs in the N. T., namely Matt. 18:6: “It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (καὶ καταποντισθῇ ἐν τῷ πελάγει τῆς θαλάσσης). But the sense of depth, which undoubtedly the passage requires, is here to be looked for in the καταποντισθῇ:—πόντος (not in the N. T.), being connected with βάθος, βυθός (Exod. 15:5), βένθος, perhaps the same word as this last, and implying the sea in its perpendicular depth, as πέλαγος (= ‘æquor maris’), the same in its horizontal dimensions and extent. Compare Döderlein, Lat. Syn. vol. iv. p. 75.

§ xiv. σκληρός, αὐστηρός

IN the parable of the Talents (Matt. 25), the slothful servant charges his master with being σκληρός, “an hard man” (ver. 24); while in the corresponding parable of St. Luke it is αὐστηρός, “an austere man” (19:21), which he accuses him of being. It follows that the words must be nearly allied in meaning; but not that they are identical in this.

Σκληρός, derived from σκέλλω, σκλῆναι (= ‘arefacio’), is properly an epithet applied to that which through lack of moisture is hard and dry, and thus rough and disagreeable to the touch; or more than this, warped and intractable, the ‘asper’ and ‘durus’ in one. It is then transferred to the region of ethics, in which it chiefly moves, expressing there roughness, harshness, and intractability in the moral nature of a man. Thus Nabal (1 Sam. 25:3) is σκληρός, and no epithet could better express the evil conditions of the churl. For other company which the word keeps, we find it associated with αὐχμηρός (Plato, Syrup. 195 d); ἀντίτυπος (Theœt. 155 a; Plutarch, De Pyth. Orac. 26); ἀμετάστροφος (Plato, Crat. 407 d); ἄγριος (Aristotle, Ethic. iv. 8; Plutarch, Cons. ad Apoll. 3); ἀνήδυντος (Prœc. Ger. Reip. 3); ἀπηνής (De Vit. Pud.); ἀνέραστος (De Adul. et Am. 19); τραχύς (De Lib. Ed. 18); ἀπαίδευτος (Alex. Virt. seu Fort. Or. i. 5); ἄτρεπτος (Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 1. 64, 117); ἀφηνιαστής (Philo, De Septen. 1); αὐθάδης (Gen. 49:3); πονηρός (1 Sam. 25:3); πικρός. It is set over against εὐηθικός (Plato, Charm. 175 d); μαλακός (Protag. 331 d); μαλθακός (Symp. 195 d; Sophocles, Œdip. Col. 771).

Αὐστηρός, which in the N. T. appears but once (Luke 19:21), and never in the Septuagint, is in its primary meaning applied to such things as draw together and contract the tongue, are harsh and stringent to the palate, as new wine not yet mellowed by age, unripe fruit, and the like. Thus Cowper, describing himself, when a boy, as gathering from the hedgerows ‘sloes austere,’ uses ‘austere’ with exactest propriety. But just as we have transferred ‘strict’ (from ‘stringo’) to the region of ethics, so the Greeks transferred αὐστηρός, with an image borrowed from the taste, as in σκληρός from the touch. Neither does this word set out anything amiable or attractive in him to whom it is applied. It keeps company with ἀηδής (Plato, Rep. iii. 398 a); ἄκρατος and ἀνήδυντος (Plutarch, Prœc. Conj. 29); ἀνήδυστος (Phoc. 5); αὐθέκαστος (De Adul. et Am. 14); πικρός (ibid. 2); ἀγέλαστος and ἀνέντευκτος (De Cup. Div. 7); αὐχμηρός (Philo, De Prœm. et Pœn. 5); while Eudemus (Ethic. Eudem. vii. 5) contrasts the αὐστηρός with the εὐτράπελος, using the latter word in a good sense.

At the same time none of the epithets with which αὐστηρός is associated imply that deep moral perversity which lies in many with which σκληρός is linked; and, moreover, it is met not seldom in more honorable company; thus it is joined with σώφρων continually (Plutarch, Prœc. Conj. 7, 29; Quœst. Gr. 40); with μουσικός (Symp. v. 2); with σωφρονικός (Clement of Alexandria, Pœdag. ii. 4); one, otherwise γενναῖος καὶ μέγας, is αὐστηρός as not sacrificing to the Graces (Plutarch, Amat. 23); while the Stoics affirmed all good men to be austere (Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 1. 64, 117): καὶ αὐστηροὺς δέ φασιν εἶναι πάντας τοὺς σπουδαίους, τῷ μήτε αὐτοὺς πρὸς ἡδονὴν ὁμιλεῖν, μήτε παρʼ ἄλλων τὰ πρὸς ἡδονὴν προσδέχεσθαι: cf. Plutarch, Prœc. Conj. 27. In Latin, ‘austerus’ is predominantly an epithet of honour (Döderlein, Lat. Synon. vol. iii. p. 232); he to whom it is applied is earnest and severe, opposed to all levity; needing, it may very well be, to watch against harshness, rigour, or moroseness, into which he might easily lapse—(‘non austeritas ejus tristis, non dissoluta sit comitas,’ Quintilian, ii. 2. 5)—but as yet not chargeable with these.

We may distinguish, then, between them thus: σκληρός conveys always a reproach and a grove one, indicates a character harsh, inhuman, and (in the earlier use of that word) uncivil; in the words of Hesiod, ἀδάμαντος ἔχων κρατερόφρονα θυμόν. It is not so with αὐστηρός. This epithet does not of necessity convey a reproach at all, any more than the German ‘streng,’ which is very different from ‘hart;’ and even where it does, yet conveys one of far less opprobrious a kind; rather the exaggeration of a virtue pushed too far, than an absolute vice.

§ xv. εἰκών, ὁμοίωσις, ὁμοίωμα

THERE is a twofold theological interest attending the distinction between εἰκών and the two words which are here brought into comparison with it; the first belonging to the Arian controversy, and turning on the fitness or unfitness of the words before us to set forth the relation of the Son to the Father; while the other is an interest that, seeming at first sight remote from any controversy, has yet contrived to insinuate itself into more than one, namely, whether there be a distinction, and if so, what it is, between the ‘image’ (εἰκών) of God, in which, and the ‘likeness’ (ὁμοίωσις) of God, after which, man was created at the beginning (Gen. 1:26).

I need hardly remind those who will care to read this volume of the distinction drawn between the words during the course of the long Arian debate. Some there may be who are not acquainted with Lightfoot’s note on Col. 1:15 in his Commentary on the Colossians. Them I must refer to his discussion on the words εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ. It is evident that εἰκών (from εἴκω, ἔοικα) and ὁμοίωμα might often be used as equivalent, and in many positions it would be indifferent whether one or the other were employed. Thus they are convertibly used by Plato (Phœdr. 250 b), ὁμοιώματα and εἰκόνες alike, to set forth the earthly copies and resemblances of the archetypal things in the heavens. When, however, the Church found it necessary to raise up bulwarks against Arian error and equivocation, it drew a strong distinction between these two, one not arbitrary, but having essential difference in the words themselves for its ground. Εἰκών (= ‘imago’ = ‘imitago’ = ἀπεικόνισμα), and used in the same intention of the Logos by Philo (Leg. Alleg. iii. 31), always assumes a prototype, that which it not merely resembles, but from which it is drawn, a παράδειγμα (Philo, ibid.); it is the German ‘Abbild,’ which invariably presumes a ‘Vorbild;’ thus Gregory Nazianzene (Orat. 36): αὕτη γὰρ εἰκόνος φύσις, μίμημα εἶναι τοῦ ἀρχετύπου. Thus, the monarch’s head on the coin is εἰκών (Matt. 22:20); the reflection of the sun in the water is εἰκών (Plato, Phœdo, 99 d); the statue in stone or other material is εἰκών (Rev. 13:14); and, coming nearer to the heart of the matter than by any of these illustrations we have done, the child is ἔμψυχος εἰκών of his parents. But in the ὁμοίωμα or ὁμοίωσις, while there is resemblance, it by no means follows that it has been acquired in this way, that it is derived: it may be accidental, as one egg is like another, as there may exist a resemblance between two men in no way akin to one another. Thus, as Augustine in an instructive passage brings out (Quest. lxxxiii. 74), the ‘imago’ (= εἰκών) includes and involves the ‘similitudo,’ but the ‘similitudo’ (= ὁμοίωσις) does not involve the ‘imago.’ The reason will at once be manifest why εἰκών is ascribed to the Son, as representing his relation to the Father (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15; of. Wisd. 7:26); while among all the words of the family of ὅμοιος, not merely none are so employed in the Scripture, but they have all been expressly forbidden and condemned by the Church; that is, so soon as ever this has had reason to suspect that they were not used in good faith. Thus Hilary, addressing an Arian, says, “I may use them, to exclude Sabellian error; but I will not suffer you to do so, whose intention is altogether different” (Con. Constant. Imp. 17–21).

Εἰκών, in this its augustest application, like χαρακτήρ and ἀπαύγασμα (Heb. 1:3), with which theologically it is nearly allied, like ἔσοπτρον, ἀτμίς, ἀπόρροια (Wisd. 5:2–23), like σκιά (Philo, Leg. Alleg. iii. 31; but not Heb. 10:1); which are all remoter approximations to the same truth, is indeed inadequate; but, at the same time, it is true as far as it goes; and in human language, employed for the setting forth of truths which transcend the limits of human thought, we must be content with approximate statements, seeking for the complement of their inadequacy, for that which shall redress their insufficiency, from some other quarter. Each has its weak side, which must be supported by strength derived from elsewhere. Εἰκών is weak; for what image is of equal worth and dignity with the prototype from which it is imaged? But it has also its strong side; it implies an archetype from which it has been derived and drawn; while ὁμοιότης, ὁμοίωσις, and words of this family, expressing mere similarity, if they did not actually imply, might yet suggest, and if they suggested, would seem to justify, error, and that with no compensating advantage. Exactly the same considerations were at work here, which, in respect of the verbs γεννᾶν and κτίζειν, did in this same controversy lead the Church to allow the former and to condemn the latter. The student who would completely acquaint himself with all the aspects of the great controversy to which these words, in their relation to one another, gave rise, above all, as to the exact force of εἰκών as applied to the Son, will find the materials admirably prepared to his hand by Petavius, De Trin. ii. 11; iv. 6; vi. 5, 6; while Gfrörer (Philo, vol. i. p. 261 sqq.) will give him the very interesting, but wholly inadequate, speculations of the Alexandrian theosophists on the same subject.

The second interest in the discrimination of these words lies in the question, which has often been discussed, whether in that great fiat announcing man’s original constitution, “Let us make man in our image (κατʼ εἰκόνα, LXX., עֶלֶס Heb.), after our likeness” (καθʼ ὁμοίωσιν, LXX., דִמוּת Heb.), anything different was intended by the second from the first, or whether the second is merely to be regarded as consequent upon the first, “in our image,” and therefore “after our likeness.” Both the εἰκών and ὁμοίωσις are claimed for man in the N. T.: the εἰκών, 1 Cor. 11:7; the ὁμοίωσις, Jam. 3:9. The whole subject is discussed at large by Gregory of Nyssa in a treatise which he has devoted exclusively to the question (Opp. 1638, vol. ii. pp. 22–34), but mainly in its bearing on controversies of his own day. He with many of the early Fathers, as also of the Schoolmen, affirmed a real distinction. Thus, the great Alexandrian theologians taught that the εἰκών was something in which men were created, being common to all, and continuing to man as much after the Fall as before (Gen. 9:6), while the ὁμοίωσις was something toward which man was created, that he might strive after and attain it; Origen (De Prin. iii, 6): ‘Imaginis dignitatem in primâ conditione percepit, similitudinis vero perfectio in consummatione servata est;’ cf. in Joan. tom. xx. 20; Irenæus, v. 16. 2; Tertullian, De Bapt. 5. Doubtless the Platonist studies and predilections of the illustrious theologians of Alexandria had some influence upon them here, and on this distinction which they drew. It is well known that Plato presented the ὁμοιοῦσθαι τῷ Θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν (Theœt. 176 a) as the highest scope of man’s life; and indeed Clement (Strom. ii. 22) brings the great passage of Plato to bear upon this very discussion. The Schoolmen, in like manner, drew a distinction, although it was not this one, between ‘these two divine stamps upon man.’ Thus Anselm, Medit. 1ma; Peter Lombard, Sent. ii. dist. 16; H. de S. Victore, De Animâ, ii. 25; De Sac. i. 6. 2: ‘Imago secundum cognitionem veritatis, similitudo secundum amorem virtutis;’ the first declaring the intellectual, as the second the moral, preëminence in which man was created.
Many, however, have refused to acknowledge these, or any other distinctions, between the two declarations; as Baxter, for instance, who, in his interesting reply to Elliott the Indian Missionary’s inquiries on the subject, rejects them all as groundless conceits, though himself in general only too anxious for distinction and division (Life and Times, by Sylvester, vol. ii. p. 296). They were scarcely justified in this rejection. The Alexandrians, I believe, were very near the truth, if they did not grasp it altogether. There are portions of Scripture, in respect of which the words of Jerome, originally applied to the Apocalypse, ‘quot verbs tot sacraments,’ hardly contain an exaggeration. Such an eminently significant part is the history of man’s creation and his fall, all which in the first three chapters of Genesis is contained. We may expect to find mysteries there; prophetic intimations of truths which it might require ages upon ages to develop. And, without attempting to draw any very strict line between εἰκών and ὁμοίωσις, or their Hebrew counterparts, we may be bold to say that the whole history of man, not only in his original creation, but also in his after restoration and reconstitution in the Son, is significantly wrapped up in this double statement; which is double for this very cause, that the Divine Mind did not stop at the contemplation of his first creation, but looked on to him as “renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Col. 3:10, on which see Lightfoot in loco); because it knew that only as partaker of this double benefit would he attain the true end for which he was ordained.

§ xvi. ἀσωτία, ἀσέλγεια

IT is little likely that he who is ἄσωτος will not be ἀσελγής also; but for all this ἀσωτία and ἀσέλγεια are not identical in meaning; they will express different aspects of his sin, or at any rate contemplate it from different points of view.

Ἀσωτία, a word in which heathen ethics said much more than they intended or knew, occurs thrice in the N. T. (Ephes. 5:18; Tit. 1:6; 1 Pet. 4); once in the Septuagint (Prov. 28:7) and once in the Apocrypha, being there joined with κώμοι (2 Macc. 6:4). We have further the adverb ἀσώτως, at Luke 15:13; and ἄσωτος once in the Septuagint (Prov. 7:11). At Ephes. 5:18 we translate it ‘excess;’ in the other two places, ‘riot,’ as ζῶν ἀσώτως, “in riotous living;” the Vulgate always by ‘luxuria’ and ‘luxuriose,’ words implying in medieval Latin a loose and profligate habit of living which is strange to our ‘luxury’ and ‘luxuriously’ at the present: see my Select Glossary, s. vv. in proof. Ἄσωτος is sometimes taken in a passive sense, as = ἄσωστος (Plutarch, Alcib. 3); one who cannot be saved, σώζεσθαι μὴ δυνάμενος, as Clement of Alexandria (Pœdag. ii. 1) explains it, ‘perditus’ (Horace, Sat. i. 2. 15), ‘heillos,’ or as we used to say, a ‘losel,’ a ‘hopelost’ (this noticeable word is in Grimeston’s Polybius); Grotius: ‘Genus hominum ita immersorum vitiis, ut eorum salus deplorata sit;’ the word being, so to speak, prophetic of their doom to whom it was applied. This, however, was quite the rarer use; more commonly the ἄσωτος is one who himself cannot save, or spare, = ‘prodigus;’ or, again to use a good old English word more than once employed by Spenser, but which we have now let go, a ‘scatterling.’ This extravagant squandering of means Aristotle notes as the proper definition of ἀσωτία (Ethic. Nic. iv. 1. 3): ἀσωτία ἐστὶν ὑπερβολὴ περὶ χρήματα. The word forms part of his ethical terminology; the ἐλευθέριος, or the truly liberal man, keeps the golden mean between the two ἄκρα, namely, ἀσωτία (= ‘effusio’) on one side, and ἀνελευθερία, or ignoble stinginess (= ‘tenacitas,’ Augustine, Ep. 167. 2), on the other. It is in this view of ἀσωτία that Plato (Rep. viii. 560 e), when he names the various catachrestic terms, according to which men call their vices by the names of the virtues which they caricature, makes them style their ἀσωτία, μεγαλοπρέπεια: compare Quintilian (Inst. viii. 36): ‘Pro luxuriâ liberalitas dicitur.’ It is at this stage of its meaning that Plutarch joins with it πολυτέλεια (De Apoph. Cat. 1); and Menander ἄσωτος with πολυτελής (Meineke, Fragm. Com. p. 994).

But it is easy to see that one who is ἄσωτος in this sense of spending too much, of laying out his expenditure on a more magnificent scheme than his means will warrant, slides easily, under the fatal influence of flatterers, and of all those temptations with which he has surrounded himself, into a spending on his own lusts and appetites of that with which he parts so freely, laying it out for the gratification of his own sensual desires. Thus the word takes a new colour, and indicates now not only one of a too expensive, but also and chiefly, of a dissolute, debauched, profligate manner of living; the German ‘liederlich.’ Aristotle has noted this (Ethic. Nic. iv. 1. 36): διὸ καὶ ἀκόλαστοι αὐτῶν [τῶν ἀσώτων] εἰσιν οἱ πολλοί· εὐχερῶς γὰρ ἀναλίσκοντες καὶ εἰς τὰς ἀκολασίας δαπανηροί εἰσι, καὶ διὰ τὸ μὴ πρὸς τὸ καλὸν ζῇν, πρὸς τὰς ἡδονὰς ἀποκλίνουσιν. Here he explains a prior statement: τοὺς ἀκρατεῖς καὶ εἰς ἀκολασίαν δαπανηροὺς ἀσώτους καλοῦμεν.

In this sense ἀσωτία is used in the N. T.; as we find ἀσωτίαι and κραιπάλαι joined elsewhere together (Herodian, ii. 5). The two meanings will of course run often into one another, nor will it be possible to keep them strictly asunder. Thus the several examples of the ἄσωτος, and of ἀσωτία, which Athenæus (iv. 59–67) gives, are sometimes rather of one kind, sometimes of the other. The waster of his goods will be very often a waster of everything besides, will lay waste himself—his time, his faculties, his powers; and, we may add, uniting the active and passive meanings of the word, will be himself laid waste; he at once loses himself, and is lost. In the Tabula of Cebes, Ἀσωτία, one of the courtesans, the temptresses of Hercules, keeps company with Ἀκρασία, Ἀπληστία and Κολακεία.

The etymology of ἀσέλγεια is wrapped in obscurity; some going so far to look for it as to Selge, a city of Pisidia, whose inhabitants were infamous for their vices; while others derive it from θέλγειν, probably the same word as the German ‘schwelgen:’ see, however, Donaldson, Cratylus, 3rd edit. p. 692. Of more frequent use than ἀσωτία in the N. T., it is in our Version generally rendered ‘lasciviousness’ (Mark 7:22; 2 Cor. 12:21; Gal. 5:19; Ephes. 4:19; 1 Pet. 4:3; Jude 4); though sometimes ‘wantonness’ (Rom. 13:13; 2 Pet. 2:18); as in the Vulgate now ‘impudicitia,’ and now ‘luxuria;’ even as it is defined in the Etymologicon Magnum as ἑτοιμότης πρὸς πᾶσαν ἡδονήν. If our Translators or the Latin had impurities and lusts of the flesh exclusively in their eye, they have certainly given to the word too narrow a meaning. Ἀσέλγεια, which, it will be observed, is not grouped with such in the catalogue of sins at Mark 7:21, 22, is best described as wanton lawless insolence; being somewhat stronger than the Latin ‘protervitas,’ though of the same quality, more nearly ‘petulantia,’ Chrysostom (Hom. 37 in Matt.) joining ἰταμότης with it. It is defined by Basil the Great (Reg. Brev. Int. 67) as διάθεσις ψυχῆς μὴ ἔχουσα ἢ μὴ φέρουσα ἄλγος ἀθλητικόν. The ἀσελγής, as Passow observes, is very closely allied to the ὑβριστικός and ἀκόλαστος, being one who acknowledges no restraints, who dares whatsoever his caprice and wanton petulance may suggest. None would deny that ἀσέλγεια may display itself in acts of what we call ‘lasciviousness;’ for there are no worse displays of ὕβρις than in these; but still it is their petulance, their insolence, which this word, linked by Polybius (v. 111) with βία, expresses. Of its two renderings in our Version, ‘wantonness’ is the best, standing as it does in a remarkable ethical connexion with ἀσέλγεια, and having the same duplicity of meaning.

In a multitude of passages the notion of lasciviousness is altogether absent from the word. In classical Greek it is defined (Bekker’s Anecdota, p. 451) ἡ μετʼ ἐπηρεασμοῦ καὶ θρασύτητος βία. Thus, too, Demosthenes in his First Philippic, 42, denounces the ἀσέλγεια of Philip; while elsewhere he characterizes the blow which Meidias had given him, as in keeping with the known ἀσέλγεια of the man, joining this and ὕβρις together (Cont. Meid. 514); linking elsewhere ἀσελγῶς with δεσποτικῶς (Or. xvii. 21), and with προπετῶς (Or. lix. 46). As ἀσέλγεια Plutarch characterizes a similar outrage on the part of Alcibiades, committed against an honorable citizen of Athens (Alcib. 8); indeed, the whole picture which he draws of Alcibiades is the full-length portrait of an ἀσελγής. Aristotle notices δημαγωγῶν ἀσέλγειαν as a frequent cause of revolutions (Pol. v. 4). Josephus ascribes ἀσέλγεια and μανία to Jezebel, daring, as she did, to build a temple of Baal in the Holy City itself (Antt. viii. 13. 1); and the same to a Roman soldier, who, being on guard at the Temple during the Passover, provoked by an act of grossest indecency a tumult, in which many lives were lost (xx. 5. 3). Other passages, helpful to a fixing of the true meaning of the word, are 3 Macc. 2:26; Polybius, viii. 14. 1; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 1. 26; and see the quotations in Wetstein, vol. i. p. 588. Ἀσέλγεια, then, and ἀσωτία are clearly distinguishable; the fundamental notion of ἀσωτία being wastefulness and riotous excess; of ἀσέλγεια, lawless insolence and wanton caprice.

§ xvii. θιγγάνω, ἅπτομαι, ψηλαφάω

AN accurate synonymous distinction will sometimes cause us at once to reject as untenable some interpretation of Scripture, which might, but for this, have won a certain amount of allowance. Thus, many interpreters have explained Heb. 12:18: “For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched” (ψηλαφωμένῳ ὄρει), by Ps. 104:32: “He toucheth the hills, and they smoke;” and call in aid the fact that, at the giving of the Law, God came down upon mount Sinai, which “was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it” (Exod. 19:18). But decisively forbidding this is the fact that ψηλαφάω never expresses the so handling of an object as to exercise a moulding, modifying influence upon it, but at most a feeling of its surface (Luke 24:39: 1 John 1:1); this, it may be, with the intention of learning its composition (Gen. 27:12, 21, 22); while not seldom it signifies no more than a feeling for or after an object, without any actual coming in contact with it at all. It continually expresses a groping in the dark (Job 5:14); or of the blind (Isai. 59:10; Gen. 27:12; Dent. 28:29; Judg. 16:26); tropically sometimes (Acts 17:27); compare Plato (Phœd. 99 b), ψηλαφῶντες ὥσπερ ἐν σκότει; Aristophanes, Pax, 691; Eccles. 315, and Philo, Quis Rer. Div. Hœr. 51. Nor does the ψηλαφώμενον ὄρος, to which reference was just made, the ‘mons palpabilis,’ or ‘tractabilis,’ as the Vulgate has it, mean anything else: ‘Ye are not come,’ the Apostle would say, ‘to any material mountain, like Sinai, capable of being touched and handled; not, in this sense, to the mountain that might be felt, but to the heavenly Jerusalem, to a νοητόν, not to an αἰσθητόν, ὄρος,’ Thus Knapp (Script, Var. Argum, p. 264): ‘Videlicet τὸ ψηλαφώμενον idem est, quod αἰσθητόν, vel quidquid sensu percipitur aut investigatur quovis modo; plane ut Tacitus (Ann. iii. 12) oculis contrectare dixit, nec dissimili ratione Cicero (Tusc. iii. 15) mente contrectare. Et Sina quidem mons ideo αἰσθητός appellatur, quia Sioni opponitur, quo in monte, quæ sub sensus cadunt, non spectantur; sed ea tantum, quæ mente atque animo percipi possunt, νοητά, πνευματικά, ἠθικά. Apposite ad h. l. Chrysostomus (Hom. 32 in Ep. ad Hebr.): πάντα τοίνυν τότε αἰσθητά, καὶ ὄψεις, καὶ φωναὶ· πάντα νοητὰ καὶ ἀόρατα νῦν.’

The so handling of any object as to exert a modifying influence upon it, the French ‘manier,’ as distinguished from ‘toucher,’ the German ‘betasten,’ as distinguished from ‘berühren,’ would be either ἅπτεσθαι or θιγγάνειν. These words may be sometimes exchanged the one for the other, as at Exod. 19:12 they are; and compare Aristotle, De Gen. et Corrupt. 1. 8, quoted by Lightfoot with other passages at Coloss. 2:21; but in the main the first is stronger than the second; ἅπτεσθαι (= ‘contrectare’) than θιγγάνειν (Ps. 104:15; 1 John 5:18), as appears plainly in a passage of Xenophon (Cyr. i. 3. 5), where the child Cyrus, rebuking his grandfather’s delicacies, says: ὅτι σε ὁρῶ, ὅταν μὲν τοῦ ἄρτου ἅψῃ, εἰς οὐδὲν τὴν χεῖρα ἀποψώμενον, ὅταν δὲ τούτων τινὸς θίγῃς, εὐθὺς ἀποκαθαιρῃ τὴν χεῖρα εἰς τὰ χειρόμακτρα, ὡς τάνυ ἀχθόμενος. It is, indeed, so much stronger that it can be used, which certainly θιγγάνειν could not, of the statuary’s shaping of his materials (Plutarch, Max. cum Principibus, 1); the self-conscious effort, which is sometimes present to this, being always absent from the other. Our Version, then, has exactly reversed the true order of the words, when, at Col. 2:21, it translates μὴ ἅψῃ, μηδέ γεύσῃ, μηδὲ θίγῃς, “Touch not, taste not, handle not.” The first and last prohibitions should change places, and the passage read, “Handle not, taste not, touch not;” just as in the Latin Versions ‘tangere,’ which now stands for ἅπτεσθαι, and ‘attaminare,’ or ‘contrectare,’ for θιγεῖν, should be transposed. How much more vividly will then come out the ever ascending scale of superstitious prohibition among the false teachers at Colosse. To abstain from ‘handling’ is not sufficient; they forbid to ‘taste,’ and, lastly, even to ‘touch,’ those things from which, according to their notions, uncleanness might be contracted. Beza has noted this well: ‘Verbum θίγειν a verbo ἅπτεσθαι sic est distinguendum, ut decrescente semper oratione intelligatur crescere superstitio.’ The verb ψαύειν does not once occur in the N. T., nor in the Septuagint. There is, I may observe in conclusion, a very careful study on this group of words in Schmidt’s Synonymik, vol. i., pp. 224–243.

§ xviii. παλιγγενεσία, ἀνακαίνωσις

Παλιγγενεσία is one among the many words which the Gospel found, and, so to speak, glorified; enlarged the borders of its meaning; lifted it up into a higher sphere; made it the expression of far deeper thoughts, of far mightier truths, than any of which it had been the vehicle before. It was, indeed, already in use; but as the Christian new-birth was not till after Christ’s birth; as men were not new-born, till Christ was born (John 1:12); as their regeneration did not go before, but only followed his generation; so the word could not be used in this its highest, most mysterious sense, till that great mystery of the birth of the Son of God into our world had actually found place. And yet it is exceedingly interesting to trace these its subordinate, and, as they proved, preparatory uses. There are passages (as, for instance, in Lucian, (Muscœ Encore. 7) in which it means revivification, and nothing more. In the Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls, their reappearance in new bodies was called their παλιγγενεσία (Plutarch, De Esu Car. i. 7; ii. 6: De Isid. et Osir. 35: Ὀσίριδος αἱ ἀναβιώσεις καὶ παλιγγενεσίαι: De Ei ap. Delp. 9: ἀποβιώσεις καὶ παλιγγενεσίαι: De Def. Orac. 51: μεταβολαὶ καὶ παλιγγενεσίαι). For the Stoics the word set forth the periodic renovation of the earth, when, budding and blossoming in the spring-time, it woke up from its winter sleep, and, so to speak, revived from its winter death: which revival therefore Marcus Antoninus calls (ii. 1) τὴν περιοδικὴν παλιγγενεσίαν τῶν ὅλων. Philo also constantly sets forth by aid of παλιγγενεσία the phœnix-like resurrection of the material world out of fire, which the Stoics taught (De Incorr. Mun. 17, 21; De Mun. 15); while in another place, of Noah and those in the Ark with him, he says (De Vit. Mos. ii. 12): παλιγγενεσίας ἐγένοντο ἡγεμόνες, καὶ δευτέρας ἀρχηγέται περιόδου. Basil the Great (Hexaëm. Hom. 3) notes some heretics, who, bringing old heathen speculations into the Christian Church, ἀπείρους φθορὰς κόσμου καὶ παλιγγενεσίας εἰσάγουσιν. Cicero (Ad Attic. vi. 6) calls his restoration to his dignities and honours, after his return from exile, ‘hanc παλιγγενεσίαν nostram,’ with which compare Philo, Leg. ad Cai. 41. Josephus (Antt. xi. 3. 9) characterizes the restoration of the Jewish nation after the Captivity, as τὴν ἀνάκτησιν καὶ παλιγγενεσίαν τῆς πατρίδος (= ζωοποίησιν, Ezra 9:8, 9). And, to cite one passage more, Olympiodorus, a later Platonist, styles recollection or reminiscence, which must be carefully distinguished from memory, the παλιγγενεσία of knowledge (Journal des Savans, 1834, p. 488): παλιγγενεσία τῆς γνώσεώς ἐστιν ἡ ἀνάμνησις.

Παλιγγενεσία, which has thus in heathen and Jewish Greek the meaning of a recovery, a restoration, a revival, yet never reaches, or even approaches, there the depth of meaning which it has acquired in Christian language. The word does not once occur in the O. T. (but πάλιν γίνεσθαι at Job 14:14; cf. Josephus, Con. Apion. ii. 30), and only twice in the New (Matt. 19:28; Tit. 3:5); but on these two occasions (as is most remarkable), with meanings apparently different. In our Lord’s own words there is evident reference to the new-birth of the whole creation, the ἀποκατάστασις πάντων (Acts 3:21), which shall be when the Son of Man hereafter comes in his glory; while “the washing of regeneration” whereof St. Paul speaks, has to do with that new-birth, not of the whole travailing creation, but of the single soul, which is now evermore finding place. Is then παλιγγενεσία used in two different senses, with no common bond binding the diverse uses of it together? By no means: all laws of language are violated by any such supposition. The fact is, rather, that the word by our Lord is used in a wider, by his Apostle in a narrower, meaning. They are two circles of meaning, one comprehending more than the other, but their centre is the same. The παλιγγενεσία which Scripture proclaims begins with the μικρόκοσμος of single souls; but it does not end with this; it does not cease its effectual working till it has embraced the whole μακρόκοσμος of the universe. The primary seat of the παλιγγενεσία is the soul of man; it is of this that St. Paul speaks; but, having established its centre there, it extends in ever-widening circles; and, first, to his body; the day of resurrection being the day of παλιγγενεσία for it. It follows that those Fathers had a certain, though only a partial, right, who at Matt. 19:28 made παλιγγενεσία equivalent to ἀνάστασις, and themselves continually used the words as synonymous (Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 1. 58; iii. 23; Euthymius: παλιγγενεσίαν λέγει τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν ἀνάστασιν ὡς παλινζωΐαν; see Suicer, s. v.). Doubtless our Lord there implies, or presupposes, the resurrection, but he also includes much more. Beyond the day of resurrection, or, it may be, contemporaneous with it, a day will come when all nature shall put off its soiled workday garments, and clothe itself in its holy-day attire, “the times of restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21); of what Plutarch, reaching out after this glorious truth, calls the μετακόσμησις (De Fac. in Orbe Lunœ, 13); of ‘the new heaven and the new earth’ (Rev. 21:1; Isai. 65:17; 66:22; 2 Pet. 3:13); a day by St. Paul regarded as one in the labour-pangs of which all creation is groaning and travailing until now (Rom. 8:21–23). Man is the present subject of the παλιγγενεσία, and of the wondrous change which it implies; but in that day it will have included within its limits that whole world of which man is the central figure: and here is the reconciliation of the two passages, in one of which it is contemplated as pertaining to the single soul, in the other to the whole redeemed creation. These refer both to the same event, but at different epochs and stages of its development. ‘Palingenesia,’ as Delitzsch says concisely and well (Apologetik, p. 213), ‘ist kurzer Ausdruck für die Wiedergeburt oder Verklaärung der menschlichen Leiblichkeit und der aussermenschlichen Gesammtnatur.’ Compare Engelhardt, Weltverklärung und Welterneuerung in the Zeitschrift für Luther. Theol. 1871, p. 48, sqq.

Ἀναγέννησις, a word common enough with the Greek Fathers (see Suicer, s. v.), nowhere occurs in the N. T., although the verb ἀναγεννάω twice (1 Pet. 1:3, 23). Did we meet it there, it would constitute a closer synonym to παλιγγενεσία than ἀνακαίνωσις can do; ἀναγέννησις (= regeneratio) bringing out the active operation of Him who is the author of the new-birth; while παλιγγενεσία (= renascentia) is that same new-birth itself. But not urging this further, we have now to speak of ἀνακαίνωσις (= renovatio), of the relations in which it stands to παλιγγεσία, and the exact limits to the meaning of each.

And first it is worth observing that while the word παλιγγενεσία is drawn from the realm of nature, ἀνακαίνωσις is derived from that of art. A word peculiar to the Greek of the N. T., it occurs there only twice—once in connexion with παλιγγενεσία (Tit. 3:5), and again at Rom. 12:2; but we have the verb ἀνακαινόω, which also is exclusively a N. T. form, at 2 Cor. 4:16; Col. 3:10; and the more classical ἀνακαινίζω, Heb. 6:6, from which the nouns, frequent in the Greek Fathers, ἀνακαινισμός and ἀνακαίνισις, are more immediately drawn; we have also ἀνανεόω at Ephes. 4:23; all in similar uses. More on these words will be found in § lx. Our Collect for Christmas day expresses excellently well the relation in which the παλιγγενεσία and the ἀνακαίνωσις stand to each other; we there pray, ‘that we being regenerate,’ in other words, having been already made the subjects of the παλιγγενεσία, ‘may daily be renewed by the Holy Spirit,’ may continually know the ἀνακαίνωσις Πνεύματος Ἁγίου. In this Collect, uttering, as do so many, profound theological truth in forms at once the simplest and the most accurate, the new-birth is contemplated as already past, as having found place once for all, while the ‘renewal’ or ‘renovation’ is daily proceeding—being as it is that gradual restoration of the Divine image, which is ever going forward in him who, through the new-birth, has come under the transforming powers of the world to come. It is called ‘the renewal of the Holy Ghost,’ inasmuch as He is the efficient cause, by whom alone this putting on of the new man, and putting off the old, is brought about.

These two then are bound by closest ties to one another; the second the following up, the consequence, the consummation of the first. The παλιγγενεσία is that free act of God’s mercy and power, whereby He causes the sinner to pass out of the kingdom of darkness into that of light, out of death into life; it is the ἄνωθεν γεννηθῆναι of John 3:3; the γεννηθῆναι ἐκ Θειῦ of 1 John 5:4; the θεογενεσία of Dionysius the Areopagite and other Greek theologians; the γεννηθῆναι ἐκ σπορᾶς ἀφθάρτου of 1 Pet. 1:23; in it that glorious word begins to be fulfilled, ἰδοὺ καινὰ ποιῶ τὰ πάντα (Rev. 21:5). In it,—not in the preparations for it, but in the act itself,—the subject of it is passive, even as the child has nothing to do with its own birth. With the ἀνακαίνωσις it is otherwise. This is the gradual conforming of the man more and more to that new spiritual world into which he has been introduced, and in which he now lives and moves; the restoration of the Divine image; and in all this, so far from being passive, he must be a fellow-worker with God. That was ‘regeneratio,’ this is ‘renovatio;’ which two must not be separated, but as little may be confounded, as Gerhard (Locc. Theoll. xxi. 7. 113) has well declared: ‘Renovatio, licet a regeneratione proprie et specialiter acceptâ distinguatur, individuo tamen et perpetuo nexu cum eâ est conjuncta.’ What infinite perplexities, conflicts, scandals, obscurations of God’s truth on this side and on that, have arisen now from the confusing, and now from the separating, of these two!

§ xix. αἰσχύνη, αἰδώς, ἐντροπή

THERE was a time when αἰδώς occupied that whole domain of meaning afterwards divided between it and αἰσχύνη. It had then the same duplicity of meaning which is latent in the Latin ‘pudor,’ in our own ‘shame;’ and indeed retained a certain duplicity of meaning till the last (Euripides, Hippol. 387–389). Thus Homer, who does not know αἰσχύνη, sometimes, as at Il. v. 787, uses αἰδώς, where αἰσχύνη would, in later Greek, have certainly been employed; but elsewhere in that sense which, at a later period, it vindicated as exclusively its own (Il. xiii. 122; cf. Hesiod, Op. 202). And even Thucydides, in a difficult and doubtful passage where both words occur (i. 84), is by many considered to have employed them as equipollent and convertible (Donaldson, Cratylus, 3rd ed. p. 545). So too in a passage of Sophocles, where they occur close together, αἰδώς joined with φόβος, and αἰσχύνη with δέος (Ajax, 1049, 1052), it is very difficult, if not impossible, to draw any distinction between them. Generally, however, in the Attic period of the language, they were not accounted synonymous. Ammonius formally distinguishes them in a philological, as the Stoics (see Plutarch, De Vit. Pud. 2) in an ethical, interest; and almost every passage in which either occurs attests a real difference existing between them.

This distinction has not always been seized with a perfect success. Thus it has been sometimes said that αἰδώς is the shame, or sense of honour, which hinders one from doing an unworthy act; αἰσχύνη is the disgrace, outward or inward, which follows on having done it (Luke 14:9). This distinction, while it has its truth, yet is not exhaustive; and, if we were thereupon to assume that αἰσχύνη was thus only retrospective, the conscious result of things unworthily done, it would be an erroneous one: seeing that αἰσχύνη continually expresses that feeling which leads to shun what is unworthy out of a prospective anticipation of dishonour. Thus in the Definitions ascribed to Plato (416) it is φόβος ἐπὶ προσδοκίᾳ ἀδοξίας: Aristotle including also the future in his comprehensive definition (Rhet. ii. 6): ἔστω δὴ αἰσχύνη, λύπη τις καὶ ταραχὴ περὶ τὰ εἰς ἀδοξίαν φαινόμενα φέρειν τῶν κακῶν, ἢ παρόντων, ἢ γεγονότων, ἢ μελλόντων: cf. Ethic. Nic. iv. 9. 1. In this sense, as ‘fuga dedecoris,’ it is used Ecclus. 4:21; by Plato (Gorg. 492 a); and by Xenophon (Anab. iii. 1. 10): φοβούμενοι δὲ τὸν ὁδὸν καὶ ἄκοντες ὄμως οἱ πολλοὶ διʼ αἰσχύνην καὶ ἀλλήλων καὶ Κύρου συνηκολούθησαν: Xenophon implying here that while he and others, for more reasons than one, were disinclined to go forward with Cyrus to assail his brother’s throne, they yet were now ashamed to draw back.

This much of truth the distinction drawn above possesses, that αἰδώς (= ‘verecundia,’ which is defined by Cicero, Rep. vi. 4: ‘quidam vituperationis non injustæ timor’) is the nobler word, and implies the nobler motive: in it is involved an innate moral repugnance to the doing of the dishonorable act, which moral repugnance scarcely or not at all exists in the αἰσχύνη. Let the man who is restrained by it alone be insured against the outward disgrace which he fears his act will entail, and he will refrain from it no longer. It is only, as Aristotle teaches, περὶ ἀδοξίας φαντασία: or as South, ‘The grief a man conceives from his own imperfections considered with relation to the world taking notice of them; and in one word may be defined, grief upon the sense of disesteem;’ thus at Jer. 2:26 we have αἰσχύνη κλέπτου ὅταν ἁλῷ. Neither does the definition of ‘shame’ which Locke gives (Of Human Understanding, ii. 20) rise higher than this. Its seat, therefore, as Aristotle proceeds to show, is not properly in the moral sense of him that entertains it, in his consciousness of a right which has been, or would be, violated by his act, but only in his apprehension of other persons who are, or who might be, privy to its violation. Let this apprehension be removed, and the αἰσχύνη ceases; while αἰδώς finds its motive in itself, implies reverence for the good as good (see Aristophanes, Nubes, 994), and not merely as that to which honour and reputation are attached; on which matter see some admirable remarks in Gladstone’s Studies on Homer, vol. ii. p. 431; and again in his Primer on Homer, p. 112. Thus it is often connected with εὐλάβεια (Heb. 12:28; if indeed this reading may stand); the reverence before God, before his majesty, his holiness, which will induce a carefulness not to offend, the German ‘Scheu’ (Plutarch, Cœs. 14; Prœc. Conj. 47; Philo, Leg. ad Cai. 44); often also with δέος (Plato, Euthyd. 126 c); with εὐκοσμία (Xenophon, Cyrop. viii. 1. 33); with εὐταξία and κοσμιότης (Plutarch, Cœs. 4); with σεμνότης (Prœc. Conj. 26). To sum up all, we may say that αἰδώς would always restrain a good man from an unworthy act, while αἰσχύνη would sometimes restrain a bad one.

Ἐντροπή, occurring only twice in the N. T. (1 Cor. 4:5; 15:34), is elsewhere found in connection now with αἰσχύνη, and now with αἰδώς, with the first, Ps. 34:26, cf. Ps. 119:3; Ezek. 35:15; with the second in Iamblichus (quoted by Rost and Palm). It too must be rendered ‘shame,’ but has something in it which neither αἰδώς nor αἰσχύνη has. Nearly related to ἐντρέπω, ἐντρέπομαι it conveys at least a hint of that change of conduct, that return of a man upon himself, which a wholesome shame brings with it in him who is its subject. This speaks out in such phrases as παιδεία ἐντροπῆς (Job 20:3); and assuredly it is only to such shame that St. Paul seeks to bring his Corinthian converts in the two passages referred to already; cf. Tit. 2:8; and 2 Thess. 3:14, ἵναἐντραπῇ, which Grotius paraphrases rightly, ‘ut pudore tactus ad mentem meliorem redeat.’ Pott (Etym. Forsch. vol. v. p. 138) traces well the successive meanings of the words: ‘ἐντρέπω, umwenden, umkehren, umdrehen. Uebertr. einen in sich kehren, zu sich bringen, machen, dass er in sich geht … ἐντροπή das Umkehren; 2. das in sich Gehn. Beschämung, Scham, Scheu, Rücksicht, Achtung, wie αἰδώς.’

§ xx. αἰδώς, σωφροσύνη

THESE two are named together by St. Paul (1 Tim. 2:9; cf. Plato, Phœdrus, 253 d) as constituting the truest adornment of a Christian woman; σωφροσύνη occurs only on two other occasions (Acts 26:25: 1 Tim. 2:15). If the distinction which has been shown in § 19 be correct, then that which Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 1. 31) puts into the mouth of Cyrus cannot stand: διῄρει δὲ αἰδῶ καὶ σωφροσύνην τῇδε, ὡς τοὺς μὲν αἰδουμένους· τὰ ἐν τῷ φανερῷ αἰσχρὰ φεύγοντας, τοὺς δὲ σώφρονας καὶ τὰ ἐν τῷ ἀφανεῖ. It is faulty on both sides; on the one hand αἰδώς does not merely shun open and manifest baseness, however αἰσχύνη may do this; on the other a mere accident of σωφροσύνη is urged as constituting its essence. The etymology of σωφροσύνη, as σώζουσα τὴν φρόνησιν (Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. vi. 5), or σωτηρία τῆς φρονήσεως (Plato, Crat. 411 e; cf. Philo, De Fort. 3), must not be taken as seriously intended; Chrysostom has given it rightly: σωφροσύνη λέγεται ἀπὸ τοῦ σώας τὰς φρένας ἔχειν. Set over against ἀκολασία (Thucydides, iii. 37; Aristotle, Rhet. i. 9; Philo, Mund. Opif. 16 b), and ἀκρασία (Xenophon, Mem. iv. 5), the mean between ἀσωτία and φειδωλία (Philo, De Præm. et Pœn. 918 b), it is properly the condition of an entire command over the passions and desires, so that they receive no further allowance than that which the law and right reason admit and approve (ἐπικράτεια τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν, 4 Macc. 1:31; cf. Tit. 2:12); cf. Plato (Symp. 196 c): εἶναι γὰρ ὀμολογεῖται σωφροσύνη τὸ κρατεῖν ἡδονὼν καὶ ἐπιθυμιῶν: his Charmides being dedicated throughout to the investigation of the exact force of the word. Aristotle (Rhet. i. 9): ἀρετὴ διʼ ἣν πρὸς τὰς ἡδονὰς τοῦ σώματος οὕτως ἔχουσιν, ὡς ὁ νόμος κελεύει: Plutarch (De Curios. 14; De Virt. Mor. 2; and Gryll. 6): βραχύτης τις ἐστὶν ἐπιθυμιῶν καὶ τάξις, ἀναιροῦσα μὲν τὰς ἐπεισάκτους καὶ περιττὰς, καιρῷ δὲ καὶ μετριότητι κοσμοῦσα τὰς ἀνακαίας: Philo (De Immut. Dei, 316 e): μέση ῥᾳθυμίας δὲ ἐκκεχυμένης καὶ φειδωλίας ἀνελευθέρου, σωφροσύνη: cf. Diogenes Laërtius, iii. 57.91; and Clement of Alexandria, Strom. ii. 18. In Jeremy Taylor’s words (The House of Feasting): ‘It is reason’s girdle, and passion’s bridle.… it is ῥώμη ψυχῆς, as Pythagoras calls it; κρηπὶς, so Socrates; κόσμος ἀγαθῶν πάντων; so Plato; ἀσφάλεια τῶν καλλίστων ἕξεων, so Iamblichus.’ We find it often joined to κοσμιότης (Aristophanes, Plut. 563, 564); to εὐταξία (2 Macc. 4:37); to καρτερία (Philo, De Agric. 22); ἁγνεία (Clement of Rome, 1 Cor. § 58). No single Latin word exactly represents it; Cicero, as he himself avows (Tusc. iii. 8; cf. v. 14), rendering it now by ‘temperantia,’ now by ‘moderatio,’ now by ‘modestia;’ and giving this account of it: ‘ejus enim videtur esse proprium motus animi appetentes regere et sedare, semperque adversantem libidini, moderetam in omni re servare constantiam.’ Σωφροσύνη was a virtue which assumed more marked prominence in heathen ethics than it does in Christian (δώρημα κάλλιστον θεῶν, as Euripides, Med. 632, has called it); not because more value was attached to it there than with us; but partly because there it was one of a much smaller company of virtues, each of which therefore would singly attract more attention; but also in part because for as many as are “led by the Spirit,” this condition of self-command is taken up and transformed into a condition yet higher still, in which a man does not order and command himself, which, so far as it reaches, is well, but, which is better still, is ordered and commanded by God.

At 1 Tim. 2:9 we shall best distinguish between αἰδώς and σωφροσύνη, and the distinction will be capable of further application, if we affirm of αἰδώς that it is that ‘shamefastness,’ or pudency, which shrinks from overpassing the limits of womanly reserve and modesty, as well as from the dishonour which would justly attach thereto; of σωφροσύνη that it is that habitual inner self-government, with its constant rein on all the passions and desires, which would hinder the temptation to this from arising, or at all events from arising in such strength as should overbear the checks and barriers which αἰδώς opposed to it.

§ xxi. σύρω, ἑλκύω

THESE words differ, and the difference between them is not theologically unimportant. We best represent this difference in English, when we render σύρειν, ‘to drag,’ ἑλκύειν, ‘to draw.’ In σύρειν, as in our ‘drag,’ there lies always the notion of force, as when Plutarch (De Lib. Ed. 8) speaks of the headlong course of a river, πάντα αύρων καὶ πάντα παραφέρων: and it will follow, that where persons, and not merely things, are in question, σύρειν will involve the notion of violence (Acts 8:3; 14:19; 17:6; cf. κατασύρειν, Luke 12:58). But in ἑλκύειν this notion of force or violence does not of necessity lie. It may be there (Acts 16:19; 21:30; Jam. 2:6; cf. Homer, Il. xi. 258; xxiv. 52, 417; Aristophanes, Equit. 710; Euripides, Troad. 70: Αἰὰς εἷλκε Κασάνδραν βίᾳ); but not of necessity (thus Plato, Rep. 6:494 e: ἐὰν ἕλκηται πρὸς φιλοσοφίαν: cf. vii. 538 d), any more than in our ‘draw,’ which we use of a mental and moral attraction, or in the Latin ‘traho’ (‘trahit sua quemque voluptas’).

Only by keeping in mind the difference which thus exists between these, can we vindicate from erroneous interpretation two doctrinally important passages in the Gospel of St. John. The first is 12:32: “I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men [πάντας ἑλκύσω] unto Me.” But how does a crucified, and thus an exalted, Saviour draw all men unto Him? Not by force, for the will is incapable of force, but by the divine attractions of his love. Again (6:44): “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him” (ἑλκύσῃ αὐτόν). Now as many as feel bound to deny any such ‘gratia irresistibilis’ as turns man into a machine, and by which, willing or unwilling, he is dragged to God, must at once allow, must indeed assert, that this ἑλκύσῃ can mean no more than the potent allurements, the allective force of love, the attracting of men by the Father to the Son; compare Jer. 31:3, “With loving-kindness have I drawn thee” (εἵλκυσά σε), and Cant. 1:3, 4. Did we find σύρειν on either of these occasions (not that this would be possible), the assertors of a ‘gratia irresistibilis’ might then urge the declarations of our Lord as leaving no room for any other meaning but theirs; but not as they now stand.

In agreement with all this, in ἑλκύειν is predominantly the sense of a drawing to a certain point, in σύρειν merely of dragging after one; thus Lucian (De Merc. Cond. 3), likening a man to a fish already hooked and dragged through the water, describes him as συρόμενον καὶ πρὸς ἀνάγκην ἀγόμενον. Not seldom there will lie in σύρειν the notion of this dragging being upon the ground, inasmuch as that will trail upon the ground (cf. σύρμα, σύρδην, and Isai. 3:16), which is forcibly dragged along with no will of its own; a dead body, for example (Philo, In Flac. 21). We may compare John 21:6, 11 with ver. 8 of the same chapter, in confirmation of what has just been affirmed. At ver. 6 and 11 ἑλκύειν is used; for there a drawing of the net to a certain point is intended; by the disciples to themselves in the ship, by Peter to himself upon the shore. But at ver. 8 ἑλκύειν gives place to σύρειν: for nothing is there intended but the dragging of the net, which had been fastened to the ship, after it through the water. Our Version has maintained the distinction; so too the German of De Wette, by aid of ‘ziehen’ (= ἑλκύειν) and ‘nachschleppen’ (= σύρειν); but neither the Vulgate, nor Beza, both employing ‘traho’ throughout.

§ xxii. ὁλόκληρος, τέλειος, ἄρτιος

Ὁλόκληρος and τέλειος occur together, though their order is reversed, at Jam. 1:4,—“perfect and entire” (cf. Philo, De Sac. Ab. et Cain. 33: ἔμπλεα καὶ ὁλόκληρα καὶ τέλεια: Dio Chrysostom, Orat. 12, p. 203); ὁλοκληρος only once besides in the N. T. (1 Thess. 5:23); ὁλοκληρία also, but in a physical not an ethical sense, once (Acts 3:16; cf. Isai. 1:6). Ὁλόκληρος signifies first, as its etymology declares, that which retains all which was allotted to it at the first (Ezek. 15:5), being thus whole and entire in all its parts (ὁλόκληρος καὶ παντελής, Philo, De Merc. Meret. 1); with nothing necessary for its completeness wanting. Thus Darius would have been well pleased not to have taken Babylon if only Zopyrus, who had maimed himself to carry out the stratagem by which it fell, were ὁλόκληρος still (Plutarch, Reg. et Imper. Apoph.). Again, unhewn stones, as having lost nothing in the process of shaping and polishing, are ὁλόκληροι (Deut. 27:6; 1 Macc. 4:47); perfect weeks are ἑβδομάδες ὁλόκληροι (Lev. 23:15); and a man ἐν ὁλοκλήρῳ δέρματι is ‘in a whole skin’ (Lucian, Philops. 8). We next find ὁλόκληρος expressing that integrity of body, with nothing redundant, nothing deficient (cf. Lev. 21:17–23), which was required of the Levitical priests as a condition of their ministering at the altar, which also might not be wanting in the sacrifices they offered. In both these senses Josephus uses it (Antt. iii. 12. 2); as does Philo continually. It is with him the standing word for this integrity of the priests and of the sacrifice, to the necessity of which he often recurs, seeing in it, and rightly, a mystical significance, and that these are ὁλόκληροι θυσίαι ὁλοκλήρῳ Θεῷ (De Vict. 2; De Vict. Off. 1, ὁλόκληρον καὶ παντελῶς μώμων ἀμέτοχον: De Agricul. 29; De Cherub. 28; cf. Plato, Legg. vi. 759 c). Τέλειος is used by Homer (Il. 1. 66) in the same sense.

It is not long before ὁλόκληρος and ὁλοκληρία, like the Latin ‘integer’ and ‘integritas,’ are transferred from bodily to mental and moral entireness (Suetonius, Claud. 4). The only approach to this in the Apocrypha is Wisd. 15:3, ὁλόκληρος δικαιοσύνη: but in an interesting and important passage in the Phœdrus of Plato (250 c; cf. Tim. 44 c), ὁλόκληρος expresses the perfection of man before the Fall; I mean, of course, the Fall as Plato contemplated it; when to men, as yet ὁλόκληροι καὶ ἀπαθεῖς κακῶν, were vouchsafed ὁλόκληρα φάσματα, as contrasted with those weak partial glimpses of the Eternal Beauty, which are all that to most men are now vouchsafed. That person then or thing is ὁλόκληρος, which is ‘omnibus numeris absolutus,’ or ἐν μηδενὶ λειπόμενος, as St. James himself (1:4) explains the word.

The various applications of τέλειος are all referable to the τέλος, which is its ground. In a natural sense the τέλειοι are the adult, who, having attained the full limits of stature, strength, and mental power within their reach, have in these respects attained their τέλος, as distinguished from the νέοι or παῖδες, young men or boys (Plato, Legg. xi. 929 c; Xenophon, Cyr. viii. 7. 6; Polybius, v. 29. 2). This image of full completed growth, as contrasted with infancy and childhood, underlies the ethical use of τέλειοι by St. Paul, he setting these over against the νήπιοι ἐν Χριστῷ (1 Cor. 2:6; 14:20; Ephes. 4:13, 14; Phil. 3:15; Heb. 5:14; cf. Philo, De Agricul. 2); they correspond in fact to the πατέρες of 1 John 2:13, 14, as distinct from the νεανίσκοι and παιδία. Nor is this ethical use of τέλειος confined to Scripture. The Stoics distinguished the τέλειος in philosophy from the προκόπτων, just as at 1 Chron. 25:8 the τέλειοι are set over against the μανθάνοντες. With the heathen, those also were τέλειοι who had been initiated into the mysteries; for just as the Lord’s Supper was called τὸ τέλειον (Bingham, Christ. Antiquities, i. 4. 3), because there was nothing beyond it, no privilege into which the Christian has not entered, so these τέλειοι of heathen initiation obtained their name as having been now introduced into the latest and crowning mysteries of all.

It will be seen that there is a certain ambiguity in our word ‘perfect,’ which, indeed, it shares with τέλειος itself; this, namely, that they are both employed now in a relative, now in an absolute sense; for only so could our Lord have said, “Be ye therefore perfect (τέλειοι), as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (τέλειος), Matt. 5:48; cf. 19:21. The Christian shall be ‘perfect,’ yet not in the sense in which some of the sects preach the doctrine of perfection, who, as soon as their words are looked into, are found either to mean nothing which they could not have expressed by a word less liable to misunderstanding; or to mean something which no man in this life shall attain, and which he who affirms he has attained is deceiving himself, or others, or both. The faithful man shall be ‘perfect,’ that is, aiming by the grace of God to be fully furnished and firmly established in the knowledge and practice of the things of God (Jam. 3:2; Col. 4:12: τέλειος καὶ πεπληροφορημένος); not a babe in Christ to the end, ‘not always employed in the elements, and infant propositions and practices of religion, but doing noble actions, well skilled in the deepest mysteries of faith and holiness.’ In this sense St. Paul claimed to be τέλειος, even while almost in the same breath he disclaimed the being τετελειωμένος (Phil. 3:12, 15).

The distinction then is plain. The ὁλόκληρος is one who has preserved, or who, having once lost, has now regained, his completeness: the τέλειος is one who has attained his moral end, that for which he was intended, namely, to be a man in Christ; however it may be true that, having reached this, other and higher ends will open out before him, to have Christ formed in him more and more. In the ὁλόκληρος no grace which ought to be in a Christian man is deficient; in the τέλειος no grace is merely in its weak imperfect beginnings, but all have reached a certain ripeness and maturity. Ὁλοτελής, occurring once in the N. T. (1 Thess. 5:23; cf. Plutarch, De Plac. Phil. v. 21), forms a connecting link between the two, holding on to ὁλόκληρος in its first half, to τέλειος in its second.

Ἄρτιος, occurring only once in the N. T. (2 Tim. 3:17), and there presently explained more fully as ἐξηρτισμένος, approximates in meaning more closely to ὁλόκληρος, with which we find it joined by Philo (De plant. 29), than to τέλειος. It is explained by Calvin, ‘in quo nihil est mutilum,’—see further the quotation from Theodoret in Suicer, s.v.,—and is found opposed to χωλός (Chrysostom), to κολοβός (Olympiodorus), to ἀνάπηρος (Theodoret). Vulcan in Lucian (Sacrif. 6) is οὐκ ἄρτιος τὼ πόδε. If we ask ourselves under what special aspects completeness is contemplated in ἄρτιος, it would be safe to answer that it is not as the presence only of all the parts which are necessary for that completeness, but involves further the adaptation and aptitude of these parts for the ends which they were designed to serve. The man of God, St. Paul would say (2 Tim. 3:17), should be furnished and accomplished with all which is necessary for the carrying out of the work to which he is appointed.

§ xxiii. στέφανος, διάδημα

WE must not confound these words because our English ‘crown’ stands for them both. I greatly doubt whether anywhere in classical literature στέφανος is used of the kingly, or imperial, crown. It is the crown of victory in the games, of civic worth, of military valour, of nuptial joy, of festal gladness—woven of oak, of ivy, of parsley, of myrtle, of olive, or imitating in gold these leaves or others—of flowers, as of violets or roses (see Athenæus, xv. 9–33); the ‘wreath,’ in fact, or the ‘garland,’ the German ‘Kranz’ as distinguished from ‘Krone;’ but never, any more than ‘corona’ in Latin, the emblem and sign of royalty. The διάδημα was this βασιλείας γνώρισμα, as Lucian calls it (Pisc. 35; cf. Xenophon, Cyr. viii. 3. 13; Plutarch, De Frat. Am. 18); being properly a white linen band or fillet, ‘tænia’ or ‘fascia’ (Curtius, 3:3), encircling the brow; so that no language is more common than περιτιθέναι διάδημα to indicate the assumption of royal dignity (Polybius, v. 57. 4; 1 Macc. 1:9; 11:13; 13:32; Josephus, Antt. xii. 10, 1), even as in Latin in like manner the ‘diadema’ alone is the ‘insigne regium’ (Tacitus, Annal. xv. 29). With this agree Selden’s opening words in his learned discussion on the distinction between ‘crowns’ and ‘diadems’ (Titles of Honour, c. 8, § 2): ‘However those names have been from antient time confounded, yet the diadem strictly was a very different thing from what a crown now is or was; and it was no other than only a fillet of silk, linen, or some such thing, Nor appears it that any other kind of crown was used for a royal ensign, except only in some kingdoms of Asia, but this kind of fillet, until the beginning of Christianity in the Roman Empire.’

A passage in Plutarch brings out very clearly the distinction here affirmed. The kingly crown which Antonius offers to Cæsar the biographer describes as διάδημα στεφάνῳ δάφνης περιπεπλεγμένον (Cœs. 61). Here the στέφανος is the garland or laureate wreath, with which the diadem proper was enwoven; indeed, according to Cicero (Phil. 2:34), Cæsar was already ‘coronatus’ (= ἐστεφανωμένος), this he would have been as Consul, when the offer was made. It is by keeping this distinction in mind that we explain a version in Suetonius (Cœs. 79) of the same incident. One places on Cæsar’s statue ‘coronam lauream candidâ fasciâ præligatam’ (his statues, Plutarch also informs us, were διαδήμασιν ἀναδεδεμένοι βασιλικοῖς); on which the tribunes command to be removed, not the ‘corona,’ but the ‘fascia;’ this being the diadem, in which alone the traitorous suggestion that he should suffer himself to be proclaimed king was contained. Compare Diodorus Siculus xx. 24, where of one he says, διάδημα μὲν οὐκ ἔκρινεν ἔχειν, ἐφόρει γὰρ ἀεὶ στεφανον.

How accurately the words are discriminated in the Septuagint and in the Apocrypha may be seen by comparing in the First Maccabees the passages in which διάδημα is employed (such as 1:9; 6:15; 8:14; 11:13, 54; 12:39; 13:32), and those where στέφανος appears (4:57; 10:29; 11:35; 13:39; cf. 2 Macc. 14:4). Compare Isai. 62:3, where of Israel it is said that it shall be στέφανος κάλλους, but, as it is added, διάδημα βασιλείας.

In the N. T. it is plain that the στέφανος whereof St. Paul speaks is always the conqueror’s, and not the king’s (1 Cor. 9:24–26; 2 Tim. 2:5); it is the same in what passes for the Second Epistle of Clement, § 7. If St. Peter’s allusion (1 Pet. 5:4) is not so directly to the Greek games, yet he too is silently contrasting the wreaths of heaven which never fade, the ἀμαράντινος στέφανος τῆς δόξης, with the garlands of earth which lose their beauty and freshness so soon. At Jam. 1:12; Rev. 2:10; 3:11; 4:4, it is little probable that a reference, either near or remote, is intended to these Greek games; the alienation from which, as idolatrous and profane, reached so far back, was so deep on the part of the Jews (Josephus, Antt. xv. 8. 1–4; 1 Macc. 1:14; 2 Macc. 4:9, 12); and no doubt also of the Jewish members of the Church, that imagery drawn from the prizes of these games would have rather repelled than attracted them. Yet there also the στέφανος, or the στέφανος τῆς ζωῆς, is the emblem, not of royalty, but of highest joy and gladness (cf. στέφανος ἀγαλλιάματος, Ecclus. 6:31), of glory and immortality. We may the more confidently conclude that with St. John it was so, from the fact that on three occasions, where beyond a doubt he does intend kingly crowns, he employs διάδημα (Rev. 12:3; 13:1 [cf. 17:9, 10, αἱ ἑπτὰ κεφαλαὶ … βασιλεῖς ἑπτά εἰσιν]; 19:12). In this last verse it is sublimely said of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, that “on his head were many crowns” (διαδήματα πολλά); an expression, with all its magnificence, difficult to realize, so long as we picture to our mind’s eye such crowns as at the present monarchs wear, but intelligible at once, when we contemplate them as ‘diadems,’ that is, narrow fillets encircling the brow. These “many diadems” will then be the tokens of the many royalties—of earth, of heaven, and of hell (Phil. 2:10)—which are his; royalties once usurped or assailed by the Great Red Dragon, the usurper of Christ’s dignities and honours, who has therefore his own seven diadems as well (13:1), but now openly and for ever assumed by Him whose rightfully they are; just as, to compare earthly things with heavenly, when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, entered Antioch in triumph, he set two ‘crowns,’ or ‘diadems’ rather (διαδήματα), on his head, the ‘diadem’ of Asia, and the ‘diadem’ of Egypt (1 Macc. 11:13); or as in Diodorus Siculus (i. 47) we read of one ἔχουσαν τρεῖς βασιλείας ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς, the context plainly showing that these are three diadems, the symbols of a triple royalty, which she wore.

The only occasion on which στέφανος might seem to be used of a kingly crown is Matt. 27:29; cf. Mark 15:17; John 19:2; where the weaving of the crown of thorns (στέφανος ἀκάνθινος), and placing it on the Saviour’s head, is evidently a part of that blasphemous masquerade of royalty which the Roman soldiers would fain compel Him to enact. But woven of such materials as it was, probably of the juncus marinus, or of the lycium spinosum, it is evident that διάδημα could not be applied to it; and the word, therefore, which was fittest in respect of the material whereof it was composed, takes the place of that which would have been the fittest in respect of the purpose for which it was intended. On the whole subject of this § see The Dictionary of the Bible, s. vv. Crown and Diadem; and Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, art. Coronation, p. 464.

§ xxiv. πλεονεξία, φιλαργυρία

BETWEEN these words the same distinction exists as between our ‘covetousness’ and ‘avarice,’ as between the German ‘Habsucht’ and ‘Geiz.’ Πλεονεξία, primarily the having more, and then in a secondary and more usual sense, the desire after the having more, is the more active sin, φιλαργυρία the more passive: the first, the ‘amor sceleratus habendi,’ seeks rather to grasp what it has not; the second, to retain, and, by accumulating, to multiply that which it already has. The first, in its methods of acquiring, will be often bold and aggressive; even as it may, and often will, be as free in scattering and squandering, as it was eager and unscrupulous in getting: the πλεονέκτης will be often ‘rapti largitor,’ as was Catiline; characterizing whom Cicero demands (Pro Cœl. 6): ‘Quis in rapacitate avarior? quis in largitione effusior?’ even as the same idea is very boldly conceived in the Sir Giles Overreach of Massinger. Consistently with this, we find πλεονέκτης joined with ἅρπαξ (1 Cor. 5:10); πλεονεξία with βαρύτης (Plutarch, Arist. 3); πλεονεξίαι with κλοπαί (Mark 7:22); with ἀδικίαι (Strabo, vii. 4. 6); with φιλονεικίαι (Plato, Legg. iii. 677 b); and the sin defined by Theodoret (in Ep. ad Rom. i. 30): ἡ τοῦ πλείονος ἒφεσις, καὶ τῶν οὐ προσηκόντων ἡ ἁρπαγή: with which compare the definition, whosesoever it may be, of ‘avaritia’ as ‘injuriosa appetitio alienorum’ (ad Herenn. iv. 25); and compare further Bengel’s note (on Mark 7:22): ‘πλεονεξία, comparativum involvens, denotat medium quiddam inter furtum et rapinam; ubi per varias artes id agitur ut alter per se, sed cum læsione sui, inscius vel invitus, offerat, concedat et tribuat, quod indigne accipias.’ It is therefore fitly joined with αἰσχροκερδεία (Polybius, vi. 46. 3). But, while it is thus with πλεονεξία, φιλαργυρία, on the other hand, the miser’s sin (it is joined with μικρολογία, Plutarch, Quom. Am. ab Adul. 36) will be often cautious and timid, and will not necessarily have cast off the outward shows of uprightness. The Pharisees, for example, were φιλάργυροι (Luke 16:14): this was not irreconcilable with the maintenance of a religious profession, which the πλεονεξία would have manifestly been.

Cowley, in the delightful prose which he has interspersed with his verse, draws this distinction strongly and well (Essay 7, Of Avarice), though Chaucer had done the same before him (see his Persones Tale; and his description severally of Covetise and Avarice in The Romaunt of the Rose, 183–246). ‘There are,’ Cowley says, ‘two sorts of avarice; the one is but of a bastard kind, and that is the rapacious appetite for gain; not for its own sake, but for the pleasure of refunding it immediately through all the channels of pride and luxury; the other is the true kind, and properly so called, which is a restless and unsatiable desire of riches, not for any further end or use, but only to hoard and preserve, and perpetually increase them. The covetous man of the first kind is like a greedy ostrich, which devours any metal, but it is with an intent to feed upon it, and, in effect, it makes a shift to digest and excern it. The second is like the foolish chough, which loves to steal money only to hide it.’

There is another point of view in which πλεονεξία may be regarded as the larger term, the genus, of which φιλαργυρία is the species; this last being the love of money, while πλεονεξία is the drawing and snatching by the sinner to himself of the creature in every form and kind, as it lies out of and beyond himself; the ‘indigentia’ of Cicero (‘indigentia est libido inexplebilis:’ Tusc. iv. 9. 21); compare Dio Chrysostom, De Avarit. Orat. 17; Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 35, 36; and Bengel’s profound explanation of the fact, that, in the enumeration of sins, St. Paul so often associates πλεονεξία with sins of the flesh; as at 1 Cor. 5:11; Ephes. 5:3, 5; Col. 3:5: ‘Solet autem jungere cum impuritate πλεονεξίαν, nam homo extra Deum quærit pabulum in creaturâ materiali, vel per voluptatem, vel per avaritiam: bonum alienum ad se redigit.’ But, expressing much, Bengel has not expressed all. The connection between these two provinces of sin is deeper and more intimate still; and this is witnessed in the fact, that not merely is πλεονεξία, as signifying covetousness, joined to sins of impurity, but the word is sometimes used, as at Ephes. 5:3 (see Jerome, in loc.), and often by the Greek Fathers (see Suicer. Thes. s. v.: and Hammond’s excellent note on Rom. 1:29), to designate these sins themselves; even as the root out of which they alike grow, namely, the fiercer and ever fiercer longing of the creature which has forsaken God, to fill itself with the lower objects of sense, is one and the same. The monsters of lust among the Roman emperors were monsters of covetousness as well (Suetonius, Calig. 38–41). Contemplated under this aspect, πλεονεξία has a much wider and deeper sense than φιλαργυρία. Plato (Gorg. 493), likening the desire of man to the sieve or pierced vessel of the Danaids, which they were ever filling, but might never fill, has implicitly a sublime commentary on the word; nor is it too much to say, that in it is summed up that ever defeated longing of the creature, as it has despised the children’s bread, to stay its hunger with the husks of the swine.

§ xxv. βόσκω, ποιμαίνω

WHILE βόσκειν and ποιμαίνειν are both often employed in a figurative and spiritual sense in the O.T. (1 Chron. 11:2; Ezek. 34:3; Ps. 77:72; Jer. 23:2), and ποιμαίνειν in the New; the only occasions in the latter, on which βόσκειν is so used, are John 21:15, 17. There our Lord, giving to St. Peter that thrice-repeated commission to feed his “lambs” (ver. 15), his “sheep” (ver. 16), and again his “sheep” (ver. 17), uses first βόσκε, then secondly ποίμαινε, returning to βόσκε at the last. This return, on the third and last repetition of the charge, to the word employed on the first, has been a strong argument with some for an absolute identity in the meaning of the words. They have urged, with some show of reason, that Christ could not have had progressive aspects of the pastoral work in his intention here, else He would not have come back in the end to the βόσκε, with which He began. Yet I cannot ascribe to accident the variation of the words, any more than the changes, in the same verses, from ἀγαπᾶν to φιλεῖν (see p. 41), from ἀρνία to πρόβατα. It is true that our Version, rendering βόσκε and ποίμαινε alike by “Feed,” as the Vulgate by “Pasce,” has not attempted to follow the changes of the original text, nor can I perceive any resources of language by which either our own Version or the Latin could have helped itself here. ‘Tend’ for ποίμαινε is the best suggestion which I could make. The German, by aid of ‘weiden’ (= βόσκειν) and ‘hüten’ (= ποιμαίνειν), might do it; but De Wette has ‘weiden’ throughout.

The distinction, notwithstanding, is very far from fanciful. Βόσκειν, the Latin ‘pascere,’ is simply ‘to feed:’ but ποιμίνειν involves much more; the whole office of the shepherd, the guiding, guarding, folding of the flock, as well as the finding of nourishment for it. Thus Lampe: ‘Hoc symbolum totum regimen ecclesiasticum comprehendit;’ and Bengel: ‘βόσκειν est pars τοῦ ποιμαίνειν.’ The wider reach and larger meaning of ποιμαίνειν makes itself felt at Rev. 2:27; 19:15; where at once we are conscious how impossible it would be to substitute βόσκειν; and compare Philo, Quod Det. Pot. Insid. 8.
There is a fitness in the shepherd’s work for the setting forth of the highest ministries of men for the weal of their fellows, out of which the name, shepherds of their people, has been continually transferred to those who are, or should be, the faithful guides and guardians of others committed to their charge. Thus kings in Homer are ποιμένες λαῶν: cf. 2 Sam. 5:2; 7:7; Ps. 77:71, 72. Nay more, in Scripture God Himself is a Shepherd (Isai. 40:11; Ezek. 34:11–31; Ps. 24.); and God manifest in the flesh avouches Himself as ὁ ποιμὴν ὁ καλός (John 10:11); He is the ἀρχιποιμήν (1 Pet. 5:4); ὁ μέγας ποιμὴν τῶν προβάτων (Heb. 13:20); as such fulfilling the prophecy of Micah (v. 4). Compare a sublime passage in Philo, De Agricul. 12, beginning: ὅμτω μέντοι τὸ ποιμαίνειν ἐστὶν ἀγαθόν, ὥστε οὐ βασιλεῦσι μόνον καὶ σοφοῖς ἀνδράσι, καὶ ψυχαῖς τέλεια κεκαθαρμέναις, ἀλλὰ καὶ Θεῷ τῷ πανηγεμόνι δικαίως ἀνατίθεται, with the three §§ preceding.

But it may very naturally be asked, if ποιμαίνειν be thus so much the more significant and comprehensive word, and if on this account the ποίμαινε was added to the βόσκε in the Lord’s latest instruction to his Apostle, how account for his going back to βόσκε again, and concluding thus, not as we should expect with the wider, but with the narrower charge, and weaker admonition? In Dean Stanley’s Sermons and Essays on the Apostolic Age, p. 138, the answer is suggested. The lesson, in fact, which we learn from this is a most important one, and one which the Church, and all that bear rule in the Church, have need diligently to lay to heart; this namely, that whatever else of discipline and rule may be superadded thereto, still, the feeding of the flock, the finding for them of spiritual food, is the first and last; nothing else will supply the room of this, nor may be allowed to put this out of that foremost place which by right it should occupy. How often, in a false ecclesiastical system, the preaching of the Word loses its preeminence; the βόσκειν falls into the background, is swallowed up in the ποιμαίνειν, which presently becomes no true ποιμαίνειν, because it is not a βόσκειν as well, but such a ‘shepherding’ rather as God’s Word by the prophet Ezekiel has denounced (34:2, 3, 8, 10; cf. Zech. 11:15–17; Matt. 23.)

§ xxvi. ζῆλος, φθόνος

THESE words are often joined together; they are so by St. Paul (Gal. 5:20, 21); by Clement of Rome (1 Ep. § 3), 4, 5; and virtually by Cyprian in his little treatise, De Zelo et Livore: by classical writers as well; by Plato (Phil. 47 e; Legg. iii. 679 c; Menex. 242 a); by Plutarch, Coriol. 19; and by others. Still, there are differences between them; and this first, that ζῆλος is a μέσον, being used sometimes in a good (as John 2:17; Rom. 10:2; 2 Cor. 9:2), sometimes, and in Scripture oftener, in an evil sense (as Acts 5:17; Rom. 13:13; Gal. 5:20; Jam. 3:14, in which last place, to make quite clear what ζῆλος is meant, it is qualified by the addition of πικρός, and is linked with ἐρίθεια): while φθόνος, incapable of good, is used always and only in an evil, signification. When ζῆλος is taken in good part, it signifies the honorable emulation, with the consequent imitation, of that which presents itself to the mind’s eye as excellent: ζῆλος τῶν ἀρίστων (Lucian, Adv. Indoct. 17): ζῆλος τοῦ βελτίονος (Philo, de Prœm. et Pœn. 3); φιλοτιμία καὶ ζῆλος (Plutarch, De Alex. Fort. Or. ii. 6; An Seni Resp. Ger. 25); ζῆλος καὶ μίμησις (Herodian, ii.4); ζηλωτὴς καὶ μιμητής (vi. 8). It is the Latin ‘æmulatio,’ in which nothing of envy is of necessity included, however such in it, as in our ‘emulation,’ may find place; the German ‘Nacheiferung,’ as distinguished from ‘Eifersucht.’ The verb ‘æmulor,’ I need hardly observe, finely expresses the difference between worthy and unworthy emulation, governing an accusative in cases where the first, a dative where the second, is intended. South here, as always, expresses himself well: ‘We ought by all means to note the difference between envy and emulation; which latter is a brave and a noble thing, and quite of another nature, as consisting only in a generous imitation of something excellent; and that such an imitation as scorns to fall short of its copy, but strives, if possible, to outdo it. The emulator is impatient of a superior, not by depressing or maligning another, but by perfecting himself. So that while that sottish thing envy sometimes fills the whole soul, as a great dull fog does the air; this, on the contrary, inspires it with a new life and vigour, whets and stirs up all the powers of it to action. And surely that which does so (if we also abstract it from those heats and sharpnesses that sometimes by accident may attend it), must needs be in the same degree lawful and laudable too, that it is for a man to make himself as useful and accomplished as he can’ (Works, London, 1737, vol. v. p. 403; and compare Bishop Butler, Works, 1836, vol. i. p. 15).

By Aristotle ζῆλος is employed exclusively in this nobler sense, as that active emulation which grieves, not that another has the good, but that itself has it not; and which, not pausing here, seeks to supply the deficiencies which it finds in itself. From this point of view he contrasts it with envy (Rhet. 2. 11): ἔστι ζῆλος λύπη τις ἐπὶ φαινομένῃ παρουσίᾳ ἀγαθῶν ἐντίμων … οὐχ ὅτι ἄλλῳ, ἀλλʼ ὅτι οὐχὶ καὶ αὑτῷ ἐστι· διὸ καὶ ἐπιεικές ἐστιν ὁ ζῆλος, καὶ ἐπιεικῶν· τὸ δὲ φθονονεῖν, φαῦλον, καὶ φαύλων. The Church Fathers follow in his footsteps. Jerome (Exp. in Gal. v. 20): ‘ζῆλος et in bonam partem accipi potest, quum quis nititur ea quæ bona sunt æmulari. Invidia vero alienâ felicitate torquetur;’ and again (in Gal. iv. 17): ‘Æmulantur bene, qui cum videant in aliquibus esse gratias, dona, virtutes, ipsi tales esse desiderant.’ Œcumenius: ἔστι ζῆλος κίνησις ψυχῆς ἐνθουσιώδης ἐπί τι, μετά τινος ἀφομοιώσεως τοῦ πρὸς ὃ ἡ σπουδή ἐστι: cf. Plutarch, Pericles, 2. Compare the words of our English poet:

    ‘Envy, to which the ignoble mind’s a slave,
    Is emulation in the learned and brave.’

But it is only too easy for this zeal and honorable rivalry to degenerate into a meaner passion; the Latin ‘simultas,’ connected (see Döderlein, Lat. Synon. vol. iii. p. 72), not with ‘simulare,’ but with ‘simul,’ attests the fact: those who together aim at the same object, who are thus competitors, being in danger of being enemies as well; just as ἅμιλλα (which, however, has kept its more honorable use, see Plutarch, Anim. an Corp. App. Pej. 3), is connected with ἅμα; and ‘rivales’ meant no more at first than occupants of the banks of the same river (Pott, Etym. Forsch. ii. 2. 191). These degeneracies which wait so near upon emulation, and which sometimes cause the word itself to be used for that into which it degenerates (‘pale and bloodless emulation,’ Shakespeare), may assume two shapes: either that of a desire to make war upon the good which it beholds in another, and thus to trouble that good, and make it less; therefore we find ζῆλος and ἔρις continually joined together (Rom. 13:13; 2 Cor. 12:20; Gal. 5:20; Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 3, 36): ζῆλος and φιλονεικία (Plutarch, De Cap. Inim. Util. 1): or, where there is not vigour and energy enough to attempt the making of it less, there may be at least the wishing of it less; with such petty carping and fault-finding as it may dare to indulge in—φθόνος and μῶμος being joined, as in Plutarch, Prœc. Reg. Reip. 27. And here in this last fact is the point of contact which ζῆλος has with φθόνος (thus Plato, Menex. 242 a: πρῶτον μὲν ζῆλος, ἀπὸ ζήλου δὲ φθόνος: and Æschylus, Agamem. 939: ὁ δʼ ἀφθόνητος οὐκ ἐπίζηλος πέλει); the latter being essentially passive, as the former is active and energic. We do not find φθόνος in the comprehensive catalogue of sins at Mark 7:21, 22; but this envy, δύσφρων ἴος, as Æschylus (Agam. 755) has called it, σημεῖον φύσεως παντάπασι πονηρᾶς, as Demosthenes (499, 21), πασῶν μεγίστη τῶν ἐν ἀνθρώποις νόσος, as Euripides has done, and of which Herodotus (iii. 80) has said, ἀρχῆθεν ἐμφύεται ἀνθρώπῳ, could not, in one shape or other, be absent; its place is supplied by a circumlocution, ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρός (cf. Ecclus. 14:8, 10), but one putting it in connexion with the Latin ‘invidia,’ which is derived, as Cicero observes (Tusc. iii. 9), ‘a nimis intuendo fortunam alterius;’ cf. Matt. 20:15; and 1 Sam. 18:9: “Saul eyed,” i. e. envied, “David.” The ‘urentes oculi’ of Persius (Sat. ii. 34), the ‘mal’ occhio’ of the Italians, must receive the same explanation, Φθόνος is the meaner sin,—and therefore the beautiful Greek proverb, ὁ φθόνος ἔξω τοῦ θείου χόρου,—being merely displeasure at another’s good; λύπη ἐπʼ ἀλλοτρίοις ἀγαθοῖς, as the Stoics defined it (Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 63, 111), λύπη τῆς τοῦ πλσίον εὐπραγίας, as Basil (Hom. de Invid.), ‘ægritudo suscepta propter alterius res secundas, quæ nihil noceant invidenti,’ as Cicero (Tusc. iv. 8; cf. Xenophon, Mem. iii. 9. 8), ‘odium felicitatis alienæ,’ as Augustine (De Gen. ad Lit. 11–14), with the desire that this good or this felicity may be less: and this, quite apart from any hope that thereby its own will be more (Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 10); so that it is no wonder that Solomon long ago could describe it as ‘the rottenness of the bones’ (Prov. 14:30). He that is conscious of it is conscious of no impulse or longing to raise himself to the level of him whom he envies, but only to depress the envied to his own. When the victories of Miltiades would not suffer the youthful Themistocles to sleep (Plutarch, Them. 3), here was ζῆλος in its nobler form, an emulation which would not let him rest, till he had set a Salamis of his own against the Marathon of his great predecessor. But it was φθόνος which made that Athenian citizen to be weary of hearing Aristides evermore styled ‘The Just’ (Plutarch, Arist. 7); an envy which contained no impulses moving him to strive for himself after the justice which he envied in another. See on this subject further the beautiful remarks of Plutarch, De Prof. Virt. 14; and on the likenesses and differences between μῖσος and φθόνος, his graceful essay, full of subtle analysis of the human heart, De Invidiâ et Odio. Βασκανία, a word frequent enough in later Greek in this sense of envy, nowhere occurs in the N. T.; βασκαίνειν only once (Gal. 3:1).

§ xxvii. ζωή, βίος

THE Latin language and the English not less are poorer than the Greek, in having but one word, the Latin ‘vita,’ the English ‘life,’ where the Greek has two. There would, indeed, be no comparative poverty here, if ζωή and βίος were merely duplicates. But, contemplating life as these do from very different points of view, it is inevitable that we, with our one word for both, must use this one in very diverse senses; and may possibly, through this equivocation, conceal real and important differences from ourselves or from others; as nothing is so effectual for this as the employment of equivocal words.

