Synonyms of the New Testament

Paedag. ii. 4): o[

yalmo: and Basil the

Great, who brings out with still greater emphasis what

differences the ‘psalm’ and the ode or ‘spiritual song’

(Hom. in Ps. 44): &]dh> ga ou]xi> yalmo

gumn^? fwn^?, mh> sunhxou?ntoj au]t^? tou? o]rga

e]mmelou?j th?j e]kfwnh: compare in. Psal.

xxix. I; to which Gregory of Nyssa, in Psal. c. 3, agrees.

In all probability the yalmoi<, of Ephes. v. 19, Col. iii. 16,

are the inspired psalms of the Hebrew Canon. The word

certainly designates these on all other occasions when it

§ LXXVIII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 297

is met in the N. T., with the one possible exception of

I Cor. xiv. 26; and probably refers to them there; nor

can I doubt that the ‘psalms’ which the Apostle would

have the faithful to sing to one another, are psalms of

David, of Asaph, or of some other of the sweet singers of

Israel; above all, seeing that the word seems limited and

restricted to its narrowest use by the nearly synonymous

words with which it is grouped.

But while the ‘psalm’ by the right of primogeniture,

as being at once the oldest and most venerable, thus

occupies the foremost place, the Church of Christ does

not restrict herself to such, but claims the freedom of

bringing new things as well as old out of her treasure-

house. She will produce "hymns and spiritual songs" of

her own, as well as inherit psalms bequeathed to her by

the Jewish Church; a new salvation demanding a new

song (Rev. v. 9), as Augustine delights so often to re-

mind us.

It was of the essence of a Greek u!mnoj that it should

be addressed to, or be otherwise in praise of, a god, or of

a hero, that is, in the strictest sense of that word, of a

deified man; as Callisthenes reminded Alexander; who,

claiming hymns for himself, or ‘suffering them to be

addressed to him, implicitly accepted not human honours

but divine (u!mnoi me>n e]j tou>j qeou>j poiou?ntai, e@painoi de> e]j

a]nqrw
, Arrian, iv. II). In the gradual breaking

down of the distinction between human and divine, which

marked the fallen days of Greece and Rome, with the

usurping on the part of men of divine honours, the u!mnoj

came more and more to be applied to men; although this

not without observation and remonstrance (Athenus, vi.

62; xv. 21, 22). When the word was assumed into the

language of the Church, this essential distinction clung

to it still. A ‘psalm’ might be a De profundis, the story

of man's deliverance, or a commemoration of mercies

which he had received; and of a "spiritual song" much

298 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXVIII.

the same could be said: a ‘hymn’ must always be more

or less of a Magnificat, a direct address of praise and

glory to God. Thus Jerome (in Ephes. v. 19): ‘Breviter

hymnos esse dicendum, qui fortitudinem et majestatem

preadicant Dei, et ejusdem semper vel beneficia, vel facta,

mirantur.’ Compare Origen, Con. Cels. viii. 67; and a

precious fragment, probably of the Presbyter Caius, pre-

served by Eusebius (H. E. v. 28): yalmoi> de> o!soi kai> &]dai>

a]delfw?n a]p ] a]rxh?j u[po> pistw?n grafei?sai, to>n Lo

qeou? to>n Xristo>n u[mnou?si qeologou?ntej. Compare further

Gregory of Nyssa (in Psalm. c. 3): u!mnoj, h[ e]pi> toi?j u[pa
xousin h[mi?n a]gaqoi?j a]natiqeme: the

whole chapter is interesting. Augustine in more places

than one states the notes of what in his mind are the

essentials of a hymn—which are three: 1. It must be

sung; 2. It must be praise; 3. It must be to God. Thus

Enarr. in Ps. lxxii. 1: ‘Hymni laudes sunt Dei cum

cantico: hymni cantus sunt continentes laudes Dei. Si

sit taus, et non sit Dei, non est hymnus: si sit laus, et

Dei laus, et non cantetur, non est hymnus. Oportet ergo

ut, si sit hymnus, habeat haec tria, et laudem, et Dei, et

canticum.' So, too, Enarr. in Ps. cxlviii. 14: ‘Hymnus

scitis quid est? Cantus est cum laude Dei. Si laudas

Deum, et non cantas, non dicis hymnum; si cantas, et non

laudas Deum, non dicis hymnum; si laudas aliud quod

non pertinet ad laudem Dei, etsi cantando laudes non dicis

hymnum. Hymnus ergo tria ista habet, et cantum, et

laudem, et Dei.’¹ Compare Gregory Nazianzene:

e@paino

ai#noj d ] e@painoj ei]j qeo>n seba

o[ d ] u!mnoj, ai#noj e]mmelh
But though, as appears from these quotations, u!mnoj.
¹ It is not very easy to follow Augustine in his distinction between a

‘psalm' and a 'canticle.' Indeed he acknowledges himself that he has

not arrived at any clearness on this matter; thus see Enarr. in Ps. lxvii.

I; where, however, these words occur, 'in psalmo est sonoritas, in can-

tico laetitia': cf. in Ps. iv. I; and Hilary, Prol. in Lib. Psalm. §§ 19-21.

§ LXXVIII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 299

in the fourth century was a word freely adopted in the

Church, this was by no means the case at an earlier day.

Notwithstanding the authority which St. Paul's employ-

ment of it might seem to have lent it, u!mnoj nowhere

occurs in the writings of the Apostolic Fathers, nor in

those of Justin Martyr, nor in the Apostolic Constitutions;

and only once in Tertullian (ad Uxor. ii. 8). It is at least

a plausible explanation of this that u!mnoj was for the early

Christians so steeped in heathenism, so linked with pro-

fane associations, and desecrated by them, there were so

many hymns to Zeus, to Hermes, to Aphrodite, and to

the other deities of the heathen pantheon, that the early

Christians shrunk instinctively from the word.

