Synonyms of the New Testament
Yüklə 3,52 Mb.
|
- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- ]Ekklhsi
- a]na 146 xlii. tapeinofrosu
muqi r[omfai kre --dia lo mhsij, e@nnoia, dialgismo --e]ntolh< do ko a[gio nwniko --a]i~dioj, ai]w diestramme --kra metriopaqe --plana viii
painful, but often delightful, of many days, may, note withstanding 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.'
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 con- clusions 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 resem-
blance in the main, but also with partial difference, we by no means deny that there may be a hundred pas-
sages 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 ba r[izo swfroni mai, kakologe 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 as- sist 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 pur- pose 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
x
few hints here need not be altogether unprofitable, 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 dis-
tinction 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 dis-
tinguishing 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
(qar]r[ale a@ndreia, Ib. 351 b; i]sxuro po xi
Aristotle, Hist. Anim. i. I. 15 ; in Aristotle (eu]genh Dio Chrysostom, Orat. 15, in fine; e@painoj and e]gkw<- mion, Ethic. Nic. 1. I 2. 6; Rhet. i. 9; a[fh< and su fusij, Metaph. iv. 4; fro pneu?ma and a@nemoj, De Miund. iv. 10; cf. Philo, Leg. fili in. Demosthenes (loidori 36; dw?ron and do in Plutarch (a]kolasiDe Virt. Mor. 6; e]gkra (‘poema' and ‘poesis’ Sat. 9); in Cicero (‘vitium,' morbus,' and ‘aegrotatio,’ Tusc. iv. 13; ‘gaudium,’
‘laetitia,’ and ‘voluptas,’ Ib. iv. 6 ; cf. Seneca, Ep. 59; Aulus Gellius, 27; ‘cautio’ and ‘metus,’ Tusc.
iv. 6; ‘labor’ and ‘dolor,’ Ib. ii 15; ‘versutus’ and ‘callidus,’ De Nat. Deor. iii. 10; ‘doctus’ and ‘peri-
tus,' De Off ; ‘perseverantia’ and ‘patientia,’ De Inv. ii. 34; ‘maledictum’ and ‘accusatio,’ Pro Cael. iii. 6;
with others innumerable). They are found in Quin- tilian ('salsus,' ‘urbanus,’ and ‘facetus,' Instit. vi.. 3,
17; ‘fama’ and ‘rumor,’ Ib. v. 3; h@qh and pa familias,' xviii. 6. 4; ‘fulvus’ and ‘flavus,’ ‘ruber’ and ‘rufus,’ Ib. ii. 26); in St. Jerome (‘pignus' and
xii
‘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 18; ‘aemulatio’ and ‘invidia,’ Exp. in Gal. V. 20; ‘curiosus’ and ‘studiosus,’ De Util. Cred. 9);1 in
Hugh of St. Victor (‘cogitatio,’ ‘meditatio,’ ‘con- templatio,’ De Contemp. i. 3, 4); in Muretus (‘ pos-
sessio ' 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,’ and ‘jus,’ Zerst. Blatter, 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,’ 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
xiii
upon it; but which yet, containing an accurate defini- tion 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 defini-
tions and descriptions he will note who has taken this subject in hand. Such, for example, is Plato's definition
of dia au[th>n dia 644 d): o{j [logismo>j] geno no be compared: no dia> gramma (Rhet. ad Alex. ii); or again, Aristotle’s of eu]trapeli that it is u!brij pepaideume sxh antia,’ that it is ‘moderatio cupiditatum rationi ob-
temperans’ (De Fin. ii. 19); or again of ‘beatitudo’ (Tusc. v. 10): ‘Secretis malis omnibus cumulata bono-
rum omnium possessio;’ or of ‘vultus,’ that it is ‘sermo quidam tacitus mentis;' or of ‘divinatio,’
that it is ‘Earum rerum gum fortuitae putantur prae- dictio atque praesensio’ (Divin. i. 5, 9); again, of
‘gloria’ (Tusc. iii. 2), that it is ‘consentiens laus bonorum, incorrupta vox bene judicantium de excel-
lente virtute;' or once more (Inv. ii. 55, 56): ‘Est frequens de aliquo fama cum laude;' or South's of
the same, more subtle, and taken more from a sub- jective point of view (Sermons, 1737, vol. iv. p. 67).
