Synonyms of the New Testament


e@laben e]f ] oi$j e@ptaisen, kai> mete, meta> tau?ta



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e@laben e]f ] oi$j e@ptaisen, kai> mete, meta> tau?ta

258 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXIX.


e@gnw: bradei?a ga>r gnw?sij, meta. So in the Florilegium

of Stobaeus, i. 14: ou] metanoei?n a]lla> pronoei?n xrh> to>n a@ndra



to>n sofo. At its next step meta signifies the change

of mind consequent on this after-knowledge; thus Tertul-

lian (Adv. Marcion. ii. 24): ‘In Graeco sermone poeniten-

ti nomen non ex delicti confessione, sed ex animi demu-

tatione, compositurn, est.’ At its third, it is regret for the

course pursued; resulting from the change of mind con-

sequent on this after-knowledge; with a dusare, or

displeasure wit oneself thereupon; ‘passio quaedam animi

quae veniat de offensa sententi ‘prioris,’ which, as Ter-

tullian (De Poenit. I) affirms, was all that the heathen

understood by it. At this stage of its meaning it is found

associated with dhgmo (Plutarch, Quom. Am. ab Adul. 12);

with ai]sxu (De Virt. Mor. 12); with po (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 ap 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 super-

addition to the word. Thus A. Gellius (xvii. I. 6): ‘Poe-

nitere tum dicere solemus, cum quae ipsi fecimus, aut quae

de nostra 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’ (meteno), and sought to slay

it; metame is used by him in the same sense of a

repenting of gold (De Ser. Num. Vin. 11); so that here

also Tertullian had right in his complaint (De Poenit. i):

‘Quam autem in poenitentiae actu irrationaliter deversentur

[ethnici], vel uno isto satis erit expedire, cum illam etiam

in bonis actis suis adhibent. Poenitet fidei, amoris, sim-

plicitatis, patientiae misericordiae, prout quid in ingratiam

cecidit.’ The regret may be, and often is, quite uncon-

§ LXIX. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 259
netted 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: lu


meta, ‘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 har-

mony with Rom. ii. 4; and another (De Tranq. Animi,

19), in which metame and meta are interchangeably

used.


It is only after meta has been take up into the uses

of Scripture, or of writers dependant on scripture, that it

comes predominantly to mean a change if mind, taking a

wiser view of the past, sunai

a]to
(Phavorinus), a regret for the ill one in that past,

and out of all this a change of life for the better; e]pistrofh>



tou? bi (Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 245 a), or

as Plato already had, in part at least, described it,



metastrofh> a]po> tw?n skiw?n e]pi> to> fw?j (Rep. vii. 532 b)

peristrofh<, yuxh?j periagwgh< (Rep. vii. 21 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. xliv. 15;

Wisd. xi. 24; xii. 10, 19; and for the verb, Jer. viii. 6),

it is common in Philo, who joins meta with belti

(De Abrah. 3), explaining it as pro>j to> be

(ibid. and De Poen. 2); while in the N. T. metanoei?n and



meta, whenever they are used in the N. T., and it is

singular how rarely this in the writings of St. Paul is the

case, metanoei?n but once (2 Cor. xii. 21), and meta only

four times (Rom. ii. 4; 2 Cor. vii. 9, 10; 2 Tim. ii. 25),

are never employed in other than an ethical sense; 'die

unter Schmerz der Rene sick im Personleben des Menschen

260 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXIX.
vollziehende radicale Umstimmung,’ Delitzsch has finely

described it.

But while thus metanoei?n and meta gradually advanced

in depth and fulness of meaning, till they became the fixed

and recognize 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 par-

tially vouchsafed to metame and metame. The first,

styled by Plutarch sw, and by him explained as

h[ e]pi> tai?j h[donai?j, o!sai para a]kratei?j, ai]sxu (De

Gen. Soc. 22), associated by him with baruqumi (An Vit. ad

Inf. 2), by Plato with taraxh< (Rep. ix. 577 e; cf. Plutarch,

De Cohib. Ira, 16), has been noted as never occurring in

the N. T.; the second only five times; and designating on

one of these he sorrow of this world which worketh

death, of Judas Iscariot (Matt. xxvii. 3), and on another

expressing, not the repentance of men, but the change of

mind of God (Heb. vii. 21); and this while meta occurs

some five and twenty, and metanoei?n 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 meta-