If we ask ourselves of what character were the

‘hymns,’ which St. Paul desired that the faithful should

sing among themselves, we may confidently assume that

these observed the law to which other hymns were sub-

mitted, and were direct addresses of praise to God.

Inspired specimens of the u!mnoj we meet at Luke i. 46-55;

68-79; Acts iv. 24; such also probably was that which

Paul and Silas made to be heard from the depth of their

Philippian dungeon (u!mnoun to>n qeo, Acts xvi. 25). How

noble, how magnificent, uninspired hymns could prove we

have signal evidence in the Te Deum, in the Veni Creator

Spiritus, and in many a later possession for ever which

the Church has acquired. That the Church, brought

when St. Paul wrote into a new and marvellous world of

heavenly realities, would be rich in these we might be

sure, even if no evidence existed to this effect. Of such

evidence, however, there is abundance, more than one

fragment of a hymn being probably embedded in St.

Paul's own Epistles (Ephes. v. 14; I Tim. iii. 16; 2 Tim. ii.

1- 14; cf. Rambach, Anthologie, vol. i. p. 33; and Neale,

Essays on Liturgiology, pp. 413, 424). And as it was

quite impossible that the Christian Church, mightily

releasing itself, though with no revolutionary violence,

300 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXVIII.

from the Jewish synagogue, should fall into that mistake

into which some of the Reformed Churches afterwards

fell, we may be sure that it adopted into liturgic use, not

‘psalms’ only, but also ‘hymns,’ singing hymns to Christ

as to God (Pliny, Ep. x. 96); though this, as we may

conclude, more largely in Churches gathered out of the

heathen world than in those wherein a strong Jewish

element existed. On u!mnoj from an etymological point of

view Pott, Etymol. Forsch. vol. ii. pt. ii. p. 612, may be

consulted.

]Wdh< (=a]oidh<) is the only word of this group which

the Apocalypse knows (v. 9; xiv. 3; xv. 3). St. Paul, on

the two occasions when he employs it, adds pneumatikh< to

it; and this, no doubt, because &]dh< by itself might mean

any kind of song, as of battle, of harvest, or festal, or

hymeneal, while yalmo, from its Hebrew use, and u!mnoj

from its Greek, did not require any such qualifying adjec-

tive. This epithet thus applied to these ‘songs’ does not

affirm that they were divinely inspired, any more than the

a]nh>r pneumatiko is an inspired man (1 Cor. iii. I; Gal.

vi. I); but only that they were such as were composed by

spiritual men, and moved in the sphere of spiritual

things. How, it may be asked, are we to distinguish

these "spiritual songs" from the ‘psalms’ and ‘hymns’

with which they are associated by St. Paul? If the

‘psalms’ represent the heritage of sacred song which the

Christian Church derived from the Jewish, the ‘hymns’

and "spiritual songs" will between them cover what

further in the same kind it produced out of its bosom;

but with a difference. What the hymns were, we have

already seen; but Christian thought and feeling will soon

have expanded into a wider range of poetic utterances

than those in which there is a direct address to the Deity.

If we turn, for instance, to Herbert's Temple, or Vaughan's

Silex Scintillans, or Keble's Christian Year, in all of these

there are many poems, which, as certainly they are not

§ LXXIX. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 301
‘psalms,’ so as little do they possess the characteristics of

‘hymns.’ "Spiritual songs" these might most fitly be

called; even as in almost all our collections of so called

'hymns' at the present day, there are of a few which by

much juster title would bear this name. Calvin, it will be

seen, only agrees in part with the distinctions which I have

here sought to trace: ‘Sub his tribus nominibus com-

plexus est [Paulus] omne genus canticorum; quae ita,

vulgo distinguuntur, ut psalmus sit in quo concinendo

adhibetur musicum aliquod instrumentu praeter linguam;

hymnus proprie sit laudis canticum, sive assa voce, sive

aliter canatur; oda non laudes tantum contineat, sed

paraeneses, et alia argumenta.' Compare in Vollbeding's

Thesaurus, vol. ii. p. 27, sqq.; a treatise by J. Z. Hillger,

De Psalmorum, Hymnorum, et Odarum discrimine; Palmer

in Herzog's Real-Encyclopadie, vol. p. 100, sqq.;

Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. iii. p. 430; Lightfoot On Colos-

sians, iii. 16; and the art. Hymns in Dr. Smith's Dic-

tionary of Christian Antiquities.
§ lxxix. a]gra.
THESE words occur together Acts iv. 13 a]gra no-

where else in the N. T., but i]diw on for other occasions

(I Cor. xiv. 16, 23, 24; 2 Cor. xi. 6). Where found to-

gether we must conclude that, according to the natural

rhetoric of human speech, the second word is stronger

than, and adds something to, the first; thus our Trans-

lators have evidently understood them, tendering a]gr

matoj ‘unlearned,’ and i]diw ‘ignorant’; and so Bengel:

‘a]gra est rudis, i]diw rudior.'

When we seek more accurately to distinguish them,

and to detect the exact notion which each conveys, a]gra

matoj need not occupy us long. It corresponds exactly to

our ‘illiterate’ (gra memaqhkw, John vii. 15;

Acts xxvi. 24; 2 Tim. iii. 15); being joined by Plato with

302 SYONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXIX.

o@reioj, rugged as the mountaineer (Crit. 109 d), with

a@mousoj (Tim. 23 b); by Plutarch set over against the

(Adv. Col. 26).

