Synonyms of the New Testament
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| § x. deili OF these three words the first, deili bad sense; the second, fo § x. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 35 of a good interpretion, capable of an evil, and lying in- differently between the two; the third, eu]la predominantly used in a good sense, though it too has not altogether escaped being employed in an evil. Deili qrasu (Plato, Tim. 87 a), is our 'cowardice.' It occurs only once in the N. T., 2 Tim. i. 7; where Bengel says, exactly on what authority I know not, 'Est timor cujus cause: potius in animo sunt quam foris;' but deilia xiv. 27; and deilo xxi. 8: the deiloi<, in this last passage being those who in time of persecution have under fear of suffering denied the faith; cf. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. viii. 3. It is joined to
tarch, Fab. Max. 11), to e@klusij (2 Macc. iii. 24); is ascribed by Josephus to the spies who brought an ill report of the Promised Land (Antt. iii. 15. I); being constantly set over against a]ndrei for example, in the long discussion on valour and cowardice in Plato's Protagoras, 360 d; see too the lively description of the deilo seeks to shelter its timidity under the more honorable title of u]la that it is indeed a]sfa 3; Philo, Quod Det. Pot. Insid. 11). Fo Deut. xi. 25; Exod. xv. 6; 1 Cor. ii. 3; Phil. ii. 12), and answering to the Latin 'metes,' is, as has been said, a middle term, and as such used in the N. T. sometimes in a bad sense, but oftener in a good. Thus in a bad sense, Rom. viii. 15; 1 John iv. 18; cf. Wisd. xvii. 11; but in a good, Acts ix. 31; Rom. iii. 18; Ephes. vi. 5; Phil. ii. 12;
36 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § x. 1 Pet. i. 17. Being this me referred to above, adds ai]sxro indicate the timidity which misbecomes a man. On the distinction between ‘timor,’ ‘metus,’ and ‘formido’ see Donaldson, Complete Latin Grammar, p. 489.
[where see Bleek]; and xii. 28), and on each occasion signifies piety contemplated as a fear of God. The image on which it rests is that of the careful taking hold and wary handling, the eu# lamba fragile vessel, which with ruder or less anxious handling might easily be broken (h[ ga>r eu]la Aristophanes, Aves, 377), as in Balde's sublime funeral hymn on the young German Empress—
Crystallinam phialam frangit; 0 inepta et rustica Mors, 0 caduca juyencuhe sors!' But such a cautious care in the conducting of affairs (the word is joined by Plutarch to pro ta , it is declared by Euripides, Phoen. 794); springing
| as in part it will from a fear of miscarriage, easily lies open to the charge of timidity. Thus Demosthenes, who opposes
and a@tolmoj: while in Plutarch (Fab. 17) eu]labh duse that fear should have come to be regarded as an essential element of eu]la leave no room for any other sense (Josephus, Antt. xi. 6. 9), though for the most part no dishonorable fear (see, however, a remarkable exception, Wisd. xvii. 8) is in- tended, but one which a wise and good man might fitly en- tertain. Cicero (Tusc. iv. 6): ‘Declinatio [a malis] si cum ratione fiet, cautio appelletur, eaque intelligatur in solo esse sapiente; quae autem sine ratione et cum exanima- § xi. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 37
bably the definition of the Stoics in his eyes. These, while they disallowed fo which they defined e@kklisij su>n lo andria, Strom. ii. 18), into the circle of virtues; thus Diogenes Laertius vii. I. 16): th>n de> eu]la fasi>n ei##nai] t& ? fo sesqai me>n ga>r to>n sofo>n ou]damw?j, eu]labhqh and Plutarch (De Repugn. Stoic. i 1) quotes their maxim: to> ga>r eu]labei?sqai sofw?n i@dion. Yet after all, these dis- tinctions whereby they sought to escape the embarrass- ments of their ethical position, the admission for instance that the wise man right feel ‘suspiciones quasdam etiam irae affectuum,’ but not the ‘affectus’ themselves (Seneca,
worth; they had admitted the thing, and were now only fighting about words, with which to cover and conceal the virtual abandonment of their position, being o]nomatoma as a Peripatetic adversary lays to their charge. See on this matter the full discussion in Clement of Alexandria, Strom. ii. 7-9; and compare Augustine, De Civ. Dei, ix. 4. On the more distinctly religious aspect of eu]la will be opportunity to speak hereafter (§ 48).