me is used in all those senses which have been here

claimed for meta, to others where the two are employed

as convertibleterms, and both to express remorse (Plutarch,

De Tranq. An. 19); in the latter, to passages in the

N. T. where metame implies all that meta would

have implied Matt. xxi. 29, 32). But all this freely

admitted, there does remain, both in sacred and profane

use, a very distinct preference for meta as the expression

of the nobler repentance. This we might, indeed, have

expected before hand, 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

§ LXX. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 261


after care may have little or nothing more than a selfish

dread of the consequences of what he has one (Aristotle,



Ethic. Nic. ix. 4. 10: metamelei); 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. vii. 10): ‘Vi etymi meta proprie

est mentis, metame voluntatis; quod illa sententiam,

haec solicitudinem vel potius studium mutatum dicat. . . .

Utrumque ergo dicitur de eo, quem facti consiliive poenitet,

sive poenitentia bona sit sive mala, sive malae rei sive bonae,

sive cum mutatione actionum in posterum, sive citra eam.

Veruntamen si usum spectes, metame plerunque est



me vocabulum, et refertur potissimum ad actiones sin-

gulares: meta vero, in N. T. praesertim in bonam partem

sumitur, quo notatur poenitentia totius vitae ipsorumque

nostri quodammodo: sive tota illa beata mentis post

errorem et peccata reminiscentia, cum om ibus affectibus

eam ingredientibus, quam fructus digni sequuntur. Hinc

fit ut metanoei?n saepe in imperativo ponatur, metamelei?sqai

nunquam: ceteris autem locis, ubicunque meta legitur,



metame possis substituere: sed non contra.’ Compare

Witsius, De OEcon. Foed. Dei, 12. 130 -136; Girdlestone,



Old Testament Synonyms, p. 153 sqq.
§ lxx. morfh<, sxh?ma, i]de.
THESE words are none of them of frequent recurrence in

the N. T., morfh< occurring there only twice (Mark xvi. 12;

Phil. ii. 6); but compare mo(Rom. ii. 20; 2 Tim.

5); sxh?ma not oftener (1 Cor. vii. 31; Phil. ii. 8); and i]de

only once (Matt. xxviii. 3). Morfh< is ‘form,’ ‘forma,’

'gestalt'; sxh?ma is ‘fashion,’ ‘habitus,’ ‘figur'; i]de

‘appearance,’ ‘species,’ ‘erscheinung.’ The first two,

which, occur not unfrequently together (Plutarch, Symp.

262 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXX.
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

(i]de=ei#doj, John v. 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 morfh< and

sxh?ma, and at the same time estimate its importance, by aid

of that great doctrinal passage (Phil. ii. 6-8), in which St.

Paul speaks of the Eternal Word before his Incarnation

as subsisting "in the form of God" (e]n morf^? qeou?



u[pa), as assuming at his Incarnation "the form of a

servant" (morfh>n dou), and after his Incarnation

and during his walk upon earth as "being found in

fashion as a man" (sxhj w[j a@nqrwpoj). The

Fathers were wont to urge the first phrase, e]n morf^? Qeou?



u[pa, 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, morfh< for them was here

equivalent to ou]sior fu. 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. Morfh< is

not=ou]si: at the same time none could be e]n morf^?



qeou? who was not God; as is well put by Bengel: ‘Forma

Dei non est natura, divina, sed tamen is qui in forma,

Dei extabat, Deus est;' and this because morfh<, 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 e]n morf^? qeou? (John

xvii. 5), took at his Incarnation morfh>n dou. The verity

of his Incarnation is herein implied; there was nothing

§ LXX. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 263
docetic, nothing phantastic about it. His manner of

existence was now that of a dou?loj, that is, of a dou?loj tou?