But i]diw is a word of far wider range, of uses far

more complex and subtle. Its primary idea, the point

from which, so to speak, etymologically it starts, is that

of the private man, occupying himself with his own things

(ta> i@dia), as contrasted with the political; the man un-

clothed with office, as set over against and distinguished

from him who bears some office in the state. But lying

as it did very deep in the Greek mind, being one of the

strongest convictions there, that in public life the true

education of the man and the citizen consisted, it could

not fail that the word should presently be tinged with

something of contempt and scorn. The i]diw, staying

at home while others were facing honorable toil, oi]kouro,

as Plutarch calls him (Phil. cum Princip.), a 'house-dove,'

as our ancestors slightingly named him, unexercised in

business, unaccustomed to deal with his fellow-men, is un-

practical; and thus the word is joined with a]pra by

Plato (Rep x. 620 c; cf. Plutarch, De Virt. et Vit. 4), with

a@praktoj by Plutarch (Phil. cum Princ. I), who sets him

over against the politiko>j kai> praktiko. But more than

this, he is often boorish, and thus i]diw is linked with

a@groikoj (Chrysostom, in I Ep. Cor. Hom. 3), with a]pai<-

deutoj (Plutarch, Arist. et Men. Comp. 1), and other words

such as these.¹

The history of i]diwby no means stops here, though

we have followed it as far as is absolutely necessary to

explain its association (Acts iv. 13) with a]gra, and
¹ There is an excellent discussion on the successive meanings of i]diw

in Bishop Horsley's Tracts in Controversy with Dr. Priestley, Appendix,

Disquisition Second, pp. 475-485. Our English ‘idiot’ has also an in-

structive history. This quotation from Jeremy Taylor (Dissuasive from

Popery, part ii b. i. § I) will show how it was used two hundred years

ago: ‘S. Austin affirmed that the plain places of Scripture are sufficient

to all laics, an all idiots or private persons.’ See my Select Glossary

s. v. for other examples of the same use of the word.

§LXXIX. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 303
the points of likeness and difference between them. But

to explain why St. Paul should employ it at I Cor. xiv.

16, 23, 24, and exactly in what sense, may be well to

pursue this history a little further. There is a singular

feature in the use of i]diwwhich, though not very easy

to describe, a few examples will at once make intelligible.

There lies continually in it a negation if that particular

skill, knowledge, profession, or standing, over against which

it is antithetically set, and not of any other except that

alone. For example, is the i]diw set over against the

dhmiourgo (as by Plato, Theag. 124 c), he is the unskilled

man as set over against the skilled artificer; any other

dexterity he may possess, but that of the dhmiourgo is

denied him. Is he set over against the i]atro, he is one

ignorant of the physician's art (Plato, Rep. iii. 389 b;

Philo, De Conf. Ling. 7); against the sofisth, he is one

unacquainted with the dialectic fence of the sophists

(Xenophon, De Venal. 13; cf. Hiero,; Lucian, Pisc.

34 ; Plutarch, Symp. iv. 2. 3); agains the filo.

(Sextus Empiricus, adv. Grammat. § 235), he has no interest

in the earnest studies which occupy the other; prose

writers are i]diw as contrasted with poets. Those un-

practised in gymnastic exercises are i]diw?tai as contrasted

with the a]qlhtai<, (Xenophon, Hiero, iv. 6 Philo, De Sept.

6); subjects as contrasted with their prince (De Abrah.

33); the underlings in the harvest-field are i]diw?tai kai>

u[phre as distinguished from the h[gemo (De Somn. ii.

4); the weak are i]diw?ta, a@poroi and a@docoi being qualita-

tive adjectives, as contrasted with the strong (Philo, De

Creat. Princ. 5; cf. Plutarch, De Imper. Apophth. I); and

lastly, the whole congregation of Israel are i]diw?tai as set

over against the priests (De Vit. Mos. iii. 29). With these

examples of the word's use to assist us, we can come to no

other conclusion than that the i]diw?tai of St. Paul (1 Cor.

xiv. 16, 23, 24) are the plain believers, with no special

spiritual gifts, as distinguished from such as were possessed

304 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXX.

of such; even as elsewhere they are the lay members of

the Churca as contrasted with those who minister in the

Word and Sacraments; for it is ever the word with which

i]diw is at once combined and contrasted that determines

its meaning.

For the matter immediately before us it will be sufficient

to say that when the Pharisees recognized Peter and John

as men a]gra i]diw?tai, in the first word they ex-

pressed mere the absence in them of book-learning, and,

confining as they would have done this to the Old Testa-

ment, the i[era> gra, and to the glosses of their own

doctors upon these, their lack of acquaintance with such

lore as St. Paul had learned at the feet of Gamaliel; in

the second their want of that education which men insen-

sibly acquire by mingling with those who have important

affairs to transact, and by taking their own share in the

transaction of such. Setting aside that higher training of

the heart and the intellect which is obtained by direct

communion with God and his truth, no doubt books and

public life, literature and politics, are the two most effec-

tual organs of mental and moral training which the world

has at its command—the second, as needs hardly be said,

immeasurably more effectual than the first. He is a]gra

matoj who has not shared in the first, i]diw, who has had

no part in the second.