embracing the whole complex of moral evil. In this latitude no doubt it is often used; thus a]reth< and kaki are virtue and vice (Plato, Rep. 444 d); a]retai> kai> kaki virtues and vices (Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 12; Ethic. Nic. vii. 1; Plutarch, Conj. Praec. 25, and often); while Cicero (Tusc. iv. 15) refuses to translate kaki choosing rather to coin ‘vitiositas’ for his need, and giving this as his reason: ‘Nam malitia certi cujusdam vitii nomen est, vitiositas omnium;' showing plainly 38 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xi.
vice, but of the viciousness out of which all vices spring. In the N. T., however, kakia is not so much viciousness as a special form of vice. Were it viciousness, other evil habits of the mind would be subordinated to it, as to a larger term including the lesser; whereas in fact they are coordinated with it (Rom. i. 29; Col. iii. 8; i Pet. ii. 1). We must therefore seek for it a more special meaning; and, com- paring it with ponhri is more the evil habit of mind, the ‘malitia,' by which Cicero declined to render it, or, as he elsewhere explains it, ‘versuta et fallax nocendi ratio’ (Nat. Deor. iii. 30; De Fin. iii. 11 in fine); while ponhri same. Thus Calvin says of kaki hoc verbo [Apostolus] anima pravitatem quae humanitati et aequitati est opposita, et malignitas vulgo nuncupatur,' or as Cicero defines ‘malevolentia’ (Tusc. Quaest. iv. 9): ‘voluptas ex malo alterius sine emolument suo.’ Our English Translators, rendering kaki (Eph. iv. 31; 1 Cor. v. 8; xiv. 20; i Pet. ii. I), show that they regarded it very much in this light. With this agrees the explanation of it by Theodoret on Rom. i.: kaki kalei? th>n yuxh?j e]pi> ta> xei pe author of what long passed as a Second Epistle of Cle- ment's, but which now is known not to be an Epistle at all, warns against kaki ) of all other sins (§ 10). Compare the art. Bosheit in Herzog's Real-Encycloptidie. While kaki occurs but once, namely in St. Paul's long and terrible catalogue of the wickednesses with which the heathen world was filled (Rom. i. 29); but some four or five times in the Books of the Maccabees (3 Macc. iii. 22; vii. 3; 4 Macc. i. 4; 4); kakoh ii. 16); never in the Septuagint. We have translated it § XI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 39
meaning, which none would deny that it very often has (Plato, Rep. i. 384 d; Xenophon, De Van. xiii. 16), or in that wider still which Basil the Great gives it (Req. Brev. Int. 77: kakoh kai> kekrumme divines (see my Select Glossary, s. v.), just as the author of the Third Maccabees (iii. 22) speaks of some t^ ? sumfu kakohqei<% to> kalo>n a]pwsa e]kneu is very difficult to assign to it any domain which will not have been already preoccupied either by kaki I prefer therefore to understand kakoh more restricted meaning which it sometimes possesses. The Geneva Version has so done, rendering it by a peri- phrasis, "taking all things in the evil part;" which is exactly Aristotle's definition, to whose ethical terminology the word belongs (Rhet. ii. 13): e@sti ga>r kakoh calls it, 'a baseness of nature by which we take things by the wrong handle, and expound things always in the worst sense;’1 the 'malignitas interpretantium' of Pliny (Ep. v. 7);2 being exactly opposed to what Seneca (De Ira, ii. 24) so happily calls the 'benigna rerum aesti- matio.' For precisely such a use of kakoh Antt. vii. 6. 1; cf. 2 Sam. x. 3. This giving to all words and actions of others their most unfavorable interpreta- tion Aristotle marks as one of the vices of the old, in that mournful, yet for the Christian most instructive, passage, which has been referred to just now; they are kakoh and kaxu
pejorern rapimus, contra quam exigit officium dilectionis.' 2 How striking, by the way, this use of 'interpretor,' as 'to interpret awry,' in Tacitus (himself not wholly untouched with the vice), Pliny, and the other writers of their age. 40 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XI.