The true antithesis of ζωή is θάνατος (Rom. 8:38; 2 Cor. 5:4; Jer. 8:3; Ecclus. 30:17; Plato, Legg. xii. 944 c), as of ζῆν, ἀποθνήσκειν (Luke 20:38; 1 Tim. 5:6; Rev. 1:18; cf. Il. xxiii. 70; Herodotus, i. 31; Plato, Phœdo, 71 d; οὐκ ἐναντίον φῂς τῷ ζῆν τὸ τεθνάναι εἶναι;); ζωή, as some will have it, being nearly connected with ἄω, ἄημι, to breathe the breath of life, which is the necessary condition of living, and, as such, is involved in like manner in πνεῦμα and ψυξή, in ‘spiritus’ and ‘anima.’

But, while ζωή is thus life intensive (‘vita quâ vivimus’), βίος is life extensive (‘vita quam vivimus’), the period or duration of life; and then, in a secondary sense, the means by which that life is sustained; and thirdly, the manner in which that life is spent; the ‘line of life,’ ‘profession,’ career. Examples of βίος in all these senses the N. T. supplies. Thus it is used as—

α. The period or duration of life; thus, χρόνος τοῦ βίου (1 Pet. 4:3): cf. βίος τοῦ χρόνου (Job 10:20): μῆκος βίου καὶ ἔτη ζωῆς (Prov. 3:2): Plutarch (De Lib. Ed. 17), στιγμὴ χρόνου πᾶς ὁ βίος ἐστι: again, βίος τῆς ζωῆς (Cons. ad Apoll. 25); and ζωὴ καὶ βίος (De Plat. Phil. v. 18).

β. The means of life, or ‘living,’ A. V.; Mark 12:44; Luke 8:43; 15:12; 1 John 3:17, τὸν βίον τοῦ κόσμου: cf. Plato, Gorg. 486 d; Legg. xi. 936 c; Aristotle, Hist. An. ix. 23. 2; Euripides, Ion, 329; and often, but not always, these means of life, with an under sense of largeness and abundance.

γ. The manner of life; or life in regard of its moral conduct, having such words as τρόπος, ἤθη, πρᾶξις for its equivalents, and not seldom such epithets as κόσμιος, χρηστός, σώφρων, joined to it; 1 Tim. 2:2; so Plato (Rep. i. 344 e), βίου διαγωγή: Plutarch, δίαιτα καὶ βίος (De Virt. et Vit. 2): and very nobly (De Is. et Os. 1), τοῦ δὲ γινώσκειν τὰ ὄντα καὶ φρονεῖν ἀφαιρεθέντος, οὐ βίον ἀλλὰ χρόνον [οἶμαι] εἶναι τὴν ἀθανασίαν: and De Lib. Ed. 7, τεταγμένος βίος: Josephus, Att. v. 10. 1; with which compare Augustine (De Trin. xii. 11): ‘Cujus vitœ sit quisque; id est, quomodo agat hœc temporalia, quam vitam Græci non ζωήν sed βίον vocant.’

In βίος, thus used as manner of life, there is an ethical sense often inhering, which, in classical Greek at least, ζωή does not possess. Thus in Aristotle (Politics, i. 13. 13), it is said that the slave is κοινωνὸς ζωῆς, he lives with the family, but not κοινωνὸς βίου, he does not share in the career of his master; cf. Ethic. Nic. x. 6. 8; and he draws, according to Ammonius, the following distinction: βίος ἐστὶ λογικὴ ζωή: Ammonius himself affirming βίος to be never, except incorrectly, applied to the existence of plants or animals, but only to the lives of men. I know not how he reconciled this statement with such passages as these from Aristotle, Hist. Anim. i. 1. 15; ix. 8. 1; unless, indeed, he included him in his censure. Still, the distinction which he somewhat too absolutely asserts (see Stallbaum’s note on the Timœus of Plato, 44 d), is a real one: it displays itself with singular clearness in our words ‘zoology’ and ‘biography;’ but not in ‘biology,’ which, as now used, is a manifest misnomer. We speak, on one side, of ‘zoology,’ for animals (ζῶα) have the vital principle; they live, equally with men, and are capable of being classed and described according to the different workings of this natural life of theirs: but, on the other hand, we speak of ‘biography;’ for men not merely live, but they lead lives, lives in which there is that moral distinction between one and another, which may make them worthy to be recorded. They are ἔ τ η ζωῆς, but ὁ δ ο ὶ βίου (Prov. 4:10); cf. Philo, De Carit. 4, where of Moses he says that at a certain epoch of his mortal course, ἤρξατο μετα-βάλλειν ἐκ θνητῆς ζωῆς εἰς ἀθάνατον βίον.

From all this it will follow, that, while θάνατος and ζωή constitute, as observed already, the true antithesis, yet they do this only so long as life is physically contemplated; thus the Son of Sirach (30:17): κρείσσων θάνατος ὑπὲρ ζωὴν πικρὰν ἢ ἀῤῥώστημα ἔμμονον. But so soon as a moral element is introduced, and ‘life’ is regarded as the opportunity for living nobly or the contrary, the antithesis is not between θάνατος and ζωή, but θάνατος and βίος: thus compare Xenophon (De Rep. Lac. ix. 1): αἰρετώτερον εἶναι τὸν καλὸν θάνατον ἀντὶ τοῦ αἰσχροῦ βίου, with Plato (Legg. xii. 944 d): ζωὴν αἰσχρὰν ἀρνύμενος μετὰ τάχους, μᾶλλον ἢ μετʼ ἀνδρείας καλὸν καὶ εὐδαίμονα θάνατον. A reference to the two passages will show that in the latter it is the present boon of shameful life, (therefore ζωή,) which the craven soldier prefers to an honorable death; while in the former, Lycurgus teaches that an honorable death is to be chosen rather than a long and shameful existence, a βίος ἄβιος (Empedocles, 326); a βίος ἀβίωτος (Xenophon, Mem. iv. 8. 8; cf. Meineke, Fragm. Com. Grœc. 142); a βίος οὐ βιωτός (Plato, Apol. 38 a); a ‘vita non vitalis;’ from which all the ornament of life, all the reasons for living, have departed. The Two grand chapters with which the Gorgias of Plato concludes (82, 83) constitute a fine exercise in the distinction between the words themselves, as between their derivatives no less; and Herodotus, vii. 46, the same.

But all this being so, and βίος, not ζωή, the ethical word of classical Greek, a thoughtful reader of Scripture might not unnaturally be perplexed with the fact that all is there reversed; for no one will deny that ζωή is there the nobler word, expressing as it continually does all of highest and best which the saints possess in God; thus στέφανος τῆς ζωῆς (Rev. 2:10), ξύλον τῆς ζωῆς (2:7), βίβλος τῆς ζωῆς (3:5), ὕδωρ ζωῆς (21:6), ζωὴ καὶ εὐσέβεια (2 Pet. 1:3), ζωὴ καὶ ἀφθαρσία (2 Tim. 1:10), ζωὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ (Ephes. 4:18), ζωὴ αἰώνιος (Matt. 19:16; Rom. 2:7), ζωὴ ἀκατάλυτος (Heb. 7:16); ἡ ὄντως ζωή (1 Tim. 6:19); or sometimes ζωή with no further addition (Matt. 7:14; Rom. 5:17, and often); all these setting forth, each from its own point of view, the highest blessedness of the creature. Contrast with them the following uses of βίος, ἡδοναὶ τοῦ βίου (Luke 8:14), πραγματεῖαι τοῦ βίου (2 Tim. 2:4), ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου (1 John 2:16), βίος τοῦ κόσμου (3:17), μερίμναι βιωτικαί (Luke 21:34). How shall we explain this?

A little reflection will supply the answer, Revealed religion, and it alone, puts death and sin in closest connexion, declares them the necessary correlatives one of the other (Gen. 1–3; Rom. 5:12); and, as an involved consequence, in like manner, life and holiness. It is God’s word alone which proclaims that, wherever there is death, it is there because sin was there first; wherever there is no death, that is, life, this is there, because sin has never been there, or having once been, is now cast out and expelled. In revealed religion, which thus makes death to have come into the world through sin, and only through sin, life is the correlative of holiness. Whatever truly lives, does so because sin has never found place in it, or, having found place for a time, has since been overcome and expelled. So soon as ever this is felt and understood, ζωή at once assumes the profoundest moral significance; it becomes the fittest expression for the very highest blessedness. Of that whereof we predicate absolute ζωή, we predicate absolute holiness of the same. Christ affirming of Himself, ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ζωή (John 14:6; cf. 1 John 1:2; Ignatius, ad Smyrn. 4: Χριστὸς τὸ ἀληθινὸν ἡμῶν ζῇν), implicitly affirmed of Himself that He was absolutely holy; and in the creature, in like manner, that alone truly lives, or triumphs over death, death at once physical and spiritual, which has first triumphed over sin. No wonder, then, that Scripture should know of no higher word than ζωή to set forth the blessedness of God, and the blessedness of the creature in communion with God.

It follows that those expositors of Ephes. 4:18 are in error, who there take ἀπηλλοτριωμένοι τῆς ζωῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ, as ‘alienated from a divine life,’ that is, ‘from a life lived according to the will and commandments of God’ (‘remoti a vitâ illâ quæ secundum Deum est:’ as Grotius has it), ζωή never signifying this. The fact of such alienation was only too true; but the Apostle is not affirming it here, but rather the miserable condition of the heathen, as men estranged from the one fountain of life (παρά Σοὶ πηγὴ ζωῆς, Ps. 35:10); as not having life, because separated from Him who only absolutely lives (John 5:26), the living God (Matt. 16:16; 1 Tim. 3:15), in fellowship with whom alone any creature has life. Another passage, namely Gal. 5:25, will always seem to contain a tautology, until we give to ζωή (and to the verb ζῆν as well) the force which has been claimed for it here.

§ xxviii. κύριος, δεσπότης

A MAN, according to the later Greek grammarians, was δεσπότης in respect of his slaves (Plato, Legg. vi. 756 e), therefore οἰκοδεσπότης, but κύριος in regard of his wife and children; who in speaking either to him or of him, would give him this title of honour; “as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord” (κύριον αὐτὸν καλοῦσα, 1 Pet. 3:6; cf. 1 Sam. 1:8; cf. Plutarch, De Virt. Mul. s. vv. Μίκκα καὶ Μεγιστώ). There is a certain truth in this distinction. Undoubtedly there lies in κύριος the sense of an authority owning limitations—moral limitations it may be; it is implied too that the wielder of this authority will not exclude, in wielding it, a consideration of their good over whom it is exercised; while the δεσπότης exercises a more unrestricted power and absolute domination, confessing no such limitations or restraints. He who addresses another as δέσποτα, puts an emphasis of submission into his speech, which κύριε would not have possessed; therefore it was that the Greeks, not yet grown slavish, refused this title of δεσπότης to any but the gods (Euripides, Hippol. 88: ἄναξ, θεοὺς γὰρ δεσπότας καλεῖν χρεών); while our own use of ‘despot,’ ‘despotic,’ ‘despotism,’ as set over against that of ‘lord,’ ‘lordship,’ and the like, attests that these words are coloured for us, as they were for those from whom we have derived them.
Still, there were influences at work tending to break down this distinction. Slavery, or the appropriating, without payment, of other men’s toil, however legalized, is so abhorrent to men’s innate sense of right, that they seek to mitigate, in word at least, if not in fact, its atrocity; and thus, as no southern Planter in America willingly spoke of his ‘slaves,’ but preferred some other term, so in antiquity, wherever any gentler or more humane view of slavery obtained, the antithesis of δεσπότης and δοῦλος would continually give place to that of κύριος and δοῦλος. The harsher antithesis might still survive, but the milder would prevail side by side with it. We need not look further than to the writings of St. Paul, to see how little, in popular speech, the distinction of the grammarians was observed. Masters are now κύριοι (Ephes. 6:9; Col. 4:1), and now δεσπόται (1 Tim. 6:1, 2; Tit. 2:9; cf. 1 Pet. 2:18), with him; and compare Philo, Quod Omn. Prob. Lib. 6.

But, while all experience shows how little sinful man can be trusted with unrestricted power over his fellow, how certainly he will abuse it—a moral fact attested in our use of ‘despot’ as equivalent with ‘tyrant,’ as well as in the history of the word ‘tyrant’ itself—it can only be a blessedness for man to regard God as the absolute Lord, Ruler, and Disposer of his life; since with Him power is never disconnected from wisdom and from love: and, as we saw that the Greeks, not without a certain sense of this, were well pleased to style the gods δεσπόται, however they might refuse this title to any other; so, within the limits of Revelation, δεσπότης, no less than κύριος, is applied to the true God. Thus in the Septuagint, at Josh. 5:14; Prov. 29:25; Jer. 4:10; in the Apocrypha, at 2 Macc. 5:17, and elsewhere; while in the N. T. on these occasions: Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; Rev. 6:10; 2 Pet. 2:1; Jude 4. In the last two it is to Christ, but to Christ as God, that the title is ascribed. Erasmus, indeed, out of that latent Arianism, of which, perhaps, he was scarcely conscious to himself, denies that, at Jude 4, δεσπότης is to be referred to Christ; attributing only κύριος to Him, and δεσπότης to the Father. The fact that in the Greek text, as he read it, Θεόν followed and was joined to δεσπότην, no doubt really lay at the root of his reluctance to ascribe the title of δεσπότης to Christ. It was for him not a philological, but a theological difficulty, however he may have sought to persuade himself otherwise.
This δεσπότης did no doubt express on the lips of the faithful who used it, their sense of God’s absolute disposal of his creatures, of his autocratic power, who “doeth according to his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth” (Dan. 4:35), more strongly than κύριος would have done. So much is plain from some words of Philo (Quis Rer. Div. Hœr. 35), who finds evidence of Abraham’s εὐλάβεια, of his tempering, on one signal occasion, boldness with reverence and godly fear, in the fact that, addressing God, he forsakes the more usual κύριε, and substitutes δέσποτα in its room; for δεσπότης, as Philo proceeds to say, is not κύριος only, but φοβερὸς κύριος, and implies, on his part who uses it, a more entire prostration of self before the might and majesty of God than κύριος would have done.

§ xxix. ἀλαζών, ὑπερήφανος, ὑβριστής

THESE words occur all of them together at Rom. 1:30, though in an order exactly the reverse from that in which I have found it convenient to take them. They constitute an interesting subject for synonymous discrimination.

Ἀλαζών, occurring twice in the Septuagint (Hab. 2:5; Job 28:8), is found as often in the N. T. (here and at 2 Tim. 3:2); while ἀλαζονεία, of which the Septuagint knows nothing, appears four times in the Apocrypha (Wisd. 5:8; 17:7; 2 Macc. 9:8; 15:6), and in the N. T. twice (Jam. 4:16; 1 John 2:16). Derived from ἄλη, ‘a wandering about,’ it designated first the vagabond mountebanks (‘marktschreyers’), conjurors, quacksalvers, or exorcists (Acts 19:13; 1 Tim. 5:13); being joined with γόης (Lucian, Revivisc. 29); with φέναξ (Aristophanes); with κενός (Plutarch, Quom. in Virt. Prof. 10); full of empty and boastful professions of cures and other feats which they could accomplish; such as Volpone in The Fox of Ben Jonson (Act ii. Sc. 1). It was from them transferred to any braggart or boaster (ἀλαζὼν καὶ ὑπέραυχος Philo, Cong. Erud. Grat. § 8; while for other indifferent company which the word keeps, see Aristophanes, Nub. 445–452); vaunting himself in the possession of skill (Wisd. 17:7), or knowledge, or courage, or virtue, or riches, or whatever else it might be, which were not truly his (Plutarch, Quâ quis Rat. Laud. 4). He is thus the exact antithesis of the εἴρων, who makes less of himself and his belongings than the reality would warrant, in the same way as the ἀλαζών makes more (Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. ii. 7. 12). In the Definitions which pass under Plato’s name, ἀλαζονεία is defined as ἕξις προσποιητικὴ ἀγαθῶν μὴ ὑπαρχόντων: while Xenophon (Cyr. ii. 2. 12) describes the ἀλαζών thus: ὁ μὲν γὰρ ἀλαζὼν ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ ὄνομα κεῖσθαι ἐπὶ τοῖς προσποιουμένοις καὶ πλουσιωτέροις εἶναι ἤ εἰσι, καὶ ἀνδρειοτέροις, καὶ ποιήσειν, ἃ μὴ ἱκανοί εἰσι, ὑπισχνουμένοις· καὶ τοῦτα, φανεροῖς γιγνομένοις, ὅτι τοῦ λαβεῖν τι ἕνεκα καὶ κερδᾶναι ποιοῦσιν: and Aristotle (Ethic. Nic. iv. 7. 2): δοκεῖ δὴ ὁ μὲν ἀλαζῶν προσποιητικὸς τῶν ἐνδόξων εἶναι, καὶ μὴ ὑπαρχόντων, καὶ μειζόνων ἢ ὑπάρχει: cf. Theodoret on Rom. 1:30: ἀλαζόνας καλεῖ τοὺς οὐδεμίαν μὲν ἔχοντας πρόφασιν εἰς φρονήματος ὄγκον, μάτην δὲ φυσιωμένους. As such he is likely to be a busybody and meddler, which may explain the juxtaposition of ἀλαζονεία, and πολυπραγμοσύνη (Ep. ad Diognetum, 4). Other words with which it is joined are βλακεία (Plutarch, De Rect. Aud. 18); τύφος (Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 13); ἀγερωχία (2 Macc. 9:7); ἀπαιδευσία (Philo, Migrat. Abrah. 24): while in the passage from Xenophon, which was just now quoted in part, the ἀλαζόνες are distinguished from the ἀστεῖοι and εὐχαρίτες.

It is not an accident, but of the essence of the ἀλαζών, that in his boastings he overpasses the limits of the truth (Wisd. 2:16, 17); thus Aristotle sees in him not merely one making unseemly display of things which he actually possesses, but vaunting himself in those which he does not possess; and sets over against him the ἀληθευτικὸς καὶ τῷ βίῳ καὶ τῷ λόγῳ: cf. Rhet. ii. 6: τὸ τὰ ἀλλότρια αὑτοῦ φάσκειν, ἀλαζονείας σημεῖον: and Xenophon, Mem. i. 7; while Plato (Rep. viii. 560 c) joins ψευδεῖς with ἀλαζόνες λόγοι: and Plutarch (Pyrrh. 19) ἀλαζών with κόμπος. We have in the same sense a lively description of the ἀλαζών in the Characters (23) of Theophrastus; and, still better, of the shifts and evasions to which he has recourse, in the treatise, Ad Herenn. iv. 50, 51. While, therefore ‘boaster’ fairly represents ἀλαζών (Jebb suggests ‘swaggerer,’ Characters of Theophrastus, p. 193), ‘ostentation’ does not well give back ἀλαζονεία, seeing that a man can only be ostentatious in things which he really has to show. No word of ours, and certainly not ‘pride’ (1 John 2:16, E. V.), renders it all so adequately as the German ‘prahlerei.’ For the thing, Falstaff and Parolles, both of them ‘unscarred braggarts of the war,’ are excellent, though marvellously diverse, examples; so too Bessus in Beaumont and Fletcher’s King and no King; while, on the other hand, Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, despite of all his big vaunting words, is no ἀλαζών, inasmuch as there are fearful realities of power by which these his μεγάλης γλώσσης κόμποι are sustained and borne out. This dealing in braggadocio is a vice sometimes ascribed to whole nations; thus an ἔμφυτος ἀλαζονεία to the Ætolians (Polybius, iv. 3; cf. Livy, xxxiii. 11); and, in modern times, to the Gascons; out of which these last have given us ‘gasconade.’ The Vulgate, translating ἀλαζόνες, ‘elati’ (in the Rhemish, ‘haughty’), has not seized the central meaning as successfully as Beza, who has rendered it gloriosi.’

A distinction has been sometimes drawn between the ἀλαζών and the πέρπερος [ἡ ἀγάπη οὐ περπερεύεται, 1 Cor. 3:4], that the first vaunts of things which he has not, the second of things which, however little this his boasting and bravery about them may become him, he actually has. The distinction, however, cannot be maintained (see Polybius, xxxii. 6. 5: xl. 6. 2); both are liars alike.

But this habitual boasting of our own will hardly fail to be accompanied with a contempt for that of others. If it did not find, it would rapidly generate, such a tendency; and thus the ἀλαζών is often αὐθάδης as well (Prov. 21:24); ἀλαζονεία is nearly allied to ὑπεροψία: they are used as almost convertible terms (Philo, De Carit. 22–24). But from ὑπεροψία to ὑπερηφανία there is but a single step; we need not then wonder to meet ὑπερήφανος joined with ἀλαζών: cf. Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 16. The places in the N. T. where it occurs, besides those noted already, are Luke 1:51; Jam. 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5; ὑπερηφανία at Mark 7:22. A picturesque image serves for its basis: the ὑπερήφανος, from ὑπέρ and φαίνομαι, being one who shows himself above his fellows, exactly as the Latin ‘superbus’ is from ‘super;’ as our ‘stilts’ is connected with ‘Stolz,’ and with ‘stout’ in its earlier sense of ‘proud,’ or ‘lifted up.’ Deyling (Obss. Sac. vol. v. p. 219): ‘Vox proprie notat hominem capite super alios eminentem, ita ut, quemadmodum Saul, præ ceteris sit conspicuus, 1 Sam. 9:2.’ Compare Horace (Carm. i. 18. 15): ‘Et tollens vacuum plus nimio Gloria verticem.’

A man can show himself ἀλαζών only when in company with his fellow-men; but the proper seat of the ὑπερηφανία, the German ‘hochmuth,’ is within. He that is sick of this sin compares himself, it may be secretly or openly, with others, and lifts himself above others, in honour preferring himself; his sin being, as Theophrastus (Charact. 34) describes it, καταφρόνησίς τις πλὴν αὑτοῦ τῶν ἄλλων: joined therefore with ὑπεροψία (Demosthenes, Orat. xxi. 247); with ἐξουδένωσις (Ps. 30:19); ὑπερήφανος with αὐθάδης (Plutarch, Alcib. c. Cor. 4). The bearing of the ὑπερήφανος toward others is not of the essence, is only the consequence, of his sin. His ‘arrogance,’ as we say, his claiming to himself of honour and observance (ὑπερηφανία is joined with φιλοδοξία, Esth. 4:10); his indignation, and, it may be, his cruelty and revenge, if these are withheld (see Esth. 3:5, 6; and Appian, De Reb. Pun. viii. 118: ὡμὰ καὶ ὑπερήφανα), are only the outcomings of this false estimate of himself; it is thus that ὑπερήφανος and ἐπίφθονος (Plutarch, Pomp. 24), ὑπερήφανοι and βαρεῖς (Qu. Rom. 63), ὑπερηφανία and ἀγερωχία (2 Macc. 9:7), are joined together. In the ὑπερήφανος we may have the perversion of a nobler character than in the ἀλαζών, the melancholic, as the ἀλαζών is the sanguine, the ὑβριστής the choleric, temperament; but because nobler, therefore one which, if it falls, falls more deeply, sins more fearfully. He is one whose “heart is lifted up” (ὑψηλοκάρδιος, Prov. 16:5); one of those τὰ ὑψηλὰ φρονοῦντες (Rom. 12:16), as opposed to the ταπεινοὶ τῇ καρδίᾳ: he is τυφωθείς (1 Tim. 3:6) or τετυφωμένος (2 Tim. 3:4), besotted with pride, and far from all true wisdom (Ecclus. 15:8); and this lifting up of his heart may be not merely against man, but against God; he may assail the very prerogatives of Deity itself (1 Macc. 1:21, 24; Ecclus. 10:12, 13; Wisd. 14:6: ὑπερήφανοι γιγάντες). Theophylact therefore does not go too far, when he calls this sin ἀκρόπολις κακῶν: nor need we wonder to be thrice reminded, in the very same words, that “God resisteth the proud” (ὑπερηφάνοις ἀντιτάσσεται: Jam. 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5; Prov. 3:34); sets Himself in battle array against them, as they against Him.

It remains to speak of ὑβριστής, which, by its derivation from ὕβρις, which is, again, from ὑπέρ (so at least Schneider and Pott; but Curtius, Grundzüge, 2nd edit. p. 473 doubts), and as we should say, ‘uppishness,’ stands in a certain etymological relation with ὑπερήφανος (see Donaldson, New Cratylus, 3rd ed. p. 552). Ὕβρις is insolent wrongdoing to others, not out of revenge, or any other motive except the mere pleasure which the infliction of the wrong imparts. So Aristotle (Rhet. ii. 2): ἔστι γὰρ ὕβρις, τὸ βλάπτειν καὶ λυπεῖν, ἐφʼ οἷς αἰσχύνη ἐστὶ τῷ πάσχοντι, μὴ ἵνα τι γένηται αὐτῷ ἄλλο, ἢ ὅτι ἐγένετο, ἀλλʼ ὅπως ἠσθῇ· οἱ γὰρ ἀντιποιοῦντες οὐχ ὑβρίζουσιν, ἀλλὰ τιμωροῦνται. What its flower and fruit and harvest shall be, the dread lines of Æschylus (Pers. 822) have told us. Ὑβριστής occurs only twice in the N. T.; Rom. 1:30 (‘despiteful,’ E. V.), and 1 Tim. 1:13 (‘injurious,’ E.V.; a word seldom now applied except to things; but preferable, as it seems, to ‘insolent,’ which has recently been proposed; in the Septuagint often; being at Job 40:6, 7; Isai. 2:12, associated with ὑπερήφανος (cf. Prov. 8:13); as the two, in like manner, are connected by Aristotle (Rhet. ii. 16). Other words whose company it keeps are ἄγριος (Homer, Od. vi. 120); ἀτάσθαλος (Ib. xxiv. 282); αἴθων (Sophocles, Ajax, 1061); ἄνομος (Id. Trachin. 1076); βίαιος (Demosthenes, Orat. xxiv. 169); πάροινος, ἀγνώμων, πικρός (Id. Orat. liv. 1261); ἄδικος (Plato, Legg. i. 630 b); ἀκόλαστος (Apol. Socr. 26 e); ἄφρων (Phil. 45 e); ὑπερόπτης (Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iv. 3. 21); θρασύς (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. ii. 5); φαῦλος (Plutarch, Def. Orac. 45); φιλογέλως (Id. Symp. 8. 5; but here in a far milder sense). In his Lucullus, 34, Plutarch speaks of one as ἀνὴρ ὑβριστής, καὶ μεστὸς ὁλιγωρίας ἀπάσης καὶ θρασύτητος. Its exact antithesis is σώφρων (Xenophon, Apol. Soc. 19; Ages. x. 2; cf. πρᾳΰθυμος, Prov. 16:19). The ὑβριστής is contumelious; his insolence and contempt of others break forth in acts of wantonness and outrage. Menelaus is ὑβριστής when he would fain have withheld the rites of burial from the dead body of Ajax (Sophocles, Ajax, 1065). So, too, when Hanun, king of Ammon, cut short the garments of king David’s ambassadors, and shaved off half their beards, and so sent them back to their master (2 Sam. 10.), this was ὕβρις. St. Paul, when he persecuted the Church, was ὑβριστής (1 Tim. 1:13; cf. Acts 8:3), but himself ὑβρισθείς (1 Thess. 2:2) at Philippi (see Acts 16:22, 23). Our blessed Lord, prophesying the order of his Passion, declares that the Son of Man ὑβρισθήσεται (Luke 18:32); the whole blasphemous masquerade of royalty, in which it was sought that He should sustain the principal part (Matt. 27:27–30), constituting the fulfilment of this prophecy. ‘Pereuntibus addita ludibria’ are the words of Tacitus (Annal. xv. 44), describing the martyrdoms of the Christians in Nero’s persecution; they died, he would say, μεθʼ ὕβρεως. The same may be said of York, when, in Shakespeare’s Henry VI., the paper crown is set upon his head, in mockery of his kingly pretensions, before Margaret and Clifford stab him. In like manner the Spartans are not satisfied with throwing down the Long Walls of Athens, unless they do it to the sound of music (Plutarch, Lys. § 15). Prisoners in a Spanish civil war are shot in the back. And indeed all human story is full of examples of this demoniac element lying deep in the heart of man; this evil for evil’s sake, and ever begetting itself anew.

Cruelty and lust are the two main shapes in which ὕβρις will display itself; or rather they are not two;—for, as the hideous records of human wickedness have too often attested, the trial, for example, of Gilles de Retz, Marshal of France, in the fifteenth century, they are not two sins but one; and Milton, when he wrote, “lust hard by hate,” saying much, yet did not say all. Out of a sense that in ὕβρις both are included, one quite as much as the other, Josephus (Ant. i. 11. 1) characterizes the men of Sodom as ὑβρισταί to men (cf. Gen. 19:5), no less than ἀσεβεῖς to God. He uses the same language (Ib. v. 10.1) about the sons of Eli (cf; 1 Sam. 2:22); on each occasion showing that by the ὕβρις which he ascribed to those and these, he intended an assault on the chastity of others (cf. Euripides, Hipp. 1086). Critias (quoted by Ælian, V. H. x. 13) calls Archilochus λάγνος καὶ ὑβριστής: and Plutarch, comparing Demetrius Poliorcetes and Antony, gives this title to them both (Com. Dem. cum Anton. 3; cf. Demet. 24; Lucian, Dial. Deor. vi. 1; and the article Ὕβρεως δίκη in Pauly’s Encyclopädie).

The three words, then, are clearly distinguishable, occupying three different provinces of meaning: they present to us an ascending scale of guilt; and, as has been observed already, they severally designate the boastful in words, the proud and overbearing in thoughts, the insolent and injurious in acts.

§ xxx. ἀντίχριστος, ψευδόχριστος

THE word ἀντίχριστος is peculiar to the Epistles of St. John, occurring five times in them (1 Ep. 2:18, bis; 2:22; 4:3; 2 Ep. 7); and nowhere else in the N. T. But if he alone has the word, St. Paul, in common with him, designates the person of this great adversary, and the marks by which he shall be recognized; for all expositors of weight, Grotius alone excepted, are agreed that St. Paul’s ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἁμαρτίας, his υἱὸς τῆς ἀπολείας, his ἄνομος (2 Thess. 2:3, 8), is identical with St. John’s ἀντίχριστος (see Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xx. 19. 2); and, indeed, to St. Paul we are indebted for our fullest instruction concerning this arch-enemy of Christ and of God. Passing by, as not relevant to our purpose, many discussions to which the mysterious announcement of such a coming foe has given rise, whether, for example, the Antichrist is a single person or a succession of persons, a person or a system, we occupy ourselves here with one question only.; namely, what the force is of ἀντί in this composition. Is it such as to difference ἀντίχριστος from ψευδόχριστος? does ἀντίχριστος imply one who sets himself up against Christ, or, like ψευδόχριστος, one who sets himself up in the stead of Christ? Does he proclaim that there is no Christ? or that he is Christ?

There is no settling this matter off-hand, as some are so ready to do; seeing that ἀντί, in composition, has both these forces. For a subtle analysis of the mental processes by which it now means ‘instead of,’ and now ‘against,’ see Pott, Etymol. Forschungen, 2nd edit. p. 260. It often expresses substitution; thus, ἀντιβασιλεύς, he who is instead of the king, ‘prorex,’ ‘viceroy;’ ἀνθύπατος, ‘proconsul;’ ἀντίδειπνος, one who fills the place of an absent guest; ἀντίψυχος, one who lays down his life for others (Josephus, De Macc. 17; Ignatius, Ephes. 21); ἀντίλυτορον, the ransom paid instead of a person. But often also it implies opposition, as in ἀντιλογία (‘contradiction’), ἀντίθεσις, ἀντικείμενος: and, still more to the point, as expressing not merely the fact of opposition, but the very object against which the opposition is directed, in ἀντινομία (see Suicer, Thes. s. v.), opposition to law; ἀντίχειρ, the thumb, not so called, because equivalent in strength to the whole hand, but as set over against the hand; ἀντιφιλόσοφος, one of opposite philosophical opinions; ἀντικάτων, the title of a book which Cæsar wrote against Cato; ἀντίθεος—not indeed in Homer, where, applied to Polyphemus (Od. i. 70), and to the Ithacan suitors (xiv.18; cf. Pindar, Pyth. iii. 88); it means ‘godlike,’ that is, in strength and power;—but yet, in later use, as in Philo; with whom ἀντίθεος νοῦς (De Conf. Ling. 19; De Somn. ii. 27) can he only the ‘adversa Deo mens;’ and so in the Christian Fathers; while the jests about an Antipater who sought to murder his father, to the effect that he was φερώνυμος, would be utterly pointless, if ἀντί in composition did not bear this meaning. I will not further cite Ἀντέρως, where the force of ἀντί is more questionable; examples already adduced having sufficiently shown that ἀντί in composition implies sometimes substitution, sometimes opposition. There are words in which it has now this force, and now that, as these words are used by one writer or another. Thus ἀντιστράτηγος is for Thucydides (vii. 86) the commander of the hostile army, while for later Greek writers, such as Plutarch, who occupy themselves with Roman affairs, it is the standing equivalent for ‘proprætor.’ All this being so, they have equally erred, who, holding one view of Antichrist or the other, have claimed the name by which in Scripture he is named, as itself deciding the matter in their favour. It does not so; but leaves the question to be settled by other considerations.

To me St. John’s words seem decisive that resistance to Christ, and defiance of Him, this, and not any treacherous assumption of his character and offices, is the essential mark of the Antichrist; is that which, therefore, we should expect to find embodied in his name: thus see 1 John 2:22; 2 John 7; and in the parallel passage, 2 Thess. 2:4, he is ὁ ἀντικείμενος, or ‘the opposers;’ and in this sense, if not all, yet many of the Fathers have understood the word. Thus Tertullian (De Prœsc. Hœr. 4): ‘Qui antichristi, nisi Christi rebelles?’ The Antichrist is, in Theophylact’s language, ἐναντίος τῷ χριστῷ, or in Origen’s (Con. Cels. vi. 45), Χριστᾦ κατὰ διάμετρον ἐναντίος, ‘Wider-christ,’ as the Germans have rightly rendered it; one who shall not pay so much homage to God’s word as to assert its fulfilment in himself, for he shall deny that word altogether; hating even erroneous worship, because it is worship at all, and everything that is called ‘God’ (2 Thess. 2:4), but hating most of all the Church’s worship in spirit and in truth (Dan. 8:11); who, on the destruction of every religion, every acknowledgment that man is submitted to higher powers than his own, shall seek to establish his throne; and, for God’s great truth that in Christ God is man, to substitute his own lie, that in him man is God.

The term ψευδόχριστος, with which we proceed to compare it, appears only twice in the N. T.; or, if we count, not how often it has been written, but how often it was spoken, only once; for the two passages in which it occurs (Matt. 24:24; Mark 13:22) are records of the same discourse. In form it resembles many others in which ψεῦδος is combined with almost any other nouns at will. Thus ψευδαπόστολος (2 Cor. 11:13), ψευδάδελφος (2 Cor. 11:26), ψευδοδιδάσκαλος (2 Pet. 2:1), ψευδοπροφήτης (Matt. 7:13; cf. Jer. 33:7), ψευδομάρτυρ (Matt. 26:60; cf. Plato). So, too, in ecclesiastical Greek, ψευδοποιμήν, ψευδολατρεία; and in classical, ψευδάγγελος (Homer, Il. xv. 159), ψευδόμαντις (Herodotus, iv. 69), and a hundred more. The ψευδόχριστος does not deny the being of a Christ; on the contrary, he builds on the world’s expectations of such a person; only he appropriates these to himself, blasphemously affirms that he is the foretold One, in whom God’s promises and men’s expectations are fulfilled. Thus Barchochab,—‘Son of the Star,’ as, appropriating the prophecy of Num. 24:17, he called himself—who, in Hadrian’s reign, stirred up again the smouldering embers of Jewish insurrection into a flame so fierce that it consumed himself with more than a million of his fellow-countrymen,—was a ψευδόχριστος: and such have been that long series of blasphemous pretenders and impostors, the false Messiahs, who, since the rejection of the true, have, in almost every age, fed and flattered and betrayed the expectations of the Jews.

The distinction, then, is plain. The ἀντίχριστος denies that there is a Christ; the ψευδόχριστος affirms himself to be the Christ. Both alike make war against the Christ of God, and would set themselves, though under different pretences, on the throne of his glory. And yet, while the words have this broad distinction between them, while they represent two different manifestations of the kingdom of wickedness, there is a sense in which the final ‘Antichrist’ will be a ‘Pseudochrist’ as well; even as it will be the very character of that last revelation of hell to gather up into itself, and to reconcile for one last assault against the truth, all anterior and subordinate forms of error. He will not, it is true, call himself the Christ, for he will be filled with deadliest hate against the name and offices, as against the whole spirit and temper, of Jesus of Nazareth, the exalted King of Glory. But, inasmuch as no one can resist the truth by a mere negation, he must offer and oppose something positive, in the room of that faith which he will assail and endeavour utterly to abolish. And thus we may certainly conclude that the final Antichrist will reveal himself to the world,—for he too will have his ἀποκάλυψις (2 Thess. 2:3, 8), his παρουσία (ver. 9),—as, in a sense, its Messiah; not, indeed, as the Messiah of prophecy, the Messiah of God, but still as the world’s saviour; as one who will make the blessedness of as many as obey him, giving to them the full enjoyment of a present material earth, instead of a distant, shadowy, and uncertain heaven; abolishing those troublesome distinctions, now the fruitful sources of so much disquietude, abridging men of so many enjoyments, between the Church and the world, between the spirit and the flesh, between holiness and sin, between good and evil. It will follow, therefore, that however he will not assume the name of Christ, and so will not, in the letter, be a ψευδόχριστος, yet, usurping to himself Christ’s offices, presenting himself to the world as the true centre of its hopes, as the satisfier of all its needs and healer of all its hurts, he, ‘the Red Christ,’ as his servants already call him, will in fact take up and absorb into himself all names and forms of blasphemy, will be the great ψευδόχριστος and ἀντίχριστος in one.

§ xxxi. μολύνω, μιαίνω

WE have translated both these words, as often as they occur in the N. T. (μολύνω, at 1 Cor. 8:7; Rev. 3:4; 14:4; μιαίνω, at John 18:28; Tit. 1:15; Heb. 12:15; Jude 8), by a single word ‘defile,’ which doubtless covers them both. At the same time they differ in the images on which they severally repose;—μολύνειν being properly ‘to besmear,’ or ‘besmirch,’ as with mud or filth, ‘to defoul;’ which, indeed, is only another form of ‘defile;’ thus Aristotle (Hist. An. vi. 17. 1) speaks of swine, τῷ πηλῷ μολύνοντες ἑαυτούς, that is, as the context shows, crusting themselves over with mud (cf. Plato, Rep. vii. 535 e; Cant. 5:3; Ecclus. 13:1): while μιαίνειν, in its primary usage, is not ‘to smear’ as with matter, but ‘to stain’ as with colour. The first corresponds to the Latin ‘inquinare’ (Horace, Sat. i. 8. 37), ‘spurcare’ (itself probably connected with ‘porcus’), the German ‘besudeln;’ the second to the Latin ‘maculare,’ and the German ‘beflecken.’

It will follow, that while in a secondary and ethical sense both words have an equally dishonorable signification, the μολυσμὸς σαρκός (2 Cor. 7:1) being no other than the μιάσματα τοῦ κόσμου (2 Pet. 2:20), both being also used of the defiling of women (cf. Gen. 34:5; Zech. 14:2),—this will only hold good so long as they are figuratively and ethically taken. So taken indeed, μιαίνειν is in classical Greek the standing word to express the profaning or unhallowing of aught (Plato, Legg. ix. 868 a; Tim. 69 d; Sophocles, Antig. 1031; cf. Lev. 5:3; John 18:28). In a literal sense, on the contrary, μιαίνειν may be used in good part, just as, in English, we speak of the staining of glass, the staining of ivory (Il. iv. 141; cf. Virgil, Æn. xii. 67); or as, in Latin, the ‘macula’ need not of necessity be also a ‘labes;’ nor yet in English the ‘spot’ be always a ‘blot.’ Μολύνειν, on the other hand, as little admits of such nobler employment in a literal as in a figurative sense.—The verb σπιλοῦν, a late word, and found only twice in the N. T. (Jam. 3:6; Jude 23), is in meaning nearer to μιαίνειν. On it see Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 28.

§ xxxii. παιδεία, νουθεσία

IT is worth while to attempt a discrimination between these words, occurring as they do together at Ephes. 6:4, and being often there either not distinguished at all, or distinguished erroneously.

Παιδεία is one among the many words, into which revealed religion has put a deeper meaning than it knew of, till this took possession of it; the new wine by a wondrous process making new even the old vessel into which it was poured. For the Greek, παιδεία was simply ‘education;’ nor, in all the many definitions of it which Plato gives, is there the slightest prophetic anticipation of the new force which it one day should obtain. But the deeper apprehension of those who had learned that “foolishness is bound in the heart” alike “of a child” and of a man, while yet “the rod of correction may drive it far from him” (Prov. 22:15), led them, in assuming the word, to bring into it a further thought. They felt and understood that all effectual instruction for the sinful children of men, includes and implies chastening, or, as we are accustomed to say, out of a sense of the same truth, ‘correction.’ There must be ἐπανόρθωσις, or ‘rectification’ in it; which last word, occurring but once in the N. T., is there found in closest connexion with παιδεία (2 Tim. 3:16).

Two definitions of παιδεία—the one by a great heathen philosopher, the other by a great Christian theologian,—may be profitably compared. This is Plato’s (Legg. ii. 659 d: παιδεία μὲν ἐσθʼ ἡ παίδων ὁλκή τε καὶ ἀγωγὴ πρὸς τὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου λόγον ὀρθὸν εἰρημένον. And this is that of Basil the Great (In Prov. 1): ἔστιν ἡ παιδεία ἀγωγή τις ὠφέλιμος τῇ ψυχῇ, ἐπιπόνως πολλάκις τῶν ἀπὸ κακίας κηλίδων αὐτὴν ἐκκαθαίρουσα. For as many as felt and acknowledged all which St. Basil here asserts, παιδεία signified, not simply ‘eruditio,’ but, as Augustine expresses it, who has noticed the changed use of the word (Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 66), ‘per molestias eruditio.’ And this is quite the predominant use of παιδεία and παιδεύειν in the Septuagint, in the Apocrypha, and in the N. T. (Lev. 26:18; Ps. 6:1; Isai. 53:5; Ecclus. 4:17; 22:6, μάστιγες καὶ παιδεία 2 Macc. 6:12; Luke 23:16; Heb. 12:5, 7, 8; Rev. 3:19, and often). The only occasion in the N.T. upon which παιδεύειν occurs in the old Greek sense is Acts 7:22. Instead of ‘nurture’ at Ephes. 6:4, which is too weak a word, ‘discipline’ might be substituted with advantage—the laws and ordinances of the Christian household, the transgression of which will induce correction, being indicated by παιδεία there.

Νουθεσία (in Attic Greek νουθετία or νουθέτησις, Lobeck, Phrynichus, pp. 513, 520) is more successfully rendered, ‘admonition;’ which, however, as we must not forget, has been defined by Cicero thus: ‘Admonitio est quasi lenior objurgatio.’ And such is νουθεσία here; it is the training by word—by the word of encouragement, when this is sufficient, but also by that of remonstrance, of reproof, of blame, where these may be required; as set over against the training by act and by discipline, which is παιδεία. Pengel, who so seldom misses, has yet missed the exact distinction here, having on ἐν παιδείᾳ καὶ νουθεσίᾳ this note: ‘Harum altera occurrit ruditati; altera oblivioni et levitati. Utraque et sermonem et reliquam disciplinam includit.’ That the distinctive feature of νουεσία is the training by word of mouth is evidenced by such combinations as these: παραινέσεις καὶ νουθεσίαι (Plutarch, De Coh. Irâ, 2); νουθετικοὶ λόγοι (Xenophon, Mem. i. 2. 21); διδαχὴ καὶ νουθέτησις (Plato, Rep. iii. 399 b); νουθετεῖν καὶ διδάσκειν (Protag. 323 d).

Relatively, then, and by comparison with παιδεία, νουθεσία is the milder term; while yet its association with παιδεία teaches us that this too is a most needful element of Christian education; that the παιδεία without it would be very incomplete; even as, when years advance, and there is no longer a child, but a young man, to deal with, it must give place to, or rather be swallowed up in, the νουθεσία altogether. And yet the νουθεσία itself, where need is, will be earnest and severe enough; it is much more than a feeble Eli-remonstrance: “Nay, my sons, for it is no good report that I hear” (1 Sam. 2:24); indeed, of Eli it is expressly recorded, in respect of those sons, οὐκ ἐνουθέτει αὐτούς) (3:13). Plutarch unites it with μέμψις (Conj. Prœc. 13); with ψόγος (De Virt. Mor. 12; De Adul. et Am. 17); Philo with σωφρονισμός (Lösner, Obss. ad N.T. e Philone, p. 427); while νουθετεῖν had continually, if not always, the sense of admonishing with blame (Plutarch, De Prof. in Virt. 11; Conj. Prœc. 22). Jerome, then, has only partial right, when he desires to get rid, at Ephes. 6:4, and again at Tit. 3:10, of ‘correptio’ (still retained by the Vulgate), on the ground that in νουθεσία no rebuke or austerity is implied, as in ‘correptio’ there certainly is: ‘Quam correptionem nos legimus, melius in Græco dicitur νουθσία, quæ admonitionem magis et eruditionem quam austeritatem sonat.’ Undoubtedly, in νουθεσία such is not of necessity involved, and therefore ‘correptio’ is not its happiest rendering; but it does not exclude, nay implies this, whenever it may be required: the derivation, from νοῦς and τίθημι, affirms as much: whatever is needed to cause the monition to be taken home, to be laid to heart, is involved in the word.

In claiming for it, as discriminated from παιδεία, that it is predominantly what our Translators understand it, namely, admonition by word, none would deny that both it and νουθετεῖν are employed to express correction by deed; only we affirm that the other—the appeal to the reasonable faculties—is the primary and prevailing use of both. It will follow that in such phrases as these, ῥάβδου νουθέτησις (Plato, Legg. iii. 700 c), πληγαῖς νουθετεῖν (Legg. ix. 879 d; cf. Rep. viii. 560 a), the words are employed in a secondary and improper, but therefore more emphatic, sense. The same emphasis lies in the statement that Gideon “took thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he taught the men of Succoth” (Judg. 8:16). No one on the strength of this language would assert that the verb ‘to teach’ had not for its primary meaning the oral communicating of knowledge. On the relations between νουθετεῖν and διδάσκειν see Lightfoot, on Col. 1:28.

§ xxxiii. ἄφεσις, πάρεσις

Ἄφεσις is the standing word by which forgiveness, or remission of sins, is expressed in the N. T. (see Vitringa, Obss. Sac. vol. i. pp. 909–933); though, remarkably enough, the LXX. knows nothing of this use of the word, Gen. 4:13 being the nearest approach to it. Derived from ἀφιέναι, the image which underlies it is that of a releasing, as of a prisoner (Isai. 61:1), or letting go, as of a debt (Deut. 15:3). Probably the year of jubilee, called constantly ἔτος, or ἐνιαυτὸς, τῆς ἀφέσεως, or simply ἄφεσις (Lev. 25:31, 40; 27:24), the year in which all debts were forgiven, suggested the higher application of the word, which is frequent in the N. T., though more frequent in St. Luke than in all the other books of the New Covenant put together. On a single occasion, however, the term πάρεσις τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων occurs (Rom. 3:25). Our Translators have noticed in the margin, but have not marked in their Version, the variation in the Apostle’s phrase, rendering πάρεσις here by ‘remission,’ as they have rendered ἄφεσις elsewhere; and many have since justified them in this; whilst others, as I cannot doubt, more rightly affirm that St. Paul of intention changed his word, wishing to say something which πάρεσις would express adequately and accurately, and which ἄφεσις would not; and that our Translators should have reproduced this change which he has made.

It is familiar to many, that Cocceius and those of his school found in this text one main support for a favourite doctrine of theirs, namely, that there was no remission of sins, in the fullest sense of these words, under the Old Covenant, no τελείωσις (Heb. 10:1–4), no entire abolition of sin even for the faithful themselves, but only a present prœtermission (πάρεσις), a temporary dissimulation, upon God’s part, in consideration of the sacrifice which was one day to be; the ἀνάμνησις τῶν ἁμαρτίων remaining the meanwhile. On this matter a violent controversy raged among the theologians of Holland at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the following century, which was carried on with an unaccountable acrimony; and for a brief history of which see Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. v. p. 209; Vitringa, Obss. Sac. vol. iv. p. 3; Venema, Diss. Sac. p. 72; while a full statement of what Cocceius did mean, and in his own words, may be found in his Commentary on the Romans, in loc. (Opp. vol. v. p. 62); and the same more at length defended and justified in his treatise, Utilitas Distinctionis duorum Vocabulorum Scripturœ, παρέσεως et ἀφέσεως (vol. ix. p. 121, sq.) Those who at that time opposed the Cocceian scheme denied that there was any distinction between ἄφεσις and πάρεσις; thus see Witsius, Œcon. Fœd. Dei, iv. 12. 36. But in this they erred; for while Cocceius and his followers were undoubtedly wrong, in saying that for the faithful, so long as the Old Covenant subsisted, there was only a πάρεσις, and no ἄφεσις, ἁμαρτημάτων, in applying to them what was asserted by the Apostle in respect of the world; they were right in maintaining that πάρεσις was not entirely equivalent to ἄφεσις. Beza, indeed, had already drawn attention to the distinction. Having in his Latin Version, as first published in 1556, taken no notice of it, he acknowledges at a later period his error, saying, ‘Hæc duo plurimum inter se differunt;’ and now rendering πάρεσις by ‘dissimulatio.’

In the first place, the words themselves suggest a difference of meaning. If ἄφεσις is remission, ‘Loslassung,’ πάρεσις, from παρίημι, will be naturally ‘prœtermission,’ ‘Vorbeilassung,’—the πάρεσις ἁμαρτημάτων, the prœtermission or passing by of sins for the present, leaving it open in the future either entirely to remit, or else adequately to punish them, as may seem good to Him who has the power and right to do the one or the other. Fritzsche is not always to my mind, but here he speaks out plainly and to the point (Ad Rom. vol. i. p. 199): ‘Conveniunt in hoc [ἄφεσις et πάρεσις] quod sive illa, sive hæc tibi obtigerit, nulla peccatorum tuorum ratio habetur; discrepant eo, quod, hâc datâ, facinorum tuorum pœnas nunquam pendes; illâ concessâ, non diutius nullas peccatorum tuorum pœnas lues, quam ei in iis connivere placuerit, cui in delicta tua animadvertendi jus sit.’ And the classical usage both of παριέναι and of πάρεσις bears out this distinction. Thus Xenophon (Hipp. 7. 10): ἁμαρτήματα οὐ χρὴ παριέναι ἀκόλαστα: while of Herod Josephus tells us, that being desirous to punish a certain offence, yet for other considerations he passed it by (Antt. xv. 3. 2): παρῆκε τὴν ἁμαρτίαν. When the Son of Sirach (Ecclus. 23:2) prays that God would not “pass by” his sins, he assuredly does not use οὐ μὴ παρῇ as = οὐ μὴ ἀφῇ, but only asks that he may not be without a wholesome chastisement following close on his transgressions. On the other side, and in proof that πάρεσις = ἄφεσις, the following passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Antt. Rom. vii. 37), is adduced: τὴν μὲν ὁλοσχερῆ πάρεσιν οὐχ εὕροντο, τὴν δὲ εἰς χρόνον ὅσον ἠξίουν ἀναβολὴν ἔλαβον. Not πάρεσις, however, here, but ὁλοσχερὴς πάρεσις, is equal to ἄφεσις, and no doubt the historian added that epithet, feeling that πάρεσις would have insufficiently expressed his meaning without it.

Having seen, then, that there is a strong primâ facie probability that St. Paul intends something different by the πάρεσις ἁμαρτημάτων, in the only place where he employs this phrase, from that which he intends in the many where he employs ἄφεσις, that passage itself, namely Rom. 3:25, may now be considered more closely. It appears in our Version: “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.” I would venture to render it thus: ‘Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation, through faith in his blood, for a manifestation of his righteousness because of the prœtermission [διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν, not διὰ τῆς παρέσεως], in the forbearance of God, of the sins done aforetime;’ and his exact meaning I take to be this—‘There needed a signal manifestation of the righteousness of God, on account of the long prætermission or passing over of sins, in his infinite forbearance, with no adequate expression of his wrath against them, during all those long years which preceded the coming of Christ; which manifestation of God’s righteousness found place, when He set forth no other and no less than his own Son to be the propitiatory sacrifice for sin’ (Heb. 9:15, 22). During long ages God’s extreme indignation against sin and sinners had not been pronounced; during all the time, that is, which preceded the Incarnation. Of course, this connivance of God, this his holding of his peace, was only partial; for St. Paul has himself just before declared that the wrath of God was revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men (Rom. 1:18); and has traced in a few fearful lines some ways in which this revelation of his wrath displayed itself (1:24–32). Yet for all this, it was the time during which He suffered the nations to walk in their own ways (Acts 14:16); they were “the times of ignorance” which “God winked at” (Acts 17:30), in other words, times of the ἀνοχὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ, this ἀνοχή being the correlative of πάρεσις, as χάρις is of ἄφεσις: so that the finding of ἀνοχή here is a strong confirmation of that view of the word which has been just maintained.

But this position in regard of sin could, in the very nature of things, be only transient and provisional. With a man, the prætermission of offences, or ‘præterition,’ as Hammond would render it (deducing the word, but wrongly, from πάρειμι, ‘prætereo’), will often be identical with the remission, the πάρεσις will be one with the ἄφεσις. Man forgets; he has not power to bring the long past into judgment, even if he would; or he has not righteous energy enough to will it. But with an absolutely righteous God, the πάρεσις can only be temporary, and must always find place with a looking on to a final settlement; forbearance is no acquittance; every sin must at last either be absolutely forgiven, or adequately avenged; for, as the Russian proverb tells us, ‘God has no bad debts.’ But in the meanwhile, so long as these are still uncollected, the πάρεσις itself might seem to call in question the absolute righteousness of Him who was thus content to pass by and to connive. God held his peace, and it was only too near to the evil thought of men to think wickedly that He was such a one as themselves, morally indifferent to good and to evil. That such with too many was the consequence of the ἀνοχὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ, the Psalmist himself declares (Ps. 50:21; cf. Job 22:13; Mal. 2:17; Ps. 73:11). But now (ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ) God, by the sacrifice of his Son, had rendered such a perverse misreading of his purpose in the past dissimulation of sin for ever impossible. Bengel: ‘Objectum prætermissionis [παρέσεως], peccata; tolerantiæ [ἀνοχῆς], peccatores, contra quos non est persecutus Deus jus suum. Et hæc et illa quamdiu fuit, non ita apparuit justitia Dei: non enim tam vehementer visus est irasci peccato, sed peccatorem sibi relinquere, ἀμελεῖν, negligere, Heb. 8:9. At in sanguine Christi et morte propitiatoriâ ostensa est Dei justitia, cum vindictâ adversus peccatum ipsum, ut esset ipse justus, et cum zelo pro peccatoris liberatione, ut esset ipse justificans.’ Compare Hammond (in loc.), who has seized with accuracy and precision the true distinction between the words; and Godet, Comm. sur l’Épitre aux Rom. iii. 25, 26, who deals admirably with the whole passage.

He, then, that is partaker of the ἄφεσις, has his sins forgiven, so that, unless he bring them back upon himself by new and further disobedience (Matt. 18:32, 34; 2 Pet. 1:9; 2:20), they shall not be imputed to him, or mentioned against him any more. The πάρεσις, differing from this, is a benefit, but a very subordinate one; it is the present passing by of sin, the suspension of its punishment, the not shutting up of all ways of mercy against the sinner, the giving to him of space and helps for repentance, as it is said at Wisd. 11:24: παρορᾷς ἁμαρτηματα ἀνθρώπων εἰς μετάνοιαν: cf. Rom. 2:3–6. If such repentance follow, then the πάρεσις will lose itself in the ἄφεσις, but if not, then the punishment, suspended, but not averted, in due time will arrive (Luke 13:9).

§ xxxiv. μωρολογία, αἰσχρολογία, εὐτραπελία

ALL these designate sins of the tongue, but with a difference.

Μωρολογία, employed by Aristotle (Hist. Anim. i. 11), but of rare use till the later Greek, is rendered well in the Vulgate, on the one occasion of its occurrence (Ephes. 5:4), by ‘stultiloquium,’ a word which Plautus may have coined (Mil. Glor. ii. 3. 25); although one which did not find more favour and currency in the after language of Rome, than did the ‘stultiloquy’ which Jeremy Taylor sought to introduce among ourselves. Not merely the πᾶν ῥῆμα ἀργόν of our Lord (Matt. 12:36), but in good part also the πᾶς λόγος σαπρός of his Apostle (Ephes. 4:29), will be included in it; discourse, as everything else in the Christian, needing to be seasoned with the salt of grace, and being in danger of growing first insipid, and then corrupt, without it. Those who stop short with the ἀργὰ ῥήματα, as though μωρολογία reached no further, fail to exhaust the fulness of its meaning. Thus Calvin too weakly: ‘Sermones inepti ac inanes, nulliusque frugis;’ and even Jeremy Taylor (On the Good and Evil Tongue, Serm. xxxii, pt. 2) fails to reproduce the full force of the word. ‘That,’ he says, ‘which is here meant by stultiloquy or foolish speaking is the “lubricum verbi,” as St. Ambrose calls it, the “slipping with the tongue” which prating people often suffer, whose discourses betray the vanity of their spirit, and discover “the hidden man of the heart.” ’ In heathen writings μωρολογία may very well pass as equivalent to ἀδολεσχία, ‘random talk,’ and μωρολογεῖν to ληρεῖν (Plutarch, De Garr. 4); but words obtain a new earnestness when assumed into the ethical terminology of Christ’s school. Nor, in seeking to enter fully into the meaning of this one, ought we to leave out of sight the greater emphasis which the words ‘fool,’ ‘foolish,’ ‘folly,’ obtain in Scripture, than elsewhere they have, or can have. There is the positive of folly as well as the negative to be taken account of, when we are weighing the force of μωρολογία: it is that ‘talk of fools,’ which is foolishness and sin together.

Αἰσχρολογία, which also is of solitary use in the N. T. (Col. 3:8), must not be confounded with αἰσχρότης (Ephes. 5:4). By it the Greek Fathers (see Suicer, Thes. s. v.), whom most expositors follow, have understood obscene discourse, ‘turpiloquium,’ ‘filthy communication’ (E. V.), such as ministers to wantonness, ὄχημα πορνείας, as Chrysostom explains it. Clement of Alexandria, in a chapter of his Pœdagogus, περὶ αἰσχρολογίας (ii. 6), recognizes no other meaning but this. Now, beyond a doubt, αἰσχρολογία has sometimes this sense predominantly, or even exclusively (Xenophon, De Rep. Lac. v. 6; Aristotle, Pol. vii. 15; Epictetus, Man. xxxiii. 16; see, too, Becker, Charikles, 1st ed. vol. ii. p. 264). But more often it indicates all foul-mouthed abusiveness of every kind, not excluding this, one of the most obvious kinds, readiest to hand, and most offensive, but including, as in the well-known phrase, αἰσχρολογία ἐφʼ ἱεροῖς, other kinds as well. Thus, too, Polybius (viii. 13. 8; xii. 13. 3; xxxi. 10. 4): αἰσχρολογία καὶ λοιδορία κατὰ τοῦ βασιλέως: while the author of a treatise which passes under Plutarch’s name (De Lib. Ed. 14), denouncing all αἰσχρολογία as unbecoming to youth ingenuously brought up, includes therein every license of the ungoverned tongue employing itself in the abuse of others, all the wicked condiments of saucy speech (ἡδύσματα πονηρὰ τῆς παῤῥησίας); nor can I doubt that St. Paul intends to forbid the same, the context and company in which the word is used by him going far to prove as much; seeing that all other sins against which he is here warning are outbreaks of a loveless spirit toward our neighbour.

Εὐτραπελία, a finely selected word of the world’s use, which, however, St. Paul uses not in the world’s sense, like its synonyms, occurs only once in the N. T. (Ephes. 5:4). Derived from εὖ and τρέπεσθαι (εὐτράπελοι, οἷον εὔτροποι, Aristotle, Eth. Nic. iv. 8. 4; cf. Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. v. p. 136), that which easily turns, and in this way adapts, itself to the shifting circumstances of the hour, to the moods and conditions of those with whom at the instant it may deal; it had very slightly and rarely, in classical use, that evil signification which, as used by St. Paul and the Greek Fathers, is the only one which it knows. That St. Paul could be himself εὐτράπελος in the better sense of the word, he has given illustrious proof (Acts 26:29). Thucydides, in that panegyric of the Athenians which he puts into the mouth of Pericles, employs εὐτραπέλως (2:41) as = εὐκινήτως, to characterize the ‘versatile ingenium’ of his countrymen; while Plato (Rep. viii. 563 a) joins εὐτραπελία with χαριεντισμός, as do also Plutarch (De Adul. et Am. 7) and Josephus (Antt. xii. 4. 3); Isocrates (Or. xv. 316) with φιλολογία; Philo (Leg. ad Cai. 45) with χάρις. For Aristotle, also, the εὐτράπελος or ἐπιδέξιος (Ethic. Nic. ii. 7; iv. 8; compare Brandis, Aristoteles, p. 1415) is one who keeps the happy mean between the βωμολόχος and the ἄγριος, ἀγροῖκος, or σκληρός. He is no mere γελωτοποιός or buffoon; but, in whatever pleasantry or banter he may allow himself, still χαρίεις or refined, always restraining himself within the limits of becoming mirth (ἐμμελῶς παίζων), never ceasing to be the gentleman. Thus P. Volumnius, the friend or acquaintance of Cicero and of Atticus, bore the name ‘Eutrapelus,’ on the score of his festive wit and talent of society: though certainly there is nothing particularly amiable in the story which Horace (Epp. i. 18. 31–36) tells about him.

With all this there were not wanting, even in classical usage, anticipations of that more unfavourable signification which St. Paul should stamp upon the word, though they appear most plainly in the adjective εὐτράπελος: thus, see Isocrates, Orat. vii. 49; and Pindar, Pyth. i. 92; iv. 104; where Jason, the model of a noble-hearted gentleman, affirms that during twenty years of fellowship in toil he has never spoken to his companions ἔπος εὐτράπελον, ‘verbum fucatum, fallax, simulatum:’ Dissen on this last passage traces well the downward progress of εὐτράπελος: ‘Primum est de facilitate in motu, tum ad mores transfertur, et indicat hominem temporibus inservientem, diciturque tum de sermone urbano, lepido, faceto, imprimis cum levitatis et assentationis, simulationis notatione.’ Εὐτραπελία, thus gradually sinking from a better meaning to a worse, has a history closely resembling that of ‘urbanitas’ (Quintilian, vi. 3. 17); which is its happiest Latin equivalent, and that by which Erasmus has rendered it, herein improving much on the ‘jocularitas’ of Jerome, still more on the ‘scurrilitas’ of the Vulgate, which last is wholly wide of the mark. That ‘urbanitas’ is the proper word, this quotation from Cicero attests (Pro Cœl. 3): ‘Contumelia, si petulantius jactatur, convicium; si facetius, urbanitas nominatur;’ which agrees with the striking phrase of Aristotle, that εὐτραπελία is ὕβρις πεπαιδευμένη: ‘chastened insolence’ is Sir Alexander Grant’s happy rendering (Rhet. ii. 12; cf. Plutarch, Cic. 50). Already in Cicero’s time (De Fin. ii. 31) ‘urbanitas’ was beginning to obtain that questionable significance which, in the usage of Tacitus (Hist. ii. 88) and Seneca (De Irâ, i. 28), it far more distinctly acquired. The history, in our own language, of ‘facetious’ and ‘facetiousness’ would supply a not uninstructive parallel.

But the fineness of the form in which evil might array itself could not make a Paul more tolerant of the evil itself; he did not count that sin, by losing all its coarseness, lost half, or any part of, its malignity. So far from this, in the finer banter of the world, its ‘persiflage,’ its ‘badinage,’ there is that which would attract many, who would be in no danger of lending their tongue to speak, or their ear to hear, foul-mouthed and filthy abuse; whom scurrile buffoonery would only revolt and repel. A far subtler sin is noted in this word than in those which went before, as Bengel puts it well: ‘Hæc subtilior quam turpitudo aut stultiloquium; nam ingenio nititur;’ χάρις ἄχαρις, as Chrysostom has happily called it; and Jerome: ‘De prudenti mente descendit, et consulto appetit quædam vel urbana verba, vel rustica, vel turpia, vel faceta.’ I should only object, in this last citation, to the ‘turpia,’ which belong rather to the other forms in which men offend with the tongue than to this. The εὐτράπελος always, as Chrysostom notes, ἀστεῖα λέγει: keeps ever in mind what Cicero has said (De Orat. ii. 58): ‘Hæc ridentur vel maxime, quæ notant et designant turpitudinem aliquam non turpiter.’ What he deals in are χάριτες, although, in the striking language of the Son of Sirach, χάριτες μωρῶν (Ecclus. 20:13). Polish, refinement, knowledge of the world, presence of mind, wit, must all be his;—these, it is true, enlisted in the service of sin, and not in that of the truth. The very profligate old man in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus (iii. 1. 42–52), who prides himself, and not without reason, on his wit, his elegance, and refinement (‘cavillator facetus,’ ‘conviva commodus’), is exactly the εὐτράπελος: and, keeping in mind that εὐτραπελία, being only once expressly and by name forbidden in Scripture, is forbidden to Ephesians, it is not a little notable to find him urging that all this was to be expected from him, being as he was an Ephesian by birth:

    ‘Post Ephesi sum natus; non enim in Apulis, non Animulæ!’

See on this word’s history, and on the changes through which it has passed, an interesting and instructive article by Matthew Arnold in the Cornhill Magazine, May, 1879.

While then by all these words are indicated sins of the tongue, it is yet with this difference,—that in μωρολογία the foolishness, in αἰσχρολογία the foulness, in εὐτραπελία the false refinement, of discourse not seasoned with the salt of grace, are severally noted and condemned.

§ xxxv. λατρεύω, λειτουργέω

IN both these words the notion of service lies, but of service under certain special limitations in the second, as compared with the first. Λατρεύειν, allied to λάτρις, ‘a hired servant,’ λάτρον, ‘hire,’ and perhaps to λεία, ληΐς (so Curtius), is, properly, ‘to serve for hire,’ and therefore not of compulsion, as does a slave, though the line of separation between λάτρις and δοῦλος is by no means always observed. Already in classical Greek both it and λατρεία are occasionally transferred from the service of men to the service of the higher powers; as by Plato, Apol. 23 c: ἡ τοῦ Φεοῦ λατρεία: cf. Phœdr. 244 e; and Euripides, Troad. 450, where Cassandra is ἡ Ἀπόλλωνος λάτρις: and a meaning, which in Scripture is the only one, is anticipated in part. In the Septuagint, λατρεύειν never expresses any other service but either that of the true God, or of the false gods of heathenism; for Deut. 28:48, a seeming exception, is not such in fact; and Augustine has perfect right when he says (De Civ. Dei, x. 1, 2): ‘Λατρεία secundum consuetudinem quâ locuti sunt qui nobis divina eloquia condiderunt, aut semper, aut tam frequenter ut pæne semper, es dicitur servitus quæ pertinet ad colendum Deum;’ and again (con. Faust. xx. 21): ‘Cultus qui græce latria dicitur, latine uno verbo dici non potest, cum sit quædam proprie divinitati debita servitus.’

Λειτουργεῖν boasts a somewhat nobler beginning; from λεῖτος (= δημόσιος), and ἔργον: and thus εἰς τὸ δημόσιον ἐργάζεσθαι, to serve the State in a public office or function. Like λατρεύειν, it was occasionally transferred to the highest ministry of all, the ministry to the gods (Diodorus Siculus, i. 21). When the Christian Church was forming its terminology, which it did partly by shaping new words, but partly by elevating old ones to higher than their previous uses, of the latter kind it more readily adopted those before employed in civil and political life, than such as had already played their part in religious matters; and this, even when it was seeking for the adequate expression of religious truth. The same motives were here at work which induced the Church more willingly to turn basilicas,—buildings, that is, which had been used in civil life,—than temples, into churches; namely, because they were less haunted with the clinging associations of heathenism. Of the fact itself we have a notable example in the words λειτουργός, λειτουργία, λειτουργεῖν, and in the prominent place in ecclesiastical language which they assumed. At the same time the way for their adoption into a higher use had been prepared by the Septuagint, in which λειτουργεῖν (= שֵׁרֵת) is the constant word for the performing of priestly or ministerial functions (Exod. 28:39; Ezek. 40:46); and by Philo (De Prof. 464). Neither in the Septuagint, however, nor yet by the Christian writers who followed, were the words of this group so entirely alienated from their primary uses as λατρεία and λατρεύειν had been; being still occasionally used for the ministry unto men (2 Sam. 13:18; 1 Kin. 10:5; 2 Kin. 4:43; Rom. 15:27; Phil. 2:25, 30).

From the distinction already existing between the words, before the Church had anything to do with them, namely, that λατρεύειν was ‘to serve,’ λειτουργεῖν, ‘to serve in an office and ministry,’ are to be explained the different uses to which they are severally turned in the N. T., as previously in the Septuagint. To serve God is the duty of all men; λατρεύειν, therefore, and λατρεία, are demanded of the whole people (Exod. 4:23; Deut. 10:12; Josh. 24:31; Matt. 4:10; Luke 1:74; Acts 7:7; Rom. 9:4; Heb. 12:28); but to serve Him in special offices and ministries can be the duty and privilege only of a few, who are set apart to the same; and thus in the O. T. the λειτουργεῖν and the λειτουργία are ascribed only to the priests and Levites who were separated to minister in holy things; they only are λειτουργοί (Num. 4:24; 1 Sam. 2:11; Nehem. 10:39; Ezek. 44:27); which language, mutatis mutandis, reappears in the New, where not merely is that old priesthood and ministry designated by this language (Luke 1:23; Heb. 9:21; 10:11), but that of apostles, prophets, and teachers in the Church (Acts 13:2; Rom. 15:16; Phil. 2:17), as well as that of the great High Priest of our profession, τῶν ἁγίων λειτουργός (Heb. 8:2). In later ecclesiastical use it has been sometimes attempted to push the special application of λειτουργία still further, and to limit its use to those prayers and offices which stand in more immediate relation to the Holy Eucharist; but there is no warrant in the best ages of the Church for any such limitation; thus see Suicer, Thes. s. v.; Bingham, Christian Antiqq. xiii. 1. 8; Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. i. p. 285; Augusti, Christ. Archäol. vol. ii. p. 537; Scudamore, Notitia Eucharistica, p. 11.

It may be urged against the distinction here drawn that λατρεύειν and λατρεία are sometimes applied to official ministries, as at Heb. 9:1, 6. This is, of course, true; just as where two circles have the same centre, the greater will necessarily include the less. The notion of service is such a centre here; in λειτουργεῖν this service finds a certain limitation, in that it is service in an office: it follows that every λειτουργία will of necessity be a λατρεία, but not the reverse, that every λατρεία will be a λειτουργία. No passage better brings out the distinction between these two words than Ecclus. 4:14: οἱ λατρεύοντες αὐτῇ [i. e. τῇ Σοφίᾳ] λειτουργήσουσιν Ἀγίῳ. “They that serve her, shall minister to the Holy One.”

§ xxxvi. πένης, πτωχός

IN both these words the sense of poverty, and of poverty in this world’s goods, is involved; and they continually occur together in the Septuagint, in the Psalms especially, with no rigid demarcation of their meanings (as at Ps. 39:18; 73:22; 81:4; cf. Ezek. 18:12; 22:29); very much as our “poor and needy;” and whatever distinction may exist in the Hebrew between אֶבְוֹן and עָנִי, the Alexandrian translators have either considered it not reproducible by the help of these words, or have not cared to reproduce it; for they have no fixed rule, translating the one and the other by πτωχός and πένης alike. Still there are passages which show that they were perfectly aware of a distinction between them, and would, where they thought good, maintain it; occasions upon which they employ πένης (as Deut. 24:16, 17; 2 Sam. 12:1, 3, 4), and where πτωχός would have been manifestly unfit.

Πένης occurs but once in the N. T., and on that one occasion in a quotation from the Old (2 Cor. 9:9), while πτωχός between thirty and forty times. Derived from πένομαι, and connected with πόνος, πονέομαι, and the Latin ‘penuria,’ it properly signifies one so poor that he earns his daily bread by his labour; Hesychius calls him well αὐτοδιάκονος, one who by his own hands ministers to his own necessities. The word does not indicate extreme want, or that which verges upon it, any more than the ‘pauper’ and ‘paupertas’ of the Latin; but only the ‘res angusta’ of one to whom πλούσιος would be an inappropriate epithet. What was the popular definition of a πένης we learn from Xenophon (Mem. iv. 2. 37): τοὺς μὲν οἶμαι μὴ ἱκανὰ ἔχοντας εἰς ἃ δεῖ τελεῖν, πένητας· τοὺς δὲ πλείω τῶν ἱκανῶν, πλουσίους. It was an epithet commonly applied to Socrates, and πενία he claims more than once for himself (Plato, Apol. 23 c; 31 c). What his πενία was we know (Xenophon, Œcon. 2. 3), namely, that all which he had, if sold, would not bring five Attic minæ. So, too, the Πενέσται in Thessaly (if, indeed, the derivation of the name from πένεσθαι is to stand), were a subject population, but not reduced to abject want; on the contrary, retaining partial rights as serfs or cultivators of the soil.

But while the πένης is ‘pauper,’ the πτωχός is ‘mendicus;’ he is the ‘beggar,’ and lives not by his own labour or industry, but on other men’s alms (Luke 16:20, 21); being one therefore whom Plato would not endure in his ideal State (Legg. xi. 936 c). If indeed we fall back on etymologies, προσαίτης (which ought to find place in the text at John 9:8), or ἐπαίτης, would be the more exactly equivalent to our ‘beggar;’ while πτωχός is generally taken for one who in the sense of his abjectness and needs crouches (ἀπὸ· τοῦ πτώσσειν) in the presence of his superiors; though it may be safest to add here the words of Pott (Etym. Forsch. vol. iii. p. 933), ‘falls dieser wirklich nach scheum unterwürfigem Wesen benannt worden, und nicht als petax.’ The derivation of the word, as though he were one who had fallen from a better estate (ἐκπεπτωκὼς ἐκ τῶν ὄντων: see Herodotus, iii. 14), is merely fanciful: see Didymus, in Ps. 12:5, in Mai’s Nov. Pat. Bibl. vol. vii. part ii. p. 165.

The words then are clearly distinct. A far deeper depth of destitution is implied in πτωχεία than in πενία, to keep which in mind will add vividness to the contrasts drawn by St. Paul, 2 Cor. 6:10; 8:9. The πένης may be so poor that he earns his bread by daily labour; but the πτωχός is so poor that he only obtains his living by begging. There is an evident climax intended by Plato, when he speaks of tyrannies (Rep. x. 618 a), εἰς πενίας τε καὶ φυγὰς καὶ εἰς πτωχείας τελευτώσας. The πένης has nothing superfluous, the πτωχός nothing at all (see Döderlein, Lat. Synon. vol. iii. p. 117). Tertullian long ago noted the distinction (Adv. Marc. iv. 14), for, dealing with our Lord’s words, μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί (Luke 6:20), he changes the ‘Beati pauperes,’ which still retains its place in the Vulgate, into ‘Beati mendici,’ and justifies the change, ‘Sic enim exigit interpretatio vocabuli quod in Græco est;’ and in another place (De Idol. 12) he renders it by ‘egeni.’ The two, πενία (= ‘paupertas,’ cf. Martial, ii. 32: ‘Non est paupertas, Nestor, habere nihil’) and πτωχεία (= ‘egestas’), may be sisters, as one in Aristophanes will have them (Plut. 549); but if such, yet the latter far barer of the world’s good than the former; and indeed Πενία in that passage seems inclined wholly to disallow any such near relationship at all. The words of Aristophanes, in which he discriminates between them, have been often quoted:

    πτωχοῦ μὲν γὰρ βίος, ὃν σὺ λέγεις, ζῆν ἐστιν μηδὲν ἔχοντα·
    τοῦ δὲ πένητος, ζῆν φειδόμενον, καὶ τοῖς ἔργοις προσέχοντα,
    περιγίγνεσθαι δʼ αὐτῷ μηδὲν, μὴ μέντοι μηδʼ ἐπιλείπειν.

§ xxxvii. θυμός, ὀργή, παροργισμός

Θυμός and ὀργή are found several times together in the N. T. (as at Rom. 2:8; Ephes. 4:31; Col. 3:8; Rev. 19:15); often also in the Septuagint (Ps. 77:49; Dan. 3:13; Mic. 5:15), and often also in other Greek (Plato, Philebus, 47 e; Polybius, vi. 56. 11; Josephus, Antt. xx. 5. 3; Plutarch, De Coh. Irâ, 2; Lucian, De Cal. 23); nor are they found only in the connexion of juxtaposition, but one made dependent on the other; thus θυμὸς τῆς ὀργῆς (Rev. 16:19; cf. Job 3:17; Josh. 7:26); while ὀργὴ θυμοῦ, not occurring in the N. T., is frequent in the Old (2 Chron. 29:10; Lam. 1:12; Isai. 30:27; Hos. 11:9). On one occasion in the Septuagint all the words of this group occur together (Jer. 21:5).

When these words, after a considerable anterior history, came to settle down on the passion of anger, as the strongest of all passions, impulses, and desires (see Donaldson, New Cratylus, 3rd ed. pp. 675–679; and Thompson, Phœdrus of Plato, p. 165), the distinguishing of them occupied not a little the grammarians and philologers. These felt, and rightly, that the existence of a multitude of passages in which the two were indifferently used (as Plato, Legg. ix. 867), made nothing against the fact of such a distinction; for, in seeking to discriminate between them, they assumed nothing more than that these could not be indifferently used on every occasion. The general result at which they arrived is this, that in θυμός connected with the intransitive θύω, and derived, according to Plato (Crat. 419 e), ἀπὸ τῆς θύσεως καὶ ζέσεως τῆς ψυχῆς, ‘quasi exhalatio vehementior’ (Tittmann), compare the Latin ‘fumus,’ is more of the turbulent commotion, the boiling agitation of the feelings, μέθη τῆς ψμχῆς, St. Basil calls it, either presently to subside and disappear,—like the Latin ‘excandescentia,’ which Cicero defines (Tusc. iv. 9), ‘ira nascens et modo desistens’—or else to settle down into ὀργή, wherein is more of an abiding and settled habit of mind (‘ira inveterata’) with the purpose of revenge; ‘cupiditas doloris reponendi’ (Seneca, De Irâ, i. 5); ὁρμὴ ψυχῆς ἐν μελέτῃ κακώσεως κατὰ τοῦ παροξύναντος (Basil, Reg. Brev. Tract. 68); the German ‘Zorn,’ ‘der activ sich gegen Jemand oder etwas richtende Unwille, die Opposition des unwillig erregten Gemüthes’ (Cremer). Thus Plato (Euthyph. 7) joins ἐχθρά, and Plutarch δυσμένεια (Pericles, 39), with ὀργή. Compare Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1851, p. 99, sqq.

This, the more passionate, and at the same time more temporary, character of θυμός (θυμοί, according to Jeremy Taylor, are ‘great but transient angers;’ cf. Luke 4:28; Dan. 3:19) may explain a distinction of Xenophon, namely that θυμός in a horse is what ὀργή is in a man (De Re Eques. ix. 2; cf. Wisd. 7:20, θυμοὶ θηρίων: Plutarch, Gryll. 4, in fine; and Pyrrh. 16, πνεύματος μεστὸς καὶ θυμοῦ, full of animosity and rage). Thus the Stoics, who dealt much in definitions and distinctions, defined θυμός as ὀργὴ ἀρχομένη (Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 1. 63. 114); and Ammonius: θυμὸς μέν ἐστι πρόσκαιρος· ὀργὴ δὲ πολυχρόνιος μνησικακία. Aristotle, too, in his wonderful comparison of old age and youth, thus characterizes the angers of old men (Rhet. ii. 11): καὶ οἱ θυμοὶ, ὀξεῖς μέν εἰσιν, ἀσθενεῖς δέ—like fire in straw, quickly blazing up, and as quickly extinguished (cf. Euripides, Androm. 728, 729). Origen (in Ps. ii. 5, Opp. vol. ii. p. 541) has a discussion on the words, and arrives at the same results: διαφέρει δὲ θυμὸς ὀργῆς, τῷ θυμὸν μὲν εἶναι ὀργὴν ἀναθυμιωμένην καὶ ἔτι ἐκκαιομένην· ὀργὴν δὲ ὄρεξιν ἀντιτιμωρήσεως: cf. in Ep. ad Rom. ii. 8, which only exists in the Latin: ‘ut si, verbi gratiâ, vulnus aliquod pessimum iram ponamus, hujus autem tumor et distentio indignatio vulneris appelletur:’ so too Jerome (in Ephes. 4:31): ‘Furor [θυμός] incipiens ira est, et fervescens in animo indignatio. Ira [ὀργή] autem est, quæ furore extincto desiderat ultionem, et eum quem nocuisse putat vult lædere.’ This agrees with the Stoic definition of ὀργή, that it is τιμωρίας ἐπιθυμία τοῦ δοκοῦντος ἠδικηκέναι οὐ προσηκόντως (Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 113). So Gregory Nazianzene (Carm. ii. 34. 43, 44):

    θυμὸς μέν ἐστιν ἀθρόος ζέσις φρένος,
    ὀργὴ δὲ θυμὸς ἐμμένων.

And so too Theodoret, in Ps. 68:25 (69:24, E. V.), where the words occur together. διὰ τοῦ θυμοῦ τὸ ταχὺ δεδήλωκε, διὰ δὲ τῆς ὀργῆς τὸ ἐπίμονον. Josephus in like manner (B. J. ii. 8. 6) describes the Essenes as ὀργῆς ταμίαι δίκαιοι, θυμοῦ καθεκτικοί. Dion Cassius in like manner notes as one of the characteristic traits of Tiberius, ὠργίζετο ἐν οἷς ἥκιστα ἐθυμοῦτο (Vita Tib.).

Μῆνις (Isai. 16:6; Ecclus. 28:4; ‘ira perdurans,’ Damm’s Lex. Hom.) and κότος, being successively ‘ira inveterata’ and ‘ira inveteratissima’ (John of Damascus, De Fid. Orthod. 11. 16), nowhere occur in the N. T.

Παροργισμός, a word not found in classical Greek, but several times in the Septuagint (as at 1 Kin. 15:30; 2 Kin. 19:3), is not = ὀργή, though we have translated it ‘wrath.’ This it cannot be; for the παροργισμός (Ephes. 4:26, where only in the N. T. the word occurs; but παροργίζειν, Rom. 10:19; Ephes. 6:4), is absolutely forbidden; the sun shall not go down upon it; whereas under certain conditions ὀργή is a righteous passion to entertain. The Scripture has nothing in common with the Stoics’ absolute condemnation of anger. It inculcates no ἀπάθεια, but only a μετριοπάθεια, a moderation, not an absolute suppression, of the passions, which were given to man as winds to fill the sails of his soul, as Plutarch excellently puts it (De Virt. Mor. 12). It takes no such loveless view of other men’s sins as his who said, σεαυτὸν μὴ τάρασσε· ἁμαρτάνει τις; ἑαυτῷ ἁμαρτάνει (Marcus Antoninus, iv. 46). But even as Aristotle, in agreement with all deeper ethical writers of antiquity (thus see Plato, Legg. v. 731 b: θυμοειδὴ μὲν χρὴ πάντα ἄνδρα εἶναι, κ. τ. λ.; Thompson’s Phœdrus of Plato, p. 166; and Cicero, Tusc. Quœst. iv. 19), had affirmed that, when guided by reason, anger is a right affection, so the Scripture permits, and not only permits, but on fit occasions demands, it. This all the profounder teachers of the Church have allowed; thus Gregory of Nyssa: ἀγαθὸν κτῆνός ἐστιν ὁ θυμὸς, ὅταν τοῦ λογισμοῦ ὑποζύγιον γένηται: and Augustine (De Civ. Dei, ix. 5): ‘In disciplinâ nostrâ non tam quæritur utrum pius animus irascatur, sed quare irascatur.’ There is a “wrath of God” (Matt. 3:7; Rom. 12:19, and often), who would not love good, unless He hated evil, the two being so inseparable, that either He must do both or neither; a wrath also of the merciful Son of Man (Mark 3:5); and a wrath which righteous men not merely may, but, as they are righteous, must feel; nor can there be a surer and sadder token of an utterly prostrate moral condition than the not being able to be angry with sin—and sinners. ‘Anger,’ says Fuller (Holy State, iii. 8), ‘is one of the sinews of the soul; he that wants it hath a maimed mind, and with Jacob sinew-shrunk in the hollow of his thigh, must needs halt. Nor is it good to converse with such as cannot be angry.’ ‘The affections,’ as another English divine has said, ‘are not, like poisonous plants, to be eradicated; but as wild, to be cultivated.’ St. Paul is not therefore, as so many understand him, condescending here to human infirmity, and saying, ‘Your anger shall not be imputed to you as a sin, if you put it away before nightfall’ (see Suicer, Thes. s. v. ὀργή); but rather, ‘Be ye angry, yet in this anger of yours suffer no sinful element to mingle; there is that which may cleave even to a righteous anger, the παροργισμός, the irritation, the exasperation, the embitterment (‘exacerbatio’), which must be dismissed at once; that so, being defecated of this impurer element which mingled with it, that only may remain which has a right to remain.’