§ lxxx. doke.
OUR Translators have not always observed the distinction

which exists between dokei?n (=’videri’) and fai

(=’apparere’). Dokei?n expresses the subjective mental

estimate or opinion about a matter which men form, their

do concerning it, which may be right (Acts xv. 28;

I Cor. iv. 9; vii. 40: cf. Plato, Tim. 51 d, do),

but which also may be wrong; involving as it always must

the possibility of error (2 Mace. ix. 10; Matt. vi. 7; Mark

§ LXXX. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 305
vi. 49; John xvi. 2; Acts xxvii. 13; c . Plato, Rep. 423 a;

Gorg. 458 a, doXenophon, Cyrop. i. 6. 22; Mem.

i. 7. 4, i]sxuro o@nta, dokei?n, to have a false reputation

for strength); fai on the contrary expresses how a

matter phenomenally shows and presents itself, with no

necessary assumption of any beholder at all; suggesting

an opposition, not to the o@n, but to the noou. Thus,

when Plato (Rep. 408 a) says of certain heroes in the Trojan

war, a]gaqoi> pro>j to>n po he does not mean

they seemed good for the war and were not, but they showed

good, with the tacit assumption that what they showed,

they also were. So too, when Xenophon writes e]fai

i@xnia i!ppwn (Anab. i. 6. I), he would imply that horses

had been actually there, and left their foot-prints on the

ground. Had he used dokei?n, he would have implied that

Cyrus and his company took for the tracks of horses what

indeed might have been such, but what also might not have

been such at all; cf. Mem. iii. 10. 2. Zeune: ‘dokei?n cernitur

in opinione, quae falsa esse potest et vana; sed fai

plerumque est in re extra mentem, quam is nemo opinatur.'

Thus dokei? fai(Plato, Phaedr. 269; Legg. xii. 960 d).

Even in passages where dokei?n may be exchanged with

ei#nai, it does not lose the proper meaning which Zeune

has ascribed to it here. There is ever a predominant

reference to the public opinion and estimate, rather than

to the actual being; however the former ay be the faithful

echo of the latter (Prov. 14). Thus, while there is

no touch of irony, no shadow of depreciation, in St. Paul's

use of oi[ doikou?ntej at Gal. ii. 2, of oi[ dokou?ntej ei#nai< ti

presently after (ver. 6)—exactly which same phrase occurs

in Plato, Euthyd. 303 d, where they are joined with semnoi<

—and while manifestly there could be no slight intended,

seeing that he so characterizes the chief of his fellow

Apostles, the words for all this express rather the reputa-

tion in which these were held in the Church than the

worth which in themselves they had, however that reputa-

306 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXX.
tion of theirs was itself the true measure of this worth

(=e]piRom. xvi. 7). Compare Euripides, Troad. 608,

where ta> dokou?nta are set over against ta> mhde>n o@nta, Hec.

295, and Porphyry, De Abst. ii. 40, where oi[ dokou?ntej in

like manner is put absolutely, and set over against ta>

plh. In the same way the words of Christ, of oi[ dokou?ntej

a@rxein tw?n e]qnw?n (Mark x. 42) = ‘they who are acknowledged

rulers of the Gentiles,’ cast no doubt on the reality of the

rule of these, for see Matt. xx. 25; though indeed there may

be a slight hint, looking through the words, of the contrast

between the worldly shows and the heavenly realities of

greatness; but as little are they redundant (cf. Josephus,

Antt. xix. 6. 3; Susan. 5: and Winer, Gramm. § lxvii. 4).

But as on one side the mental conception may have,

but also may not have, a corresponding truth in the world

of realities, so on the other the appearance may have a

reality beneath it, and fai is often synonymous with

ei#nai and gi, (Matt. ii. 7; xiii. 26); but it may also

have none; faino for instance are set off against ta>

o@nta t^? a]lhqei<%, by Plato (Rep. 596 e); being the reflections

of things, as seen in a mirror: or shows, it may be, which

have no substance behind them, as the shows of goodness

which the hypocrite makes (Matt. xxiii. 28). It must not

be assumed that in this latter case fai runs into the

meaning of dokei?n, and that the distinction is broken down

between them. That distinction still subsists in the

objective character of the one, and the subjective character

of the other. Thus, at Matt. xxiii. 27, 28, the contrast is

not between what other men took the Pharisees to be, and

what they really were, but between what they showed

themselves to other men (fai
),

and what in very truth they were.

Dokei?n signifying ever, as we have seen, that subjective

estimate which may be formed of a thing, not the objective

show and seeming which it actually possesses, it will

follow that our rendering of Jam. i. 26 is not perfectly

satisfactory: "If any man among you seem to be religious

§ LXXX. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 307

(dokei? qrh?skoj ei#nai), and bridleth not his tongue, but

deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." This

verse, as it here stands, must before now have perplexed

many. How, they will have asked, can man "seem to

be religious," that is, present himself to others as such,

when his religious pretensions are belied and refuted by

the license of an unbridled tongue? But render the words,

"If any man among you thinketh himself religious" (cf.

Gal. vi. 3, where dokei? is rightly so translated; as it is

in the Vulgate here, "se putat religiosmum esse"), "and

bridleth not his tongue, &c.," and all will then be plain.

It is the man's own mental estimate of his spiritual

condition which dokei? expresses, an estimate which the

following words declare to be altogether erroneous. Com-

pare Heb. iv. I, where for dok^? the Vulgate has rightly ‘exis-

timetur.’ If the Vulgate in dealing with dokei?n here is right,

while our Translators are wrong, elsewhere in dealing with

fai, it is wrong, while these are right. At Matt. vi.

18 ("that thou appear not unto men to fast"), it has

'ne videaris,' although at ver. 16 it had rightly ‘ut ap-

pareant’; but the disciples in this verse are warned, not

against the hypocrisy of wishing to be supposed to fast

when they did not, as this ‘ne videaris’ might imply, but

against the ostentation of wishing to be known to fast when

they did; as lies plainly in the o!pwj mh> fan^?j of the

original.