position which it occupies in that dread catalogue of sins entirely justifying us in treating it as that peculiar form of evil which manifests itself in a malignant interpretation of the actions of others, a constant attribution of them to the worst imaginable motives. Nor should we take leave of kakoh the deep psychological truth attested in this secondary meaning which it has obtained, namely, that the evil which we trace in ourselves makes us ready to suspect and believe evil in others. The kakoh evil moral habit, projects himself, and the motives which actuate him, into others round him, sees himself in them; for, according to our profound English proverb, ‘Ill doers are ill deemers;' or, as it runs in the monkish line, Au- tumat hoc in me quod novit perhdus in se;' and just as Love on the one side, in those glorious words of Schiller,
Divinities, being itself divine;’ so that which is itself thoroughly evil finds it impossible to believe anything but evil in others (Job i. 9-11; ii. 4, 5). Thus the suitors in the Odyssey, at the very time when they are laying plots for the life of Telemachus, are per- suaded that he intends at a banquet to mingle poison with their wine, and so to make an end of them all (Odyss. ii. 329, 330). Iago evidently believes the world to be peopled with Iagoes, can conceive of no other type of humanity but his own. Well worthy of notice here is that remark- able passage in the Republic of Plato (iii. 409 a, b), where Socrates, showing the profit that it is for physicians to have been chiefly conversant with the sick, but not for teachers and rulers with the bad, explains how it comes to pass that young men, as yet uncorrupted, are eu]h than kakoh § XII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 41 § xii. a]gapa WE have made no attempt to discriminate between these words in our English Version. And yet there is often a difference between them, well worthy to have been noted and reproduced, if this had lain within the compass of our language; being very nearly equivalent to that between ‘diligo’ and ‘amo' in the Latin. To understand the exact distinction between these, will help us to understand that between those rather which are the more immediate object of our inquiry. For this we possess abundant material in Cicero, who often sets the words in instructive antithesis to one another. Thus, writing to one friend of the affection in which he holds another (Ep. Fam. xiii.47): ‘Ut scires illum a me non diligi solum, verum etiam amari;' and again (Ad Brut. I): ‘L. Clodius valde me diligit, vel, ut e]mfatikw these and other like passages (there is an ample collection of them in Doderlein's Latein. Synon. vol. iv. pp. 9S seq.), we might conclude that ‘amare,’ which answers to filei?n, is stronger than ‘diligere,’ which, as we shall see, corre- sponds to a]gapa?n. This is true, but not all the truth. Ernesti has successfully seized the law of their several uses, when he says, ‘Diligere magis ad judicium, amare vero ad intimum sensum pertinet.' So that, in fact, Cicero in the passage first quoted is saying,--‘I do not esteem the man merely, but I love him; there is something of the passionate warmth of affection in the feeling with which I regard him. It will follow, that while a friend may desire rather ‘amari’ than ‘diligi’ by his friend, there are aspects in which the ‘diligi’ is more than the ‘amari,’ the a]gapqa?sqai, than the filei?sqai. The first expresses a more reasoning attachment, of choice and selection (‘deligere’= ‘deligere’), from a seeing in the object upon 42 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XII. whom it is bestowed that which is worthy of regard; or else from a sense that such is due toward the person so regarded, as being a benefactor, or the like; while the second, without being necessarily an unreasoning attach- ment, does yet give less account of itself to itself; is more instinctive, is more of the feelings or natural affections, implies more passion; thus Antonius, in the funeral dis- course addressed to the Roman people over the body of Caesar : e]filh ii. 7. 9. 