§ xxxviii. ἔλαιον, μύρον (χρίω, ἀλείφω)

SOME have denied that the O. T. knows of any distinction between ‘oil’ and ‘ointment;’ and this on the very insufficient grounds that the Septuagint renders שֶׁמֶן sometimes by μύρον (Prov. 27:9; Cant. 1:3; Isai. 39:2; Am. 6:6); though more frequently, indeed times out of number, by ἔλαιον. But how often in a single word of one language are latent two of another; especially when that other abounds, as does Greek compared with Hebrew, in finer distinctions, in a more subtle notation of meanings; παροιμία and παραβολή furnish a well-known example of this, both lying in the Hebrew מָשָׁל; and this duplicity of meaning it is the part of a well-skilled translator to evoke. Nay the thing itself, the μύρον (= ‘unguentum’), so naturally grew out of the ἔλαιον (= ‘oleum’), having oil for its base, with only the addition of spice or scent or other aromatic ingredients,—Clement of Alexandria (Pœdag. ii. 8) calls it ‘adulterated oil’ (δεδολωμένον ἔλαιον),—that it would be long in any language before the necessity of differencing names would be felt. Thus in the Greek itself μύρον first appears in the writings of Archilochus (Athenæus, xv. 37). Doubtless there were ointments in Homer’s time; he is satisfied, however, with ‘sweet-smelling oil’ (εὐῶδες ἔλαιον, Od. ii. 339), ‘roseate oil’ (ῥοδόεν ἔλαιον, Il. xxiii. 186), wherewith to express them.

In later times there was a clear distinction between the two, and one which uttered itself in language. A passage in Xenophon (Conv. ii. 3, 4) turns altogether on the greater suitableness of ἔλαιον for men, of μύρον for women; these last consequently being better pleased that the men should savour of the manly ‘oil’ than of the effeminate ‘ointment’ (ἐλαίου δὲ τοῦ ἐν γυμνασίοις ὀσμὴ καὶ παροῦσα ἡδίων ἢ μύρου γυναιξί, καὶ ἀποῦσα ποθεινοτέρα). And on any other supposition our Lord’s rebuke to the discourteous Pharisee, “My head with oil thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment” (Luke 7:46), would lose all, or nearly all, its point. ‘Thou withheldeat from Me,’ He would say, ‘cheap and ordinary courtesies; while she bestowed upon Me costly and rare homages;’ where Grotius remarks well: ‘Est enim perpetua ἀντιστοιχία. Mulier illa lacrimas impendit pedibus Christi proluendis: Simon ne aquam quidem. Illa assidua est in pedibus Christi osculandis: Simon ne uno quidem oris osculo Christum accepit. Illa pretioso unguento non caput tantum sed et pedes perfundit: ille ne caput quidem mero oleo: quod perfunctoriæ amicitiæ fuerat.’
Some have drawn a distinction between the verbs ἀλείφειν and χρίειν, which, as they make it depend on this between μύρον and ἔλαιον, may deserve to be mentioned here. The ἀλείφειν, they say, is commonly the luxurious, or at any rate the superfluous, anointing with ointment, χρίειν the sanitary anointing with oil. Thus Casaubon (Anim. in Athenœum, xv. 39): ‘ἀλείφεσθαι, proprium voluptuariorum et mollium: χρίεσθαι etiam sobriis interdum, et ex virtute viventibus convenit:’ and Valcknaer: ‘ἀλείφεσθαι dicebantur potissimum homines voluptatibus dedidi, qui pretiosis unguentis caput et manus illinebant; χρίεσθαι de hominibus ponebatur oleo corpus, sanitatis caussâ, inunguentibus.’ No traces of such a distinction appear in the N. T.; thus compare Mark 6:13; Jam. 5:14, with Mark 16:1; John 11:2; nor yet of that of Salmasius (Exerc. p. 330): ‘Spissiora linunt, χρίουσι: liquida perfundunt, ἀλείφουσι.’

A distinction is maintained there, but different from both of these; namely, that ἀλείφειν is the mundane and profane, χρίειν the sacred and religious, word. Ἀλείφειν is used indiscriminately of all actual anointings, whether with oil or ointment; while χρίειν, no doubt in its connexion with χριστός, is absolutely restricted to the anointing of the Son, by the Father, with the Holy Ghost, for the accomplishment of his great office, being wholly separated from all profane and common uses: thus see Luke 4:18; Acts 4:27; 10:38; 2 Cor. 1:21; Heb. 1:9; the only places where it occurs. The same holds good in the Septuagint, where χρίσις, χρίσμα (cf. 1 John 2:20, 27), and χρίειν, are the constant and ever-recurring words for all religious and symbolical anointings; ἀλείφειν hardly occurring in this sense, not oftener, I believe, than twice in all (Exod. 40:13; Num. 3:3).

§ xxxix. Ἑβραῖος, Ἰουδαῖος, Ἰσραηλίτης

ALL these names are used to designate members of the elect family and chosen race; but they are very capable, as they are very well worthy, of being discriminated.

Ἑβραῖος claims to be first considered. It brings us back to a period earlier than any when one, and very much earlier than any when the other, of the titles we compare with it, were, or could have been, in existence (Josephus, Antt. i. 6. 4). It is best derived from עֵבֶר, the same word as ὑπέρ, ‘super;’—this title containing allusion to the passing over of Abraham from the other side of Euphrates; who was, therefore, in the language of the Phœnician tribes among whom he came, ‘Abram the Hebrew,’ or ὁ περάτης, as it is well given in the Septuagint (Gen. 14:13), being from beyond (πέραν) the river: thus rightly Origen (in Matt. tom. xi. 5): Ἑβραῖοι, οἵτινες ἐρμηνεύονται περατικοί. The name, as thus explained, is not one by which the chosen people know themselves, but by which others know them; not one which they have taken, but which others have imposed on them; and we find the use of Ἑβραῖος through all the O. T. entirely consistent with this explanation of its origin. In every case it is either a title by which foreigners designate the chosen race (Gen. 39:14, 17; 41:12; Exod. 1:16, 19; 1 Sam. 4:6; 13:19; 29:3; Judith 12:11); or by which they designate themselves to foreigners (Gen. 40:15; Exod. 2:7; 3:18; 5:3; 9:1; Jon. 1:9); or by which they speak of themselves in tacit opposition to other nations (Gen. 43:32; Deut. 15:12; 1 Sam. 13:3; Jer. 34:9, 14); never, that is, without such national antagonism, either latent or expressed.

When, however, the name Ἰουδαῖος arose, as it did in the later periods of Jewish history (the precise epoch will be presently considered), Ἑβραῖος modified its meaning. Nothing is more frequent with words than to retire into narrower limits, occupying a part only of some domain whereof once they occupied the whole; when, through the coming up of some new term, they are no longer needed in all their former extent; and when at the same time, through the unfolding of some new relation, they may profitably lend themselves to the expressing of this new. It was exactly thus with Ἑβραῖος. In the N. T., that point of view external to the nation, which it once always implied, exists no longer; neither is every member of the chosen family an Ἑβραῖος now, but only those who, whether dwelling in Palestine or elsewhere, have retained the sacred Hebrew tongue as their native language; the true complement and antithesis to Ἑβραῖος being Ἑλληνιστής, a word first appearing in the N. T. (see Salmasius, De Hellenisticâ, 1643, p. 12), and there employed to designate a Jew of the Dispersion who has unlearned his proper language, and now speaks Greek, and reads or hears read in the synagogue the Scriptures in the Septuagint Version.

This distinction first appears in Acts 6:1, and is probably intended in the two other passages, where Ἑβραῖος occurs (2 Cor. 11:22; Phil. 3:5); as well as in the superscription, on whosesoever authority it rests, of the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is important to keep in mind that in language, not in place of habitation, lay the point of difference between the ‘Hebrew’ and the ‘Hellenist.’ He was a ‘Hebrew,’ wherever domiciled, who retained the use of the language of his fathers. Thus St. Paul, though settled in Tarsus, a Greek city in Asia Minor, describes himself as a ‘Hebrew,’ and of ‘Hebrew’ parents, “a Hebrew of Hebrews” (Phil. 3:5; of. Acts 23:6); though it is certainly possible that by all this he may mean no more than in a general way to set an emphasis on his Judaism. Doubtless, the greater number of ‘Hebrews’ were resident in Palestine; yet not this fact, but the language they spoke, constituted them such.

It will be well however to keep in mind that this distinction and opposition of Ἑβραῖος to Ἑλληνιστής, as a distinction within the nation, and not between it and other nations (which is clear at Acts 6:1, and probably is intended at Phil. 3:5; 2 Cor. 11:22), is exclusively a Scriptural one, being hardly recognized by later Christian writers, not at all by Jewish and heathen. Thus Eusebius can speak of Philo, an Alexandrian Jew, who only once in his life visited Jerusalem, for so much I think we may gather from his own words (vol. ii. p. 646, Mangey’s Ed.), and who wrote exclusively in Greek (Hist. Eccl. ii. 4): τὸ μὲν οὖν γένος ἀνέκαθεν Ἑβραῖος ἦν: of. iv. 16; Prœp. Evang. vii. 13. 21; while Clement of Alexandria, as quoted by Eusebius (H. E. vi. 14), makes continually the antithesis to Ἑβραῖοι, not Ἐλληνισταί, but Ἕλληνες and ἔθνη. Theodoret (Opp. vol. ii. p. 1246) styles the Greek-writing historian, Josephus, συγγραφεὺς Ἑβραῖος: cf. Origen, Ep. ad Afric. 5. Neither in Josephus himself, nor yet in Philo, do any traces of the N. T. distinction between Ἑβραῖος and Ἑλληνιστής exist; in heathen writers as little (Plutarch, Symp. iv. 6; Pausanias, v. 7. 3; x. 12. 5) Only this much of it is recognized, that Ἑβραῖος, though otherwise a much rarer word than Ἰουδαῖος, is always employed when it is intended to designate the people on the side of their language. This rule Jewish, heathen, and Christian writers alike observe, and we speak to the present day of the Jewish nation, but of the Hebrew tongue.

This name Ἰουδαῖος is of much later origin. It does not carry us back to the very birth and cradle of the chosen people, to the day when the Father of the faithful passed over the river, and entered on the land of inheritance; but keeps rather a lasting record of the period of national disruption and decline. It arose, and could only have arisen, with the separation of the tribes into the two rival kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Then, inasmuch as the ten trbes, though with worst right (see Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, vol. iii. part i. p. 138), assumed Israel as a title to themselves, the two drew their designation from the more important of them, and of Judah came the name יִהוּדִים, or Ἰουδαῖοι. Josephus, so far as I have observed, never employs it in telling the earlier history of his people; but for the first time in reference to Daniel and his young companions (Antt. x. 10. 1). Here, however, by anticipation; that is if his own account of the upcoming of the name is correct; namely, that it first arose after the return from Babylon, and out of the fact that the earliest colony of those who returned was of that tribe (Antt. xi. 5. 7): ἐκλήθησαν δὲ τὸ ὄνομα ἐξ ἧς ἡμέρας ἀνέβησαν ἐκ Βαβυλῶνος, ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰούδα φυλῆς ἧς πρώτης ἐλθούσης εἰς ἐκείνους τοὺς τόπους, αὐτοί τε καὶ ἡ χώρα τῆς προσηγορίας αὐτῆς μετέλαβον. But in this Josephus is clearly in error. We meet Ἰουδαῖοι, or rather its Hebrew equivalent, in books of the sacred canon composed anterior to, or during, the Captivity, as a designation of those who pertained to the smaller section of the tribes, to the kingdom of Judah (2 Kin. 16:6; Jer. 32:13; 34:9; 38:19); and not first in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther; however in these, and especially in Esther, it may be of far more frequent occurrence.

It is easy to see how the name extended to the whole nation. When the ten tribes were carried into Assyria, and were absorbed and lost among the nations, that smaller section of the people which remained henceforth represented the whole; and thus it was only natural that Ἰουδαῖος should express, as it now came to do, not one of the kingdom of Judah as distinguished from that of Israel, but any member of the nation, a ‘Jew’ in this wider sense, as opposed to a Gentile. In fact, the word underwent a process exactly the converse of that which Ἑβραῖος had undergone. For Ἑβραῖος, belonging first to the whole nation, came afterwards to belong to a part only; while Ἰουδαῖος, designating at first only the member of a part, ended by designating the whole. It now, in its later, like Ἑβραῖος in its earlier, stage of meaning, was a title by which the descendant of Abraham called himself, when he would bring out the national distinction between himself and other peoples (Rom. 2:9, 10); thus ‘Jew and Gentile;’ never ‘Israelite and Gentile:’ or which others used about him, when they had in view this same fact; thus the Eastern Wise Men inquire, “Where is He that is born King of the Jews” (Matt. 2:2)? testifying by the form of this question that they were themselves Gentiles, for they would certainly have asked for the King of Israel, had they meant to claim any nearer share in Him. So, too, the Roman soldiers and the Roman governor give to Jesus the mocking title, “King of the Jews” (Matt. 27:29, 37), while his own countrymen, the high priests, challenge Him to prove by coming down from the cross that He is “King of Israel” (Matt. 27:42).

For indeed the absolute name, that which expressed the whole dignity and glory of a member of the theocratic nation, of the people in peculiar covenant with God, was Ἰσραηλίτης. It rarely occurs in the Septuagint, but is often used by Josephus in his earlier history, as convertible with Ἑβραῖος (Antt. i. 9. 1, 2); in the middle period of his history to designate a member of the ten tribes (viii. 8. 3; ix. 14. 1); and toward the end as equivalent Ἰουδαῖος (xi. 5. 4). It is only in its relations of likeness and difference to this last that we have to consider it here. This name was for the Jew his especial badge and title of honour. To be descendants of Abraham, this honour they must share with the Ishmaelites (Gen. 16:15); of Abraham and Isaac with the Edomites (Gen. 24:25); but none except themselves were the seed of Jacob, such as in this name of Israelite they were declared to be. Nor was this all, but more gloriously still, their descent was herein traced up to him, not as he was Jacob, but as he was Israel, who as a Prince had power with God and with men, and prevailed (Gen. 32:28). That this title was accounted the noblest, we have ample proof. Thus, as we have seen, when the ten tribes threw off their allegiance to the house of David, they claimed in their pride and pretension the name of “the kingdom of Israel” for the new kingdom which they set up—the kingdom, as the name was intended to imply, in which the line of the promises, the true succession of the early patriarchs, ran. So, too, there is no nobler title with which the Lord can adorn Nathanael than that of “an Israelite indeed” (John 1:47), one in whom all which that name involved might indeed be found. And when St. Peter, and again when St. Paul, would obtain a hearing from the men of their own nation, when therefore they address them with the name most welcome to their ears, ἄνδρες Ἰσραηλῖται (Acts 2:22; 3:12; 8:16; cf. Rom. 9:4; Phil. 3:5; 2 Cor. 11:22) is still the language with which they seek to secure their good-will.

When, then, we restrict ourselves to the employment in the N. T. of these three words, and to the distinctions proper to them there, we may say that Εβραῖος is a Hebrew-speaking, as contrasted with a Greek-speaking, or Hellenizing, Jew (which last in our Version we have well called a ‘Grecian,’ as differenced from Ἕλλην, a veritable ‘Greek’ or other Gentile); Ἰουδαῖος is a Jew in his national distinction from a Gentile; while Ἰσραηλίτης, the augustest title of all, is a Jew as he is a member of the theocracy, and thus an heir of the promises. In the first is predominantly noted his language; in the second his nationality (Ἰουδαϊσμός, Josephus, De Macc. 4; Gal. 1:13; Ἰουδαΐζειν, Gal. 2:14); in the third his theocratic privileges and glorious vocation.

§ xl. αἰτέω, ἐρωτάω

THESE words are often rendered by our Translators as though they covered the same spaces of meaning, the one as the other; nor can we object to their rendering, in numerous instances, αἰτεῖν and ἐρωτᾶν alike by our English ‘to ask.’ Yet sometimes they have a little marred the perspicuity of their translation by not varying their word, where the original has shown them the way. For example, the obliteration at John 16:23 of the distinction between αἰτεῖν and ἐρωτᾶν might easily suggest a wrong interpretation of the verse,—as though its two clauses were in near connexion, and direct antithesis,—being indeed in none. In our Version we read: “In that day ye shall ask Me nothing [ἐμὲ οὐκ ἐρωτήσετε οὐδέν]. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask [ὅσα ἂν αἰτήσητε] the Father in my name, He will give it you.” Now every one competent to judge is agreed, that “ye shall ask” of the first half of the verse has nothing to do with “ye shall ask” of the second; that in the first Christ is referring back to the ἤθελον αὐτὸν ἐρωτᾶν of ver. 19; to the questions which the disciples would fain have asked of Him, the perplexities which they would gladly have had resolved by Him, if only they dared to set these before Him. ‘In that day,’ He would say, ‘in the day of my seeing you again, I will by the Spirit so teach you all things, that ye shall be no longer perplexed, no longer wishing to ask Me questions (cf. John 21:12), if only you might venture to do so.’ Thus Lampe well: ‘Nova est promissio de plenissimâ cognitionis luce, quâ convenienter œconomiæ Novi Testamenti collustrandi essent. Nam sicut quæstio supponit inscitiam, ita qui nihil amplius quærit abunde se edoctum existimat, et in doctrinâ plene expositâ ac intellectâ acquiescit.’ There is not in this verse a contrast drawn between asking the Son, which shall cease, and asking the Father, which shall begin; but the first half of the verse closes the declaration of one blessing, namely, that hereafter they shall be so taught by the Spirit as to have nothing further to inquire; the second half of the verse begins the declaration of a new blessing, that, whatever they shall seek from the Father in the Son’s name, He will give it them. Yet none will say that this is the impression which the English text conveys to his mind.
The distinction between the words is this. Αἰτέω, the Latin ‘peto,’ is more submissive and suppliant, indeed the constant word for the seeking of the inferior from the superior (Acts 12:20); of the beggar from him that should give alms (Acts 3:2); of the child from the parent (Matt. 7:9; Luke 6:11; Lam. 4:4); of the subject from the ruler (Ezra 8:22); of man from God (1 Kin. 3:11; Matt. 7:7; Jam. 1:5; 1 John 3:22; cf. Plato, Euthyph. 14: εὔχεσθαι [ἔστιν] αἰτεῖν τοὺς θεοὺς). Ἐρωτάω, on the other hand, is the Latin ‘rogo;’ or sometimes (as John 16:23; cf. Gen. 44:19) ‘interrogo,’ its only meaning in classical Greek, where it never signifies ‘to ask,’ but only ‘to interrogate,’ or ‘to inquire.’ Like ‘rogare,’ it implies that he who asks stands on a certain footing of equality with him from whom the boon is asked, as king with king (Luke 14:32), or, if not of equality, on such a footing of familiarity as lends authority to the request.
Thus it is very noteworthy, and witnesses for the singular accuracy in the employment of words, and in the record of that employment, which prevails throughout the N. T., that our Lord never uses αἰτεῖν or αἰτεῖσθαι of Himself, in respect of that which He seeks on behalf of his disciples from God; for his is not the petition of the creature to the Creator, but the request of the Son to the Father. The consciousness of his equal dignity, of his potent and prevailing intercession, speaks out in this, that often as He asks, or declares that He will ask, anything of the Father, it is always ἐρωτῶ, ἐρωτήσω, an asking, that is, as upon equal terms (John 14:16; 16:26; 17:9, 15, 20), never αἰτέω or αἰτήσω. Martha, on the contrary, plainly reveals her poor unworthy conception of his person, that she recognizes in Him no more than a prophet, when she ascribes that αἰτεῖσθαι to Him, which He never ascribes to Himself: ὅσα ἂν αἰτήσῃ τὸν Θεὸν, δώσει σοι ὁ Θεός, (John 11:22): on which verse Bengel observes: ‘Jesus, de se rogante loquens ἐδεήθην dicit (Luc. 22:32), et ἐρωτήσω, at nunquam αἰτοῦμαι. Non Græce locuta est Martha, sea tamen Johannes exprimit improprium ejus sermonem, quem. Dominus benigne tulit: nam αἰτεῖσθαι videtur verbum esse minus dignum:’ compare his note on 1 John 5:16.
It will follow that the ἐρωτᾶν, being thus proper for Christ, inasmuch as it has authority in it, is not proper for us; and in no single instance is it used in the N. T. to express the prayer of man to God, of the creature to the Creator. The only passage seeming to contradict this assertion is 1 John 5:16. The verse is difficult, but whichever of the various ways of overcoming its difficulty may find favour, it will be found to constitute no true exception to the rule, and perhaps, in the substitution of ἐρωτήσῃ for the αἰτήσει of the earlier clause of the verse, will rather confirm it.

§ xli. ἀνάπαυσις, ἄνεσις

OUR VERSION renders both these words by ‘rest’; ἀνάπαυσις at Matt. 11:29; 12:43; and ἄνεσις at 2 Cor. 2:13; 7:5; 2 Thess. 1:7. No one can object to this; while yet, on a closer scrutiny, we perceive that they repose on different images, and contemplate this ‘rest’ from different points of view. Ἀνάπαυσις, from ἀναπαύω, implies the pause or cessation from labour (Rev. 4:8); it is the constant word in the Septuagint for the rest of the Sabbath; thus Exod. 16:23; 31:15; 35:2, and often. Ἄνεσις, from ἀνίημι, implies the relaxing or letting down of chords or strings, which have before been strained or drawn tight, its exact and literal antithesis being ἐπίτασις (from ἐπιτείνω): thus Plato (Rep. i. 349 e): ἐν τῇ ἐπιτάσει καὶ ἀνέσει τῶν χορδῶν: and Plutarch (De Lib. Ed. 13): τὰ τόξα καὶ τὰς λύρας ἀνίεμεν, ἵνα ἐπιτεῖναι δυνηθῶμεν: and again (Lyc. 29): οὐκ ἄνεσις ἦν, ἀλλ῾ ἐπίτασις τῆς πολιτείας: cf. Philo, De Incorr. Mun. 13. Moses in the year of jubilee gave, according to Josephus (Antt. iii. 12. 3), ἄνεσιν τῇ γῇ ἀπό τε ἀρότρου καὶ φυτείας. But no passage illustrates ἄνεσις so well as one from the treatise just quoted which goes by Plutarch’s name (De Lib. Ed. 13): δοτέον οὖν τοῖς παισὶν ἀναπνοὴν τῶν συνεχῶν πόνων, ἐνθυμουμένους, ὅτι πᾶς ὁ βίος ἡμῶν εἰς ἄνεσιν καὶ σπουδὴν διῄρηται· καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὐ μόνον ἐγρήγορσις, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὕπνος εὑρέθη· οὐδὲ πόλεμος, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰρήνη· οὐδὲ χειμών, ἀλλὰ καὶ εὐδία· οὐδὲ ἐνεργοὶ πράξεις, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐορταὶ … καθόλου δὲ σώζεται, σῶμα μέν, ἐνδεία καὶ πληρώσει· ψυχὴ δὲ, ἀνὲσει καὶ πόνῳ. Plato has the same opposition between ἄνεσις and σπουδή (Legg. iv. 724 a); while Plutarch (Symp. v. 6) sets ἄνεσις over against στενοχωρία, as a dwelling at large, instead of in a narrow and straight room; and St. Paul over against θλίψις (2 Cor. 8:13), not being willing that there should be ‘ease’ (ἄνεσις) to other Churches, and ‘affliction’ (θλῖψις), that is from an excessive contribution, to the Corinthian. Used figuratively, it expresses what we, employing the same image, call the relaxation of morals (thus Athenæus, xiv. 13: ἀκολασία καὶ ἄνεσις, setting it over against σωφροσύνη; Philo, De Cherub. 27; De Ebriet. 6: ἄνεσις, ῥᾳθυμία, τρυφή: De Mere. Meret. 2).
It will at once be perceived how excellently chosen ἔχειν ἄνεσιν at Acts 24:23 is, to express what St. Luke has in hand to record. Felix, taking now a more favourable view of Paul’s case, commands the centurion who had him in charge, to relax the strictness of his imprisonment, to keep him rather under honorable arrest than in actual confinement; which partial relaxation of his bonds is exactly what this phrase implies; cf. Ecclus. 26:10; Josephus, Antt. xviii. 6. 10, where ἄνεσις is used in a perfectly similar case.
The distinction, then, is obvious. When our Lord promises ἀνάπαυσις to the weary and heavy laden who come to Him (Matt. 11:18, 29), his promise is, that they shall cease from their toils; shall no longer spend their labour for that which satisfieth not. When St. Paul expresses his confidence that the Thessalonians, troubled now, should yet find ἄνεσις in the day of Christ (2 Thess. 1:7), he anticipates for them, not so much cessation from labour, as relaxation of the chords of affliction, now so tightly drawn, strained and stretched to the uttermost. It is true that this promise and that at the heart are not two, but one; yet for all this they present the blessedness which Christ will impart to his own under different aspects, and by help of different images; and each word has its own fitness in the place where it is employed.

§ xlii. ταπεινοφροσύνη, πραότης

THE work for which Christ’s Gospel came into the world was no less than to put down the mighty from their seat, and to exalt the humble and meek. It was then only in accordance with this its mission that it should dethrone the heathen virtue μεγαλοψυχία, and set up the despised Christian grace ταπεινοφροσύνη in its room, stripping that of the honour it had unjustly assumed, delivering this from the dishonour which as unjustly had clung to it hitherto; and in this direction advancing so far that a Christian writer has called this last not merely a grace, but the casket or treasure house in which all other graces are contained (γαζοφυλάκιον ἀρετῶν, Basil, Const. Mon. 16). And indeed not the grace only, but the very word ταπεινοφροσύνη is itself a fruit of the Gospel; no Greek writer employed it before the Christian æra, nor, apart from the influence of Christian writers, after. In the Septuagint ταπεινόφρων occurs once (Prov. 29:23) and ταπεινοφρονεῖν as often (Ps. 130:2); both words being used in honour. Plutarch too has advanced as far as ταπεινόφρων (De Alex. Virt. ii. 4), but employs it in an ill sense; and the use by heathen writers of ταπεινός, ταπεινότης, and other words of this family, shows plainly how they would have employed ταπεινοφροσύνη, had they thought good to allow it. The instances are few and exceptional in which ταπεινός signifies anything for them which is not grovelling, slavish, and mean-spirited. It keeps company with ἀνελεύθερος (Plato, Legg. iv. 774 c); with ἀνδραποδώδης (Eth. Eudem. iii. 3); with ἀγεννής (Lucian, De Calum. 24); with κατηφής (Plutarch, Fab. Max. 18); with ἄδοξος (De Vit. Pud. 14); with δουλικός, δουλοπρεπής (Philo, Quod Omn. Prob. Lib. 4); with χαμαίζηλος (De Leg. Spec. 1), and the like: just as the German ‘Demuth,’ born as it was in the heathen period of the language, is properly and originally ‘servilis animus,’—‘deo’ (= servus) constituting the first syllable of it (Grimm, Wörterbuch, s. v.)—and only under the influences of Christianity attained to its present position of honour.

Still those exceptional cases are more numerous than some will allow. Thus Plato in a very memorable passage (Legg. iv. 716 a) links ταπεινός with κεκοσμημένος, as in Demosthenes we have λόγοι μέτριοι καὶ ταπεινοί: while Xenophon more than once sets the ταπεινός over against the ὑπερήφανος (Ages. ii. 11; cf. Æschyhs, Prom. Vinct. 328; Luke 1:51, 52): and see for its worthier use a noble passage in Plutarch, De Prof. in Virt. 10; and another, De Serâ Num. Vind. 3, where the purpose of the divine punishments is set forth as being that the soul may become σύννους καὶ ταπεινὴ, καὶ κατάφοβος πρὸς τὸν Θεόν. Combined with these prophetic intimations of the honour which should one day be rendered even to the very words expressive of humility, it is very interesting to note that Aristotle himself has a vindication, and it only needs to receive its due extension to be a complete one, of the Christian ταπεινοφροσύνη (Ethic. Nic. iv. 3. 3; cf. Brandis, Aristoteles, p. 1408; and Nägelsbach, Homer. Theologie, p. 336). Having confessed how hard it is for a man τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μεγαλόψυχον εἶναι—for he will allow no μεγαλοψυχία, or great-souledness, which does not rest on corresponding realities of goodness and moral greatness, and his μεγαλόψυχος is one μεγάλων αὑτὸν ἀξιῶν, ἄ ξιος ὤν—he goes on to observe, though merely by the way and little conscious how far his words reached, that to think humbly of oneself, where that humble estimate is the true one, cannot be imputed to any as a culpable meanness of spirit; it is rather the true σωφροσύνη (ὁ γὰρ μικρῶν ἄξιος, καὶ τούτων ἀξιῶν ἑαυτόν, σώφρων). But if this be so (and who will deny it?), then, seeing that for every man the humble estimate of himself is the true one, Aristotle has herein unconsciously vindicated ταπεινοφροσύνη as a grace in which every man ought to abound; for that which he, even according to the standard which he set up, confessed to be a χαλεπόν, namely τῇ ἀληθείᾳ μεγαλόψυχον εἶναι, the Christian, convinced by the Spirit of God, and having in his Lord a standard of perfect righteousness before his eyes, knows to be not merely a χαλεπόν, but an ἀδύνατον. Such is the Christian ταπεινοφροσύνη, no mere modesty or absence of pretension, which is all that the heathen would at the very best have found in it; nor yet a self-made grace; and Chrysostom is in fact bringing in pride again under the disguise of humility, when he characterizes it as a making of ourselves small, when we are great (ταπεινοφροσύνη τοῦτό ἐστιν, ὅταν τις μέγας ὤν, ἑαυτὸν ταπεινοῖ: and he repeats this often; see Suicer, Thes. s. v.). Far truer and deeper is St. Bernard’s definition: ‘Est virtus quâ quis ex verissimâ sui cognitione sibi ipsi vilescit;’ the esteeming of ourselves small, inasmuch as we are so; the thinking truly, and because truly, therefore lowlily, of ourselves.

But it may be objected, how does this account of Christian ταπεινοφροσύνη, as springing out of and resting on the sense of unworthiness, agree with the fact that the sinless Lord laid claim to this grace, and said, “I am meek and lowly in heart” (ταπεινὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ, Matt. 11:29)? The answer is, that for the sinner ταπεινοφροσύνη, involves the confession of sin, inasmuch as it involves the confession of his true condition; while yet for the unfallen creature the grace itself as truly exists, involving for such the acknowledgment not of sinfulness, which would be untrue, but of creatureliness, of absolute dependence, of having nothing, but receiving all things of God. And thus the grace of humility belongs to the highest angel before the throne, being as he is a creature, yea, even to the Lord of Glory Himself. In his human nature He must be the pattern of all humility, of all creaturely dependence; and it is only as a man that Christ thus claims to be ταπεινός: his human life was a constant living on the fulness of his Father’s love; He evermore, as man, took the place which beseemed the creature in the presence of its Creator.

The Gospel of Christ did not rehabilitate πραότης so entirely as it had done ταπεινοφροσύνη, but this, because the word did not need rehabilitation to the same extent. Πραότης did not require to be transformed from a bad sense to a good, but only to be lifted up from a lower level of good to a higher. This indeed it did need; for no one can read Aristotle’s portraiture of the πρᾶος and of πραότης (Ethic. Nic. iv. 5), mentally comparing the heathen virtue with the Christian grace, and not feel that Revelation has given to these words a depth, a richness, a fulness of significance which they were very far from possessing before. The great moralist of Greece set πραότης as the μεσότης περὶ ὀργῆς, between the two extremes, ὀργιλότης and ἀοργησία, with, however, so much leaning to the latter that it might very easily run into this defect; and he finds it worthy of praise, more because by it a man retains his own equanimity and composure (the word is associated by Plutarch with μετριοπάθεια, De Frat. Am. 18; with ἀχολία, Cons. ad Uxor. 2; with ἀνεξικακία, De Cap. ex In. Util. 9; with μεγαλοπάθεια, De Ser. Num. Vind. 5; with εὐπείθεια, Comp. Num. et Lyc. 3; with εὐκολία, De Virt. et Vit. 1), than for any nobler reason. Neither does Plutarch’s own graceful little essay, Περὶ ἀοργησίας, rise anywhere to a loftier pitch than this, though we might have looked for something higher from him. Πραότης is opposed by Plato to ἀγριότης (Symp. 197 d); by Aristotle to χαλεπότης (Hist. Anim. ix. 1; cf. Plato, Rep. vi. 472 f); by Plutarch or some other under his name, to ἀποτομία (De Lib. Ed. 18); all indications of a somewhat superficial meaning by them attached to the word.

Those modern expositors who will not allow for the new forces at work in sacred Greek, who would fain restrict, for instance, the πραότης of the N. T. to that sense which the word, as employed by the best classical writers, would have borne, deprive themselves and as many as accept their interpretation of much of the deeper teaching in Scripture: on which subject, and with reference to this very word, there are some excellent observations by F. Spanheim, Dubia Evangelica, vol. iii. p. 398; by Rambach, Inst. Herm. Sac. p. 169;  cf. also, passim, the lecture or little treatise by Zezschwitz, Profangräcität und Biblischer Sprachgeist, from which I have already given (p. 1) an interesting extract; and the article, Hellenistisches Idiom, by Reuss in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopädie. The Scriptural πραότης is not in a man’s outward behaviour only; nor yet in his relations to his fellow-men; as little in his mere natural disposition. Rather is it an inwrought grace of the soul; and the exercises of it are first and chiefly towards God (Matt. 11:29; Jam. 1:21). It is that temper of spirit in which we accept his dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting; and it is closely linked with the ταπεινοφροσύνη, and follows directly upon it (Ephes. 4:2; Col. 3:12; cf. Zeph. 3:12); because it is only the humble heart which is also the meek; and which, as such, does not fight against God, and more or less struggle and contend with Him.

This meekness, however, being first of all a meekness before God, is also such in the face of men, even of evil men, out of a sense that these, with the insults and injuries which they may inflict, are remitted and employed by Him for the chastening and purifying of his elect. This was the root of David’s πραότης, when Shimei cursed and flung stones at him—the consideration, namely, that the Lord had bidden him (2 Sam. 16:11), that it was just for him to suffer these things, however unjustly the other might inflict them; and out of like convictions all true Christian πραότης must spring. He that is meek indeed will know himself a sinner among sinners;—or, if there was One who could not know Himself such, yet He too bore a sinner’s doom, and endured therefore the contradiction of sinners (Luke 9:35, 36; John 18:22, 23);—and this knowledge of his own sin will teach him endure meekly the provocations with which they may provoke him, and not to withdraw himself from the burdens which their sin may impose upon him (Gal. 6:1; 2 Tim. 2:25; Tit. 3:2).

Πραότης, then, or meekness, if more than mere gentleness of manner, if indeed the Christian grace of meekness of spirit, must rest on deeper foundations than its own, on those namely which ταπεινοφροσύνη has laid for it, and can only subsist while it continues to rest on these. It is a grace in advance of ταπεινοφροσύνη, not as more precious than it, but as presupposing it, and as being unable to exist without it.

§ xliii. πραότης, ἐπιείκεια

Ταπεινοφροσύνη and ἐπιείκεια, though joined together Clement of Rome (1 Ep. § 56), are in their meanings too far apart to be fit subjects of synonymous discrimination; but πραότης, which stands between, holds on to both. The attempt has just been made to seize its points of contact with ταπεινοφροσύνη. Without going over this ground anew, we may consider the relations to ἐπιείκεια in which it stands.

The mere existence of such a word as ἐπιείκεια is itself a signal evidence of the high development of ethics among the Greeks. It expresses exactly that moderation which recognizes the impossibility cleaving to all formal law, of anticipating and providing for all cases that will emerge, and present themselves to it for decision; which, with this, recognizes the danger that ever waits upon the assertion of legal rights, lest they should be pushed into moral wrongs, lest the ‘summum jus’ should in practice prove the ‘summa injuria’; which, therefore, urges not its own rights to the uttermost, but, going back in part or in the whole from these, rectifies and redresses the injustices of justice. It is thus more truly just than strict justice would have been; being δίκαιον, καὶ βέλτιόν τινος δικαίου, as Aristotle expresses it (Ethic. Nic. v. 10. 6); ‘es ist nämlich nicht das gesetzlich gerechte, sondern das dasselbe berichtigende’ (Brandis); being indeed, again to use Aristotle’s words, ἐπανόρθωμα νόμου, ᾗ ἐλλείπει διὰ τὸ καθόλου: and he sets the ἀκριβοδίκαιος, the man who stands up for the last tittle of his legal rights, over against the ἐπιεικής. In the Definitions which go under Plato’s name (412 b) it is δικαίων καὶ συμφερόντων ἐλάττωσις: it is joined by Lucian (Vit. Auct. 10) to αἰδὼς and μετριότης, and in a fragment of Sophocles is opposed to ἡ ἁπλῶς δίκη. Correctio ejus, Grotius defines it, in quo lex propter universalitatem deficit. Εὐγνωμοσύνη in its meaning approaches very closely to ἐπιείκεια, but has not as completely been taken up into the scientific language of ethics. This aspect of ἐπιείκεια, namely that it is a going back from the letter of right for the better preserving of the spirit, must never be lost sight of. Seneca (De Clem. ii. 7) well brings it out: ‘Nihil ex his facit, tanquam justo minus fecerit, sed tanquam id quod constituit, justissimum sit;’ and Aquinas: ‘Diminutiva est pœnarum, secundum rationem rectam; quando scilicet oportet, et in quibus oportet.’ Göschel, who has written so much and so profoundly on the relations between theology and jurisprudence, has much on this matter which is excellent (Zur Philos. und Theol. des Rechts und der Rechtgeschichte, 1835, pp. 428–438).

The archetype and pattern of this grace is found in God. All his goings back from the strictness of his rights as against men; all his allowance of their imperfect righteousness, and giving of a value to that which, rigorously estimated, would have none; all his refusals to exact extreme penalties (Wisd. 12:18; Song of Three Children, 18; 2 Macc. 10:4; Ps. 85:5: ὅτι σύ, Κύριε, χρηστὸς καὶ ἐπιεικὴς καὶ πολυέλεος: cf. Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 29: ἐπιεικὴς καὶ εὔσπλαγχνος Πατήρ: Plutarch, Coriol. 24; Peric. 39; Cœs. 57); all his keeping in mind whereof we are made, and measuring his dealings with us thereby; all of these we may contemplate as ἐπιείκεια upon his part; even as they demand in return the same, one toward another, upon ours. Peter, when himself restored, must strengthen his brethren (Luke 22:32). The greatly forgiven servant in the parable (Matt. 18:23), having known the ἐπιείκεια of his lord and king, is justly expected to shew the same to his fellow servant. The word is often joined with φιλανθρωπία (Polybius, v. 10. 1; Philo, De Vit. Mos. i. 36; 2 Macc. 9:27); with ἡμερότης (Philo, De Car. 18; Plutarch, De Vit. Pud. 2); with μακροθυμία (Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 13); with ἀνεξικακία (Wisd. 2:19); often too with πραότης: thus, besides the passage in the N. T. (2 Cor. 10:1), by Plutarch (Peric. 39; Cœs. 57; cf. Pyrrh. 23; De Prof. Virt. 9). It will be called ἀνανδρία by as many as seek to degrade a virtue through the calling it the name of the vice which is indeed only its caricature (Aristides, De Concord. i. p. 529).

The distinction between πραότης and ἐπιείκεια Estius (on 2 Cor. 10:1) sets forth in part, although incompletely: ‘Mansuetudo [πραότης] magis ad animum, ἐπιείκεια vero magis ad exteriorem conversationem pertinet;’ compare Bengel: ‘πραότης virtus magis absoluta, ἐπιείκεια magis refertur ad alios.’ Aquinas too has a fine and subtle discussion on the relations of likeness and difference between the graces which these words severally denote (Summ. Theol. 2a 3œ, qu. 157): ‘Utrum Clementia et Mansuetudo sint penitus idem.’ Among other marks of difference he especially presses these two: the first that in ‘clementia’ (= ἐπιείκεια) there is always the condescension of a superior to an inferior, while in ‘mansuetudo’ (πραότης) nothing of the kind is necessarily implied: ‘Clementia est lenitas superioris adversus inferiorem: mansuetudo non solum est superioris ad inferiorem, sed cujuslibet ad quemlibet;’ and the second, that which has been already urged, that the one grace is more passive, the other more active, or at least that the seat of the πραότης is in the inner spirit, while the ἐπιείκεια must needs embody itself in outward acts: ‘Differunt ab invicem in quantum clementia est moderativa exterioris punitionis, mansuetudo proprie diminuit passionem iræ.’

It is instructive to note how little of one mind our various Translators from Wiclif downward have been as to the words which should best reproduce ἐπιείκεια and ἐπιεικής for the English reader. The occasions on which ἐπιείκεια occur are two, or reckoning τὸ ἐπιεικές as an equivalent substantive, are three (Acts 24:4; 2 Cor. 10:1; Phil. 4:5). It has been rendered in all these ways: ‘meekness,’ ‘courtesy,’ ‘clemency,’ ‘softness,’ ‘modesty,’ ‘gentleness,’ ‘patience,’ ‘patient mind,’ ‘moderation.’ Ἐπιεικής, not counting the one occasion already named, occurs four times (1 Tim. 3:3; Tit. 3:2; Jam. 3:17; 1 Pet. 2:18), and appears in the several Versions of our Hexapla as ‘temperate,’ ‘soft,’ ‘gentle,’ ‘modest,’ ‘patient,’ ‘mild,’ ‘courteous.’ ‘Gentle’ and ‘gentleness,’ on the whole, commend themselves as the best; but the fact remains, which also in a great measure excuses so much vacillation here, namely, that we have no words in English which are full equivalents of the Greek. The sense of equity and fairness which is in them so strong is more or less wanting in all which we offer in exchange.

§ xliv. κλέπτης, λῃστής

THESE words occur together John 10:1, 8; but do not constitute there or elsewhere a tautology, or mere rhetorical amplification (cf. Obad. 5; Plato, Rep. i. 351 c). The κλέπτης and the λῃστής alike appropriate what is not theirs, but the κλέπτης by fraud and in secret (Matt. 24:43; John 12:6; cf. Exod. 22:2; Jer. 2:26); the λῃστής by violence and openly (2 Cor. 11:26; cf. Hos. 9:1; Jer. 7:11; Plutarch, De Super. 3: οὐ φοβεῖται λῃστὰς ὁ οἰκουρῶν); the one is the ‘thief’ and steals; the other is the ‘robber’ and plunders, as his name, from ληΐς or λεία (as our own ‘robber,’ from ‘Raub,’ booty), sufficiently declares. They are severally the ‘fur’ and ‘latro;’ ‘fures insidianter et occultâ fraude decipiunt; latrones audacter aliena diripiunt’ (Jerome, In Osee, 7:1). ‘Larron,’ however, in French, ‘voleur qui dérobe furtivement et par adresse,’ notwithstanding its connexion with ‘latro,’ has slipt into the meaning of ‘fur.’ Wiclif, who renders the words, ‘night-thief’ and ‘day-thief,’ has not very happily distinguished them.

Our Translators have always rendered κλέπτης by ‘thief;’ they ought with a like consistency to have rendered λῃστής by ‘robber;’ but it also they have oftener rendered ‘thief,’ effacing thus the distinction between the two. We cannot charge them with that carelessness here, of which those would be guilty who should now do the same. Passages out of number in our Elizabethan literature attest that in their day ‘thief’ and ‘robber’ had not those distinct meanings which they since have acquired. Thus Falstaff and his company, who with open violence rob the king’s treasure on the king’s highway, are ‘thieves’ throughout Shakspeare’s Henry IV. Still one must regret that on several occasions in our Version we do not find ‘robbers’ rather than ‘thieves.’ Thus at Matt. 21:13 we read: “My house shall be called the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves;” but it is ‘robbers,’ and not ‘thieves’ that have dens or caves; and it is rightly “den of robbers” at Jer. 7:11, whence this quotation is drawn. Again, Matt. 26:55: “Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take Me?”; but it would be against some bold and violent robber that a party armed with swords and clubs would issue forth, not against a lurking thief. The poor traveller in the parable (Luke 10:30) fell, not among ‘thieves,’ but among ‘robbers;’ violent and bloody men, as their treatment of him plainly declared.

No passage has suffered so seriously from this confounding of ‘thief’ and ‘robber’ as Luke 23:39–43. The whole anterior moral condition of him whom we call ‘the penitent thief’ is obscured for many by the associations which almost inevitably cling to this name. The two malefactors crucified with Jesus, the one obdurate, the other penitent, in all likelihood had belonged both to the band of Barabbas, who for murder and insurrection had been cast with his fellow insurgents into prison (Mark 15:7). He too was himself a λῃστής (John 18:40), and yet no common malefactor, on the contrary ‘a notable prisoner’ (δέσμιος ἐπίσημος, Matt. 27:16). Now considering the fierce enthusiasm of the Jewish populace on his behalf, and combining this with the fact that he was in prison for an unsuccessful insurrection; keeping in mind too the moral estate of the Jews at this period, with false Christs, false deliverers, every day starting up, we can hardly doubt that Barabbas was one of those wild and stormy zealots, who were evermore raising anew the standard of resistance against the Roman domination; flattering and feeding the insane hopes of their country-men, that they should yet break the Roman yoke from off their necks. These men, when hard pressed, would betake themselves to the mountains, and from thence wage a petty war against their oppressors, living by plunder,—if possible, by that of their enemies, if not, by that of any within their reach. The history of Dolcino’s ‘Apostolicals,’ as of the Camisards in the Cevennes, illustrates only too well the downward progress by which such would not merely presently obtain, but deserve, the name of ‘robbers.’ By the Romans they would be called and dealt with as such (see Josephus, Antt. xx. 8, 6, in fine); just as in the great French Revolution the Vendean royalists were styled ‘the brigands of the Loire;’ nay, in that great perversion of all moral sentiment which would mark such a period as this was, the name of robber, like ‘klept’ among the modern Greeks, would probably have ceased to be dishonorable, would not have been refused by themselves.

And yet of stamp and character how different would many of these men, these maintainers of a last protest against a foreign domination, probably be from the mean and cowardly purloiner, whom we call the ‘thief.’ The bands of these λῃσταί, numbering in their ranks some of the worst, would probably include also some that were originally among the noblest, spirits of the nation—even though these had miserably mistaken the task which their time demanded, and had sought by the wrath of man to work out the righteousness of God. Such a one we may well imagine this penitent λῃστής to have been. Should there be any truth in this view of his former condition,—and certainly it would go far to explain his sudden conversion,—it is altogether obscured by the name ‘thief’ which we have given him; nor can it under any circumstances be doubtful that he would be more fitly called ‘the penitent robber.’ See my Studies in the Gospels, 4th edit. pp. 302, sqq.; Dean Stanley, The Jewish Church, vol. iii. 466.

§ xlv. πλύνω, νίπτω, λούω

THERE is a certain poverty in English, which has one only word, ‘to wash,’ with which to render these three Greek; seeing that the three have each a propriety of its own, and one which the inspired writers always observe. Thus πλύνειν is always to wash inanimate things, as distinguished from living objects or persons; oftenest garments (εἵματα, Homer, Il. xxii. 155; ἱμάτιον, Plato, Charm. 161 e; and in the Septuagint continually; so στολάς, Rev. 7:14); but not exclusively garments, as some affirm, for see Luke 5:2, where it expresses the washing or cleansing of nets (δίκτυα: cf. Polybius, ix. 6, 3). When David exclaims πλῦνόν με ἀπὸ τῆς ἀνομίας (Ps. 50:3 [51:3, A. V.]), this is no exception to the rule; for the mention of hyssop, which follows, shows plainly that the royal penitent had the ceremonial aspersions of the Levitical law primarily in his eye, aspersions therefore upon the garments of the unclean person (Lev. 14:9; Num. 19:6, 7), however he may have looked through these to another and better sprinkling beyond.
Νίπτειν and λούειν, on the other hand, express the washing of living persons; although with this difference, that νίπτειν (which displaced in the later period of the language the Attic νίζειν), and νίψασθαι, almost always express the washing of a part of the body—the hands (Mark 7:3; Exod. 30:19), the feet (John 13:5; Plutarch, Thes. 10), the face (Matt. 6:17), the eyes (John 9:7), the back and shoulders (Homer, Od. vi. 224); while λούειν, which is not so much ‘to wash’ as ‘to bathe,’ and λοῦσθαι, ‘to bathe oneself,’ implies always, not the washing of a part of the body, but of the whole (thus λελουμένοι τὸ σῶμα, Heb. 10:22; cf. Exod. 29:4; Acts 9:27; 2 Pet. 2:22; Rev. 1:5; Plato, Phœd. 115 a). This limitation of νίπτειν to persons as contra-distinguished from things, which is always observed in the N. T., is not without exceptions, although they are very unfrequent elsewhere; thus, δέπας (Homer, Il. xvi. 229); τραπέζας (Od. i. 112); σκεῦος (Lev. 15:12). A single verse in the Septuagint (Lev. 15:11) gives us all the three words, and all used in their exact propriety of meaning: καὶ ὅσων ἐὰν ἅψηται ὁ γονοῤῥυὴς, καὶ τὰς χεῖρας αὐτοῦ οὐ νένιπται ὕδατι, πλυνεῖ τὰ ἱμάτια, καὶ λούσεται τὸ σῶμα ὕδατι.

The passage where it is most important to mark the distinction between νίπτειν, to wash a part, and λουειν or λοῦσθαι, to wash the whole, of the body, and where certainly our English Version loses something in clearness from the absence of words which should note the passing from one word to the other in the original, is John 13:10: “He that is washed [ὁ λελουμένος] needeth not save to wash [νίψασθαι] his feet, but is clean every whit.” The foot-washing was a symbolic act. St. Peter had not understood this at the first, and, not understanding, had exclaimed, “Thou shalt never wash my feet.” But so soon as ever the true meaning of what his Lord was doing flashed upon him, he who had before refused to suffer his Lord to wash even his feet, now prayed to be washed altogether: “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.” Christ replies, that it needed not this: Peter had been already made partaker of the great washing, of that forgiveness which included the whole man: he was λελουμένος, and this great absolving act did not need to be repeated, was indeed incapable of repetition: “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3). But while it fared thus with him in respect of the all-inclusive forgiveness, he did need to wash his feet (νίψασθαι τοὺς πόδας), evermore to cleanse himself, which could only be through suffering his Lord to cleanse him, from the defilements which even he, a justified and in part also a sanctified man, should gather as he moved through a sinful world. One might almost suppose, as it, has been suggested, that there was allusion here to the Levitical ordinance, according to which Aaron and his successors in the priesthood were to be washed once for all from head to foot at their consecration to their office (Exod. 27:4; 40:12); but were to wash their hands and their feet in the brasen laver as often as they afterwards ministered before the Lord (Exod. 30:19, 21; 40:33). Yet this would commend itself more, if we did not find hands and feet in the same category there, while here they are not merely disjoined, but set over against one another (John. ver. 9, 10). This much however to me is plain, that the whole mystery of our justification, which is once for all, reaching to every need, embracing our whole being, and of our sanctification, which must daily go forward, is wrapped up in the antithesis between the two words. This Augustine has expressed clearly and well (In Ev. Joh. xiii. 10): ‘Homo in sancto quidem baptismo totus abluitur, non præter pedes, sed totus omnino: veruntamen cum in rebus humanis postea vivitur, utique terra calcatur. Ipsi igitur humani affectus, sine quibus in hâc mortalitate non vivitur, quasi pedes sunt, ubi ex humanis rebus afficimur. Quotidie ergo pedes lavat nobis, qui interpellat pro nobis: ex quotidie nos opus habere ut pedes lavemus in ipsâ Oratione Dominicâ confitemur, cum dicimus, Dimitte nobis debita nostra.’

§ xlvi. φῶς, φέγγος, φωστήρ, λύχνος, λαμπάς

ALL these words are rendered, some occasionally, some always, in our Version, by ‘light’; thus, φῶς at Matt. 4:16; Rom. 13:12, and often; φέγγος at Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24; Luke 11:33 (it does not occur again); φωστήρ at Phil. 2:15; Rev. 21:11 (where only it occurs); λύχνος at Matt. 6:22; John 5:35; 2 Pet. 1:19, and elsewhere; though this often by ‘candle’ (Matt, 5:15; Rev. 22:5); and λαμπὰς at Acts 20:8, though elsewhere rendered ‘lamp’ (Matt. 25:1; Rev. 8:10), and ‘torch’ (John 18:3).

The old grammarians distinguish between φῶς and φέγγος. (which are but different forms of one and the same word), that φῶς is the light of the sun or of the day, φέγγος the light or lustre of the moon. The Attic writers, to whom this distinction must belong, if to any, themselves only imperfectly observe it. Thus, in Sophocles φέγγος is three or four times ascribed to the sun (Antig. 800; Ajax, 654, 840; Trachin. 597); while in Plato we meet φῶς σελήνης (Rep. vii. 516 b; cf. Isai. 13:10; Ezek. 32:7). This much right the grammarians have, that φέγγος is oftenest the light of the moon or other luminaries of the night, φῶς that of the sun or of the day; thus Plato (Rep. vi. 508 c) sets over against one another ἡμερινὸν φῶς and νυκτερινὰ φέγγη. This, like so many other finer distinctions of the Greek language, is so far observed in the N. T., that the light of the moon, on the only occasions that it is mentioned, is φέγγος (Matt. 24:19; Mark 12:24; cf. Joel 2:10; 2:15), as φῶς is that of the sun (Rev. 22:5). It will follow that φῶς, rather than φέγγος, is the true antithesis to σκότος (Plato, Rep. vii, 518 a; Matt. 6:23; 1 Pet. 2:9); and generally that the former will be the more absolute designation of light; thus Hab. 3:4: καὶ φέγγος αὐτοῦ [τοῦ Θεοῦ] ὡς φῶς ἒσται: compare Euripides, Helen. 530: φησὶ δʼ ἐν φάει πόσιν τὸν ἀμὸν ζῶντα φέγγος εἰσορᾶν. See Döderlein, Lat Synon. vol. ii. p. 69.
Φωστήρ is rendered ‘light’ in our Version; thus, at Phil. 2:15: “Among whom ye shine as lights in the world” (ὡς φωστῆρες ἐν κόσμῳ). It would be difficult to improve on this, which yet fails to mark with entire precision what St. Paul intends. The φωστῆρες here are the heavenly bodies, ‘luminaria’ (Vulg.), ‘Himmelslichter’ (De Wette), and mainly the sun and moon, the ‘lights,’ or ‘great lights’ (= ‘luces,’ Cicero, poet.), of which Moses speaks, Gen. 1:14, 16; where מְאֹרוֹת is rendered φωστῆρες in the Septuagint. Compare Ecclus. 43:7, where the moon is φωστήρ: and Wisd. 13:2, where φωστῆρες οὐρανοῦ is exactly equivalent to φωστῆρες ἐν κόσμῳ here, the κόσμος of this place being the material world, the στερέωμα or firmament, not the ethical world, which has been already expressed by the γενεὰ σκολιὰ καὶ διεστραμμένη. Nor would it be easy to improve on our version of Rev. 21:11: “Her light [ὁ φωστὴρ αὐτῆς] was like unto a stone most precious.” Our Translators did well in going back to this, Wiclif’s rendering, and in displacing “her shining,” which had been admitted into the intermediate Versions, and which must have conveyed a wrong impression to the English reader. Not that the present rendering is altogether satisfactory, being itself not wholly unambiguous. Some may still be tempted to understand ‘her light’ as the light which the Heavenly City diffused; when, indeed, φωστήρ means, that which diffused light to the Heavenly City, her luminary or light-giver; ‘lumen ejus,’ as in the Vulgate. What this light-giver was, we learn from ver. 23: “the Lamb is the light thereof;” ὁ λύχνος αὐτῆς there being = ὁ φωστὴρ αὐτῆς here.
In rendering λύχνος and λαμπάς our Translators have scarcely made the most of the words at their command. Had they rendered λαμπάς by ‘torch,’ not once only (John 18:3), but always, this would have left ‘lamp,’ now wrongly appropriated by λαμπάς, disengaged. Altogether dismissing ‘candle,’ they might then have rendered λύχνος by ‘lamp’ wherever it occurs. At present there are so many occasions where ‘candle’ would manifestly be inappropriate, and where, therefore, they are obliged to fall back on ‘light,’ that the distinction between φῶς and λύχνος nearly, if not quite, disappears in our Version.
The advantages of such a re-distribution of the words would be many. In the first place, it would be more accurate. Λύχνος is not a ‘candle’ (‘candela,’ from ‘candeo,’ the white wax light, and then any kind of taper), but a hand-lamp, fed with oil. Neither is λαμπάς a ‘lamp,’ but a ‘torch,’ and this not only in the Attic, but in the later Hellenistic Greek as well (Polybius, iii. 93. 4; Herodian, iv. 2; Plutarch, Timol. 8; Alex. 38; Judg. 7:16; 15:4); and so, I believe, always in the N.T. In proof that at Rev. 8:10, λαμπάς should be translated ‘torch’ (‘Fackel,’ De Wette), see Aristotle, De Mund. 4. Our early translators, who rendered it ‘brand’ or ‘firebrand’ (John 18:4), showed that they understood the force of the word. It may be urged that in the parable of the Ten Virgins the λαμπάδες are nourished with oil, and must needs therefore be lamps. But this does not follow. In the East the torch, as well as the lamp, is fed in this manner: ‘The true Hindu way of lighting up is by torches held by men, who feed the flame with oil from a sort of bottle [the ἀγγεῖον of Matt. 25:4], constructed for the purpose’ (Elphinstone, Hist. of India, vol. i. p. 333).
More passages than one would gain in perspicuity by such a re-arrangement; and mainly through the clear distinction between φῶς and λύχνος, which would then be apparent. One of these is John 5:35: “He was a burning and a shining light,”—so our Translation; but in the original, ἐκεῖνος ἦν ὁ λύχνος ὁ καιόμενος καὶ φαίνων; or, as the Vulgate has it: ‘Ille erat lucerna ardens et lucens;’ not obliterating, as we have done, the whole antithesis between Christ, the φῶς ἀληθινόν (John 1:8), φῶς ἐκ φωτός, that Eternal Light, which, as it was never kindled, so should never be quenched, and the Baptist, a lamp kindled by the hands of Another, in whose brightness men might for a season rejoice, and which must then be extinguished again. In the use of λύχνος here and at 2 Pet. 1:19, tacitly contrasted here with φῶς, and there avowedly with φωσφόρος, the same opposition is intended, only now transferred to the highest sphere of the spiritual world, which our poet had in his mind when he wrote those glorious lines:

    ‘Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund Day
    Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.’

§ xlvii. χάρις, ἔλεος

THERE has often been occasion to observe the manner in which Greek words taken up into Christian use are glorified and transformed, seeming to have waited for this adoption of them, to come to their full rights, and to reveal all the depth and the riches of meaning which they contained, or might be made to contain. Χάρις is one of these. It is hardly too much to say that the Greek mind has in no word uttered itself and all that was at its heart more distinctly than in this; so that it will abundantly repay our pains to trace briefly the steps by which it came to its highest honours. Χάρις, connected with χαίρειν, is first of all that property in a thing which causes it to give joy to the hearers or beholders of it, as Plutarch (Cum Princ. Phil. Diss. 3) has rightly explained it, χαρᾶς γὰρ οὐδὲν οὕτως γονιμόν ἐστιν ὡς χάρις (cf. Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. part 1, p. 217); and then, seeing that to a Greek there was nothing so joy-inspiring as grace or beauty, it implied the presence of this, the German ‘Anmuth’; thus Homer, Od. ii. 12; vi. 237; Euripides, Troad. 1108, παρθένων χάριτες; Lucian, Zeux. 2. χάρις Αττική. It has often this use in the Septuagint (Ps. 45:3; Prov. 10:32), the Hebrew חֵן being commonly rendered by it; yet not invariably; being translated by ἀρέσκεια (Prov. 31:30); by ἔλεος (Gen. 19:19); by ἐπίχαρις (Nah. 3:4). Χάρις has the same use in the Apocrypha (Ecclus. 24:16; 40:22, χάρις καὶ κάλλος): nor is this altogether strange to the N. T.; thus see Luke 4:22, and perhaps Ephes. 4:29.
But χάρις after a while came to signify not necessarily the grace or beauty of a thing, as a quality appertaining to it; but the gracious or beautiful thing, act, thought, speech, or person it might be, itself—the grace embodying and uttering itself, where there was room or call for this, in gracious outcomings toward such as might be its objects; not any longer ‘favour’ in the sense of beauty, but ‘the favour’; for our word here a little helps us to trace the history of the Greek. So continually in classical Greek we have χάριν ἀπαιτεῖν, λαμβάνειν, δοῦναι; so in the Septuagint (Esth. 6:3); and so also χάρις as a merely human grace and favour in the N.T. (thus Acts 2:47; 25:3; 2 Cor. 9:9). There is a further sense which the word obtained, namely the thankfulness which the favour calls out in return; this also frequent in the N. T. (Luke 17:9; Rom. 6:17; 2 Cor. 8:16; though with it, as we are only treating the word in its relations to ἔλεος, we have nothing to do. It is at that earlier point which we have just been fixing that χάρις waited for and obtained its highest consecration; not indeed to have its meaning changed, but to have that meaning ennobled, glorified, lifted up from the setting forth of an earthly to the setting forth of a heavenly benefit, from signifying the favour and grace and goodness of man to man, to setting forth the favour, grace and goodness of God to man, and thus, of necessity, of the worthy to the unworthy, of the holy to the sinful, being now not merely the German ‘Gunst’ or ‘Huld,’ to which the word had corresponded hitherto, but ‘Gnade’ as well. Such was a meaning to which it had never raised itself before, and this not even in the Greek Scriptures of the elder Covenant; for the Hebrew word which most nearly approaches in meaning to the χάρις of the N. T., namely חסד, is not translated by χάρις, one occasion only excepted (Esth. 2:9), but usually by ἔλεος (Gen. 24:12; Job 6:14; Dan. 1:9; and often).
Already, it is true, if not there, yet in another quarter there were preparations for this glorification of meaning to which χάρις was destined. These lay in the fact that already in the ethical terminology of the Greek schools χάρις implied ever a favour freely done, without claim or expectation of return—the word being thus predisposed to receive its new emphasis, its religious, I may say its dogmatic, significance; to set forth the entire and absolute freeness of the lovingkindness of God to men. Thus Aristotle, defining χάρις, lays the whole stress on this very point, that it is conferred freely, with no expectation of return, and finding its only motive in the bounty and free-heartedness of the giver (Rhet. ii. 7): ἔστω δὴ χάρις, καθʼ ἣν ὁ ἔχων λέγεται χάριν ὑπουργεῖν τῷ δεομένῳ, μὴ ἀντὶ τινὸς, μηδʼ ἵνα τι αὐτῷ τῷ ὑπουργοῦντι, ἀλλʼ ἵνα ἐκείνῳ τι. Agreeing with this we have χάρις καὶ δωρεά, Polybius, i. 31. 6 (cf. Rom. 3:24, δωρεὰν τῇ αὐτοῦ χάριτι; 5:15, 17; 12:3, 6; 15:15; Ephes. 2:8; 4:7); so too χάρις joined with εὔνοια (Plato, Legg. xi. 931 a; Plutarch, Quom. Adul. ab Amic. 34); with φιλία (Lyc. 4): with πραότης (Adv. Col. 2); opposed to μισθός (Lyc. 15); and compare Rom. 11:6, where St. Paul sets χάρις and ἔργα over against one another in directest antithesis, showing that they mutually exclude one another, it being of the essence of whatever is owed to χάρις that it is unearned and unmerited,—as Augustine urges so often, ‘gratia, nisi gratis sit, non est gratia;’—or indeed demerited, as the faithful man will most freely acknowledge.
But while χάρις has thus reference to the sins of men. and is that glorious attribute of God which these sins call out and display, his free gift in their forgiveness, ἔλεος has special and immediate regard to the misery which is the consequence of these sins, being the tender sense of this misery displaying itself in the effort, which only the continued perverseness of man can hinder or defeat, to assuage and entirely remove it; so Bengel well: ‘Gratia tollit culpam, misericordia miseriam.’ But here, as in other cases, it may be worth our while to consider the anterior uses of this word, before it was assumed into this its highest use as the mercy of Him, whose mercy is over all his works. Of ἔλεος we have this definition in Aristotle (Rhet. ii. 8): ἔστω δὴ ἔλεος, λύπη τις ἐπὶ φαινομένῳ κακῷ φθαρτικῷ καὶ λυπηρῷ, τοῦ ἀναξίου τυγχάνειν, ὃ κἂν αὐτὸς προσδοκήσειεν ἂν παθεῖν, ἢ τῶν αὐτοῦ τινά. It will be at once perceived that much will have here to be modified. and something removed, when we come to speak of the ἔλεος of God. Grief does not and cannot touch Him, in whose presence is fulness of joy; He does not demand unworthy suffering (λύπη ὡς ἐπὶ ἀναξίως κακοπαθοῦντι, which is the Stoic definition of ἔλεος, Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 1. 63), to move Him, seeing that absolutely unworthy suffering there is none in a world of sinners; neither can He, who is lifted up above all chance and change, contemplate, in beholding misery, the possibility of being Himself involved in the same. It is nothing wonderful that the Manichæans and others who desired a God as unlike man as possible, cried out against the attribution of ἔλεος to Him; and found here a weapon of their warfare against that Old Testament, whose God was not ashamed to proclaim Himself a God of pity and compassion (Ps. 77:38; 85:15; and often). They were favoured here in the Latin by the word ‘misericordia,’ and did not fail to appeal to its etymology, and to demand whether the ‘miserum cor’ could find place in Him; compare Virgil, Georg. ii. 498, 499. Seneca too they had here for a forerunner, who observes in respect of this ‘vitium pusilli animi,’ as he calls it (De Clemen. ii. 6), ‘Misericordia vicina est miseriæ; habet enim aliquid trahitque ex eâ.’ Augustine answered rightly that this and all other words used to express human affections did require certain modifications, a clearing away from them of the infirmities of human passions, before they could be ascribed to the most High; but that such for all this were only their accidents, the essentials remaining unchanged. Thus De Div. Quœst. ii. 2: ‘Item de misericordiâ, si auferas compassionem cum eo, quem miseraris, participatæ miseriæ, ut remaneat tranquilla bonitas subveniendi et a miseriâ liberandi, insinuatur divinæ misericordiæ qualiscunque cognitio:’ cf. De Civ. Dei, ix. 5; Anselm, Proslogium, 8; and Suicer, Thes. s. v. In man’s pity there will always be an element of grief, so that by John of Damascus ἔλεος is enumerated as one of the four forms of λύπη, the other three being ἄχος, ἄχθος and φθόνος (De Fid. Orthod. ii. 14); but not so in God’s. We may say then that the χάρις of God, his free grace and gift, displayed in the forgiveness of sins, is extended to men, as they are guilty, his ἔλεος, as they are miserable. The lower creation may be, and is, the object of God’s ἔλεος, inasmuch as the burden of man’s curse has redounded also upon it (Job 38:41; Ps. 147:9; Jon. 4:11; Rom. 8:20–23), but of his χάρις man alone; he only needs, he only is capable of receiving it.
In the Divine mind, and in the order of our salvation as conceived therein, the ἔλεος precedes the χάρις. God so loved the world with a pitying love (herein was the ἔλεος), that He gave his only begotten Son (herein the χάρις), that the world through Him might be saved (cf. Ephes. 2:4; Luke 1:78, 79). But in the order of the manifestation of God’s purposes of salvation the grace must go before the mercy, the χάρις must go before and make way for the ἔλεος. It is true that the same persons are the subjects of both, being at once the guilty and the miserable; yet the righteousness of God, which it is quite as necessary should be maintained as his love, demands that the guilt should be done away, before the misery can be assuaged; only the forgiven may be blessed. He must pardon, before He can heal; men must be justified before they can be sanctified. And as the righteousness of God absolutely and in itself requires this, so no less that righteousness as it has expressed itself in the moral constitution of man, linking as it there has done misery with guilt, and making the first the inseparable companion of the second. From this it follows that in each of the apostolic salutations where these words occur, χάρις precedes ἔλεος (1 Tim. 1:2; 2 Tim. 1:2; Tit. 1:4; 2 John 3; Zech. 12:10; cf. Wisd. 3:9); nor could this order have been reversed. Χάρις on the same grounds in the more usual Pauline salutations precedes εἰρήνη (1 Cor. 1:3; 2 Cor. 1:2; and often. On the distinction between the words of this §, see some excellent words in Delitzsch, An die Ebräer, p. 163.

§ xlviii. θεοσεβής, εὐσεβής, εὐλαβής, θρῆσκος, δεισιδαίμων

Θεοσεβής, an epithet three times applied to Job (1:1, 8; 2:3), occurs only once in the N. T. (John 9:31); and θεοσέβεια no oftener (1 Tim. 2:10; Gen. 20:11; cf. Job 28:28). Εὐσεβής, rare in the Septuagint (Isai. 24:16; 26:7; 32:8), but common in the Apocrypha (Ecclus. 11:22; 12:2, 4), with the words dependant on it, is of more frequent occurrence (1 Tim. 2:2; Acts 10:2; 2 Pet. 2:9, and often). Before we proceed to consider the relation of these to the other words in this group, a subordinate distinction between themselves may fitly be noted; this, namely, that in θεοσεβής is implied, by its very derivation, piety toward God, or toward the gods; while εὐσεβής, often as it means this, may also mean piety in the fulfilment of human relations, as toward parents or others (Euripides, Elect. 253, 254), the word according to its etymology only implying ‘worship’ (that is ‘worth-ship’) and reverence, well and rightly directed. It has in fact the same double meaning as the Latin ‘pietas,’ which is not merely ‘justitia adversum Deos,’ or ‘scientia colendorum Deorum’ (Cicero, Nat. Deor. i. 41); but a double meaning, which, deeply instructive as it is, yet proves occasionally embarrassing; so that on several occasions Augustine, when he has need of accuracy and precision in his language, pauses to observe that by ‘pietas’ he means what εὐσέβεια may mean, but θεοσέβεια alone must mean, namely, piety toward God (‘Dei pietaten, quam Græci vel εὐσέβειαν, vel expressius et plenius θεοσέβειαν, vocant,’ Ep. 167:3; De Trin. xiv. 1; Civ. Dei, x. 1; Enchir. 1). At the same time εὐσέβεια, explained in the Platonic Definitions (412 c) as δικαιοσύνη περὶ θεούς, by the Stoics as ἐπιστήμη θεῶν θεραπείας (Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 1. 64, 119), and not therefore every reverencing of the gods, but a reverencing of them aright (εὖ), is the standing word to express this piety, both in itself (Xenophon, Ages. iii. 5; xi. 1), and as it is the right mean between ἀθεότης and δεισιδαιμονία (Plutarch, De Super. 14); ἀσέβεια and δεισιδαιμονία (Philo, Quod Deus Imm. 3, 4); Josephus in like manner opposes it to εἰδωλολατρεία. The εὐσεβής is set over against the ἀνόσιος (Xenophon, Apol. 19); he is himself φιλόθεος (Lucian, De Calum. 14); σώφρων περὶ τοὺς θεούς (Xenophon, Mem. iv. 3, 2). For some further beautiful remarks on εὐσέβεια in the Greek sense of the word see Nägelsbach, Nachhomerische Theologie, p. 191. Christian εὐσέβεια is well described by Eusebius (Prœp. Evang. i. p. 3) as ἡ πρὸς τὸν ἕνα καὶ μόνον ὡς ἀληθῶς ὁμολογούμενόν τε καὶ ὄντα Θεὸν ἀνάνευσις, καὶ ἡ κατὰ τοῦτον ζωή.
What would have needed to be said on εὐλαβής has been for the most part anticipated already (see § 10); yet something further may be added here. I observed there how εὐλάβεια passed over from signifying caution and carefulness in respect of human things to the same in respect of divine; the German ‘Andacht’ had much the same history (see Grimm, Wörterbuch, s. v.). The only places in the N. T. where εὐλαβής occurs are Luke 2:25; Acts 2:5; 8:2; cf. Mic. 7:2. We have uniformly translated it ‘devout’; nor could this translation be bettered. It is the Latin ‘religiosus,’ but not our ‘religious.’ On all these occasions it expresses Jewish, and as one might say, Old Testament piety. On the first it is applied to Simeon; on the second, to those Jews who came from distant parts to keep the commanded feasts at Jerusalem; and, on the third, the ἄνδρες εὐλαβεῖς who carry Stephen to his burial, are in all likelihood not Christian brethren, but devout Jews, who avowed by this courageous act of theirs, as by their great lamentation over the slaughtered saint, that they separated themselves in spirit from this deed of blood, and thus, if it might be, from all the judgments which it would bring down on the city of those murderers. Whether it was further given them to believe on the Crucified, who had such witnesses as Stephen, we are not told; we may well presume that it was.
If we keep in mind that, in that mingled fear and love which together constitute the piety of man toward God, the Old Testament placed its emphasis on the fear, the New places it on the love (though there was love in the fear of God’s saints then, as there must be fear in their love now), it will at once be evident how fitly εὐλαβής was chosen to set forth their piety under the Old Covenant, who, like Zacharias and Elizabeth, “were righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless” (Luke 1:6), and leaving nothing willingly undone which pertained to the circle of their prescribed duties. For this sense of accurately and scrupulously performing that which is prescribed, with the consciousness of the danger of slipping into a careless negligent performance of God’s service, and of the need therefore of anxiously watching against the adding to or diminishing from, or in any other way altering, that which has been by Him commanded, lies ever in the words εὐλαβής, εὐλάβεια, when used in their religious signification. Compare Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. v. p. 369.
Plutarch on more occasions than one exalts the εὐλάβεια of the Romans in the handling of divine things, as contrasted with the comparative carelessness of the Greeks. Thus, after other instances in proof (Coriol. 25), he goes on: ‘Of late times also they did renew and begin a sacrifice thirty times one after another; because they thought still there fell out one fault or other in the same; so holy and devout were they to the gods’ (τοιαύτη μὲν εὐλάβεια πρὸς τὸ θεῖον Ῥωμαίων). Elsewhere, he pourtrays Æmilius Paulus (c. 3) as eminent for his εὐλάβεια. The passage is long, and I only quote a portion of it, availing myself again of Sir Thomas North’s hearty translation, which, though somewhat loose, is in essentials correct: ‘When he did anything belonging to his office of priesthood, he did it with great experience, judgment, and diligence; leaving all other thoughts, and without omitting any ancient ceremony, or adding to any new; contending oftentimes with his companions in things which seemed light and of small moment; declaring to them that though we do presume the gods are easy to be pacified, and that they readily pardon all faults and scrapes committed by negligence, yet if it were no more but for respect of the commonwealth’s sake they should not slightly or carelessly dissemble or pass over faults committed in those matters’ (p. 206). Compare Aulus Gellius, ii. 28: ‘Veteres Romani in constituendis religionibus atque in diis immortalibus animadvertendis castissimi cautissimique.’ Euripides in one passage contemplates εὐλάβεια as a person and a divine one, χρησιμωτάτη θεῶν (Phœn. 794).
But if in εὐλαβής we have the anxious and scrupulous worshipper, who makes a conscience of changing anything, of omitting anything, being above all things fearful to offend, we have in θρῆσκος (Jam. 1:26), which still more nearly corresponds to the Latin ‘religiosus,’ the zealous and diligent performer of the divine offices, of the outward service of God. The word indeed nowhere else occurs in the whole circle of the profane literature of Greece; but working back from θρησκεία, we are in no difficulty about its exact meaning. Θρησκεία (= ‘cultus,’ or perhaps more strictly, ‘cultus exterior’) is predominantly the ceremonial service of religion, of her whom Lord Brooke has so grandly named ‘mother of form and fear,’—the external framework or body, of which εὐσέβεια is the informing soul. The suggestion of Plutarch (Alex. 2), deriving θρῆσκος from Orpheus the Thracian, who brought in the celebration of religious mysteries, is etymologically worthless; but points, and no doubt truly, to the celebration of divine offices as the fundamental notion of the word.
How delicate and fine then is St. James’s choice of θρῆσκος and θρησκεία (1:26, 27). ‘If any man,’ he would say, ‘seem to himself to be θρῆσκος, a diligent observer of the offices of religion, if any man would render a pure and undefiled θρησκεία to God, let him know that this consists not in outward lustrations or ceremonial observances; nay, that there is a better θρησκεία than thousands of rams and rivers of oil, namely, to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with his God’ (Mic. 6:7, 8); or, according to his own words, “to visit the widows and orphans in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world” (cf. Matt. 23:23). St. James is not herein affirming, as we sometimes hear, these offices to be the sum total, nor yet the great essentials, of true religion, but declares them to be the body, the θρησκεία, of which godliness, or the love of God, is the informing soul. His intention is somewhat obscured to the English reader from the fact that ‘religious’ and ‘religion,’ by which we have rendered θρῆσκος and θρησκεία, possessed a meaning once which they now possess no longer, and in that meaning are here employed. The Apostle claims for the new dispensation a superiority over the old, in that its very θρησκεία consists in acts of mercy, of love, of holiness, in that it has light for its garment, its very robe being righteousness; herein how much nobler than that old, whose θρησκεία was at best merely ceremonial and formal, whatever inner truth it might embody. These observations are made by Coleridge (Aids to Reflection, 1825, p. 15), who at the same time complains of our rendering of θρῆσκος and θρησκεία as erroneous. But it is not so much erroneous as obsolete; an explanation indeed which he has himself suggested, though he was not aware of any such use of ‘religion’ at the time when our Version was made as would bear our Translators out. Milton offers more than one. Some heathen idolatries he characterizes as being

    ‘adorned
    With gay religions full of pomp and gold.’
    Paradise Lost, b. i.

And our Homilies will supply many more: thus, in that Against Peril of Idolatry: ‘Images used for no religion or superstition rather, we mean of none worshipped, nor in danger to be worshipped of any, may be suffered.’ A very instructive passage on the merely external character of θρησκεία, which same external character I am confident our Translators saw in ‘religion,’ occurs in Philo (Quod Det. Pot. Ins. 7). Having repelled such as would fain be counted among the εὐσεβεῖς on the score of divers washings, or costly offerings to the temple, he proceeds: πεπλανηται γὰρ καὶ οὗτος τῆς εὐσέβειαν ὁδοῦ, θρησκείαν ἀντὶ ὁσιότητος ἡγουμενος. The readiness with which θρησκεία declined into the meaning of superstition, service of false gods (Wisd. 14:18, 27; Col. 2:18), of itself indicates that it had more to do with the form, than with the essence, of piety. Thus Gregory Nazianzene (Carm. ii. 34. 150, 151):

    Θρησκείαν οἶδα καὶ τὸ δαιμόνων σέβας,
    Ἡ δʼ εὐσέβεια προσκύνησις Τριάδος.

Δεισιδαίμων, the concluding word of this group, and δεισιδαιμονία as well, had at first an honourable use; was = θεοσεβής (Xenophon, Cyrop. iii. 3. 26). It is quite possible that ‘superstitio’ and ‘superstitiosus’ had the same. There seem traces of such a use of ‘superstitiosus’ by Plautus (Curcul. iii. 27; Amphit. i. 1. 169); although, as no one has yet solved the riddle of this word, it is impossible absolutely to say whether this be so or not. In Cicero’s time it had certainly left its better meaning behind (De Nat. Deor. ii. 28; Divin. ii. 72); and compare Seneca: ‘Religio Deos colit, superstitio violat.’ The philosophers first gave an unfavourable significance to δεισιδαιμονία. Ast indeed affirms that it first occurs in an ill sense in a passage of Polybius (vi. 56. 7); but Jebb (Characters of Theophrastus, p. 264) quotes a passage from Aristotle (Pol. v. 11), showing that this meaning was not unknown to him. So soon as ever the philosophers began to account fear not as a right, but as a disturbing element in piety, one therefore to be carefully eliminated from the true idea of it (see Plutarch, De Aud. Poët. 12; and Wyttenbach, Animadd. in Plutarchum, vol. i. p. 997), it was almost inevitable that they should lay hold of the word which by its very etymology implied and involved fear (δεισιδαιμονία, from δείδω), and should employ it to denote that which they disallowed and condemned, namely, the ‘timor inanis Deorum’ (Cicero, Nat. Deor. i. 41): in which phrase the emphasis must not be laid on ‘inanis,’ but on ‘timor’; cf. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, vi. 9): ‘Varro religiosum a superstitioso eâ distinctione discernit, ut a superstitioso dicat timeri Deos; a religioso autem vereri ut parentes; non ut hostes timeri.’ Baxter does not place the emphasis exactly where these have done; but his definition of superstition is also a good one (Cathol. Theol. Preface): ‘A conceit that God is well pleased by over-doing in external things and observances and laws of men’s own making.’
But even after they had thus turned δεισιδαιμονία to ignobler uses, defined it, as does Theophrastus, δειλία περὶ τὸ δαιμόνιον, and Plutarch, De Superst. 6. more vaguely, πολυπάθεια κακὸν τὸ ἀγαθὸν ὑπονοοῦσα, it did not at once and altogether forfeit its higher signification. It remained indeed a middle term to the last, receiving its inclination to good or bad from the intention of the user. Thus we not only find δεισιδαίμων (Xenophon, Ages. xi. 8; Cyr. iii. 3. 58) and δεισιδαιμονία (Polybius, vi. 56. 7; Josephus, Antt. x. 3. 2) in a good sense; but St. Paul himself employed it in no ill meaning in his ever memorable discourse upon Mars’ Hill. He there addresses the Athenians, “I perceive that in all things ye are ὡς δεισιδαιμονεστέρους” (Acts 17:22), which is scarcely “too superstitious,” as we have rendered it, or ‘allzu abergläubisch,’ as Luther; but rather ‘religiosiores,’ as Beza, ‘sehr gottesfürchtig,’ as De Wette, has given it. For indeed it was not St. Paul’s habit to affront, and by affronting to alienate his hearers, least of all at the outset of a discourse intended to win them to the truth. Deeper reasons, too, than those of a mere calculating prudence, would have hindered him from expressing himself thus; none was less disposed than he to overlook or deny the religious element in heathenism, however overlaid or obscured by falsehood or error this might be. Led by such considerations as these, some interpreters, Chrysostom for instance, make δεισιδαιμονεστέρους = εὐλαβεστέρους, taking it altogether as praise. Yet neither must we run into an extreme on this side. St. Paul selects with finest tact and skill, and at the same time with most perfect truth, a word which almost imperceptibly shaded off from praise to blame. Bengel (in loc.): ‘δεισιδαίμων, verbum per se μέσον, ideoque ambiguitatem habet clementem, et exordio huic aptissimam.’ In it he gave to his Athenian hearers the honour which was confessedly their due as zealous worshippers of the superior powers, so far as their knowledge reached, being θεοσεβέστατοι, as Sophocles (Œdip. Col. 256), εὐσεβέστατοι πάντων τῶν Ἑλλήνων, as Josephus, calls them; their land θεοφιλεστάτη, as Æschylus (Eumen. 867) names it; compare the beautiful chorus in The Clouds of Aristophanes, 299–313. But for all this, the apostle does not squander on them the words of very highest honour of all, reserving these for the true worshippers of the true God. And as it is thus in the one passage where δεισιδαίμων, so also in the one where δεισιδαιμονία, occurs (Acts 25:19). Festus may speak there with a certain covert slight of the δεισιδαιμονία, or overstrained way of worshipping God (‘Gottesverehrung’ De Wette translates it), which, as he conceived, was common to St. Paul and his Jewish accusers; but he would scarcely have called it a ‘superstition’ in Agrippa’s face, for it was the same to which Agrippa himself was addicted (Acts 26:3, 27), whom certainly he was very far from intending to insult.