The force of faine, attained here, is missed in

another passage of our Version; although not through

any confusion between it and dokei?n, but rather between it

and fai. We render e]n oi$j fai

ko (Phil. ii. i5), "among whom ye shine as lights in

the world;" where, instead of ‘ye shine,’ it should stand,

‘ye are seen,’ or ‘ye appear.’ To justify "ye shine" in

this place, which is common to all the Versions of the

English Hexapla, St. Paul should have written fai

(cf. John i. 5; 2 Pet. i. 19; Rev. i. 16), an not, as he has

308 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXXI.
written, fai. It is worthy of note that, while the

Vulgate, having ‘lucetis,’ shares and anticipates our

error, an earlier Latin Version was free from it; as is

evident from the form in which the verse is quoted by

Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. cxlvi. 4): ‘In quibus apparetis

tanquam luminaria, in caelo.’

§ lxxxi. zw?on, qhri.
IN passages out of number one of these words might be

employed quite as fitly as the other, even as there are

many in which they are used interchangeably, as by

Plutarch, De Cap. ex Inim. Util. 2. This does not how-

ever prove that there is no distinction between them, if

other passages occur, however few, where one is fit and

the other not; or where, though neither would be unfit,

one would possess a greater fitness than the other. The

distinction, latent in other cases, because there is nothing

to evoke it, reveals itself in these.

The difference between zw?on (by Lachmann always more

correctly written z&?on) and qhriis not that between two

coordinate terms; but one, the second is wholly subor-

dinate to the first, is a less included in a greater. All

creatures that live on earth, including man himself, logi-

ko>n kai> politiko, as Plutarch (De Am. Prol. 3) so

grandly describes him, are (Aristotle, Hist. Anim. i.

5. 1); nay, God Himself, according to the Definitions of

Plato, is zw?on a]qa, being indeed the only One to whom

life by absolute right belongs (fame>n de> to>n qeo>n ei#nai zw?on

a]i~dion a@riston, Aristotle, Metaph. xii. 7). It is true that

zw?on is nowhere employed in the N. T. to designate man

(but see Plato, Pol. 271 e; Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 1. 3;

Wisd. xix. 20); still less to designate God; for whom, as

not merely living, but as being absolute Life, the one

fountain of life, the au]to, the phgh> zwh?j the fitter as

the more reverent zwh<; is retained (John i. 4; 1 John i. 2).

§LXXXI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 309
In its ordinary use zw?on covers the same extent of meaning

as ‘animal’ with us, having generally, though by no means

universally (Plutarch, De Garr. 22; Heb. xiii . 11), a@lgon

or some such epithet attached (2 Pet. ii. 12; Jude 10).

qhri looks like a diminutive of qh, which in its

AEolic form fh reappears as the Latin ‘fera,’ and in its

more usual shape in the German ‘Thier’ and in our own

‘deer.’ Like xrusi, and so

many other words (see Fischer, Prol. de Vit. Lex. N. T.

p. 256), it has quite left behind the force of a diminutive,

if it ever possessed it. That it was already without this

at the time when the Odyssey was composed is sufficiently

attested by the me which there occurs (10. 181);

compare Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 4. 1. It would be a mis-

take to regard qhri as exclusively mischievous and raven-

ing beasts, for see Heb. xii. 20; Exod. xix. 13; however

such by this word are generally intended (Mark i. 13;

Acts xxviii. 4, 5); qhri at Acts xi. 6 being distinguished

from tetra
: while yet Schmidt says rightly: ‘In

qhri liegt eine sehr starke Nebenbeziehung auf Wildheit

und Grausamkeit.’ It is worthy of notice that, numerous

as are the passages of the Septuagint where beasts of

sacrifice are mentioned, it is never under this name. The

reason is evident, namely, that the brutal, bestial element

is in qhri brought prominently forward, not that wherein

the inferior animals are akin to man, not that therefore

which gives them a fitness to be offered as substitutes for

man, and as his representatives. Here, too, we have an

explanation of the frequent transfer of qhriand qhriw,

as in Latin of ‘bestia’ and ‘bellua,’ to fierce and brutal

men (Tit. i. 12; I Cor. xv. 32; Josephus, Antt. xvii. 5. 5;

Arrian, in Epict. ii. 9).

All this makes us the more regret, and the regret has

been often expressed—it was so by Broughton almost as

soon as our Version was published—that in the Apocalypse

our Translators should have rendered qhri and zw?on by

310 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXXII.

the same word, "beast"; and should thus for the English

reader have obliterated the distinction between them.

Both play important parts in this book; both belong to its

higher symbolism; while at the same time they move in

spheres as far removed from one another as heaven is

from hell. The zw?a or "living creatures," which stand

before the throne, and in which dwells the fulness of all

creaturely life, as it gives praise and glory to God (iv.

6-9; v. 6; vi. I; and often), constitute a part of the

heavenly symbolism; the qhri, the first beast and the

second, which rise up, one from the bottomless pit (xi. 7),

the other from the sea (xiii. I), of whom the one makes

war upon the two Witnesses, the other opens his mouth

in blasphemies, these form part of the hellish symbolism.

To confound these and those under a common designation,

to call those ‘beasts’ and these ‘beasts,’ would be an over-

sight, even granting the name to be suitable to both; it is

a more serious one, when the word used, bringing out, as

does qhri, the predominance of the lower animal life, is

applied to glorious creatures in the very court and presence

of Heaven. The error is common to all the English trans-

lations. That the Rheims should not have escaped it is

strange; for he Vulgate renders zw?a by ‘animalia’ (‘ani-

mantia’ would have been still better), and only qhri by

‘bestia.’ If zw?a had always been rendered "living crea-

tures," this should have had the additional advantage of

setting these symbols of the Apocalypse, even for the

English reader, in an unmistakeable connexion with Ezek.

i. 5, 13, 14, and often; where "living creature" is the

rendering in our English Version of hyA.ta, as zw?on is in the

Septuagint.
§ lxxxii. u[pe
IT has been often claimed, and in the interests of an

all-important truth, namely the vicarious character of the

sacrifice of the death of Christ, that in such passages as

§ LXXXII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 311.