qeou?: for in the midst of all our Lord's humiliations He

was never a dou?loj a]nqrw


. Their dia He may

have been, and from time to time eminently was (John

xiii. 4, 5; Matt. xx. 28); this was part of his tapei

mentioned in the next verse; but their dou?loj 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 (sxh)

as a man," is very instructive for the distinguishing of



sxh?ma from morfh<. The verity of the Son's Incarnation

was expressed, as we have seen, in the morfh>n dou



labw. These words which follow do but declare the

outward facts which came under the knowledge of his

fellow-men, with therefore an emphasis on eu[reqei: He

was by men found in fashion as a man, the sxh?ma here

signifying his whole outward presentation, as Bengel puts

it well: [sxh?ma, 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 sxh?ma appears in its asso-

ciation with such words as xrw?ma (Plato, Gorg. 20; Theoetet.

163 b) and u[pografh< (Legg. v. 737 d); as in the definition of

it which Plutarch gives (De Plac. Phil. 14): e]sti>n e]pifa



kai> perigrafh> kia> pe. 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 metasxhmati and metamorfou?n.

Thus if I were to change a Dutch garden into an Italian,

this would be metasxhmatismo: but if I were to transform

a garden into something wholly different; as into a city,

this would be metamo. It is possible for Satan



metasxhmati himself into an angel of light (2 Cor. xi.

264 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXX.


14); he can take the whole outward semblance of such.

But to any such change of his it would be impossible to

apply the metamorfou?sqai: 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. xii. 2; though 'con-

formed' and ‘transformed1 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 (mh> susxhmati), but

undergo a deep abiding change (a]lla> metamorfou?sqe) by

the renewing of your mind, such as the Spirit of God

alone can work in you’ (cf. 2 Cor. iii. 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: e]dij ta> paro



th?j a]reth?j to> diar e]kan

a]reth>n de> morfh de> a]lhqw?n pragma

to> de> sxh?ma eu]dia. Meyer perversely enough

rejects all this, and has this note: ‘Beide Worte stehen

im Gegensatze nur durch die Prapositionen, 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 Amie. 7, where both occur.

At the resurrection Christ shall transfigure (metasxh-

mati) the bodies of his saints (Phil. iii. 21; cf. 1 Cor.

xv. 53); on which statement Calov remarks, ‘Ille meta-


1 The Authorized Version is the first which uses ‘transformed’ here;

Wiclif and the Rheims, both following closely the Vulgate, 'transfigured,'

and the intermediate Reformed Versions, ‘changed into the fashion of.’

If the distinctions here drawn are correct, and if they stand good in

English as well as Greek, ‘transformed’ is not the word.

§ LXX. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 265


sxhmatismo non substantialem mutationem, sed acciden-

talem, non ratione quidditatis corporis nostri, sed ratione

qualitatum, salva quidditatis, importat:' but the changes

of heathen deities into wholly other shapes were metamor-

fw. In the metasxhmatismothere 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 sxh?ma merely, but of the morfh< (cf.

Euripides, Hec. 1266 ; Plato, Locr. 104 e). When the

Evangelist records that after the resurrection Christ ap-

peared to his disciples e]n e[te (Mark xvi. 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 metemorfw of Matt. xvii. 2; Mark ix. 2;

the transformation upon the Mount being a prophetic

anticipation of that which hereafter should be; compare

Dan. iv. 33, where Nebuchadnezzar says of himself, h[

morfh< mou e]pe.

The morfh< then, it may be assumed, is of the essence of

a thing.1 We cannot conceive the thing as apart from this

its formality, to use ‘formality’ in the old logical sense;

the sxh?ma 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, morfh> fu. Thus sxh?ma

basiliko (Lucian, Pisc. 35 ; cf. Sophocles, Antig. 1148) is

the whole outward array and adornment of a monarch—

diadem, tiara, sceptre, robe (cf. Lucian, Hermot. 86)—all
1La forme est necessairement en rapport avec la matiere ou avec le

fond. La figure au contraire est plus independante des objets; se con-

coit a part' (Lafaye, Syn. Fran. p. 617).

266 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXX.


which he might lay aside, and remain king notwithstand-

ing. It in no sort belongs or adheres to the man as a

part of himself. Thus Menander (Meineke, Fragm. Com.

p. 985):


pra?on kakou?rgon a]nh>r

kekrummej toi?j plhsi
Thus, too, the sxh?ma tou? kosmou? passes away (1 Cor. vii.