12) two passages throwing much light on the relation between the words, and showing how the notions of respect and reverence are continually implied in the a]gapa?n, which, though not excluded by, are still not in- volved in, the filei?n. Thus in the second of these, ai[ me>n w[j khdemo this it may be explained, that while men are continually bidden a]gapa?n to>n qeo viii. 3), and good men declared so to do (Rom. viii. 28; I Pet. i. 8; i John iv. 21), the filei?n to>n qeo to them never. The Father, indeed, both a]gap%? to>n Ui[o (John iii. 35), and also filei? to>n Ui[o the first of which statements such passages as Matt. iii. 17, with the second such as John i. 18; Prov. viii. 22, 30, may be brought into connection. In almost all these passages of the N. T., the Vulgate, by the help of ‘diligo’ and ‘amo,’ has preserved a dis- tinction which we have let go. This is especially to be regretted at John xxi. 15-17; for the passing there of the original from one word to the other is singularly instruc- tive, and should by no means escape us unnoticed. In that threefold "Lovest thou Me?" which the risen Lord addresses to Peter, He asks him first, a]gap%?j me; At this moment, when all the pulses in the heart of the now peni- tent Apostle are beating with a passionate affection toward his Lord, this word on that Lord's lips sounds far too cold; § XII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 43 to very imperfectly express the warmth of his affection toward Him. The question in any form would have been grievous enough (ver. 17); the language in which it is clothed makes it more grievous still.1 He therefore in his answer substitutes for the a]gap%?j of Christ the word of a more personal love, filw? se (ver. 15). And this he does not on the first occasion only, but again upon a second. And now at length he has triumphed; for when his Lord puts the question to him a third time, it is not a]gap%?j any more, but filei?j. All this subtle and delicate play of feeling disappears perforce, in a translation which either does not care, or is not able, to reproduce the variation in the words as it exists in the original. I observe in conclusion that e@rwj, e]ra?n, e]rasth occur in the N. T., but the two latter occasionally in the Septuagint; thus e]ra?n, Esth. ii. 17; Prov. iv. 6; e]rasth generally in a dishonorable sense as 'paramour' (Ezek. xvi. 33; Hos. ii. 5); yet once or twice (as Wisd. viii. 2) more honorably, not as = 'amasius,' but 'amator.' Their absence is significant. It is in part no doubt to be ex- plained from the fact that, by the corrupt use of the world, they had become so steeped in sensual passion, carried such an atmosphere of unholiness about them (see Origen,
God abstained from the defiling contact with them; yea, devised a new word rather than betake itself to one of these. For it should not be forgotten that a]ga is a word born within the bosom of revealed religion: it occurs in the Septuagint 2 Sam. xiii. 15; Cant. ii. 4; Jer. ii. 2), and in the Apocrypha (Wisd. iii. 9); but there is no trace of it in any heathen writer whatever, and as little in Philo or Josephus; the inmost they attain to here is filanqrwpi and filadelfi singularly missed the point and is wholly astray. [ a]gapa?n, aware, est necessitudinis et affectus; filei?n, diligere, judicii.' 44 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XII. love between brethren in blood (cf. Cremer, W. B. d. N. T. Gracitat, p. 12). But the reason may lie deeper still. @Erwj might have fared as so many other words have fared, might have been consecrated anew, despite of the deep degradation of its past history;1 and there were ten- dencies already working for this in the Platonist use of it, namely, as the longing and yearning desire after that un- seen but eternal Beauty, the faint vestiges of which may here be everywhere traced;2 ou]ra sense has called it (De Vit. Cont. 2 ; De Vit. Mos. f). But in the very fact that e@rwj (=o[ deino>j i!meroj, Sophocles,
sessed (in Plato's exquisite mythus, Symp. 203 b, @Erwj is the offspring of Peni that Christian love, which is not merely the sense of need, of emptiness, of poverty, with the longing after fulness, not the yearning after an unattained and in this world unattainable Beauty but a love to God and to man, which is the consequence of God's love already shed abroad in the hearts of his people. The mere longing and yearning, and e@rwj at the best is no more, has given place, since the Incarnation, to the love which is not in desire only, but also in possession. That e@rwj is no more is well expressed in the lines of Gregory Nazianzene (Carm. ii. 34, 150, 15):
between ‘amor’ and ‘dilectio’ or ‘caritas,’ see Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xiv. 7: ‘Nonnulli arbitrantur aliud esse dilectionem sive caritatem, aliud amorem. Dicunt enim dilectionem accipiendam esse in bono, amorem in malo.' He shows, by many examples of ‘dilectio’ and ‘diligo’ used in an ill sense in the Latin Scriptures, of 'amor ' and ‘amo’ in a good, the impossibility of maintaining any such distinction.
