Synonyms of the New Testament

the constant language of St. Paul this para, as the

transgression of a commandment distinctly given, is more

serious than a[marti (Rom. ii. 23; I Tim. ii. 14; cf. Heb.

2; ix. 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 ‘praeva-

ricator,’ between ‘peccatum’ (a[marti) and 'praevaricatio’

(para). Thus Enarr. in Ps. cxviii.; Serm. 25:

Omnis quidem prevaricator peccator est, quia peccat in

lege, sed non omnis peccator prvaricator est, quia pec-

cant aliqui sine lege. Ubi autem non est lex, nec pae-

varicatio.’ 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 ‘praevaricator,’ or

collusive prosecutor, dealt unjustly with a law. He who,

being under no express law, sins, is in Augustine's lan-

guage, ‘peccator’; he who, having such a law, sins, is

‘praevaricator’ (=parabaRom. ii. 25; Jam. ii. 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, dis-

obedience.

We now arrive at para
, a word belonging alto-

gether 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 prae quibus quis cadit et prostratus jacet, ut stare

coram Deo et surgere non potest.' At Ephes. ii. 1, where

paraptw and a[marti are found together, Jerome

records with apparent assent a distinction between them;

246 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXVI.
that the former are sins suggested to the mind and par-

tially entertained and welcomed there, and the latter the

same embodied in actual deeds: ‘Aiunt quod paraptw

quasi initia peccatorum sint, quum cogitatio tacita, sub-

repit, et ex aliqua, parte conniventibus nobis; necdum

tamen nos impulit ad ruinam. Peccatum vero esse, quum

quid opere consummatum pervenit ad finem.' This dis-

tinction 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 para

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. vi. I,

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. v. 15, 17, 18. Para

is used

in the same way, as an error, a mistake in judgment, a

blunder, by Polybius (ix. 10. 6); compare Ps. xix. 13, 14,

where it is contrasted with the a[marti: and for

other examples see Cremer, Biblisch-Theolog. Worterbuch,

p. 501. To a certain feeling of this we may ascribe an-

other inadequate distinction,—that, namely, of Augustine

(Qu. ad Lev. 20), who will have para

to be the

negative omission of good (‘desertio boni,’ or ‘delictum’),

as contrasted with a[marti, 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 Prac-

tice of Repentance, iii. 3. 21). There is nothing of it at

Ephes. ii. 1, "dead in trespasses (paraptw) and sins.”

Para
is mortal sin, Ezek. xviii. 26; and the para-

pesei?n of Heb. vi. 6 is equivalent to the e]kousi

of x. 26, to the a]posth?nai a]po> qeou? zw?ntoj of iii. 12; while

any such extenuation of the force of the word is expressly

excluded in a passage of Philo (ii. 648), which very closely

§LXVI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 247
resembles these two in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in

which he distinctly calls it para

, 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.’

]Agno occurs in the N. T. only at Heb. ix. 7 (see

Theoluck, On, the Hebrews, Appendix p. 92), but also at

Judith v. 20; I Macc. xiii. 39; Tob. iii. 3; and a@gnoia in

the same sense of sin, Ps. xxiv. 7, an. often; and a]gnoiei?n,

to sin, at Hos. iv. 15; Ecclus. v. 15; Heb. v. 2. Sin is

designated as an a]gno 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 iii. i ). 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 sin-

fulness of it, as to render its forgiveness not indeed neces-

sary, but possible. Thus compare the words of the Lord,

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"

(Luke xxiii. 34), with those of St. Paul, "I obtained mercy

because I did it ignorantly, in unbelief" (I Tim. i. 13),

where, as one has well said, ‘Der Ausdruck fasst Schuld

unid Entschuldigung zusammen.’ No Sin of man, except

perhaps the sin against the Holy Ghost, which may for

this reason be irremissible (Matt. xii.132), 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; ou]dei>j e]kw>n kako, and what is said qualify-

ing or guarding this statement in Archer Butler's Lectures

on Ancient Philosophy, vol. ii. p. 285. Whatever exaggera-

tions this statement of Plato's may contain, it still remains

true that sin is always, in a greater or a less degree, an

a]gno