31), the image being here probably drawn from the shift-

ing scenes of a theatre, but the ko itself abides; there

is no te, but only tou? ai]w, or tw?n ai]w.

For some valuable remarks on the distinction between

morfh< and sxh?ma 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 cor-

responds with those severally of morfh< and sxh?ma, that

while ‘figura forme’ occurs not rarely (‘veterem formae

servare figuram’; cf. Cicero, Nat. Deor. 32), ‘forma

figurae never (see Doderlein, 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 disfigure-

ment of the other may in a few days have quite passed

away. In ‘transformed’ and ‘transfigured’ it is easy to

recognize the same distinction.

]Ideon the one occasion of its use in the N. T. (Matt.

xxviii. 3) is rendered ‘countenance,’ as at 2 Macc. iii. 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), pla‘Fashion to thy-

self the image of a manifold beast’; so i]de,

the look of the countenance (Plutarch, Pyrr. 3, and often);



i]de, fair to look on (Pindar, Olymp. xi. 122); xio

§ LXXI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 267


i]de, 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): i]den

ou]si me>n mh> u[festw?sa kaq ] au[th

zousa de> ta>j a]mo ai]ti

dei. The word is constant to this definition, and to

the i]dei?n 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 doc-

trine of the Logos differed from St. John's, was in fact a

denial of it in its most important element: o[ de> u[pera



tou[tw?n xeroubi] Lon ou]k h#lqen

i]de (De Prof. 19).—On the distinction between ei#doj and

i]de, and how far the Platonic philosophy admits a dis-

tinction 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. yuxiko.
Yuxiko 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 sw?ma yu-

xiko which the faithful now bear about that is contrasted

with the glory of the sw?ma pneumatiko which they shall

bear (I Cor. xv. 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 yuxiko

receives not and cannot receive, as having no organ for

their reception, the things of the Spirit of God (I Cor. ii.

14); St. James (iii. 15) characterizes the wisdom which

is yuxikh<, as also e]pi, ‘earthly,’ and daimoniw,

‘devilish;' St. Jude explains the yuxikoi< as those pneu?ma



mh> e@xontej (ver. 19). The word nowhere appears in the

Septuagint; but yuxikw?j in the sense of ‘heartily’ (=e]k

268 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXI.
yuxh?j, Col. iii. 23) twice in the Apocrypha (2 Macc. iv.

37; xiv. 24).

It is at first with something of surprise that we find

yuxiko 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 sur-

prise; would rather lead us to expect to find it associated

with pneumatiko, 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. Yuxiko, continu-

ally used as the highest in later classical Greek literature—

the word appears first in Aristotle--being there opposed

to sarkiko (Plutarch, Ne Suav. Vivi Posse, 14), or, where

there is no ethical antithesis, to swmatiko (Aristotle, Ethic.



Nic. 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 Reve-

lation 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. Ac-

cording to Scripture the yuxh<, no less than the da,

belongs to the lower region of man's being; and if a double

employment of yuxh< there (as at Matt. xvi. 26; Mark viii.

35), requires a certain caution in this statement, it is at

any rate plain that yuxiko is not a word of honour1 any


1 Hilary has not quite, however nearly, extricated himself from this

notion, and in the following passage certainly ascribes more to the yuxiko

than the Scriptures do, however plainly he sets him in opposition to the

§ LXXI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 269


more than sarkiko, being an epithet quite as freely ap-

plied to this lower. The yuxiko, of Scripture is one for

whom the yuxh< is the highest motive power of life and

action; in whom the pneu?ma, as the organ of the divine



Pneu?ma, 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. vii.

14; viii. i; Jude 19). For a good collection of passages

from the Greek Fathers in which yuxikois thus employed,

see Suicer, Thes. s. v.