§ xlix. κενός, μάταιος

THESE words nowhere in the N. T. occur together; but on several occasions in the Septuagint, as for instance at Job 20:18; Isai. 37:7; cf. 49:4; Hos. 12:1; in Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 6; and not unfrequently in classical Greek; as in Sophocles (Elec. 324); in Aristotle, Nic. Ethic. 1. 2; and in Plutarch (Adv. Colot. 17). We deal with them here solely in their ethical use; for seeing that μάταιος knows, at least in Scripture, no other use, it is only as ethically employed that κενός can be brought into comparison with it, or the words made the subject of discrimination.
The first, κενός, is ‘empty,’ ‘leer,’ ‘gehaltlose,’ ‘inanis’; the second, μάταιος, ‘vain,’ ‘eitel’ (‘idle’), ‘erfolglose,’ ‘vanus.’ In the first is characterized the hollowness, in the second the aimlessness, or, if we may use the word, the resultlessness, connected as it is with μάτην, of that to which this epithet is given. Thus κεναὶ ἐλπίδες (Æschylus, Pers. 804; cf. Job 7:6; Ecclus. 31:1, where they are joined with ψευδεῖς) are empty hopes, such as are built on no solid foundation; and in the N. T. κενοὶ λόγοι (Ephes. 5:6; cf. Deut. 32:47; Exod. 5:9) are words which have no inner substance and kernel of truth, hollow sophistries and apologies for sin; κόπος κένος, labour which yields no return (1 Cor. 15:58); so κενοφωνίαι (1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 2:16); cf. κενολογία (Plutarch, De Com. Not. 22), and κενοδοξία (Phil. 2:3), by Suidas explained ματαία τις περὶ ἑαυτοῦ οἴησις. St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians (1 Thess. 2:1) that his entrance to them was not κενή, not unaccompanied with the demonstration of Spirit and of power. When used not of things but of persons, κενός predicates not merely an absence and emptiness of good, but, since the moral nature of man endures no vacuum, the presence of evil. It is thus employed only once in the N. T., namely at Jam. 2:20 where the ἄνθρωπος κενός is one in whom the higher wisdom has found no entrance, but who is puffed up with a vain conceit of his own spiritual insight, ‘aufgeblasen,’ as Luther has it. Compare the ἄνδρες κενοί of Judg. 4:4; Plutarch (Quâ quis Rat. Laud. 5): τοὺς ἐν τῷ περιπατεῖν ἐπαιρομένους καὶ ὑψαυχενοῦντας ἀνοήτους ἡγούμεθα καὶ κενούς: and compare further the Greek proverb, κενοὶ κενὰ φροντίζουσι (Gaisford, Parœm. Grœci, p. 146).
But if κενός thus expresses the emptiness of all which is not filled with God, μάταιος, as observed already, will express the aimlessness, the leading to no object or end, the vanity, of all which has not Him, who is the only true object and end of any intelligent creature, for its scope. In things natural it is μάταιον, as Gregory of Nyssa, in his first Homily on Ecclesiastes explains it, to build houses of sand on the sea-shore, to chase the wind, to shoot at the stars, to pursue one’s own shadow. Pindar (Pyth. iii. 37) exactly describes the μάταιος as one μεταμώνια θηρεύων ἀκράντοις ἐλπίσιν That toil is μάταιος which can issue in nothing (Plato, Legg. 735 b); that grief is μάταιος for which no ground exists (Ax. 369 c); that is a μάταιος εὐχή which in the very nature of things cannot obtain its fulfilment (Euripides, Iphig. in Taur. 633); the prophecies of the false prophet, which God will not bring to pass, are μαντεῖαι μάταιαι (Ezek. 13:6, 7, 8; cf. Ecclus. 31:5); so in the N. T. μάταιοι καὶ ἀνωφελεῖς ζητησεῖς (Tit. 3:9) are idle and unprofitable questions whose discussion can lead to no advancement in true godliness; cf. ματαιολογία (1 Tim. 1:6; Plutarch, De Lib. Educ. 9), ματαιολόγοι (Tit. 1:10), vain talkers, the talk of whose lips can tend only to poverty, or to worse (Isai. 32:6: LXX.); ματαιοπονία (Clement of Rome, 9), labour which in its very nature is in vain.
Ματαιότης is a word altogether strange to profane Greek; one too to which the old heathen world, had it possessed it, could never have imparted that depth of meaning which in Scripture it has obtained. For indeed that heathen world was itself too deeply and hopelessly sunken in ‘vanity’ to be fully alive to the fact that it was sunken in it at all; was committed so far as to have lost all power to pronounce that judgment upon itself which in this word is pronounced upon it. One must, in part at least, have been delivered from the ματαιότης, to be in a condition at all to esteem it for what it truly is. When the Preacher exclaimed ‘All is vanity’ (Eccles. 1:2), it is clear that something in him was not vanity, else he could never have arrived at this conclusion. Hugh of S. Victor: ‘Aliquid ergo in ipso fuit quod vanitas non fuji, et id contra vanitatem non vane loqui potnit.’ Saying this I would not for an instant deny that some echoes of this cry of his reach us from the moral waste of the old heathen world. From none perhaps are they heard so often and so distinctly as from Lucretius. How many of the most pathetic passages in his poem do but draw out at greater length that confession which he has more briefly summed up in two lines, themselves of an infinite sadness:

    ‘Ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat
    Semper, et in curis consumit inanibus ævom.’

But if these confessions are comparatively rare elsewhere, they are frequent in Scripture. It is not too much to say that of one book in Scripture, I mean of course the book of The Preacher, it is the key-word. In that book ματαιότης, or its Hebrew equivalent הֶֽבֶל, occurs nearly forty times; and this ‘vanity,’ after the preacher has counted and cast up the total good of man’s life and labours apart from God, constitutes the zero at which the sum of all is rated by him. The false gods of heathendom are eminently τὰ μάταια (Acts 14:15; cf. 2 Chron. 11:15; Jer. 10:15; Jon. 2:8); the ματαιοῦσθαι is ascribed to as many as become followers of these (Rom. 1:21; 2 Kin. 17:15; Jer. 2:5; 28:17, 18); inasmuch as they, following after vain things, become themselves ματαιόφρονες (3 Macc. 6:11), like the vain things which they follow (Wisd. 13:1; 14:21–31); their whole conversation vain (1 Pet. 1:18), the ματαιότης having reached to the very centre and citadel of their moral being, to the νοῦς itself (Ephes. 4:17). Nor is this all; this ματαιότης, or δουλεία τῆς φθορᾶς (Rom. 8:21), for the phrases are convertible, of which the end is death, reaches to that entire creation which was made dependant on man; and which with a certain blind consciousness of this is ever reaching out after a deliverance, such as it is never able to grasp, seeing that the restitution of all others things can only follow on the previous restitution of man. On this matter Olshausen (on Rom. 8:21, 22) has some beautiful remarks, of which I can quote but a fragment: ‘Jeder natürliche Mensch, ja jedes Thier, jede Pflanze ringt über sich hinaus zu kommen, eine Idee zu verwirklichen, in deren Verwirklichung sie ihre ἐλευθερία hat, d. h. das der göttlichen Bestimmung volkommen entsprechende Seyn; aber die ihr Wesen durchziehende Nichtigkeit (Ps. 39:6; Pred. 1:2, 14), d. h. die mangelnde Lebensfülle, die darin begründete Vergänglichkeit und deren Ende, der Tod, lässt kein geschaffenes Ding sein Ziel erreichen; jedes Individuum der Gattung fängt vielmehr den Kreislauf wieder von neuem an, und ringt trostlos wider die Unmöglichkeit, sich zu vollenden.’ There is much too excellently said on this ‘vanity of the creature’ in an article in the Zeitschrift für Luther. Theol. 1872, p. 50. sqq.; and in another by Köster in the Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 755 sqq.

§ l. ἱμάτιον, χιτών, ἱματισμός, χλαμύς, στολή, ποδήρης

THE reader need not be alarmed here in prospect of a treatise de Re Vestiariâ; although such, with the abundant materials ready to hand in the works of Ferrarius, Braun, and others, might very easily be written, and need cost little more than the trouble of transcription. I do not propose more than a brief discrimination of a few of the words by which garments are most frequently designated in the N. T.
Ἱμάτιον, properly a diminutive of ἷμα (= εἷμα), although like so many words of our own, as ‘pocket,’ ‘latchet,’ it has quite lost the force of a diminutive, is the word of commonest use, when there is no intention to designate one manner of garment more particularly than another (Matt. 11:8; 26:65). But ἱμάτιον is used also in a more restricted sense, of the large upper garment, so large that a man would sometimes sleep in it (Exod. 22:26), the cloke as distinguished from the χιτών or close-fitting inner vest; and thus περιβάλλειν ἱμάτιον (it is itself called περιβόλαιον, Exod. 22:7; περιβολή, Plutarch, Conj. Prœc. 12), but ἐνδύειν χιτῶνα (Dio Chrysostom, Orat. 7:111). Ἱμάτιον and χιτών, as the upper and the under garment, occur constantly together (Acts 9:39; Matt. 5:40; Luke 6:29; John 19:23). Thus at Matt. 5:40 our Lord instructs his disciples: “If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat (χιτῶνα), let him have thy cloke (ἱμάτιον) also.” Here the spoiler is presumed to begin with the less costly, the under garment, which we have rendered, not very happily, the ‘coat’ (Dictionary of the Bible, art. Dress), from which he proceeds to the more costly, or upper; and the process of spoliation being a legal one, there is nothing unnatural in such a sequence: but at Luke 6:29 the order is reversed: “Him that taketh away thy cloke (ἱμάτιον) forbid not to take thy coat (χιτῶνα) also.” As the whole context plainly shows, the Lord is here contemplating an act of violent outrage; and therefore the cloke or upper garment, as that which would be the first seized, is also the first named. In the Æsopic fable (Plutarch, Prœc. Conj. 12), the wind with all its violence only makes the traveller to wrap his ἱμάτιον more closely round him, while, when the sun begins to shine in its strength, he puts off first his ἱμάτιον, and then his χιτών. One was styled γυμνός, who had laid aside his ἱμάτιον, and was only in his χιτών; not ‘naked,’ as our Translators have it (John 21:7), which suggests an unseemliness that certainly did not find place; but stripped for toil (cf. Isai. 20:2; 58:7; Job 22:6; Jam. 2:15; and in the Latin, ‘nudus ara.’ It is naturally his ἱμάτιον which Joseph leaves in the hands of his temptress (Gen. 39:12); while at Jude 23 χιτών has its fitness.
Ἱματισμός, a word of comparatively late appearance, and belonging to the κοινὴ διάλεκτος, is seldom, if ever, used except of garments more or less stately and costly. It is the ‘vesture’—this word expressing it very well (cf. Gen. 41:42; Ps. 103:26; Rev. 19:13, E. V.), of kings; thus of Solomon in all his glory (1 Kin. 10:5; cf. 22:30); is associated with gold and silver, as part of a precious spoil (Exod. 3:22; 12:35; cf. Acts 20:33); is found linked with such epithets as ἔνδοξος (Luke 7:25; cf. Isai. 3:18, δόξα τοῦ ἱματισμοῦ), ποικίλος (Ezek. 16:18), διάχρυσος (Ps. 44:10), πολυτελής (1 Tim. 2:9; cf. Plutarch, Apoph. Lac. Archid. 7); is a name given to our Lord’s χιτών (Matt. 27:35; John 19:24), which was woven all of a piece (ἄῤῥαφος), and had that of cost and beauty about it which made even the rude Roman soldiers unwilling to rend, and so to destroy it.
The purple robe with which our Lord was arrayed in scorn by the mockers in Pilate’s judgment-hall is a χλαμύς (Matt. 27:28–31). Nor can we doubt that the word has its strictest fitness here. Χλαμύς so constantly signifies a garment of dignity and office, that χλαμύδα περιτιθέναι was a proverbial phrase for assuming a magistracy (Plutarch, An. Sen. Ger. Resp. 26). This might be a civil magistracy; but χλαμύς, like ‘paludamentum’ (which, and not ‘sagum,’ is its nearest Latin equivalent), far more commonly expresses the robe with which military officers, captains, commanders or imperators, would be clothed (2 Macc. 12:35); and the employment of χλαμύς in the record of the Passion leaves little doubt that these profane mockers obtained, as it would have been so easy for them in the prætorium to obtain, the cast-off cloke of some high Roman officer, and with this arrayed the sacred person of the Lord. We recognise a certain confirmation of this supposition in the epithet κόκκινος which St. Matthew gives it. It was ‘scarlet,’ the colour worn by Roman officers of rank; so ‘chlamys coccinea’ (Lampridius, Alex. Severus, 40); χλαμύς περιπόρφυρος (Plutarch, Prœc. Ger. Reip. 20). That the other Evangelists describe it as ‘purple’ (Mark 15:17; John 19:2) does not affect this statement; for the ‘purple’ of antiquity was a colour almost or altogether indefinite (Braun, De Vest. Sac. Heb. vol. i. p. 220; Gladstone, Studies on Homer, vol. iii. p. 457).
Στολή, from στέλλω, our English ‘stole,’ is any stately robe; and as long sweeping garments would have eminently this stateliness about them, always, or almost always, a garment reaching to the feet, or trainlike sweeping the ground. The fact that such were oftenest worn by women (the Trojan women are ἑλκεσίπεπλοι in Homer) explains the use which ‘stola’ in Latin has predominantly acquired. The Emperor Marcus Antoninus tells us in his Meditations, that among the things which he learned from his tutor, the famous Stoic philosopher Rusticus, was, not to stalk about the house in a στολή (μὴ ἐν στολῇ κατʼ οἶκον περιπατεῖν, i. 7). It was, on the contrary, the custom and pleasure of the Scribes to “walk in long clothing” (Mark 12:38; cf. Luke 20:46), making this solemn ostentation of themselves in the eyes of men. Στολή is in constant use for the holy garments of Aaron and his descendants (Exod. 28:2; 29:21; στολὴ δόξης they are called, Ecclus. 50:11); or, indeed, for any garment of special solemnity, richness, or beauty; thus στολὴ λειτουργική (Exod. 31:10); and compare Mark 16:5; Luke 15:22; Rev. 6:11; 7:9; Esth. 6:8, 11; Jon. 3:6.
Ποδήρης, naturalised in ecclesiastical Latin as ‘podĕris’ (of which the second syllable is short), is properly an adjective, = ‘talaris;’ thus ἀσπὶς ποδήρης, Xenophon, vi. 2, 10 (= θυρεός, Ephes. 6:16); ποδῆρες ἔνδυμα, Wisd. 18:24; ποδήρης πώγων, Plutarch, Quom. Am. ab Adul. 7; being severally a shield, a garment, a beard, reaching down to the feet. It differs very little from στολή. Indeed the same Hebrew word which is rendered ποδήρης at Ezek. 4:2, 3, is rendered στολή, ibid. x. 2, and στολὴ ἁγία, ibid. 6, 7. At the same time, in the enumeration of the high-priestly garments, this στολή, or στολὴ ἁγία, signifies the whole array of the high priest; while the ποδήρης (χιτὼν ποδήρης Plutarch calls it in his curious and strangely inaccurate chapter about the Jewish festivals, Symp. iv. 6. 6) is distinguished from it, and signifies one portion only, namely, the robe or chetoneth (Exod. 28:2, 4; Ecclus. 45:7, 8).
There are other words which might be included in this group, as ἐσθής (Luke 23:11), ἔσθησις (Luke 24:4), ἔνδυμα (Matt. 22:12); but it would not be very easy to assign severally to each of these a domain of meaning peculiarly its own.

§ li. εὐχή, προσευχή, δέησις, ἔντευξις, εὐχαριστία, αἴτημα, ἱκετηρία

FOUR of these words occur together at 1 Tim. 2:1; on which Flacius Illyricus (Clavis, s. v. Oratio) justly observes: ‘Quem vocum acervum procul dubio Paulus non temere congessit.’ I propose to consider not these only, but the larger group of which they form a portion.
Εὐχή is found only once in the N. T. in the sense of a prayer (Jam. 5:15); twice besides in that of a vow (Acts 18:18; 21:23); compare Plato (Legg. 801 a), εὐχαὶ παρὰ θεῶν αἰτήσεις εἰσί. On the distinction between it and προσευχή, between εὔχεσθαι and προσεύχεσθαι, there is a long discussion in Origen (De Orat. § 2, 3, 4), but of no great value, and not bringing out more than the obvious fact that in εὐχή and εὔχεσθαι the notion of the vow, of the dedicated thing, is more commonly found than that of prayer. A more interesting treatment of the words, and the difference between them, may be found in Gregory of Nyssa, De Orat. Dom. Orat. 2, ad init.
Προσευχή and δέησις often in the N. T. occur together (Phil. 4:6; Ephes. 6:18; 1 Tim. 2:1; 5:5), and not unfrequently in the Septuagint (Ps. 6:10; Dan. 9:21, 23; cf. 1 Macc. 7:37). There have been many, but for the most part not very successful, attempts to distinguish between them. Grotius, for instance, affirms that they are severally ‘precatio’ and ‘deprecatio’; that the first seeks to obtain good, the second to avert evil. Augustine, let me note by the way, in his treatment of the more important in this group of words (Ep. 149, § 12–16; cf. Bishop Taylor, Pref. to Apology for Set Forms of Liturgy, § 31), which, though interesting, yields few definite results of value, observes that in his time this distinction between ‘precatio’ and ‘deprecatio’ had practically quite disappeared. Theodoret, who had anticipated Grotius here, explains προσευχή as αἴτησις ἀγαθῶν, and δέησις as ὑπὲρ ἀπαλλαγῆς τινῶν λυπηρῶν ἰκετεία προφερομένη. He has here in this last definition the words of Aristotle (Rhet. ii. 7) before him: δεήσεις εἰσὶν αἱ ὀρέξεις, καὶ τούτων μάλιστα αἱ μετὰ λύπης τοῦ μὴ γιγνομένου: compare Gregory of Nazianzus, δέησιν οἴου τὴν αἴτησιν ἐνδεῶν. But this distinction is altogether arbitrary; it neither lies in the words, nor is it borne out by usage. Better Calvin, who makes προσευχή (= ‘precatio’), prayer in general, δέησις (= ‘rogatio’), prayer for particular benefits: ‘προσευχή omne genus orationis, δέησις ubi certum aliquid petitur; genus et species.’ Bengel’s distinction amounts very nearly to the same thing: ‘δέησις (a δεῖ) est imploratio gratiæ in necessitate quâdam speciali; προσευχή, oratio, exercetur quâlibet oblatione voluntatum et desideriorum erga Deum.’
But Calvin and Bengel, bringing out one important point of distinction, have yet failed to bring out another—namely, that προσευχή is ‘res sacra,’ the word being restricted to sacred uses; it is always prayer to God; δέησις has no such restriction. Fritzsche (on Rom. 10:1) has not failed to urge this: ‘ἡ προσευχή et ἡ δέησις differunt ut precatio et rogatio. Προσεύχεσθαι et ἡ προσευχή verba sacra sunt; precamur enim Deum: δεῖσθαι, τὸ δέημα (Aristophanes, Acharn. 1059) et ἡ δέησις tum in sacrâ tum in profanâ re usurpantur; nam et Deum rogare possumus et homines.’ It is the same distinction as in our ‘prayer’ (though that has been too much brought down to mundane uses) and ‘petition,’ in the German ‘Gebet’ and ‘Bitte.’
Ἔντευξις occurs in the N. T. only at 1 Tim. 2:1; 4:5; (but ἐντυγχάνειν four or five times), and once in the Apocrypha (2 Macc. 4:8). ‘Intercession,’ by which the A. V. translates it, is not, as we now understand ‘intercession,’ a satisfactory rendering. For ἔντευξις does not necessarily mean what intercession at present commonly does mean—namely, prayer in relation to others (at 1 Tim. 4:5 such meaning is impossible); a pleading either for them or against them. Least of all does it mean exclusively the latter, a pleading against our enemies, as Theodoret, on Rom. 11:2, missing the fact that the ‘against’ lay there in the κατά, would imply, when he says: ἔντευξις ἐστὶ κατηγορία τῶν ἀδικούντων; cf. Hesychius: δέησις εἰς ἐκδίκησιν ὑπέρ τινος (Rom. 8:34), κατά τινος (Rom. 11:2); but, as its connexion with ἐντυγχάνειν, to fall in with a person, to draw close to him so as to enter into familiar speech and communion with him (Plutarch, Conj. Prœc. 13), implies, it is free familiar prayer, such as boldly draws near to God (Gen. 18:23; Wisd. 8:21; cf. Philo, Quod Det. Pot. 25; ἐντεύξεις καὶ ἐκβοήσεις; Plutarch, Phoc. 17). In justice, however, to our Translators, it must be observed that ‘intercession’ had not in their time that limited meaning of prayer for others which we now ascribe to it; see Jer. 27:18; 36:25. The Vulgate has ‘postulationes’; but Augustine, in a discussion on this group of words referred to already (Ep. 149, §12–16), prefers ‘interpellationes,’ as better bringing out the παῤῥησία, the freedom and boldness of access, which is involved in, and constitutes the fundamental idea of, the ἔντευξις—‘interpellare,’ to interrupt another in speaking, ever implying forwardness and freedom. Origen (De Orat. 14) in like manner makes the boldness of approach to God, asking, it may be, some great thing (he instances Josh. 10:12), the fundamental notion of the ἔντευξις. It might mean indeed more than this, Plato using it of a possible encounter with pirates (Rep. 298 d).
Εὐχαριστία, which our Translators have rendered ‘thankfulness’ (Acts 24:3); ‘giving of thanks’ (1 Cor. 14:16); ‘thanks’ (Rev. 4:9); ‘thanksgiving’ (Phil. 4:6), a somewhat rare word elsewhere, is frequent in sacred Greek. It would be out of place to dwell here on the special meaning which εὐχαριστία and ‘eucharist’ have acquired from the fact that in the Holy Communion the Church embodies her highest act of thanksgiving for the highest benefits which she has received of God. Regarded as one manner of prayer, it expresses that which ought never to be absent from any of our devotions (Phil. 4:6; Ephes. 5:20; 1 Thess. 5:18; 1 Tim. 2:1); namely, the grateful acknowledgment of past mercies, as distinguished from the earnest seeking of future. As such it may, and will, subsist in heaven (Rev. 4:9; 7:12); will indeed be larger, deeper, fuller there than here: for only there will the redeemed know how much they owe to their Lord; and this it will do, while all other forms of prayer, in the very nature of things, will have ceased in the entire possession and present fruition of the things prayed for.
Αἴτημα occurs twice in the N. T. in the sense of a petition of men to God, both times in the plural (Phil. 4:6; 1 John 5:15); it is, however, by no means restricted to this meaning (Luke 23:24; Esth. 5:7; Dan. 6:7). In a προσευχή of any length there will probably be many αἰτήματα, these being indeed the several requests of which the προσευχή is composed. For instance, in the Lord’s Prayer it is generally reckoned that there are seven αἰτήματα, though some have regarded the first three as εὐχαί, and only the last four as αἰτήματα. Witsius (De Orat. Dom.): ‘Petitio pars orationis; ut si totam Orationem Dominicam voces orationem aut precationem, singulas vero illius partes aut septem postulata petitiones.’
Ἱκετηρία, with ῥάβδος, or ἐλαία, or some such word understood, like ἱλαστήριον, θυσιαστήριον, δικαστήριον, and other words of the same termination (see Lobeck, Pathol. Serm. Grœc. p. 281), was originally an adjective, but little by little obtained substantival power, and learned to go alone. It is explained by Plutarch (Thes. 18): κλάδος ἀπὸ τῆς ἱερᾶς ἐλαίας ἐρίῳ λευκῷ κατεστεμμένος (cf. Wyttenbach, Animadd. in Plutarch. vol. xiii. p. 89; and Wunder on Sophocles, Œdip. Rex, 3), the olive-branch bound round with white wool, held forth by the suppliant in token of the character which he bore (Æschylus, Eumen. 43, 44; compare Virgil, Æn. viii. 116: ‘Paciferæque manu ramum prætendit olivæ;’ and again ver. 128: ‘Et vittâ comtos voluit prætendere ramos’ and once more xi. 101). A deprecatory letter, which Antiochus Epiphanes is said on his death-bed to have written to the Jews, is described (2 Macc. 9:18) as ἱκετηρίας τάξιν ἔχουσα, and Agrippa designates one addressed to Caligula: γραφὴ ἣν ἀνθʼ ἱκετηρίας προτείνω (Philo, Leg. ad Cai. 36). It is easy to trace the steps by which this, the symbol of supplication, came to signify the supplication itself. It does so on the only occasion when it occurs in the N. T. (Heb. 5:7), being there joined to δέησις, as it often is elsewhere (Job 41:3 [40:27 LXX.]; Polybius, iii. 112. 8).
Thus much on the distinction between these words; although, when all has been said, it will still to a great extent remain true that they will often set forth, not different kinds of prayer, but prayer contemplated from different sides and under different aspects. Witsius (De Orat. Dom. § 4): ‘Mihi sic videtur, unam eandemque rem diversis nominibus designari pro diversis quos habet aspectibus. Preces nostræ δεήσεις vocantur, quatenus iis nostram apud Deum testamur egestatem, nam δέεσθαι indigere est; προσευχαί, quatenus vota nostra continent; αἰτήματα, quatenus exponunt petitiones et desideria; ἐντεύξεις, quatenus non timide et diffidenter, sed familiariter, Deus se a nobis adiri patitur; ἔντευξις enim est colloquium et congressus familiaris: εὐχαριστίαν gratiarum actionem esse pro acceptis jam beneficiis, notius est quam ut moneri oportuit.’—On the Hebrew correlatives to the several words of this group, see Vitringa, De Synagogâ, iii. 2. 13.

§ lii. ἀσύνθετος, ἄσπονδος

Ἀσύνθετος occurs only once in the N. T., namely at Rom. 1:31; cf. Jer. 3:8–11, where it is found several times, but not elsewhere in the Septuagint. There is the same solitary use of ἄσπονδος (2 Tim. 3:3); for its right to a place in the text at Rom. 1:31 is with good reason contested, and the best critical editions omit it there. It is nowhere found in the Septuagint.
The distinction between the two words, as used in Scripture, is not hard to draw;—I have said, as used in Scripture; because there may be a question whether ἀσύνθετος has anywhere else exactly the meaning which it challenges there. Elsewhere often united with ἁπλοῦς, with ἄκρατος (Plutarch, De Comm. Not. 48), it has the passive sense of ‘not put together’ or ‘not made up of several parts’; and in this sense evidently the Vulgate, which renders it ‘incompositus,’ has taken it; we have here the explanation of the ‘dissolute’ of the Rheims Version. But the ἀσύνθετοι of St. Paul—the word with him has an active sense—are they who, being in covenant and treaty with others, refuse to abide by these covenants and treaties: μὴ ἐμμένοντες ταῖς συνθήκαις (Hesychius); ‘pactorum haudquaquam tenaces’ (Erasmus); ‘bundbrüchig’ (not ‘unverträglich,’ as Tittmann maintains); ‘covenant-breakers’ (A. V.). The word is associated with ἀστάθμητος, Demosthenes, De Fals. Leg. 383.
Worse than the δυσδιάλυτοι (Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iv. 5, 10), who are only hard to be reconciled, the ἄσπονδοι are the absolutely irreconcileable (ἄσπονδοι καὶ ἀκατάλλακτοι, Philo, Quis Rer. Div. Hœr. 50); those who will not be atoned, or set at one, who being at war refuse to lay aside their enmity, or to listen to terms of accommodation; ‘implacabiles, qui semel offensi reconciliationem non admittunt’ (Estius); ‘unversöhnlich,’ ‘implacable’ (A. V.); the word is by Philo (De Merc. Mer. 4) joined to ἀσύμβατος and ἀκοινώνητος, opposed to εὐδιάλλακτος by Plutarch (De Alex. Virt. 4). The phrase, ἄσπονδος καὶ ἀκήρυκτος πόλεμος is frequent, indeed proverbial, in Greek (Demosthenes, De Coron. 79; Philo, De Prœm. et Pœn. 15; Lucian, Pisc. 36); in this connexion ἀκήρυκτος πόλεμος does not mean a war not duly announced by the fecial; but rather one in which what Virgil calls the ‘belli commercia’ are wholly suspended; no herald, no flag of truce, as we should now say, being allowed to pass between the parties, no terms of reconcilement listened to; such a war, for example, as that which the Carthaginians in the interval between the first and second Punic Wars waged with their revolted mercenaries. In the same sense we have elsewhere ἄσπονδος μάχη καὶ ἀδιάλλακτος ἔρις (Aristænetus, 2, 14); cf. ἄσπειστος κότος (Nicander, Ther. 367; quoted by Blomfield, Agamemnon, p. 285); ἄσπονδος ἔχθρα (Plutarch, Pericles, 30); ἄσπονδος Θεός (Euripides, Alcestis, 431).
Ἀσύνθετος then presumes a state of peace, which they who are such unrighteously interrupt; while ἄσπονδος presumes a state of war, which the ἄσπονδοι refuse to bring to an equitable close. It will follow that Calvin, who renders ἄσπονδοι ‘fœdifragi,’ and ἀσύνθετοι ‘insociabiles,’ has exactly missed the force of both; Theodoret has done the same; who on Rom. 1:31 writes: ἀσυνθέτους, τοὺς ἀκοινώνητον καὶ πονηρὸν βίον ἀσπαζομένους· ἀσπόνδους τοὺς ἀδεῶς τὰ συγκείμενα παραβαίνοντας. Only by ascribing to each word that meaning which these interpreters have ascribed to the other, will the right equivalents be obtained.
In agreement with what has been just said, and in confirmation of it, is the distinction which Ammonius draws between συνθήκη and σπονδή. Συνθήκη assumes peace; being a further agreement, it may be a treaty of alliance, between those already on general terms of amity. Thus there was a συνθήκη between the several States which owned the leadership of Sparta in the Peloponnesian War, that, with whatever territory any one of these began the war, with the same it should close it (Thucydides, v. 31). But σπονδή, oftener in the plural, assumes war, of which the σπονδή is the cessation; a merely temporary cessation, an armistice it may be (Homer, Il. ii. 341). It is true that a συνθήκη may be attached to a σπονδή, terms of alliance consequent on terms of peace; thus σπονδή and συνθήκη occur together in Thucydides, iv. 18: but they are different things; in the σπονδή there is a cessation of the state of war, there is peace, or at all events truce; in the συνθήκη there is, superinduced on this, a further agreement or alliance.—Εὐσύνθετος, I may observe, which would be the exact opposite of ἀσύνθετος, finds no place in our lexicons; and we may presume is not found in any Greek author; but εὐσυνθεσία in Philo (De Merc. Mer. 3); as ἀσυνθεσία in the Septuagint (Jer. 3:7), and ἀθεσία in the same sense often in Polybius (ii. 32).

§ liii. μακροθυμία, ὑπομονή, ἀνοχή

BETWEEN μακροθυμία and ὑπομονή, which occur together at Col. 1:11, and in the same context 2 Cor. 6:4, 6; 2 Tim. 3:10; Jam. 5:10, 11; cf. Clement of Rome, 58; Ignatius, Ephes. 3, Chrysostom draws the following distinction; that a man μακροθυμεῖ, who having power to avenge himself, yet refrains from the exercise of this power; while he ὑπομένει, who having no choice but to bear, and only the alternative of a patient or impatient bearing, has grace to choose the former. Thus the faithful, he concludes, would commonly be called to exercise the former grace among themselves (1 Cor. 6:7), the latter in their commerce with those that were without: μακροθυμίαν πρὸς ἀλλήλους, ὑπομονὴν πρὸς τοὺς ἔξω· μακροθυμεῖ γάρ τις πρὸς ἐκείνους οὓς δυνατὸν καὶ ἀμύνασθαι, ὑπομένει δὲ οὓς οὐ δύναται ἀμύνασθαι. This distinction, however, will not endure a closer examination; for see decisively against it Heb. 12:2, 3. He to whom ὑπομονή is there ascribed, bore, not certainly because He could not avoid bearing; for He might have summoned to his aid twelve legions of angels, if so He had willed (Matt. 26:53). It may be well then to consider whether some more satisfactory distinction between these words cannot be drawn.
Μακροθυμία belongs to a later stage of the Greek language. It occurs in the Septuagint, though neither there nor elsewhere exactly in the sense which in the N.T. it bears; thus at Isai. 57:15 it is rather a patient holding out under trial than long-suffering under provocation, more, that is, the ὐπομονή with which we have presently to do; and compare Jer. 15:15, 1 Macc. 8:4; in neither of which places is its use that of the N. T.; and as little is it that of Plutarch (Lucul. 32); the long-suffering of men he prefers to express by ἀνεξικακία (De Cap. ex Inim. Util. 9; cf. Epictetus, Enchir. 10), while for the grand long-suffering of God he has a noble word, one probably of his own coining, μεγαλοπάθεια (De Ser. Num. Vind. 5). The Church-Latin rendered it by ‘longanimitas’ which the Rheims Version sought to introduce into English in the shape of ‘longanimity.’ There is no reason why ‘longanimity; should not have had the same success as ‘magnanimity’; but there is a fortune about words, as well as about books, and this failed, notwithstanding that Jeremy Taylor and Bishop Hall allowed and employed it. We have preferred ‘long-suffering,’ and understand by it a long holding out of the mind before it gives room to fiction or passion—generally to passion; ἀνεχόμενοι ἀλλήλων ἐν ἀγάπῃ, as St. Paul (Ephes. 4:2) beautifully expounds the meaning which he attaches to the word. Anger usually, but not universally, is the passion thus long held aloof; the μακρόθυμος being one βραδὺς εἰς ὀργήν, and the word exchanged for κρατῶν ὀργῆς (Prov. 16:32); and set over against θυμώδης (15:18). Still it is not necessarily anger, which is thus excluded or set at a distance; for when the historian of the Maccabees describes how the Romans had won the world ‘by their policy and their patience’ (1 Macc. 8:4), μακροθυμία expresses there that Roman persistency which would never make peace under defeat. The true antithesis to μακροθυμία in that sense is ὀξυθυμία, a word belonging to the best times of the language, and employed by Euripides (Androm. 729), as ὀξύθυμος by Aristotle (Rhet. ii. 12; cf. ὀξύχολος, Solon).
But ὑπομονή,—βασιλὶς τῶν ἀρετῶν Chrysostom calls it,—is that virtue which in heathen ethics would be called more often by the name of καρτερία (the words are joined together, Plutarch, Apoph. Lac. Ages. 2), or καρτέρησις, and which Clement of Alexandria, following in the track of some heathen moralists, describes as the knowledge of what things are to be borne and what are not (ἐπιστήμη ἐμμενετέων καὶ οὐκ ἐμμενετέων, Strom. ii. 18; cf. Plutarch, De Plac. Phil. iv. 23), being the Latin ‘perseverantia’ and ‘patientia’ both in one, or, more accurately still, ‘tolerantia.’ ‘In this noble word ὑπομονή there always appears (in the N. T.) a background of ἀνδρεία (cf. Plato, Theœt. 177 b, where ἀνδρικῶς ὑπομεῖναι is opposed to ἀνάνδρως φεύγειν); it does not mark merely the endurance, the “sustinentia” (Vulg.), or even the “patientia” (Clarom.), but the “perseverantia,” the brave patience with which the Christian contends against the various hindrances, persecutions, and temptations that befal him in his conflict with the inward and outward world’ (Ellicott, on 1 Thess. 1:3). It is, only springing from a nobler root, the κρατερὰ τλημοσύνη of Archilochus, Fragm. 8. Cocceius (on Jam. 1:12) describes it well: ‘Ὑπομονή vesatur in contemtu bonorum hujus mundi, et in forti susceptione affictionum cum gratiarum actione; imprimis autem in constantiâ fidei et caritatis, ut neutro modo quassari aut labefactari se patiatur, aut impediri quominus opus suum et laborem suum efficiat.’ For some other definitions see the article ‘Geduld’ in Herzog’s Real Encyclopädie.
We may proceed now to distinguish between these; and this distinction, I believe, will hold good wherever the words occur; namely, that μακροθυμία will be found to express patience in respect of persons, ὑπομονή in respect of things. The man μακροθυμεῖ, who, having to do with injurious persons, does not suffer himself easily to be provoked by them, or to blaze up into anger (2 Tim. 4:2). The man ὑπομένει, who, under a great siege of trials, bears up, and does not lose heart or courage (Rom. 5:3; 2 Cor. 1:6; cf. Clement of Rom, 1 Ep. § 5). We should speak, therefore, of the μακροθυμία of David (2 Sam. 16:10–13), the ὑπομονή of Job (Jam. 5:11). Thus, while both graces are ascribed to the saints, only μακροθυμία is an attribute of God; and there is a beautiful account of his μακροθυμία at Wisd. 12:20, however the word itself does not there appear. Men may tempt and provoke Him, and He may and does display an infinite μακροθυμία in regard of them (Exod. 34:6; Rom. 2:4; 1 Pet. 3:20); there may be a resistance to God in men, because He respects the wills which He has given them, even when those wills are fighting against Him. But there can be no resistance to God, nor burden upon Him, the Almighty, from things; therefore ὑπομονή can find no place in Him, nor is it, as Chrysostom rightly observes, properly ascribed to Him; (yet see Augustine, De Patientiá, § 1), for it need hardly be observed that when God is called Θεὸς τῆς ὑπομονῆς (Rom. 15:5), this does not mean, God whose own attribute ὑπομονή is, but God who gives ὑπομονή to his servants and saints (Tittmann, p. 194: ʼΘεὸς τῆς ὑπομονῆς, Deus qui largitur ὑπομονήν;’ cf. Ps. 70:5, LXX.); in the same way as Θεὸς χάριτος (1 Pet. 5:10) is God who is the author of grace; Θεὸς τῆς εἰρήνης (Heb. 13:20), God who is the author of peace; and compare Θεὸς τῆς ἐλπίδος (Rom. 15:13), ‘the God of hope.’
Ἀνοχή, used commonly in the plural in classical Greek, signifies, for the most part, a truce or suspension of arms, the Latin ‘indutiæ’ It is excellently rendered ‘forbearance’ on the two occasions of its occurrence in the N. T. (Rom. 2:4; 3:26). Between it and μακροθυμία Origen draws the following distinction in his Commentary on the Romans (2:4)—the Greek original is lost:—‘Sustentatio [ἀνοχή] a patientiâ [μακροθυμία] hoc videtur differre, quod qui infirmitate magis quam proposito delinquunt sustentari dicuntur; qui vero pertinaci mente velut exsultant in delictis suis, ferri patienter dicendi sunt.’ This does not seize very successfully the distinction, which is not one merely of degree. Rather the ἀνοχή is temporary, transient: we may say that, like our ‘truce,’ it asserts its own temporary, transient character; that after a certain lapse of time, and unless other conditions intervene, it will pass away. This, it may be urged, is true of μακροθυμία no less; above all, of the divine μακροθυμία (Luke 13:9). But as much does not lie in the word; we may conceive of a μακροθυμία, though it would be worthy of little honour, which should never be exhausted; while ἀνοχή implies its own merely provisional character. Fritzsche (on Rom. 2:4) distinguishes the words: ‘ἡ ἀνοχή indulgentiam notat quâ jus tuum non continuo exequutus, ei qui te læserit spatium des ad resipiscendum; ἡ μακροθυμία clementiam significat quâ iræ temperans delictum non statim vindices, sed ei qui peccaverit pœnitendi locum relinquas;’ elsewhere (Rom. 3:26) he draws the matter still better to a point: ‘Indulgentia [ἡ ἀνοχή] eo valet, ut in aliorum peccatis conniveas, non ut alicui peccata condones, quod clementiœ est.’ It is therefore most fitly used at Rom. 3:26 in relation to the πάρεσις ἁμαρτιων which found place before the atoning death of Christ, as contrasted with the ἄφεσις ἁμαρτίων, which was the result of that death (see back, p. 114). It is that forbearance or suspense of wrath, that truce with the sinner, which by no means implies that the wrath will not be executed at the last; nay, involves that it certainly will, unless he be found under new conditions of repentance and obedience (Luke 13:9; Rom. 2:3–6). The words are distinguished, but the difference between them not very sharply defined, by Jeremy Taylor, in his first Sermon ‘On the Mercy of the Divine Judgments,’ in init.

§ liv. στρηνιάω, τρυφάω, σπαταλάω

IN all these words lies the notion of excess, of wanton, dissolute, self-indulgent, prodigal living, but in each case with a difference.
Στρηνιάω occurs only twice in the N. T. (Rev. 18:7, 9), στρῆνος once (Rev. 18:3; cf. 2 Kin. 19:28), and the compound καταστρηνιάω as often (1 Tim. 5:11). It is a word of the New or Middle Comedy, and is used by Lycophron, as quoted in Athenæus (x. 420 b); by Sophilus (ib. iii. 100 a); and Antiphanes (ib. iii. 127 d); but rejected by the Greek purists—Phrynichus, indeed, affirming that none but a madman would employ it, having τρυφᾶν at his command (Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 381). This last, which is thus so greatly preferred, is a word of solitary occurrence in the N. T. (Jam. 5:5); ἐντρυφᾶν (2 Pet. 2:13) of the same; but belongs with τρυφή (Luke 7:25; 2 Pet. 2:13) to the best age and most classical writers in the language. It will be found on closer inspection that the words do different work, and that often-times one could not be employed in room of the other.
In στρηνιᾶν (= ἀτακτεῖν, Suidas; διὰ τὸν πλοῦτον ὑβρίζειν, Hesychius), is properly the insolence of wealth, the wantonness and petulance from fulness of bread; something of the Latin ‘lascivire.’ There is nothing of sybaritic effeminacy in it; so far from this that Pape connects στρῆνος with ‘strenuus’; see too Pott, Etymol. Forsch. ii. 2. 357; and there is ever the notion of strength, vigour, the German ‘Uebermuth,’ such as that displayed by the inhabitants of Sodom (Gen. 19:4–9), implied in the word. On the other hand, effeminacy, brokenness of spirit through self-indulgence, is exactly the point from which τρυφή and τρυφᾶν (connected with θρύπτειν and θρύψις) start; thus τρυφή is linked with χλιδή (Philo, De Merc. Mer. 2); with πολυτέλεια (Plutarch, Marc. 3); with μαλακία (Quom. Adul. Poët. 4); with ῥαθυμία (Marcellus, 21); cf. Suicer, Thes. s. v.; and note the company which it keeps elsewhere (Plato, 1 Alcib. 122 b); and the description of it which Clement of Alexandria gives (Strom. ii. 20): τί γὰρ ἕτερον ἡ τρυφή, ἢ φιλήδονος λιχνεία, καὶ πλεονασμὸς περίεργος, πρὸς ἡδυπάθειαν ἀνειμένων; It only runs into the notion of the insolent as a secondary and rarer meaning; being then united with ὕβρις (Aristophanes, Ranœ, 21, Strabo, vi. 1); τρυφᾶν with ὑβρίζειν (Plutarch, Prœc. Ger. Rep. 3); and compare the line of Menander: ὑπερήφανόν που γίνεθʼ ἡ λίαν τρυφή. It occasionally from thence passes forward into a good sense, and expresses the triumph and exultation of the saints of God (Chrysostom, in Matt. Hom. 67, 68; Isai. 66:11; Ezek. 34:13; Ps. 35:9); so, too, ἐντρυφᾶν (Isai. 55:2); while the garden of Eden is παράδεισος τῆς τρυφῆς (Gen. 2:15).
Σπαταλᾶν (occurring only 1 Tim. 5:6; Jam. 5:5; cf. Ecclus. 21:17; Ezek. 16:49; Amos 6:4; the last two being instructive passages) is more nearly allied to τρυφᾶν, with which at Jam. 5:5 it is associated, than with στρηνιᾶν, but it brings in the further notion of wastefulness (= ἀναλίσκειν, Hesychius), which, consistently with its derivation from σπάω, σπαθάω, is inherent in it. Thus Hottinger: ‘τρυφᾶν deliciarum est, et exquisitæ voluptatis, σπαταλᾶν luxuriæ atque prodigalitatis.’ Tittmann: ‘τρυφᾶν potius mollitiam vitæ luxuriosæ, σπαταλᾶν petulantiam et prodigalitatem denotat.’ Theile, who takes them in the reverse order: ‘Componuntur tanquam antecedens et consequens; diffluere et dilapidare, luxuriare et lascivire.’
It will follow, if these distinctions have been rightly drawn, that the σπαταλᾶν might properly be laid to the, charge of the Prodigal, scattering his substance in riotous living (ζῶν ἀσώτως, Luke 15:13); the τρυφᾶν to the Rich Man faring sumptuously every day (εὐφραινόμενος καθʼ ἡμέραν λαμπρῶς, Luke 16:19); the στρηνιᾶν to Jeshurun, when, waxing fat, he kicked (Deut. 32:15).

§ lv. θλῖψις, στενοχωρία

THESE words were often joined together. Thus στενοχωρία, occurring only four times in the N. T., is on three of these associated with θλῖψις (Rom. 2:9; 8:35; 2 Cor. 6:4; cf. Deut. 28:55; Isai. 8:22; 30:6). So too the verbs θλίβειν and στενοχωρεῖν (2 Cor. 4:8; cf. Lucian, Nigrin. 13; Artemidorus, i. 79; ii. 37). From the antithesis at 2 Cor. 4:8, θλιβόμενοι, ἀλλʼ οὐ στενοχωρούμενοι, and from the fact that, wherever in the N. T. the words occur together, στενοχωρία always occurs last, we may conclude that, whatever be the difference of meaning, στενοχωρία is the stronger word.
They indeed express very nearly the same thing, but not under the same image. Θλῖψις (joined with βάσανος at Ezek. 12:18, and for which we have the form θλιμμός, Exod. 3:9; Deut. 26:7) is properly pressure, ‘pressura,’ ‘tribulatio,’—which last word in Church-Latin, to which alone it belongs, had a metaphorical sense,—that which presses upon or burdens the spirit; I should have said ‘angor,’ the more that Cicero (Tusc. iv. 8) explains this ‘ægritudo premens,’ but that the connexion of ‘angor’ with ‘Angst,’ ‘enge’ (see Grimm, Wörterbuch, s. v. Angst; and Max Müller, On the Science of Language, 1861, vol. i. p. 366), makes it better to reserve this for στενοχωρία.
The proper meaning of στενοχωρία is narrowness of room, confined space, ‘angustiæ,’ and then the painfulness of which this is the occasion: ἀπορία στενή and στενοχωρία occurring together, Isai. 8:22. It is used literally by Thucydides, vii. 70: being sometimes exchanged for δυσχωρία: by Plutarch (Symp. v. 6) set over against ἄνεσις; while in the Septuagint it expresses the straitness of a siege (Deut. 28:53, 57.) It is once employed in a secondary and metaphorical sense in the O. T. (στενοχωρία πνεύματος, Wisd. 5:3); this being the only sense which it knows in the New. The fitness of this image is attested by the frequency with which on the other hand a state of joy is expressed in the Psalms and elsewhere as a bringing into a large room (πλατυσμός, Ps. 117:5; 2 Sam. 22:20; Ecclus. 47:12; Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 3; Origen, De Orat. 30; εὐρυχωρία, Marcus Antoninus, ix. 32); so that whether Aquinas intended an etymology or not, and most probably he did, he certainly uttered a truth, when he said, ‘lætitia est quasi latitia.’
When, according to the ancient law of England, those who wilfully refused to plead had heavy weights placed on their breasts, and were so pressed and crushed to death, this was literally θλῖψις. When Bajazet, vanquished by Tamerlane, was carried about by him in an iron cage, if indeed the story be true, this was στενοχωρία: or, as we do not know that any suffering there ensued from actual narrowness of room, we may more fitly adduce the oubliettes in which Louis XI. shut up his victims; or the ‘little-ease’ by which, according to Lingard, the Roman Catholics in Queen Elizabeth’s reign were tortured; ‘it was of so small dimensions and so constructed, that the prisoners could neither stand, walk, sit, nor lie in it at full length.’ For some considerations on the awful sense in which θλῖψις and στενοχωρία shall both, according to St. Paul’s words (Rom. 2:9), be the portion of the lost, see Gerhard, Loc. Theoll. xxxi. 6. 52.

§ lvi. ἁπλοῦς, ἀκέραιος, ἄκακος, ἄδολος

IN this group of words we have some of the rarest and most excellent graces of the Christian character set forth; or perhaps, as it may rather prove, the same grace by aid of different images, and with only slightest shades of real difference.
Ἁπλοῦς occurs only twice in the N. T. (Matt. 6:22 Luke 11:34); but ἁπλότης seven times, or perhaps eight, always in St. Paul’s Epistles; and ἁπλῶς once (Jam. 1:5). It would be quite impossible to improve on ‘single’ by which our Translators have rendered it, being as it is from ἁπλόω, ‘expando,’ ‘explico,’ that which is spread out, and thus without folds or wrinkles; exactly opposed to the πολύπλοκος of Job 5:13; compare ‘simplex’ (not ‘without folds’; but ‘one-folded,’ ‘semel,’ not ‘sine,’ lying in its first syllable, ‘einfaltig,’ see Donaldson, Varronianus, p. 390), which is its exact representative in Latin, and a word, like it, in honorable use. This notion of singleness, simplicity, absence of folds, which thus lies according to its etymology in ἁπλοῦς, is also predominant in its use—‘animus alienus a versutiâ, fraude, simulatione, dolo malo, et studio nocendi aliis’ (Suicer); cf. Herzog, Real-Encyclop. art. Einfalt, vol. iii. p. 723.
That all this lies in the word is manifest from those with which we find it associated, as ἀληθής (Xenophon, Anab. ii. 6. 22; Plato, Legg. v. 738 e, and often); ἀπόνηρος (Theophrastus); γενναῖος (Plato, Rep. 361 b); ἄκρατος (Plutarch, De Comm. Not. 48); μονοειδής (De Proc. Anim. 21); ἀσύνθετος (= ‘incompositus,’ not put together, ib.; Basil, Adv. Eunom. i. 23); μονότροπος (Hom. in Prin. Prov. 7); σαφής (Alexis, in Meineke’s Fragm. Com. Grœc. p. 750); ἄκακος (Diodorus Siculus, xiii. 76); ὑγιής (Demosthenes, Orat. xxxvii. 969). But it is still more apparent from those to which it is opposed; as ποικίλος (Plato, Theœt. 146 d); πολυειδής (Phœdrus, 270 d); πολύτροπος (Hipp. Min. 364 e); πεπλεγμένος (Aristotle, Poët. 13); διπλοῦς (ib.); ἐπίβουλος (Xenophon, Mem. iii. 1. 6); παντοδαπός (Plutarch, Quom. Adul. ab Amic. 7). Ἁπολότης (see 1 Macc. 1:37) is in like manner associated with εἰλικρίνεια (2 Cor. 1:12), with ἀκακία (Philo, Opif. 41); the two words being used indiscriminately in the Septuagint to render the Hebrew which we translate now ‘integrity’ (Ps. 7:8; Prov. 18:1); now ‘simplicity’ (2 Sam. 15:11); again with μεγαλοψυχία (Josephus, Antt. vii. 13. 4), with ἀγαθότης (Wisd. 1:1). It is opposed to ποικιλία (Plato, Rep. 404 e), to πολυτροπία, to κακουργία (Theophylact), to κακοήθεια (Theodoret), to δόλος (Aristophanes, Plut. 1158). It may further be observed that תָם (Gen. 25:27), which the Septuagint renders ἄπλαστος, Aquila has rendered ἁπλοῦς. As happens to at least one other word of this group, and to multitudes besides which express the same grace, ἁπλοῦς comes often to be used of a foolish simplicity, unworthy of the Christian, who with all his simplicity should be φρόνιμος as well (Matt. 10:16; Rom. 16:19). It is so used by Basil the Great (Ep. 58); but nowhere in biblical Greek.
Ἀκέραιος (not in the Septuagint) occurs only three times in the N. T. (Matt. 10:16; Rom. 16:19; Phil. 2:15). A mistaken etymology, namely, that it was = ἀκέρατος, and derived from ἀ and κέρας (cf. κεραΐζειν, ‘lædere’; κερατίζειν, LXX.), without horn to push or hurt,—one into which even Bengel falls, who at Mat. 10:16 has this note: ‘ἀκέραιοι: sine cornu, ungulâ, dente, aculeo,’—has led our Translators on two of these occasions to render it ‘harmless.’ In each case, however, they have put a more correct rendering, ‘simple’ (Matt. 10:16), ‘sincere’ (Phil. 2:15), in the margin. At Rom. 16:19 all is reversed, and ‘simple’ stands in the text, with ‘harmless’ in the margin. The fundamental notion of ἀκέραιος, as of ἀκήρατος, which has the same derivation from ἀ and κεράννυμι, is the absence of foreign admixture: ὁ μὴ κεκραμένος κακοῖς, ἀλλʼ ἁπλοῦς καὶ ἀποίκιλος (Etym. Mag.). Thus Philo, speaking of a boon which Caligula granted to the Jews, but with harsh conditions annexed, styles it a χάρις οὐκ ἀκέραιος, with manifest reference to this its etymology (De Leg. ad Cai. 42): ὅμως, μέντοι καὶ τὴν χάριν διδούς, ἔδωκεν οὐκ ἀκέραιον, ἀλλʼ ἀναμίξας αὐτῇ δέος ἀργαλεώτερον. Wine unmingled with water is ἀκέραιος (Athenæus, ii. 45). To unalloyed metal the same epithet is applied. The word is joined by Plato with ἀβλαβής (Rep. i. 342 b), and with ὀρθός (Polit. 268 b); by Plutarch with ὑγιής (Adv. Stoic. 31); set over against ταρακτικός (De Def. Orac. 51); by Clement of Rome (1 Ep. § 2) with εἰλικρινής. That, we may say, is ἀκέραιος, which is in its true and natural condition (Polybius, ii. 100. 4; Josephus, Antt. i. 2. 2) ‘integer’; in this bordering on ὁλόκληρος, although completeness in all the parts is there the predominant idea, and not, as here, freedom from disturbing elements.
The word which we have next to consider, ἄκακος, appears only twice in the N. T. (Heb. 7:26; Rom. 16:18). There are three stages in its history, two of which are sufficiently marked by its use in these two places; for the third we must seek elsewhere. Thus at Heb. 7:26 the epithet challenges for Christ the Lord that absence of all evil which implies the presence of all good; being associated there with other noblest epithets. The Septuagint, which knows all uses of ἄκακος, employs it sometimes in this highest sense: thus Job is described as ἄνθρωπος ἄκακος, ἀληθινός, ἄμεμπτος, θεοσεβής, ἀπεχόμενος κ.τ.λ. (Job 2:3); while at Job 8:20, the ἄκακος is opposed to the ἀσεβής; and at Ps. 24:21 is joined to the εὐθής, as by Plutarch (Quom. in Virt. Prof. 7) to the σώφρων. The word at its next stage expresses the same absence of all harm, but now contemplated more negatively than positively: thus ἀρνίον ἄκακον (Jer. 11:19); παιδίσκη νέα καὶ ἄκακος (Plutarch, Virt. Mul. 23); ἄκακος καὶ ἀπράγμων (Demosthenes, Orat. xlvii. 1164). The N. T. supplies no example of the word at this its second stage. The process by which it comes next to signify easily deceived, and then too easily deceived, and ἀκακία, simplicity running into an excess (Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 12), is not difficult to trace. He who himself means no evil to others, oftentimes fears no evil from others. Conscious of truth in his own heart, he believes truth in the hearts of all: a noble quality, yet in a world like ours capable of being pushed too far, where, if in malice we are to be children, yet in understanding to be men (1 Cor. 14:20); if “simple concerning evil,” yet “wise unto that which is good” (Rom. 16:19; cf. Jeremy Taylor’s Sermon On Christian Simplicity, Works, Eden’s edition, vol. iv. p. 609). The word, as employed Rom. 16:18, already indicates such a confidence as this beginning to degenerate into a credulous readiness to the being deceived and led away from the truth (θαυμαστικοὶ καὶ ἄκακοι, Plutarch, De Rect. Rat. Aud. 7; cf. Wisd. 4:12; Prov. 1:4 [where Solomon declares the object with which his Proverbs were written, ἵνα δῷ ἀκάκοις πανουργίαν]; 8:5; 14:15, ἄκακος πιστεύει παντὶ λόγῳ). For a somewhat contemptuous use of ἄκακος, see Plato, Timœus, 91 d, with Stallbaum’s note; and Plutarch (Dem. 1): τὴν ἀπειρίᾳ τῶν κακῶν καλλωπιζομένην ἀκακίαν οὐκ ἐπαινοῦσιν [οἱ σοφοι], ἀλλʼ ἀβελτερίαν ἡγοῦνται καὶ ἄγνοιαν ὧν μαλίστα γινώσκειν προσήκει: but above all, the words which the author of the Second Alcibiades puts into the mouth of Socrates (140 c): τοὺς μὲν πλεῖστον αὐτῆς [ἀφροσύνης] μέρος ἔχοντας μαινομένους καλοῦμεν, τοὺς δʼ ὀλίγον ἔλαττον ἠλιθίους καὶ ἐμβροντήτους· οἱ δὲ ἐν εὐφημοτάτοις ὀνόμασι βουλόμενοι κατονομάζειν, οἱ μὲν μεγαλοψύχους, οἱ δὲ εὐήθεις, ἕτεροι δὲ ἀ κάκους, καὶ ἀπείρους, καὶ ἐνεούς. But after all it is in the mouth of the rogue Autolycus that Shakespeare put the words, ‘What a fool Honesty is, and Trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman’ (Winter’s Tale, act iv. sc. 3).
The second and third among these meanings of ἄκακος are separated by so slight and vanishing a line, oftentimes so run into one another, that it is not wonderful if some find rather two stages in the word’s use than three; Basil the Great, for example, whose words are worth quoting (Hom. in Princ. Prov. 11): διττῶς νοοῦμεν τὴν ἀκακίαν. Ἢ γὰρ τὴν ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας ἀλλοτρίωσιν λογισμῷ κατορθουμένην, καὶ διὰ μακρᾶς προσοχῆς καὶ μελέτης τῶν ἀγαθῶν οἷόν τινα ῥίζαν τῆς κακίας ἐκτεμόντές, κατὰ στέρησιν αὐτῆς παντελῆ, τὴν τοῦ ἀκάκου προσηγορίαν δεχόμεθα· ἢ ἀκακία ἐστὶν ἡ μή πω τοῦ κακοῦ ἐμπειρία διὰ νεότητα πολλάκις ἢ βίου τινὸς ἐπιτήδευσιν, ἀπείρων τινῶν πρός τινας κακίας διακειμένων. Οἷον εἰσί τινες τῶν τὴν ἀγροικίαν οἰκούντων, οὐκ εἰδότες τὰς ἐμπορικας κακουργίας οὐδὲ τὰς ἐν δικαστηρίῳ διαπλοκάς. Τοὺς τοιούτους ἀκάκους λέγομεν, οὐχ ὡς ἐκ προαιρέσεως τῆς κακίας κεχωρισμένους, ἀλλʼ ὡς μή πω εἰς πεῖραν τῆς πονηρᾶς ἕξεως ἀφιγμένους. From all this it will be seen that ἄκακος has in fact run the same course, and has the same moral history as χρηστός, ἁπλοῦς, εὐήθης, with which it is often joined (as by Diodorus Siculus, v. 66), ‘bon’ (thus Jean le Bon = l’étourdi), ‘bonhomie,’ ‘silly,’ ‘simple,’ ‘daft,’ ‘einfaltig,’ ‘gütig,’ and many more.
The last word of this beautiful group, ἄδολος, occurs only once in the N. T. (1 Pet. 2:2), and is there beautifully translated ‘sincere,’—“the sincere milk of the word;” see the early English use of ‘sincere’ as unmixed, unadulterated; and compare, for that ‘milk of the word’ which would not be ‘sincere’ 2 Cor. 4:2. It does not appear in the Septuagint, nor in the Apocrypha, but ἀδόλως once in the latter (Wisd. 7:13). Plato joins it with ὑγιής (Ep. 8:355 e); Philemo with γνήσιος (Meineke, Fragm. Grœc. Com. p. 843). It is difficult, indeed impossible, to vindicate an ethical province for this word, on which other of the group have not encroached, or, indeed, preoccupied already. We can only regard it as setting forth the same excellent grace under another image, or on another side. Thus if the ἄκακος has nothing of the serpent’s tooth, the ἄδολος has nothing of the serpent’s guile; if the absence of willingness to hurt, of the malice of our fallen nature, is predicated of the ἄκακος, the absence of its fraud and deceit is predicated of the ἄδολος, the Nathanael “in whom is no guile” (John 1:48). And finally, to sum up all, we may say, that as the ἄκακος (= ‘innocens’) has no harmfulness in him, and the ἄδολος (= ‘sincerus’) no guile, so the ἀκέραιος (= ‘integer’) no foreign admixture, and the ἁπλοῦς (= ‘simplex’) no folds.

§ lvii. χρόνος, καιρός

SEVERAL times in the N. T. but always in the plural, χρόνοι καὶ καιροί are found together (Acts 1:7; 1 Thess. 5:1); and not unfrequently in the Septuagint and the Apocrypha, Wisd. 7:18; 8:8 (both instructive passages); Dan. 2:21; and in the singular, Eccles. 3:1; Dan. 7:12 (but in this last passage the reading is doubtful). Grotius (on Acts 1:7) conceives the difference between them to consist merely in the greater length of the χρόνοι as compared with the καιροί, and writes: ‘χρόνοι sunt majora temporum spatia, ut anni; καιροί minora, ut menses et dies.’ Compare Bengel: ‘χρόνων partes καιροί.’ This distinction, if not inaccurate, is certainly insufficient, and altogether fails to reach the heart of the matter.
Χρόνος is time, contemplated simply as such; the succession of moments (Matt. 25:19; Rev. 10:6; Heb. 4:7); αἰῶνος εἰκὼν κινητή, as Plato calls it (Tim. 37 d; compare Hooker, Eccles. Pol. v. 69); διάστημα τῆς τοῦ οὐρανοῦ κινήσεως, as Philo has it (De Mund. Op. 7). It is the German ‘Zeitraum,’ as distinguished from ‘Zeitpunkt;’ thus compare Demosthenes, 1357, where both the words occur; and Severianus (Suicer, Thes. s. v.): χρόνος μῆκός ἐστι, καῖρος εὐκαιρία. Καιρός, derived from κείρω, as ‘tempus’ from ‘temno,’ is time as it brings forth its several births; thus καιρὸς θερισμοῦ (Matt. 13:30); καιρὸς σύκων (Mark 11:13); Christ died κατὰ καιρόν (Rom. 5:6); and above all compare, as constituting a miniature essay on the word, Eccles. 3:1–8: see Keil, in loco. Χρόνος, it will thus appear, embraces all possible καιροί, and, being the larger, more inclusive term, may be often used where καιρός would have been equally suitable, though not the converse; thus χρόνος τοῦ τεκεῖν, the time of bringing forth (Luke 1:57); πλήρωμα τοῦ χρόνου (Gal. 4:4), the fulness, or the ripeness, of the time for the manifestation of the Son of God, where we should before have rather expected τοῦ καιροῦ, or τῶν καιρῶν, this last phrase actually occurring at Ephes. 1:10. So, too, we may confidently say that the χρόνοι ἀποκαταστάσεως (Acts 3:21) are identical with the καιροὶ ἀναψύξεως which had just been mentioned before (ver. 19). Thus it is possible to speak of the καιρὸς χρόνου, and Sophocles (Elect. 1292) does so:

    χρόνου γὰρ ἄν σοι καιρὸν ἐξείργοι λόγος,

but not of the χρόνος καιροῦ. Compare Olympiodorus (Suicer, Thes. s. v. χρόνος): χρόνος μέν ἐστι τὸ διάστημα καθʼ ὁ πράττεταί τι· καιρὸς δὲ ὁ ἐπιτήδειος τῆς ἐργασίας χρόνος· ὥστε ὁ μὲν χρόνος καὶ καιρὸς εἶναι δύναται· ὁ δὲ καιρὸς οὐ χρόνος, ἀλλʼ εὐκαιρία τοῦ πραττομένου ἐν χρόνῳͅ γινομενή. Ammonius: ὁ μὲν καιρὸς δηλοῖ ποιότητα χρόνου, χρόνος δὲ ποσότητα. In a fragment of Sosipatros, quoted by Athenæus, ix. 22, εὔκαιρος χρόνος occurs.
From what has been said, it will appear that when the Apostles ask the Lord, “Wilt Thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?” and He makes answer, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons” (Acts 1:6, 7), ‘the times’ (χρόνοι) are, in Augustine’s words, ‘ipsa spatia temporum,’ and these contemplated merely under the aspect of their duration, over which the Church’s history should extend; but ‘the seasons’ (καιροί) are the joints or articulations in these times, the critical epoch-making periods fore-ordained of God (καιροὶ προτεταγμένοι, Acts 17:26; cf. Augustine, Conf. xi. 13: ‘Deus operator temporum’); when all that has been slowly, and often without observation, ripening through long ages is mature and comes to the birth in grand decisive events, which constitute at once the close of one period and the commencement of another. Such, for example, was the passing away with a great noise of the old Jewish dispensation; such, again, the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire; such the conversion of the Germanic tribes settled within the limits of the Empire; and such again the conversion of those outside; such the great revival which went along with the first institution of the Mendicant Orders; such, by still better right, the Reformation; such, above all others, the second coming of the Lord in glory (Dan. 7:22).
The Latin had no word by which adequately to render καιροί. Augustine complains of this (Ep. 197:2): ‘Græce legitur χρόνους ἢ καιρούς. Nostri autem utrumque hoc verbum tempora appellant, sive χρόνους, sive καιρούς, cum habeant hæc duo inter se non negligendam differentiam: καιρούς quippe appellant Græce tempora quædam, non tamen quæ in spatiorum voluminibus transeunt, sed quæ in rebus ad aliquid opportunis vel importunis sentiuntur, sicut messis, vindemia, calor, frigus, pax, bellum, et si qua similia; χρόνους autem ipsa spatia temporum vocant.’ It will be seen that he does not recognize ‘tempestivitas,’ which, however, is used by Cicero. Bearing out this complaint of his, we find in the Vulgate the most various renderings of καιροί, as often as it occurs in combination with χρόνοι, and cannot therefore be rendered by ‘tempora,’ which χρόνοι has preoccupied. Thus ‘tempora et momenta’ (Acts 1:7; 1 Thess. 5:1), ‘tempora et œtates’ (Dan. 2:21), ‘tempora et sœcula’ (Wisd. 8:8); while a modern Latin commentator on the N. T. has ‘tempora et articuli’; Bengel, ‘intervalla et tempora.’ It might be urged that ‘tempora et opportunitates’ would fulfil all necessary conditions. Augustine has anticipated this suggestion, but only to demonstrate its insufficiency, on the ground that ‘opportunitas’ (= ‘opportunum tempus’) is a convenient, favourable season (εὐκαιρία); while the καιρός may be the most inconvenient, most unfavourable of all, the essential notion of it being that it is the critical nick of time; but whether, as such, to make or to mar, effectually to help or effectually to hinder, the word determines not at all (‘sive opportuna, sive importuna sint tempora, καιροί dicuntur’). At the same time it is oftener the former: καιρὸς γὰρ ὅσπερ ἀνδράσιν Μέγιστος ἔργου παντός ἐστʼ ἐπιστάτης (Sophocles, Electra, 75, 76). On the distinction between χρόνος καιρός and αἰών, see Schmidt, Synonymik, vol. ii. p. 54 sqq.

§ lviii. φέρω, φορέω

ON the distinction between these words Lobeck (Phrynichus, p. 585) has the following remarks: ‘Inter φέρω et φορέω hoc interesse constat, quod illud actionem simplicem et transitoriam, hoc autem actionis ejusdem continuationem significat; verbi causâ ἀγγελίην φέρειν, est alicujus rei nuncium afferre, Herod. iii. 53 et 122; v. 14; ἀγγελίην φορέειν, iii. 34, nuncii munere apud aliquem fungi. Hinc et φορεῖν dicimur ea quæ nobiscum circumferimus, quibus amicti indutique sumus, ut ἱμάτιον, τριβώνιον, δακτύλιον φορεῖν, tum quæ ad habitum corporis pertinent.’ He proceeds, however, to acknowledge that this distinction is by no means constantly observed even by the best Greek authors. It is, therefore, the more noticeable, as an example of that accuracy which so often takes us by surprise in the use of words by the writers of the N. T., that they are always true to this rule. On the six occasions upon which φορεῖν occurs (Matt. 11:8; John 19:5; Rom. 13:4; 1 Cor. 15:49, bis; Jam. 2:3), it invariably expresses, not an accidental and temporary, but an habitual and continuous, bearing. ‘Sic enim differt φορεῖν a φέρειν, ut hoc sit ferre, illud ferre solere’ (Fritzsche, on Matt. 11:8). A sentence in Plutarch (Apoph. Reg.), in which both words occur, illustrates very well their different uses. Of Xerxes he tells us: ὀργισθεὶς δὲ Βαβυλωνίοις ἀποστᾶσι, καὶ κρατήσας, προσέταξεν ὅπλα μὴ φέρειν, ἀλλὰ ψάλλειν καὶ αὐλεῖν καὶ πορνοβοσκεῖν καὶ καπηλεύειν, καὶ φορεῖν κολπωτοὺς χιτῶνας. Arms would only be borne on occasions, therefore φέρειν; but garments are habitually worn, therefore this is in the second clause exchanged for φορεῖν.

§ lix. κόσμος, αἰών

Κόσμος our Translators have rendered ‘world’ in every instance but one (1 Pet. 3:3); αἰών often, though by no means invariably so; for (not to speak of εἰς αἰῶνα) see Ephes. 2:2, 7; Col. 1:26. It may be a question whether we might not have made more use of ‘age’ in our Version: we have employed it but rarely,—only, indeed, in the two places which I have cited last. ‘Age’ may sound to us inadequate now; but it is quite possible that, so used, it would little by little have expanded and adapted itself to the larger meaning of the Greek word for which it stood. One must regret that, by this or some other like device, our Translators did not mark the difference between κόσμος (= mundus), the world contemplated under aspects of space, and αἰών (= seculum), the same contemplated under aspects of time; for the Latin, no less than the Greek, has two words, where we have, or have acted as though we had, but one. In all those passages (such as Matt. 13:39; 1 Cor. 10:11) which speak of the end or consummation of the αἰών (there are none which speak of the end of the κόσμος), as in others which speak of “the wisdom of this world” (1 Cor. 2:6), “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), “the children of this world” (Luke 16:8), it must be admitted that we are losers by the course which we have adopted.
Κόσμος, connected with κόμειν, ‘comere,’ ‘comptus,’ has a history of much interest in more respects than one. Suidas traces four successive significations through which it passed: σημαίνει δὲ ὁ κοσμος τέσσαρα, εὐπρέπειαν, τόδε τὸ πᾶν, τὴν τάξιν, τὸ πλῆθος παρὰ τῇ Γραφῇ. Originally signifying ‘ornament,’ and obtaining this meaning once in the N. T. (1 Pet. 3:3), where we render it ‘adorning,’ and hardly obtaining any other in the Old (thus the stars are ὁ κόσμος τοῦ οὐρανοῦ, Deut. 17:3; Isai. 24:21; cf. 41:18; Jer. 4:30; Ezek. 7:20; Ecclus. 43:9); from this it passed to that of order, or arrangement (‘lucidus ordo’), or beauty as springing out of these; εὐπρέπεια and τάξις, as Suidas gives it above, or καλλωπισμός, κατασκευή, τάξις, κατάστασις, κάλλος, as Hesychius. Pythagoras is recorded as the first who transferred κόσμος to the sum total of the material universe (for a history of this transfer see a note in Humboldt’s Cosmos, 1846, Engl. edit. p. 371), desiring thereby to express his sense of the beauty and order which are everywhere to be traced therein: so Plutarch (De Plac. Phil. i. 5) tells us; while others report that he called by this name not the whole material universe, but only the heaven; claiming for it this name on the same ground, namely, on that of the well-ordered arrangement which was visible therein (Diogenes Laertius, viii. 48); and we often find the word so used; as by Xenophon, Mem. i. 1. 11; by Isocrates, i. 179; by Plato (Tim. 28 b), who yet employs it also in the larger and what we might call more ideal sense, as embracing and including within itself, and in the bonds of one communion and fellowship heaven and earth and gods and men (Georg. 508 a); by Aristotle (De Mund. 2; and see Bentley, Works, vol. i. p. 391; vol. ii. p. 117). ‘Mundus’ in Latin,—‘digestio et ordinatio singularum quarumque rerum formatarum et distinctarum,’ as Augustine (De Gen. ad Lit. c. 3) calls it,—followed in nearly the same track as the Greek κόσμος; giving occasion to profound plays of words, such as ‘O munde immunde,’ in which the same illustrious Church-teacher delights. Thus Pliny (H. N. ii. 3): ‘Quem κόσμον Græci nomine ornamenti appellaverunt, eum nos a perfectâ absolutâque elegantiâ mundum;’ cf. Cicero (De Universo, 10): ‘Hunc hâc varietate distinctum bene Græci κόσμον, nos lucentem mundum nominamus;’ cf. De Nat. Deor. ii. 22; but on the inferiority as a philosophical expression of ‘mundus’ to κόσμος, see Sayce, Principles of Comparative Philology, p. 98.
From this signification of κόσμος as the material universe, which is frequent in Scripture (Matt. 13:35; John 18:5; 21:25; Acts 17:4; Rom. 1:20), followed that of κόσμος as that external framework of things in which man lives and moves, which exists for him and of which he constitutes the moral centre (John 16:21; 1 Cor. 14:10; 1 John 3:17); here very nearly equivalent to οἰκουμένη (Matt. 24:14; Acts 19:27); and then the men themselves, the sum total of persons living in the world (John 1:29; 4:42; 2 Cor. 5:19); and then upon this, and ethically, all not of the ἐκκλησία,  alienated from the life of God and by wicked works enemies to Him (1 Cor. 1:20, 21; 2 Cor. 7:10; Jam. 4:4). I need hardly call attention here to the immense part which κόσμος thus understood plays in the theology of St. John; both in his record of his Master’s sayings, and in his own writings (John 1:10; 7:7; 12:31; 1 John 2:16; 5:4); occurring in his Gospel and Epistles more than a hundred times, most often in this sense. On this last use of κόσμος, and on the fact that it should have been utterly strange to the entire heathen world, which had no sense of this opposition between God and man, the holy and unholy, and that the same should have been latent and not distinctly called out even in the O. T., on all this there are some admirable remarks by Zezschwitz, Profangräcität und Bibl. Sprachgeist, pp. 21–24: while on these various meanings of κόσμος, and on the serious confusions which, if not carefully watched against, may arise therefrom, Augustine (Con. Jul. Pelag. vi. 3, 4) may be consulted with advantage.
We must reject the etymology of αἰών which Aristotle (De Cœl. i. 9) propounds: ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀεὶ εἶναι εἰληφὼς τὴν ἐπωνυμίαν. It is more probably connected with ἄω, ἄημι to breathe. Like κόσμος it has a primary and physical, and then, superinduced on this, a secondary and ethical, sense. In its primary, it signifies time, short or long, in its unbroken duration; oftentimes in classical Greek the duration of a human life (= βίος, for which it is exchanged, Xenophon, Cyrop. iii. 3. 24; cf. Plato, Legg. iii. 701 c; Sophocles, Trachin. 2; Elect. 1085: πάγκλαυτον αἰῶνα εἵλου: Pindar, Olymp. ii. 120: ἄδακρυν νέμονται αἰῶνα); but essentially time as the condition under which all created things exist, and the measure of their existence; thus Theodoret: ὁ αἰὼν οὐκ οὐσία τις ἐστίν, ἀλλʼ ανυπόστατον χρῆμα, συμπαρομαρτοῦν τοῖς γεννητὴν ἔχουσι φύσιν· καλεῖται γὰρ αἰὼν καὶ τὸ ἀπὸ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου συστάσεως μέχρι τῆς συντελείας διάστημα—αἰὼν τοίνυν ἐστὶ τὸ τῇ κτιστῇ φύσει παρεζευγμένον διάστημα. Thus signifying time, it comes presently to signify all which exists in the world under conditions of time; ‘die Totalität desjenigen was sich in der Dauer der Zeit äusserlich darstellt, die Welt, sofern sie sich in der Zeit bewegt’ (C. L. W. Grimm; thus see Wisd. 13:8; 14:6; 18:4; Eccles. 3:11); and then, more ethically, the course and current of this world’s affairs. But this course and current being full of sin, it is nothing wonderful that αἰὼν οὗτος, set over against ὁ αἰὼν ἐκεὶνος (Luke 20:35), ὁ αἰὼν ἐρχομένος (Mark 10:30), ὁ αἰὼν μέλλων (Matt. 12:32), acquires presently, like κόσμος, an unfavorable meaning. The βασιλεῖαι τοῦ κόσμου of Matt. 4:8 are βασιλεῖαι τοῦ αἰῶνος τοὺτου (Ignatius, Ep ad Rom. 6); God has delivered us by his Son ἐξ ἐνεστῶτος αἰῶνος πονηροῦ (Gal. 1:4); Satan is θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου (2 Cor. 4:4; cf. Ignatius, Ep. ad Magn. 1: ὁ ἀρχὼν τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου); sinners walk κατὰ τὸν αἰῶνος τοῦ κόσμου τούτου (Ephes. 2:2), too weakly translated in our Version, as in those preceding, “according to the course of this world.” This last is a particularly instructive passage, for in it both words occur together; Bengel excellently remarking: ‘αἰών et κόσμος differunt. Ille hunc regit et quasi informat: κόσμος est quiddam exterius, αἰών subtilius. Tempus [= αἰών] dicitur non solum physice, sed etiam moraliter, connotatâ qualitate hominum in eo viventium; et sic αἰών dicit longam temporum seriem, ubi ætas mala malam ætatem excipit.’ Compare Windischmann (on Gal. 1:4): ‘αἰών darf aber durchaus nicht bloss als Zeit gefasst werden, sondern begreift alles in der Zeit befangene; die Welt und ihre Herrlichkeit, die Menschen und ihr natürliches unerlöstes Thun und Treiben in sich, im Contraste zu dem hier nur beginnenden, seiner Sehnsucht und Vollendung nach aber jenseitigen und ewigen, Reiche des Messias.’ We speak of ‘the times,’ attaching to the word an ethical signification; or, still more to the point, ‘the age,’ ‘the spirit or genius of the age,’ ‘der Zeitgeist.’ All that floating mass of thoughts, opinions, maxims, speculations, hopes, impulses, aims, aspirations, at any time current in the world, which it may be impossible to seize and accurately define, but which constitute a most real and effective power, being the moral, or immoral, atmosphere which at every moment of our lives we inhale, again inevitably to exhale,—all this is included in the αἰών, which is, as Bengel has expressed it, the subtle informing spirit of the κόσμος, or world of men who are living alienated and apart from God. ‘Seculum,’ in Latin, has acquired the same sense, as in the familiar epigram of Tacitus (Germ. 19), ‘Corrumpere et corrumpi seculum vocatur.’
It must be freely admitted that two passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews will not range themselves according to the distinction here drawn between αἰών and κόσμος, namely 1:2 and 11:3. In both of these αἰῶνες are the worlds contemplated, if not entirely, yet beyond question mainly, under other aspects than those of time. Some indeed, especially modern Socinian expositors, though not without forerunners who had no such motives as theirs, have attempted to explain αἰῶνες at Heb. 1:3, as the successive dispensations, the χρόνοι καὶ καιροί of the divine economy. But however plausible this explanation might have been if this verse had stood alone, 11:3 is decisive that the αἰῶνες in both passages can only be, as we have rendered it, ‘the worlds,’ and not ‘the ages.’ I have called these the only exceptions, for I cannot accept 1 Tim. 1:17 as a third; where αἰῶνες must denote, not ‘the worlds’ in the usual concrete meaning of the term, but, according to the more usual temporal meaning of αἰών in the N. T., ‘the ages,’ the temporal periods whose sum and aggregate adumbrate the conception of eternity. The βασιλεὺς τῶν αἰώνων (cf. Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 13: ὁ δημιουργὸς καὶ πατὴρ τῶν αἰώνων) will thus be the sovereign dispenser and disposer of the ages during which the mystery of God’s purpose with man is unfolding (see Ellicott, in loco). For the Hebrew equivalents of the words expressing time and eternity, see Conrad yon Orelli, Die Hebräischen Synonyma der Zeit und Ewigkeit, Leipzig, 1871; and for the Greek and Latin, so far as these seek to express them at all, see Pott, Etym. Forsch. ii. 2. 444.