Heb. ii. 9; Tit. ii. 14; I Tim. ii. 6; Gal. iii. 13; Luke

xxii. 19, 20; I Pet. ii. 21; iii. 18; iv. I; Rom. v. 8; John

x. 15, in all of which Christ is said to have died u[pe>r

par h[mw?n, u[pe>r tw?n proba and the like, u[pe

shall be accepted as equipollent with an]ti<. And then, it

is further urged that, as a]nti< is the preposition first of

equivalence (Homer, Il. ix. 116, 117) and then of ex-

change (1 Cor. xi. 15; Heb. xii. 2, 16; Matt. v. 38), u[pe

must in all those passages be regarded as having the same

force. Each of these, it is evident, would thus become a

dictum probans for a truth, in itself most vital, namely

that Christ suffered, not merely on our behalf and for our

good, but also in our stead, and bearing that penalty of

our sins which we otherwise must ourselves have borne.

Now, though some have denied, we must yet accept as

certain that u[pe has sometimes this meaning. Thus in

the Gorgias of Plato, 515 e]gw> u[pe>r sou? a]pokrinou?mai, ‘I

will answer in your stead;’ compare Xenophon, Anab. vii.

4. 9: ae]qer tou‘Wouldst thou die

instead of this lad?’ as the context an the words ei]

pain a]nti> e]kei make abundantly manifest;

Thucydides, i. 141; Euripides, Alcestis, 712; Polybius,

67. 7; Philem. 13; and perhaps 1 Cor. x . 29; but it is

not less certain that in passages far more numerous u[pe

means no more than, on behalf of, for the good of; thus

Matt. v. 44; John xiii. 37; I Tim. ii. I, and continually.

It must be admitted to follow from this, that had we

in the Scripture only statements to the effect that Christ

died u[pe>r h[mw?n, that He tasted death u[pe>r panto, it

would be impossible to draw from these any irrefragable

proof that his death was vicarious, He dying in our stead,

and Himself bearing on his Cross our sins and the penalty

of our sins; however we might find it, as no doubt we do,

elsewhere (Isai. liii. 4-6). It is only as having other

declarations, to the effect that Christ died a]nti> pollw?n

(Matt. xx. 28), gave Himself as an a]nti (I Tim. ii.

312 SYNOYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXXII.
6), and brining those other to the interpretation of these,

that we obtain a perfect right to claim such declarations

of Christ's death for us as also declarations of his death in

our stead. And in them beyond doubt the preposition

u[pe is the rather employed, that it may embrace both

these meanings and express how Christ died at once for

our sakes (here it touches more nearly on the meaning of

peri<, Matt. xvi. 28; Mark xiv. 24; I Pet. iii. 18; dia<

also once occurring in this connexion, i Cor. viii. 11),

and in our stead; while a]nti<, would only have expressed

the last of these.

Tischendorf, in his little treatise, Doctrina Pauli de Vi

Mortis Christi Satisfactoria, has some excellent remarks

on this matter, which I will quote, though what has been

just said has anticipated them in part: ‘Fuerunt, qui ex

soli natura et usu prapositionis u[pe demonstrare cona-

rentur, Paulum docuisse satisfactionem Christi vicariam;

alii rursus negarunt praepositionem u[pe a N. Test. au-

ctoribus recte positam esse pro an]ti<, inde probaturi con-

trarium. Peccatum utrimque est. Sola praepositio utram-

que pariter adjuvat sententiarum partem; pariter, inquam,

utramque. Namque in promptu sunt, contra perplurium

opinionem, desumta ex multis veterum Graecorum scripto-

ribus loca, quae praepositioni u[pe significatum, loco, vice,

alicujus plane vindicant, atque ipsum Paulum eodem signi-

ficatu eam usurpasse, et quidem in locis, quae ad nostram

rem non pertinent, nemini potest esse dubium (cf. Philem.

13; 2 Cor. v. 20; 1 Cor. xv. 29). Si autem quaeritur, cur

hac potissimum praepositione incerti et fluctuantis signifi-

catus in re tam gravi usus sit Apostolus—inest in ipsa prae-

positione quo sit aptior reliquis ad describendam Christi

mortem pro nobis oppetitam. Etenim in hoc versari rei

summam, quod Christus mortuus sit in commodum homi-

num, nemo negat; atque id quidem factum est ita, ut

moreretur hominum loco. Pro conjuncts significatione et

commodi et vicarii praeclare ab Apostolo adhibita est prae-

§ LXXXIII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 313
positio u[pe. Itaque rectissime, ut solet, contendit Winerus

noster, non licere nobis in gravibus locis, ubi de morte

Christi agatur, praeepositionem u[pe simpliciter=a]nti<

sumere. Est enim plane Latinorum pro nostrum fur.

Quotiescunque Paulus Christum pro nobis mortuum esse

docet, ab ipsa notione vicarii non disjunctam esse voluit

notionem commodi, neque umquam ab hac, quamvis per-

quam aperta, sit, exclucli illam in ista formula, jure meo

dico.’

lxxxiii. foneu.