It may be affirmed that the sarkiko and the yuxiko.

alike, in the language of Scripture, are set in opposition

to the pneumatiko. Both epithets ascribe to him of whom

they are predicated a ruling principle antagonistic to the



pneu?ma, 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.

ii. 3), he describes them first as sarkikoi<, and then as



yuxikoi<. 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



sarkikoi<, in whom the sa is more the ruling principle,

as there are yuxikoi<, in whom the yuxh<. It is quite true

that sa is often used in the N. T. as covering that

entire domain of our nature fallen and made subject to


pneumatiko (Tract. in Ps. xiv. 3): ‘Apostolus et carnalem [sarkiko]

hominem posuit, et animalem [yuxiko], et spiritalem [pneumatiko]; car-

nalem, modo divina et humana negligentem, cujus vita corporis

famula sit, negotiosa cibo, somno, libidine. Animalis autem, qui ex

judicio sensus human quid decens honestumque sit, sentiat, atque ab

omnibus vitiis animo suo auctore se referat, suo proprio sensu utilia et

honesta dijudicans; ut pecuniam spernat, ut jejuniis parcus sit, ut am-

bitione careat, ut voluptatibus resistat. Spiritalis autem est, cui superiors

illa ad Dominum studia sint, et hoc quod agit, per scientiam Dei agat,

intelligens et cognoscens quae sit voluntas Ejus, et sciens quae ratio sit a

Deo carnis assumptae, qui crucis triumphus, quae mortis potestas, quae in

virtute resurrectionis operatio.' Compare Irenaeus, v. 6.

270 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXI.
vanity, in which sin springs up, and in which it moves

(Rom. vii. 18; viii. 5). Thus the e@rga th?j sarko (Gal.

v. 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 yuxh< 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

I Cor. ii. 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

anima constet, sitque anima pars homines praestantior,

quamvis saepius irregenitos, propter appetitum in vitia

pronum, atque praecipites concupiscentiae motus, sa et



sarkikouApostolus noster appellet; hic tamen hujusmodi

homines a praestantiore parte denominat, ut eos se intelli-

gere ostendat, non qui libidinis mancipia sunt, et crassis

concupiscentiis vel nativum lumen obruunt (hujusmodi

enim homines a@loga zw?a vocat Apostolus, 2 Pet. ii. 12),

sed homines sapientiae studio deditos, et qui ea sola, quae

stulta et absurda sunt, rejicere solent. Hic itaque yuxikoi<

sunt quotquot to> pneu?ma ou]k e@xousi (Jud. 19), utcunque

alias exquisitissimis naturae dotibus praefulgeant, utcunque

potissimam partem, nempe animam, omnigena eruditione

excolant, et rectissime ad praescriptum rationis vitam

dirigant. Denique eos hic yuxikou vocat, quos supra

Sapientes, Scribas, Disquisitores, et istius seculi principes

appellaverat, ut excludatur quidquid est nativae aut ac-

quisitae perfectionis, quo naturae viribus assurgere possit

ratio humana. Yuxiko pa?n toi?j logismoi?j th?j yuxh?j.

§ LXXI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 271
didou mh> nomi, ut recte

Chrysostomus: qui denique nihil in se eximium habet,

praeter animam rationalem, cujus solius lucem ductumque

sequitur.' I add a few words of Grotius to the same effect

(Annott. in N. T.; I Cor. 14): Non idem est yuxiko>j

a@nqrwpoj et sarkiko. Yuxiko est qui humane tantum

rationis luce ducitur, sarkiko, qui corporis affectibus guber-

natur; sed plerunque yuxikoi< aliqua, in parte sunt sarkikoi<,

ut Grecorum philosophi scortatores, puerorum corruptores,

glariae aucupes, maledici, invidi. Verum hic [1 Cor. ii.

14] nihil aliud designatur quam homo humara tantum

ratione nitens, quales erant Judaeorum plerique et philo-

sophi Graecorum.'

The question, how to translate yuxiko, is one not very

easy to answer. ‘Soulish,’ which some have proposed, has

the advantage of standing in the same relation to ‘soul’

that yuxiko does to yuxh< 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. iii. 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 yuxh<

to the sa and the pneu?ma, there is much very interest-

ing, though not very easy to master, in Delitzsch's Psycho-

logy, English Version, pp. 109-128.

272 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. §LXXII.