‘Glory is the joy a man conceives from his own per- fections considered with relation to the opinions of
xiv
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 atten- tion; 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, tive estimate of ‘facinus’ and ‘scelus.’ There are few distinctions more familiar than that existing be-
tween ‘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 delec- 'What is fame But the benignant strength of one, transformed
To joy of many?' while Godet has a grand definition of 'glory,' but this now the glory of
God: ‘La gloire de Dieu est l'eclat que projettent dans le coeur de creatures intelligentes ses perfections manifestees.’
xv
tare' and ‘placere’ (Ep. 39): ‘Malorum ultimum est etiam placent;’ and this what the difference is between ‘carere’ and ‘indigere’ (Vit. Beat. 7): ‘Voluptate
virtus saepe 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,— 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 verborurn nobis paupertas, imo
lexi;’ while for the relations between ‘inopia’ and ‘egestas’ we may compare a similar passage from the
younger Pliny (Ep. iv. 18). Another passage from Seneca (De Ira, 36: ‘Ajacem in mortem egit furor,
in furorem ira’) shows how he regarded ‘ira’ and ‘furor.’ When Juvenal describes the ignoble assenta-
tion of the Greek sycophant, ever ready to fall in with and to exaggerate the mood of his patron, ‘si dixeris,
“aestuo," sudat' (Sat. iii. 103), there can be no ques- xvi
tion in what relation of strength the words ‘aestuo’ 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 bi 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 occu- pies. 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 con-
stantly associated; else one or the other, and not both, save only in a few exceptional cases of rhetorical
xvii
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 par- tially 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 em-
ployed. The first is from Burton (Anatomy of Melan- niate, hate, abuse (hard-hearted, implacable, malicious, private spleen.’ The second from Shakespeare (Two Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty.’ could easily be adduced, there are assistances at once safe and effectual for arriving at a right appreciation
of the force of ‘peevish.’ xviii
Again, one who is considering and seeking to arrive will diligently study the equivalents in other tongues which masters of language have put forward; espe-
cially where it is plain they have made the selection of the very fittest equivalent a matter of earnest con-
sideration. I spoke just now of ‘peevish.’ Another passage from Burton--‘Pertinax hominum genus, a
firm the notion, made probable by induction from passages cited already, that self-willedness (au]qa 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 swfrosu 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, xix
unjust as in every case these words must be, they must 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.
56o e) characterizes some as u!brin me>n eu]paideusi 9); or when Plutarch (Anim. an Corp. Aff. 3) says, he relates how the flatterers of Dipnysius, not now giving good names to bad things, but bad names to
good, called the semno or, once more, when we have a passage before us like the following from Cicero (Part. Orat. 23): ‘Pru-
dentiam malitia, et temperantiam immanitas in as- pernandis voluptatibus, et liberalitatem effusio, et
fortitudinem audacia imitator, et pkientiam duritia immanis, et justitiam acerbitas, et religionem super-
stitio, 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
group of similar passages. He might have added, xx
trite though it may be, the familiar passage from the 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 pro- posed 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 super- fluous 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 discrimi- nate 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
xxi
terity 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.
CONTENTS
PREFACE v §i. ]Ekklhsi ii. qeio iii. i[eron, nao iv. e]pitima v. a]na vi. profhteu vii. timwri viii. a]lhqh ix. qera
x. deili xi. kaki xii. a]gapa xiii. qa xiv. sklhro xv. ei]kw xvi. a]swti xvii. qigga xviii. paliggenesi xix. ai]sxu xx. ai]dw xxi. su xxii. o]lo xxiii. ste xxiv. pleoneci CONTENTS.
PAGE
xxvi. zh?loj, fqo xxvii. zwh<, bi xxviii. ku xxix. a]lazw xxx. a]nti xxxi. molu xxxii. paidei xxxiii. a@fesij, pa xxxiv. mwrologi xxxv. latreu xxxvi. pe xxxvii. qumo xxxviii. e@laion, mu xxxix. [Ebrai?oj, ]Ioudai?oj, ]Israhli xl. ai]te xli. a]na
xlii. tapeinofrosu xliii. prao xliv. kle xlv. plu xlvi. fw?j, fe xlvii. xa xlviii. qeosebh xlix. keno l. i[ma li. eu]xh<, proseuxh<, de Yüklə 3,52 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
|