§ lx. νέος καινός

SOME have denied that any difference can in the N. T. be traced between these words. They derive a certain plausible support for this denial from the fact that manifestly νέος and καινός, both rendered ‘new’ in our Version, are often interchangeably used; thus νέος ἄνθρωπος (Col. 3:10), and καινὸς ἄνθρωπος (Eph. 2:15), in both cases “the new man”; νέα διαθήκη (Heb. 12:24) and καινὴ διαθήκη (Heb. 9:15), both “a new covenant”; νέος οἶνος (Matt. 9:17) and καινὸς οἶνος (Matt. 26:29), both “new wine.” The words, it is contended, are evidently of the same force and significance. This, however, by no means follows, and in fact is not the case. The same covenant may be qualified as νέα, or καινή, as it is contemplated from one point of view or another. So too the same man, or the same wine, may be νέος, or καινός, or may be both; but a different notion is predominant according as the one epithet is applied or the other.
Contemplate the new under aspects of time, as that which has recently come into existence, and this is νέος (see Pott, Etymol. Forschung. vol. i. pp. 290–292). Thus the young are οἱ νέοι, or οἱ νεώτεροι, the generation which has lately sprung up; so, too, νέοι θεοί, the younger race of gods, Jupiter, Apollo, and the other Olympians (Æschylus, Prom. Vinct. 991, 996), as set over against Saturn, Ops, and the dynasty of elder deities whom they had dethroned. But contemplate the new, not now under aspects of time, but of quality, the new, as set over against that which has seen service, the outworn, the effete or marred through age, and this is καινός: thus compare ἐπίβλημα ῥάκους ἀγνάφου (Matt. 9:16) with ἐπιβλημα ἀπὸ ἱματίου καινοῦ (Luke 5:36), the latter “a new garment,” as contrasted with one threadbare and outworn; καινοὶ ἀσκοί, “new wine-skins” (Matt. 9:17; Luke 5:38), such as have not lost their strength and elasticity through age and use; and in this sense, καινὸς οὐρανός (2 Pet. 3:13), “a new heaven,” as set over against that which has waxen old, and shows signs of decay and dissolution (Heb. 1:11, 12). In like manner the phrase καιναὶ γλῶσσαι (Mark 16:17) does not suggest the recent commencement of this miraculous speaking with tongues, but the unlikeness of these tongues to any that went before; therefore called ἕτεραι γλῶσσαι elsewhere (Acts 2:4), tongues unwonted and different from any hitherto known. The sense of the unwonted as lying in καινός comes out very clearly in a passage of Xenophon (Cyrop. iii. 1. 10): καινῆς ἀρχομένης ἀρχῆς, ἢ τῆς εἰωθυίας καταμενύσης. So too that καινὸν μνημεῖον, in which Joseph of Arimathea laid the body of the Lord (Matt. 27:60; John 19:41), was not a tomb recently hewn from the rock, but one which had never yet been hanselled, in which hitherto no dead had lain, making the place ceremonially unclean (Matt. 23:27; Num. 11:16; Ezek. 39:12, 16). It might have been hewn out a hundred years before, and could not therefore have been called νέον: but, if never turned to use before, it would be καινόν still. That it should be thus was part of that divine decorum which ever attended the Lord in the midst of the humiliations of his earthly life (cf. Luke 19:30; 1 Sam. 6:7; 2 Kin. 2:20).
It will follow from what has been said that καινός will often, as a secondary notion, imply praise; for the new is commonly better than the old; thus everything is new in the kingdom of glory, “the new Jerusalem” (Rev. 3:12; 21:2); the “new name” (2:17; 3:12); “a new song” (5:9; 14:3); “a new heaven and new earth” (21:1; cf. 2 Pet. 3:13); “all things new” (21:5). But this not of necessity; for it is not always, and in every thing, that the new is better, but sometimes the old; thus the old friend (Ecclus. 9:10), and the old wine (Luke 5:39), are better than the new. And in many other instances καινός may express only the novel and strange, as contrasted, and that unfavourably, with the known and the familiar. Thus it was mentioned just now that νέοι θεοί was a title given to the younger generation of gods; but when it was brought as a charge against Socrates that he had sought to introduce καινοὺς θεούς, or καινὰ δαιμόνια into Athens (Plato, Apol. 26 b; Euthyphro, 3 b; cf. ξένα δαιμόνια, Acts 17:18), something quite different from this was meant—a novel pantheon, such gods as Athens had not hitherto been accustomed to worship; soo too in Plato (Rep. iii. 405 d): καινὰ ταῦτα καὶ ἄτοπα νοσημάτων ὀνόματα. In the same manner they who exclaimed of Christ’s teaching, “What new doctrine [καινὴ διδαχή] is this?” intended anything but praise (Mark 1:26). The καινόν is the ἕτερον, the qualitatively other; the νέον is the ἄλλο, the numerically distinct. Let us bring this difference to bear on the interpretation of Acts 17:21. St. Luke describes the Athenians there as spending their leisure, and all their life was leisure, ‘vacation,’ to adopt Fuller’s pun, ‘being their whole vocation,’ in the marketplace, ἢ λέγειν ἢ ἀκούειν τι καινότερον. We might perhaps have expected beforehand he would have written τι νεώτερον, and this expectation seems the more warranted when we find Demosthenes long before portraying these same Athenians as haunting the market-place with this same object and aim—he using this latter word, πυνθανόμενοι κατὰ τὴν ἀγορὰν εἴ τι λέγεται νεώτερον. Elsewhere, however, he changes his word and describes them as St. Luke has done, demanding one of another (Philip. i. 43), λέγεταί τι καινόν; But the meaning of the two passages is not exactly identical. The νέωτερον of the first affirms that it is ever the latest news which they seek, ‘nova statim sordebant, noviora quærebantur,’ as Bengel on Acts 17:21 has it; the καινὸν of the second implies that it is something not only new, but sufficiently diverse from what had gone before to stimulate a jaded and languid curiosity.
If we pursue these words into their derivatives and compounds, the same distinction will come yet more clearly out. Thus νεότης (1 Tim. 4:12; cf. Ps. 103:5: ἀνακαινισθήσεται ὡς ἀετοῦ ἡ νεότης σοι) is youth; καινότης (Rom. 6:4) is newness or novelty; νεοειδής, of youthful appearance; καινοειδής, of novel unusual appearance; νεολογία (had such a word existed) would have been, a younger growth of words as distinguished from the old stock of the language, or, as we say, ‘neologies’; καινολογία, which does exist in the later Greek, a novel anomalous invention of words, constructed on different laws from those which the language had recognized hitherto; φιλόνεος, a lover of youth (Lucian, Amor. 24); φιλόκαινος, a lover of novelty (Plutarch, De Mus. 12).
There is a passage in Polybius (5:75, 4), as there are many elsewhere (Æschylus, Pers. 665; Euripides, Med. 75, 78; and Clement of Alexandria, Pœdag. i. 5, will furnish such), in which the words occur together, or in closest sequence; but neither in this are they employed as a mere rhetorical accumulation: each has its own special significance. Relating a stratagem whereby the town of Selge was very nearly surprised and taken, Polybius remarks that, notwithstanding the many cities which have evidently been lost through a similar device, we are, in some way or other, still new and young in regard of such like deceits (καινοί τινες αἰεὶ καὶ νέοι πρὸς τὰς τοιαύτας ἀπάτας πεφύκαμεν), ready therefore to be deceived by them over again. Here καινοί is an epithet applied to men on the ground of their rawness and inexperience, νέοι on that of their youth. It is true that these two, inexperience and youth, go often together; thus νέος and ἄπειρος are joined by Plutarch (De Rect. Rat. Aud. 17); but this is not of necessity. An old man may be raw and unpractised in the affairs of the world, therefore καινός: there have been many young men, νέοι in respect of age, who were well skilled and exercised in these.
Apply the distinction here drawn, and it will be manifest that the same man, the same wine, the same covenant, may have both these epithets applied to them, and yet different meanings may be, and will have been intended to be, conveyed, as the one was used, or the other. Take, for example, the νέος ἄνθρωπος of Col. 3:10, and the καινὸς ἄνθρωπος of Ephes. 2:15. Contemplate under aspects of time that mighty transformation which has found and is still finding place in the man who has become obedient to the truth, and you will call him subsequently to this change, νέος ἄνθρωπος. The old man in him, and it well deserves this name, for it dates as far back as Adam, has died; a new man has been born, who therefore is fitly so called. But contemplate again, and not now under aspects of time, but of quality and condition, the same mighty transformation; behold the man who, through long commerce with the world, inveterate habits of sinning, had grown outworn and old, casting off the former conversation, as the snake its shrivelled skin, coming forth “a new creature” (καινὴ κτίσις), from his heavenly Maker’s hands, with a πνεῦμα καινόν given to him (Ezek. 11:19), and you have here the καινὸς ἄνθρωπος, one prepared to walk ‘in newness of life’ (ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς, Rom. 6:4) through the ἀνακαίνωσις of the Spirit (Tit. 3:5); in the words of the Epistle of Barnabas, 16, ἐγενόμεθα καινοί, πάλιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς κτιζόμενοι. Often as the words in this application would be interchangeable, yet this is not always so. When, for example, Clement of Alexandria (Pœd. i. 6) says of those that are Christ’s, χρὴ γὰρ εἶναι καινοὺς Λόγου καινοῦ μετειληφότας, all will feel how impossible it would be to substitute νέους or νέου here. Or take the verbs ἀνανεοῦν (Ephes. 4:23), and ἀνακαινοῦν (Col. 3:10). We all have need ἀνανεοῦσθαι, and we have need ἀνακαινοῦθαι as well. It is, indeed, the same marvellous and mysterious process, to be brought about by the same almighty Agent; but the same regarded from different points of view; ἀνανεοῦσθαι, to be made young again; ἀνακαινοῦσθαι, or ἀνακαινιζέσθαι, to be made new again. That Chrysostom realized the distinction between the words, and indeed so realized it that he drew a separate exhortation from each, the following passages, placed side by side, will very remarkably prove. This first (in Ep. ad Ephes. Hom. 13): ἀνανεοῦσθε δέ, φησί, τῷ πνευματι τοῦ νοὸς ὑμῶν … τὸ δὲ ἀνανεοῦσθαί ἐστιν ὅταν αὐτὸ τὸ γεγηρακὸς ἀνανεῶται, ἄλλο ἐξ ἄλλου γινόμενον … Ὁ νέος ἰσχυρός ἐστιν, ὁ νέος ῥυτίδα οὐκ ἔχει, ὁ νέος οὐ περιφέρεται. The second is in Ep. ad Rom. Hom. 20: ὅπερ ἐπὶ τῶν οἰκιῶν ποιοῦμεν, παλαιουμένας αὐτὰς ἀεὶ διορθοῦντες, τοῦτο καὶ ἐπὶ σαυτοῦ ποίει. Ἥμαρτες σήμερον; ἐπαλαίωσάς σου τὴν ψύχην; μὴ ἀπογνῷς, μηδὲ ἀναπέσῃς, ἀλλʼ ἀνακαίνισον αὐτὴν μετανοίᾳ.
The same holds good in other instances quoted above. New wine may be characterized as νέος or καινός, but from different points of view. As νέος, it is tacitly set over against the vintage of past years; as καινός, we may assume it austere and strong, in contrast with that which is χρηστός, sweet and mellow through age (Luke 5:39). So, too, the Covenant of which Christ is the Mediator is a διαθήκη νεα, as compared with the Mosaic, confirmed nearly two thousand years before (Heb. 12:24); it is a διαθήκη καινή, as compared with the same, effete with age, and with all vigour, energy, and quickening power gone from it (Heb. 8:13; compare Marriott’s Εἰρηνικά, part ii. pp. 110, 170).
A Latin grammarian, drawing the distinction between ‘recens’ and ‘novus,’ has said, ‘Recens ad tempus, novum ad rem refertur;’ and compare Döderlein, Lat. Syn. vol. iv. p. 64. Substituting νέος and καινός, we might say, ‘νέος ad tempus, καινός ad rem refertur,’ and should thus grasp in a few words, easily remembered, the distinction between them at its central point.

§ lxi. μέθη, πότος, οἰνοφλυγία, κῶμος, κραιπάλη

THE notion of riot and excess in wine is common to all these; but this with differences, and offering for contemplation different points of view.
Μέθη, occurring in the N. T. at Luke 21:34; Rom. 13:13; Gal. 5:21; and πότος, found only at 1 Pet. 4:3, are distinguishable as an abstract and a concrete. Μέθη, (stronger, and expressing a worse excess, than οἴνωσις, from which it is distinguished by Plutarch, De Garr. 4; Symp. iii. 1; cf. Philo, De Plant. 38), defined by Clement of Alexandria, ἀκράτου χρῆσις σφοδροτέρα, is drunkenness (Joel 1:5; Ezek. 39:19); πότος (= εὐωχία, Hesychius; cf. Polybius, ii. 4. 6), the drinking bout, the banquet, the symposium, not of necessity excessive (Gen. 19:3; 2 Sam. 3:20; Esth. 6:14), but giving opportunity for excess (1 Sam. 25:36; Xenophon, Ahab. vii. 3, 13: ἐπεὶ προὐχώρει ὁ πότος).
The next word in this group, οἰνοφλυγία (“excess of wine,” A. V.), occurs in the N. T. only at 1 Pet. 4:3; and never in the Septuagint; but οἰνοφλυγεῖν, Deut. 21:20; Isai. 56:11. It marks a step in advance of μέθη. Thus Philo (De Ebriet. 8; De Merc. Mer. 1) names οἰνοφλυγία among the ὑβρεῖς ἔσχαται, and compare Xenophon (Œcon. i. 22): δοῦλοι λιχνειῶν, λαγνειῶν, οἰνοφλυγιῶν. In strict definition it is ἐπιθυμία οἴνου ἄπληστος (Andronicus of Rhodes), ἀπλήρωτος ἐπιθυμία, as Philo (Vit. Mos. iii. 22) calls it; the German ‘Trinksucht.’ Commonly, however, it is used for a debauch; no single word rendering it better than this; being as it is an extravagant indulgence in potations long drawn out (see Basil, Hom. in Ebrios, 7), such as may induce permanent mischiefs on the body (Aristotle, Eth. Nic. iii. 5. 15); as did, for instance, that fatal debauch to which, adopting one of the reports current in antiquity, Arrian inclines to ascribe the death of Alexander the Great (vii. 24, 25).
Κῶμος, in the N. T. found in the plural only, and rendered in our Version once ‘rioting’ (Rom. 13:13), and twice ‘revellings’ (Gal. 5:21; 1 Pet. 4:3), may be said to unite in itself both those notions, namely, of riot and of revelry. It is the Latin ‘comissatio,’ which, as it hardly needs to observe, is connected with κωμάζειν, not with ‘comedo.’ Thus, κῶμος καὶ ἀσωτία (2 Macc. 6:4); ἐμμανεῖς κῶμοι (Wisd. 14:23); πότοι καὶ κῶμοι καὶ θαλίαι ἄκαιροι (Plutarch, Pyrrh. 16); cf. Philo, De Cher. 27, where we have a striking description of the other vices with which μέθη and κῶμοι are associated the most nearly. At the same time κῶμος is often used of the company of revellers themselves; always a festal company, but not of necessity riotous and drunken; thus see Euripides, Alces. 816, 959. Still the word generally implies as much, being applied in a special sense to the troop of drunken revellers, ‘comissantium agmen’ (the troop of Furies in the Agamemnon, 1160, as drunk with blood, obtain this name), who at the late close of a revel, with garlands on their heads, and torches in their hands, with shout and song2 (κῶμος καὶ βοά, Plutarch, Alex. 38), pass to the harlots’ houses, or otherwise wander through the streets, with insult and wanton outrage for every one whom they meet; cf. Meineke, Fragm. Com. Grœc. p. 617; and the graphic description of such in Juvenal’s third Satire, 278–301; and the indignant words of Milton:

    ‘when night
    Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
    Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.’

Plutarch (Alex. 37) characterizes as a κῶμος the mad drunken march of Alexander and his army through Carmania, on the return from their Indian expedition. On possible, or rather on impossible etymologies of κῶμος, see Pott. Etym. Forsch. 2. 2. 551.
Κραιπάλη, the Latin ‘crapula,’ though with a more limited signification (ἡ χθεσινὴ μέθη, Ammonius; ἡ ἐπὶ τῇ μέθῃ δυσαρέστησις καὶ ἀηδία, Clement of Alexandria, Pœdag. ii. 2), is another word whose derivation remains in obscurity. We have rendered it ‘surfeiting’ at Luke 21:34, the one occasion on which it occurs in the N. T. In the Septuagint it is never found, but the verb κραιπαλάω thrice (Ps. 77:65; Isai. 24:20; 29:9). ‘Fulsomeness,’ in the early sense of that word (see my Select Glossary of English Words, s. v. ‘fulsome’), would express it very well, with only the drawback that by ‘fulsomeness’ is indicated the disgust and loathing from over-fulness of meat as well as of wine, while κραιπάλη expresses only the latter.

§ lxii. καπηλεύω, δολόω

IN two passages, standing very near to one another, St. Paul claims for himself that he is not “as many, which corrupt the word of God” (καπηλεύοντες, 2 Cor. 2:17); and presently again he disclaims being of them who can be accused of “handling deceitfully” the same (δολοῦντες, 4:2); neither word appearing again in the N. T. It is evident, not less from the context than from the character of the words themselves, that the notions which they express must lie very near to one another; oftentimes it is asserted or assumed that they are absolutely identical, as by all translators who have only one rendering for both; by the Vulgate, for instance, which has ‘adulterantes’ in both places; by Chrysostom, who explains καπηλεύειν as = νοθεύειν. Yet this is a mistake. On nearer examination, it will be found that while καπηλεύειν covers all that δολοῦν does, it also covers something more; and this, whether in the literal sense, or in the transferred and figurative, wherein it is used by St. Paul; even as it is evident that our own Translators, whether with any very clear insight into the distinction between the words or not, did not acquiesce in the obliteration of all distinction between them.
The history of καπηλεύειν is not difficult to follow. The κάπηλος is properly the huckster or petty retail trader, as set over against the ἔμπορος or merchant who sells his wares in the gross; the two occurring together, Ecclus. 26:29. But while the word would designate any such pedlar, the κάπηλος is predominantly the vendor in retail of wine (Lucian, Hermot. 58). Exposed to many and strong temptations, into which it was easy for such to fall (Ecclus. 26:29), as to mix their wine with water (Isai. 1:22), or otherwise to tamper with it, to sell it in short measure, these men so generally yielded to these temptations, that κάπηλος and καπηλεύειν, like ‘caupo’ and ‘cauponari,’ became terms of contempt; καπηλεύειν being the making of any shameful traffic and gain as the κάπηλος does (Plato, Rep. vii. 525 d; Protag. 313 d; Becker, Charikles, 1840, p. 256). But it will at once be evident that the δολοῦν is only one part of the καπηλεύειν, namely, the tampering with or sophisticating the wine by the admixture of alien matter, and does not suggest the fact that this is done with the purpose of making a disgraceful gain thereby. Nay, it might be urged that it only expresses partially the tampering itself, as the following extract from Lucian (Hermot. 59) would seem to say: οἱ φιλόσοφοι ἀποδίδονται τὰ μαθήματα ὥσπερ οἱ κάπηλοι, κερασάμενοί γε οἱ πολλοί, καὶ δολώσαντες, καὶ κακομετροῦντες: for here the δολοῦν is only one part of the deceitful handling by the κάπηλος of the wares which he sells.
But whether this be worth urging or not, it is quite certain that, while in δολοῦν there is no more than the simple falsifying, there is in καπηλεύειν the doing of this with the intention of making an unworthy gain thereby. Surely here is a moment in the sin of the false teachers, which St. Paul, in disclaiming the καπηλεύειν, intended to disclaim for himself. He does in as many words most earnestly disclaim it in this same Epistle (12:14; cf. Acts 20:33), and this the more earnestly, seeing that it is continually noted in Scripture as a mark of false prophets and false apostles (for so does the meanest cleave to the highest, and untruthfulness in highest things expose to lowest temptations), that they, through covetousness, make merchandise of souls; thus by St. Paul himself, Tit. 1:11; Phil. 3:19; cf. 2 Pet. 2:3, 14, 15; Jude 11, 16; Ezek. 13:19; and see Ignatius (the longer recension), where, no doubt with a reference to this passage, and showing how the writer understood it, the false teachers are denounced as χρηματολαιλαπες, as χριστέμποροι, τὸν Ἰησοῦν πωλοῦντες, καὶ καπηλεύοντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ εὐαγγελίου. Surely we have here a difference which it is well worth our while not to pass by unobserved. The Galatian false teachers might undoubtedly have been charged as δολοῦντες τὸν λόγον, mingling, as they did, vain human traditions with the pure word of the Gospel: building in hay, straw, and stubble with its silver, gold, and precious stones; but there is nothing which would lead us to charge them as καπηλεύοντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ, as working this mischief which they did work for filthy lucre’s sake (see Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. iv. p. 636).
Bentley, in his Sermon on Popery (Works, vol. iii. p. 242), strongly maintains the distinction which I have endeavoured to trace. ‘Our English Translators,’ he says, ‘have not been very happy in their version of this passage [2 Cor. 2:17]. We are not, says the Apostle, καπηλεύοντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ, which our Translators have rendered, “we do not corrupt,” or (as in the margin) “deal deceitfully with,” “the word of God.” They were led to this by the parallel place, c. iv. of this Epistle, ver. 2, “not walking in craftiness,” μηδὲ δολοῦντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ, “nor handling the word of God deceitfully;” they took καπηλεύοντες and δολοῦντες in the same adequate notion, as the vulgar Latin had done before them, which expresses both by the same word, adulterantes verbum Dei; and so, likewise, Hesychius makes them synonyms, ἐκκαπηλεύειν, δολοῦν. Δολοῦν, indeed, is fitly rendered “adulterare”; so δολοῦν τὸν χρυσόν, τὸν οἶνον, to adulterate gold or wine, by mixing worse ingredients with the metal or liquor. And our Translators had done well if they had rendered the latter passage, not adulterating, not sophisticating the word. But καπηλεύοντες in our text has a complex idea and a wider signification; καπηλεύειν always comprehends δολοῦν; but δολοῦν never extends to καπηλεύειν, which, besides the sense of adulterating, has an additional notion of unjust lucre, gain, profit, advantage. This is plain from the word κάπηλος, a calling always infamous for avarice and knavery: “perfidus hic caupo,” says the poet, as a general character. Thence καπηλεύειν, by an easy and natural metaphor, was diverted to other expressions where cheating and lucre were signified: καπηλεύειν τὸν λόγον, says the Apostle here, and the ancient Greeks, καπηλεύειν τὰς δίκας τὴν εἰρήνην, τὴν σοφίαν, τὰ μαθήματα, to corrupt and sell justice, to barter a negociation of peace, to prostitute learning and philosophy for gain. Cheating, we see, and adulterating is part of the notion of καπηλεύειν, but the essential of it is sordid lucre. So “cauponari” in the wellknown passage of Ennius, where Pyrrhus refuses to treat for the ransom for his captives, and restores them gratis:

    “Non mi aurum posco, nec mi pretium dederitis,
    Non cauponanti bellum, sed belligeranti.”

And so the Fathers expound this place … So that, in short, what St. Paul says, καπηλεύοντες τὸν λόγον, might be expressed in one classic word—λογέμποροι, or λογοπρᾶται, where the idea of gain and profit is the chief part of the signification. Wherefore, to do justice to our text, we must not stop lamely with our Translators, “corrupters of the word of God;” but add to it as its plenary notion, “corrupters of the word of God for filthy lucre.” ’
If what has been just said is correct, it will follow that ‘deceitfully handling’ would be a more accurate, though itself not a perfectly adequate, rendering of καπηλεύοντες, and ‘who corrupt’ of δολοῦντες, than the converse of this which our Version actually offers.

§ lxiii. ἀγαθωσύνη, χρηστότης

Ἀγαθωσύνη is one of many words with which revealed religion has enriched the later language of Greece. It occurs nowhere else but in the Greek translations of the O. T. (2 Chron. 24:16; Nehem. 9:25; Eccles. 9:18), in the N. T., and in writings directly dependent upon these. The grammarians, indeed, at no time acknowledged, or gave to it or to ἀγαθότης the stamp of allowance, demanding that χρηστότης, which, as we shall see, is not absolutely identical with it, should be always employed in its stead (Lobeck, Pathol. Serm. Grœc. p. 237). In the N. T. we meet with ἀγαθωσύνη four times, always in the writings of St. Paul (Rom. 15:14; Gal. 5:22; Ephes. 5:9; 2 Thess. 1:11); being invariably rendered ‘goodness’ in our Version. We sometimes feel the want of some word more special and definite, as at Gal. 5:22, where ἀγαθωσύνη makes one of a long list of Christian virtues or graces, and must mean some single and separate grace, while ‘goodness’ seems to embrace all. To explain it there, as does Phavorinus, ἡ ἀπηρτισμένη ἀρετή, is little satisfactory; however true it may be that it is sometimes, as at Ps. 52:5, set over against κακία, and obtains this larger meaning. With all this it is hard to suggest any other rendering; even as, no doubt, it is harder to seize the central force of ἀγαθωσύνη than of χρηστότης, this difficulty mainly arising from the fact that we have no helping passages in the classical literature of Greece; for, however these can never be admitted to give the absolute law to the meaning of words in Scripture, we at once feel a loss, when such are wanting altogether. It will be well, therefore, to consider χρηστότης first, and when it is seen what domain of meaning is occupied by it, we may then better judge what remains for ἀγαθωσύνη.
Χρηστότης, a beautiful word, as it is the expression of a beautiful grace (cf. χρηστοήθεια, Ecclus. 37:13), like ἀγαθωσύνη, occurs in the N. T. only in the writings of St. Paul, being by him joined to φιλανθρωπία (Tit. 3:4; cf. Lucian, Timon, 8; Plutarch, Demet. 50); to μακροθυμία and ἀνοχή (Rom. 2:4); and opposed to ἀποτομία (Rom. 11:22). The A. V. renders it ‘good’ (Rom. 3:12); ‘kindness’ (2 Cor. 6:6; Ephes. 2:7; Col. 3:12; Tit. 3:4); ‘gentleness’ (Gal. 5:22). The Rheims, which has for it ‘benignity,’ a great improvement on ‘gentleness’ (Gal. 5:22), ‘sweetness’ (2 Cor. 6:6), has seized more successfully the central notion of the word. It is explained in the Definitions which go under Plato’s name (412 e), ἤθους ἀπλαστία μετʼ εὐλογιστίας: by Phavorinus, εὐσπλαγχνία, ἡ πρὸς τοὺς πέλας συνδιάθεσις, τὰ αὐτοῦ ὡς οἰκεῖα ἰδιοποιουμένη. It is joined by Clement of Rome with ἔλεος (1 Ep. i. 9); by Plutarch with εὐμένεια (De Cap. ex Inim. Util. 9); with γλυκυθυμία (Terr. an Aquat. 32); with ἁπλότης and μεγαλοφροσύνη (Galba, 22); by Lucian with οἶκτος (Timon, 8); as χρηστός with φιλάνθρωπος (Plutarch, Symp. 1. 1. 4). It is grouped by Philo with εὐθυμία, ἡμερότης, ἠπιότης (De Mer. Merc. 3). Josephus, speaking of the χρηστότης of Isaac (Antt. i. 18. 3), displays a fine insight into the ethical character of the patriarch; see Gen. 26:20–22.
Calvin has quite too superficial a view of χρηστότης, when, commenting on Col. 3:12, he writes: ‘Comitatem—sic enim vertere libuit χρηστότητα quâ nos reddimus amabiles. Mansuetudo [πραΰτης], quæ sequitur, latius patet quam comitas, nam illa præcipue est in vultu ac sermone, hæc etiam in affectu interiore.’ So far from being this mere grace of word and countenance, it is one pervading and penetrating the whole nature, mellowing there all which would have been harsh and austere; thus wine is χρηστός, which has been mellowed with age (Luke 5:39); Christ’s yoke is χρηστός, as having nothing harsh or galling about it (Matt. 11:30). On the distinction between it and ἀγαθωσύνη Cocceius (on Gal. 5:22), quoting Tit. 3:4, where χρηστότης occurs, goes on to say: ‘Ex quo exemplo patet per hanc vocem significari quandam liberalitatem et studium benefaciendi. Per alteram autem [ἀγαθωσύνη] possumus intelligere comitatem, suavitatem morum, concinnitatem, gravitatem morum, et omnem amabilitatem cum decoro et dignitate conjunctam.’ Yet neither does this seem to me to have exactly hit the mark. If the words are at all set over against one another, the ‘suavitas’ belongs to the χρηστότης rather than to the ἀγαθωσύνη. More germain to the matter is what Jerome has said. Indeed I know nothing so well said elsewhere (in Ep. ad Gal. v. 22): ‘Benignitas sive suavitas, quia apud Græcos χρηστότης utrumque sonat, virtus est lenis, blanda, tranquilla, et omnium bonorum apta consortio; invitans ad familiaritatem sui, dulcis alloquio, moribus temperata. Denique et hanc Stoici ita definiunt: Benignitas est virtus sponte ad benefaciendum exposita. Non multum bonitas [ἀγαθωσύνη] a benignitate diversa est; quia et ipsa ad benefaciendum videtur exposita. Sed in eo differt; quia potest bonitas esse tristior, et fronte severis moribus irrugatâ, bene quidem facere et præstare quod poscitur; non tamen suavis esse consortio, et suâ cunctos invitare dulcedine. Hanc quoque sectatores Zenonis ita definiunt: Bonitas est virtus quæ prodest, sive, virtus ex quâ oritur utilitas; aut, virtus propter semetipsam; aut, affectus qui fons sit ntilitatum.’ With this agrees in the main the distinction which St. Basil draws (Reg. Brev. Tract. 214): πλατυτέραν οἶμαι εἶναι τὴν χρηστότητα, εἰς εὐεργεσίαν τῶν ὅπως δηποτοῦν ἐπιδεομένων ταύτης· συνηγμένην δὲ μᾶλλον τὴν ἀγαθωσύνην, καὶ τοῖς τῆς δικαιοσύνης λόγοις ἐν ταῖς εὐεργεσίαις συγχρωμένην. Lightfoot, on Gal. 5:22, finds more activity in the ἀγαθωσύνη than in the χρηστότης: ‘they are distinguished from one another as the ἦθος from the ἐνέργεια: χρηστότης is potential ἀγαθωσύνη, ἀγαθωσύνη is energizing χρηστότης.’
A man might display his ἀγαθωσύνη, his zeal for goodness and truth, in rebuking, correcting, chastising. Christ was not working otherwise than in the spirit of this grace when He drove the buyers and sellers out of the temple (Matt. 21:13); or when He uttered all those terrible words against the Scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 23.); but we could not say that his χρηστότης was shown in these acts of a righteous indignation. This was rather displayed in his reception of the penitent woman (Luke 7:37–50; cf. Ps. 24:7, 8); as in all other his gracious dealings with the children of men. Thus we might speak,—the Apostolic Constitutions (ii. 22) do speak,—of the χρηστότης τῆς ἀγαθωσύνης of God, but scarcely of the converse. This χρηστότης was so predominantly the character of Christ’s ministry, that it is nothing wonderful to learn from Tertullian (Apol. 3), how ‘Christus’ became ‘Chrestus,’ and ‘Christiani’ ‘Chrestiani’ on the lips of the heathen—with that undertone, it is true, of contempt, which the world feels, and soon learns to express in words, for a goodness which to it seems to have only the harmlessness of the dove, and nothing of the wisdom of the serpent. Such a contempt, indeed, it is justified in entertaining for a goodness which has no edge, no sharpness in it, no righteous indignation against sin, nor willingness to punish it. That what was called χρηστότης, still retaining this honourable name, did sometimes degenerate into this, and end with being no goodness at all, we have evidence in a striking fragment of Menander (Meineke, Fragm. Com. Grœc. p. 982):

    ἡ νῦν ὑπό τινων χρηστότης καλουμένη
    μεθῆκε τὸν ὃλον εἰς πονηρίαν βίον·
    οὐδεὶς γὰρ ἀδικῶν τυγχάνει τιμωρίας.

§ lxiv. δίκτυον, ἀμφίβληστρον, σαγήνη

OUR English word ‘net’ will, in a general way, cover all these three, which yet are capable of a more accurate discrimination one from the other.
Δίκτυον (= ‘rete,’ ‘retia’), from the old δικεῖν, to cast, which appears again in δίσκος, a quoit, is the more general name for all nets, and would include the hunting net, and the net with which birds are taken (Prov. 1:17), as well as the fishing, although used only of the latter in the N. T. (Matt. 4:20; John 21:6). It is often in the Septuagint employed in that figurative sense in which St. Paul uses παγίς (Rom 2:9; 1 Tim. 3:7), and is indeed associated with it (Job 18:8; Prov. 29:5).
Ἀμφίβληστρον and σαγήνη are varieties of fishing nets; they are named together, Hab. 1:15; and in Plutarch (De Sol. Anim. 26), who joins γρῖπος with σαγήνη, ὐποχή with ἀμφίβληστρον. Ἀμφίβληστρον—found only in the N. T. at Matt. 4:18; Mark 1:16; cf. Eccl. 9:12; Ps. 140:10 (ἀμφιβολή, Oppian)—is the casting net, ‘jaculum,’ i.e. ‘rete jaculum’ (Ovid, Art. Am. i. 763), or ‘funda’ (Virgil, Georg. i. 141), which, when skilfully cast from over the shoulder by one standing on the shore or in a boat, spreads out into a circle (ἀμφιβάλλεται) as it falls upon the water, and then sinking swiftly by the weight of the leads attached to it, encloses whatever is below it. Its circular, bell-like shape adapted it to the office of a mosquito net, to which, as Herodotus (ii. 95) tells us, the Egyptian fishermen turned it; but see Blakesley, Herodotus in loc. The garment in whose deadly folds Clytemnestra entangles Agamemnon is called ἀμφίβληστρον (Æschylus, Agamem. 1353; Choëph. 490; cf. Euripides, Helen. 1088); so, too, the fetter with which Prometheus is fastened to his rock (Æschylus, Prom. Vinct. 81); and the envenomed garment which Deianira gives to Hercules (Sophocles, Trach. 1052).
Σαγήνη—found in the N. T. only at Matt. 13:47; cf. Isai. 19:8; Ezek. 26:8 (from σάττω, σέσαγα ‘onero’)—is the long-drawn net, or sweep-net (‘vasta sagena’ Manilius calls it), the ends of which being carried out in boats so as to include a large extent of open sea, are then drawn together, and all which they contain enclosed and taken. It is rendered ‘sagena’ in the Vulgate, whence ‘seine,’ or ‘sean,’ the name of this net in Cornwall, on whose coasts it is much in use. In classical Latin it is called ‘everriculum’ (Cicero, playing upon Verres’ name, calls him, ‘everriculum in provincia’), from its sweeping the bottom of the sea. From the fact that it was thus a πάναγρον or take-all (Homer, Il. v. 487), the Greeks gave the name of σαγηνεύειν to a device by which the Persians were reported to have cleared a conquered island of its inhabitants (Herodotus, iii. 149; vi. 31; Plato, Legg. iii. 698 d); curiously enough, the same device being actually tried, but with very indifferent success, in Tasmania not many years ago; see Bonwick’s Last of the Tasmanians. Virgil in two lines describes the fishing by the aid first of the ἀμφίβληστρον and then of the σαγήνη (Georg. i. 141):

    ‘Atque alius latum fundâ jam verberat amnem
    Alta petens, pelagoque alius trahit humida lina.’

It will be seen that an evident fitness suggested the use of σαγήνη in a parable (Matt. 13:47) wherein our Lord is setting forth the wide reach, and all-embracing character, of his future kingdom. Neither ἀμφίβληστρον, nor yet δίκτυον which might have meant no more than ἀμφίβληστρον, would have suited at all so well.

§ lxv. λυπέομαι, πενθέω, θρηνέω, κόπτω

IN all these words there is the sense of grief, or the utterance of grief; but the sense of grief in different degrees of intensity, the utterance of it in different forms of manifestation.
Λυπεῖσθαι (Matt. 14:9; Ephes. 4:30; 1 Pet. 1:6) is not a special but a most general word, embracing the most various forms of grief, being opposed to χαίρειν (Aristotle, Rhet. i. 2; Sophocles, Ajax. 555); as λύπη to χαρά (John 16:20; Xenophon, Hell. vii. 1. 22); or to ἠδονή (Plato, Legg. 733). This λύπη, unlike the grief which the three following words express, a man may so entertain in the deep of his heart, that there shall be no outward manifestation of it, unless he himself be pleased to reveal it (Rom. 9:2).
Not so the πενθεῖν, which is stronger, being not merely ‘dolere’ or ‘angi,’ but ‘lugere,’ and like this last, properly and primarily (Cicero, Tusc. i. 13; iv. 8: ‘luctus, ægritudo ex ejus, qui carus fuerit, interitu acerbo’) to lament for the dead; πενθεῖν νέκυν (Homer, Il. xix. 225); τοὺς ἀπολωλότας (Xenophon, Hell. ii. 2, 3); then any other passionate lamenting (Sophocles, Œd. Rex. 1296; Gen. 37:34); πένθος being in fact a form of πάθος (see Plutarch, Cons. ad Apoll. 22); to grieve with a grief which so takes possession of the whole being that it cannot be hid; cf. Spanheim (Dub. Evang. 81): ‘πενθεῖν enim apud Hellenistas respondit verbis בכת κλαίειν, θρηεῖν, et הילֹיל ὀλολύζειν, adeoque non tantum denotat luctum conceptum intus, sed et expressum foris.’ According to Chrysostom (in loco) the πενθοῦντες of Matt. 5:4 are οἱ μετʼ ἐπιτάσεως λυπουμένοι, those who so grieve that their grief manifests itself externally. Thus we find πενθεῖν often joined with κλαίειν (2 Sam. 19:1; Mark 16:10; Jam. 4:9; Rev. 18:15); so πενθῶν καὶ σκυθρωπάζων, Ps. 34:14. Gregory of Nyssa (Suicer, Thes. s. v. πένθος) gives it more generally, πένθος ἐστὶ σκυθρωπὴ διάθεσις τῆς ψυχῆς, ἐπὶ στερήσει τινὸς τῶν καταθυμίων συνισταμένη: but he was not distinguishing synonyms, and not therefore careful to draw out finer distinctions.
Θρηνεῖν, joined with ὀδύρεσθαι (Plutarch, Quom. Virt. Prof. 5), with κατοικτείρειν (Cons. ad Apoll. 11), is to bewail, to make a θρῆνος, a ‘nenia’ or dirge over the dead, which may be mere wailing or lamentation (θρῆνος καὶ κλαυθμός, Matt. 2:18), breaking out in unstudied words, the Irish wake is such a θρῆνος, or it may take the more elaborate form of a poem. That beautiful lamentation which David composed over Saul and Jonathan is introduced in the Septuagint with these words, ἐθρήνησε Δαβὶδ τὸν θρῆνον τοῦτον κ.τ.λ. (2 Sam. 1:17), and the sublime dirge over Tyre is called a θρῆνος (Ezek. 26:17; cf. Rev. 18:11; 2 Chron. 35:25; Amos 8:10).
We have finally to deal with κόπτειν (Matt. 24:30; Luke 23:27; Rev. 1:7). This, being first to strike, is then that act which most commonly went along with the θρηνεῖν, to strike the bosom, or beat the breast, as an outward sign of inward grief (Nah. 2:7; Luke 18:13); so κοπετός (Acts 8:2) is θρῆνος μετὰ ψοφοῦ χειρῶν (Hesychius), and, as is the case with πενθεῖν, oftenest in token of grief for the dead (Gen. 23:2; 2 Sam. 3:31). It is the Latin ‘plangere’ (‘laniataque pectora plangens:’ Ovid, Metam. vi. 248; cf. Sophocles, Ajax, 615–617), which is connected with ‘plaga’ and πλήσσω. Plutarch (Cons. ad Ux. 4) joins ὀλοφύρσεις and κοπετοί (cf. Fab. Max. 17: κοπετοὶ γυναικεῖοι) as two of the more violent manifestations cf grief, condemning both as faulty in their excess.

§ lxvi. ἁμαρτία, ἁμάρτημα, παρακοή, ἀνομία, παρανομία, παράβασις, παράπτωμα, ἀγνόημα, ἥττημα

A MOURNFULLY numerous group of words, and one which it would be only too easy to make larger still. Nor is it hard to see why. For sin, which we may define in the language of Augustine, as ‘factum vel dictum vel concupitum aliquid contra æternam legem’ (Con. Faust. xxii. 27; cf. the Stoic definition, ἀμάρτημα, νόμου ἀπαγόρευμα, Plutarch, De Rep. Stoic. 11); or again, ‘voluntas admittendi vel retinendi quod justitia, vetat, et unde liberum est abstinere’ (Con. Jul. i. 47), may be regarded under an infinite number of aspects, and in all languages has been so regarded; and as the diagnosis of it belongs most of all to the Scriptures, nowhere else are we likely to find it contemplated on so many sides, set forth under such various images. It may be regarded as the missing of a mark or aim; it is then ἁμαρτία or ἁμάρτημα: the overpassing or transgressing of a line; it is then παράβασις: the disobedience to a voice; in which case it is παρκοή: the falling where one should have stood upright; this will be παράπτωμα: ignorance of what one ought to have known; this will be ἀγνόημα: diminishing of that which should have been rendered in full measure, which is ἥττημα: non-observance of a law, which is ἀνομία or παρανομία: a discord in the harmonies of God’s universe, when it is πλημμέλεια: and in other ways almost out of number.
To begin with the word of largest reach. In seeking accurately to define ἁμαρτία, and so better to distinguish it from other words of this group, no help can be derived from its etymology, seeing that it is quite uncertain. Suidas, as is well known, derives it from μάρπτω, ‘ἁμαρτία quasi ἁμαρπτία,’ a failing to grasp. Buttmann’s conjecture (Lexilogus, p. 85, English ed.), that it belongs to the root μέρος, μείρομαι, on which a negative intransitive verb, to be without one’s share of, to miss, was formed (see Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 6. 13), has found more favour (see a long note by Fritzsche, on Rom. 5:12, with excellent philology and execrable theology). Only this much is plain, that when sin is contemplated as ἀμαρτία, it is regarded as a failing and missing the true end and scope of our lives, which is God; ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἀπόπτωσις, as Œcumenius: ἡ τοῦ ἁγαθοῦ ἀποτυχία, and ἁμαρτάνειν, and ἄσκοπα τοξεύειν, as Suidas; ἡ τοῦ καλοῦ ἐκτροπή, εἴτε τοῦ κατὰ φύσιν, εἴτε τοῦ κατὰ νόμον, as another. We may compare the German ‘fehlen.’
It is a matter of course that with slighter apprehensions of sin, and of the evil of sin, there must go hand in hand a slighter ethical significance in the words used to express sin. It is therefore nothing wonderful that ἁμαρτία and ἁμαρτάνειν should nowhere in classical Greek obtain that depth of meaning which in revealed religion they have acquired. The words run the same course which all words ultimately taken up into ethical terminology seem inevitably to run. Employed first about things natural, they are then. transferred to things moral or spiritual, according to that analogy between those and these, which the human mind so delights to trace. Thus ἁμαρτάνειν signifies, when we meet it first, to miss a mark, being exactly opposed to τυχεῖν. So a hundred times in Homer the warrior ἁμαρτεῖ, who hurls his spear, but fails to strike his foe (Il. iv. 491); so τῶν ὁδῶν ἁμαρτάνειν (Thucydides, iii. 98. 2) is to miss one’s way. The next advance is the transfer of the word to things intellectual. The poet ἁμαρτάνει, who selects a subject which it is impossible to treat poetically, or who seeks to attain results which lie beyond the limits of his art (Aristotle, Poët. 8 and 25); so we have δόξης ἁμαρτία (Thucydides, i. 31); γνώμης ἁμάρτημα (ii. 65). It is constantly set over against ὀρθότης (Plato, Legg. i. 627 d; ii. 668 c; Aristotle, Poët. 25). So far from having any ethical significance of necessity attaching to it, Aristotle sometimes withdraws it, almost, if not altogether, from the region of right and wrong (Eth. Nic. v. 8. 7). The ἀμαρτία is a mistake, a fearful one it may be, like that of Œdipus, but nothing more (Poët. 13; cf. Euripides, Hippolytus, 1426). Elsewhere, however, it has as much of the meaning of our ‘sin,’ as any word, employed in heathen ethics, could possess; thus Plato, Phœdr. 113 e: Rep. ii. 366 a; Xenophon, Cyrop. v. 4. 19.
Ἁμάρτημα differs from ἁμαρτία, in that ἁμαρτία is sin in the abstract as well as the concrete; or again, the act of sinning no less than the sin which is actually sinned, ‘peccatio’ (A. Gellius, xiii. 20, 17) no less than ‘peccatum’; while ἁμάρτημα (it only occurs Mark 3:28; 4:12; Rom. 3:25; 1 Cor. 6:18) is never sin regarded as sinfulness, or as the act of sinning, but only sin contemplated in its separate outcomings and deeds of disobedience to a divine law; being in the Greek schools opposed to κατόρθωμα. There is the same difference between ἀνομία and ἀνόμημα (which last is not in the N. T.; but 1 Sam. 25:28; Ezek. 16:49), ἀσέβεια and ἀσέβημα (not in the N. T.; but Lev. 18:17), ἀδικία and ἀδίκημα (Acts 18:14). This is brought out by Aristotle (Ethic. Nic. v. 7), who sets over against one another ἄδικον (= ἀδικία) and ἀδίκημα in these words: διαφέρει τὸ ἀδίκημα καὶ τὸ ἄδικον. Ἄδικον μὲν γὰρ ἔστι τῇ φύσει, ἢ τάξει· τὸ αὐτὸ δὲ τοῦτο, ὅταν πραχθῇ, ἀδίκημά ἐστι. Compare, an instructive passage in Xenophon (Mem. ii. 2, 3): αἱ πόλεις ἐπὶ τοῖς μεγίστοις ἀδικήμασι ζημίαν θάνατον πεποιήκασιν, ὡς οὐκ ἂν μειζόνος κακοῦ φόβῳ τὴν ἀ δικίαν παύσοντες. On the distinction between ἁμαρτία and ἁμάρτημα, ἀδικία and ἀδίκημα, and other words of this group, there is a long discussion by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. ii. 15), but one not yielding much profit.
Ἀσέβεια, joined with ἀδικία (Xenophon, Apol. 24; Rom. 1:8); as ἀσεβής with ἄδικος, with ἀνόσιος (Xenophon, Cyrop. viii. 8. 27), with ἁμαρτωλός (1 Tim. 1:9; 1 Pet. 4:18), is positive and active irreligion, and this contemplated as a deliberate withholding from God of his dues of prayer and of service, a standing, so to speak, in battle array against Him. We have always rendered it ‘ungodliness,’ while the Rheims as constantly ‘impiety,’ and ἀσεβής ‘impious,’ neither of these words occurring anywhere in our English Bible. The ἀσεβής and the δίκαιος are constantly set over against one another (thus Gen. 18:23), as the two who wage the great warfare between light and darkness, right and wrong, of which God has willed that this earth of ours should be the scene.
Παρακοή is in the N. T. found only at Rom. 5:19 (where it is opposed to ὑπακοή); 2 Cor. 10:6; Heb. 2:2. It is not in the Septuagint, but παρακούειν (in the N. T. only at Matt. 18:17) occurs several times there in the sense of to disobey (Esth. 3:3, 8; Isai. 65:12). Παρακοή is in its strictest sense a failing to hear, or a hearing amiss; the notion of active disobedience, which follows on this inattentive or careless hearing, being superinduced upon the word; or, it may be, the sin being regarded as already committed in the failing to listen when God is speaking. Bengel (on Rom. 5:19) has a good note: ‘παρά in παρακοή perquam apposite declarat rationem initii in lapsu Adami. Quæritur quomodo hominis recti intellectus aut voluntas potuit detrimentum capere aut noxam admittere? Resp. Intellectus et voluntas simul labavit per ἀμέλειαν· neque quicquam potest prius concipi, quam ἀμέλεια, incuria, sicut initium capiendæ urbis est vigiliarum remissio. Hanc incuriam significat παρακοή, inobedientia.’ It need hardly be observed how continually in the O. T. disobedience is described as a refusing to hear (Jer. 11:10; 35:17); and it appears literally as such at Acts 7:57. Joined with and following παράβασις at Heb. 2:2, it would there imply, in the intention of the writer, that not merely every actual transgression, embodying itself in an outward act of disobedience, was punished, but every refusal to hear, even though it might not have asserted itself in such overt acts of disobedience.
We have generally translated ἀνομία ‘iniquity’ (Matt. 7:23; Rom. 6:19; Heb. 10:17); once ‘unrighteousness’ (2 Cor. 6:14), and once “transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4). It is set over against δικαιοσύνη (2 Cor. 6:14; cf. Xenophon, Mem. i. 2. 24); joined with ἀναρχία (Plato, Rep. ix. 575 a), with ἀντιλογία (Ps. 55:10). While ἄνομος is once at least in the N. T. used negatively of a person without law, or to whom a law has not been given (1 Cor. 9:21; cf. Plato, Rep. 302 e, ἄνομος μοναρχία); though elsewhere of the greatest enemy of all law, the Man of Sin, the lawless one (2 Thess. 2:8); ἀνομία is never there the condition of one living without law, but always the condition or deed of one who acts contrary to law: and so, of course, παρανομία, found only at 2 Pet. 2:16; cf. Prov. 10:26, and παρανομεῖν, Acts 23:3. It will follow that where there is no law (Rom. 5:13), there may be ἁμαρτία, ἀδικία, but not ἀνομία: being, as Œcumenius defines it, ἡ περὶ τὸν θετὸν νόμον πλημμέλεια: as Fritzsche, ‘legis contemtio aut morum licentia quâ lex violatur.’ Thus the Gentiles, not having a law (Rom. 2:14), might be charged with sin; but they, sinning without law (ἀνόμως = χωρὶς νόμου, Rom. 2:12; 3:21), could not be charged with ἀνομία. It is true, indeed, that, behind that law of Moses which they never had, there is another law, the original law and revelation of the righteousness of God, written on the hearts of all (Rom. 2:14, 15); and, as this in no human heart is obliterated quite, all sin, even that of the darkest and most ignorant savage, must still in a secondary sense remain as ἀνομία, a violation of this older, though partially obscured, law. Thus Origen (in Rom. 4:5): ‘Iniquitas sane a peccato hanc habet differentiam, quod iniquitas in his dicitur quæ contra legem committuntur, unde et Græcus sermo ἀνομίαν appellat. Peccatum vero etiam illud dici potest, si contra quam natura docet, et conscientia arguit, delinquatur.’ Cf. Xenophon, Mem. iv. 4. 18, 19.
It is the same with παράβασις. There must be something to transgress, before there can be a transgression. There was sin between Adam and Moses, as was attested by the fact that there was death; but those between the law given in Paradise (Gen. 2:16, 17) and the law given from Sinai, sinning indeed, yet did not sin “after the similitude of Adam’s transgression” (παραβάσεως, Rom. 5:14). With law came for the first time the possibility of the transgression of law (Rom. 4:15); and exactly this transgression, or trespass, is παράβασις, from παραβαίνειν, ‘transilire lineam;’ the French ‘forfait’ (‘faire fors’ or ‘hors’), some act which is excessive, enormous. Cicero (Parad. 3): ‘Peccare est tanquam transilire lineas;’ compare the Homeric ὑπερβασίη, Il. iii. 107, and often. In the constant language of St. Paul this παράβασις, as the transgression of a commandment distinctly given, is more serious than ἁμαρτία (Rom. 2:23; 1 Tim. 2:14; cf. Heb. 2:2; 9:15). It is from this point of view, and indeed with reference to this very word, that Augustine draws often a distinction between the ‘peccator’ and the ‘prævaricator,’ between ‘peccatum’ (ἁμαρτία) and ‘prævaricatio’ (παράβασις). Thus Enarr. in Ps. cxviii.; Serm. 25: ‘Omnis quidem prævaricator peccator est, quia peccat in lege, sed non omnis peccator prævaricator est, quia peccant aliqui sine lege. Ubi autem non est lex, nec prævaricatio.’ It will be seen that his Latin word introduces a new image, not now of overpassing a line, but of halting on unequal feet; an image, however, which had quite faded from the word when he used it, his motive to employ it lying in the fact that the ‘prævaricator,’ or collusive prosecutor, dealt unjustly with a law. He who, being under no express law, sins, is in Augustine’s language, ‘peccator’; he who, having such a law, sins, is ‘prævaricator’ (= παραβάτης, Rom. 2:25; Jam. 2:9, a name constantly given by the Church Fathers to Julian the Apostate). Before the law came men might be the former; after the law they could only be the latter. In the first there is implicit, in the second explicit, disobedience.
We now arrive at παράπτωμα, a word belonging altogether to the later Greek, and of rare occurrence there; it is employed by Longinus of literary faults (De Subl. 36). Cocceius: ‘Si originem verbi spectemus, significat ea facta præ quibus quis cadit et prostratus jacet, ut stare coram Deo et surgere non potest.’ At Ephes. 2:1, where παραπτώματα and ἁμαρτίαι are found together, Jerome records with apparent assent a distinction between them; that the former are sins suggested to the mind and partially entertained and welcomed there, and the latter the same embodied in actual deeds: ‘Aiunt quod παραπτώματα quasi initia peccatorum sint, quum cogitatio tacita subrepit, et ex aliquâ parte conniventibus nobis; necdum tamen nos impulit ad ruinam. Peccatum vero esse, quum quid opere consummatum pervenit ad finem.’ This distinction has no warrant. Only this much truth it may be allowed to have; that, as sins of thought partake more of the nature of infirmity, and have less aggravation than the same sins consummated, embodied, that is, in act, so doubtless παράπτωμα is sometimes used when it is intended to designate sins not of the deepest dye and the worst enormity. One may trace this very clearly at Gal. 6:1, our Translators no doubt meaning to indicate as much when they rendered it by ‘fault’; and not obscurely, as it seems to me, at Rom. 5:15, 17, 18. Παράπτωμα is used in the same way, as an error, a mistake in judgment, a blunder, by Polybius (ix. 10. 6); compare Ps. 18:13, 14, where it is contrasted with the ἁμαρτία μεγάλη: and for other examples see Cremer, Biblisch-Theolog. Wörterbuch, p. 501. To a certain feeling of this we may ascribe another inadequate distinction,—that, namely, of Augustine (Qu. ad Lev. 20), who will have παράπτωμα to be the negative omission of good (‘desertio boni,’ or ‘delictum’), as contrasted with ἁμαρτία, the positive doing of evil (‘perpetratio mali’).
But this milder subaudition is very far from belonging always to the word (see Jeremy Taylor, Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, iii. 3. 21). There is nothing of it at Ephes. 2:1, “dead in trespasses (παραπτώμασι) and sins.” Παράπτωμα is mortal sin, Ezek. 18:26; and the παραπεσεῖν of Heb. 6:6 is equivalent to the ἐκουσίως ἁμαρτάνειν of 10:26, to the ἀποστῆναι ἀπὸ Θεοῦ ζῶντος of 3:12; while any such extenuation of the force of the word is expressly excluded in a passage of Philo (ii. 648), which very closely resembles these two in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in which he distinctly calls it παράπτωμα, when a man, having reached an acknowledged pitch of godliness and virtue, falls back from, and out of this; ‘he was lifted up to the height of heaven, and is fallen down to the deep of hell.’
Ἀγνόημα occurs in the N. T. only at Heb. 9:7 (see Theoluck, On the Hebrews, Appendix, p. 92), but also at Judith 5:20; 1 Macc. 13:39; Tob. 3:3; and ἄγνοια in the same sense of sin, Ps. 24:7, and often; and ἀγνοεῖν, to sin, at Hos. 4:15; Ecclus. 5:15; Heb. 5:2. Sin is designated as an ἀγνόημα when it is desired to make excuses for it, so far as there is room for such, to regard it in the mildest possible light (see Acts 3:17). There is always an element of ignorance in every human transgression, which constitutes it human and not devilish; and which, while it does not take away, yet so far mitigates the sinfulness of it, as to render its forgiveness not indeed necessary, but possible. Thus compare the words of the Lord, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34), with those of St. Paul, “I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief” (1 Tim. 1:13), where, as one has well said, ‘Der Ausdruck fasst Schuld und Entschuldigung zusammen.’ No sin of man, except perhaps the sin against the Holy Ghost, which may for this reason be irremissible (Matt. 12:32), is committed with a full and perfect recognition of the evil which is chosen as evil, and of the good which is forsaken as good. Compare the numerous passages in which Plato identifies vice with ignorance, and even pronounces that no man is voluntarily evil; οὐδεὶς ἐκὼν κακός, and what is said qualifying or guarding this statement in Archer Butler’s Lectures on Ancient Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 285. Whatever exaggerations this statement of Plato’s may contain, it still remains true that sin is always, in a greater or a less degree, an ἀγνόημα, and the more the ἀγνοεῖν, as opposed to the ἐκουσίως ἁμαρτάνειν (Heb. 10:26), predominates, the greater the extenuation of the sinfulness of the sin. There is therefore an eminent fitness in the employment of the word on the one occasion, referred to already, where it appears in the N. T. The ἀγνοήματα, or ‘errors’ of the people, for which the High Priest offered sacrifice on the great day of atonement, were not wilful transgressions, “presumptuous sins” (Ps. 18:13), committed κατὰ προαίρεσιν, κατὰ πρόθεσιν, against conscience and with a high hand against God; those who committed such were cut off from the congregation; no provision having been made in the Levitical constitution for the forgiveness of such (Num. 15:30, 31); but they were sins growing out of the weakness of the flesh, out of an imperfect insight into God’s law, out of heedlessness and lack of due circumspection (ἀκουσίως, Lev. 4:13; cf. 5:15–19; Num. 15:22–29), and afterwards looked back on with shame and regret. The same distinction exists between ἄγνοια and ἀγνόημα which has been already traced between ἁμαρτία and ἁμάρτημα, ἀδικία and ἀδίκημα: that the former is often the more abstract, the latter is always the concrete.
Ἥττημα appears nowhere in classical Greek; but ἧττα, a briefer form of the word, is opposed to νίκη, as discomfiture or worsting to victory. It has there past very much through the same stages as the Latin ‘clades.’ It appears once in the Septuagint (Isai. 31:8), and twice in the N. T., namely at Rom. 11:12; 1 Cor. 6:7; but only in the latter instance having an ethical sense, as a coming short of duty, a fault, the German ‘fehler,’ the Latin ‘delictum.’ Gerhard (Loc. Theoll. xi.): ‘ἥττημα diminutio, defectus, ab ἡττᾶσθαι victum esse, quia peccatores succumbunt carnis et Satanæ tentationibus.’
Πλημμέλεια, a very frequent word in the O. T. (Lev. 5:15; Num. 18:9, and often), and not rare in later ecclesiastical Greek (thus see Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. 41), does not occur in the New. Derived from πλημμελής, one who sings out of tune (πλὴν and μέλος),—as ἐμμελής is one who is in tune, and ἐμμέλεια, the right modulation of the voice to the music; it is properly a discord or disharmony (πλημμέλειαι καὶ ἀμετρίαι, Plutarch, Symp. ix. 14. 7);—so that Augustine’s Greek is at fault when he finds in it μέλει, ‘curæ est’ (Qu. in Lev. iii. 20), and makes πλημμέλεια = ἀμέλεια, carelessness. Rather it is sin regarded as a discord or disharmony in the great symphonies of the universe:

    ‘disproportioned sin
    Jarred against nature’s chime, and with harsh din
    Broke the fair music that all creatures made
    To their great Lord.’

Delitzsch, on Ps. 32:1, with whom Hupfeld, on the same passage, may be compared, observes on the more important Hebrew words, which more or less correspond with these: ‘Die Sünde heisst פּשַׁע als Losreissung von Gott, Treubruch, Fall aus dem Gnadenstande [= ἀσέβεια], תַטָאָה als Verfehlung des Gottgewollten Zieles, Abirrung vom Gottgefälligen, Vollbringung des Gottwidrigen [= ἁμαρτία], עָוֹן als Verkehrung des Geraden, Missethat, Verschuldung [= ἀνομία, ἀδικία.].’

§ lxvii. ἀρχαῖος, παλαίος

WE should go astray, if we regarded one of these words as expressing a higher antiquity than the other, and at all sought in this the distinction between them. On the contrary, this remoter antiquity will be expressed now by one, now by the other. Ἀρχαῖος, expressing that which was from the beginning (ἀρχήν, ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς), must, if we accept this as the first beginning of all, be older than person or thing that is merely παλαιός, as having existed a long time ago (πάλαι); whilst on the other hand there may be so many later beginnings, that it is quite possible to conceive the παλαιός as older than the ἀρχαῖος. Donaldson (New Cratylus, p. 19) writes: ‘As the word archœology is already appropriated to the discussion of those subjects of which the antiquity is only comparative, it would be consistent with the usual distinction between ἀρχαῖος and παλαιός to give the name of palœology to those sciences which aim at reproducing an absolutely primeval state or condition.’ I fail to trace in the uses of παλαιός so strong a sense, or at all events at all so constant a sense, of a more primeval state or condition, as in this statement is implied. Thus compare Thucydides, ii. 15: ξυμβέβηκε τοῦτο ἀπὸ τοῦ πάνυ ἀρχαῖου, that is, from the prehistoric time of Cecrops, with i. 18: Λακεδαίμων ἐκ παλαιτάτου εὐνομήθη, from very early times, but still within the historic period; where the words are used in senses exactly reversed.
The distinction between ἀρχαῖος and παλαιός, which is not to be looked for here, is on many occasions not to be looked for at all. Often they occur together as merely cumulative synonyms, or at any rate with no higher antiquity predicated by the one than by the other (Plato, Legg. 865 d; Demosthenes, xxii. 597; Plutarch, Cons. ad Apoll. 27; Justin Martyr, Coh. ad Grœc. 5). It lies in the etymology of the words that in cases out of number they may be quite indifferently used; that which was from the beginning will have been generally from a long while since; and that which was from a long while since will have been often from the beginning. Thus the ἀρχαία φωνή of one passage in Plato (Crat. 418 c) is exactly equivalent to the παλαία φωνή of another (Ib. 398 d); the ἀρχαῖοι θεοί of one passage in the Euthyphro are the παλαία δαιμόνια of another; οἱ παλαιοί and οἱ ἀρχαῖοι alike mean the ancients (Plutarch, Cons. ad Apoll. 14 and 33); there cannot be much difference between παλαιοὶ χρόνοι (2 Macc. 6:21) and ἀρχαίαι ἡμέραι (Ps. 43:2).
At the same time it is evident that whenever an emphasis is desired to be laid on the reaching back to a beginning, whatever that beginning may be, ἀρχαῖος will be preferred; thus we have ἀρχαία and πρῶτα joined together (Isai. 33:18). Satan is ὁ ὄφις ὁ ἀρχαῖος (Rev. 12:9; 20:2), his malignant counterworkings of God reaching back to the earliest epoch in the history of man. The world before the flood, that therefore which was indeed from the first, is ὁ ἀρχαῖος κόσμος (2 Pet. 2:5). Mnason was ἀρχαῖος μαθητής (Acts 21:16), ‘an old disciple,’ not in the sense in which English readers almost inevitably take the words, namely, ‘an aged disciple,’ but one who had been such from the commencement of the faith, from the day of Pentecost or before it; aged very probably he will have been; but it is not this which the word declares. The original founders of the Jewish Commonwealth, who, as such, gave with authority the law, are οἱ ἀρχαίοι (Matt. 5:21, 27, 33; cf. 1 Sam. 24:14; Isai. 25:1); πίστις ἀρχαία (Eusebius, H. E. v. 28, 9) is the faith which was from the beginning, “once delivered to the saints.” The Timœus of Plato, 22 b, offers an instructive passage in which both words occur, where it is not hard to trace the finer instincts of language which have determined their several employment. Sophocles (Trachin. 546) has another, where Deianira speaks of the poisoned shirt, the gift to her of Nessus:

    ἦν μοι παλαιὸν δῶρον ἀρχαίου ποτὲ
    θηρὸς, λέβητι χαλκέῳ κεκρυμμένον.

Æschylus (Eumenides, 727, 728) furnishes a third.
Ἀρχαῖος, like the Latin ‘priscus,’ will often designate the ancient as also the venerable, as that to which the honour due to antiquity belongs; thus Κῦρος ὁ ἀρχαῖος (Xenophon, Anab. i. 9. 1; cf. Aristophanes, Nub. 961); just as on the other side ‘modern’ is always used slightingly by Shakespeare; and it is here that we reach a point of marked divergence between it and παλαιός, each going off into a secondary meaning of its own, which it does not share with the other, but possesses exclusively as its proper domain. I have just observed that the honour of antiquity is sometimes expressed by ἀρχαῖος, nor indeed is it altogether strange to παλαιός. But there are other qualities that cleave to the ancient; it is often old-fashioned, seems ill-adapted to the present, to be part and parcel of a world which has past away. We have a witness for this in the fact that ‘antique’ and ‘antic’ are only different spellings of one and the same word. There lies often in ἀρχαῖος this sense superadded of old-world fashion; not merely antique, but antiquated and out of date, not merely ‘alterthümlich,’ but ‘altfränkisch’ (Æschylus, Prom. Vinct. 325; Aristophanes, Plut. 323; Nub. 915; Pax, 554, χαίρειν ἐστὶν ἀρχαῖον ἤδη καὶ σαπρόν); and still more strongly in ἀρχαιότης, which has no other meaning but this (Plato, Legg. ii. 657 b).
But while ἀρχαῖος goes off in this direction (we have, indeed, no example in the N. T.), παλαιός diverges in another, of which the N. T. usage will supply a large number of examples. That which has existed long has been exposed to, and in many cases will have suffered from, the wrongs and injuries of time; it will be old in the sense of more or less worn out; and this is always παλαιός. Thus ἱμάτιον παλαιόν (Matt. 9:16); ἀσκοὶ παλαιοί (Matt. 9:17); so ἀσκοὶ παλαιοὶ καὶ κατεῤῥωγότες (Josh. 9:10); παλαιὰ ῥάκη (Jer. 45:11). In the same way, while οἱ ἀρχαῖοι could never express the old men of a living generation as compared with the young of the same, οἱ παλαιοί continually bears this sense; thus νέος ἠὲ παλαιός (Homer, Il. xiv. 108, and often); πολυετεῖς καὶ παλαιοί (Philo, De Vit. Cont. 8; cf. Job 15:10). It is the same with the words formed on παλαιός: thus Heb. 8:13: τὸ δὲ παλαιούμενον καὶ γηράσκον, ἐγγὺς ἀφανισμοῦ: cf. Heb. 1:11; Luke 12:33; Ecclus. 14:17; while Plato joins παλαιότης and σαπρότης together (Rep. x. 609 e; cf. Aristophanes, Plut. 1086: τρὺξ παλαιὰ καὶ σαπρά). As often as παλαιός is employed to connote that which is worn out, or wearing out, by age, it will absolutely demand καινός as its opposite (Josh. 9:19; Mark 2:21; Heb. 8:13), as it will also sometimes have it on other occasions (Herodotus, ix. 26, bis). When this does not lie in the word, there is nothing to prevent νέος being set over against it (Lev. 26:10; Homer, Od. ii. 293; Plato, Cratylus, 418 b; Æschylus, Eumenides, 778, 808); and καινός against ἀρχαῖος (2 Cor. 5:17; Aristophanes, Ranæ, 720; Isocrates, xv. 82; Plato, Euthyphro, 3 b; Philo, De Vit. Con. 10).

§ lxviii. ἄφθαρτος, ἀμάραντος, ἀμαράντινος

IT is a remarkable testimony to the reign of sin, and therefore of imperfection, of decay, of death, throughout this whole fallen world, that as often as we desire to set forth the glory, purity, and perfection of that other higher world toward which we strive, we are almost inevitably compelled to do this by the aid of negatives, by the denying to that higher order of things the leading features and characteristics of this. Such is signally the case in a passage wherein two of the words with which we are now dealing occur. St. Peter, magnifying the inheritance reserved in heaven for the faithful (1 Pet. 1:4), does this,—and he had hardly any choice in the matter,—by aid of three negatives; by affirming that it is ἄφθαρτος, or without our corruption; that it is ἀμίαντος, or without our defilement; that it is ἀμάραντος, or without our withering and fading away. He can only set forth what it is by declaring what it is not. Of these three, however, I set one, namely ἀμίαντος, aside, the distinction between it and the others being too evident to leave them fair subjects of synonymous discrimination.
Ἄφθαρτος, a word of the later Greek, is not once found in the Septuagint, and only twice in the Apocrypha (Wisd. 12:1; 18:4). Properly speaking, God only is ἄφθαρτος, the heathen theology recognizing this not less clearly than the Biblical. Thus Plutarch (De Stoic. Rep. 38) quotes the grand saying of the Stoic philosopher, Antipater of Tarsus, Θεὸν νοοῦμεν ζῶον μακάριον καὶ ἄφθαρτον: cf. Diogenes Laërtius, x. 1. 31. 139. And in agreement with this we find the word by him associated with ἰσόθεος (Ne Suav. Viv. Posse, 7), with ἀΐδιος (Adv. Col. 13), with ἀνέκλειπτος (De Def. Orac. 51), with ἀγέννητος (De Stoic. Rep. 38), with ἀγένητος (De Ei ap. Delph. 19), with ἀπαθής (De Def. Orac. 20); so, too, with ὀλύμπιος by Philo, and with other epithets corresponding. ‘Immortal’ we have rendered it on one occasion (1 Tim. 1:17); but there is a clear distinction between it and ἀθάνατος or ὁ ἔχων ἀθανασίαν (1 Tim. 6:16); and ‘incorruptible,’ by which we have given it in other places (1 Cor. 9:25; 15:52; 1 Pet. 1:23), is to be preferred: the word predicating of God that He is exempt from that wear and waste and final perishing; that φθορά, which time, and sin working in time, bring about in all which is outside of Him, and to which He has not communicated of his own ἀφθαρσία (1 Cor. 15:52; cf. Isai. 51:6; Heb. 1:10–12).
Ἀμάραντος occurs only once in the N. T. (1 Pet. 1:4); once also in the Apocrypha, being joined there with λαμπρός (Wisd. 6:12); and ἀμαράντινος not oftener (1 Pet. 5:4). There may well be a question whether ἀμαράντινος, an epithet given to a crown, should not be rendered ‘of amaranths.’ We, however, have made no distinction between the two, having rendered both by the same circumlocution, ‘that fadeth not away’; our Translators no doubt counting ‘immarcescible’—a word which has found favour with Bishops Hall and Taylor and with other scholarly writers of the seventeenth century—too much of an ‘inkhorn term’ to be admitted into our English Bible. Even the Rheims Translators, with ‘immarcescibilis’ in the Vulgate before them, have not ventured upon it. In this ἀμάραντος there is affirmed of the heavenly inheritance that it is exempt from that swift withering which is the portion of all the loveliness which springs out of an earthly root; the most exquisite beauty which the natural world can boast, that, namely, of the flower, being also the shortest-lived (‘breve lilium’), the quickest to fall away and fade and die (Job 24:2; Ps. 37:2; 103:15; Isai. 40:6, 7; Matt. 6:30; Jam. 1:9; 1 Pet. 1:24). All this is declared to find no place in that inheritance of unfading loveliness, reserved for the faithful in heaven.
If, indeed, it be asked wherein ἄφθαρτος and ἀμάραντος differ, what the latter predicates concerning this heavenly inheritance which the former had not claimed already, the answer must be that essentially it claims nothing; yet with all this in ἀμάραντος is contained, so to speak, a pledge that the more delicate grace, beauty, and bloom which it owns will as little wither and wane as will its solid and substantial worth depart. Not merely decay and corruption cannot touch it; but it shall wear its freshness, brightness, and beauty for ever. Estius: ‘Immarcescibilis est, quia vigorem suum et gratiam, instar amaranti floris, semper retinet, ut nullo unquam tempore possessori fastidium tædiumve subrepat.’

§ lxix. μετανοέω, μεταμέλομαι

IT is often stated by theologians of the Reformation period that μετάνοια and μεταμέλεια, with their several verbs, μετανοεῖν and μεταμέλεσθαι, are so far distinct, that where it is intended to express the mere desire that the done might be undone, accompanied with regrets or even with remorse, but with no effective change of heart, there the latter words are employed; but where a true change of heart toward God, there the former. It was Beza, I believe, who first strongly urged this. He was followed by many; thus see Spanheim, Dub. Evang. vol. iii. dub. 9; and Chillingworth (Sermons before Charles I. p. 11): ‘To this purpose it is worth the observing, that when the Scripture speaks of that kind of repentance, which is only sorrow for something done, and wishing it undone, it constantly useth the word μεταμέλεια, to which forgiveness of sins is nowhere promised. So it is written of Judas the son of perdition (Matt. 27:3), μεταμεληθεὶς ἀπέτρεψε, he repented and went and hanged himself, and so constantly in other places. But that repentance to which remission of sins and salvation is promised, is perpetually expressed by the word μετάνοια, which signifieth a thorough change of the heart and soul, of the life and actions.’
Let me, before proceeding further, correct a slight inaccuracy in this statement. Μεταμέλεια nowhere occurs in the N. T.; only once in the Old (Hos. 11:8). So far as we are dealing with N.T. synonyms, it is properly between the verbs alone that the comparison can be instituted, and a distinction drawn; though, indeed, what stands good of them will stand good of their substantives as well. But even after this correction made, the statement will itself need a certain qualification. Jeremy Taylor allows as much; whose words—they occur in his great treatise, On the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, ch. ii. 1, 2—are as follows: ‘The Greeks use two words to express this duty, μεταμέλεια and μετάνοια. Μεταμέλεια is from μεταμελεῖσθαι, post factum angi et cruciari, to be afflicted in mind, to be troubled for our former folly; it is δυσαρέστησις ἐπὶ πεπραγμένοις, saith Phavorinus, a being displeased for what we have done, and it is generally used for all sorts of repentance; but more properly to signify either the beginning of a good, or the whole state of an ineffective, repentance. In the first sense we find it in St. Matthew, ὑμεῖς δὲ ἰδόντες οὐ μετεμελήθητε ὕστερον τοῦ πιστεῦσαι αὐτῷ ‘and ye, seeing, did not repent that ye might believe Him.’ Of the second sense we have an example in Judas, μεταμελήθεις ἀπέστρεψε, he “repented” too, but the end of it was he died with anguish and despair.… There is in this repentance a sorrow for what is done, a disliking of the thing with its consequents and effect, and so far also it is a change of mind. But it goes no further than so far to change the mind that it brings trouble and sorrow, and such things as are the natural events of it.… When there was a difference made, μετάνοια was the better word, which does not properly signify the sorrow for having done amiss, but something that is nobler than it, but brought in at the gate of sorrow. For ἡ κατὰ Θεὸν λύπη, a godly sorrow, that is μεταμέλεια, or the first beginning of repentance, μετάνοιαν κατεργάζεται, worketh this better repentance, μετάνοιαν ἀμεταμέλητον and εἰς σωτηρίαν.’ Thus far Jeremy Taylor. Presently, however, he admits that ‘however the grammarians may distinguish them, yet the words are used promiscuously,’ and that no rigid line of discrimination can be drawn between them as some have attempted to draw. This in its measure is true, yet not so true but that a predominant use of one and of the other can very clearly be traced. There was, as is well known, a conflict between the early Reformers and the Roman Catholic divines whether ‘pœnitentia,’ as the latter affirmed, or ‘resipiscentia,’ as Beza and the others, was the better Latin rendering of μετάνοια. There was much to be said on both sides; but it is clear that if the standing word had been μεταμέλεια, and not μετάνοια, this would have told to a certain degree in favour of the Roman Catholic view. ‘Pœnitentia,’ says Augustine (De Ver. et Fals. Pœn. c. viii.), ‘est quædam dolentis vindicta, semper puniens in se quod dolet commisisse.’
Μετανοεῖν is properly to know after, as προνοεῖν to know before, and μετάνοια afterknowledge, as πρόνοια foreknowledge; which is well brought out by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. ii. 6): εἰ ἐφʼ οἷς ἥμαρτεν μετενόησεν, εἰ σύνεσιν ἔλαβεν ἐφʼ οἷς ἔπταισεν, καὶ μετέγνω, ὅπερ ἐστὶ, μετὰ ταῦτα ἔγνω· βραδεῖα γὰρ γνῶσις, μετάνοια. So in the Florilegium of Stobæus, i. 14: οὐ μετανοεῖν ἀλλὰ προνοεῖν χρὴ τὸν ἄνδρα τὸν σοφόν. At its next step μετάνοια signifies the change of mind consequent on this after-knowledge; thus Tertullian (Adv. Marcion. ii. 24): ‘In Græco sermone pœnitentiæ nomen non ex delicti confessione, sed ex animi demutatione, compositum est.’ At its third, it is regret for the course pursued; resulting from the change of mind consequent on this after-knowledge; with a δυσαρέστησις, or displeasure with oneself thereupon; ‘passio quædam animi quæ veniat de offensâ sententiæ prioris,’ which, as Tertullian (De Pœnit. 1) affirms, was all that the heathen understood by it. At this stage of its meaning it is found associated with δηγμός (Plutarch, Quom. Am. ab Adul. 12); with αἰσχύνη (De Virt. Mor. 12); with πόθος (Pericles, 10; cf. Lucian, De Saltat. 84). Last of all it signifies change of conduct for the future, springing from all this. At the same time this change of mind, and of action upon this following, may be quite as well a change for the worse as for the better; there is no need that it should be a ‘resipiscentia’ as well; this is quite a Christian superaddition to the word. Thus A. Gellius (xvii. 1. 6): ‘Pœnitere tum dicere solemus, cum quæ ipsi fecimus, aut quæ de nostrâ voluntate nostroque consilio facta sunt, ea nobis post incipiunt displicere, sententiamque in iis nostram demutamus.’ In like manner Plutarch (Sept. Sap. Conv. 21) tells us of two murderers, who, having spared a child, afterwards ‘repented’ (μετενόησαν), and sought to slay it; μεταμέλεια is used by him in the same sense of a repenting of good (De Ser. Num. Vin. 11); so that here also Tertullian had right in his complaint (De Pœnit. 1): ‘Quam autem in pœnitentiæ actu irrationaliter deversentur [ethnici], vel uno isto satis erit expedire, cum illam etiam in bonis actis suis adhibent. Pœnitet fidei, amoris, simplicitatis, patientiæ, misericordiæ, prout quid in ingratiam cecidit.’ The regret may be, and often is, quite unconnected with the sense of any wrong done, of the violation of any moral law, may be simply what our fathers were wont to call ‘hadiwist’ (had-I-wist better, I should have acted otherwise); thus see Plutarch, De Lib. Ed. 14; Sept. Sap. Conv. 12; De Soler. Anim. 3: λύπη διʼ ἀλγηδόνος, ἣν μετάνοιαν ὀνομάζομεν, ‘displeasure with oneself, proceeding from pain, which we call repentance’ (Holland). That it had sometimes, though rarely, an ethical meaning, none would of course deny, in which sense Plutarch (De Ser. Num. Vin. 6) has a passage in wonderful harmony with Rom. 2:4; and another (De Tranq. Animi, 19), in which μεταμέλεια and μετάνοια are interchangeably used.
It is only after μετάνοια has been taken up into the uses of Scripture, or of writers dependant on Scripture, that it comes predominantly to mean a change of mind, taking a wiser view of the past, συναίσθησις ψυχῆς ἐφʼ οἷς ἔπραξεν ἀτόποις (Phavorinus), a regret for the ill done in that past, and out of all this a change of life for the better; ἐπιστροφὴ τοῦ βίου (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. ii. 245 a), or as Plato already had, in part at least, described it, μεταστροφὴ ἀπὸ τῶν σκιῶν ἐπὶ τὸ φῶς (Rep. vii. 532 b) περιστροφή, ψυχῆς περιαγωγή (Rep. vii. 521 c). This is all imported into, does not etymologically nor yet by primary usage lie in, the word. Not very frequent in the Septuagint or the Apocrypha (yet see Ecclus. 44:15; Wisd. 11:24; 12:10, 19; and for the verb, Jer. 8:6), it is common in Philo, who joins μετάνοια with βελτίωσις (De Abrah. 3), explaining it as πρὸς τὸ βέλτιον ἡ μεταβολή (ibid. and De Pœn. 2); while in the N. T. μετανεῖν and μετάνοια, whenever they are used in the N. T., and it is singular how rarely this in the writings of St. Paul is the case, μετανοεῖν but once (2 Cor. 12:21), and μετάνοια only four times (Rom. 2:4; 2 Cor. 7:9, 10; 2 Tim. 2:25), are never employed in other than an ethical sense; ‘die unter Schmerz der Reue sich im Personleben des Menschen vollziehende radicale Umstimmung,’ Delitzsch has finely described it.
But while thus μετανοεῖν and μετάνοια gradually advanced in depth and fulness of meaning, till they became the fixed and recognized words to express that mighty change in mind, heart, and life wrought by the Spirit of God (‘such a virtuous alteration of the mind and purpose as begets a like virtuous change in the life and practice,’ Kettlewell), which we call repentance; the like honour was very partially vouchsafed to μεταμέλεια and μεταμέλεσθαι. The first, styled by Plutarch σώτειρα δαίμων, and by him explained as ἡ ἐπὶ ταῖς ἡδοναῖς, ὅσαι παράνομοι καὶ ἀκρατεῖς, αἰσχύνη (De Gen. Soc. 22), associated by him with βαρυθυμία (An Vit. ad Inf. 2), by Plato with ταραχή (Rep. ix. 577 e; cf. Plutarch, De Cohib. Irâ, 16), has been noted as never occurring in the N. T.; the second only five times; and designating on one of these the sorrow of this world which worketh death, of Judas Iscariot (Matt. 27:3), and on another expressing, not the repentance of men, but the change of mind of God (Heb. 7:21); and this while μετάνοια occurs some five and twenty, and μετανοεῖν some five and thirty times. Those who deny that either in profane or sacred Greek any traceable difference existed between the words are able, in the former, to point to passages where μεταμέλεια is used in all those senses which have been here claimed for μετάνοια, to others where the two are employed as convertible terms, and both to express remorse (Plutarch, De Tranq. Anim. 19); in the latter, to passages in the N. T. where μεταμέλεσθαι implies all that μετανοεῖν would have implied (Matt. 21:29, 32). But all this freely admitted, there does remain, both in sacred and profane use, a very distinct preference for μετάνοια as the expression of the nobler repentance. This we might, indeed, have expected beforehand, from the relative etymological force of the words. He who has changed his mind about the past is in the way to change everything; he who has an after care may have little or nothing more than a selfish dread of the consequences of what he has done (Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. ix. 4. 10: μεταμελείας οἱ φαῦλοι γέμουσιν); so that the long dispute on the relation of these words with one another may be summed up in the statement of Bengel, which seems to me to express the exact truth of the matter; allowing a difference, but not urging it too far (Gnomon N. T.; 2 Cor. 7:10): ‘Vietymi μετάνοια proprie est mentis, μεταμέλεια voluntatis; quod illa sententiam, hæc solicitudinem vel potius studium mutatum dicat.… Utrumque ergo dicitur de eo, quem facti consiliive pœnitet, sive pœnitentia bona sit sive mala, sive malæ rei sive bonæ, sive cum mutatione actionum in posterum, sive citra eam. Veruntamen si usum spectes, μεταμέλεια plerunque est μέσον vocabulum, et refertur potissimum ad actiones singulares: μετάνοια vero, in N.T. præsertim, in bonam partem sumitur, quo notatur pœnitentia totius vitæ ipsorumque nostri quodammodo: sive tota illa beata mentis post errorem et peccata reminiscentia, cum omnibus affectibus eam ingredientibus, quam fructus digni sequuntur. Hinc fit ut μετανοεῖν sæpe in imperativo ponatnr, μεταμελεῖσθαι nunquam: ceteris autem locis, ubicunque μετάνοια legitur, μεταμέλειαν possis substituere: sed non contra.’ Compare Witsius, De Œcon. Fœd. Dei, iii. 12. 130–136; Girdlestone, Old Testament Synonyms, p. 153 sqq.

