Synonyms of the New Testament

have been rendered in full measure, which is h!tthma:

non-observance of a law, which is a]nomi or paranomi:

a discord in the harmonies of God's universe, when it is

plhmme: and in other ways almost out of number.

To begin with the word of largest reach. In seeking

accurately to define a[marti, 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 ma, [a[marti

quasi a[marpti,’ a failing to grasp. Buttmann's conjecture

(Lexilogus, p. 5, English ed.), that it belongs to the root

me 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. v. 12, with excellent philology and

execrable theology). Only this much is plain, that when

sin is contemplated as a[marti, it is regarded as a failing

and missing the true end and scope of our lives, which is

God; h[ tou? a]gaqou? a]po

, as OEcumenius: h[ tou ? a[ga-

qou? a]potuxi and a[marta an a@skopa toceu as Sui-

das; h[ tou? kalou? e]ktroph<, ei@te tou? kata> fu

no, 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 a[marti and

a[marta 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 inevit-

§ LXVI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 241
ably 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 a[marta signifies, when

we meet it first, to miss a mark, being exactly opposed to

tuxei?n. So a hundred times in Homer the warrior a[martei?,

who hurls his spear, but fails to strike his foe (Il. iv. 491);

so tw?n o[dw?n a[marta (Thucydides, 98. 2) is to miss

one's way. The next advance is the transfer of the word

to things intellectual. The poet a[marta, 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, Poet. 8 and 25); so we have do

(Thucydides, i. 31); gnw (ii. 65). It is con-

stantly set over against o]rqo(Plate, Legg. i. 627 d; ii.

668 c; Aristotle, Poet. 25). So far from having any ethical

significance of necessity attaching to it, Aristotle some-

times withdraws it, almost, if not altogether, from the

region of right and wrong (Eth. Nic. v. 3. 7). The a[marti

is a mistake, a fearful one it may be, like that of OEdipus,

but nothing more (Poet. 13; cf. Eurpides, Hippolytus,

1426). Elsewhere, however, it has as much of the mean-

ing of our ‘sin,’ as any word, employed in heathen ethics,

could possess; thus Plato, Phaedr. 113 e; Rep. ii. 366 a;

Xenophon, Cyrop. v. 4. 19.

[Ama differs from a[marti, in that a[marti is sin

in the abstract as well as the concrete or again, the act

of sinning no less than the sin which s actually sinned,

‘peccatio’ (A. Gellius, xiii. 20, 17) no less than ‘pecca-

tum'; while a[ma (it only occurs Mark iii. 28; iv. 12;

Rom. iii. 25; I Cor. vi. 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 kato.^1
1 When the Pelagians, in their controversy wit the Catholic Church,

claimed Chrysostom as siding with them on the subject of the moral

242 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXVI.
There is the same difference between a]nomi and a]no

(which last is not in the N. T.; but I Sam. xx v. 28;

Ezek. xvi. 49), a]seand a]se (not in the N. T.; but

Lev. xviii. 17), a]kdiki and a]di, (Acts xviii. 14). This

is brought out by Aristotle (Ethic. Nic. v. 7), who sets over

against one another a@dikon (=a]diki) and a]di in these

words: diafe a]di to> a@dikon. @Adikon me>n ga>r

e@sti t^? fu au]to> de> tou?to, o!tan praxq^?, a]di<-

khma< e]sti. Compare, an instructive passage in Xenophon

(Mem. ii. 2, 3): ai[ po toi?j megi

zhmi

th>n a]diki. On the distinction between

a[marti and a[maa]di, and other

words of this group, there is a long discussion by Cle-

ment of Alexandria (Strom. ii. 15), but one not yielding

much profit.

]Ase, joined with a]diki (Xenophon, Apol. 24;

Rom. i. 8); as a]sebhwith a@dikoj, with a]no (Xenophon,

Cyrop. viii. 8. 2 ), with a[martwlo>j (r Tim. i. 9; I Pet. iv.