OUR Translators have rendered all these words by ‘mur-

derer,’ which, apt enough in the case of the first (Matt.

xxii. 7; I Pet. iv. 15; Rev. xxi. 8), is at the same time so

general that in the other two instances it keeps out of

sight characteristic features which the words would bring

forward.

]Anqrwpokto, exactly corresponding to our ‘man-

slayer,’ or ‘homicide,’ occurs in the N. T. only in the

writings of St. John (viii. 44; 1 Ep. iii. 15, bis); being

found also in Euripides (Iphig. in Taur. 390). On our

Lord's lips, at the first of these places, a]nqrwpokto

has its special fitness; no other word would have suited

at all so well; an allusion being here to that great, and in

part only too successful, assault on the life natural and

the life spiritual of all mankind which Satan made, when,

planting sin, and through sin death, in them who were

ordained the authors of being to the whole race of

mankind, he infected the stream of human existence at its

fountain-head. Satan was thus o[ a]nqrwpokto indeed

(brotokto, in the Greek triodion); for he would fain

have slain not this man or that, but the whole race of

mankind.

Sika, which only occurs once in the N. T., and then,

noticeably enough, on the lips of a Roman officer (Acts

xxi. 38), is one of many Latin words which had followed

314 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXXIII.

the Roman domination even into those Eastern provinces

of the empire, which, unlike those of the West, had refused

to be latinize but still retained their own language.

The ‘sicarius,’ having his name from the ‘sica,’ a short

sword, poniard, or stiletto, which he wore and was prompt

to use, was the hired bravo or swordsman, troops of whom

in the long agony of the Republic the Antonies and the

Clodiuses kept in their pay, and oftentimes about their

person, to inspire a wholesome fear, and if needful to

remove out of the way such as were obnoxious to them.

The word had and its way into Palestine, and into the

Greek which was spoken there: Josephus in two instruc-

tive passages (B. J. ii. 13. 3; Antt. xx. 8. 6) giving us full

details about those to whom this name was transferred.

They were 'assassins,’ which word would be to my mind

the best rendering at Acts xxi. 38, of whom a rank growth

sprang up in those latter days of the Jewish Common-

wealth, when, in ominous token of the approaching doom,

all ties of society were fast being dissolved. Concealing

under their garments that short sword of theirs, and

mingling with the multitude at the great feasts, they

stabbed in the crowd whom of their enemies they would,

and then, taking part with the bystanders in exclama-

tions of horror effectually averted suspicion from them-

selves.

It will appear from what has been said that foneu may

be any murderer, the genus of which sika is a species,

this latter being an assassin, using a particular weapon,

and following is trade of blood in a special manner.

Again, a]nqrwpokto has a stress and emphasis of its

own. He to whom this name is given is a murderer of

men, a homicide. Foneu is capable of vaguer use; a wicked

man might be characterized as foneu>j th?j eu]sebei, a de-

stroyer of piety, though he made no direct attack on the

lives of men, a traitor or tyrant as foneu>j th?j patri

(Plutarch, Praec. Ger. Reip. 19); and such uses of the word

are not unfrequent.

§ LXXXIV. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMEXT. 315
lxxxiv. kako.
THAT which is morally evil may be contemplated on various

sides and from various points of view; the several epithets

which it will thus obtain bringing out the several aspects

under which it will have presented itself to us.

Kako and ponhro occur together, Rev. xvi. 2; as

kaki and ponhri at I Cor. v. 8; the dialogismoi> kakoi< of

St. Mark vii. 21 are dialogismoi> ponhroi< in the parallel

passage of St. Matthew (xv. 19). The distinction between

these will best be considered when we come to deal with

ponhro. Kako, the constant antithesis a]gaqo, (Deut.

xxx. 14; Ps. xxxiii. 14; Rom. xii. 21; 2 Cor. v. 10; cf.

Plato, Rep. x. 608 e), and though not quite so frequently

to kalo (Gen. xxiv. 50; xliv. 4; Heb. v. 14; Plutarch,

Reg. Apoph. 20), affirms of that which it characterizes

that qualities and conditions are wanting there which

would constitute it worthy of the name which it bears.¹

This first in a physical sense; thus kaka> ei!mata (Homer,

Od. xi. 190) are mean or tattered garments; kako>j i]atro

(AEschylus, Prom. v. 473), a physician wanting in the skill

which physicians should possess; kako>j krith (Plutarch,

Rom. Apoph. 4), an unskilful judge. So, too, in the Scrip-

ture it is often used without any ethical intention (Prov.

xx. 17; Luke xvi. 25; Acts xxviii. 5; Rev. xvi. 2). Often,

however, it assumes one; thus kako>j dou?loj (Matt. xxiv.

48) is a servant wanting in that fidelity and diligence

which are properly due from such; cf. Prov. xii. 12; Jer.

vii. 24; I Cor. xv. 33; Col. iii. 5; Phil. iii. 2.

But the ponhro is, as Ammonius calls him, o[ drastiko>j

kakou?, the active worker out of evil; the German ‘Bose-

wicht,’ or as Beza (Annott. in Matt. v. 37) has drawn the

distinction: ‘Significat ponhro aliquid amplius quam kako,
¹ Cremer: So characterisirt kako dasjenige was nicht so besehaffen

ist wie, es, seiner Natur Bestimmung and like each, sein konnte oder

sollte.’