§ lxxii. sarkiko.
A DISCUSSION on the relations between yuxiko and sarkiko

naturally draws after it one on the relations between sar-



kiko and another form of the same, sa, which occurs

three, or perhaps four, times in the N. T.; only once in-

deed in the received text (2 Cor. iii. 3); but the evidence

is overwhelming for the right it has to a place at Rom.

vii. 14; Heb. 16, as well, while a proponderance of

evidence is in favour of allowing sa to stand also at

I Cor. iii. I.

Words with the termination in –inoj, metousiastika< 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 qu, of thyine wood (Rev. xviii. i 2), u[a,

of glass, glassen (Rev. iv. 6), u[akinqinoj (Rev. ix. 7), der-



ma (Matt. iii. 4), a]ka (Mark xv. 17). One of

these is sa, the only form of the word which classical

antiquity recognized (sarkiko, like the Latin ‘carnalis,’

having been called out by the ethical necessities of the

Church), and at 2 Cor. iii. 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 sa

as well (Plato, Legg. x. 906 c; Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iii.

9. 3), while ‘fleshen’ must mean what sa 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’

§ LXXII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 273


(Shakespeare), ‘tinnen’ (Sylvester), ‘milken,’ ‘breaden,’

‘reeden,’ with many more (see my English Past and Pre-



sent, 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 ‘saxo-

sus’ and ‘saxeus.’ We might have done the same for

‘stony’ and ‘stollen’; a ‘stony’ place is one where the

stones are many, a ‘stonen’ vessel would be a vessel made

of stone (see John ii. 6; Rev. ix. 20, Wiclif's Version,

where the word is found). Or again, a ‘glassy’ sea is a

sea resembling glass, ‘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



sarkiko and sa, it will be more convenient to em-

ploy ‘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 sarkikai> e]piqumi (1 Pet.

ii. 11), and the man is sarkiko who allows to the sa

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 pneu?ma,

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. iii. I) that they were sa, he finds serious

fault indeed with them; but the accusation is far less

grave than if he had written sarkikoi<, instead. He does

not hereby charge them with positive active opposition to

the Spirit of God—this is evident from the w[j nh?pioi, with

which he proceeds to explain it—but only that they were

274 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. §LXXII.
intellectually as well as spiritually tarrying at the thresh-

old of the faith (cf. Heb. v. 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 anti-

spiritual, 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 sa to work actively, as a

ruling principle in them; and he consequently changes

his word. They were not sa only, for no man and

no Church can long tarry at this point, but sarkikoi< as

well, and, as such, full of "envying and strife and

divisions."

In what way our Translators should have marked the

distinction between sa and sarkiko 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, accept-

ing, as they probably did, the received text, in which there

is no variation of the words. At 2 Cor. iii. 3 all was

plain before them: the saare, as they have

given it well, the "fleshy tables"; Erasmus observing to

the point there, that sa, not sarkiko, 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 dishonour-

able 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. xi. 19; xxxvi. 26; Jer.

xxxi. 33; Heb. viii. 10; x. i6).

§ LXXIII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 275
lxxiii. pnoh<, pneu?ma, a@nemoj, lai?lay, qu.
FROM the words into comparison with which pneu?ma 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 pnoh< and pneu?ma, 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, accord-

ing to Seneca, do .in the Latin ‘aer,’ ‘spiritus,’ ‘ventus’

(Nat. Qu. v. 13): ‘Spiritum a vento motus1 separat; vehe-

mentior enim spiritus ventus est; invicem spiritus leviter

fluens aer.'

Pnoh< and pneu?ma occur not seldom together, as at Isai.

xlii. 5; lvii. 16; pnoh< conveying the impression of a lighter,

gentler, motion of the air than pneu?ma, as 'aura' than

‘ventus.’ Compare Aristotle (De Mundo, iv. 10): ta> e]n a]e



pne ta>j e]c u[grou?

ferome. Pliny (Ep. v. 6) recognizes a similar

distinction: Semper aer spiritu aliquo movetur; frequen-

tins tamen auras quam ventos habet'; Philo no less (Leg.

Alleg. i. 14): pnonh>n de<, a]ll ] ou] pneu?ma ei@rhken, w[j diafora?j

ou@shj: to> me>n ga>r pneu?ma neno


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