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 ‘ungodli-

ness,’ while the Rheims as constantly ‘impiety,’ and

a]sebh ‘impious,’ neither of these words occurring any-

where in our English Bible. The a]sebh and the di,

are constantly set over against one another (thus Gen.

xviii. 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.

Parakoh< is in the N. T. found only at Rom. v. 19

(where it is opposed to u[pakoh<); 2 Cor. x. 6; Heb. ii. 2.

condition of infants, Augustine (Con. Jul. Pelag. vi. 2) replied by quoting

the exact words which Chrysostom had used, and showing that it was not

a[marti, or sin, but a[marth, the several acts and outcomings of sin,

from which the Greek Father had pronounced infants to be free. Only

in this sense were they partakers of the a]namarthsi of Christ.
§ LXVI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 243
It is not in the Septuagint, but parakou (in the N. T. only

at Matt. xviii. 17) occurs several times there in the sense

of to disobey (Esth. iii. 3, 8; Isai. lxv. 12). Parakoh< 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. v. 19) has a good note: [para< in parakoh<

perquam apposite declarat rationem initii in lapsu Adami.

Quaeritur quomodo hominis recti intellectus aut voluntas

potuit detrimentum capere aut noxam admittere? Resp.

Intellectus et voluntas simul labavit per a]me neque

quicquam potest prius concipi, quarn a]meincuria, sicut

initium capiendae urbis est vigiliarum remissio. Hanc in-

curiam significat parakoh<, inobedientia.' It need hardly

be observed how continually in the 0. T. disobedience is

described as a refusing to hear (Jer. x . 10; xxxv. 17);

and it appears literally as such at Act vii. 57. Joined

with and following para at Heb. 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 ever refusal to hear,

even though it might not have asserted itself in such overt

acts of disobedience.

We have generally translated a]nomi ‘iniquity’ (Matt.

vii. 23; Rom. vi. 19; Heb. x. 17); once ‘unrighteousness’

(2 Cor. vi. 14), and once "transgression of the law"

(1 John iii. 4). It is set over against dikaiosu (2 Cor.

vi. 14; cf. Xenophon, Mem, i. 2. 24); joined with a]narxi

(Plato, Rep. ix. 575 a), with a]ntilogi (Ps lv. 10). While

a@nomoj is once at least in the N. T. used negatively of a

person without law, or to whom a law has not been given

(I Cor, ix. 21; cf. Plato, Rep. 302 e, a@nomoj monarxi);

though elsewhere of the greatest enemy of all law, the

Man of Sin, the lawless one (2 Thess. ii. 8) a]nomiis never

244 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXVI.

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 paranomi, found only at 2 Pet. ii. 16; cf.

Prov. x. 26, and paranomei?n, Acts xxiii. 3. It will follow

that where here is no law (Rom. v. 13), there may be

a[marti, but not a]nomi: being, as OEcumenius

defines it, h[ peri> to>n qeto>n no: as Fritzsche,

‘legis contemtio aut morum licentia qua lex violatur.’

Thus the Gentiles, not having a law (Rom. ii. 14), might

be charged with sin; but they, sinning without law (a]no

=xwri>j no, Rom. ii. 12; iii. 21), could not be charged

with a]nomi. 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 she hearts of all (Rom. ii. 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 a]nomi, a violation of

this older, though partially obscured, law. Thus Origen

(in Rom. iv.): ‘Iniquitas sane a peccato hanc habet

differentiam, quod iniquitas in his dicitur quae contra

legem committuntur, unde et Graecus sermo a]nomi ap-

pellat. 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 para. There must be some-

thing 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. ii. 16, 17) and the law given

from Sinai, sinning indeed, yet did not sin "after the

similitude of Adam's transgression" (paraba, Rom. v.

14). With law came for the first time the possibility of

the transgression of law (Rom. iv. 15); and exactly this

transgression or trespass, is para, from parabai,

‘transilire lineam;' the French ‘forfait' (‘faire fors’ or

§ LXVI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 245

‘hors’), some act which is excessive, enormous. Cicero

(Parad. 3): ‘Peecare est tanquam transilire lineas;’ com-

pare the Homeric u[perbasi