§ lxx. μορφή, σχῆμα, ἰδέα

THESE words are none of them of frequent recurrence in the N. T., μορφή occurring there only twice (Mark 16:12; Phil. 2:6); but compare μόρφωσις (Rom. 2:20; 2 Tim. 3:5); σχῆμα not oftener (1 Cor. 7:31; Phil. 2:8); and ἰδέα only once (Matt. 28:3). Μορφή is ‘form,’ ‘forma,’ ‘gestalt’; σχῆμα is ‘fashion,’ ‘habitus,’ ‘figur’; ἰδεα, ‘appearance,’ ‘species,’ ‘erscheinung.’ The first two, which occur not unfrequently together (Plutarch, Symp. viii. 2. 3), are objective; for the ‘form” and the ‘fashion’ of a thing would exist, were it alone in the universe, and whether there were any to behold it or no. The other (ἰδέα = εἶδος, John 5:37) is subjective, the appearance of a thing implying some to whom this appearance is made; there must needs be a seer before there can be a seen.
We may best study the distinction between μορφή and σχῆμα, and at the same time estimate its importance, by aid of that great doctrinal passage (Phil. 2:6–8), in which St. Paul speaks of the Eternal Word before his Incarnation as subsisting “in the form of God” (ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων), as assuming at his Incarnation “the form of a servant” (μορφὴν δούλου λαβών), and after his Incarnation and during his walk upon earth as “being found in fashion as a man” (σχήματι εὑρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος). The Fathers were wont to urge the first phrase, ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ ὑπάρχων, against the Arians (thus Hilary, De Trin. viii. 45; Ambrose, Ep. 46; Gregory of Nyssa, Con. Eunom. 4); and the Lutherans did the same against the Socinians, as a ‘dictum probans’ of the absolute divinity of the Son of God; that is, μορφή for them was here equivalent to οὐσία or φύσις. This cannot, however, as is now generally acknowledged, be maintained. Doubtless there does lie in the words a proof of the divinity of Christ, but this implicitly and not explicitly. Μορφή is not = οὐσία: at the same time none could be ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ who was not God; as is well put by Bengel: ‘Forma Dei non est natura divina, sed tamen is qui in formâ Dei extabat, Deus est;’ and this because μορφή, like the Latin ‘forma,’ the German ‘gestalt’, signifies the form as it is the utterance of the inner life; not ‘being,’ but ‘mode of being,’ or better, ‘mode of existence’; and only God could have the mode of existence of God. But He who had thus been from eternity ἐν μορφῇ Θεοῦ (John 17:5), took at his Incarnation μορφὴν δούλου. The verity of his Incarnation is herein implied; there was nothing docetic, nothing phantastic about it. His manner of existence was now that of a δοῦλος, that is, of a δοῦλος τοῦ Θεοῦ: for in the midst of all our Lord’s humiliations He was never a δοῦλος ἀνθρώπων. Their διάκονος He may have been, and from time to time eminently was (John 13:4, 5; Matt. 20:28); this was part of his ταπείνωσις mentioned in the next verse; but their δοῦλος never; they, on the contrary, his. It was with respect of God He so emptied Himself of his glory, that, from that manner of existence in which He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, He became his servant.
The next clause, “and being found in fashion (σχήματι) as a man,” is very instructive for the distinguishing of σχῆμα from μορφή. The verity of the Son’s Incarnation was expressed, as we have seen, in the μορφὴν δούλου λαβών. These words which follow do but declare the outward facts which came under the knowledge of his fellow-men, with therefore an emphasis on εὑρεθείς: He was by men found in fashion as a man, the σχῆμα here signifying his whole outward presentation, as Bengel puts it well: ‘σχῆμα, habitus, cultus, vestitus, victus, gestus, sermones et actiones.’ In none of these did there appear any difference between Him and the other children of men. This superficial character of σχῆμα appears in its association with such words as χρῶμα (Plato, Gorg. 20; Theœtet. 163 b) and ὑπογραφή (Legg. v. 737 d); as in the definition of it which Plutarch gives (De Plac. Phil. 14): ἐστὶν ἐπιφάνεια καὶ περιγραφὴ καὶ πέρας σώματος. The two words are used in an instructive antithesis by Justin Martyr (1 Apol. 9).
The distinction between them comes out very clearly in the compound verbs μετασχηματίζειν and μεταμορφοῦν. Thus if I were to change a Dutch garden into an Italian, this would be μετασχηματισμός: but if I were to transform a garden into something wholly different, as into a city, this would be μεταμόρφωσις. It is possible for Satan μετασχηματίζειν himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14) he can take the whole outward semblance of such. But to any such change of his it would be impossible to apply the μεταμορφοῦσθαι: for this would imply a change not external but internal, not of accidents but of essence, which lies quite beyond his power. How fine and subtle is the variation of words at Rom. 12:2; though ‘conformed’ and ‘transformed’ in our Translation have failed adequately to represent it. ‘Do not fall in,’ says the Apostle, ‘with the fleeting fashions of this world, nor be yourselves fashioned to them (μὴ συσχηματίζεσθε), but undergo a deep abiding change (ἀλλὰ μεταμορφοῦσθε) by the renewing of your mind, such as the Spirit of God alone can work in you’ (cf. 2 Cor. 3:18). Theodoret, commenting on this verse, calls particular attention to this variation of the word used, a variation which it would task the highest skill of the English scholar adequately to reproduce in his own language. Among much else which is interesting, he says: ἐδίδασκεν ὅσον πρὸς τὰ παρόντα τῆς ἀρετῆς τὸ διάφορον· ταῦτα γὰρ ἐκάλεσε σχῆμα, τὴν ἀρετὴν δὲ μορφήν· ἡ μορφὴ δὲ ἀληθῶν πραγμάτων σημαντική, τὸ δὲ σχῆμα εὐδιάλυτον χρῆμα. Meyer perversely enough rejects all this, and has this note: ‘Beide Worte stehen im Gegensatze nur durch die Präpositionen, ohne Differenz des Stamm-Verba;’ with whom Fritzsche agrees (in loc.). One can understand a commentator overlooking, but scarcely one denying, the significance of this change. For the very different uses of one word and the other, see Plutarch, Quom. Adul. ab Amic. 7, where both occur.
At the resurrection Christ shall transfigure (μετασχηματίσει) the bodies of his saints (Phil. 3:21; cf. 1 Cor. 15:53); on which statement Calov remarks, ‘Ille μετασχηματισμός non substantialem mutationem, sed accidentalem, non ratione quidditatis corporis nostri, sed ratione qualitatum, salvâ quidditate, importat:’ but the changes of heathen deities into wholly other shapes were μεταμορφώσεις. In the μετασχηματισμός there is transition, but no absolute solution of continuity. The butterfly, prophetic type of man’s resurrection, is immeasurably more beautiful than the grub, yet has been duly unfolded from it; but when Proteus transforms himself into a flame, a wild beast, a running stream (Virgil, Georg. iv. 442), each of these disconnected with all that went before, there is here a change not of the σχῆμα merely, but of the μορφή (cf. Euripides, Hec. 1266; Plato, Locr. 104 e). When the Evangelist records that after the resurrection Christ appeared to his disciples ἐν ἑτέρᾳ μορφῇ (Mark 16:12), the words intimate to us how vast the mysterious change to which his body had been submitted, even as they are in keeping with the μετεμορφώθη of Matt. 17:2; Mark 9:2; the transformation upon the Mount being a prophetic anticipation of that which hereafter should be; compare Dan. 4:33, where Nebuchadnezzar says of himself, ἡ μορφή μου ἐπέστρεψεν εἰς ἐμέ.
The μορφή then, it may be assumed, is of the essence of a thing. We cannot conceive the thing as apart from this its formality, to use ‘formality’ in the old logical sense; the σχῆμα is its accident, having to do, not with the ‘quidditas,’ but the ‘qualitas,’ and, whatever changes it may undergo, leaving the ‘quidditas’ untouched, the thing itself essentially, or formally, the same as it was before; as one has said, μορφὴ φύσεως σχῆμα ἕξεως. Thus σχῆμα βασιλικόν (Lucian, Pisc. 35; cf. Sophocles, Antig. 1148) is the whole outward arry and adornment of a monarch—diadem, tiara, sceptre, robe (cf. Lucian, Hermot. 86)—all which he might lay aside, and remain king notwithstanding. It in no sort belongs or adheres to the man as a part of himself. Thus Menander (Meineke, Fragm. Com. p. 985):

    πρᾶον κακοῦργός σχῆμʼ ὑπεισελθὼν ἀνὴρ
    κεκρυμμένη κεῖται παγὶς τοῖς πλησίον.

Thus, too, the σχῆμα τοῦ κοσμοῦ passes away (1 Cor. 7:31), the image being here probably drawn from the shifting scenes of a theatre, but the κόσμος itself abides; there is no τέλος τοῦ κοσμοῦ, but only τοῦ αἰώνος, or τῶν αἰώνων. For some valuable remarks on the distinction between μορφή and σχῆμα see The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, No. 7, pp. 113, 116, 121; and the same drawn out more fully by Bishop Lightfoot, their author, in his Commentary on the Philippians, pp. 125–131.
The use in Latin of ‘forma’ and ‘figura’ so far corresponds with those severally of μορφή and σχῆμα, that while ‘figura formæ’ occurs not rarely (‘veterem formœ servare figuram’; cf. Cicero, Nat. Deor. i. 32), ‘forma figuræ’ never (see Döderlein, Latein. Syn. vol. iii. p. 87). Contrast too in English “deformed” and ‘disfigured.’ A hunchback is ‘deformed,’ a man that has been beaten about the face may be ‘disfigured’; the deformity is bound up in the very existence of the one; the disfigurement of the other may in a few days have quite passed away. In ‘transformed’ and ‘transfigured’ it is easy to recognize the same distinction.
Ἰδέα on the one occasion of its use in the N. T. (Matt. 28:3) is rendered ‘countenance,’ as at 2 Macc. 3:16 ‘face.’ It is not a happy translation; ‘appearance’ would be better; ‘species sub oculos cadens,’ not the thing itself, but the thing as beholden; thus Plato (Rep. ix. 588 c), πλάττε ἰδέαν θηρίου ποικίλου, ‘Fashion to thyself the image of a manifold beast’; so ἰδέα τοῦ προσώπου, the look of the countenance (Plutarch, Pyrr. 3, and often); ἰδέᾳ καλός, fair to look on (Pindar, Olymp. xi. 122); χιόνος ἰδέα, the appearance of snow (Philo, Quod Det. Pot. Ins. 48). Plutarch defines it, the last clause of his definition alone concerning us here (De Plac. Phil. i. 9): ἰδέα ἐστὶν οὐσία ἀσώματος, αὐτὴ μὲν μὴ ὑφεστῶσα καθʼ αὑτήν, εἰκονίζουσα δὲ τὰς ἀμόρφους ὕλας, καὶ αἰτία γινομένη τῆς τούτων δείξεως. The word is constant to this definition, and to the ἰδεῖν lying at its own base; oftentimes it is manifestly so, as in the following quotation from Philo, which is further instructive as showing how fundamentally his doctrine of the Logos differed from St. John’s, was in fact a denial of it in its most important element: ὁ δὲ ὑπεράνω τούτων [τῶν χερουβίμ] Λόγος θεῖος εἰς ὁρατὴν οὐκ ἦλθεν ἰδέαν (De Prof. 19).—On the distinction between εἶδος and ἰδέα, and how far the Platonic philosophy admits a distinction between them at all, see Stallbaum’s note on Plato’s Republic, x. 596 b; Donaldson’s Cratylus, 3rd ed. p. 105; and Thompson’s note on Archer Butler’s Lectures, vol. ii. p. 127.

§ lxxi. ψυχικός, σαρκικός

Ψυχικός occurs six times in the N. T. On three of these it cannot be said to have a distinctly ethical employment; seeing that in them it is only the meanness of the σῶμα ψυχικόν which the faithful now bear about that is contrasted with the glory of the σῶμα πνευματικόν which they shall bear (1 Cor. 15:44 bis, 46). On the other three occasions a moral emphasis rests on the word, and in every instance a most depreciatory. Thus St. Paul declares the ψυχικός receives not and cannot receive, as having no organ for their reception, the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14); St. James (3:15) characterizes the wisdom which is ψυχική, as also ἐπίγειος, ‘earthly,’ and δαιμονιώδης, ‘devilish;’ St. Jude explains the ψυχικοί as those πνεῦμα μὴ ἔχοντες (ver. 19). The word nowhere appears in the Septuagint; but ψυχικῶς in the sense of ‘heartily’ (= ἐκ ψυχῆς, Col. 3:23) twice in the Apocrypha (2 Macc. 4:37; 14:24).
It is at first with something of surprise that we find ψυχικός thus employed, and keeping this company; and the modern fashion of talking about the soul, as though it were the highest part of man, does not diminish this surprise; would rather lead us to expect to find it associated with πνευματικός, as though there were only light shades of distinction between them. But, indeed, this (which thus takes us by surprise) is characteristic of the inner differences between Christian and heathen, and indicative of those better gifts and graces which the Dispensation of the Spirit has brought into the world. Ψυχικός, continually used as the highest in later classical Greek literature—the word appears first in Aristotle—being there opposed to σαρκικός (Plutarch, Ne Suav. Vivi Posse, 14), or, where there is no ethical antithesis, to σωματικός (Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iii. 10. 2; Plutarch, De Plac. Phil. i. 9; Polybius, vi. 5. 7), and constantly employed in praise, must, come down from its high estate, another so much greater than it being installed in the highest place of all. That old philosophy knew of nothing higher than the soul of man; but Revelation knows of the Spirit of God, and of Him making his habitation with men, and calling out an answering spirit in them. There was indeed a certain reaching out after this higher in the distinction which Lucretius and others drew between the ‘anima’ and the ‘animus,’ giving, as they did, the nobler place to the last. According to Scripture the ψυχή, no less than the σάρξ, belongs to the lower region of man’s being; and if a double employment of ψυχή there (as at Matt. 16:26; Mark 8:35), requires a certain caution in this statement, it is at any rate plain that ψυχικός is not a word of honour any more than σαρκικός, being an epithet quite as freely applied to this lower. The ψυχικός of Scripture is one for whom the ψυχή is the highest motive power of life and action; in whom the πνεῦμα, as the organ of the divine Πνεῦμα, is suppressed, dormant, for the time as good as extinct; whom the operations of this divine Spirit have never lifted into the region of spiritual things (Rom. 7:14; 8:1; Jude 19). For a good collection of passages from the Greek Fathers in which ψυχικός is thus employed, see Suicer, Thes. s. v.
It may be affirmed that the σαρκικός and the ψυχικός alike, in the language of Scripture, are set in opposition to the πνευματικός. Both epithets ascribe to him of whom they are predicted a ruling principle antagonistic to the πνεῦμα, though they do not ascribe the same. When St. Paul reminds the Ephesians how they lived once, “fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind” (Ephes. 2:3), he describes them first as σαρκικοί, and then as ψυχικοί. For, indeed, in men unregenerate there are two forms of the life lived apart from God; and, though every unregenerate man partakes of both, yet in some one is more predominant, and in some the other. There are σαρκικοί, in whom the σάρξ is more the ruling principle, as there are ψυχικοί, in whom the ψυχή. It is quite true that σάρξ is often used in the N. T. as covering that entire domain of our nature fallen and made subject to vanity, in which sin springs up, and in which it moves (Rom. 7:18; 8:5). Thus the ἔργα τῆς σαρκός (Gal. 5:19–21) are not merely those sinful works that are wrought in and through the body, but those which move in the sphere and region of the mind as well; more than one half of those enumerated there belonging to the latter class. But for all this the word, covering at times the whole region of that in man which is alienated from God and from the life in God, must accept its limitation when the ψυχή is brought in to claim that which is peculiarly its own.
There is an admirable discussion on the difference between the words, in Bishop Reynolds’ Latin sermon on 1 Cor. 2:14, preached before the University of Oxford, with the title Animalis Homo (Works, Lond. 1826, vol. iv. p. 349). I quote the most important paragraph bearing on the matter in hand: ‘Verum cum homo ex carne et animâ constet, sitque anima pars hominis præstantior, quamvis sæpius irregenitos, propter appetitum in vitia pronum, atque præcipites concupiscentiæ motus, σάρκα et σαρκικούς Apostolus noster appellet; hic tamen hujusmodi homines a præstantiore parte denominat, ut eos se intelligere ostendat, non qui libidinis mancipia sunt, et crassis concupiscentiis vel nativum lumen obruunt (hujusmodi enim homines ἄλογα ξῶα vocat Apostolus, 2 Pet. 2:12), sed homines sapientiæ studio deditos, et qui ea sola, quæ stulta et absurda sunt, rejicere solent. Hic itaque ψυχικοί sunt quotquot τὸ πνεῦμα οὐκ ἔχουσι (Jud. 19), utcunque alias exquisitissimis naturæ dotibus præfulgeant, utcunque potissimam partem, nempe animam, omnigenâ eruditione excolant, et rectissime ad præscriptum rationis vitam dirigant. Denique eos hic ψυχικούς vocat, quos supra Sapientes, Scribas, Disquisitores, et istius seculi principes appellaverat, ut excludatur quidquid est nativæ aut acquisitæ perfectionis, quo naturæ viribus assurgere possit ratio humana. Ψυχικός, ὁ τὸ πᾶν τοῖς λογισμοῖς τῆς ψυχῆς διδούς, καὶ μὴ νομίζων ἄνωθεν δεῖσθαι βοηθείας, ut recte Chrysostomus: qui denique nihil in se eximium habet, præter animam rationalem, cujus solius lucem ductumque sequitur.’ I add a few words of Grotius to the same effect (Annott. in N. T.; 1 Cor. 2:14): ‘Non idem est ψυχικὸς ἄνθρωπος et σαρκικός. Ψυχικός est qui humanæ tantum rationis luce ducitur, σαρκικός qui corporis affectibus gubernatur; sed plerunque ψυχικοί aliquâ in parte sunt σαρκικοί, ut Græcorum philosophi scortatores, puerorum corruptores, gloriæ aucupes, maledici, invidi. Verum hic [1 Cor. 2:14] nihil aliud designatur quam homo humanâ tantum ratione nitens, quales erant Judæorum plerique et philosophi Græcorum.’
The question, how to translate ψυχικός, is one not very easy to answer. ‘Soulish,’ which some have proposed, has the advantage of standing in the same relation to ‘soul’ that ψυχικός does to ψυχή and ‘animalis’ to ‘anima’; but the word is hardly English, and would certainly convey no meaning at all to ordinary English readers. Wiclif rendered it ‘beastly,’ which, it need hardly be said, had nothing for him of the meaning of our ‘bestial’ (see my Select Glossary, s. v.); but was simply = ‘animal’ (he found ‘animalis’ in his Vulgate); the Rhemish ‘sensual,’ which, at Jam. 3:15; Jude 19, our Translators have adopted, substituting this for ‘fleshly,’ which was in Cranmer’s and the Geneva Version. On the other three occasions they have rendered it ‘natural.’ These are both unsatisfactory renderings, and ‘sensual’ more so now than at the time when our Version was made, ‘sensual’ and ‘sensuality’ having considerably modified their meaning since that time; and now implying a deeper degradation than once they did. On the whole subject of the relations of the ψυχή to the σάρξ and the πνεῦμα, there is much very interesting, though not very easy to master, in Delitzsch’s Psychology, English Version, pp. 109–128.

§ lxxii. σαρκικός, σάρκινος

A DISCUSSION on the relations between ψυχικός and σαρκικός naturally draws after it one on the relations between σαρκικός and another form of the same, σάρκινος, which occurs three, or perhaps four, times in the N. T.; only once indeed in the received text (2 Cor. 3:3); but the evidence is overwhelming for the right it has to a place at Rom. 7:14; Heb. 7:16, as well, while a proponderance of evidence is in favour of allowing σάρκινος to stand also at 1 Cor. 3:1.
Words with the termination in -ινος, μετουσιαστικά as they are called, designating, as they most frequently do, the stuff of which anything is made (see Donaldson, Cratylus, 3rd edit. p. 458; Winer, Gramm. § xvi. 3; Fritzsche, Ep. ad Rom. vol. ii. p. 46), are common in the N. T.; thus θύϊνος, of thyine wood (Rev. 18:12), ὑάλινος, of glass, glassen (Rev. 4:6), ὑακίνθινος (Rev. 9:17), δερμάτινος (Matt. 3:4), ἀκάνθινος (Mark 15:17). One of these is σάρκινος, the only form of the word which classical antiquity recognized (σαρκικός, like the Latin ‘carnalis,’ having been called out by the ethical necessities of the Church), and at 2 Cor. 3:3 well rendered ‘fleshy’; that is, having flesh for the substance and material of which it is composed. I am unable to affirm that the word ‘fleshen’ ever existed in the English language. If it had done so, and still survived, it would be better still; for ‘fleshy’ may be ‘carnosus,’ as undoubtedly may σάρκινος as well (Plato, Legg. x. 906 c; Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iii. 9. 3), while ‘fleshen’ must mean what σάρκινος means here, namely ‘carneus,’ or having flesh for its material. The former existence of such a word is not improbable, many of a like form having once been current, which have now passed away; as, for example, ‘stonen,’ ‘hornen,’ ‘hairen,’ ‘clayen’ (all in Wiclif’s Bible), ‘threaden’ (Shakespeare), ‘tinnen’ (Sylvester), ‘milken,’ ‘breaden,’ ‘reeden,’ with many more (see my English Past and Present, 10th edit. p. 256). Their perishing is to be regretted, for they were often by no means superfluous. The German has ‘steinig’ and ‘steinern,’ and finds use for both; as the Latin does for ‘lapidosus’ and ‘lapideus,’ for ‘saxosus’ and ‘saxeus.’ We might have done the same for ‘stony’ and ‘stonen’; a ‘stony’ place is one where the stones are many, a ‘stonen’ vessel would be a vessel made of stone (see John 2:6; Rev. 9:20, Wiclif’s Version, where the word is found). Or again, a ‘glassy’ sea is a sea resembling glass, a ‘glassen’ sea is a sea made of glass. And thus too ‘fleshly,’ ‘fleshy,’ and ‘fleshen,’ would have been none too many; as little as are ‘earthly,’ ‘earthy,’ and ‘earthen,’ for each of which we are able to find its own proper employment.
‘Fleshly’ lusts (‘carnal’ is the word oftener employed in our Translation, but in fixing the relations between σαρκικός and σάρκινος, it will be more convenient to employ ‘fleshly’ and ‘fleshy’) are lusts which move and stir in the ethical domain of the flesh, which have in that rebellious region of man’s corrupt and fallen nature their source and spring. Such are the σαρκικαὶ ἐπιθυμίαι (1 Pet. 2:11), and the man is σαρκικός who allows to the σάρξ a place which does not belong to it of right. It is in its place so long as it is under the dominion of the πνεῦμα, and receives a law from it; but becomes the source of all sin and all opposition to God so soon as the true positions of these are reversed, and that rules which should have been ruled. When indeed St. Paul says of the Corinthians (1 Cor. 3:1) that they were σάρκινοι, he finds serious fault indeed with them; but the accusation is far less grave than if he had written σαρκικοί instead. He does not hereby charge them with positive active opposition to the Spirit of God—this is evident from the ὡς νήπιοι with which he proceeds to explain it—but only that they were intellectually as well as spiritually tarrying at the threshold of the faith (cf. Heb. 5:11, 12); making no progress, and content to remain where they were, when they might have been carried far onward by the mighty transforming powers of that Spirit freely given to them of God. He does not charge them in this word with being antispiritual, but only with being unspiritual, with being flesh and little more, when they might have been much more. He goes on indeed, at ver. 3, 4, to charge them with the graver guilt of allowing the σάρξ to work actively, as a ruling principle in them; and he consequently changes his word. They were not σάρκινοι only, for no man and no Church can long tarry at this point, but σαρκικοί as well, and, as such, full of “envying and strife and divisions.”
In what way our Translators should have marked the distinction between σάρκινος and σαρκικός here it is not so easy to suggest. It is most likely, indeed, that the difficulty did not so much as present itself to them, accepting, as they probably did, the received text, in which there is no variation of the words. At 2 Cor. 3:3 all was plain before them: the σάρκιναι πλάκες are, as they have given it well, the “fleshy tables”; Erasmus observing to the point there, that σάρκινος, not σαρκικός, is used, ‘ut materiam intelligas, non qualitatem.’ St. Paul is drawing a contrast between the tables of stone on which the law of Moses was written and the tables of flesh on which Christ’s law is written, and exalting the last over the first; and so far from ‘fleshy’ there being a dishonourable epithet, it is a most honourable, serving as it does to set forth the superiority of the new Law over the old—the one graven on dead tables of stone, the other on the hearts of living men (cf. Ezek. 11:19; 36:26; Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10; 10:16).

§ lxxiii. πνοή, πνεῦμα, ἄνεμος, λαῖλαψ, θύελλα

FROM the words into comparison with which πνεῦμα is here brought, it will be evident that it is proposed to deal with it in its natural and earthly, not in its supernatural and heavenly, meaning. Only I will observe, that on the relations between πνοή and πνεῦμα in this its higher sense there is a discussion in Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xiii. 22; cf. De Anim. et huj. Orig. i. 14, 19. The first three words of this group, as they designate not things heavenly but things earthly, differ from one another exactly as, according to Seneca, do in the Latin ‘aër,’ ‘spiritus,’ ‘ventus’ (Nat. Qu. v. 13): ‘Spiritum a vento motus separat; vehementior enim spiritus ventus est; invicem spiritus leviter fluens aer.’
Πνοή and πνεῦμα occur not seldom together, as at Isai. 42:5; 57:16; πνοή conveying the impression of a lighter, gentler, motion of the air than πνεῦμα, as ‘aura’ than ‘ventus.’ Compare Aristotle (De Mundo, iv. 10): τὰ ἐν ἀέρι πνέοντα πνεύματα καλοῦμεν ἀνέμους, αὔρας δὲ τὰς ἐξ ὑγροῦ φερομένας ἐκπνοάς. Pliny (Ep. 5:6) recognizes a similar distinction: ‘Semper aër spiritu aliquo movetur; frequentius tamen auras quam ventos habet’; Philo no less (Leg. Alleg. i. 14): πνοὴν δέ, ἀλλʼ οὐ πνεῦμα εἴρηκεν, ὡς διαφορᾶς οὔσης· τὸ μὲν γὰρ πνεῦμα νενόηται κατὰ τὴν ἰσχὺν καὶ εὐτονίαν καὶ δύναμιν· ἡ δὲ πνοὴ ὡς ἂν αὐρά τις ἐστι καὶ ἀναθυμίασις ἠρεμαία καὶ πραεῖα. Against this may be urged, that in one of the two places where πνοή occurs in the N. T., namely Acts 2:2, the epithet βιαία is attached to it, and it plainly is used of a strong and vehement wind (cf. Job 37:9). But, as De Wette has observed, this may be sufficiently accounted for by the fact that on that occasion it was necessary to reserve πνεῦμα for the higher spiritual gift, whereof this πνοή was the sign and symbol; and it would have introduced a perplexing repetition to have already employed πνεῦμα here.
Πνεῦμα is seldom used in the N. T.—indeed only at John 3:8; Heb. 1:7 (in this last place not certainly)—for wind; but in the Septuagint often, as at Gen. 8:1; Ezek. 37:9; Eccles. 11:5. The rendering of רוּח in this last passage by ‘spirit,’ and not, as so often, by ‘wind’ (Job 1:19; Ps. 148:8), in our English Version, is to be regretted, obscuring as it does the remarkable connexion between this saying of the Preacher and our Lord’s words to Nicodemus (John 3:8). He, who ever loves to move in the sphere and region of the O. T., in those words of his, “The wind bloweth where it listeth,” takes up words of Ecclesiastes, “Thou knowest not what is the way of the wind;” the Preacher having thus already indicated of what higher mysteries these courses of the winds, not to be traced by man, were the symbol. Πνεῦμα is found often in the Septuagint in connexion with πνοή, but generally in a figurative sense (Job 33:4; Isai. 42:5; 57:16; and at 2 Sam. 22:16: πνοή πνεύματος).
Of ἄνεμος Aristotle (De Mund. 4) gives this account: οὐδὲν γάρ ἐστιν ἄνεμος πλήν ἀὴρ πολὺς ῥέων καὶ ἄθροος, ὅστις ἅμα καὶ πνεῦμα λέγεται: we may compare Hippocrates: ἄνεμος γάρ ἐστι ἠέρος ῥεῦμα καὶ χεῦμα. Like ‘ventus’ and ‘wind,’ ἄνεμος is usually the strong, oftentimes the tempestuous, wind (1 Kin. 19:11; Job 1:19; Matt. 7:25; John 6:18; Acts 27:14; Jam. 3:4; Plutarch, Prœc. Conj. 12). It is interesting and instructive to observe that our Lord, or rather the inspired reporter of his conversation with Nicodemus, which itself no doubt took place in Aramaic, uses not ἄνεμος, but πνεῦμα, as has been noted already, when he would seek analogies in the natural world for the mysterious movements, not to be traced by human eye, of the Holy Spirit; and this, doubtless, because there is nothing fierce or violent, but all measured in his operation; while on the other hand, when St. Paul would describe men violently blown about and tempested on a sea of error, he speaks of them as κλυδωνιζόμενοι καὶ περιφερόμενοι παντὶ ἀνέμῳ τῆς διδασκαλίας (Ephes. 4:14; cf. Jude 12 with 2 Pet. 2:17).
Λαῖλαψ is a word of uncertain derivation. It is probably formed by reduplication, and is meant to be imitative in sound of that which it designates. We meet it three times in the N. T. (Mark 4:37; Luke 8:23; 2 Pet. 2:17); oftener, but not often, in the Septuagint. It is our ‘squall’; but with something more formidable about it than we commonly ascribe to the squall. Thus J. H. H. Schmidt, who, in his Synonymik, vol. ii. p. 218 sqq., has a very careful and full discussion on the whole group of words having to do with wind and weather, and the phenomena which these present, words in which the Greek language, as might be expected, is singularly rich, writes on λαῖλαψ thus: ‘Die Alten verstanden darunter ganz allgemein den unstäten, aus finsteren Gewölk hervorbrechenden mit Regengüssen verbundenen hin und her tobenden Sturm.’ And examples which he gives quite bear out this statement; it is, as Hesychius explains it, ἀνέμου συστροφὴ μεθʼ ὑετοὺ: or as Suidas, who brings in the further notion of darkness, μετʼ ἀνέμων ὄμβρος καὶ σκότος: the constant association in Homer of the epithets κελαινή and ἐρεμνή with λαῖλαψ certainly implying that this feature of it, namely the darkness which goes along with it, should not be passed over (Il. xi. 747; xvi. 384; xx. 51).
Φύελλα, joined with γνόφος whenever it occurs in the Septuagint, namely at Deut. 4:11; 5:22; Exod. 10:22, is found in the N. T. only at Heb. 12:18, and sounds there rather as a reminiscence from the Septuagint, than a word which the writer would have otherwise employed. Schmidt is at much pains to distinguish it from the Homeric ἄελλα, but with the difference between these we have nothing to do. It is sufficient to say that in the θύελλα, which is often a natural phenomenon wilder and fiercer, as it would seem, than the λαῖλαψ itself, there is not seldom the mingling in conflict of many opposing winds (Homer, Od. v. 319; xii. 290), something of the turbulent cyclone.

§ lxxiv. δοκιμάζω, πειράζω

THESE words occur not seldom together, as at 2 Cor. 13:5; Ps. 94:10 (at Heb. 3:9 the better reading is ἐν δοκιμασίᾳ); but notwithstanding that they are both in our English Version rendered ‘prove’ (John 6:6; Luke 14:19), both ‘try’ (Rev. 2:2; 1 Cor. 3:13), both ‘examine’ (1 Cor. 11:28; 2 Cor. 13:5), they are not perfectly synonymous. In δοκιμάζειν, which has four other renderings in our Version,—namely, ‘discern’ (Luke 12:56); ‘like’ (Rom. 1:18); ‘approve’ (Rom. 2:18); ‘allow’ (Rom. 14:22),—lies ever the notion of proving a thing whether it be worthy to be received or not, being, as it is, nearly connected with δέχεσθαι. In classical Greek it is the technical word for putting money to the δοκιμή or proof, by aid of the δοκίμιον or test (Plato, Timœus, 65 c; Plutarch, Def. Orac. 21); that which endures this proof being δόκιμος, that which fails ἀδόκιμος, which words it will be well to recollect are not, at least immediately, connected with δοκιμάζειν, but with δέχεσθαι. Resting on the fact that this proving is through fire (1 Cor. 3:13), δοκιμάζειν and πυροῦν are often found together (Ps. 95:9; Jer. 9:7). As employed in the N. T. δοκιμάζειν almost always implies that the proof is victoriously surmounted, the proved is also approved (2 Cor. 8:8; 1 Thess. 2:4; 1 Tim. 3:10), just as in English we speak of tried men (= δεδοκιμασμένοι), meaning not merely those who have been tested, but who have stood the test. It is then very nearly equivalent to ἀξιοῦν (1 Thess. 2:4; cf. Plutarch, Thes. 12). Sometimes the word will advance even a step further, and signify not merely to approve the proved, but to select or choose the approved (Xenophon, Anab. iii. 3. 12; cf. Rom. 1:28).
But on the δοκιμασία there follows for the most part not merely a victorious coming out of the trial, but it is further implied that the trial was itself made in the expectation and hope that the issue would be such; at all events, with no contrary hope or expectation. The ore is not thrown into the fining pot—and this is the image which continually underlies the use of the word in the O. T. (Zech. 13:9; Prov. 8:10; 17:3; 27:21; Ps. 65:10; Jer. 9:7; Ecclus. 2:5; Wisd. 3:6; cf. 1 Pet. 1:7)—except in the expectation and belief that, whatever of dross may be found mingled with it, yet it is not all dross, but that some good metal, and better now than before, will come forth from the fiery trial (Heb. 12:5–11; 2 Macc. 6:12–16). It is ever so with the proofs to which He who sits as a Refiner in his Church submits his own; his intention in these being ever, not indeed to find his saints pure gold (for that He knows they are not), but to make them such; to purge out their dross, never to make evident that they are all dross. As such, He is δοκιμαστὴς τῶν καρδιῶν (1 Thess. 2:4; Jer. 11:20; Ps. 16:4); as such, Job could say of Him, using another equivalent word, διέκρινέ με ὥσπερ τὸ χρυσίον (23:10). To Him, as such, his people pray, in words like those of Abelard, expounding the sixth petition of the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Da ut per tentationem probemur, non reprobemur.’ And here is the point of divergence between δοκιμάζειν and πειράζειν, as will be plain when the latter word has been a little considered.
This putting to the proof may have quite another intention, as it may have quite another issue and end, than such as have been just described; nay, it certainly will have such in the case of the false-hearted, and those who belong to God only in semblance and in show. Being ‘proved’ or tempted, they will appear to be what they have always been; and this fact, though not overruling all the uses of πειράζειν, does yet predominantly affect them. Nothing in the word itself required that it should oftenest signify a making trial with the intention and hope of entangling the person tried in sin. Πειράζειν, connected with ‘perior,’ ‘experior,’ πείρω, means properly no more than to make an experience of (πεῖραν λαμβάνειν, Heb. 11:29, 36); to pierce or search into (thus of the wicked it is said, πειράζουσι θάνατον, Wisd. 2:5; cf. 12:26; Ecclus. 39:4); or to attempt (Acts 16:7; 24:6). It came next to signify the trying intentionally, and with the purpose of discovering what of good or evil, of power or weakness, was in a person or thing (Matt. 16:1; 19:3; 22:18; 1 Kin. 10:1); or, where this was already known to the trier, revealing the same to the tried themselves; as when St. Paul addresses the Corinthians, ἑαυτοὺς πειράζετε, “try,” or, as we have it, “examine yourselves” (2 Cor. 13:5). It is thus that sinners are said to tempt God (Matt. 4:7 [ἐκπειράζειν]; Acts 5:9; 1 Cor. 10:9; Wisd. 1:2), putting Him to the proof, refusing to believe Him on his own word, or till He has manifested his power. At this stage, too, of the word’s history and successive usages we must arrest it, when we affirm of God that He ‘tempts’ men (Heb. 11:17; cf. Gen. 22:1; Exod. 15:25; Deut. 13:3); in no other sense or intention can He do this (Jam. 1:13); but because He does tempt in this sense (γυμνασίας χαρὶν καὶ ἀναῤῥήσεως, Œcumenius), and because of the self-knowledge which may be won through these temptations,—so that men may, and often do, come out of them holier, humbler, stronger than they were when they entered in,—St. James is able to say, “Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations” (1:2; cf. ver. 12). But the word itself enters on another stage of meaning. The melancholy fact that men so often break down under temptation gives to πειράζειν a predominant sense of putting to the proof with the intention and the hope that the ‘proved’ may not turn out ‘approved,’ but ‘reprobate’; may break down under the proof; and thus the word is constantly applied to the solicitations and suggestions of Satan (Matt. 4:1; 1 Cor. 7:5; Rev. 2:10), which are always made with such a malicious hope, he himself bearing the name of ‘The Tempter’ (Matt. 4:3; 1 Thess. 3:5), and evermore revealing himself as such (Gen. 3:1, 4, 5; 1 Chron. 21:1).
We may say then in conclusion, that while πειράζειν may be used, but exceptionally, of God, δοκιμάζειν could not be used of Satan, seeing that he never proves that he may approve, nor tests that he may accept.

§ lxxv. σοφία, φρόνησις, γνῶσις, ἐπίγνωσις

Σοφία, φρόνησις, and γνῶσις occur together, Dan. 1:4, 17. They are all ascribed to God (φρόνησις not in the N. T., for Ephes. 1:8 is not in point); σοφία and γνῶσις, Rom. 11:33; φρόνησις and σοφία, Prov. 3:19; Jer. 10:12. There have been various attempts to divide to each its own proper sphere of meaning. These, not always running in exactly the same lines, have this in common, that in all σοφία is recognized as expressing the highest and noblest; being, as Clement of Alexandria has it (Pœdag. ii. 2), θείων καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων ἐπιστήμη; adding, however, elsewhere, as the Stoics had done before him, καὶ τῶν τούτων αἰτίων (Strom. i. 5). Augustine distinguishes between it and γνῶσις as follows (De Div. Quœst. ii. qu. 2): ‘Hæc ita discerni solent, ut sapientia [σοφία] pertineat ad intellectum æternorum, scientia [γνῶσις] vero ad ea quæ sensibus corporis experimur;’ and for a much fuller discussion to the same effect see De Trin. xii. 22–24; xiv. 3.
Very much the same distinction has been drawn between σοφία and φρόνησις: as by Philo, who defining φρόνησις as the mean between craftiness and folly, μέση πανουργίας καὶ μωρίας φρόνησις (Quod Deus Imm. 35), gives elsewhere this distinction between it and σοφία (De Prœm. et Pœn. 14): σοφία μὲν γὰρ πρὸς θεραπείαν Θεοῦ, φρόνησις δὲ πρὸς ἀνθρωπίνου βίου διοίκησιν. This was indeed the familiar and recognized distinction, as witness the words of Cicero (De Off. ii. 43): ‘Princeps omnium virtutum est illa sapientia quam σοφίαν Græci vocant. Prudentiam enim, quam Græci φρόνησιν dicunt, aliam quandam intelligimus, quæ est rerum expetendarum, fugiendarumque scientia; illa autem sapientia, quam principem dixi, rerum est divinarum atque humanarum scientia’ (cf. Tusc. iv. 26; Seneca, Ep. 85). In all this he is following in the steps of Aristotle, who is careful above all to bring out the practical character of φρόνησις, and to put it in sharp contrast with σύνεσις, which, as in as many words he teaches, is the critical faculty. One acts, the other judges. This is his account of φρόνησις (Ethic. Nic. vi. 5. 4): ἓξις ἀληθὴς μετὰ λόγου πρακτικὴ περὶ τὰ ἀνθρώπῳ ἀγαθὰ καὶ κακά: and again (Rhet. i. 9): ἔστιν ἀρετὴ διανοίας, καθʼ ἣν εὐ βουλεύεσθαι δύνανται περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν τῶν εἰρημένων εἰς εὐδαιμονίαν. Not otherwise Aristo the Peripatetic (see Plutarch, De Virt. Mor. 2): ἡ ἀρετὴ ποιητέα ἐπισκοποῦσα καὶ μὴ ποιητέα κέκληται φρόνησις: and see too ch. 5, where he has some excellent words, discriminating between these. It is plain from the references and quotations just made that the Christian Fathers have drawn their distinctions here from the schools of heathen philosophy, with only such widening and deepening of meaning as must necessarily follow when the ethical and philosophical terms of a lower are assumed into the service of a higher; thus compare Zeller, Philos. d. Griechen, iii. 1. 222.
We may affirm with confidence that σοφία is never in Scripture ascribed to other than God or good men, except in an ironical sense, and with the express addition, or sub-audition, of τοῦ κόσμου τούτου (1 Cor. 1:20), τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου (1 Cor. 2:6), or some such words (2 Cor. 1:12); nor are any of the children of this world called σοφοί except with this tacit or expressed irony (Luke 10:21); being never more than the φάσκοντες εἶναι σοφοί of Rom. 1:22. For, indeed, if σοφία includes the striving after the best ends as well as the using of the best means, is mental excellence in its highest and fullest sense (cf. Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. vi. 7. 3), there can be no wisdom disjoined from goodness, even as Plato had said long ago (Menex. 19): πᾶσα ἐπιστήμη χωριζομένη δικαιοσύνης καὶ τῆς ἄλλης ἀρετῆς, πανουργία οὐ σοφία φαίνεται: to which Ecclus. 19:20, 22, offers a fine parallel. So, too, the Socrates of Xenophon (Mem. iii. 9) refuses to separate, or even by a definition to distinguish, σοφία from σωφροσυνη, from δικαιοσύνη, or indeed from any other virtue. It will follow that the true antithesis to σοφός is rather ἀνόητος (Rom. 1:14) than ἀσύνετος; for, while the ἀσύνετος need not be more than intellectually deficient, in the ἀνόητος there is always a moral fault lying behind the intellectual; the νοῦς, the highest knowing power in man, the organ by which divine things are apprehended and known, being the ultimate seat of the error (Luke 24:25, ὦ ἀνόητοι καὶ βραδεῖς τῇ καρδίᾳ: Gal. 3:1, 3; 1 Tim. 6:9; Tit. 3:3). Ἄνοια (Luke 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:9) is ever the foolishness which is akin to and derived from wickedness, even as σοφία is the wisdom which is akin to goodness, or rather is goodness itself contemplated from one particular point of view; as indeed the wisdom which only the good can possess. Ammon, a modern German rationalist, gives not badly a definition of the σοφός or ‘sapiens’; i.e. ‘cognitione optimi, et adminiculorum ad id efficiendum idoneorum instructus.’
But φρόνησις, being a right use and application of the φρήν, is a middle term. It may be akin to σοφία (Prov. 10:23),—they are interchangeably used by Plato (Symp. 202 a),—but it may also be akin to πανουργία (Job 5:13; Wisd. 17:7). It skilfully adapts its means to the attainment of the ends which it desires; but whether the ends themselves which are proposed are good, of this it affirms nothing. On the different kinds of φρόνησις, and the very different senses in which φρόνησις is employed, see Basil the Great, Hom. in Princ. Prov. § 6. It is true that as often as φρόνησις occurs in the N. T. (ἐν φρονήσει δικαίων, Luke 1:17; σοφίᾳ καὶ φρονήσει, Ephes. 1:8), it is used of a laudable prudence, but for all this φρόνησις is not wisdom, nor the φρόνιμος the wise; and Augustine (De Gen. ad Lit. xi. 2) has perfect right when he objects to the ‘sapientissimus,’ with which his Latin Version had rendered φρονιμώτατος at Gen. 3:1, saying, ‘Abusione nominis sapientia dicitur in malo;’ cf. Con. Guad. i. 5. And the same objection, as has been often urged, holds good against the “wise as serpents” (Matt. 10:16), “wiser than the children of light” (Luke 16:8), of our own Version.
On the distinction between σοφία and γνῶσις Bengel has the following note (Gnomon, in 1 Cor. 12:8): ‘Illud certum, quod, ubi Deo ascribuntur, in solis objectis differunt; vid. Rom. 11:33. Ubi fidelibus tribuuntur, sapientia [σοφία] magis in longum, latum, profundum et altum penetrat, quam cognitio [γνῶσις]. Cognitio est quasi visus; sapientia visus cum sapore; cognitio, rerum agendarum; sapientia, rerum æternarum; quare etiam sapientia non dicitur abroganda, 1 Cor 13:8.’
Of ἐπίγνωσις, as compared with γνῶσις, it will be sufficient to say that ἐπί must be regarded as intensive, giving to the compound word a greater strength than the simple possessed; thus ἐπιποθέω (2 Cor. 5:2), ἐπιμελέομαι: and, by the same rule, if γνῶσις is ‘cognitio,’ ‘kenntniss,’ ἐπίγνωσις is ‘major exactiorque cognitio’ (Grotius), ‘erkenntniss,’ a deeper and more intimate knowledge and acquaintance. This we take to be its meaning, and not ‘recognition,’ in the Platonic sense of reminiscence, as distinguished from cognition, if we might use that word; which Jerome (on Ephes. 4:13), with some moderns, has affirmed. St. Paul, it will be remembered, exchanges the γινώσκω, which expresses his present and fragmentary knowledge, for ἐπιγνώσομαι, when he would express his future intuitive and perfect knowledge (1 Cor 13:12). It is difficult to see how this should have been preserved in the English Version; our Translators have made no attempt to preserve it; Bengel does so by aid of ‘nosco’ and ‘pernoscam,’ and Culverwell (Spiritual Optics, p. 180) has the following note: ‘Ἐπίγνωσις and γνῶσις differ. Ἐπίγνωσις is ἡ μετὰ τὴν πρώτην γνῶσιν τοῦ πράγματος παντελὴς κατὰ δύναμιν κατανόησις. It is bringing me better acquainted with a thing I knew before; a more exact viewing of an object that I saw before afar off. That little portion of knowledge which we had here shall be much improved, our eye shall be raised to see the same things more strongly and clearly.’ All the uses of ἐπίγνωσις which St. Paul makes, justify and bear out this distinction (Rom. 1:28; 3:20; 10:2; Ephes. 4:13; Phil. 1:9; 1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Tim. 2:25; cf. Heb. 10:26); this same intensive use of ἐπίγνωσις is borne out by other similar passages in the N. T. (2 Pet. 1:2, 8; 2:20) and in the Septuagint (Prov. 2:5; Hos. 4:1; 6:6); and is recognized by the Greek Fathers; thus Chrysostom on Col. 1:9: ἔγνωτε, ἀλλά δεῖ τι καὶ ἐπιγνῶναι. On the whole subject of this § see Lightfoot on Col. 1:9.

§ lxxvi. λαλέω, λέγω (λαλιά, λόγος)

IN dealing with synonyms of the N. T. we plainly need not concern ourselves with such earlier, or even contemporary, uses of the words which we are discriminating, as lie altogether outside of the N. T. sphere, when these uses do not illustrate, and have not affected, their Scriptural employment. It follows from this that all those contemptuous uses of λαλεῖν as to talk at random, as one ἀθυρόστομος, or with no door to his lips, might do; of λαλιά, as chatter (ἀκρασία λόγου ἄλογος, Plato, Defin. 416)—for I cannot believe that we are to find this at John 4:42—may be dismissed and set aside. The antithesis in the line of Eupolis, Λαλεῖν ἄριστος, ἀδυνατώτατος λέγειν, does little or nothing to illustrate the matter in hand.
The distinction which indeed exists between the words may in this way be made clear. There are two leading aspects under which speech may be regarded. It may, first, be contemplated as the articulate utterance of human language, in contrast with the absence of this, from whatever cause springing; whether from choice, as in those who hold their peace, when they might speak; or from the present undeveloped condition of the organs and faculties, as in the case of infants (νήπιοι); or from natural defects, as in the case of those born dumb; or from the fact of speech lying beyond the sphere of the faculties with which as creatures they have been endowed, as in the lower animals. This is one aspect of speech, namely articulated words, as contrasted with silence, with mere sounds or animal cries. But, secondly, speech (‘oratio’ or ‘oris ratio’) may be regarded as the orderly linking and knitting together in connected discourse of the inward thoughts and feelings of the mind, ‘verba legere et lecta ac selecta apte conglutinare’ (Valcknaer; cf. Donaldson, Cratylus, 453). The first is λαλεῖν = דִּבֵּר, the German ‘lallen,’ ‘loqui,’ ‘sprechen,’ ‘to speak’; the second = אָמַר, ‘dicere,’ ‘reden,’ ‘to say,’ ‘to discourse.’ Ammonius: λαλεῖν καὶ λέγειν διαφέρει· λέγειν μὲν τὸ τεταγμένως προσφέρειν τὸν λόγον· λαλεῖν δὲ, τὸ ἀτάκτως ἐκφέρειν τὰ ὑποπίπτοντα ῥήματα.
Thus the dumb man (ἄλαλος, Mark 7:37), restored to human speech, ἐλάλησε (Matt. 9:33; Luke 11:14), the Evangelists fitly using this word, for they are not concerned to report what the man said, but only the fact that he who before was dumb, was now able to employ his organs of speech. So too, it is always λαλεῖν γλώσσαις (Mark 16:17; Acts 2:4; 1 Cor. 12:30), for it is not what those in an ecstatic condition utter, but the fact of this new utterance itself, and quite irrespective of the matter of it, to which the sacred narrators would call our attention; even as λαλεῖν may be ascribed to God Himself (it is so more than once in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as at 1:1, 2), where the point is rather that He should have spoken at all to men than what it was that He spoke.
But if in λαλεῖν (= ‘loqui’) the fact of uttering articulated speech is the prominent notion, in λέγειν (= ‘dicere’) it is the words uttered, and that these correspond to reasonable thoughts within the breast of the utterer. Thus while the parrot or talking automaton (Rev. 13:15) may be said, though even they not without a certain impropriety, λαλεῖν, seeing they produce sounds imitative of human speech; and in poetry, though by a still stronger figure, a λαλεῖν may be ascribed to grasshoppers (Theocritus, Idyl. v. 34), and to pipes and flutes (Idyl. xx. 28, 29); yet inasmuch as there is nothing behind these sounds, they could never be said λέγειν; for in the λέγειν lies ever the ἔννοια, or thought of the mind (Heb. 4:12), as the correlative to the words on the lips, and as the necessary condition of them; it is ‘colligere verba in sententiam’; even as λόγος is by Aristotle defined (Poët. xx. 11), φωνὴ συνθετή, σημαντική (see Malan, Notes on the Gospel of St. John, p. 3). Of φράζειν in like manner (it only occurs twice in the N. T., Matt. 13:36; 15:15), Plutarch affirms that it could not, but λαλεῖν could, be predicated of monkeys and dogs (λαλοῦσι γὰρ, οὐ φράζουσι δέ, De Plac. Phil. v. 20).
Often as the words occur together, in such phrases as ἐλάλησε λέγων (Mark 6:50; Luke 24:6–7), λαληθεὶς λόγος (Heb. 2:2), and the like, each remains true to its own meaning, as just laid down. Thus in the first of these passages ἐλάλησε will express the opening of the mouth to speak, as opposed to the remaining silent (Acts 18:9); while λέγων proceeds to declare what the speaker actually said. Nor is there, I believe, any passage in the N. T. where the distinction between them has not been observed. Thus at Rom. 15:18; 2 Cor. 11:7; 1 Thess. 1:8, there is no difficulty in giving to λαλεῖν its proper meaning; indeed all these passages gain rather than lose when this is done; while at Rom. 3:19 there is an instructive interchange of the words.
Λαλιά and λόγος in the N. T. are true to the distinction here traced. How completely λαλιά, no less than λαλεῖν, has put off every slighting sense, is abundantly evident from the fact that on one occasion our Lord claims λαλιά as well as λόγος for Himself: “Why do ye not understand my speech (λαλιάν)? even because ye cannot hear my word” (λόγον, John 8:43). Λαλιά and λόγος are set in a certain antithesis to one another here, and in the seizing of the point of this must lie the right understanding of the verse. What the Lord intended by varying λαλιά and λόγος has been very differently understood. Some, as Augustine, though commenting on the passage, have omitted to notice the variation. Others, like Olshausen, have noticed, only to deny that it had any significance. Others again, admitting the significance, have failed to draw it rightly out. It is clear that, as the inability to understand his ‘speech’ (λαλιά) is traced up as a consequence to a refusing to hear his ‘word’ (λόγος), this last, as the root and ground of the mischief, must be the deeper and anterior thing. To hear his ‘word’ can be nothing else than to give room to his truth in the heart. They who will not do this must fail to understand his ‘speech,’ the outward form and utterance which his ‘word’ assumes. They that are of God hear God’s words, his ῥήματα as elsewhere (John 3:34; 8:47), his λαλιά as here, it is called; which they that are not of God do not and cannot hear. Melanchthon: ‘Qui veri sunt Dei filii et domestici non possunt paternæ domûs ignorare linguam.’

§ lxxvii. ἀπολύτρωσις, καταλλαγή, ἱλασμός

THERE are three grand circles of images, by aid of which are set forth to us in the Scriptures of the N. T. the inestimable benefits of Christ’s death and passion. Transcending, as these benefits do, all human thought, and failing to find anywhere a perfectly adequate expression in human language, they must still be set forth by the help of language, and through the means of human relations. Here, as in other similar cases, what the Scripture does is to approach the central truth from different quarters; to exhibit it not on one side but on many, that so these may severally supply the deficiencies of one another, and that moment of the truth which one does not express, another may. The words here grouped together, ἀπολύτρωσις or ‘redemption,’ καταλλαγή or ‘reconciliation,’ ἱλασμός or ‘propitiation,’ are the capital words summing up three such families of images; to one or other of which almost every word and phrase directly bearing on this work of our salvation through Christ may be more or less nearly referred.
Ἀπολύτρωσις is the form of the word which St. Paul invariably prefers, λύτρωσις occurring in the N. T. only at Luke 1:68; 2:38; Heb. 9:12. Chrysostom (upon Rom. 3:24), drawing attention to this, observes that by this ἀπό the Apostle would express the completeness of our redemption in Christ Jesus, a redemption which no later bondage should follow: καὶ οὐχ ἁπλῶς εἶπε, λυτρώσεως ἀλλʼ ἀπολυτρώσεως, ὡς μηκέτι ἡμᾶς ἐπανελθεῖν λάλιν ἐπὶ τὴν αὐτὴν δουλείαν. In this he has right, and there is the same force in the ἀπό of ἀποκαταλλάσσειν (Ephes. 2:16; Col. 1:20, 22), which is ‘prorsus reconciliare’ (see Fritzsche on Rom. 5:10), of ἀποκαραδοκία and ἀπεκδέχεσθαι (Rom. 8:19). Both ἀπολύτρωσις (not in the Septuagint, but ἀπολυτρόω twice, Exod. 21:8; Zeph. 3:1) and λύτρωσις are late words in the Greek language, Rost and Palm (Lexicon) giving no earlier authority for them than Plutarch (Arat. 11; Pomp. 24); while λυτρωτής seems peculiar to the Greek Scriptures (Lev. 25:31; Ps. 18:15; Acts 7:35).
When Theophylact defines ἀπολύτρωσις as ἡ ἀπὸ τῆς αἰχμαλωσίας ἐπανάκλησις, he overlooks one most important element in the word; for ἀπολύτρωσις is not recall from captivity merely, as he would imply, but recall of captives from captivity through the payment of a ransom for them; cf. Origen on Rom. 3:24. The idea of deliverance through a λύτρον or ἀντάλλαγμα (Matt. 16:26; cf. Ecclus. 6:15; 26:14), a price paid, though in actual use it may often disappear from words of this family (thus see Isai. 35:9), is yet central to them (1 Pet. 1:18, 19; Isai. 52:3). Keeping this in mind, we shall find connect themselves with ἀπολύτρωσις a whole group of most significant words; not only λύτρον (Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45), ἀντιλύτρον (1 Tim. 2:6), λυτροῦν (Tit. 2:14; 1 Pet. 1:18), λύτρωσις (Heb. 9:12), but also ἀγοράζειν (1 Cor. 6:20) and ἐξαγοράζειν (Gal. 3:13; 4:5). Here indeed is a point of contact with ἱλασμός, for the λύτρον paid in this ἀπολύτρωσις is identical with the προσφορά or θυσία by which that ἱλασμός is effected. There also link themselves with ἀπολύτρωσις all those statements of Scripture which speak of sin as slavery, and of sinners as slaves (Rom. 6:17, 20; John 8:34; 2 Pet. 2:19); of deliverance from sin as freedom, or cessation of bondage (John 8:33, 36; Rom. 8:21; Gal. 5:1).
Καταλλαγή, occurring four times in the N. T., only occurs once in the Septuagint, and once in the Apocrypha. On one of these occasions, namely at Isai. 9:5, it is simply exchange; on the other (2 Macc. 5:20) it is employed in the N. T. sense, being opposed to the ὀργὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ, and expressing the reconciliation, the εὐμένεια of God to his people. There can be no question that συναλλαγή (Ezek. 16:8, Aquila) and συναλλάσσειν (Acts 7:26), διαλλαγή (Ecclus. 22:23; 27:21; cf. Aristophanes, Acharn. 988) and διαλλάσσειν (in the N. T. only at Matt. 5:24; cf. Judg. 19:3; 1 Esdr. 4:31; Euripides, Hel. 1235), are more usual words in the earlier and classical periods of the language; but for all this the grammarians are wrong who denounce καταλλαγή and καταλλάσσειν as words avoided by all who wrote the language in its highest purity. None need be ashamed of words which found favour with Æschylus (Sept. Con. Theb. 767), with Xenophon (Anab. i. 6. 2) and with Plato (Phœd. 69 a). Fritzache (on Rom. 5:10) has effectually disposed of Tittmann’s fanciful distinction between καταλλάσσειν and διαλλάσσειν.
The Christian καταλλαγή has two sides. It is first a reconciliation, ‘quâ Deus nos sibi reconciliavit,’ laid aside his holy anger against our sins, and received us into favour, a reconciliation effected for us once for all by Christ upon his cross; so 2 Cor. 5:18, 19; Rom. 5:10; where καταλλάσσεσθαι is a pure passive, ‘ab eo in gratiam recipi apud quem in odio fueras.’ But καταλλαγή is secondly and subordinately the reconciliation, ‘quâ nos Deo reconciliamur,’ the daily deposition, under the operation of the Holy Spirit, of the enmity of the old man toward God. In this passive middle sense καταλλάσσεσθαι is used, 2 Cor. 5:20; cf. 1 Cor. 7:11. All attempts to make this secondary to be indeed the primary meaning and intention of the word, rest not on an unprejudiced exegesis, but on a foregone determination to get rid of the reality of God’s anger against the sinner. With καταλλαγή is connected all that language of Scripture which describes sin as a state of enmity (ἔχθρα) with God (Rom. 8:7; Ephes. 2:15; Jam. 4:4), and sinners as enemies to Him and alienated from Him (Rom. 5:10; Col. 1:21); which sets forth Christ on the cross as the Peace, and the maker of peace between God and man (Ephes. 2:14; Col. 1:20); all such invitations as this, “Be ye reconciled with God” (2 Cor. 5:20).
Before leaving καταλλαγή we observe that the exact relations between it and ἱλασμός, which will have to be considered next, are somewhat confused for the English reader, from the fact that the word ‘atonement,’ by which our Translators have once rendered καταλλαγή (Rom. 5:11), has little by little shifted its meaning. It has done this so effectually, that were the translation now for the first time to be made, and words to be employed in their present sense and not in their past, ‘atonement’ would plainly be a much fitter rendering of ἱλασμός, the notion of propitiation, which we shall find the central one of ἱλασμός, always lying in ‘atonement’ as we use it now. It was not so once. When our Translation was made, it signified, as innumerable examples prove, reconciliation, or the making up of a foregoing enmity; all its uses in our early literature justifying the etymology now sometimes called into question, that ‘atonement’ is ‘at-one-ment,’ and therefore = ‘reconciliation’: and that consequently it was then, although not now, the proper rendering of καταλλαγή (see my Select Glossary, s. vv. ‘atone,’ ‘atonement’; and, dealing with these words at full, Skeat, Etym. Dict. of the English Language, s. v., an article which leaves no doubt as to their history).
Ἱλασμός is found twice in the First Epistle of St. John (2:2; 4:10); nowhere else in the N. T.: for other examples of its use see Plutarch, Sol. 12; Fab. Max. 18; Camil. 7: θεῶν μῆνις ἱλασμοῦ καὶ χαριστηρίων δεομένη. I am inclined to think that the excellent word ‘propitiation,’ by which our Translators have rendered it, did not exist in the language when the earlier Reformed Versions were made. Tyndale, the Geneva, and Cranmer have “to make agreement,” instead of ‘to be the propitiation,’ at the first of these places; “He that obtaineth grace” at the second. In the same way ἱλαστήριον, which we, though I think wrongly (see Theol. Stud. und Krit. 1842, p. 314), have also rendered ‘propitiation’ (Rom. 3:25), is rendered in translations which share in our error, ‘the obtainer of mercy’ (Cranmer), ‘a pacification’ (Geneva); and first ‘propitiation’ in the Rheims—the Latin tendencies of this translation giving it boldness to transfer this word from the Vulgate. Neither is ἱλασμός of frequent use in the Septuagint; yet in such passages as Num. 5:8; Ezek. 44:27; cf. 2 Macc. 3:33, it is being prepared for the more solemn use which it should obtain in the N. T. Connected with ἵλεως, ‘propitius,’ ἱλάσκεσθαι, ‘placare,’ ‘iram avertere,’ ‘ex irato mitem reddere,’ it is by Hesychius explained, not incorrectly (for see Dan. 9:9; Ps. 129:4), but inadequately, by the following synonyms, εὐμένεια, συγχώρησις, διαλλαγή καταλλαγή, πραότης. I say inadequately, because in none of these words thus offered as equivalents, does there lie what is inherent in ἱλασμός and ἱλάσκεσθαι, namely, that the εὐμένεια or goodwill has been gained by means of some offering, or other ‘placamen’ (cf. Herodotus, vi. 105; viii. 112; Xenophon, Cyrop. vii. 2. 19; and Nägelsbach, Nachhomer. Theol. vol. i. p. 37). The word is more comprehensive than ἱλάστης, which Grotius proposes as covering the same ground. Christ does not propitiate only, as ἱλάστης would say, but at once propitiates, and is Himself the propitiation. To speak in the language of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the offering of Himself He is both at once, ἀρχιερεύς and θυσία or προσφορά (for the difference between these latter see Mede, Works, 1672, p. 360), the two functions of priest and sacrifice, which were divided, and of necessity divided, in the typical sacrifices of the law, meeting and being united in Him, the sin-offering by and through whom the just anger of God against our sins was appeased, and God, without compromising his righteousness, enabled to show Himself propitious to us once more. All this the word ἱλασμός, used of Christ, declares. Cocceius: ‘Est enim ἁλασμός mors sponsoris obita ad sanctificationem Dei, volentis peccata condonare; atque ita tollendam condemnationem.’
It will be seen that with ἱλασμός connect themselves a larger group of words and images than with either of the words preceding—all, namely, which set forth the benefits of Christ’s death as a propitiation of God, even as all which speak of Him as a sacrifice, an offering (Ephes. 5:2; Heb. 10:14; 1 Cor. 5:7), as the Lamb of God (John 1:29, 36; 1 Pet. 1:19), as the Lamb slain (Rev. 5:6, 8), and a little more remotely, but still in a lineal consequence from these last, all which describe Him as washing us in his blood (Rev. 1:5). As compared with καταλλαγή (= to the German ‘Versöhnung’), ἱλασμός (= to ‘Versühnung’) is the deeper word, goes nearer to the innermost heart of the matter. If we had only καταλλαγή and the group of words and images which cluster round it, to set forth the benefits of the death of Christ, these would indeed set forth that we were enemies, and by that death were made friends; but how made friends καταλλαγή would not describe at all. It would not of itself necessarily imply satisfaction, propitiation, the Daysman, the Mediator, the High Priest; all which in ἱλασμός are involved (see two admirable articles, ‘Erlösung’ and ‘Versöhnung,’ by Schoeberlein, in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopädie). I conclude this discussion with Bengel’s excellent note on Rom. 3:24: ‘ἱλασμός (expiatio sive propitiatio) et ἀπολύτρωσις (redemtio) est in fundo rei unicum beneficium, scilicet, restitutio peccatoris perditi. Ἀπολύτρωσις est respectu hostium, et καταλλαγή est respectu Dei. Atque hic voces. ἱλασμός et καταλλαγή iterum differunt. Ἰλασμός (propitiatio) tollit offensam contra Deum; καταλλαγή (reconciliatio) est δίπλευρος et tollit (a) indignationem Dei adversum nos, 2 Cor. 5:19 (b), nostramque abalienationem a Deo, 2 Cor. 5:20.’

§ lxxviii. ψαλμός, ὕμνος, ᾠδή

ALL these words occur together at Ephes. 5:19, and again at Col. 3:16; both times in the same order, and in passages which very nearly repeat one another; cf. Ps. 67:1. When some expositors refuse even to attempt to distinguish between them, urging that St. Paul had certainly no intention of classifying the different forms of Christian poetry, this statement, no doubt, is quite true; but neither, on the other hand, would he have used, where there is evidently no temptation to rhetorical amplification, three words, if one would have equally served his turn. It may fairly be questioned whether we can trace very accurately the lines of demarcation between the “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” of which the Apostle makes mention, or whether he traced these lines for himself with a perfect accuracy. Still each must have had a meaning which belonged to it more, and by a better right, than it belonged to either of the others; and this it may be possible to seize, even while it is quite impossible with perfect strictness to distribute under these three heads Christian poetry as it existed in the Apostolic age. ᾈσμα, it may be here observed, a word of not unfrequent occurrence in the Septuagint, does not occur in the N. T.
The Psalms of the O. T. remarkably enough have no single, well recognized, universally accepted name by which they are designated in the Hebrew Scriptures (Delitzsch, Comm. üb. den Psalter, vol. ii. p. 371; Herzog, Real-Encyclop. vol. xii. p. 269). They first obtained such in the Septuagint. ψαλμός, from ψάω, properly a touching, and then a touching of the harp or other stringed instruments with the finger or with the plectrum (ψαλμοὶ τόξων, Euripides, Ion, 174; cf. Bacch. 740, are the twangings of the bowstrings), was next the instrument itself, and last of all the song sung with this musical accompaniment. It is in this latest stage of its meaning that we find the word adopted in the Septuagint; and to this agree the ecclesiastical definitions of it; thus in the Lexicon ascribed to Cyril of Alexandria: λόγος μουσικός ὅταν εὐρύθμως κατὰ τοὺς ἁρμονικοὺς λόγους τὸ ὄργανον κρούηται: cf. Clement of Alexandria (Pœdag. ii. 4): ὁ ψαλμός, ἐμμελής ἐστιν εὐλογία καὶ σώφρων: and Basil the Great, who brings out with still greater emphasis what differences the ‘psalm’ and the ode or ‘spiritual song’ (Hom. in Ps. 44): ᾠδὴ γάρ ἐστι, καὶ οὐχὶ ψαλμός· διότι γυμνῇ φωνῇ μὴ συνηχοῦντος αὐτῇ τοῦ ὀργάνου, μετʼ ἐμμελοῦς τῆς ἐκφωνήσεως, παρεδίδοτο: compare in Psal. xxix. 1; to which Gregory of Nyssa, in Psal. c. 3, agrees. In all probability the ψαλμοί of Ephes. 5:19, Col. 3:16, are the inspired psalms of the Hebrew Canon. The word certainly designates these on all other occasions when it is met in the N. T., with the one possible exception of 1 Cor. 14:26; and probably refers to them there; nor can I doubt that the ‘psalms’ which the Apostle would have the faithful to sing to one another, are psalms of David, of Asaph, or of some other of the sweet singers of Israel; above all, seeing that the word seems limited and restricted to its narrowest use by the nearly synonymous words with which it is grouped.
But while the ‘psalm’ by the right of primogeniture, as being at once the oldest and most venerable, thus occupies the foremost place, the Church of Christ does not restrict herself to such, but claims the freedom of bringing new things as well as old out of her treasure-house. She will produce “hymns and spiritual songs” of her own, as well as inherit psalms bequeathed to her by the Jewish Church; a new salvation demanding a new song (Rev. 5:9), as Augustine delights so often to remind us.
It was of the essence of a Greek ὕμνος that it should be addressed to, or be otherwise in praise of, a god, or of a hero, that is, in the strictest sense of that word, of a deified man; as Callisthenes reminded Alexander; who, claiming hymns for himself, or suffering them to be addressed to him, implicitly accepted not human honours but divine (ὕμνοι μὲν ἐς τοὺς θεοὺς ποιοῦνται, ἔπαινοι δὲ ἐς ἀνθρώπους, Arrian, iv. 11). In the gradual breaking down of the distinction between human and divine, which marked the fallen days of Greece and Rome, with the usurping on the part of men of divine honours, the ὕμνος came more and more to be applied to men; although this not without observation and remonstrance (Athenæus, vi. 62; xv. 21, 22). When the word was assumed into the language of the Church, this essential distinction clung to it still. A ‘psalm’ might be a De profundis, the story of man’s deliverance, or a commemoration of mercies which he had received; and of a “spiritual song” much the same could be said: a ‘hymn’ must always be more or less of a Magnificat, a direct address of praise and glory to God. Thus Jerome (in Ephes. 5:19): ‘Breviter hymnos esse dicendum, qui fortitudinem et majestatem prædicant Dei, et ejusdem semper vel beneficia, vel facta, mirantur.’ Compare Origen, Con. Cels. viii. 67; and a precious fragment, probably of the Presbyter Caius, preserved by Eusebius (H. E. v. 28): ψαλμοὶ δὲ ὅσοι καὶ ᾠδαὶ ἀδελφῶν ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς ὑπὸ πιστῶν γραφεῖσαι, τὸν Λόγον τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν Χριστὸν ὑμνοῦσι θεολογοῦντες. Compare further Gregory of Nyssa (in Psalm. 100:3): ὕμνος, ἡ ἐπὶ τοῖς ὑπάρχουσιν ἡμῖν ἀγαθοῖς ἀνατιθεμένη τῷ Θεῷ εὐφημία: the whole chapter is interesting. Augustine in more places than one states the notes of what in his mind are the essentials of a hymn—which are three: 1. It must be sung; 2. It must be praise; 3. It must be to God. Thus Enarr. in Ps. lxxii. 1: ‘Hymni laudes sunt Dei cum cantico: hymni cantus sunt continentes laudes Dei. Si sit laus, et non sit Dei, non est hymnus: si sit laus, et Dei laus, et non cantetur, non est hymnus. Oportet ergo ut, si sit hymnus, habeat hæc tria, et laudem, et Dei, et canticum.’ So, too, Enarr. in Ps. cxlviii. 11: ‘Hymnus scitis quid est? Cantus est cum laude Dei. Si laudas Deum, et non cantas, non dicis hymnum; si cantas, et non laudas Deum, non dicis hymnum; si laudas aliud quod non pertinet ad laudem Dei, etsi cantando laudes non dicis hymnum. Hymnus ergo tria ista habet, et cantum, et laudem, et Dei.’ Compare Gregory Nazianzene:

    ἔπαινός ἐστιν εὖ τι τῶν ἐμῶν φράσαι
    αἶνος δʼ ἔπαινος εἰς Θεὸν σεβάσμιος
    ὁ δʼ ὕμνος, αἶνος ἐμμελής ὡς οἴομαι

But though, as appears from these quotations, ὕμνος in the fourth century was a word freely adopted in the Church, this was by no means the case at an earlier day. Notwithstanding the authority which St. Paul’s employment of it might seem to have lent it, ὕμνος nowhere occurs in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, nor in those of Justin Martyr, nor in the Apostolic Constitutions; and only once in Tertullian (ad Uxor. ii. 8). It is at least a plausible explanation of this that ὕμνος was for the early Christians so steeped in heathenism, so linked with profane associations, and desecrated by them, there were so many hymns to Zeus, to Hermes, to Aphrodite, and to the other deities of the heathen pantheon, that the early Christians shrunk instinctively from the word.
If we ask ourselves of what character were the ‘hymns,’ which St. Paul desired that the faithful should sing among themselves, we may confidently assume that these observed the law to which other hymns were submitted, and were direct addresses of praise to God. Inspired specimens of the ὕμνος we meet at Luke 1:46–55; 68–79; Acts 4:24; such also probably was that which Paul and Silas made to be heard from the depth of their Philippian dungeon (ὕμνουν τὸν Θεόν, Acts 16:25). How noble, how magnificent, uninspired hymns could prove we have signal evidence in the Te Deum, in the Veni Creator Spiritus, and in many a later possession for ever which the Church has acquired. That the Church, brought when St. Paul wrote into a new and marvellous world of heavenly realities, would be rich in these we might be sure, even if no evidence existed to this effect. Of such evidence, however, there is abundance, more than one fragment of a hymn being probably embedded in St. Paul’s own Epistles (Ephes. 5:14; 1 Tim. 3:16; 2 Tim. 2:11–14; cf. Rambach, Anthologie, vol. i. p. 33; and Neale, Essays on Liturgiology, pp. 413, 424). And as it was quite impossible that the Christian Church, mightily releasing itself, though with no revolutionary violence, from the Jewish synagogue, should fall into that mistake into which some of the Reformed Churches afterwards fell, we may be sure that it adopted into liturgic use, not ‘psalms’ only, but also ‘hymns,’ singing hymns to Christ as to God (Pliny, Ep. 10:96); though this, as we may conclude, more largely in Churches gathered out of the heathen world than in those wherein a strong Jewish element existed. On ὕμνος from an etymological point of view Pott, Etymol. Forsch. vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 612, may be consulted.
ᾨδή (= ἀοιδή) is the only word of this group which the Apocalypse knows (5:9; 14:3; 15:3). St. Paul, on the two occasions when he employs it, adds πνευματική to it; and this, no doubt, because ᾠδή by itself might mean any kind of song, as of battle, of harvest, or festal, or hymeneal, while ψαλμός, from its Hebrew use, and ὕμνος from its Greek, did not require any such qualifying adjective. This epithet thus applied to these ‘songs’ does not affirm that they were divinely inspired, any more than the ἀνὴρ πνευματικός is an inspired man (1 Cor. 3:1; Gal. 6:1); but only that they were such as were composed by spiritual men, and moved in the sphere of spiritual things. How, it may be asked, are we to distinguish these “spiritual songs” from the ‘psalms’ and ‘hymns’ with which they are associated by St. Paul? If the ‘psalms’ represent the heritage of sacred song which the Christian Church derived from the Jewish, the ‘hymns’ and “spiritual songs” will between them cover what further in the same kind it produced out of its bosom; but with a difference. What the hymns were, we have already seen; but Christian thought and feeling will soon have expanded into a wider range of poetic utterances than those in which there is a direct address to the Deity. If we turn, for instance, to Herbert’s Temple, or Vaughan’s Silex Scintillans, or Keble’s Christian Year, in all of these there are many poems, which, as certainly they are not ‘psalms,’ so as little do they possess the characteristics of ‘hymns.’ “Spiritual songs” these might most fitly be called; even as in almost all our collections of so called ‘hymns’ at the present day, there are not a few which by much juster title would bear this name. Calvin, it will be seen, only agrees in part with the distinctions which I have here sought to trace: ‘Sub his tribus nominibus complexus est [Paulus] omne genus canticorum; quæ ita vulgo distinguuntur, ut psalmus sit in quo concinendo adhibetur musicum aliquod instrumentum præter linguam; hymnus proprie sit laudis canticum, sive assâ voce, sive aliter canatur; oda non laudes tantum contineat, sed paræneses, et alia argumenta.’ Compare in Vollbeding’s Thesaurus, vol. ii. p. 27, sqq.; a treatise by J. Z. Hillger, De Psalmorum, Hymnorum, et Odarum discrimine; Palmer in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopädie, vol. v. p. 100, sqq.; Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. iii. p. 430; Lightfoot On Colossians, iii. 16; and the art. Hymns in Dr. Smith’s Dictionary of Christian Antiquities.

§ lxxix. ἀγράμματος, ἰδιώτης

THESE words occur together Acts 4:13; ἀγράμματος nowhere else in the N. T., but ἰδιώτης on four other occasions (1 Cor. 14:16, 23, 24; 2 Cor. 11:6). Where found together we must conclude that, according to the natural rhetoric of human speech, the second word is stronger than, and adds something to, the first; thus our Translators have evidently understood them, rendering ἀγράμματος ‘unlearned,’ and ἰδιώτης ‘ignorant’; and so Bengel: ‘ἀγράμματος est rudis, ἰδιώτης rudior.’
When we seek more accurately to distinguish them, and to detect the exact notion which each conveys, ἀγράμματος need not occupy us long. It corresponds exactly to our ‘illiterate’ (γράμματα μὴ μεμαθηκώς, John 7:15; Acts 26:24; 2 Tim. 3:15); being joined by Plato with ὄρευις, rugged as the mountaineer (Crit. 109 d), with ἄμουσος (Tim. 23 b); by Plutarch set over against the μεμουσωμένος (Adv. Col. 26).
But ἰδιώτης is a word of far wider range, of uses far more complex and subtle. Its primary idea, the point from which, so to speak, etymologically it starts, is that of the private man, occupying himself with his own things (τὰ ἴδια), as contrasted with the political; the man unclothed with office, as set over against and distinguished from him who bears some office in the state. But lying as it did very deep in the Greek mind, being one of the strongest convictions there, that in public life the true education of the man and the citizen consisted, it could not fail that the word should presently be tinged with something of contempt and scorn. The ἰδιώτης, staying at home while others were facing honorable toil, οἰκουρός, as Plutarch calls him (Phil. cum Princip.), a ‘house-dove,’ as our ancestors slightingly named him, unexercised in business, unaccustomed to deal with his fellow-men, is unpractical; and thus the word is joined with ἀπράγμων by Plato (Rep. x. 620 c; cf. Plutarch, De Virt. et Vit. 4), with ἄπρακτος by Plutarch (Phil. cum Princ. 1), who sets him over against the πολιτικὸς καὶ πρακτικός. But more than this, he is often boorish, and thus ἰδιώτης is linked with ἄγροικος (Chrysostom, in 1 Ep. Cor. Hom. 3), with ἀπαίδευτος (Plutarch, Arist. et Men. Comp. 1), and other words such as these.
The history of ἰδιώτης by no means stops here, though we have followed it as far as is absolutely necessary to explain its association (Acts 4:13) with ἀγράμματος, and the points of likeness and difference between them. But to explain why St. Paul should employ it at 1 Cor. 14:16, 23, 24, and exactly in what sense, it may be well to pursue this history a little further. There is a singular feature in the use of ἰδιώτης which, though not very easy to describe, a few examples will at once make intelligible. There lies continually in it a negation of that particular skill, knowledge, profession, or standing, over against which it is antithetically set, and not of any other except that alone. For example, is the ἰδιώτης set over against the δημιουργός (as by Plato, Theag. 124 c), he is the unskilled man as set over against the skilled artificer; any other dexterity he may possess, but that of the δημιουργός is denied him. Is he set over against the ἰατρός, he is one ignorant of the physician’s art (Plato, Rep. iii. 389 b; Philo, De Conf. Ling. 7); against the σοφιστής, he is one unacquainted with the dialectic fence of the sophists (Xenophon, De Venat. 13; cf. Hiero, i. 2; Lucian, Pisc. 34; Plutarch, Symp. iv. 2. 3); against the φιλόλογος (Sextus Empiricus, adv. Grammat. § 235), he has no interest in the earnest studies which occupy the other; prose writers are ἰδιῶται as contrasted with poets. Those unpractised in gymnastic exercises are ἰδιῶται as contrasted with the ἀθληταί (Xenophon, Hiero, iv. 6; Philo, De Sept. 6); subjects as contrasted with their prince (De Abrah. 33); the underlings in the harvest-field are ἰδιῶται καὶ ὑπηρέται as distinguished from the ἡγεμόνες (De Somm. ii. 4); the weak are ἰδιῶται, ἄποροι and ἄδοξοι being qualitative adjectives, as contrasted with the strong (Philo, De Creat. Princ. 5; cf. Plutarch, De Imper. Apophth. 1); and lastly, the whole congregation of Israel are ἰδιῶται as set over against the priests (De Vit. Mos. iii. 29). With these examples of the word’s use to assist us, we can come to no other conclusion than that the ἰδιῶται of St. Paul (1 Cor. 14:16, 23, 24) are the plain believers, with no special spiritual gifts, as distinguished from such as were possessed of such; even as elsewhere they are the lay members of the Church as contrasted with those who minister in the Word and Sacraments; for it is ever the word with which ἰδιώτης is at once combined and contrasted that determines its meaning.
For the matter immediately before us it will be sufficient to say that when the Pharisees recognized Peter and John as men ἀγράμματοι καὶ ἰδιῶται, in the first word they expressed more the absence in them of book-learning, and, confining as they would have done this to the Old Testament, the ἱερὰ γράμματα, and to the glosses of their own doctors upon these, their lack of acquaintance with such lore as St. Paul had learned at the feet of Gamaliel; in the second their want of that education which men insensibly acquire by mingling with those who have important affairs to transact, and by taking their own share in the transaction of such. Setting aside that higher training of the heart and the intellect which is obtained by direct communion with God and his truth, no doubt books and public life, literature and politics, are the two most effectual organs of mental and moral training which the world has at its command—the second, as needs hardly be said, immeasurably more effectual than the first. He is ἀγράμματος who has not shared in the first, ἰδιώτης who has had no part in the second.

§ lxxx. δοκέω, φαίνομαι

OUR Translators have not always observed the distinction which exists between δοκεῖν (= ‘videri’) and φαίνεσθαι (= ‘apparere’). Δοκεῖν expresses the subjective mental estimate or opinion about a matter which men form, their δόξα concerning it, which may be right (Acts 15:28; 1 Cor. 4:9; 7:40: cf. Plato, Tim. 51 d, δόξα ἀληθής), but which also may be wrong; involving as it always must the possibility of error (2 Macc. 9:10; Matt. 6:7; Mark 6:49; John 16:2; Acts 27:13; cf. Plato, Rep. 423 a; Gorg. 458 a, α, δόξα ψευδής; Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 6. 22; Mem. i. 7. 4, ἰσχυρόν, μὴ ὄντα δοκεῖν, to have a false reputation for strength); φαίνεσθαι on the contrary expresses how a matter phenomenally shows and presents itself, with no necessary assumption of any beholder at all; suggesting an opposition, not to the ὄν, but to the νοουμένου. Thus, when Plato (Rep. 408 a) says of certain heroes in the Trojan war, ἀγαθοὶ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἐφάνησαν, he does not mean they seemed good for the war and were not, but they showed good, with the tacit assumption that what they showed, they also were. So too, when Xenophon writes ἐφαίνετο ἴχνια ἵππων (Anab. i. 6. 1), he would imply that horses had been actually there, and left their foot-prints on the ground. Had he used δοκεῖν, he would have implied that Cyrus and his company took for the tracks of horses what indeed might have been such, but what also might not have been such at all; cf. Mem. iii. 10. 2. Zeune: ‘δοκεῖν cernitur in opinione, quæ falsa esse potest et vana; sed φαίνεσθαι plerumque est in re extra mentem, quamvis nemo opinatur.’ Thus δοκεῖ φαίνεσθαι (Plato, Phœdr. 269 d; Legg. xii. 960 d).
Even in passages where δοκεῖν may be exchanged with εἶναι, it does not lose the proper meaning which Zeune has ascribed to it here. There is ever a predominant reference to the public opinion and estimate, rather than to the actual being; however the former may be the faithful echo of the latter (Prov. 27:14). Thus, while there is no touch of irony, no shadow of depreciation, in St. Paul’s use of οἱ δοκοῦντες at Gal. 2:2, of οἱ δοκοῦντες εἶναί τι presently after (ver. 6)—exactly which same phrase occurs in Plato, Euthyd. 303 d, where they are joined with σεμνοί—and while manifestly there could be no slight intended, seeing that he so characterizes the chief of his fellow Apostles, the words for all this express rather the reputation in which these were held in the Church than the worth which in themselves they had, however that reputation of theirs was itself the true measure of this worth (= ἐπίσημοι, Rom. 16:7). Compare Euripides, Troad. 608, where τὰ δοκοῦντα are set over against τὰ μηδὲν ὄντα, Hec. 295, and Porphyry, De Abst. ii. 40, where οἱ δοκοῦντες in like manner is put absolutely, and set over against τὰ πλήθη. In the same way the words of Christ, οἱ δοκοῦντες ἄρχειν τῶν ἐθνῶν (Mark 10:42) = ‘they who are acknowledged rulers of the Gentiles,’ cast no doubt on the reality of the rule of these, for see Matt. 20:25; though indeed there may be a slight hint, looking through the words, of the contrast between the worldly shows and the heavenly realities of greatness; but as little are they redundant (cf. Josephus, Antt. xix. 6. 3; Susan. 5: and Winer, Gramm. § lxvii. 4).
But as on one side the mental conception may have, but also may not have, a corresponding truth in the world of realities, so on the other the appearance may have a reality beneath it, and φαίνεσθαι is often synonymous with εἶναι and γίγνεσθαι (Matt. 2:7; 13:26); but it may also have none; φαινόμενα for instance are set off against τὰ ὄντα τῇ ἀληθείᾳ by Plato (Rep. 596 e); being the reflections of things, as seen in a mirror: or shows, it may be, which have no substance behind them, as the shows of goodness which the hypocrite makes (Matt. 23:28). It must not be assumed that in this latter case φαίνεσθαι runs into the meaning of δοκεῖν, and that the distinction is broken down between them. That distinction still subsists in the objective character of the one, and the subjective character of the other. Thus, at Matt. 23:27, 28, the contrast is not between what other men took the Pharisees to be, and what they really were, but between what they showed themselves to other men (φαίνεσθε τοῖς ἀνθρώποις δίκαιοι), and what in very truth they were.
Δοκεῖν signifying ever, as we have seen, that subjective estimate which may be formed of a thing, not the objective show and seeming which it actually possesses, it will follow that our rendering of Jam. 1:26 is not perfectly satisfactory: “If any man among you seem to be religious (δοκεῖ θρῆσκος εἶναι), and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.” This verse, as it here stands, must before now have perplexed many. How, they will have asked, can a man “seem to be religious,” that is, present himself to others as such, when his religious pretensions are belied and refuted by the license of an unbridled tongue? But render the words, “If any man among you thinketh himself religious” (cf. Gal. 6:3, where δοκεῖ is rightly so translated; as it is in the Vulgate here, “se putat religiosum esse”), “and bridleth not his tongue, &c.,” and all will then be plain. It is the man’s own mental estimate of his spiritual condition which δοκεῖ expresses, an estimate which the following words declare to be altogether erroneous. Compare Heb. 4:1, where for δοκῇ the Vulgate has rightly ‘existimetur.’ If the Vulgate in dealing with δοκεῖν here is right, while our Translators are wrong, elsewhere in dealing with φαίνεσθαι it is wrong, while these are right. At Matt. 6:18 (“that thou appear not unto men to fast”), it has ‘ne videaris,’ although at ver. 16 it had rightly ‘ut appareant’; but the disciples in this verse are warned, not against the hypocrisy of wishing to be supposed to fast when they did not, as this ‘ne videaris’ might imply, but against the ostentation of wishing to be known to fast when they did; as lies plainly in the ὅπως μὴ φανῇς of the original.
The force of φαίνεσθαι, attained here, is missed in another passage of our Version; although not through any confusion between it and δοκεῖν, but rather between it and φαίνειν. We render ἐν οἷς φαίνεσθε ὡς φωστῆρες ἐν κόσμῳ (Phil. 2:15), “among whom ye shine as lights in the world;” where, instead of ‘ye shine,’ it should stand, ‘ye are seen,’ or ‘ye appear.’ To justify “ye shine” in this place, which is common to all the Versions of the English Hexapla, St. Paul should have written φαίνετε (cf. John 1:5; 2 Pet. 1:19; Rev. 1:16), and not, as he has written, φαίνεσθε. It is worthy of note that, while the Vulgate, having ‘lucetis,’ shares and anticipates our error, an earlier Latin Version was free from it; as is evident from the form in which the verse is quoted by Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. cxlvi. 4): ‘In quibus apparetis tanquam luminaria in cælo.’