words of Ignatius, Ad Rom. 7: o[ e]mo>j e@rwj e]stau consistent with the genius of these Ignatian Epistles to take e@rwj sub-
than objectively, ‘Christ, the object of my love, is crucified.’ § XIII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 45
§ xiii. qa THE connexion of qa it means properly the agitated or disturbed, finds favour with Curtius (p. 596) and with Pott (Etym. Forsch. vol. ii. p. 56). Schmidt dissents (vol. I. p. 642); and urges that the predominant impression which the sea makes on the be- holder is not of unrest but of rest, of quietude and not of agitation; that we must look for the word's primary meaning in quite another direction: qa ‘ist das Meer nach seiner naturlichen Beschaffenheit, als grosse Salzflut, und dem Sinne Hach von dem poetischen a!lj, durch nichts unterscheiden.' It is according to him ‘the great salt flood.' But not entering further into this question, it will be enough to say that, like the Latin ‘mare,’ it is the sea as contrasted with the land (Gen. i. 10; Matt. xxiii. 15; Acts iv. 24); or perhaps more strictly as contrasted with the shore (see Hayman's Odyssey, vol. T. p. xxxiii. Appendix). Pe and expanse of open water, the ‘altum mare,’1 as distin- guished from those portions of it broken by islands, shut in by coasts and headlands (Thucydides, vi. 104; vii. 49; Plutarch, Timol. 8)2 The suggestion of breadth, and not depth, except as an accessory notion, and as that which will probably find place in this open sea, lies in the word; thus Sophocles (Ed. Col. 659): makro>n to> deu?ro pe 1 It need hardly be observed that, adopted into Latin, it has the same meaning:
Ut pelagus tenuere rates, nec jam amplius ulla Occurrit tellus, maria undique et undique caelum.' Virgil, AEn. v. 8.
sophist with a feu idiom reappears in the French ‘noyer la terre;’ applied to a ship sailing out of sight of land; as Indeed in Virgil's ‘Phaeacum abscondimus arces.' 46 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xiv.
of the desert; and in Herodotus (ii. 92) the Nile overflow- ing Egypt is said pelagi covers to the depth of a few feet; cf. ii. 97. A passage in the Timaeus of Plato (25 a, b) illustrates well the distinc- tion between the words, where the title of pe fused to the Mediterranean Sea: which is but a harbour, with the narrow entrance between the Pillars of Hercules for its mouth; while only the great Atlantic Ocean be- yond can be acknowledged as a]lhqino>j po o@ntwj. Compare Aristotle, De Mun. 3; Meteorol. ii. 1: r[e Straits of Gibraltar], ei@pou dia> perie e]k mega It might seem as if this distinction did not hold good on one of the two occasions upon which pe in the N. T., namely Matt. xviii. 6: "It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that
which undoubtedly the passage requires, is here to be looked for in the katapontisq^?:--po being connected with ba perhaps the same word as this last, and implying the sea in its perpendicular depth, as pe the same in its horizontal dimensions and extent. Com- pare Doderlein, Lat. Syn. vol. iv. p. 75. § xiv. sklhro IN the parable of the Talents (Matt. xxv.), the slothful servant charges his master with being sklhro man" (ver. 24); while in the corresponding parable of St. Luke it is au]sthro he accuses him of being. It follows that the words must § xiv. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 47 be nearly allied in meaning; but not that they are identi- cal in this. Sklhro is properly an epithet applied to that which through lack of moisture is hard and dry, and thus rough and dis- agreeable to the touch; or more than this, warped and intractable, the ‘asper’ and ‘durus’ in one. It is then transferred to the region of ethics, in which it chiefly moves, expressing there roughness, harshness, and intracta- bility in the moral nature of a man. Thus Nabal (I Sam. xxv. 3) is sklhro evil conditions of the churl. For other company which the word keeps, we find it associated with au]xmhro (Aristotle, Ethic. iv. 8; Plutarch, Cons. ad Apoll. 3); a]nh<- duntoj (Praec. Ger. Reip. 3); a]phnh rastoj (De Adul. Am. 19); traxu a]pai genes Laertius, vii. I. 64, 117); a]fhniasth Septen. 1); au]qa 3); pikro 175.d); malako Sophocles, OEdip. Col. 771). Au]sthro xix. 21), and never in the Septuagint, is in its primary meaning applied to such things as draw together and con- tract the tongue, are harsh and stringent to the palate, as new wine not yet mellowed by age, unripe fruit, and the like. Thus Cowper, describing himself, when a boy, as gather- ing from the hedgerows ‘sloes austere,’ uses ‘austere’ with exactest propriety. But just as we have transferred ‘strict’ (from ‘stringo’) to the region of ethics, so the Greeks transferred au]sthro the taste, as in sklhro word, set out anything amiable or attractive in him to 48 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XIV.
