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.1 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).1
And while thus the characteristic excellences of
the Greek language especially invite us to the investi-
gation 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 investi-
gations as these we become aware of delicate variations
1 On Prodicus and Protagoras see Grote, History of Greece, vol. vi.
p. 67 ; Sir A. Grant, Ethics of Aristotle, 3rd edit. vol. i, p. 123. In
Grafenham's most instructive Gesch. der Klassischen Philologie there are
several chapters on this subject,
iv
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 intel-
lectual 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 ap-
proaching 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 car-
cases 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
stoixei?a 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 com-
posed. 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 dis-
v
crimination of synonyms to compel such patient inves-
tigation 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 dis-
sent in Doderlein's Lateinische Synonyme and Etymolo-
gieen, 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. Vomel's Synony-
misches Worterbuch, 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 Vomel; and, though somewhat more frequent in
vi
Pilion'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 dialla
lamutual, the second
only a one-sided, reconciliation;1 or again as that be-
1 See Fritzsche, On Rom. v, 10.
vii
tween a@xri and me
of Tittmann's, despite the interest of its subject, and
its standing alone upon it, to say nothing of its trans-
lation into English,1 has never obtained any consider-
able 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.2 I can only
1 Biblical Cabinet, vols. iii, xviii. Edinburgh, 1833, 1837. It must be
owned that Tittmann has hardly had fair play. Nothing can well be
imagined more incorrect or more slovenly than this translation. It is
often unintelligible, where the original is perfectly clear.
2 The following list is very far from exhausting these: prosfora<, qusidw?ron-paroimij qeou?, pai?j qeou?—dikai
dikaiosu
--xara<, a]galli
--a]mno
o@mbroj--kth
o@mma--glw?ssa, dia