§ lxxxi. ζῶον, θηρίον

IN passages out of number one of these words might be employed quite as fitly as the other, even as there are many in which they are used interchangeably, as by Plutarch, De Cap. ex Inim. Util. 2. This does not however prove that there is no distinction between them, if other passages occur, however few, where one is fit and the other not; or where, though neither would be unfit, one would possess a greater fitness than the other. The distinction, latent in other cases, because there is nothing to evoke it, reveals itself in these.
The difference between ζῶον (by Lachmann always more correctly written ζῷον) and θηρίον is not that between two coordinate terms; but one, the second is wholly subordinate to the first, is a less included in a greater. All creatures that live on earth, including man himself, λογικὸν καὶ πολιτικὸν ζῶον, as Plutarch (De Am. Prol. 3) so grandly describes him, are ζῶα (Aristotle, Hist. Anim. i. 5. 1); nay, God Himself, according to the Definitions of Plato, is ζῶον ἀθάνατον, being indeed the only One to whom life by absolute right belongs (φαμὲν δὲ τὸν Θεὸν εἶναι ζῶον ἀΐδιον ἄριστον, Aristotle, Metaph. xii. 7). It is true that ζῶον is nowhere employed in the N. T. to designate man (but see Plato, Pol. 271 e; Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 1. 3; Wisd. 19:20); still less to designate God; for whom, as not merely living, but as being absolute Life, the one fountain of life, the αὐτοζῶον, the πηγὴ ζωῆς, the fitter as the more reverent ζωή is retained (John 1:4; 1 John 1:2). In its ordinary use ζῶον covers the same extent of meaning as ‘animal’ with us, having generally, though by no means universally (Plutarch, De Garr. 22; Heb. 13:11), ἄλογον or some such epithet attached (2 Pet. 2:12; Jude 10).
Θηρίον looks like a diminutive of θήρ, which in its Æolic form φήρ reappears as the Latin ‘fera,’ and in its more usual shape in the German ‘Thier’ and in our own ‘deer.’ Like χρυσίον, βιβλίον, φορτίον, ἀγγεῖον, and so many other words (see Fischer, Prol. de Vit. Lex. N. T. p. 256), it has quite left behind the force of a diminutive, if it ever possessed it. That it was already without this at the time when the Odyssey was composed is sufficiently attested by the μέγα θηρίον which there occurs (10. 181); compare Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 4. 11. It would be a mistake to regard θηρία as exclusively mischievous and ravening beasts, for see Heb. 12:20; Exod. 19:13; however such by this word are generally intended (Mark 1:13; Acts 28:4, 5); θηρία at Acts 11:6 being distinguished from τετράποδα: while yet Schmidt says rightly: ‘In θηρίον liegt eine sehr starke Nebenbeziehung auf Wildheit und Grausamkeit.’ It is worthy of notice that, numerous as are the passages of the Septuagint where beasts of sacrifice are mentioned, it is never under this name. The reason is evident, namely, that the brutal, bestial element is in θηρίον brought prominently forward, not that wherein the inferior animals are akin to man, not that therefore which gives them a fitness to be offered as substitutes for man, and as his representatives. Here, too, we have an explanation of the frequent transfer of θηρίον and θηριώδης, as in Latin of ‘bestia’ and ‘bellua,’ to fierce and brutal men (Tit. 1:12; 1 Cor. 15:32; Josephus, Antt. xvii. 5. 5; Arrian, in Epict. ii. 9).
All this makes us the more regret, and the regret has been often expressed—it was so by Broughton almost as soon as our Version was published—that in the Apocalypse our Translators should have rendered θηρίον and ζῶον by the same word, “beast”; and should thus for the English reader have obliterated the distinction between them. Both play important parts in this book; both belong to its higher symbolism; while at the same time they move in spheres as far removed from one another as heaven is from hell. The ζῶα or “living creatures,” which stand before the throne, and in which dwells the fulness of all creaturely life, as it gives praise and glory to God (4:6–9; 5:6; 6:1; and often), constitute a part of the heavenly symbolism; the θηρία, the first beast and the second, which rise up, one from the bottomless pit (11:7), the other from the sea (13:1), of whom the one makes war upon the two Witnesses, the other opens his mouth in blasphemies, these form part of the hellish symbolism. To confound these and those under a common designation, to call those ‘beasts’ and these ‘beasts,’ would be an oversight, even granting the name to be suitable to both; it is a more serious one, when the word used, bringing out, as does θηρίον, the predominance of the lower animal life, is applied to glorious creatures in the very court and presence of Heaven. The error is common to all the English translations. That the Rheims should not have escaped it is strange; for the Vulgate renders ζῶα by ‘animalia’ (‘animantia’ would have been still better), and only θηρίον by ‘bestia.’ If ζῶα had always been rendered “living creatures,” this would have had the additional advantage of setting these symbols of the Apocalypse, even for the English reader, in an unmistakeable connexion with Ezek. 1:5, 13, 15, and often; where “living creature” is the rendering in our English Version of תַיָּה, as ζῶον is in the Septuagint.

§ lxxxii. ὑπέρ, ἀντί

IT has been often claimed, and in the interests of an all-important truth, namely the vicarious character of the sacrifice of the death of Christ, that in such passages as Heb. 2:9; Tit. 2:14; 1 Tim. 2:6; Gal. 3:13; Luke 22:19, 20; 1 Pet. 2:21; 3:18; 4:1; Rom. 5:8; John 10:15, in all of which Christ is said to have died ὑπὲρ πάντων, ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, ὑπὲρ τῶν προβάτων, and the like, ὑπέρ shall be accepted as equipollent with ἀντί. And then, it is further urged that, as ἀντί is the preposition first of equivalence (Homer, Il. ix. 116, 117) and then of exchange (1 Cor. 11:15; Heb. 12:2, 16; Matt. 5:38), ὑπέρ must in all those passages be regarded as having the same force. Each of these, it is evident, would thus become a dictum probans for a truth, in itself most vital, namely that Christ suffered, not merely on our behalf and for our good, but also in our stead, and bearing that penalty of our sins which we otherwise must ourselves have borne. Now, though some have denied, we must yet accept as certain that ὑπέρ has sometimes this meaning. Thus in the Gorgias of Plato, 515 c, ἐγὼ ὑπὲρ σοῦ ἀποκρινοῦμαι, ‘I will answer in your stead;’ compare Xenophon, Anab. vii. 4. 9: ἐθέλοις ἂν ὑπὲρ τούτου ἀποθανεῖν; ‘Wouldst thou die instead of this lad?’ as the context and the words εἰπαίσειεν αὐτὸν ἀντὶ ἐκείνου make abundantly manifest; Thucydides, i. 141; Euripides, Alcestis, 712; Polybius, iii. 67. 7; Philem. 13; and perhaps 1 Cor. 15:29; but it is not less certain that in passages far more numerous ὑπέρ means no more than, on behalf of, for the good of; thus Matt. 5:44; John 13:37; 1 Tim. 2:1, and continually. It must be admitted to follow from this, that had we in the Scripture only statements to the effect that Christ died ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν, that He tasted death ὑπὲρ παντός, it would be impossible to draw from these any irrefragable proof that his death was vicarious, He dying in our stead, and Himself bearing on his Cross our sins and the penalty of our sins; however we might find it, as no doubt we do, elsewhere (Isai. 53:4–6). It is only as having other declarations, to the effect that Christ died ἀντὶ πολλῶν (Matt. 20:28), gave Himself as an ἀντίλυτρον (1 Tim. 2:6), and bringing those other to the interpretation of these, that we obtain a perfect right to claim such declarations of Christ’s death for us as also declarations of his death in our stead. And in them beyond doubt the preposition ὑπέρ is the rather employed, that it may embrace both these meanings, and express how Christ died at once for our sakes (here it touches more nearly on the meaning of περί, Matt. 26:28; Mark 14:24; 1 Pet. 3:18; διά also once occurring in this connexion, 1 Cor. 8:11), and in our stead; while ἀντί would only have expressed the last of these.
Tischendorf, in his little treatise, Doctrina Pauli de Vi Mortis Christi Satisfactoriâ, has some excellent remarks on this matter, which I will quote, though what has been just said has anticipated them in part: ‘Fuerunt, qui ex solâ naturâ et usu præpositionis ὑπέρ demonstrare conarentur, Paulum docuisse satisfactionem Christi vicariam; alii rursus negarunt præpositionem ὑπέρ a N. Test. auctoribus recte positam esse pro ἀντί, inde probaturi contrarium. Peccatum utrimque est. Sola præpositio utramque pariter adjuvat sententiarum partem; pariter, inquam, utramque. Namque in promptu sunt, contra perplurium opinionem, desumta ex multis veterum Græcorum scriptoribus loca, quæ præpositioni ὑπέρ significatum, loco, vice, alicujus plane vindicant, atque ipsum Paulum eodem significatu eam usurpasse, et quidem in locis, quæ ad nostram rem non pertinent, nemini potest esse dubium (cf. Philem. 13; 2 Cor. 5:20; 1 Cor. 15:29). Si autem quæritur, cur hâc potissimum præpositione incerti et fluctuantis significatûs in re tam gravi usus sit Apostolus—inest in ipsâ præpositione quo sit aptior reliquis ad describendam Christi mortem pro nobis oppetitam. Etenim in hoc versari rei summam, quod Christus mortuus sit in commodum hominum, nemo negat; atque id quidem factum est ita, ut moreretur hominum loco. Pro conjunctâ significatione et commodi et vicarii præclare ab Apostolo adhibita est præpositio ὑπέρ. Itaque rectissime, ut solet, contendit Winerus noster, non licere nobis in gravibus locis, ubi de morte Christi agatur, præpositionem ὑπέρ simpliciter = ἀντί sumere. Est enim plane Latinorum pro, nostrum für. Quotiescunque Paulus Christum pro nobis mortuum esse docet, ab ipsâ notione vicarii non disjunctam esse voluit notionem commodi, neque umquam ab hâc, quamvis perquam aperta sit, excludi illam in istâ formulâ, jure meo dico.’

§ lxxxiii. φονεύς, ἀνθρωποκτόνος, σικάριος

OUR Translators have rendered all these words by ‘murderer,’ which, apt enough in the case of the first (Matt. 22:7; 1 Pet. 4:15; Rev. 21:8), is at the same time so general that in the other two instances it keeps out of sight characteristic features which the words would bring forward.
Ἀνθρωποκτόνος, exactly corresponding to our ‘manslayer,’ or ‘homicide,’ occurs in the N. T. only in the writings of St. John (8:44; 1 Jn. 3:15, bis); being found also in Euripides (Iphig. in Taur. 390). On our Lord’s lips, at the first of these places, ἀνθρωποκτόνος has its special fitness; no other word would have suited at all so well; an allusion being here to that great, and in part only too successful, assault on the life natural and the life spiritual of all mankind which Satan made, when, planting sin, and through sin death, in them who were ordained the authors of being to the whole race of mankind, he infected the stream of human existence at its fountain-head. Satan was thus ὁ ἀνθρωποκτόνος indeed (βροτοκτόνος in the Greek triodion); for he would fain have slain not this man or that, but the whole race of mankind.
Σικάριος, which only occurs once in the N. T., and then, noticeably enough, on the lips of a Roman officer (Acts 21:38), is one of many Latin words which had followed the Roman domination even into those Eastern provinces of the empire, which, unlike those of the West, had refused to be latinized, but still retained their own language. The ‘sicarius,’ having his name from the ‘sica,’ a short sword, poniard, or stiletto, which he wore and was prompt to use, was the hired bravo or swordsman, troops of whom in the long agony of the Republic the Antonies and the Clodiuses kept in their pay, and oftentimes about their person, to inspire a wholesome fear, and if needful to remove out of the way such as were obnoxious to them. The word had found its way into Palestine, and into the Greek which was spoken there: Josephus in two instructive passages (B. J. ii. 13. 3; Antt. xx. 8. 6) giving us full details about those to whom this name was transferred. They were ‘assassins,’ which word would be to my mind the best rendering at Acts 21:38, of whom a rank growth sprang up in those latter days of the Jewish Commonwealth, when, in ominous token of the approaching doom, all ties of society were fast being dissolved. Concealing under their garments that short sword of theirs, and mingling with the multitude at the great feasts, they stabbed in the crowd whom of their enemies they would, and then, taking part with the bystanders in exclamations of horror, effectually averted suspicion from themselves.
It will appear from what has been said that φονεύς may be any murderer, the genus of which σικάριος is a species, this latter being an assassin, using a particular weapon, and following his trade of blood in a special manner. Again, ἀνθρωποκτόνος has a stress and emphasis of its own. He to whom this name is given is a murderer of men, a homicide. Φονεύς is capable of vaguer use; a wicked man might be characterized as φονεὺς τῆς εὐσεβείας, a destroyer of piety, though he made no direct attack on the lives of men, a traitor or tyrant as φονεὺς τῆς πατρίδος (Plutarch, Præc. Ger. Reip. 19); and such uses of the word are not unfrequent.

§ lxxxiv. κακός, πονηρός, φαῦλος

THAT which is morally evil may be contemplated on various sides and from various points of view; the several epithets which it will thus obtain bringing out the several aspects under which it will have presented itself to us.
Κακός and πονηρός occur together, Rev. 16:2; as κακία and πονηρία at 1 Cor. 5:8; the διαλογισμοὶ κακοί of St. Mark 7:21 are διαλογισμοὶ πονηροί in the parallel passage of St. Matthew (15:19). The distinction between these will best be considered when we come to deal with πονηρός. Κακός, the constant antithesis to ἀγαθός (Deut. 30:14; Ps. 33:14; Rom. 12:21; 2 Cor. 5:10; cf. Plato, Rep. x. 608 e), and though not quite so frequently to καλός (Gen. 24:50; 44:4; Heb. 5:14; Plutarch, Reg. Apoph. 20), affirms of that which it characterizes that qualities and conditions are wanting there which would constitute it worthy of the name which it bears. This first in a physical sense; thus κακὰ εἵματα (Homer, Od. xi. 190) are mean or tattered garments; κακὸς ἰατρός (Æschylus, Prom. v. 473), a physician wanting in the skill which physicians should possess; κακὸς κριτής (Plutarch, Rom. Apoph. 4), an unskilful judge. So, too, in the Scripture it is often used without any ethical intention (Prov. 20:13; Luke 16:25; Acts 28:5; Rev. 16:2). Often, however, it assumes one; thus κακὸς δοῦλος (Matt. 24:48) is a servant wanting in that fidelity and diligence which are properly due from such; cf. Prov. 12:12; Jer. 7:24; 1 Cor. 15:33; Col. 3:5; Phil. 3:2.
But the πονηρός is, as Ammonius calls him, ὁ δραστικὸς κακοῦ, the active worker out of evil; the German ‘Bösewicht,’ or as Beza (Annott. in Matt. v. 37) has drawn the distinction: ‘Significat πονηρός aliquid amplius quam κακός, nempe eum qui sit in omni scelere exercitatus, et ad injuriam cuivis inferendam totus comparatus.’ He is, according to the derivation of the word, ὁ παρέχων πόνους, or one that, as we say, ‘puts others to trouble;’ and πονηρία is the ‘cupiditas nocendi’; or as Jeremy Taylor explains it: ‘aptness to do shrewd turns, to delight in mischiefs and tragedies; a loving to trouble our neighbour and to do him ill offices; crossness, perverseness, and peevishness of action in our intercourse’ (Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, iv. 1). In πονηρός the positive activity of evil comes far more decidedly out than in κακός, the word therefore being constantly opposed to χρηστός, or the good contemplated as the useful (Isocrates, Or. i. 6 d; viii. 184 a; Xenophon, Mem. ii. 6. 20; Jer. 24:2, 3; and in the same way associated with ἄχρηστος, Demosthenes, 1271). If κακός is ‘mauvais,’ ‘méchant,’ πονηρός is ‘nuisible,’ noxious, or ‘noisome’ in our elder sense of the word. The κακός may be content to perish in his own corruption, but the πονηρός is not content unless he is corrupting others as well, and drawing them into the same destruction with himself. ‘They sleep not except they have done mischief, and their sleep is taken away except they cause some to fall’ (Prov. 4:16). We know, or we are happier still if we do not know even by report, what in French is meant by ‘dépraver les femmes.’ Thus ὄψον πονηρόν (Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Conv. 2) is an unwholesome dish: ᾄσματα πονηρά (Quom. Adol. Pöet. 4), wicked songs, such as by their wantonness corrupt the minds of the young; γυνὴ πονηρά (De Virt. et Vit. 2), a wicked wife; ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρός (Mark 7:22), a mischief-working eye. Satan is emphatically ὁ πονηρός, as the first author of all the mischief in the world (Matt. 6:13; Ephes. 6:16; cf. Luke 7:21; Acts 19:12); ravening beasts are always θηρία πονηρά in the Septuagint (Gen. 37:33; Isai. 35:9; cf. Josephus, Antt. vii. 5. 5); κακὰ θηρία, indeed, occurs once in the N. T. (Tit. 1:12), but the meaning is not precisely the same, as the context sufficiently shows. An instructive line in Euripides (Hecuba, 596), testifies to the Greek sense of a more inborn radical evil in the man who is πονηρός than in the κακός:

    Ὁ μὲν πονηρὸς οὐδὲν ἄλλο πλὴν κακός.

A reference to the context will show that what Euripides means is this, namely, that a man of an evil nature (πονηρός) will always show himself base in act (κακός).
But there are words in most languages, and φαῦλος is one of them, which contemplate evil under another aspect, not so much that either of active or passive malignity, but that rather of its good-for-nothingness, the impossibility of any true gain ever coming forth from it. Thus ‘nequam’ (in strictness opposed to ‘frugi’), and ‘nequitia’ in Latin (see Ramsay on the Mostellaria of Plautus, p. 229); ‘vaurien’ in French; ‘naughty’ and ‘naughtiness’ in English; ‘taugenichts,’ ‘schlecht,’ ‘schlechtigkeit’ in German; while on the other hand ‘tugend’ (= ‘taugend’) is virtue contemplated as usefulness. This notion of worthlessness is the central notion of φαῦλος (by some very questionably identified with ‘faul,’ ‘foul’), which in Greek runs successively through the following meanings,—light, unstable, blown about by every wind (see Donaldson, Cratylus, § 152; ‘synonymum ex levitate permutatum,’ Matthäi), small, slight (‘schlecht’ and ‘schlicht’ in German are only different spellings of the same word), mediocre, of no account, worthless, bad; but still bad predominantly in the sense of worthless; thus φαύλη αὐλητρίς (Plato, Conv. 215 c), a bad flute-player; φαῦλος ζωγράφος (Plutarch, De Adul. et Am. 6), a bad painter. In agreement with this, the standing antithesis to φαῦλος is σπουδαῖος (Plato, Legg. vi. 757 a; vii. 814 e; Philo, De Merc. Mer. 1); the Stoics ranging all men in two classes, either in that of σπουδαῖοι or φαῦλοι, and not recognizing any middle ethical position; so too it stands over against χρηστός (Plutarch, De Aud. Poët. 4); καλός (De Adul. et Am. 9); ἐπιεικὴς (Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iii. 5. 3); ἀστεῖος (Plutarch, De Rep. Stoic. 12); while words with which it is commonly associated are ἄχρηστος (Plato, Lysias, 204 b); εὐτελής (Legg. vii. 806 a); μοχθηρός (Gorg. 486 b); ἀσθενής (Euripides, Med. 803); ἄτοπος (Plutarch, De Aud. Poët. 12; Conj. Prœc. 48); ἐλαφρός (De Adul. et Amic. 32); βλαβερός (Quom. Aud. Poët. 14); κοινός (Prœc. San. 14); ἀκρατής (Gryll. 8); ἀνόητος (De Comm. Not. 11); ἄκαιρος (Conj. Prœc. 14); ἀγεννής (De Adul. et Amic. 2); ἀγοραῖος (Chariton). Φαῦλος, as used in the N. T., has reached the latest stage of its meaning; and τὰ φαῦλα πράξαντες are set in direct opposition to τὰ ἀγαθὰ ποιήσαντες, and condemned as such to “the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29; cf. 3:20; Tit. 2:8; Jam. 3:16; Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. ii. 6. 18; Philo, De Abrah. 3). We have the same antithesis of φαῦλα and ἀγαθά elsewhere (Phalaris, Ep. 144; Plutarch, De Plac. Phil. i. 8); and for a good note upon the word see Schoeman, Agis et Cleomenes, p. 71.

§ lxxxv. εἰλικρινής, καθαρός

THE difference between these words is hard to express, even while one may instinctively feel it. They are continually found in company with one another (Plato, Phileb. 52 d; Eusebius, Prœp. Evan. xv. 15. 4), and words associated with the one are in constant association with the other.
Εἰλικρινής occurs only twice in the N. T. (Phil. 1:10; 2 Pet. 3:1); once also in the Apocrypha (Wisd. 7:25); εἰλικρίνεια three times (1 Cor. 5:8; 2 Cor. 1:12; 2:17). Its etymology, like that of ‘sincere,’ which is its best English rendering, is doubtful, uncertainty in this matter causing also uncertainty in the breathing. Some, as Stallbaum (Plato, Phœdo, 66 a, note), connect with ἴλος, ἴλη (εἴλειν, εἰλεῖν), that which is cleansed by much rolling and shaking to and fro in the sieve; ‘volubili agitatione secretum atque adeo cribro purgatum.’ Another more familiar and more beautiful etymology, if only one could feel sufficient confidence in it, Lösner indicates: ‘dicitur de iis rebus quarum puritas ad solis splendorem exigitur,’ ὁ ἐν τῇ εἵλῃ κεκριμμένος, held up to the sunlight and in that proved and approved. Certainly the uses of εἰλικρινής, so far as they afford an argument, and there is an instinct and traditionary feeling which lead to the correct use of a word, long after the secret of its derivation has been altogether lost, are very much in favour of the former etymology. It is not so much the clear, the transparent, as the purged, the winnowed, the unmingled; thus see Plato, Axioch. 370, and note the words with which it habitually associates, as ἀμιγής (Plato, Menex. 245 d; Plutarch, Quœst. Rom. 26); ἄμικτος (De Def. Or. 34; cf. De Isid. et Os. 61); ἀπαθής (De Adul. et Amic. 33); ἄκρατος (De An. Proc. 27); ἀκραιφνής (Philo, De Mund. Opif. 2); ἀκέραιος (Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. 2); compare Xenophon, Cyrop. viii. 5. 14; Philo, De Opif. Mun. 8; Plutarch, Adv. Col. 5: De Fac. in Orb. 16: πάσχει τὸ μιγνύμενον· ἀποβάλλει γὰρ τὸ εἰλικρινές. In like manner the Etym. Mag.; εἰλικρινὴς σημαίνει τὸν καθαρὸν καὶ ἀμιγῆ ἑτέρου: compare an interesting discussion in Plutarch, De Ei ap. Delph. 20. Various passages, it is quite true, might be adduced in which the notion of clearness and transparency predominates, thus in Philo (Quis Rer. Div. Hœr. 61) εἰλικρινὲς πῦρ is contrasted with the κλίβανος καπνιζόμενος, but they are much the fewer, and may very well be secondary and superinduced.
The ethical use of εἰλικρινής and εἰλικρίνεια first makes itself distinctly felt in the N. T.; there are only approximations to it in classical Greek; as when Aristotle (Ethic. Nic. x. 6) speaks of some who, ἄγευστοι ὄντες ἡδονῆς εἰλικρινοῦς καὶ ἐλευθερίου, ἐπὶ τὰς σωματικὰς καταφεύγουσιν. Theophylact defines εἰλικρίνεια well as καθαρίτης διανοίας καὶ ἀδολότης οὐδὲν ἔχουσαι συνεσκιασμένον καὶ ὔπουλον: and Basil the Great (in Reg. Brev. Int.): εἰλικρινὲς εἶναι λογίζομαι τὸ ἀμιγές, καὶ ἄκρως κεκαθαρμένον ἀπὸ παντὸς ἐναντίου. It is true to this its central meaning as often as it is employed in the N. T. The Corinthians must purge out the old leaven, that they may keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity (εἰλικρινείας) and truth (1 Cor. 5:8). St. Paul rejoices that in simplicity and in that sincerity which comes of God (ἐν εἰλικρινείᾳ Φεοῦ), not in fleshly wisdom, he has his conversation in the world (2 Cor. 1:12); declares that he is not of those who tamper with and adulterate (καπηλεύοντες) the word of God, but that as of sincerity (ἐξ εἰλικρινείας) he speaks in Christ (2 Cor. 2:17).
Καθαρός, connected with the Latin ‘castus,’ with the German ‘heiter,’ in its earliest use (Homer does not know it in any other, Od. vi. 61; xvii. 48), is clean, and this in a physical or non-ethical sense, as opposed to ῥυπαρός. Thus καθαρὸν σῶμα (Xenophon, Œcon. x. 7) is the body not smeared with paint or ointment; and in this sense it is often employed in the N. T. (Matt. 27:59; Heb. 10:22; Rev. 15:6). In another merely physical sense καθαρός is applied to that which is clear and transparent; thus we have καθαρός and διαυγής (Plutarch, De Gen. Soc. 22).
But already in Pindar (Pyth. v. 2, καθαρὰ ἀρετή), in Plato (Rep. vi. 496 d, καθαρὸς ἀδικίας τε καὶ ἀνοσίων ἔργων), and in the tragic poets it had obtained an ethical meaning. The same is not uncommon in the Septuagint, where it often designates cleanness of heart (Job 8:6; 33:9; Ps. 23:4), although far oftener a cleanness merely external or ceremonial (Gen. 9:21; Lev. 14:7). That it frequently runs into the domain of meaning just claimed for εἰλικρινής must be freely admitted. It also is found associated with ἀληθινός (Job 8:6); with ἀμιγής (Philo, De Mund. Opif. 8); with ἄκρατος (Xenophon, Cyrop. viii. 7. 20; Plutarch, Æmil. Paul. 34); with ἄχραντος (De Is. et Osir. 79); with ἀκήρατος (Plato, Crat. 396 b); καθαρὸς σῖτος is wheat with the chaff winnowed away (Xenophon, Œcon. xviii. 8. 9); καθαρὸς στρατός, an army rid of its sick and ineffective (Herodotus, i. 211; cf. iv. 135), or, as the same phrase is used in Xenophon, an army made up of the best materials, not lowered by an admixture of mercenaries or cowards; the flower of the army, all ἄνδρες ἀχρεῖοι having been set aside (Appian, viii. 117). In the main, however, καθαρός is the pure contemplated under the aspect of the clean, the free from soil or stain; thus θρησκεία καθαρὰ καὶ ἀμίαντος (Jam. 1:27), and compare the constant use of the phrase καθαρὸς φόνου, καθαρὸς ἀδικίας (Plato, Rep. vi. 496 d; Acts 18:6), and the like; and the standing antithesis in which the καθαρόν stands to the κοινόν, contemplated as also the ἀκάθαρτον (Heb. 9:13; Rom. 14:14, 20).
It may then be affirmed in conclusion, that as the Christian is εἰλικρινής, this grace in him will exclude all double-mindedness, the divided heart (Jam. 1:8; 4:8), the eye not single (Matt. 6:22), all hypocrisies (1 Pet. 2:1); while, as he is καθαρὸς τῇ καρδίᾳ, by this are excluded the μιάσματα (2 Pet. 2:20; cf. Tit. 1:15), the μολυσμός (2 Cor. 7:1), the ῥυπαρία (Jam. 1:21; 1 Pet. 3:21; Rev. 22:11) of sin. In the first is predicated his freedom from the falsehoods, in the second from the defilements, of the flesh and of the world. If freedom from foreign admixture belongs to both, yet is it a more primary notion in εἰλικρινής, being probably wrapt up in the etymology of the word, a more secondary and super-induced in καθαρός.

§ lxxxvi. πόλεμος, μάχη

Πόλεμος and μάχη occur often together (Homer, Il. i. 177; v. 891; Plato, Tim. 19 e; Job 38:23; Jam. 4:1); and in like manner πολεμεῖν and μάχεσθαι. There is the same difference between them as between our own ‘war’ and ‘battle’; ὁ πόλεμος Πελοποννησιακός, the Peloponnesian War; ἡ ἐν Μαραθῶνι μάχη, the battle of Marathon. Dealing with the words in this antithesis, namely that πόλεμος embraces the whole course of hostilities, μάχη the actual shock in arms of hostile armies, Pericles, dissuading the Athenians from yielding to the demands of the Spartans, admits that these with their allies were a match for all the other Greeks together in a single battle, but denies that they would retain the same superiority in a war, that is, against such as had their preparations of another kind (μάχῃ μὲν γὰρ μιᾷ πρὸς ἅπαντας, Thucydides, i. 141). We may compare Tacitus, Germ. 30: ‘Altos ad prælium ire videas, Chattos ad bellum.’
But besides this, while πόλεμος and πολεμεῖν remain true to their primary meaning, and are not transferred to any secondary, it is altogether otherwise with μάχη and μάχεσθαι. Contentions which fall very short of the shock of arms are continually designated by these words. There are μάχαι of every kind: ἐρωτικαί (Xenophon, Hiero, i. 35); νομικαί (Tit. 3:9; cf. 2 Tim. 2:23); λογομαχίαι (1 Tim. 6:4); σκιαμαχίαι: and compare John 6:52; 2 Tim. 2:24; Prov. 26:20, 21. Eustathius (on Homer, Il. i. 177) expresses these differences well: τὸ πόλεμοί τε μάχαι τε, ἢ ἐκ παραλλήλου δηλοῖ τὸ αὐτό, ἢ καὶ διαφορά τις ἔστι ταῖς λέξεσιν εἴγε μάχεται μέν τις καὶ λόγοις, ὡς καὶ ἡ λογομαχία δηλοῖ. καὶ αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ ποιητὴς μετʼ ὀλίγα φησί, μαχεσσαμένω ἐπέεσσι (ver. 304). καὶ ἄλλως δὲ μάχη μέν, αὐτὴ ἡ τῶν ἀνδρῶν συνεισβολή· ὁ δὲ πόλεμος καὶ ἐπὶ παρατάξεων καὶ μαχίμου καιροῦ λέγεται. Tittmann (De Synon. in N. T. p. 66): ‘Conveniunt igitur in eo quod dimicationem, contentionem, pugnam denotant, sed πόλεμος et πολεμεῖν de pugnâ quæ manibus fit proprie dicuntur, μάχη autem et μάχεσθαι de quâcunque contentione, etiam animorum, etiamsi non ad verbera et cædes pervenerit. In illis igitur ipsa pugna cogitatur, in his sufficit cogitare de contentione, quam pugna plerumque sequitur.’
I may observe before quitting this subject that στάσις (Mark 15:7; Luke 23:19; Acts 24:5; cf. Sophocles, Œdip. Col. 1228), insurrection or sedition, is by Plato distinguished from πόλεμος, in that the one is a civil and the other a foreign strife (Rep. v. 470 b): ἐπὶ γὰρ τῇ τοῦ οἰκείου ἐχθρᾷ στάσις κέκληται, ἐπὶ δὲ τῇ τῶν ἀλλοτρίων πόλεμος.

§ lxxxvii. πάθος, ἐπιθυμία, ὁρμή, ὄρεξις

Πάθος occurs three times in the N. T.; once coordinated with ἐπιθυμία (Col. 3:5; for παθήματα and ἐπιθυμίαι in like manner joined together see Gal. 5:24); once subordinated to it (πάθος ἐπιθυμίας, 1 Thess. 4:5); while on the other occasion of its use (Rom. 1:26), the πάθη ἀτιμίας (“vile affections,” A. V.) are lusts that dishonour those who indulge in them. The word belongs to the terminology of the Greek Schools. Thus Cicero (Tusc. Quœst. iv. 5): ‘Quæ Græci πάθη vocant, nobis perturbationes appellari magis placet quam morbos;’ on this preference see iii.10; and presently after he adopts Zeno’s definition, ‘aversa a rectâ ratione, contra naturam, animi commotio;’ and elsewhere (Offic. ii. 5), ‘motus animi turbatus.’ The exact definition of Zeno, as given by Diogenes Laërtius, is as follows (vii. 1. 63): ἔστι δὲ αὐτὸ τὸ πάθος ἠ ἄλογος καὶ παρὰ φύσιν ψυχῆς κίνησις, ἢ ὁρμὴ πλεονάζουσα. Clement of Alexandria has this in his mind when, distinguishing between ὁρμή and πάθος, he writes (Strom. ii. 13): ὁρμὴ μὲν οὖν φορὰ διανοίας ἐπί τι ἢ ἀπό του· πάθος δέ πλεονάζουσα ὁρμή, ἡ ὑπερτείνουσα τὰ κατὰ τὸν λόγον μέτρα· ἢ ὁρμὴ ἐκφερομένη, καὶ ἀπειθὴς λόγῳ (see Zeller, Philos. d. Griechen, iii. 1. 208).
So far as the N. T. is concerned, πάθος nowhere obtains that wide sense which it thus obtained in the Schools; sense so much wider than that ascribed to ἐπιθυμία, that this last was only regarded as one of the several πάθη of our nature, being coordinated with ὀργή, φόβος, and the rest (Aristotle, Eth. Nic. ii. 4; Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 1. 67). Ἐπιθυμία, on the contrary, in Scripture is the larger word, including the whole world of active lusts and desires, all to which the σάρξ, as the seat of desire and of the natural appetites, impels; while the πάθος is rather the ‘morosa delectatio,’ not so much the soul’s disease in its more active operations, as the diseased condition out of which these spring, the ‘morbus libidinis,’ as Bengel has put it well, rather than the ‘libido,’ the ‘lustfulness’ (‘Leidenschaft’) as distinguished from the ‘lust.’ Theophylact: πάθος ἡ λύσσα τοῦ σώματος, καὶ ὥσπερ πυρετός, ἢ τραῦμα, ἢ ἀλλὴ νόσος. Godet (on Rom. 1:26): ‘Le terme πάθη, passions, a quelque chose de plus ignoble encore que celui de ἐπιθυμίαι, convoitises, au ver. 24; car il renferme une notion plus prononcée de passivité morale, de honteux esclavage.’
Ἐπιθυμία, being τοῦ ἡδέος ὄρεξις, as Aristotle (Rhet. i. 10), ἄλογος ὄρεξις, as the Stoics, ‘immoderata appetitio opinati magni boni, rationi non obtemperans,’ as Cicero (Tusc. Quœst. iii. 11) defined it, is rendered for the most part in our Translation ‘lust’ (Mark 4:19, and often); but sometimes ‘concupiscence’ (Rom. 7:8; Col. 3:5), and sometimes ‘desire’ (Luke 22:15; Phil. 1:23). It appears now and then, though rarely, in the N. T. in a good sense (Luke 22:15; Phil. 1:23; 1 Thess. 2:17; cf. Prov. 10:24; Ps. 102:5); much oftener in a bad; not as ‘concupiscentia’ merely, but as ‘prava concupiscentia,’ which Origen (in Joan. tom. 10) affirms to be the only sense which in the Greek Schools it knew (but see Aristotle, Rhet. i. 11); thus ἐπιθυμία κακή (Col. 3:5); ἐπιθυμίαι σαρκικαί (1 Pet. 2:11); νεωτερικαί (2 Tim. 2:22); ἀνοήτοι καὶ βλαβεραί (1 Tim. 6:9); κοσμικαί (Tit. 2:12); φθορᾶς (2 Pet. 1:4); μιασμοῦ (2 Pet. 2:10); ἀνθρώπων (1 Pet. 4:2); τοῦ σώματος (Rom. 6:12); τοῦ διαβόλου (John 8:44); τῆς ἀπάτης (Ephes. 4:22); τῆς σαρκός (1 John 2:16); τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν (ibid.); and without a qualifying epithet (Rom. 7:7; 1 Pet. 4:3; Jude 16; cf. Gen. 49:6; Ps. 105:14). It is then, as Vitringa, in a dissertation De Concupiscentiâ Vitiosâ et Damnabili (Obss. Sac. p. 598, sqq.), defines it, ‘vitiosa illa voluntatis affectio, quâ fertur ad appetendum quæ illicite usurpantur; aut quæ licite usurpantur, appetit ἀτάκτως;’ this same evil sense being ascribed to it in such definitions as that of Clement of Alexandria (Strom. ii. 20): ἔφεσις καὶ ὄρεξις ἄλογος τοῦ κεχαρισμένου αὐτῇ. Compare iv. 18: ὄρεξιν οὖν ἐπιθυμίας διακρίνουσιν οἱ περὶ ταῦτα δεινοί· καὶ τὴν μέν, ἐπὶ ἡδοναῖς καὶ ἀκολασίᾳ τάττουσιν, ἄλογον οὖσαν· τὴν δὲ ὄρεξιν, ἐπὶ τῶν κατὰ φύσιν ἀναγκαιῶν, λογικὴν ὑπάρχουσαν κίνησιν. In these δεινοί he of course mainly points to Aristotle (thus see Rhet. i. 10). Our English word ‘lust,’ once harmless enough (thus see Deut. 7:7, Coverdale’s Version, and my Select Glossary, s. v.), has had very much the same history. The relation in which ἐπιθυμία stands to πάθος it has been already sought to trace.
Ὁρμή, occurring twice in the N. T. (Acts 14:5; Jam. 3:4), and ὄρεξις, occurring once (Rom. 1:27), are elsewhere often found together; thus in Plutarch (De Amor. Prol. 1; De Rect. Rat. Aud. 18; where see Wyttenbach’s note); and by Eusebius (Prœp. Evang. xiv. 765 d). Ὁρμή, rendered by Cicero on one occasion ‘appetitio’ (Off. ii. 5), ‘appetitus animi’ on another (Fin. v. 7), is thus defined by the Stoics (Plutarch, De Rep. Stoic. 11): ἡ ὁρμὴ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου λόγος ἐστὶ προστακτικὸς αὐτῷ τοῦ ποιεῖν. They explain it further as this ‘motus animi,’ φορὰ ψυχῆς ἐπί τι (see Zeller, Philos. d. Griechen, iii. 1. 206), which, if toward a thing is ὄρεξις, if from it ἔκκλισις. When our Translators render ὁρμή ‘assault’ (Acts 14:5), they ascribe to it more than it there implies. Manifestly there was no ‘assault’ actually made on the house where Paul and Barnabas abode; for in such a case it would have been very superfluous for St. Luke to tell us that they “were ware” of it; but only a purpose and intention of assault or onset, ‘trieb,’ ‘drang,’ as Meyer gives it. And in the same way at Jam. 3:4, the ὁρμή of the pilot is not the ‘impetus brachiorum,’ but the ‘studium et conatus voluntatis.’ Compare for this use of ὁρμή, Sophocles, Philoct. 237; Plutarch, De Rect. Rat. Aud. 1; Prov. 3:25; and the many passages in which ὁρμή is joined with προαίρεσις (Josephus, Antt. xix. 6. 3).
But while the ὁρμή is thus oftentimes the hostile motion and spring toward an object, with a purpose of propelling and repelling it still further from itself, as for example the ὁρμή of the spear, of the assaulting host, the ὄρεξις (from ὀρέγεσθαι) is always the reaching out after and toward an object, with a purpose of drawing that after which it reaches to itself, and making it its own. Very commonly the word is used to express the appetite for food (Plutarch, De Frat. Am. 2; Symp. vi. 2. 1); so too ‘orexis’ in the Latin of the silver age (Juvenal, Sat. vi. 427; xi. 127); in the Platonic Definitions (414 b) philosophy is described as τῆς τῶν ὄντων ἀεὶ ἐπιστήμης ὄρεξις. After what vile enjoyments the heathen, as judged by St. Paul, are regarded as reaching out, and seeking to make these their own, is sufficiently manifest from the context of the one passage in the N. T. where ὄρεξις occurs (Rom. 1:27; cf. Plutarch, Quœst. Nat. 21).

§ lxxxviii. ἱερός, ὅσιος, ἅγιος, ἁγνός

Ἱερός, probably the same word as the German ‘hehr’ (see Curtius, Grundzüge, vol. v. p. 369), never in the N. T., and very seldom elsewhere, implies any moral excellence. It is singular how seldom the word is found there, indeed only twice (1 Cor. 9:13; 2 Tim. 3:15); and only once in the Septuagint (Josh 6:8: ἱεραὶ σάλπιγγες); four times in 2 Maccabees, but not else in the Apocrypha; being in none of these instances employed of persons, who only are moral agents, but always of things. To persons the word elsewhere also is of rarest application, though examples are not wanting. Thus ἱερὸς ἄνθρωπος is in Aristophanes (Ranœ, 652) a man initiated in the mysteries; kings for Pindar (Pyth. v. 97) are ἱεροί, as having their dignity from the gods; for Plutarch the Indian gymnosophists are ἄνδρες ἱεροὶ καὶ αὐτόνομοι (De Alex. Fort. i. 10); and again (De Gen. Soc. 20), ἱεροὶ καὶ δαιμόνιοι ἄνθρωποι: and compare De Def. Orac. 2. Ἱερὸς (τῷ θεῷ ἀνατεθειμένος, Suidas) answers very closely to the Latin ‘sacer’ (‘quidquid destinatum est diis sacrum vocatur’), to our ‘sacred.’ It is that which may not be violated, the word therefore being constantly linked with ἀβέβηλος (Plutarch, Quœst. Rom. 27), with ἄβατος (Ibid.), with ἄσυλος (De Gen. Soc. 24); this its inviolable character springing from its relations, nearer or remoter, to God; and θεῖος and ἱερός being often joined together (Plato, Tim. 45 a). At the same time the relation is contemplated merely as an external one; thus Pillon (Syn. Grees): ‘ἅγιος exprime l’idée de sainteté naturelle et intérieure ou morale; tandis qu’ ἱερός, comme le latin sacer, n’exprime que l’idée de sainteté extérieure ou d’inviolabilité consacrée par les lois ou la coutume.’ See, however, Sophocles, Œdip. Col. 287, which appears an exception to the absolute universality of this rule. Tittman: ‘In vote ἱερός proprie nihil aliud cogitatur, quam quod res quædam aut persona Deo sacra sit, nullâ ingenii morumque ratione habitâ; imprimis quod sacris inservit.’ Thus the ἱερεύς is a sacred person, as serving at God’s altar; but it is not in the least implied that he is a holy one as well; he may be a Hophni, a Caiaphas, an Alexander Borgia (Grinfield, Schol. in N. T., p. 397). The true antithesis to ἱερός is βέβηλος (Plutarch, Quœst. Rom. 27), and, though not so perfectly antithetic, μιαρός (2 Macc. 5:19).
Ὅσιος is oftener grouped with δίκαιος for purposes of discrimination, than with the words here associated with it; and undoubtedly the two constantly keep company together; thus in Plato often (Theœt. 176 b; Rep. x. 615 b; Legg. ii. 663 b); in Josephus (Antt. viii. 9. 1), and in the N. T. (Tit. 1:8); and so also the derivatives from these; ὁσίως and δικαίως (1 Thess. 2:10); ὁσιότης and δικαιοσύνη (Plato, Prot. 329 c; Luke 1:75; Ephes. 4:24; Wisd. 9:3; Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. 48). The distinction too has been often urged that the ὅσιος is one careful of his duties toward God, the δίκαιος toward men; and in classical Greek no doubt we meet with many passages in which such a distinction is either openly asserted or implicitly involved; as in an often quoted passage from Plato (Gorg. 507 b): καὶ μὴν περὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τὰ προσήκοντα πράττων, δίκαιʼ ἂν πράττοι, περὶ δὲ θεοὺς ὅσια. Of Socrates, Marcus Antoninus says (vii. 66), that he was δίκαιος τὰ πρὸς ἀνθρώπους, ὅσιος τὰ πρὸς θεούς: cf. Plutarch, Demet. 24; Charito, i. 10. 4; and a large collection of passages in Rost and Palm’s Lexicon, s. v. There is nothing, however, which warrants the transfer of this distinction to the N. T., nothing which would restrict δίκαιος to him who should fulfil accurately the precepts of the second table (thus see Luke 1:6; Rom. 1:17; 1 John 2:1); or ὅσιος to him who should fulfil the demands of the first (thus see Acts 2:27; Heb. 7:26). It is beforehand unlikely that such distinction should there find place. In fact the Scripture, which recognizes all righteousness as one, as growing out of a single root, and obedient to a single law, gives no room for such an antithesis as this. He who loves his brother, and fulfils his duties towards him, loves him in God and for God. The second great commandment is not coordinated with the first greatest, but subordinated to, and in fact included in, it (Mark 12:30, 31).
If ἱερός is ‘sacer,’ ὅσιος is ‘sanctus’ (= ‘sancitus’), ‘quod sanctione antiquâ et præcepto firmatum’ (Popma; cf. Augustine, De Fid. et Symb. 19), as opposed to ‘pollutus.’ Some of the ancient grammarians derive it from ἅζεσθαι, the Homeric synonym for σέβεσθαι, rightly as regards sense, but wrongly as regards etymology; the derivation indeed of the word remains very doubtful (see Pott, Etym. Forschung. vol. i. p. 126). In classical Greek it is far more frequently used of things than of persons; ὁσία, with βουλή or δίκη understood, expressing the everlasting ordinances of right, which no law or custom of men has constituted, for they are anterior to all law and custom; and rest on the divine constitution of the moral universe and man’s relation to this, on that eternal law which, in the noble words of Chrysippus, is πάντων βασιλεὺς θείων τε καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων: cf. Euripides, Hecuba, 799–801. Thus Homer (Odyss. xvi. 423): οὐδʼ ὁσίη κακὰ ῥάπτειν ἀλλήλοισιν. The ὅσιος, the German ‘fromm,’ is one who reverences these everlasting sanctities, and owns their obligation; the word being joined with εὐσεβής (2 Macc. 12:45), with εὔορκος (Plato, Rep. 263 d), with θεῖος (Plutarch, De Def. Orat. 40); more than once set over against ἐπίορκος (Xenophon). Those things are ἀνοσία, which violate these everlasting ordinances; for instance, a Greek regarded the Egyptian custom of marriage between a brother and sister, still more the Persian between a mother and son, as ‘incestum’ (incastum), μηδαμῶς ὅσια as Plato (Legg. viii. 858 b) calls them, mixtures which no human laws could ever render other than abominable. Such, too, would be the omission of the rites of sepulture by those from whom they were due, when it was possible to pay them; if Antigone, for instance, in obedience to the edict of Creon, had suffered the body of her brother to remain unburied (Sophocles, Antig. 74). What the ὅσιον is, and what are its obligations, has never been more nobly declared than in the words which the poet puts into her mouth:

    οὐδὲ αθένειν τοσοῦτον ᾠόμην τὰ σὰ
    κηρύγμαθʼ, ὥστʼ ἄγραπτα κἀσφαλῆ θεῶν
    νόμιμα δύνασθαι θνητὸν ὄνθʼ ὑπερδραμεῖν (453–5).

Compare an instructive passage in Thucydides, ii. 52, where ἱερά and ὅσια occur together, Plato in like manner (Legg. ix. 878 b) joining them with one another. This character of the ὅσιον as anterior and superior to all human enactments, puts the same antithesis between ὅσια and νόμιμα as exists between the Latin ‘fas’ and ‘jus.’
When we follow ὅσιος to its uses in sacred Greek, we find it, as was inevitable, gaining in depth and intensity of meaning; but otherwise true to the sense which it already had in the classical language. We have a striking testimony for the distinction which, in the minds of the Septuagint translators at least, existed between it and ἅγιος, in the very noticeable fact, that while ὅσιος is used some thirty times as the rendering of חָסיד (Deut. 33:8: 2 Sam. 22:26; Ps. 4:4), and ἅγιος nearly a hundred times as that of קָדוֹשׁ (Exod. 19:6; Num. 6:5; Ps. 15:3), in no single instance is ὅσιος used for this, or ἅγιος for that; and the same law holds good, I believe, universally in the conjugates of these; and, which is perhaps more remarkable still, of the other Greek words which are rarely and exceptionally employed to render these two, none which is used for the one is ever used for the other; thus καθαρός, used for the second of these Hebrew words (Num. 5:17), is never employed for the first; while, on the other hand, ἐλεήμων (Jer. 3:12), πολυέλεος (Exod. 34:6), εὐλαβής (Mic. 7:2), used for the former, are in no single instance employed for the latter.
Ἅγιος = קָדוֹשׁ (on the etymology of which word see the article in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopädie, Heiligkeit Gottes) and ἁγνός have been often considered different forms of one and the same word. At all events, they have in common that root ἈΓ, reappearing as the Latin ‘sac’ in ‘sacer,’ ‘sancio,’ and many other words. It will thus be only natural that they should have much in common, even while they separate off, and occupy provinces of meaning which are clearly distinguishable one from the other. Ἅγιος is a word of rarest use in Attic Greek, though Porson is certainly in error when he says (on Euripides, Med. 750; and compare Pott, Etymol. Forsch. vol. iii. p. 577) that it is never used by the tragic poets; for see Æschylus, Suppl. 851. Its fundamental idea is separation, and, so to speak, consecration and devotion to the service of Deity; thus ἱερὸν μάλα ἅγιον, very holy temple (Xenophon, Hell. iii. 2. 14); it ever lying in the word, as in the Latin ‘sacer,’ that this consecration may be as ἀνάθημα or ἀνάθεμα (see back, page 16). Note in this point of view its connexion with ἁγής ἅγος: which last it may be well to observe is recognized now not as another form of ἄγος, as being indeed no more than the Ionic form of the same word, but fundamentally distinct (Curtius, Grundzüge, p. 155 sqq.). But the thought lies very near, that what is set apart from the world and to God, should separate itself from the world’s defilements, and should share in God’s purity; and in this way ἅγιος speedily acquires a moral significance. The children of Israel must be an ἔθνος ἅγιον, not merely in the sense of being God’s inheritance, a λαὸς περιούσιος, but as separating themselves from the abominations of the heathen nations round (Lev. 19:2; 11:44); while God Himself, as the absolutely separate from evil, as repelling from Himself every possibility of sin or defilement, and as warring against these in every one of his creatures, obtains this title of ἅγιος by highest right of all (Lev. 10:3; 1 Sam. 2:2; Rev. 3:7; 4:8).
It is somewhat different with ἁγνός. Ἁγνεία (1 Tim. 4:12; 5:2) in the Definitions which go by Plato’s name too vaguely and too superficially explained (414 a) εὐλάβεια τῶν πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς ἁμαρτημάτων· τῆς θεοῦ τιμῆς κατὰ φύσιν θεραπεία: too vaguely also by Clement of Alexandria as τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων ἀποχή, or again as φρονεῖν ὅσια (Strom. v. 1); is better defined as ἐπίτασις σωφροσύνης by Suidas (it is twice joined with σωφροσύνη in the Apostolic Fathers: Clement of Rome, 1 Cor. 21; Ignatius, Ephes. 20), as ἐλευθερία πάντος μολυσμοῦ σαρκὸς καὶ πνεύματος by Phavorinus. Ἁγνός (joined with ἀμίαντος, Clement of Rome, 1 Cor. 29) is the pure; sometimes only the externally or ceremonially pure, as in this line of Euripides, ἁγνὸς γάρ εἰμι χεῖρας, ἀλλʼ οὐ τὰς φρένας (Orestes, 1604; cf. Hippolytus, 316, 317, and ἁγνίζειν as = ‘expiare,’ Sophocles, Ajax, 640). This last word never rises higher in the Septuagint than to signify a ceremonial purification (Josh. 3:5; 2 Chron. 29:5; cf. 2 Macc. 1:33); neither does it rise higher in four out of the seven occasions on which it occurs in the N. T. (John 11:55; Acts 21:24, 26; 24:18, which is also true of ἁγνίσμος, Acts 21:26). Ἁγνός however signifies often the pure in the highest sense. It is an epithet frequently applied to heathen gods and goddesses, to Ceres, to Proserpine, to Jove (Sophocles, Philoct. 1273); to the Muses (Aristophanes, Ranœ, 875; Pindar, Olymp. vii. 60, and Dissen’s note); to the Sea-nymphs (Euripides, Iphig. in Aul. 982); above all in Homer to Artemis, the virgin goddess, and in Holy Scripture to God Himself (1 John 3:3). For this nobler use of ἁγνός in the Septuagint, where, however, it is excessively rare as compared to ἅγιος, see Ps. 11:7; Prov. 20:9. As there are no impurities like those fleshly, which defile the body and the spirit alike (1 Cor. 6:18, 19), so ἁγνός is an epithet predominantly employed to express freedom from these (Plutarch, Prœc. Conj. 44; Quœst. Rom. 20; Tit. 2:5; cf. Herzog, Real-Encyclop. s. v. Keuschheit); while sometimes in a still more restricted sense it expresses, not chastity merely, but virginity; as in the oath taken by the priestesses of Bacchus (Demosthenes, Adv. Neœram, 1371): εἰμὶ καθαρὰ καὶ ἁγνὴ ἀπʼ ἀνδρὸς συνουσίας: with which compare ἀκήρατος γάμων τε ἁγνός (Plato, Legg. viii. 840 e; and Euripides, Hippolytus, 1016); ἁγνεία too sometimes owns a similar limitation (Ignatius, ad Polyc. 5).
If what has been said is correct, Joseph, when tempted to sin by his Egyptian mistress (Gen. 39:7–12), approved himself ὅσιος, in reverencing those everlasting sanctities of the marriage bond, which God had founded, and which he could not violate without sinning against Him: “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” he approved himself ἅγιος in that he separated himself from any unholy fellowship with his temptress; he approved himself ἁγνός in that he kept his body pure and undefiled.

§ lxxxix. φωνή, λόγος

ON these words, and on their relation to another, very much has been written by the Greek grammarians and natural philosophers (see Lersch, Sprachphilosophie der Alten, part iii. pp. 35, 45, and passim).
Φωνή, from φάω, ὡς φωτίζουσα τὸ νοούμενον (Plutarch, De Plac. Phil. 19), rendered in our Version ‘voice’ (Matt. 2:18), ‘sound’ (John 3:8), ‘noise’ (Rev. 6:1), is distinguished from ψόφος, in that it is the cry of a living creature (ἡ δὲ φωνὴ ψόφος τίς ἐστιν ἐμψύχου, Aristotle), being sometimes ascribed to God (Matt. 3:17), to men (Matt. 3:3), to animals (Matt. 26:34), and, though improperly, to inanimate objects as well (1 Cor. 14:7), as to the trumpet (Matt. 24:31), to the wind (John 3:8), to the thunder (Rev. 6:1; cf. Ps. 76:19). But λόγος, a word, saying, or rational utterance of the νοῦς, whether spoken (προφορικός, and thus φωνὴ τῶν λόγων, Dan. 7:11) or unspoken (ἐνδιάθετος), being, as it is, the correlative of reason, can only be predicated of men (λόγου κοινωνεῖ μόνον ἄνθρωπος, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα φωνῆς, Aristotle, Probl. ii. 55), of angels, or of God. The φωνή may be a mere inarticulate cry, and this whether proceeding from man or from any other animal; and therefore the definition of the Stoics (Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 1. 38. 55) will not stand: ζώου μέν ἐστι φωνὴ ἀὴρ ὑπὸ ὁρμῆς πεπληγμένος, ἀνθρώπου δέ ἐστιν ἔναρθρος καὶ ἀπὸ διανοίας ἐκπεμπομένη. The transfer here to the φωνή what can only be constantly affirmed of the λόγος; indeed, whenever it sought to set the two in sharp antithesis with one another, this, that the φωνή is a πνεῦμα ἀδιάρθρωτον, is the point particularly made. It is otherwise with the λόγος, of which the Stoics themselves say, λόγος δέ ἐστι φωνὴ σημαντική, ἀπὸ διανοίας ἐκπεμπομένη (ibid.), as of the λέγειν that it is τὸ τὴν νοουμένου πράγματος σημαντικὴν προφέρεσθαι φωνήν. Compare Plutarch (De Anim. Proc. 7): φωνή τίς ἐσιν ἄλογος καὶ ἀσήμαντος, λόγος δὲ λέξις ἐν φωνῇ σημαντικῇ διανοίας. His treatise De Genio Socratis has much on the relations of φωνή and λόγος to one another, and on the superior functions of the latter. By such an unuttered ‘word’ he affirms the Demon of Socrates to have intimated his presence (c 20): τὸ δὲ προσπίπτον, οὐ φθόγγον, ἀλλὰ λόγον ἄν τις εἰκάσειε δαίμονος, ἄνευ φωνῆς ἐφαπτόμενον αὐτῷ τῷ δηλουμένῳ τοῦ νοοῦτος. Πληγῇ γὰρ ἡ φωνὴ προσέοικε τῆς ψωχῆς, διʼ ὤτων βίᾳ τὸν λόγον εἰσδεχομένης, ὅταν ἀλλήλοις ἐντυγχάνωμεν. Ὁ δὲ τοῦ κρείττονος νοῦς ἄγει τὴν εὐφυᾶ ψυχήν, ἐπιθιγγάνων τῷ νοηθέντι, πληγῆς μὴ δεομένην.
The whole chapter is one of deepest theological interest; the more so seeing that the great theologians of the early Church, above all Origen in the Greek (in Joan. tom. ii. § 26), and Augustine in the Latin, loved to transfer this antithesis of the φωνή and the λόγος to John the Baptist and his Lord, the first claiming for himself no more than to be “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (John 1:23), the other emphatically declared to be the Word which was with God, and was God (John 1:1). In drawing out the relations between John and his Lord as expressed by these titles, the Voice and the Word, ‘Vox’ and ‘Verbum,’ φωνή and λόγος, Augustine traces with a singular subtlety the manifold and profound fitnesses which lie in them for the setting forth of those relations. A word, he observes, is something even without a voice, for a word in the heart is as truly a word as after it is outspoken; while a voice is nothing, a mere unmeaning sound, an empty cry, unless it be also the vehicle of a word. But when they are thus united, the voice in a manner goes before the word, for the sound strikes the ear before the sense is conveyed to the mind: yet while it thus goes before it in this act of communication, it is not really before it, but the contrary. Thus, when we speak, the word in our hearts must precede the voice on our lips, which voice is yet the vehicle by which the word in us is transferred to, and becomes also a word in, another; but this being accomplished, or rather in the very accomplishment of this, the voice has passed away, exists no more; but the word which is planted now in the other’s heart, no less than in our own, abides. All this Augustine transfers to the Lord and to his forerunner. John is nothing without Jesus: Jesus just what before He was without John: however to men the knowledge of Him may have come through John. John the first in time, and yet He who came after, most truly having been before, him. John, so soon as he had accomplished his mission, passing away, having no continual significance for the Church of God; but Jesus, of whom he had told, and to whom he witnessed, abiding for ever (Serm. 293. § 3): ‘Johannes vox ad tempus, Christus Verbum in principio æternum. Tolle verbum, quid est vox? Ubi nullus est intellectus, inanis est strepitus. Vox sine verbo aurem pulsat, cor non ædificat. Verumtamen in ipso corde nostro ædificando advertamus ordinem rerum. Si cogito quid dicam, jam verbum est in corde meo: sed loqui ad te volens, quæro quemadmodum sit etiam in corde tuo, quod jam est in meo. Hoc quærens quomodo ad te perveniat, et in corde tuo insideat verbum quod jam est in corde meo, assumo vocem, et assumtâ voce loquor tibi: sonus vocis ducit ad te intellectum verbi, et cum ad te duxit sonus vocis intellectum verbi, sonus quidem ipse pertransit, verbum autem quod ad te sonus perduxit, jam est in corde tuo, nec recessit a meo.’ Cf. Serm. 288. § 3; 289. § 3.

§ xc. λόγος, μῦθος

Λόγος is quite as often ‘sermo’ as ‘verbum,’ a connected discourse as a single word. Indeed, as is well known, there was once no little discussion whether Λόγος in its very highest application of all (John 1:1) should not rather be rendered by ‘Sermo’ than by ‘Verbum’; on which controversy see Petavius. De Trin. vi. 1. 4–6. And, not to dwell on this exceptional and purely theological employment of λόγος, it is frequently in the N. T. employed to express that word which by supereminent right deserves the name, being, as it is, “the word of God” (Acts 4:13), “the word of the truth” (2 Tim. 2:15); thus at Luke 1:2; Jam. 1:22; Acts 6:4. As employed in this sense, it may be brought into relations of likeness and unlikeness with μῦθος, between which and λόγος there was at one time but a very slight difference indeed, one however which grew ever wider, until in the end a great gulf has separated them each from the other.
There are three distinctly marked stages through which μῦθος has past; although, as will often happen, in passing into later meanings it has not altogether renounced and left behind its earlier. At the first there is nothing of the fabulous, still less of the false, involved in it. It stands on the same footing with ῥῆμα, ἔπος, λόγος, and, as its connexion with μύω, μυέω, μύζω sufficiently indicates, must have signified originally the word shut up in the mind, or muttered within the lips (see Creuzer, Symbolik, vol. iv. p. 517); although of this there is no actual trace; for already in Homer it appears as the spoken word (Il. xviii. 254), the tragic poets with such other as form their diction on Homer continuing so to employ it (thus Æschylus, Eumen. 582; Euripides, Phœn. 455), and this at a time when in Attic prose it had nearly or altogether exchanged this meaning for another.
At the second stage of its history μῦθος is already in a certain antithesis to λόγος, although still employed in a respectful, often in a very honourable, sense. It is the mentally conceived as set over against the actually true. Not literal fact, it is often truer than the literal truth, involves a higher teaching; λόγος ψευδής, εἰκονίζων τὴν ἀλήθειαν (Suidas); λόγου μῦθος εἰκῶν καὶ εἴδωλόν ἐστι (Plutarch, Bell. an Pace clar. Athen. 4). There is a λόγος ἐν μύθῳ (‘veritas quæ in fabulæ involucro latet,’ as Wyttenbach, Annott. in Plutarch. vol. ii. part 1, p. 406, gives it), which may have infinitely more value than much which is actual fact, seeing that oftentimes, in Schiller’s words,

    ‘a deeper import
    Lurks in the legend told our infant years
    Than lies upon the truth we live to learn.’

Μῦθος had already obtained this significance in Herodotus (ii. 45) and in Pindar (Olymp. i. 29); and Attic prose, as has been observed, hardly knows any other (Plato, Gorg. 523 a; Phœdo, 61 a; Legg. ix. 872 d; Plutarch, De Ser. Num. Vin.18; Symp. i. 1. 4).
But in a world like ours the fable easily degenerates into the falsehood.

    ‘Tradition, Time’s suspected register,
    That wears out truth’s best stories into tales,’

is ever at work to bring such a result about; ‘story,’ ‘tale,’ and other words not a few, attest this fact; and at its third stage μῦθος is the fable, but not any more the fable undertaking to be, and often being, the vehicle of some lofty truth; it is now the lying fable with all its falsehood and all its pretences to be what it is not: Eustathius: μῦθος παρʼ Ὁμήρῳ ὁ ἁπλῶς λόγος, παρὰ δὲ τοῖς ὕστερον, ὁ ψευδὴς καὶ πεπλασμένος, καὶ ἀληθείας ἔχων ἔμφασιν λόγος: this being the only sense of μῦθος which the N. T. knows (in the Apocrypha it occurs but once, Ecclus. 20:19; in the Septuagint never). Thus we have there μῦθοι βεβήλοι καὶ γραώδεις (1 Tim. 4:7); Ἰουδαϊκοί (Tit. 1:14); σεσοφισμένοι (2 Pet. 1:16; cf. μῦθοι πεπλασμένοι, Diodorus Siculus, 1:93); the other two occasions of the word’s use (1 Tim. 1:4; 2 Tim. 4:4) being not less slighting and contemptuous. ‘Legend,’ a word of such honourable import at the beginning, meaning, as it does, that worthy to be read, but which has ended in designating ‘a heap of frivolous and scandalous vanities’ (Hooker), has had much the same history as μῦθος; very similar influences having been at work to degrade the one and the other. J.H.H. Schmidt (Synonymik, vol. i. p. 100) traces the history of μῦθος briefly and well: ‘Μῦθος ist zu der Bedeutung einer erdichteten Erzählung gekommen, well man den naiven Glauben an die alten Ueberlieferungen, die ihren hergebrachten Namen behielten allmälig verloren hatte. So wird denn μῦθος wie λόγος der Wirklickheit entgegengesetzt, jedoch so dass man zugleich auf die Albernheit und Unwahrscheinlichleit der Erdichtung hindeutet.
It will thus be seen that λόγος and μῦθος, which begin their journey together, or at all events separated by very slight spaces, gradually part company, the antagonism between them becoming ever stronger, till in the end they stand in open opposition to one another, as words no less than men must do, when they come to belong, one to the kingdom of light and of truth, the other to that of darkness and of lies.

§ xci. τέρας, σημεῖον, δύναμις, μεγαλεῖον, ἔνδοξον, παράδοξον, θαυμάσιον

THESE words have this in common, that they are all used to characterize the supernatural works wrought by Christ in the days of his flesh; thus σημεῖον, John 2:11; Acts 2:19; τέρας, Acts 2:22; John 4:48; δύναμις, Mark 6:2; Acts 2:22; μεγαλεῖον, Luke 1:49; ἔνδοξον, Luke 13:17; παράδοξον, Luke 5:26; θαυμάσιον, Matt. 21:15; while the first three and the most usual are in like manner employed of the same supernatural works wrought in the power of Christ by his Apostles (2 Cor. 12:12); and of the lying miracles of Antichrist no less (2 Thess. 2:11). They will be found, on closer examination, not so much to represent different kinds of miracles, as miracles contemplated under different aspects and from different points of view.
Τέρας and σημεῖον are often linked together in the N. T. (John 4:48; Acts 2:22; 4:30; 2 Cor. 12:12); and times out of number in the Septuagint (Exod. 7:3, 9; Deut. 4:34; Neh. 9:10; Dan. 6:27); the first = מוֹפֵת, and the second = אוֹת; often also in profane Greek, in Josephus (Antt. xx. 8. 6; Bell. Jud. Proëm. 11); in Plutarch (Sep. Sap. Con. 3); in Polybius (iii. 112. 8); in Philo (De Vit. Mos. i. 16); and in others. The ancients were fond of drawing a distinction between them, which however will not bear a moment’s serious examination. It is sufficiently expressed in these words of Ammonius: τέρας σημεῖου διαφέρει· τὸ μὲν γὰρ τέρας παρὰ φύσιν γίνεται, τὸ δὲ σημεῖον παρὰ συνήθειαν; and again by Theophylact (in Rom. xv. 19): διαφέρει δὲ σημεῖον καὶ τέρας τῷ τὸ μὲν σημεῖον ἐν τοῖς κατὰ φύσιν λέγεσθαι, καινοπρεπῶς μέντοι γινομένοις, οἷον ἐπὶ τοῦ τὸ τὴν πενθερὰν Πέτρου πυρέττουσαν εὐθέως ἰαθῆναι [Matt. 8:15], τὸ δὲ τέρας ἐν τοῖς μὴ κατὰ φύσιν, οἷον τὸ τὸν ἐκ γενετῆς τυφλὸν ἰαθῆναι [John 9:7]; compare Suicer, Thes. s. v. σημεῖον. But in truth this distinction breaks down so entirely the instant it is examined, as Fritzsche, in a good note on Rom. 15:19, has superabundantly shown, that it is difficult to understand how so many, by repeating, have given allowance to it. An earthquake, however rare, cannot be esteemed παρὰ φύσιν, cannot therefore, according to the distinction traced above, be called a τέρας, while yet Herodotus (vi. 98) gives this name to the single earthquake which in his experience had visited Delos. As little can a serpent snatched up in an eagle’s talons and dropped in the midst of the Trojan army be called beyond and beside nature, which yet Homer (Il. xii. 209) calls Διὸς τέρας αἰγιόχοιο. I may observe that the Homeric idea of the τέρας is carefully discussed by Nägelsbach, Homerische Theologie, p. 168, sqq. On the other hand, beyond and beside nature are the healing with a word of a man lame from his mother’s womb, the satisfying of many thousand men with a few loaves, the raising of a man four days dead from the grave, which all in Scripture go by the name of σημεῖα (Acts 4:16; John 6:14; 11:47); compare Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Con. 3, where a monstrous birth is styled both a τέρας and a σημεῖον.
It is plain then that the distinction must be sought elsewhere. Origen has not seized it, who finds a prophetic element in the σημεῖον, which is wanting in the τέρας (in Rom. 15:19): ‘Signa [σημεῖα] appellantur in quibus cum sit aliquid mirabile, indicatur quoque aliquid futurum. Prodigia [τέρατα] vero in quibus tantummodo aliquid mirabile ostenditur.’ Rather the same miracle is upon one side a τέρας, on another a σημεῖον, and the words most often refer, not to different classes of miracles, but to different qualities in the same miracles; in the words of Lampe (Comm. in Joh. vol. i. p. 513): ‘Eadem enim miracula dici possunt signa, quatenus aliquid sen occultum sen futurum docent; et prodigia, quatenus aliquid extraordinarium, quod stuporem excitat, sistunt. Hinc sequitur signorum notionem latins patere, quam prodigiorum. Omnia prodigia sunt signa, quid in illum usum à Deo dispensata, ut arcanum indicent. Sed omnia signa non sunt prodigia, quid ad signandum res cælestes aliquando etiam res communes adhibentur.’
Τέρας, certainly not derived from τρέω, the terrifying, but now put generally in connexion with τηρέω, as being that which for its extraordinary character is wont to be observed and kept in the memory, is always rendered ‘wonder’ in our Version. It is the miracle regarded as a startling, imposing, amazement-wakening portent or prodigy; being elsewhere frequently used for strange appearances in the heavens, and more frequently still for monstrous births on the earth (Herodotus, vii. 57; Plato, Crat. 393 b). It is thus used very much with the same meaning as the Latin “menstrum” = monestrum (Virgil, Æn. ii. 171: ‘Nec dubiis ea signa dedit Tritonia monstris’), or the Homeric σῆμα (Il. ii. 308: ἔνθʼ ἐφάνη μέγα σῆμα δράκων,). Origen (in Joh. tom. xiii. § 60; in Rom. lib. x. § 12) long ago called attention to the fact that the name τέρατα is never in the N. T. applied to these words of wonder, except in association with some other name. They are often called σημεῖα, often δυνάμεις, often τέρατα καὶ σημεῖα, more than once τέρατα, σημεῖα, καὶ δυνάμεις, but never τέρατα alone. The observation was well worth the making; for the fact which we are thus bidden to note is indeed eminently characteristic of the miracles of the N. T.; namely, that a title, by which more than any other these might seem to hold on to the prodigies and portents of the heathen world, and to have something akin to them, should thus never be permitted to appear, except in the company of some other necessarily suggesting higher thoughts about them.
But the miracles are also σημεῖα. The σημεῖον Basil the Great (in Esai. vii. § 198) defines well: ἔστι σημεῖον πρᾶγμα φανερόν, κεκρυμμένου τινὸς καὶ ἀφανοῦς ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὴν δήλωσιν ἔχον: and presently after, ἡ μέντοι Γραφὴ τὰ παράδοξα, καὶ παραστατικά τινος μυστικοῦ λόγου σημεῖα καλεῖ. Among all the names which the miracles bear, their ethical end and purpose comes out in σημεῖον with the most distinctness, as in τέρας with the least. It is involved and declared in the very word that the prime object and end of the miracle is to lead us to something out of and beyond itself; that, so to speak, it is a kind of finger-post of God (διοσημεία, signs from Zeus, is nounfrequent word in later Greek), pointing for us to this (Isai. 7:11; 38:7); valuable, not so much for what it is, as for what it indicates of the grace and power of the doer, or of his immediate connexion with a higher spiritual world (Mark 16:20; Acts 14:3; Heb. 2:4; Exod. 7:9, 10; 1 Kin. 13:3). Lampe has put this well: ‘Designat sane σημεῖον naturâ suâ rem non tautum extraordinariam, sensusque percellentem, sed etiam talem, quæ in rei alterius, absentis licet et futuræ, significationem atque adumbrationem adhibetur, unde et prognostica (Matt. 16:3) et typi (Matt. 12:39; Luc. 11:29) nec non sacramenta, quale est illud circumcisionis (Rom. 4:11), eodem nomine in N. T. exprimi soleht. Aptissime ergo hæc vox de miraculis usurpatur, ut indicet, quod non tantum admirabili modo fuerint perpetrata, sed etiam sapientissimo consilio Dei ira directa atque ordinata, ut fuerint simul characteres Messiæ, ex quibus cognoscendus erat, sigilla doctrinæ quam proferebat, et beneficiorum gratiæ per Messiam jam præstandæ, nec non typi viarum Dei, earumque circumstantiarum per quas talia beneficia erant applicanda.’ It is to be regretted that σημεῖον is not always rendered ‘sign’ in our Version; that in the Gospel of St. John, where it is of very frequent recurrence, ‘sign’ too often gives place to the vaguer ‘miracle’; and sometimes not without serious loss: thus see 3:2; 7:31; 10:41; and above all, 6:26.
But the miracles are also ‘powers’ (δυνάμεις = ‘virtutes’), outcomings of that mighty power of God, which was inherent in Christ, Himself that “great Power of God” which Simon blasphemously allowed himself to be named (Acts 8:8, 10); these powers being by Him lent to those who were his witnesses and ambassadors. One must regret that in our Version δυνάμεις is translated now “wonderful works” (Matt. 7:22); now “mighty works” (Matt. 11:20; Luke 10:13); and still more frequently ‘miracles’ (Acts 2:22; 1 Cor. 12:10; Gal. 3:5); in this last case giving such tautologies as “miracles and wonders” (Acts 2:22; Heb. 2:4); and always causing something to be lost of the true intention of the word—pointing as it does to new and higher forces (ἐνέργειαι, ἐνεργήματα, 1 Cor. 12:6, 10), ‘powers of the world to come’ (Heb. 6:5), which have entered and are working in this lower world of ours. Delitzsch: ‘Jedes Wunder ist eine Machtäusserung der in die Welt der Schöpfung, welche dem Tode verfallen ist, eintretenden Welt der Erlösung.’ With this is closely connected the term μεγαλεῖα, only occurring at Luke 1:49 (= ‘magnalia’) and at Acts 2:11, in which, as in δυνάμεις, the miracles are contemplated as outcomings of the greatness of God’s power and glory.
They are further styled ἔνδοξα (Luke 13:17), as being works in which the δόξα or glory of God and of the Son of God shone manifestly forth (John 2:11; 11:40; Luke 5:25; Acts 1:13, 16). They are ταράδοξα (Luke 5:26), as being “new things” (Num. 16:30), not hitherto seen (Mark 2:12), and thus beside and beyond all opinion and expectation of men. The word, though finding place only this once in the N. T., is of very frequent occurrence in ecclesiastical Greek. They are θαυμάσια (Matt. 21:15), as provoking admiration and astonishment (8:27; 9:8, 33; 15:31; Mark 5:20; Acts 3:11). Θαύματα they are never called in the N. T., though often in the writings of the Greek Fathers. A word which conjurers, magicians, and impostors of various kinds had so long made their own could only after a while be put to nobler uses again.

§ xcii. κόσμιος, σεμνός, ἰεροπρεπής

Κόσμιος and σεμνός are both epithets applied occasionally to things, but more frequently to persons. They are so nearly allied in meaning as to be often found together; but at the same time are very clearly distinguishable the one from the other.
Κόσμιος, related to κόσμος in its earlier sense as ‘ornament,’ while κοσμικός (Tit. 2:12; Heb. 9:1) is related to it in its secondary sense as ‘world,’ occurs twice in the N. T., being rendered in our Version on one occasion ‘modest’ (1 Tim. 2:9), on the other, ‘of good behaviour’ (1 Tim. 3:2); and corresponds very nearly to the ‘compositus’ of Seneca (Ep. 114), to the ‘compositus et ordinatus’ (De Vit. Beat. 8), of the same. The ‘ornatus,’ by which it is both times rendered in the Vulgate, is strangely at fault, though it is easy enough to see how the fault arose. It is a very favourite word with Plato, and is by him and others constantly applied to the citizen who is quiet in the land, who duly filfils in his place and order the duties which are incumbent on him as such; and is in nothing ἄτακτος (1 Thess. 5:14; cf. 2 Thess. 3:6, 7, 11); but τεταγμένος rather. It is associated by him, as by St. Paul, with σώφρων (Legg. vii. 802 e)—this indeed is everywhere its most constant companion (thus see Lysias, Orat. xxi. 163; Plutarch, Quota. Adul. ab Am. 36, and often); with ἥμερος (Plato, Rep. 410 e); with νόμιμος (Gorg. 504 d); with ἐγκρατής (Phœdr. 256 b); with εὐσταλής (Menex. 90 a); with φρόνιμος (Phœdr. 108 a; Plutarch, De Mul. Virt.); with στάσιμος (Rep. 539 d); with εὐκολός (Ib. 329d); with ἀνδρεῖος (Ib. 399 e); with καλός (Ib. 403 a); with εὔτακτος by Aristotle; with αἰδήμων by Epictetus (Enchir. 40); and by Plutarch (De Garrul. 4); with γενναῖος (Ib.); with εὐάγωγος (Max. cum Princ. 2); opposed by Plato to ἀκόλαστος (Gorg. 494 a). Keeping company as κόσμιος does with epithets such as these, it must be admitted that an explanation of it like the following, ‘of well ordered demeanour, decorous, courteous’ (Webster), dwells too much on the outside of things; the same with still greater truth may be affirmed of Tyndale’s rendering, ‘honestly apparelled’ (1 Tim. 3:3). No doubt the κόσμιος is all this; but he is much more than this. The well ordering is not of dress and demeanour only, but of the inner life; uttering indeed and expressing itself in the outward conversation. Even Bengel has taken a too superficial view of the word, when at 1 Tim. 3:2 he says, ‘Quod σώφρων est intus, id κόσμιος est extra;’ though I cannot refuse the pleasure of quoting what he says in one of his most characteristic notes, unfolding more fully his idea of what in these two epithets is implied: ‘Homo novus festum quiddam est, et abhorrer ab omni eo quod polluturn, confusum, inconditum, immoderatum, vehemens, dissolutum, affectdrum, tetricum, perperum, lacerum, sordidurn est: ipsi necessitati naturæ materiæque, quæ ingerendo, digerendo, egerendo agitatur, parce et dissimulanter paret, corporisque corruptibilis recta habet vestigid.’ This, it must be confessed, goes a good deal deeper than does Philemon, the comic poet, in four lines preserved by Stobæus, describing who is κόσμιος, and who is not. I hardly know whether they are worth quoting, but they follow here:

    οὐκ ἂν λαλῇ τις μικρόν, ἐστὶ κόσμιος·
    οὖδʼ ἂν πορεύηται τις εἰς τὴν γῆν βλέπων·
    ὁ δʼ ἡλικον μὲν ἡ φύσις φέρει λαλῶν,
    μηδὲν ποιῶν δʼ ἄσχημον οὗτος κόσμιος.

But whatever may be implied in κόσμιος, and there is much, something more is involved in σεμνός. If the κόσμιος orders himself well in that earthly πολιτεία, of which he is a support and an ornament, the σεμνός has a grace and dignity not lent him from earth; but which he owes to that higher citizenship which is also his being; one who inspires not respect only, but reverence and worship. In profane Greek σεμνός is a constant epithet of the gods—of the Eumenides, the σεμναὶ θεαί, above all. It is used also constantly to qualify such things as pertain to, or otherwise stand in any very near relation with, the heavenly world. All this will appear the more clearly, when we enumerate some of the epithets wherewith it habitually is linked; which are these: ἅγιος (Plato, Sophist. 249 a; Rep. 290 d; cf. Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 1, where it is joined to ἁγνός and ἄμωμος); ὀρθός (Apol. 412 e); μέγας (Theœtet. 203 e); τίμιος (Crit. 51 a); μέτριος (Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 1); βασιλικός (Plutarch, Quota. Aud. Poët. 8): ἔντιμος (Prœc. Ger. Reip. 31): μεγαλοπρεπής (De Def. Orac. 30); θεῖος and φοβερός. From all this it is plain that there lies something of majestic and awe-inspiring in σεμνός, which does not at all lie in κόσμιος, although this has nothing about it to repel, but all rather to invite and to attract, μαλακὴ καὶ εὐσχήμων βαρύτης being Aristotle’s happy definition of σεμνότης (Rhet. ii. 19), making it as he does the golden mean between ἀρεσκεία, or unmanly assentation, at one extreme, and αὐθαδία, or churlish bearishness, pleasing itself, and careless how much it displeases others, at the other; even as in Plutarch σεμνός is associated with φιλικός (Quom. Am. ab Adul. 26); with ἡδύς (Conyiv. 4, Proëm.); with φιλάνθρωπος, with ἐπιεικής, and other like words; so too with προσηνής in Josephus (Antt. xi. 6. 9). But all this does not exclude the fact that the σεμνός is one who, without in as many words demanding, does yet challenge and inspire reverence and, in our earlier use of the word, worship, the word remaining true to the σέβω with which it is related. How to render it in English is not very easy to determine. On the one occasion that it qualifies things rather than persons (Phil. 4:8), we have translated it by ‘honest,’ an unsatisfactory rendering; and this, even though we include in ‘honest’ all which was included in it at the time when our Translation was made. Alford has here changed ‘honest’ into ‘seemly’; if changed at all, I should prefer ‘honorable.’ On the other three occasions it is rendered ‘grave’ (1 Tim. 3:8; 3:11; Tit. 2:2); while σεμνότης is once ‘honesty’ (1 Tim. 2:2), and twice ‘gravity’ (1 Tim. 3:4; Tit. 2:7). Here too it must be owned that ‘grave’ and ‘gravity’ are renderings which fail to cover the full meaning of their original. Malvolio in Twelfth Night is ‘grave,’ but his very gravity is itself ridiculous; and the word we want is one in which the sense of gravity and dignity, and of these as inviting reverence, is combined; a word which I fear we may look for long without finding.
Ἱεροπρεπής belongs to the best age of the Greek language, being used by Plato (Theag. 122 d) and by Xenophon (Conv. viii. 40), in this unlike ὁσιοπρεπής and ἁγιοπρεπής, which are of later ecclesiastical formation. Like κόσμιος it belongs to that large group of noticeable words, which, being found nowhere else in St. Paul’s Epistles, and indeed nowhere else in the N. T., are yet found in the Pastoral Epistles, some of them occurring several times over in these. The number and character of these words, the new vein of Greek which St. Paul in these later Epistles opens, constitutes a. very remarkable phenomenon, one for which no perfectly satisfactory explanation has hitherto been offered. Alford indeed in his Prolegomena to these Epistles has made a valuable contribution to such an explanation; but after all has been said, it remains perplexing still.
It will follow from what has been already claimed for σεμνός that ἱεροπρεπής is more nearly allied in meaning to it than to κόσμιος. It expresses that which beseems a sacred person, thing, or act. On the one occasion of its use in the N. T. (Tit. 2:3), it is joined with σώφρων, being an epithet applied to women professing godliness, who shall be in their bearing or behaviour ἱεροπρεπεῖς, or “as becometh holiness” (cf. 1 Tim. 2:10). That such behaviour will breed reverence and awe, we may reasonably expect, but this is not implied in ἱεροπρεπής as it is in σεμνός, and here we must find the distinction between them.