316 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXXIV.

nempe eum qui sit in omni scelere exercitatus, et ad inju-

riam cuivis inferendam totus comparatus.’ He is, accord-

ing to the derivation of the word, o[ pare, or one

that, as we puts others to trouble;’¹ and ponhri is

the ‘cupiditas nocendi’; or as Jeremy Taylor explains it:

‘aptness to do shrewd turns, to delight in mischiefs

and tragedies; a loving to trouble our neighbour and to

do him ill offices; crossness, perverseness, and peevishness

of action in our intercourse’ (Doctrine and Practice of

Repentance, iv. 1). In ponhro the positive activity of evil

comes far more decidedly out than in kako, the word

therefore being constantly opposed to xrhsto, or the good

contemplated as the useful (Isocrates, Or. i. 6 d; viii. 184

a; Xenopho Mem. ii. 6. 20; Jer. xxiv. 2, 3; and in the

same way associated with a@xrhstoj, Demosthenes, 1271).

If kako is ‘mauvais,’ ‘mechant,’ ponhro is ‘nuisible,’

noxious, or ‘noisome’ in our elder sense of the word.

The kako may be content to perish in his own corruption,

but the ponhro is not content unless he is corrupting

others as well, and drawing them into the same destruc-

tion with himself. ‘They sleep not except they have done

mischief, and their sleep is taken away except they cause

some to fall’ (Prov. iv. 16). We know, or we are happier

still if we do not know even by report, what in French is

meant by ‘depraver les femmes.’ Thus o@yon ponhro,

(Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Conv. 2) is an unwholesome dish:
¹ J. H. H. Schmidt is of the mind that the connexion between po

and ponhro is not this, but another; that we have here one of those illus-

trations of what e may call the aristocratic tendencies of language, which

meet us so often and in so many tongues. What, he asks, is the feature

concerning their poorer neighbours' manner of life which must most

strike the leisured few—what but this, namely that they are always at

work; they are ponhroi< or laborious, for their po never cease. It is

not long, however, before a word constantly applied to the poor obtains

an unfavourable subaudition; it has done so in words out of number, as

in our own ‘churl,’ ‘villain,’ and so many more; the poor it is suggested

in thought are also the bad, and the word moves into a lower sphere in

agreement with the thought.

§ LXXXIV. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 317
%@smata ponhra< (Quoin. Adol. Poet. 4), wicked songs, such

as by their wantonness corrupt the minds of the young;

gunh> ponhra< (De Virt. et Vit. 2), a wicked wife; o]fqalmo>j

ponhro (Mark vii. 22), a mischief-working eye. Satan is

emphatically o[ ponhro, as the first author of all the mis-

chief in the world (Matt. vi. 13; Ephes vi. 16; cf. Luke

vii. 21; Acts xix. 12); ravening beasts are always qhri

ponhra< in the Septuagint (Gen. xxxvii. 3; Isai. xxxv. 9;

cf. Josephus, Antt. vii. 5. 5); kaka> qhri, indeed, occurs

once in the N. T. (Tit. i. 12), but the mailing is not pre-

cisely the same, as the context sufficiently shows. An

instructive line in Euripides (Hecuba, 596), testifies to the

Greek sense of a more inborn radical evil in the man who

is ponhro than in the kako:
[O me>n ponhro>j ou]de>n a@llo plh>n kako.
A reference to the context will show that what Euripides

means is this, namely, that a man of an evil nature (ponhro)

will always show himself base in act (kako).

But there are words in most languages, and fau?loj is

one of them, which contemplate evil under another aspect,

not so much that either of active or passive malignity,

but that rather of its good-for-nothingness, the impossi-

bility of any true gain ever coming forth from it. Thus

‘nequam’ (in strictness opposed to ‘frugi’), and ‘nequitia’

in Latin (see Ramsay on the Mostellaria of Plautus,

p. 229); ‘vaurien’ in French; ‘naughty’ and ‘naughtiness’

in English; ‘taugenichts,’ ‘schlecht,’ ‘schlechtigkeit’ in

German;¹ while on the other hand ‘tugend’ (=’taugend’)

is virtue contemplated as usefulness. This notion of

worthlessness is the central notion of fau?loj (by some

very questionably identified with ‘faul,’ ‘foul’), which in

Greek runs successively through the following meanings,

—light, unstable, blown about by every wind (see Donald-

¹ Graff (Alt-hochdeutsche Sprachschatz, p. 138) ascribes in like manner

to ‘bose’ (‘bose’) an original sense of weak, small, nothing worth.

318 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § LXXXV.
son, Cratylu , § 152; ‘synonymum ex levitate permuta-

turn,’ Matthai), small, slight (‘schlecht’ and ‘schlicht’ in

German are only different spellings of the same word),

mediocre, of no account, worthless, bad; but still bad pre-

dominantly the sense of worthless; thus fau

(Plato, Conv. 215 c), a bad flute-player; fau?loj zwgra

(Plutarch, De Adul. et Am. 6); a bad painter. In agree-

ment with this, the standing antithesis to fau?loj is

spoudai?oj (Plato, Legg. vi. 757 a; vii. 814 e; Philo, De

Merc. Mer. I) the Stoics ranging all men in two classes,

either in that of spoudai?oi, or fau?loi, and not recognizing

any middle ethical position; so too it stands over against

xrhsto (Plutarch, De Aud. Poet. 4); kalo (De Adul. et

Am. 9); e]pieikh>j (Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iii. 5. 3); a]stei?oj

(Plutarch, De Rep. Stoic. 12); while words with which it is

commonly associated are a@xrhstoj (Plato, Lysias, 204 b);

eu]telh (Legg. vii. 806 a); moxqhro (Gorg. 486 b) ;

a]sqenh (Euripides, Med. 803); a@topoj (Plutarch, De Aud.

Poet. 12; Conj. Praec. 48); e]lafro (De Adul. et Amic.

32); blabero (Quom. Aud. Poet. 14); koino (Praec. San.

14); a]krath (Gryll. 8); a]no