§ xciii. αὐθάδης, φίλαυτος

THE etymology of these words holds out, perhaps, the expectation of a greater nearness of meaning than in actual use is the ease. Yet they sometimes occur together, as in Plutarch (De Rect. Rat. Aud. 6), nor can it be denied that ‘the pleaser of himself’ and ‘the lover of himself’ stand in sufficient moral proximity, and are sufficiently liable to be. confounded, to justify an attempt to distinguish them one from the other.
Αὐθάδης (= αὐτοάδης, or αὑτῷ ἁδῶν, as Aristotle informs us, Ethic. M. i. 29), ‘sibi placens,’ occurs twice in the N. T. (Tit. 1:7; 2 Pet. 2:10), and three times in the Old (Gen. 49:3, 7; Prov. 21:24); αὐθάδεια never in the New, but once in the Old (Isai. 24:8).
The αὐθάδης, who etymologically is hardly distinguishable from the αὐτάρεσκος,—but the word is of earlier and more classical use,—is properly one who pleases himself, who is so pleased with his own that nothing pleases hint besides: ‘qui nisi quod ipse facit nihil rectum putat’ (Terence, Adelph. iv. 2. 18). He is one so far overvaluing any determination at which he has himself once arrived that he will not be removed from it; for this element of stubbornness or obstinacy which so often lies in αὐθάδεια see the Prometheus Vinctus of Æschylus, 1073: while Cicero translates it ‘pervicacia.” The man thus obstinately maintaining his own opinion, or asserting his own rights, is reckless of the rights, feelings and interests of others; one indeed who with no motive at all is prompt rather to run counter to these, than to fall in with them: ‘selbstgefällig, selbstsüchtig, anmassend, frech, sich um keinen andern kümmernd, rücksichtlos, grausam’ (Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. iv. p. 315). Thus we find αὐθάδης associated with ἰδιογνώμων (Hippocrates, p. 295, 12. 29); with ἄγριος (Euripides, Med. 102); with πικρός (Ib. 223); with ἀμαθής (Plato); with χαλεπός (Id. Legg. 950 b); with ἀμείλικτος (Philo, Leg. ad Cai. 38); with σκληρός (Polybius, iv. 21; Plutarch, Symp. vii. 2. 1); with ἑπαχθής and αὐθέκαστος (Id. Prœc. Ger. Reip. 31);—which last word does not necessarily bear an unfavourable meaning; thus see Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iv. 7. 4; and lines ascribed to the Stoic Cleanthes, to be found in Eusebius, Prœp. Evarig. xiii. 3;—with θράσυς (Plutarch, Marius, 408; Prov. 21:24); with ἀκόλαστος (De Gen. Soc. 9); with ἰταμός (De Laud. Scip. 16); with φιλόνεικος (Quom. Am. ab Adul. 32); with σκυθρωπός (Isocrates, see Rost and Palm); with ἀλαζών (Prov. 21:24); with προπετής (Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 1); with τολμητής (2 Pet. 2:10): αὐθάδεια with θράσος and τόλμα (Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 31); while the Greek grammarians give such words as ὑπερήφανος, θυμώδης ὑπερόπτης, as its nearest equivalents. Eudemus identifies him with the δύσκολος, and describes him as regulating his life with no respect to others (μηδὲν πρὸς ἕτερον ζῶν, Ethic. Eudem. iii. 7. 4; cf. Ethic. Nic. iv. 6. 9). He is the ‘præfractus,’ ‘pertinax,’ ‘morosus’ of the Latins, or, going nearer to the etymological heart of the word, the German ‘eigensinnig’; αὐθάδης is by Luther so translated; while our own ‘peevish’ and ‘humorous’ in their earlier uses both represent some traits and aspects of his character. He is opposed to the εὐπροσήγορος, the easy of access or affable (Plutarch, Prœc. Reip. Ger. 31). In the unlovely gallery of portraits which Theophrastus has sketched for us, the αὐθάδης finds his place (Char. § 3); but this his rudeness of speech, his surliness, his bearishness as we should now say, is brought too exclusively out, as is evident from the very superficial and inadequate definition of αὐθάδεια by Theophrastus given, as being ἀπήνεια ὁμιλίας ἐν λόγοις.
Αὐθάδεια, which thus cares to please nobody, is by Aristotle (Rhet. ii. 19) set over against ἀρέσκεια, which is the ignoble seeking to please everybody, the endeavouring at all costs of dignity and truth to stand well with all the world; these two being in his ethical system the opposite extremes, between which σεμνότης constitutes the mean (see p. 347). There is always something to be learned from the hypocoristic phrases with which it is sought to give a fair show to an ugly thing; and it is worth therefore noticing that the αὐθάδης is called by his flatterers σεμνός and μεγαλοπρεπής (Aristotle, Rhet. i. 9. 3), while on the other hand a worthy freedom of speech (παῤῥησία) may be misnamed αὐθάδεια by those who resent, or would fain induce others to resent it. It was this hateful name which the sycophants of the younger Dionysius gave to the manly boldness of speech which Dion used, when they desired to work his ruin with the tyrant; (Plutarch, Dion, 8).
Bengel profoundly remarks, and all experience bears out the truth of his remark, that there are men who are ‘simul et molles et duri’; at once soft and hard, soft to themselves, and hard to all the world besides; these two dispositions being in fact only two aspects and outcomings of the same sin, namely the wrong love of self. But if αὐθάδης expresses this sin on one side, φίλαυτος expresses it on the other. Having dealt with that, we may now proceed to treat a little of this. It need hardly be observed that when bad men are called φίλαυτοι, or ‘lovers of themselves,’ as by St. Paul they are on the one occasion when the word is employed in the N. T. (2 Tim. 3:2), the word can be only abusively applied; for, indeed, he is no true ‘lover of himself’ who loves himself overmuch, more than God’s law allows, or loves that in himself which he ought not to love but to hate, that which constitutes his sickness and may in the end be his death, and not his health. All this, when treating of this word, Aristotle brings out with admirable clearness and distinctness, and with an ethical feeling after, and in part at least anticipation of, that great word of Christ, “He that loveth his life shall lose it,” which is profoundly interesting to note (Ethic. Nic. ix. 8).
The φίλαυτος is exactly our ‘selfish’ (Plutarch, Cons. ad Apoll. 19; Quom. Am. ab Adul. 26), and φιλαυτία ‘selfishness’; but this contemplated rather as an undue sparing of self and providing things easy and pleasant for self, than as harshness and rigour toward others. Thus φίλαυτος is joined with φιλόψυχος by Plutarch (Dion, 46), this last epithet indicating one who so loves his life that he seeks ignobly to save it. Before the English language had generated the word ‘selfishness,’ which it only did toward the middle of the seventeenth century, there was an attempt made to supply an evident want in our ethical terminology by aid of ‘philauty’; thus see Beaumont’s Psyche, passim, and other similar poems. ‘Philauty,’ however, never succeeded in obtaining any firm footing among us, and ‘suicism,’ which was a second attempt, as little; an appeal to the Latin proving as unsuccessful as that to the Greek. Nor was the deficiency effectually supplied till the Puritan divines, drawing upon our native stock of words, brought in ‘selfish’ and ‘selfishness’ (see my English Past and Present, 10th ed. p. 171). One of these same divines helps me to a comparison, by aid of which the matter of the likeness and difference between αὐθάδης and φίλαυτος may be brought not inaptly to a point. He likens the selfish man to the hedgehog, which, rolling itself up in a ball, presents only sharp spines to those without, keeping at the same time all the soft and warm wool for itself within. In some sinful men their αὐθάδεια, the ungracious bearing towards others, the self-pleasing which is best pleased when it displeases others, is the leading feature of their character; in others the φιλαυτία, the undue providing of all which shall minister to their own ease, and keep hardness aloof from them. In each of these there is potentially wrapped up the other; but as the one sinful tendency predominates or the other, the man will merit the epithet of αὐθάδης or φίλαυτος.

§ xciv. ἀποκάλυψις, ἐπιφάνεια, φανέρωσις

Ἀποκάλυψις is only once found in the books of the O. T. canon, namely at 1 Sam. 20:30; and there in altogether a subordinate sense, as = ‘denudatio’; three times in the Apocrypha (Ecclus. 11:27; 22:22; 41:23); but as little in this as in the other does it obtain that grander meaning which it has acquired in the N. T. In this last it is predominantly, though not exclusively, a Pauline word; and, occurring altogether some nineteen times, being rendered sometimes ‘coming’ (1 Cor. 1:7), sometimes ‘manifestation’ (Rom. 8:19), sometimes ‘appearing’ (1 Pet. 1:7), and once ‘to lighten’ (εἰς ἀποκάλυψιν, Luke 2:32), has always that auguster sense of an unveiling by God of Himself to his creatures, to which we have given the more Latin term, revelation. The same auguster sense the verb ἀποκαλύπτειν in the N. T. commonly possesses; but not there for the first time, this sense having been anticipated in the great apocalyptic book of the Old Covenant (see Dan. 2:19, 22, 28). Nor does it always possess this, sometimes simply meaning ‘to uncover’ or ‘to lay bare’ (Luke 12:2; Prov. 21:19).
Ἀποκάλυψις, as St. Jerome would fain persuade us, is nowhere to be found outside of sacred Greek (Comm. in Gal. i. 12): ‘Verbum ἀποκαλύψεως proprie Scripturarum est; a nullo sapientum seculi apud Græcos usurpatum. Unde mihi videntur quemadmodum in aliis verbis, quæ de Hebræo in Græcum LXX Interpretes transtulerunt, ita et in hoc magnopere esse conati ut proprietatem peregrini sermonis exprimerent, nova novis rebus verba fingentes, et sonare, quum quid rectum et velatum ablato desuper operimento ostenditur et profertur in lucem.’ In thus claiming the word as proper and peculiar to the Scriptures, and not to be found in any writings of the wise of this world, St. Jerome is in error; although the total absence in his time of exhaustive Lexicons or Concordances of the great writers of antiquity may well excuse his mistake. Not to speak of ἀποκαλύπτειν, which is used several times by Plato (Protag. 352 d; Gorg. 460 a), ἀποκάλυψις itself is far from unfrequent in the later Greek of Plutarch (see Paul. Æmil. 14; Cato Maj. 20, where it is = γύμνωσις; Quom. Am. ab Adul. 32; and elsewhere). Thus far indeed Jerome has right, namely, that the religious use of the word was altogether strange to the heathen world, while the corresponding ‘revelatio’ was absolutely unknown to classical Latin, having first come to the birth in the Latin of the Church. Elsewhere (Ep. cxxi. ad Algas.) he makes a somewhat similar mistake in respect of the verb καταβραβεύειν (Col. 2:18), which he claims as a Cilicism of St. Paul’s. It occurs in a document cited by Demosthenes, Mid. p. 544.
The word in its higher Christian sense has been explained by Arethras as ἡ τῶν κρυπτῶν μυστηρίων δήλωσις, καταυγαζομένου τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς, εἴτε διὰ θείων ὀνειράτων, εἴτε καθʼ ὕπαρ, ἐκ θείας ἐλλάμψεως. Joined with ὀπτασία (2 Cor. 12:1), it is by Theophylact (see Suicer, s. v.) distinguished from it in this, that the ὀπτασία is no more than the thing shown or seen, the sight or vision, which might quite possibly be seen without being understood; while the ἀποκάλυψις includes not merely the thing shown and seen, but the interpretation or unveiling of the same. His words are as follows: ἡ ἀποκάλυψις πλέον τι ἔχει τῆς ὀπτασίας· ἡ μὲν γὰρ μόνον βλεπειν δίδωσιν· αὕτη δὲ καί τι βαθύτερον τοῦ ὁρωμένου ἀπογυμνοῖ. Thus Daniel’s vision of the four beasts was seen but not understood, until one that stood by made him know the interpretation of the things (Dan. 7:15, 16, 19, 23; cf. 8:15, 19; Zech. 1:17). On this distinction see more in Lücke’s Einleitung in die Offenbarung des Johannes, 2nd ed. p. 26. What holds good of the ὀπτασία will of course hold good of the ὅραμα (Matt. 17:9; Acts 7:31; 10:19), and of the ὅρασις (Acts 2:17) as well; between which and the ὀπτασία it would scarcely be possible to draw any distinction that would stand.
Ἐπιφάνεια, which Tertullian renders ‘apparentia’ (Adv. Marc. i. 19), occurs only twice in the Septuagint (2 Sam. 7:23, μεγαλωσύνη καὶ ἐπιφάνεια [cf. δόξα καὶ ἐπιφάνεια, Plutarch, De Tranq. Anim. 11]; Amos 5:22): but often in the Second Maccabees; being always there used of God’s supernatural apparitions in aid of his people; thus 2:21 (ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ἐπιφάνειαι); 3:24; 5:4; 12:22; 15:27. Already in heathen use this grand word was constantly employed to set forth these gracious appearances of the higher Powers in aid of men; so Dionysius Hal. (ii. 68), and Plutarch (Ne Suav. Viv. Posse, 22; Them. 30); ἐπιφαίνειν, too, in the same way (De Def. Orac. 30); though sometimes obtaining a much humbler use (Anim. an Corp. Aff. 2; Polybius, ii. 29. 7). The word is found only six times in the N. T., always in the writings of St. Paul. On five occasions our Translators have rendered it ‘appearing’; on the sixth, however (2 Thess. 2:8), they seem to have shrunk from what looked to them as a tautology, ‘appearance of his coming,’ as in the earlier Protestant Versions it stood; and have rendered ἐπιφάνεια τῆ παρουσίας, ‘the brightness of his coming,’ giving to the word a meaning not properly its own. It expresses on one occasion (2 Tim. 1:10, and so ἐπιφαίνειν, Tit. 2:11; 3:4) our Lord’s first Epiphany, his εἰς ἀνθρώπους ἔνσαρκος ἐπιφάνεια: but on all the other his second appearing in glory, the ἐπιφάνεια τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ (2 Thess. 2:8), τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου Θεοῦ (Tit. 2:13; 1 Tim. 6:14; 2 Tim. 4:1, 8; cf. Acts 20:20).
If we bring these two into comparison, ἀποκάλυψις is the more comprehensive, and, grand as is the other, the grander word. It sets forth nothing less than that progressive and immediate unveiling of Himself to his Church on the part of the otherwise unknown and unknowable God, which has run through all ages; the body to which this revelation is vouchsated being thereby designated or indeed constituted as his Church, the object of his more immediate care, and the ordained diffuser of this knowledge of Him to the rest of mankind. The world may know something of Him, of his eternal power and Godhead, from the things which are seen; which things except for the darkening of men’s hearts through sin would have told of Him much more clearly (Rom. 1:20); but there is no ἀποκάλυψις save to the Church. We may say of the ἐπιφάνειαι that they are contained in the ἀποκάλυψις, being separate points or moments therein. If God is to be immediately known to men, He must in some shape or other appear to them, to those among them whom He has chosen for this honour. Epiphanies must be Theophanies as well; and as such the Church has claimed not merely such communications made to men as are recorded at Gen. 18:1; 28:13; but all in which the Angel of the Lord or of the Covenant appears; such as Gen. 16:7; Josh. 5:13–15; Judg. 2:1; 6:11; 13:3. All these it has regarded as preludings, on the part of the Son, of his Incarnation; itself the most glorious Epiphany that as yet has been, even as his second coming is an Epiphany more glorious still which is yet in the future.
Φανέρωσις is only twice used in the N. T. (1 Cor. 12:7; 2 Cor. 4:2). Reaching far on both these occasions, it does not reach to the very highest of all; it does not set forth, as do the words we have just been treating, either the first or the second appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; although that it could have borne even this burden is sufficiently plain from the fact that the verb φανεροῦσθαι is continually employed of both; thus of the first coming at 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 9:26; 1 John 1:2; 1 Pet. 1:20; and of the second at Col. 3:4; 1 Pet. 5:4; 1 John 3:2; and for other august uses of it see John 2:11; 21:1; and φανέρωσις itself is not seldom so employed by the Fathers. Thus Athanasius (quoted by Suicer, s. v.) calls the Incarnation ἡ ἐν σώματι φανέρωσις τοῦ πατρικοῦ Λόγου. It is hard to trace any reason why φανέρωσις should not have been claimed to set forth the same glorious facts which these other words, to which in meaning it is so nearly allied, have done; but whether by accident or of intention this honour has not been vouchsafed it.

§ xcv. ἄλλος, ἕτερος

Ἄλλος, identical with the Latin ‘alius,’ is the numerically distinct; thus Christ spoke we are told ‘another’ parable, and still ‘another,’ but each succeeding one being of the same character as those which He had spoken before (Matt. 13:23, 24, 31, 33), ἄλλην therefore in every case. But ἕτερος, equivalent to the Latin ‘alter,’ to the German ‘ander’ (on which last word see an instructive article in Grimm’s Wörterbuch), superadds the notion of qualitative difference. One is ‘divers,’ the other is ‘diverse.’ There are not a few passages in the N. T. whose right interpretation, or at any rate their full understanding, will depend on an accurate seizing of the distinction between these words. Thus Christ promises to his disciples that He will send, not ἕτερον, but ἄλλον, Παράκλητον, (John 14:16), ‘another’ Comforter therefore, similar to Himself. The dogmatic force of this ἄλλον has in controversy with various sects of πνευματομάχοι been often urged before now; thus by Petavius (De Trin. ii. 13. 5): ‘Eodem pertinet et Paracleti cognomen, maxime cum Christus alium Paracletum, hoc est, parem sibi, et æqualem eum nominat. Quippe vox alius dignitate ac substantiâ prorsus eundem, et æqualem fore demonstrat, ut Gregorius Nazianzenus et Ambrosius admonent.’
But if in the ἄλλος there is a negation of identity, there is oftentimes much more in ἕτερος, the negation namely, up to a certain point, of resemblance; the assertion not merely of distinctness but of difference. A few examples will illustrate this. Thus St. Paul says, ‘I see another law’ [ἕτερον νόμον], a law quite different from the law of the spirit of life, even a law of sin and death, ‘working in my members’ (Rom. 7:23). After Joseph’s death ‘another king arose’ in Egypt (βασιλεὺς ἕτερος, Acts 7:18; cf. Exod. 1:8), one, it is generally supposed, of quite another dynasty, at all events of quite another spirit, from his who had invited the children of Israel into Egypt, and so hospitably entertained them there. The ὁδὸς ἑτέρα and καρδία ἑτέρα which God premises that He will give to his people are a new way and a new heart (Jer. 39:39; cf. Deut. 29:22). It was not ‘another spirit’ only but a different (ἕτερον πνεῦμα) which was in Caleb, as distinguished from the other spies (Num. 14:24). In the parable of the Pounds the slothful servant is ἕτερος (Luke 19:18). When Iphigenia about to die exclaims, ἕτερον, ἕτερον αἰῶνα καὶ μοῖραν οἰκήσομεν, a different life with quite other surroundings is that to which she looks forward (Euripides, Iphig. in Aul. 1516). The spirit that has been wandering through dry places, seeking rest in them in vain, takes ‘seven other spirits’ (ἕτερα πνεύματα), worse than himself, of a deeper malignity, with whose aid to repossess the house which he has quitted for while (Matt. 12:45). Those who are crucified with the Lord are ἕτεροι, δύο, κακοῦργοι, ‘two others, malefactors,’ as it should be pointed (Luke 23:32; cf. Bornemann, Schol. in Lucam, p. 147); it would be inconceivable and revolting so to confound Him and them as to speak of them as ἄλλοι δύο. It is only too plain why St. Jude should speak of ἑτέρα σάρξ (ver. 7), as that which the wicked whom he is denouncing followed after (Gen. 19:5). Christ appears to his disciples ἐν ἑτέρᾳ μορφῇ (Mark 16:12), the word indicating the mighty change which had passed upon Him at his resurrection, as by anticipation at his Transfiguration, and there expressed in the same way (Luke 9:29). It is χείλεσιν ἑτέροις, with altogether other and different lips, that God will speak to his people in the New Covenant (1 Cor. 14:21); even as the tongues of Pentecost are ἕτεραι γλώσσαι (Acts 2:4), being quite different in kind from any other speech of men. It would be easy to multiply the passages where ἕτερος could not be exchanged at all, or could only be exchanged at a loss, for ἄλλος, as Matt. 11:3; 1 Cor. 15:40; Gal. 1:6. Others too there are where at first sight ἄλλος seems quite as fit or a fitter word; where yet ἕτερος retains its proper force. Thus at Luke 22:65 the ἕτερα πολλά are ‘multa diversi generis convicia,’ blasphemous speeches now of one kind, now of another; the Roman soldiers taunting the Lord now from their own point of view, as a pretender to Cæsar’s throne; and now from the Jewish, as claiming to be Son of God. At the same time it would be idle to look for qualitative difference as intended in every case where ἕτερος is used; thus see Heb. 11:36, where it would be difficult to trace anything of the kind.
What holds good of ἕτερος, holds good also of the compounds into which it enters, of which the N. T. contains three; namely, ἑτερόγλωσσος (1 Cor. 14:21), by which word the Apostle intends to bring out the non-intelligibility of the tongues to many in the Church; it is true indeed that we have also ἀλλόγλωσσος (Ezek. 3:6); ἑτεροδιδασκαλεῖν (1 Tim. 1:3), to teach other things, and things alien to the faith; ἑτεροζυγεῖν (2 Cor. 6:14), to yoke with others, and those as little to be yoked with as the ox with the ass (Deut. 22:10); cf. ἑτεροκλινής (Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 11), swerving aside; ἑτερογνώμων (ibid.), an epithet applied to Lot’s wife (Gen. 19:26). So too we have in ecclesiastical Greek ἑτεροδοξία, which is not merely another opinion, but one which, in so far as it is another, is a worse, a departure from the faith. The same reappears in our own ‘heterogeneous,’ which is not merely of another kind, but of another and a worse kind. For this point also deserves attention, and is illustrated by several of the examples already adduced; namely, that ἄλλο ἕτερος is very constantly, not this other and different, ἄλλο καὶ διάφορον, only, but such with the farther subaudition, that whatever difference there is, it is for the worse. Thus Socrates is accused of introducing into Athens ἕτερα καινὰ δαιμόνια (Xenophon, Mem. i. 1. 1); δαίμων ἕτερος (Pindar, Pyth. iii. 61) is an evil or hostile deity; ἕτεραι θυσίαι (Æschylus, Agamemnon, 151), ill-omened sacrifices, such as bring back on their offerer not a blessing but a curse; δημαγωγοὶ ἕτεροι (Plutarch, Pericles, 3) are popular leaders not of a different only, but of a worse stamp and spirit than was Pericles. So too in the Septuagint other gods than the true are invariably ἕτεροι θεοί (Deut. 5:7; Judg. 10:13; Ezek. 42:18; and often); compare Aristophanes (Ran. 889): ἕτεροι γάρ εἰσιν οἷσιν εὔχομαι θεοῖς. A barbarous tongue is ἑτέρα γλῶσσα (Isai. 28:11), the phrase being linked with φαυλισμὸς χειλέων.
We may bring this distinction practically to bear on the interpretation of the N. T. There is only one way in which the fine distinction between ἕτερον and ἄλλο, and the point which St. Paul makes as he sets the one over against the other at Gal. 1:6, 7, can be reproduced for the English reader. ‘I marvel,’ says the Apostle, ‘that ye are so soon removed from them that called you into the grace of Christ unto another (ἕτερον) Gospel, which is not another’ (ἄλλο). Dean Alford for the first ‘other’ has substituted ‘different’; for indeed that is what St. Paul intends to express, namely, his wonder that they should have so soon accepted a Gospel different in character and kind from that which they had already received, which therefore had no right to be called another Gospel, to assume this name, being in fact no Gospel at all; since there could not be two Gospels, varying the one from the other. Cocceius: ‘Vos transferimini ad aliud Evangelium quod aliud nec est, nec esse potest.’
There are other passages in the N.T. where the student may profitably exercise himself with the enquiry why one of these words is used in preference to the other, or rather why both are used, the one alternating with, or giving partial place to, the other. Such are 1 Cor. 12:8–10; 2 Cor. 11:4; Acts 4:12.

§ xcvi. ποιέω, πράσσω

THERE is a long discussion in Rost and Palm’s Lexicon, s. v. πράσσω, on the distinction between these words; and the references there given sufficiently attest that this distinction has long and often occupied the attention of scholars; this occupation indeed dating as far back as Prodicus (see Plato, Charmides, 162 d). It is there rightly observed that ποιεῖν brings out more the object and end of an act, πράσσειν the means by which this object is attained, as, for instance, hindrances moved out of the way, and the like; and also that the idea of continuity and repetition of action is inherent in πράσσειν = ‘agere’ or ‘gerere,’ ‘handeln,’ ‘to practise’; but not necessarily in ποιεῖν = ‘facere,’ ‘machen,’ which may very well be the doing once and for all; the producing and bringing forth something which being produced has an independent existence of its own; as ποιεῖν παιδίον, of a woman, ποιεῖν καρπούς, of a tree; in the same way, ποιεῖν εἰρήνην, to make peace, while πράσσειν εἰρήνην is no more than to negotiate with the view to peace (see Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. iii. p. 408); that attaining what this is only aiming to attain. Πράττειν and ποιεῖν are in this sense often joined together by Demosthenes, and with no tautology; thus of certain hostile designs which Philip entertained he assures the Athenians ὅτι πράξει ταῦτα καὶ ποιήσει (Orat. xix. 373), he will busy himself with the bringing about of these things, and he will effect them (cf. Xenophon, Cyrop. ii. 2. 30; Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. vi. 5): πράσσειν, in the words of a recent German scholar, ist die geschäftige, ποιεῖν die schaffende Thätigkeit.
How far can we trace the recognition of any such distinction in the Greek of the N. T.? There are two or three passages where it is difficult not to recognize an intention of the kind. It is hard, for example, to suppose that the change of words at John 3:20, 21 is accidental; above all when the same reappears at 5:29. In both places it is the φαῦλα πράσσειν, which is set, in the first instance, over against the ποιεῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν, in the second against the ποιεῖν τὰ ἀγαθά, just as at Rom. 7:19 we have ποιεῖν ἀγαθόν and πράσσειν κακόν. It would of course be idle to assert that the ποιεῖν relates only to good things, for we have ποιεῖν ἀνομίαν (Matt. 13:41), ἁμαρτίαν (2 Cor. 5:21), τὰ κακά (Rom. 3:8); not less idle to affirm that πράσσειν is restricted to ill things; for, to go no farther than the N. T., we have πράσσειν ἀγαθόν (Rom. 9:11). Still it is not to be denied that very often where the words assume an ethical tinge, the inclination makes itself felt to use ποιεῖν in a good and πράσσειν in an evil sense; the latter tendency appearing in a more marked way in the uses of πράξις, which, occurring six times in the N. T. (namely at Matt. 16:27; Luke 23:51; Acts 19:18; Rom. 8:13; 12:4; Col. 3:9), has in all these places except the first an evil signification, very much like our ‘practices’; cf. Polybius, iv. 8. 3 (πράξεις, ἀπάται, ἐπιβουλαί); v. 96. 4.
Bengel, at John 3:20, gives the proper explanation of this change of words: ‘πράσσων. Malitia est irrequieta; est quiddam operosius quam veritas. Hinc verbis diversis notantur, uti cap. 5:29.’ There may be a busy activity in the working of evil, yet not the less it is true that ‘the wicked worketh a deceitful work,’ and has nothing to show for all his toil at the end, no fruit that remains. Then too evil is manifold, good is one; they are ἕργα τῆς σαρκός (Gal. 5:22), for these works are many, not merely contradicting good, but often contradicting one another; but it is καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματος (Gal. 5:19), for there is an inner consent between all the parts of good, a ‘consensus virtutum,’ as Cicero calls it, knitting them into a perfect and harmonious whole, and inviting us to contemplate them as one. Those are of human art and device, this of Divine nature. Thus Jerome (in loco): ‘In carne opera posuit [Paulus], et fructus in spiritu; quia vitia in semetipsa finiuntur et pereunt, virtutes frugibus pullulant et redundant.’ Here is enough to justify and explain the fact that the inspired reporter of our Lord’s words has on these two occasions (John 3:21, 22) exchanged the φαῦλα πράσσειν for the ποιεῖν ἀλήθειαν, ποιεῖν τὰ ἀγαθά, the practising of evil for the doing of good. Let me add in conclusion a few excellent words of Bishop Andrewes: “There are two kinds of doers: 1. ποιηταί, and 2. πρακτικοί, which the Latin likewise expresseth in 1. ‘agere,’ and 2. ‘facere.’ ‘Agere,’ as in music, where, when we have done singing or playing, nothing remaineth: ‘facere,’ as in building, where, after we have done, there is a thing permanent. And ποιηταί, ‘factores,’ they are St. James’ doers. But we have both the words in the English tongue: actors, as in a play; factors, as in merchandise. When the play is done, all the actors do vanish: but of the factors’ doing, there is a gain, a real thing remaining.” On the distinction between πράξις and ἔργον see Wyttenbach’s note on Plutarch’s Moralia, vol. vi. p. 601.

§ xcvii. βωμός, θυσιαστήριον

THERE was occasion to note, in dealing with the words προφητεύω and μαντεύομαι (§ 6), the accuracy with which in several instances the lines of demarcation between the sacred and profane, between the true religion and the false, are maintained in the words which, reserved for the one, are not permitted to be used for the other, each retaining its proper and peculiar term. We have another example of this same precision here, in the fact of the constant use in the N. T. of θυσιαστήριον, occurring as it does more than twenty times, for the altar of the true God, while, on the one occasion when a heathen altar needs to be named (Acts 17:23), βωμός is substituted in its stead.
But, indeed, there was but a following here of the good example which the Septuagint Translators had shown, the maintenance of a distinction which these had drawn. So resolute were they to mark the difference between the altars of the true God and those on which abominable things were offered, that there is every reason to suppose they invented the word θυσιαστήριον for the purpose of maintaining this distinction; being indeed herein more nice than the inspired Hebrew Scriptures themselves; for these, while they have a word which they use for heathen altars, and never for the altars of the true God, namely בָּמָה (Isai. 15:2; Amos 7:9), make no scruple in using מִזְבֵּהַ now for the one (Lev. 1:9), and now for the other (Isai. 17:8). I need hardly observe that θυσιαστήριον, properly the neuter of θυσιαστήριος, as ἱλαστήριον (Exod. 25:17; Heb. 9:5) of ἱλαστήριος, nowhere occurs in classical Greek; and it is this coining of it on the part of the Septuagint Translators which Philo must have had in mind when he implied that Moses invented the word (De Vit. Mos. iii. 10). With all tiffs the Greek of the O. T. does not invariably observe this distinction. I cannot indeed accept Num. 23:1, 2 as instances of a failure so to do; for what altars could be more truly heathen than those which Balaam reared? Still there are three occasions, one in Second Maccabees (13:8), and two in Ecclesiasticus (50:12, 14), where βωμός designates an altar of the true God; these two Books however, it must be remembered, hellenize very much. So too there are occasions on which θυσιαστήριον is used to designate an idol altar; for example, Judg. 2:2; 6:25; 2 Kin. 16:10. Still these are rarest exceptions, and sometimes the antagonism between the words comes out with the most marked emphasis. It does so, for example, at 2 Macc. 10:2, 3; but more remarkably still at 1 Macc. 1:59, where the historian recounts how the servants of Antiochus offered sacrifices to Olympian Jove on an altar which had been built over the altar of the God of Israel (θυσιάζοντες ἐπὶ τὸν βωμόν, ὃς ἦν ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου). Our Translators are here put to their shifts, and are obliged to render βωμός ‘idol altar,’ and θυσιαστήριον ‘altar.’ We may compare Josephus, Antt. xii. 5. 4, where relating these same events he says, ἐποικοδομήσας καὶ τῷ θυσιαστηρίῳ βωμόν, συὰς ἐπʼ αὐτοῦ κατέσφξε. Still more notable, as marking how strong the feeling on this matter was, is the fact of the refusal of the Septuagint Translators to give the title of θυσιαστήριον, (Josh. 22.) to the altar which the Transjordanic tribes had reared—being as it was a piece of will-worship upon their parts, and no altar reared according to the will, or by the express command, of God. Throughout the chapter this altar is βωμός (ver. 10, 11, 16, 19, 23, 26, 34), the legitimate divinely ordained altar θυσιαστήριον (ver. 19, 28, 29), and this while the Hebrew text knows no such distinction, but indiscriminately employs מִזְבֵּהַ for both.
I mentioned just now an embarrassment, in which on one occasion our Translators found themselves. In the Latin there is no such difficulty; for at a very early day the Church adopted ‘altare’ to designate her altar, and assigned ‘ara’ exclusively to heathen uses. Thus see the Vulgate at Judg. 6:28; 1 Macc. 1:59; 2 Macc. 10:2, 3; Acts 17:23. Cyprian in like manner expresses his wonder at the profane boldness of one of the ‘turificati,’—those, that is, who in time of persecution had consented to save their lives by burning incense before a heathen idol,—that he should afterwards have dared, without obtaining first the Church’s absolution, to continue his ministry—‘quasi post aras diaboli accedere ad altare Dei fas sit’ (Ep. 63). In profane Latin ‘ara’ is the genus, ‘altare’ the specific kind of altar on which the victims were offered (Virgil, Ecl. v. 65, 66; cf. Tacitus, Annal. xvi. 31, and Orelli thereupon). The distinction between βωμός and θυσιαστήριον, first established in the Septuagint, and recognized in the N. T., was afterwards maintained in ecclesiastical Greek; for the Church has still her θυσία αἰνέσεως (Heb. 13:15), and that which is at once her θυσία ἀναμνήσως and ἀνάμνησις θυσίας, and therefore her θυσιαστήριον still. We have clear testimony to this in the following passage of Chrysostom (in 1 Cor. Hom. 24), in which Christ is supposed to be speaking: ὥστε εἰ αἵματος ἐπιθυμεῖς, μὴ τὸν τῶν εἰδώλων βωμὸν τῷ τῶν ἀλόγων φόνῳ, ἀλλὰ τὸ θυσιαστήριον τὸ ἐμὸν τῷ ἐμῷ φοίνισσε αἵματι (compare Mede, Works, 1672, p. 391; Augusti, Christl. Archäol. vol. i. p. 412; and Smith, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, s. v. ‘Altar’).

§ xcviii. λαός, ἕθνος, δῆμος, ὅχλος

Λαός, a word of rarest use in Attic prose, but occurring between one and two thousand times in the Septuagint, is almost always there a title reserved for the elect people, the Israel of God. Still there are exceptions. The Philistines are a λαός (Gen. 26:11), the Egyptians (Exod. 9:16), and the Moabites (Ruth 1:15); to others too the name is not refused. Then, too, occasionally in the plural οἱ λαοί are = τὰ ἔθνη; as for example at Neh. 1:8; 11:30, 31; Ps. 96:6; Hos. 10:10; Mic. 6:16. Or again we find λαοί joined with ἔθνη as a sort of exhaustive enumeration to comprehend the whole race of mankind; thus Ps. 107:4; Wisd. of Sol. 3:8; Rev. 5:9; 7:9; 10:11; 11:9; 13:7; 14:6; 17:15. It is true indeed that in all these passages from the Book of Revelation the exhaustive enumeration is fourfold; and to λαοί and ἔθνη are added φυλαί and γλῶσσαι, on one occasion φυλαί making way for βασιλεῖς (10:11) and on anther for ὄχλοι (17:15). We may contrast with this a distributive use of λαός and ἔθνη, but λαός here in the singular, as at Luke 2:32; Acts 26:17, 23, where also, being used together, they between them take in the whole of mankind, but where λαός is claimed for and restricted to the chosen people, while ἔθνη includes all mankind outside of the covenant (Deut. 32:43; Isai. 65:1, 2; 2 Sam. 7:23; Acts 15:14). And this is the general law of the words’ use, every other being exceptional; λαός the chosen people, ἕθνη, or sometimes more fully τὰ ἕθνη τοῦ κόσμου (Luke 12:30), or τῆς γῆς (Ezra 8:89); but always in the plural and with the article, the residue of mankind (οἱ κατάλοιποι τῶν ἀνθρώπων, Acts 15:17). At the same time ἕθνος in the singular has no such limitation; it is a name which, given to the Jews by others, is not intended to convey any slight, thus τὸ ἕθνος τῶν Ἰουδαίων (Acts 10:22); they freely take it as in no way a dishonorable title to themselves, τὸ ἔθνος ἡμῶν (Luke 7:5; cf. 23:2; John 11:18), τὸ ἕθνος τοῦτο (Acts 24:3; cf. Exod. 33:13; Deut. 4:6; Wisd. of Sol. 17:2); nay sometimes and with certain additions it is for them a title of highest honour; they are ἔθνος ἅγιον (Exod. 19:6; cf. 1 Pet. 2:9); ἔθνος ἐκ μέσου ἐθνῶν (Clement of Rome, 1 Cor. § 29). If indeed the word is connected with ἔθος, and contemplates a body of people living according to one custom and rule, none could deserve the title better or so well as a nation which ordered their lives according to a more distinctive and rigidly defined custom and rule of their own than probably any other nation that ever lived.
Δῆμος occurs only in St. Luke, and in him, as might be expected, only in the Acts, that is, after his narrative has left behind it the limitations of the Jewish Church, and has entered on and begun to move in the ampler spaces, and among the more varied conditions of the heathen world. The following are the four occasions of its use, 12:22; 17:5; 19:30, 33; they all exemplify well that fine and accurate use of technical terms, that choice of the fittest among them, which we so often observe in St. Luke, and which is so characteristic a mark of the highly educated man. The Greek δῆμος is the Latin ‘populus,’ which Cicero (De Re Publ. i. 25; cf. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, ii. 21) thus defines: ‘Populus autem non omnis hominum cœtus quoquo modo eongregatus, sed cœtus multitudinis juris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus;’ ‘die Gemeinde,’ the free commonalty (Plutarch, Mul. Virt. 15, in fine), and these very often contemplated as assembled and in actual exercise of their rights as citizens. This idea indeed so dominates the word that ἐν τῷ δήμῳ is equivalent to, ‘in a popular assembly.’ It is invariably thus used by St. Luke. If we want the exact opposite to δῆμος, it is ὄχλος, the disorganized, or rather the unorganized, multitude (Luke 9:38; Matt. 21:8; Acts 14:14); this word in classic Greek having often a certain tinge of contempt, as designating those who share neither in the duties nor privileges of the free citizens; such contempt, however, does not lie of necessity in the word (Rev. 7:9; Acts 1:15), and there is no hint of it in Scripture, where a man is held worthy of honour even though the only πολίτευμα in which he may claim a share is that which is eternal in the heavens (Phil. 3:20).

§ xcix. βαπτισμός, βάπτισμα

THESE are exclusively ecclesiastical terms, as are βαπτιστής and βαπτιστήριον; none of them appearing in the Septuagint, nor in classical Greek, but only in the N. T., or in writings dependent on this. They are all in lineal descent from βαπτίζειν, a later form of βάπτειν, and to be found, though rarely, in classical Greek; thus twice in Plato (Euthyd. 277 d; Symp. 176 b), where βεβαπτισμένος signifies well washed with wine; the ‘uvidus’ of Horace (Carm. ii. 19. 18); and often in later writers, as in Plutarch (De Superst. 3; Galba, 21), in Lucian (Bacch. 7), and in others.
Before proceeding further, a word or two may fitly find place here on the relation between words of the same family, but divided from one another by their several terminations in μα and μος, as κήρυγμα and κηρυγμός, δίωγμα and διωγμός, with others innumerable. It seldom happens that both forms are found in the N. T.; that in μα being of the most frequent occurrence; thus this has ἀπαύγασμα (Heb. 1:3), but not ἀπαυγασμός; σέβασμα; (Acts 17:23), but not σεβασμός; βδέλυγμα (Matt. 24:15), but not βδελυγμός; ῥῆγμα (Luke 6:49), but not ῥηγμός; περικάθαρμα (1 Cor. 4:13), but not περικαθαρμός. Sometimes, but more rarely, it offers us the termination of μος; thus ἁρπαγμός (Phil. 2:6), but not ἅρπαγμα; ἀπαρτισμός (Luke 14:28), but not ἀπάρτισμα; καταρτισμός (Ephes. 4:12), but not κατάρτισμα; ἁγιασμός (Rom. 6:19), but not ἁγίασμα. It will happen, but only in rare instances, that both forms occur in the N. T.; thus μίασμα (2 Pet. 2:20) and μιασμός (2 Pet. 2:10); and these with which we have at present to deal, βάπτισμα and βαπτισμός. There is occasionally, but not in the N. T., a third form; thus besides σέβασμα and σεβασμός there is σέβασις; besides ἀπάρτισμα and ἀπαρτισμός there is ἀπάρτισις; besides πλεόνασμα and πλεονασμός there is πλεόνασις; besides ἅρπαγμα and ἁρπαγμός there is ἅρπασις; and so too besides βάπτισμα and βαπτισμός we have βάπτισις in Josephus (Antt. xviii. 5. 2) and others. There is no difficulty in severally assigning to each of these forms the meaning which properly belongs to it; and this, even while we must own that in actual use the words are very far from abiding true to their proper significance, those with the active termination in μος continually drifting into a passive signification, as is the case with πλεονασμος, βασανισμός, and in the N. T. with ἁγιασμός and others; while the converse, if not quite so common, is yet of frequent occurrence; cf. Tholuck, Disp. Christ. de loco Pauli Ep. ad Phil. ii. 6–9, 1848, p. 18. Thus, to take the words which now concern us the most nearly, βάπτισις is the act of baptism contemplated in the doing, a baptizing; βαπτισμός the same act contemplated not only as doing, but as done, a baptism; while βάπτισμα is not any more the act, but the abiding fact resulting therefrom, baptism; the first embodying the transitive, the second the intransitive, notion of the verb; while the third expresses the result of the transitive notion of the same—this last therefore, as is evident, being the fittest word to designate the institution of baptism in the Church, as an abstract idea, or rather as an ever-existing fact, and not the same in its several concrete realizations. See on these passives in μα the exhaustive essay on πλήρωμα in Lightfoot, On the Colossians, pp. 323–339.
How far is this the usage of the N. T.? It can only be said to be approximately so; seeing that βαπτισμός has not there, as I am convinced, arrived at the dignity of setting forth Christian baptism at all. By βαπτισμός in the usage of the N. T. we must understand any ceremonial washing or lustration, such as either has been ordained of God (Heb. 9:10), or invented by men (Mark 7:4, 8); but in neither case as possessing any central significance: while by βάπτισμα we understand baptism in our Christian sense of the word (Rom. 6:4; 1 Pet. 3:21; Ephes. 4:5); yet not so strictly as to exclude the baptism of John (Luke 7:29; Acts 10:37; 19:3). This distinction is in the main preserved by the Greek ecclesiastical writers. Josephus indeed calls the baptism of John βαπτισμός (Antt. xviii. 5. 2); but Augusti (Christl. Archäol. vol. it. p. 313) is strangely in error, affirming as he does of the Greek Fathers that they habitually employ the same for Christian Baptism. So far from this, it would be difficult to adduce a single example of this from Chrysostom, or from any one of the great Cappadocian Fathers. In the Latin Church it is true that ‘baptismus’ and ‘baptisma’ are both employed to designate Christian baptism; by Tertullian one perhaps as frequently as the other; while ‘baptismus’ quite predominates in Augustine; but it is altogether otherwise in ecclesiastical Greek, which remains faithful to the distinctions which the N. T. observes.
These distinctions are there so constantly maintained, that all explanations of Heb. 6:2 (βαπτισμῶν διδαχῆς), which rest on the assumption that Christian baptism is intended here, break down before this fact; not to urge the plural βαπτισμῶν, which, had the one baptism of the Church been intended, would be inexplicable. If, indeed, we take the βαπτισμοί of this place in its widest sense, as including all baptisms whatever with which the Christian had anything to do, either in the way of rejecting or making them his own, we can understand a ‘doctrine of baptisms,’ such as should teach the young convert the definitive abolition of the Jewish ceremonial lustrations, the merely preparatory and provisional character of the baptism of John, and the eternal validity of the baptism of Christ. We can understand too how these all should be gathered up under the one name of βαπτισμοί, being that they were all washings; and this without in the least allowing that any other save βάπτισμα was the proper title of that λουτρὸν παλιγγενεσίας which is the exclusive privilege of the Church of Christ.

§ c. σκότος, γνόφος, ζόφος, ἀχλύς

OF σκότος it needs hardly to speak. It is the largest and most inclusive word of this group; being of very frequent occurrence in the N. T., both in this its Attic form, as also in that of σκοτία, which belongs to the common dialect. It is the exact opposite to φῶς; thus in the profoundly pathetic words of Ajax in Euripides, ἰώ· σκότος ἐμὸν φάος: compare Plato, Rep. 518 a; Job 22:11; Luke 12:3; Acts 26:18.
Γνόφος, which is rightly regarded as a later Doric form of δνόφος, occurs only once in the N. T., namely at Heb. 12:18, and there in connection with ζόφος; in which same connection it is found elsewhere (Deut. 4:11; Exod. 10:22; Zeph. 1:16). There was evidently a feeling on the part of our early Translators, that an element of tempest was included in the word, the renderings of it by them being these: ‘mist’ (Wiclif and Tyndale); ‘storm’ (Cranmer); ‘blackness’ (Geneva and Authorized Version); ‘whirl-wind’ (Rheims, as ‘turbo’ in the Vulgate). Our ordinary lexicons indicate very faintly, or not at all, that such a force is to be found in γνόφος; but it is very distinctly recognized by Port (Etymol. Forsch. vol. 5, p. 346), who gives, as explanatory equivalents, ‘finsterniss,’ ‘dunkel,’ ‘wirbelwind,’ and who with the best modern scholars sees in νέφας, νέφος, γνόφος and ζόφος, a group of words having much in common, perhaps no more than different shapes of what was once a single word. It is joined, too, in the Septuagint, where it is of frequent use, with νεφέλη (Joel 2:2; Ps. 96:2; Exod. 34:12), and with θύελλα (Deut. 4:11; 5:22).
Ζόφος, which occurs three times in the N. T. (2 Pet. 2:4, 17; Jude 6), or four times, if we make room for it at Heb. 12:18, as it seems we should, is not found in the Septuagint; once, however, namely at Ps. 10:2, in the version of Symmachus. The ζόφος may be contemplated as a kind of emanation of σκότος; thus ὁ ζόφος τοῦ σκοτούς (Exod. 10:22; Jude 13); and signifies in its first meaning the twilight gloom which broods over the regions of the setting sun, and constitutes so strong a contrast to the life and light of that Orient where the sun may be said to be daily new-born. Ἠερόευς, or the cloudy, is in Homer the standing epithet with which ζοφός, when used in this sense, is linked. But it means more than this. There is a darkness darker still, that, namely, of the sunless underworld, the ‘nigra Tartara’ of Virgil (Æn. vi. 134); the ‘opaca Tartara’ of Ovid (Met. x. 20); the κνεφαῖα Ταρτάρου βάθη of Æschylus (Prom. Vinct. 1029). This, too, it further means, namely that sunless world itself, though indeed this less often than the gloom which wraps it (Homer, Hymn. ad Cer., 338; Euripides, Hippolytus, 1434; cf. Job 10:21, 22). It is out of the ζόφος that Ahriman in the Egyptian mythology is born, as is Ormuzd out of the light (Plutarch, De Osir. et Is. 46). It will at once be perceived with what fitness the word in the N. T. is employed, being ever used to signify the darkness of that shadowy land where light is not, but only darkness visible.
Ἀχλύς occurs only once in the N. T., namely at Acts 13:11; never in the Septuagint, although once in the version of Symmachus (Job 3:5). It is by Galen defined as something more dense than ὀμίχλη, less dense than νέφος. In the single place of its N. T. use it attests the accuracy in the selection of words, and not least of medical words, which ‘the beloved physician’ so often displays. For him it expresses the mist of darkness, ἀχλὺς καὶ σκότος, which fell on the sorcerer Elymas, being the outward and visible sign of the inward spiritual darkness which should be his portion for a while in punishment for his resistance to the truth. It is by ‘mist’ that all the translations of our English Hexapla render it, with the exception of the Rheims, which has ‘dimness’; while it is rendered well by ‘caligo’ in the Vulgate. St. Luke’s use of the word in the Acts is divided by nearly a thousand years from its employment by Homer; but the meaning has remained absolutely the same; for indeed it is words with an ethical significance, and not those which express the phenomena of the outward world, that change with the changing years. Thus there is in the Odyssey a fine use of the verb ἀχλύειν (12:406), the poet describing there the responsive darkness which comes over the sea as it is overshadowed by a dark cloud (cf. ‘inhorruit unda tenebris’: Virgil, Æn. iii. 195). Ἀχλύς, too, is employed by Homer to express the mist which clouds the eyes of the dying (Il. xvi. 344), or that in which the gods, for one cause or another, may envelope their favourites.

§ ci. βέβηλος, κοινός

THE image which βέβηλος, derived from βῆλος, a threshold, suggests, is that of a spot trodden and trampled on, lying open to the casual foot of every intruder or careless passer-by;—and thus, in words of Thucydides, a χωρίον βέβηλον (iv. 97). Exactly opposite to this is the ἄδυτον, a spot, that is, fenced and reserved for sacred uses, as such not lightly to be approached, but in the language of the Canticle, ‘a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed’ (Cant. 4:12). It is possible indeed that the ‘profaneness’ which is predicated of person or thing to whom this title is applied, may be rather negatively the absence of any higher consecration than positively the active presence of aught savouring of unholy or profane. Thus it is often joined with ἀμύητος (as by Plutarch, De Def. Orac. 16), and signifying no more than one uninitiated, the ἀνοργίαστος, and, as such, arcendus a sacris; compare Plato, Symp. 218 b, where it is joined with ἀγροῖκος. In like manner ἄρτοι βέβηλοι (1 Sam. 21:4) are simply unconsecrated common loaves, as contrasted with the shew-bread which the high priest declares to be holy. Not otherwise the Latin ‘profanus’ means no more than that which is left outside the τέμενος, that which is ‘pro fano,’ and thus wanting the consecration which the τέμενος, or sanctuary, has obtained. We, too, in English mean no more, when we distinguish between ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ history, setting the one over against the other. We do not imply thereby any profaneness, positive and properly so called, in the latter, but only that it is not what the former is, a history having in the first place to do with the kingdom of God, and the course of that kingdom. So too it fared at first with βέβηλος. It was only in later use that it came to be set over against ἅγιος (Ezek. 22:6) and ὅσιος, to be joined with ἀνόσιος (1 Tim. 1:9), with γραώδης (4:7), with ἄνομος (Ezek. 21:25), that μιαραὶ χεῖρες (2 Macc. 5:16) could within a few lines be changed for βέβηλοι, as an adequate equivalent.
But in what relations, it may be asked, do βέβηλος and κοινός stand to one another? Before bringing the latter into such questionable company it may be observed that we have many pleasant and honourable uses of κοινός and its derivatives, κοινωνία and κοινωνικός, in the N. T.; thus Jude 3; 2 Cor. 13:13; 1 Tim. 6:18; while in heathen Greek Socrates is by Dio Chrysostom happily characterized as κοινὸς καὶ φιλάνθρωπος, giving himself, that is, no airs, and in nothing withdrawing himself from friendly and familiar intercourse with his fellow-men; the word being capable of finding a yet higher application to Him, of whom some complained that He ate with publicans and sinners (Matt. 9:10, 11). He, too, in this sense, and in the noblest aspect of the word, was κοινός. This, however, only by the way. The employment with which we have here to do of κοινός and κοινόω in sacred things, and as equivalent to βέβηλος and βεβηλόω, is exclusively Jewish Hellenistic. One might claim for it to be restricted to the N. T. alone, if it were not for two exceptional examples (1 Macc. 1:47, 62). Comparing Acts 21:6 and 24:6, we have curious implicit evidence that such an employment of κοινός was, at the time when the Acts were written, unfamiliar, probably unknown, to the heathen. The Jewish adversaries of St. Paul, when addressing their Israelitish fellow-countrymen, make their charge against him, κεκοίνωκε τὸν ἅγιον τόπον (Acts 21:28); but when they are bringing against him the same accusation, not now to their Jewish fellow-countrymen, but to Felix, a heathen, they change their word, and the charge runs, ἐπείρασε βεβηλῶσαι τὸ ἱερὸν (Acts 24:6); the other language would have been here out of keeping, might very likely have been unintelligible.
Very noticeable is the manner in which κοινός in the N. T. more and more encroaches on the province of meaning which, first belonging exclusively to βέβηλος, the two came afterwards to divide between them, but with the result that κοινός gradually assumed to itself the larger share, and was used the most often (Mark. 7:2; Acts 10:14; Rom. 14:14 bis; Heb. 10:29). How this came to pass, how βέβηλος had, since the Septuagint was written, been gradually pushed from its place, is not difficult to see. Κοινός, which stepped into its room, more commended itself to Jewish ears, as bringing out by contrast the ἐκλογή of the Jewish people as a λαὸς περιούσιος, having no fellowship with aught which was unclean. The less that there necessarily lay in κοινος of defilement, the more strongly the separation of Israel was brought out, that would endure no fellowship with things which had any commonness about them. The ceremonially unclean was in fact more and more breaking down the barrier which divided it from that which was morally unclean; and doing away with any distinction between them.

§ cii. μόχθος, πόνος, κόπος

Μόχθος only occurs three times in the N. T., and always in closest sequence to κόπος (2 Cor. 11:27; 1 Thess. 2:9; 2 Thess. 3:8). There can scarcely be a doubt of its near connection with μόγις, this last, as Curtius suggests, being a dative plural, μόγοις, which has let fall a letter, and subsided into an adverb. The word, which does not occur in Homer nor in Plato, is the homely everyday word for that labour which, in one shape or another, is the lot under the sun of all of the sinful children of Adam. It has been suggested by some that the infinitely laborious character of labour, the more or less of distress which is inextricably bound up with it, and cannot be escaped, is hardly brought out in μόχθος with the same emphasis as it is in the other words which are here grouped with it, and especially in πόνος, and that a point of difference may here be found between them; but this is hardly the case. Phrases like the πολύμοχθος Ἄρης of Euripides (Phœn. 791), and they may be multiplied to any extent, do not bear out this view.
Out of the four occasions on which πονος occurs in the N. T., three are found in the Apocalypse (16:10, 11; 21:4), and one in Colossians (4:13); for πόνος must there stand beyond all serious question, however there may be no fewer than four other readings, πόθος, κόπος, ζῆλος ἀγών, which are competitors for the place that it occupies by a right better than them all. Πόνος is labour such as does not stop short of demanding the whole strength of a man; and this exerted to the uttermost, if he is to accomplish the task which is before him. Thus in Homer war is constantly regarded as the πόνος, not of mortal warriors only, but immortal, of Ares himself; πόνος ἀνδρῶν, as Theognis (985) calls it; being joined with δῆρις (Il. xvii. 158) and with πόλεμος (xvii. 718). Πόνοι is the standing word by which the labours of Hercules are expressed; μόχθοι too they are sometimes, but not nearly so often, called (Sophocles, Trach. 1080, 1150). Πόνος in Plato is joined with ἀγὼν ἔσχατος (Phœdr. 247 b), with νόσος (244 d), with κίνδυνος (2 Alcib. 142 b), with ζημία (Rep. 365 b), in the LXX. with ὀδύνη (1 Kin. 15:23), with μάστιξ (Jer. 6:7), with πληγή (2 Chr. 9:28). The cruel bondage of the children of Israel in Egypt is their πόνος (Exod. 2:11). It is nothing wonderful that, signifying this, πόνος should be expressly named as having no place in the Heavenly City (Rev. 21:4).
Κόπος is of much more frequent recurrence. It is found some twenty times in the N. T., being not so much the actual exertion which a man makes, as the lassitude or weariness (see Pott, Etym. Forsch. vol. v. p. 80) which follows on this straining of all his powers to the utmost. It is well worth our while to note the frequent use which is made of κόπος and of the verb κοπιῶ, for the designating what are or ought to be the labours of the Christian ministry, containing as they do a word of warning for all that are in it engaged (John 4:38; Acts 20:35; Col. 1:29; 2 Cor. 6:5; 1 These. 3:5, and often).
It may be said in conclusion that ‘labour,’ ‘toil’ (or perhaps ‘travail’) and ‘weariness,’ are the three words which in English best reproduce the several Greek words, μόχθος, πόνος, κόπος, with which we here have to do.

§ ciii. ἄμωμος, ἄμεμπτος, ἀνέγκλητος, ἀνεπίληπτος

WORDS expressing severally absence of blemish, and absence of blame, are very easily confounded, and the distinction between them lost sight of; not to say that those which bear one of these meanings easily acquire and make the other their own. Take in proof the first in this group of words—of which all have to do with the Christian life, and what its character should be. We have in the rendering of this a singular illustration of a shortcoming on the part of our Translators of 1611, which has been often noted, the failure I mean upon their parts to render one Greek word by a fixed correspondent word in the English. It is quite true that this feat cannot always, or nearly always, be done; but what constraining motive was there for six variations such as these which are the lot of ἅμωμος on the six occasions of its occurrence? At Ephes. 1:4 it appears as ‘without blame’; at Col. 1:22, as ‘unblameable’; at Ephes. 5:27 as ‘without blemish’; at Heb. 9:14, as ‘without spot’; at Jude 24. as ‘faultless’; at Rev. 14:15 as ‘without fault.’ Of these the first and second have failed to seize the exact force of the word. No such charge can be brought against the other four; one may be happier than another, but all are sufficiently correct. Inaccurate it certainly is to render ἄμωμος ‘without blame,’ or ‘unblameable,’ seeing that μῶμος in later Hellenistic Greek has travelled from the signifying of blame to the signifying of that which is the subject of blame, a blot, that is, or spot, or blemish. Ἄμωμος, a rare word in classical Greek, but found in Herodotus (ii. 177), and in Æschylus (Persœ, 185), in this way became the technical word to designate the absence of anything amiss in a sacrifice, of anything which would render it unworthy to be offered (Exod. 29:2; Num. 6:14; Ezek. 43:22; Philo, De Vict. 2); or the sacrificing priest unworthy to offer it (1 Macc. 4:42).
When joined with ἄσπιλος for the designation of this faultlessness, as it is joined at 1 Pet. 1:19, ἄμωμος would indicate the absence of internal blemish, ἄσπιλος that of external spot. Already in the Septuagint it has been transferred to the region of ethics, being of constant use there to set forth the holy walking of the faithful (Ps. 118. (119. E. V.) 1; Prov. 11:5), and even applied as a title of honour to God Himself (Ps. 17:33). We find it joined with ὅσιος (Wisd. 10:15), and in the N. T. with ἀνέγκλητος (Col. 1:22), and with ἅγιος (Ephes. 1:4; 5:27), and we may regard it as affirming a complete absence of all fault or blemish on the part of that whereof it is predicated.
But if ἄμωμος is thus the ‘unblemished,’ ἄμεμπτος is the ‘unblamed.’ There is a difference between the two statements. Christ was ἄμωμος in that there was in Him no spot or blemish, and He could say “Which of you convinceth Me of sin?” but in strictness of speech He was not ἄμεμπτος, nor is this epithet ever given to Him in the N. T., seeing that He endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself, who slandered his footsteps and laid to his charge things that He knew not. Nor, however they may strive after this, can the saints of God lay to their account that they will certainly attain it, and that fault, just or unjust, will not be found with them. The ἄμωμος may be ἄμεμπτος (for see Luke 1:6; Phil. 2:15), but he does not always prove so (1 Pet. 2:12, 15). At the same time there is a constant tendency to regard the ‘inculpatus’ as also the ‘inculpabilis,’ so that in actual usage there is a continual breaking down of the distinct and several use of these words. The O. T. uses of ἄμεμπτος, as Job 11:4, sufficiently prove this.
Ἀνέγκλητος, which, like ἀνεπίληπτος, is in the N. T. exclusively a word of St. Paul’s, occurring five times in his Epistles, and nowhere else, is rendered ‘unreprovable’ (Col. 1:22), ‘blameless’ (1 Cor. 1:8), 1 Tim. 3:10; Tit. 1:6, 7). It is justly explained by Chrysostom as implying not acquittal merely, but absence so much as of a charge or accusation brought against him of whom it is affirmed. It moves, like ἄμωμος, not in the subjective world of the thoughts and estimates of men, but in the objective world of facts. It is an epithet by Plutarch (De Cap. ex In. Util. 5) accurately joined with ἀλοιδόρητος. In a passage cited above, namely 1 Tim. 3:10, there is a manifest allusion to a custom which still survives in our Ordinations, at the opening of which the ordaining Bishop demands of the faithful present whether they know any notable crime or charge for the which those who have been presented to him for Holy Orders ought not to be ordained; he demands, in other words, whether they be ἀνέγκλητοι, that is, not merely unaccusable, but unaccused; not merely free from any just charge, for that question is reserved, if need be, for later investigation, but free from any charge at all—the intention of this citation being, that if any present had such charge to bring, the ordination should not go forward until this had been duly sifted (1 Tim. 3:10).
Ἀνεπίληπτος, of somewhat rare use in classical Greek, occurring once in Thucydides (v. 17) and once in Plato (Phileb. 43 c), never in the Septuagint or the Apocrypha, is found in company with κάθαρος (Lucian, Piscat. i. 8), with ἀνέγκλητος (Id. ib. 46), with τέλειος (Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Conv. 9), with ἀδιάβλητος (Id. Pericles, cf. De Lib. Ed. 7), is in our Version twice rendered ‘blameless’ (1 Tim. 3:2; 5:7), but once ‘irreprovable’ (6:14); these three being the only occasions on which it is found in the N.T. ‘Irreprehensible,’ a word not occurring in our Authorized Version, but as old as it and older; and on one of the above occasions, namely, at 1 Tim. 3:2, employed by the Rhemish, which had gotten it from the ‘irreprehensibilis’ of the Vulgate, would be a nearer translation, resting as it does on the same image as the Greek; that, namely, of affording nothing which an adversary could take hold of, on which he might ground a charge: μὴ παρέχων κατηγορίας ἀφορμήν, as the Scholiast on Thucydides has it. At the same time ‘unreprehendead,’ if such a word might pass, would be a nearer rendering still.

§ civ. βραδύς, νώθρος, ἀργός

IN a careful article which treats of these words, Schmidt expresses in German the ultimate conclusions about them whereat he has arrived; which it may be worth while to repeat, as some instruction may be gotten from them. Βραδύς, he states, would best be represented in German by ‘langsam,’ with ταχύς, or else with ὠκύς (Homer, Odys. viii. 329), or with ἀγχίνους for its antithesis; νώθρος by ‘träge,’ with ὀξύς for its proper opposite; while he morally identifies ἀργός with the German ‘faul,’ or with ‘unthätig,’ and finds in ἐνεργός the proper antithesis of this. Let us examine these words a little closer.
Βραδύς differs from the words with which it is here brought into comparison, that no moral fault or blame is necessarily involved in it; so far indeed from this, that of the three occasions on which it is used in the N. T., two are in honour; for to be ‘slow’ to evil things, to rash speaking, or to anger (Jam. 1:19, bis), is a grace, and not the contrary. Elsewhere too βραδύς is honourably used, as when Isocrates (1:34) advises, to be ‘slow’ in planning and swift in performing. Neither is it in dispraise of the Spartans that Thucydides ascribes slowness of action (βραδύτης) to the Spartans and swiftness to the Athenians. He is in this doing no more than weighing in equal scales, these against those, the more striking and more excellent qualities of each (8:96).
Of νώθρος, which is only found twice in the N. T., and both times in the Epistle to the Hebrews (5:11; 6:12), the etymology is uncertain; that from νη and ὠθεῖν, which found favour once, failing to do so now. We meet the word in good Attic Greek; thus in Plato (Theœtet. 144 b); the form νωθὴς being the favourite in the classical periods of the language, and νώθρος not coming into common use till the times of the κοινὴ διάλεκτος. It occurs but once in the Septuagint (Prov. 22:29), νωθροκάρδιος also once (Prov. 12:8); twice in the Apocrypha, at Ecclus. 11:13, and again at 4:29, where νώθρος and παρειμένος ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις stand in instructive juxtaposition.
There is a deeper, more inborn sluggishness implied in νώθρος, and this bound up as it were in the very life, than in either of the other words of this group. The βραδὺς of to-day might become the ὠκὺς of to-morrow; the ἀργὸς might grow to ἐνεργός; but the very constitution of the νώθρος unfits him for activities of the mind or spirit; he is νώθρος ἐν ταῖς ἐπίνοιαις (Polybius, iv. 8. 5). The word is joined by Dionysius of Halicarnassus with ἀναίσθητος, ἀκίνητος, and ἀπαθής; by Hippocrates, cited by Schmidt, with βαρύς; by Plutarch (De Orac. Def.) with δυσκίνητος, this last epithet expressing clearly what in others just named is only suggested, namely, a certain awkwardness and unwieldliness of gait and demeanour, representing to the outward world a slowness and inaptitude for activities of the mind which is within. On its second appearance, Heb. 6:12, the Vulgate happily renders it by ‘segnis’; ‘sluggish,’ in place of the ‘slothful,’ which now stands in our Version, would be an improvement. Delitzsch, upon Heb. 5:11, sums up the force of νώθρος: Schwer in Bewegung zu setzen, schwerfällig, träge, stumpf, matt, lässig; while Pollux makes νώθρεια a synonym of ἀμβλύτης. It is in its earlier form a standing epithet for the ass (Homer, Il. ii. 559).
Ἀργός (= ἀεργός), used of persons (2 Pet. 1:8; Tit. 1:12) and of things (Matt. 12:36; 20:3, 6), is joined in the first of these places with ἄκαρπος. It is there rendered ‘barren,’ a not very happy rendering, for which ‘idle’ might be substituted with advantage, seeing that ‘barren and unfruitful,’ as we read it now, constitute a tautology which it would be well to get rid of. It is joined by Plato to ἀμελής (Rep. 421 d) and to δειλός (Legg. x. 903), by Plutarch, as already had been done by St. Peter, to ἄκαρπος (Poplic. 8); the verb ἀργεῖν by Demosthenes to σχολάζειν and ἀπορεῖν. It is set over against ἐνεργός by Xenophon (Cyrop. iii. 2. 19), against ἐργάτις by Sophocles (Phil. 97).
‘Slow’ (or ‘tardy’), ‘sluggish,’ and ‘idle’ would severally represent the words of this group.

§ cv. δημιουργός, τεχνίτης

‘BUILDER and maker’ cannot be regarded as a very satisfactory rendering of the τεχνίτης καὶ δημιουργός of Heb. 11:10; ‘maker’ saying little more than ‘builder’ had said already. The words, as we have them, were brought into the text by Tyndale, and have kept their place in all the Protestant translations since, while ‘craftyman and maker’ are in Wiclif, ‘artificer and builder’ in the Rheims. Delitzsch traces this distinction between them, namely that God, regarded as τεχνίτης, is contemplated as laying out the scheme and ground plan, if we might so speak, of the Heavenly City. He is δημιουργός, as embodying in actual form and shape the divine idea or thought of his mind. This distribution of meaning to the several words, which is very much that of the Vulgate (‘artifex et conditor’), and in modern times of Meyer (Baukünstler und Werkmeister), has its advantage, namely, that what is first, so far as a first and last exist in the order of the work of God, is named first, the divine intention before the divine realisation of the same; but it labours under this serious defect, namely, that it assigns to τεχνίτης a meaning of which it is difficult, if not impossible, to find any example. Assuredly it is no unworthy conception of God to conceive of Him as the drawer of the ground-plan of the Heavenly City; while the Epistle to the Hebrews, with its relations to Philo, and through him to Plato, is exactly where we might expect to meet it; but τεχνίτης in no other passage of its occurrence in the N. T. (they are three, Acts 19:24, 38; Rev. 18:22), nor yet in the thirteen of the Septuagint and Apocrypha, gives the slightest countenance to the ascription to it of such a meaning; the same being as little traceable in the Greek which lies outside of and beyond the sacred writings. While therefore I believe that δημιουργός and τεχνίτης may and ought to be distinguished, I am unable to accept this distinction.
But first let something be said concerning each of these words. Δημιουργός is one of those grand and for rhetorical purposes finely selected words, which constitute so remarkable and unique a feature of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and, in the matter of style, difference it so much from the other Epistles. Beside its single occurrence there (Heb. 11:10), it is to be found once in the Apocrypha (2 Macc. 4:1); in the Septuagint not at all. Its proper meaning, as. it bears on its front, is ‘one whose works stand forth to the public gaze’ (‘cujus opificia publice prostant’). But this of the public character of the works has dropt out of the word; and ‘maker’ or ‘author’—this on more or less of a grand scale—is all which remains to it. It is a very favourite word with Plato, and of very various employment by him. Thus rhetoric is the δημιουργός of persuasion (Gorg. 453 a); the sun, by its presence or absence, is the δημιουργός of day or night (Tim. 40 a); God is the δημιουργός of mortal men (compare Josephus, Antt. i. 7. 1). There is no hint in Holy Scripture of the adoption of the word into the theosophic or philosophic speculations of the age, nor any presentiment of the prominent part which it should play in coming struggles, close at hand as were some of these.
But if God, as He obtains the name of δημιουργός, is recognized as Maker of all things, πατὴρ καὶ ποιήτης, as He is called by Plutarch (De Fac. in Orbe Lun. 13), πατὴρ καὶ δημιουργός by Clement of Rome, τεχνίτης, which is often found in connexion with it (thus Lucian, Hipp. 8; Philo, Alleg. Leg. iii. 32), brings further out what we may venture to call the artistic side of creation, that which justifies Cicero in speaking of God as ‘artifex mundi,’ He moulding and fashioning, in many and marvellous ways, the materials which by a prior act of his will, prior, that is, in our conception of it, He has called into existence. If δημιουργός more brings out the power of the divine Creator, τεχνίτης expresses rather his manifold wisdom, the infinite variety and beauty of the works of his hand; ‘how manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast Thou made them all!’ All the beauty of God’s world owns Him for its author, τοῦ κάλλους γενεσιάρχης, as a writer in the Apocrypha, whose further words I shall presently quote, names Him. Bleek therefore (on Heb. 11:10) is, as I cannot doubt, nearer the mark when he says, Durch τεχνίτης wird hier gleichfalls der Schöpfer bezeichnet, aber mit Beziehung auf alas Künstlerische in der Bereitung des Werkes; and he quotes Wisdom 13:1: οὔτε τοῖς ἔργοις προσχότες ἐπέγνωσαν τὸν τεχνίτην. There is a certain inconvenience in taking the words, not as they occur in the Epistle itself, but in a reverse order, δημιουργός first and τεχνίτης afterwards; this, however, is not so great as in retaining the order as we find it, and allowing it to dominate our interpretation, as it appears to me that Delitzsch has done.

§ cvi. ἀστεῖος, ὡραῖος, καλός

Ἀστεῖος occurs twice in the N. T. (Acts 7:20, and Heb. 11:23), and on both occasions it is an epithet applied to Moses; having been drawn from Exod. 2:2, where the Septuagint uses this word as an equivalent to the Hebrew טוֹב; compare Philo, De Vitâ Mos. i. 3. The τῷ Θεῷ, which at Acts 7:20 is added to ἀστεῖος, has not a little perplexed interpreters, as is evident from the various renderings which the expression has found. I will enumerate a few: ‘gratus Deo’ (Vulg.); ‘loved of God’ (Wiclif); ‘a proper child in the sight of God’ (Tyndale); ‘acceptable unto God’ (Cranmer, Geneva, and Rheims); ‘exceeding fair’ (Authorized Version); this last rendering, which makes the τῷ Θεῷ a heightening of the high quality of the thing which is thus extolled, being probably the nearest to the truth; see for a like idiom Jonah 3:3: πόλις μεγάλη τῷ Θεῷ. At Heb. 11:23, ‘a proper child’ is the rendering of all our English Versions, nor would it be easy to improve upon it; though ‘proper,’ so used, is a little out of date.
The ἄστυ which lies in ἀστεῖος, and which constitutes its base, tells us at once what is the point from which it starts, and explains the successive changes through which it passes. He first of all is ἀστεῖος who has been born and bred, or at all events reared, in the city; who in this way is ‘urban.’ But the ‘urban’ may be assumed also to be ‘urbane’; so testifying to the gracious civilizing influences of the life among men, and converse with men, which he has enjoyed; and thus ἀστεῖος obtains a certain ethical tinge, which is real, though it may not be very profound; he who is such being implicitly contrasted with the ἀγροῖκος, the churl, the boor, the villein. Thus in an instructive passage in Xenophon (Cyrop. ii. 2. 12) the ἀστεῖοι are described as also εὐχάριτες, obliging, that is, and gracious, according to the humbler uses of that word. It is next assumed that the higher culture which he that is bred in cities enjoys, will display itself in the very aspect that he wears, which will be fashioned and moulded under humanizing influences; and thus the ἀστεῖος may be assumed as fair to look on and comely, a suggestion of beauty, not indeed generally of a high character, finding its way very distinctly into the word; thus Plutarch, De Soc. Gen. 584 c, contrasts the ἀστεῖος and the αἰσχρος, or positively ugly; and thus too Judith is ἀστεῖα (Judith 11:23) = to the εὐπρόσωπος applied to Sarah (Gen. 12:11).
Ὡραῖος is a word of constant recurrence in the Septuagint, representing there a large variety of Hebrew words. In the N. T. it appears only four times (Matt. 23:27; Acts 3:2, 10; Rom. 10:15). The steps by which it obtains the meaning of beautiful, such as in all these passages it possesses, are few and not difficult to trace. All which in this world lives submitted to the laws of growth and decay, has its ‘hour’ or ὥρα, the period, that is, when it makes fairest show of whatever of grace or beauty it may own. This ὥρα, being thus the turning point of its existence, the time when it is at its loveliest and best, yields ὡραῖος with the sense first of timely; thus ὡραῖος θάνατος in Xenophon, a timely because honourable death; and then of beautiful (in voller Entwicklung oder Blüte stehend, Schmidt).
It will be seen that ἀστεῖος and ὡραῖος arrive at one and the same goal; so that ‘fair,’ or ‘proper.’ or ‘beautiful,’ might be the rendering of either or of both; but that they arrive at it by paths wholly different, reposing as they do on wholly different images. One belongs to art, the other to nature. In ἀστεῖος the notions of neatness, symmetry, elegance, and so finally more or less of beauty, are bound up. It is indeed generally something small which ἀστεῖος implies, even when it is something proposed for our admiration. Thus Aristotle, while he admits that small persons (οἱ μικροί) may be ἀστεῖοι and σύμμετροι, dapper and well shaped, refuses them the title of καλοί. Ὡραῖος is different. There speaks out in it the sense that for all things which belong to this passing world, the grace of the fashion of them perishes, but that they have their ‘hour,’ however brief, the season of their highest perfection.
The higher moral aspects and uses of καλός are most interesting to note, above all, the perfect freedom with which it moves alike in the world of beauty and in that of goodness, claiming both for its own; but of this we are not here to speak. It is only as designating physical aspects of beauty that it could be brought into comparison with ὡραῖος here. Καλός, affirmed to be of the same descent as the German ‘heil,’ as our own ‘whole’ (Curtius, Grundzüge, 130), as we first know it, expresses beauty, and beauty contemplated from a point of view especially dear to the Greek mind, namely as the harmonious completeness, the balance, proportion, and measure of all the parts one with another of that to which this epithet is given. Basil the Great (Hom. in Ps. xliv.) brings this out excellently well as he draws the line between it and ὡραῖος (Hom. in Ps. xliv): Τὸ ὡραῖον, he says, τοῦ καλοῦ διαφέρει· ὅτι τὸ μὲν ὡραῖον λέγεται τὸ συμπεπληρωμένον εἰς τὸν ἐπιτήδειον καιρὸν πρὸς τὴν οἰκείαν ἀκμήν· ὡς ὡραῖος ὁ καρπὸς τῆς ἀμπέλου, ὁ τὴν οἰκείαν πέψιν εἰς τελείωσιν ἑαυτοῦ διὰ τῆς τοῦ ἔτους ὥρας ἀπολαβών, καὶ ἐπιτήδειος εἰς ἀπόλαυσιν· καλὸν δέ ἐστι τὸ ἐν τῇ συνθέσει τῶν μελῶν εὐάρμοστον, ἐπανθοῦσαν αὐτῷ τὴν χάριν ἔχον. Compare Plato, Tim. 365; Rep. x. 601 b, and Stallbaum’s note.

§ cvii

[This concluding article contains contributions toward the illustration of some other synonyms, for a fuller dealing with which I have not found place in this volume.]

1. ἐλπίς, πίστις.—Augustine (Eachirid. 8): ‘Est itaque fides et malarum rerum et bonarum: quia et bona creduntur et mala; et hoc fide bonâ, non malâ. Est etiam fides et præteritarum rerum, et præsentium, et futurarum. Credimus enim Christurn mortuum; quod jam præteriit: credimus sedere ad dexteram Patris; quod nunc est: credimus venturum ad judicandum; quod futurum est. Item fides et suarum rerum est et alienarum. Nam et se quisque credit aliquando esse cœpisse, nec fuisse utique sempiternum; et alios, atque alia; nec solum de aliis hominibus multa, quæ ad religionem pertinent, verum etiam de angelis credimus. Spes autem non nisi bonarum rerum est, nec nisi futurarum, et ad eum pertinentium qui earum spem gerere perhibetur. Quæ cum ita sint, propter has caussas distinguenda erit fides ab spe, sicut vocabulo, ita et rationabili differentiâ, Nam quod adtinet ad non videre sive quæ creduntur, sire quæ sperantur, fidei speique commune est.’ Compare Bishop O’Brien, Nature and Effects of Faith, p. 304.
2. πρεσβύτης, γέρων.—Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. lxx. 18): ‘Senecta et senium discernuntur a Græcis. Gravitas enim post juventutem aliud nomen habet apud Græcos, et post ipsam gravitatem veniens ultima ætas aliud nomen habet; nam πρεσβύτης dicitur gravis, et γέρων senex. Quid autem in Latinâ linguâ duorum istorum nominum distinctio deficit, de senectute ambo sunt positæ, senecta et senium. Scitis autem esse duas ætates.’ Cf. Quœst. in Gen. i. 70.
3. φρέαρ, πηγή.—Augustine (in Joh. Evang. Tract. 15): ‘Omnis puteus [φρέαρ], fons [πηγή]; non omnis fons puteus. Ubi enim aqua de terrâ manat et usui præbetur haurientibus, fons dicitur; sed si in promptu et superficie sit, fons tantum dicitur: si autem in alto et profundo sit, ita puteus vocatur, ut fontis nomen non amittat.
4. σχίσμα, αἵρεσις.—Augustine (Con. Crescon. Don. ii. 7): ‘Schisma est recens congregationis ex aliquâ sententiarum diversitate dissensio; hæresis autem schisma inveteratum.’ Cf. Jerome (in Ep. ad Tit. iii. 10): ‘Inter hæresim et schisma hoc esse arbitrantur, quod hæresis perversum dogma habeat; schisma propter episcopalem dissensionem ab Ecclesiâ separetur; quod quidem in principio aliquâ ex parte intelligi queat. Cæterum nullum schisma non sibi aliquam confingit hæresim, ut recte ab ecclesiâ, recessisse videatur.’ And very admirably Nevin (Antichrist, or the Spirit of Sectarianism): ‘Heresy and schism are not indeed the same, but yet they constitute merely the different manifestations of one and the same disease. Heresy is theoretic schism; schism is practical heresy. They continually run into one another, and mutually complete each other. Every heresy is in principle schismatic; every schism is in its innermost constitution heretical’
5. μακροθυμία, πραότης.—Theophylact (in Gal. v. 22): μακροθυμία πραότητος ἐν τούτῳ δοκεῖ παρὰ τῇ γραφῇ διαφέρειν, τῷ τὸν μὲν μακρόθυμον πολὺν ὄντα ἐν φρονήσει, μὴ ὀξέως ἀλλὰ σχολῇ ἐπιτιθέναι τὴν προσήκουσαν δίκην τῷ πταίοντι· τὸν δὲ πρᾶον ἀφιέναι παντάπασιν.
6. ἀναμνησις, ὑπόμνησις.—Ammonius: ἀνάμνησις ὅταν ἔλθῃ εἰς μνήμην τῶν παρελθόντων· ὑπόμνησις δὲ ὅταν ὑφʼ ἑτέρου εἰς τοῦτο προαχθῇ [2 Tim. 1:5; 2 Pet. 1:13; 3:1].
7. φόρος, τέλος,—Grotius: ‘φόροι tributa sunt quæ ex agris solvebantur, atque in ipsis speciebus fere pendebantur, id est in tritico, ordeo, vino et similibus. Vectigalia vero sunt quæ Græce dicuntur τέλη, quæ a publicanis conducebantur et exigebantur, cum tributa a suceptoribus vel ab apparitoribus præsidum ac præfectorum exigi solerent.’
8. τύπος, ἀλληγορούμενον.—Rivetus (Prœf. ad Ps. xlv.): ‘Typus est cum factum aliquod a Vetere Testamento accersitur, idque extenditur præsignificâsse atque adumbrâsse aliquid gestum vel gerendum in Novo Testamento; allegoria vero cum aliquid sive ex Vetere sive ex Novo Testamento exponitur atque accommodatur novo sensu ad spiritualem doctrinam, sive vitæ institutionem.’
9. λοιδορέω, βλασφημέω.—Calvin (Comm. in N. T.; 1 Cor. 4:12): ‘Notandum est discrimen inter hæc duo participia, λοιδορούμενοι καὶ βλασφημούμενοι. Quoniam λοιδορία est asperior dicacitas, quæ non tantum perstringit hominem, sed acriter etiam mordet, famamque apertâ contumeliâ sugillat, non dubium est quin λοδορεῖν sit maledicto tanquam aculeo vulnerare hominem; proinde reddidi maledictis lacessiti. Βλασφημία est apertius probrum, quum quispiam graviter et atrociter proscinditur.’
10. ὀφείλει, δεῖ.—Bengel (Gnomon, 1 Cor. 11:10): ‘ὀφείλει notat obligationem, δεῖ necessitatem; illud morale est, hoc quasi physicum; ut in vernaculâ, wir sollen und müssen.’
11. πραΰς, ἡσύχιος.—Bengel (Ib. 1 Pet. 3:4): ‘Mansuetus [πραΰς], qui non turbat: tranquillus [ἡσύχιος], qui turbas aliorum, superiorum, inferiorum, æqualium, fert placide.… Adde, mansuetus in affectibus: tranquillus in verbis, vultu, actu.’
12. τεθεμελιωμένος, ἑδραῖος.—Bengel (Ib. Col. 1:23): ‘τεθεμελιωμένοι, affixi fundamento; ἑδραῖοι, stablies, firmi intus. Illud metaphoricum est, hoc magis proprium: illud importat majorem respectum ad fundamentum quo sustentantur fideles; sed ἑδραῖοι, stabiles, dicit internum robur, quod fideles ipsi habent; quemadmodum ædificium primo quidem fundamento recte solideque inniti, deinde veto suâ etiam mole probe cohærere et firmiter consistere debet.’
13. θνητός, νεκρός.—Olshausen (Opusc. Theoll. p. 195): ‘νεκρός vocatur subjectum, in quo sejunctio corporis et animæ facta est: θνητός, in quo fieri potest.’
14. ἔλεος, οἰκτιρμός.—Fritzsche (in Rom. 9:15): ‘Plus significari vocabulis ὁ οἰκτιρμός et οἰκτείρειν quam verbis ὁ ἔλεος et ἐλεεῖν recte veteres doctores vulgo statuunt. Illis enim cum ἵλαος, ἱλάομαι, et ἱλάσκομαι, his cum ιὅ et οἶκτος cognatio est. ‘Ο ἔλεος ægritudinem benevole ex miseriâ alterius haustam denotat, et commune vocabulum est ibi collocandum, ubi misericordiæ notio in genere enuntianda est; ὁ οἰκτιρμός ægritudinem ex alterius miseriâ susceptam, quæ fletum tibi et ejulatum excitet, h. e. magnam ex alterius miseriâ ægritudinem, miserationem declarat.’
15. ψιθυριστής, καταλάλος.—Fritzsche (in Rom. 1:30): ‘ψιθυρισταί sunt susurrones, h. e. clandestini delatores, qui ut inviso homini noceant quæ ei probro sint crimina tanquam in aurem alicui insusurrant. Contra καταλάλοι omnes ii vocantur, qui quæ alicujus famæ obsint narrant, sermonibus celebrant, divulgant maloque rumore aliquem differunt, sive id malo animo faciant, ut noceant, sive temere neque nisi garriendi libidine abrepti. Qui utrumque vocabulum ita discriminant, ut ψιθυριστάς clandestinos calumniatores, καταλάλους calumniatores qui propalam criminentur explicent, arctioribus quam par est limitibus voc. καταλάλος circumscribunt, quum id vocabulum calumniatorem nocendi cupidum suâ vi non declaret.’
16. ἄχρηστος, ἀχρεῖος.—Tittmann: ‘Omnino in voce ἄχρηστος non inest tantum notio negativa quam vocant (οὐχρήσιμον), sed adjecta ut plerumque contraria τοῦ πονηροῦ, quod non tantum nihil prodest, sed etiam damnum affert, molestum et damnosum est. Apud Xenophontem, Hiero, i. 27, γάμος ἄχρηστος non est inutilis, sed molestissimus, et in Œconom. viii. 4. Sed in voce ἀχρεῖος per se nulla inest nota reprehensionis, tantum denotatrem aut hominem quo non opus est, quo supersedere possumus, unnöthig, unent. behrlich [Thucydides, i. 84; ii. 6], quæ ipsa tamen raro sine vituperatione dicuntur.’
17. νομικός, νομοδιδάσκαλος, γραμματεύς.—Meyer (in Matt. 22:35): ‘νομικός, ein Rechtskundiger, ἐπιστήμων τῶν νόμων (Photius, Lexicon; Plutarch, Sull. 36); ein Mosäischer Jurist; νομοδιδάσκαλος bezeichnet einen solchen als Lehrer; γραμματεύς ist ein weiterer Begriff als νομικός; Schriftkundiger, dessen Beruf das Studium und die Auslegung der heiligen Schrift ist.’
 

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