Eudemus (Ethic. Eudem. vii. 5) contrasts the au]sthro the eu]tra
At the same time none of the epithets with which au]sthro which lies in many with which sklhro moreover, it is met not seldom in more honorable com- pany; thus it is joined with sw Praec. Conj. 7, 29; Quaest. Gr. 40); with mousiko v. 2); with swfroniko ii. 4); one, otherwise gennai?oj kai> me sacrificing to the Graces (Plutarch, Amat. 23); while the Stoics affirmed all good men to be austere (Diogenes Laertius, vii. I. 64, 117): kai> au]sthrou>j de< fasin ei#nai pa taj tou>j spoudai mh tarch, Praec. Conj. 27. In Latin, ‘austerus’ is predomi- nantly an epithet of honour (Doderlein, Lat. Synon. vol. iii. p. 232); he to whom it is applied is earnest and severe, opposed to all levity; needing, it may very well be, to watch against harshness, rigour, or moroseness, into which he might easily lapse—(‘non austeritas ejus tristis, non dis- soluta sit comitas,' Quintilian, 2. 5 )--but as yet not chargeable with these. We may distinguish, then, between them thus: sklhro conveys always a reproach and a grave one, indicates a character harsh, inhuman, and (in the earlier use of that word) uncivil; in the words of Hesiod, a]da by him to a@tegktoj, that is, not to be moulded and fashioned like moist clay, in the hands of another, ‘eigensinnig;’ being one of the many which, in all languages, beginning with a good sense (Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iv. 7), have ended with a bad. § xv. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 49 kratero epithet does not of necessity convey a reproach at all, any more than the Berman ‘streng,’ which is very different from ‘hart;' and even where it does, yet conveys one of far less opprobrious a kind; rather the exaggeration of a virtue pushed too far, than an absolute vice. § xv. ei]kw THERE is a twofold theological interest attending the distinction between ei]kw here brought into comparison with it; the first belonging to the Arian controversy, and turning on the fitness or unfitness of the words before us to set forth the relation of the Son to the Father; while the other is an interest that, seeming at first sight remote from any controversy, has yet contrived to insinuate itself into more than one, namely, whether here be a distinction, and if so, what it is, between the 'image' (ei]kw ‘likeness’ (o[moi at the beginning (Gen. i. 26). I need hardly remind those who will care to read this volume of the distinction drawn between the words during the course of the ‘long’ Arian debate. Some there may be who are not acquainted with Lightfoot's note on Col. i. 15 in his Commentar on the Colossians. Them I must refer to his discussion on the words ei]kw>n tou? qeou?. It is evident that ei]kw used as equivalent, and in many positions it would be in- different whether one or the other were employed. Thus they are convertibly used by Plato (Phaedr. 250 b), o[moiw<- mata and ei]ko resemblances of the archetypal things in the heavens. When, however, the Church found it necessary to raise up bulwarks against Arian error and equivocation, it drew a strong distinction; between these two, one not arbitrary, 50 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xv. but having essential difference in the words themselves for its ground. Ei]kw and used in the same intention of the Logos by Philo (Leg.
not merely resembles, but from which it is drawn, a para<- deigma (Philo, ibid.); it is the German ‘Abbild,’ which in- variably presumes a ‘Vorbild;’ thus Gregory Nazianzene (Orat. 36): au!th ga>r ei]ko (Matt. xxii. 20); the reflection of the sun in the water is ei]kw material is ei]kw heart of the matter than by any of these illustrations we have done, the child is e@myuxoj ei]kw But in the o[moi it by no means follows that it has been acquired in this way, that it is derived: it may be accidental, as one egg is like another, as there may exist a resemblance between two men in no way akin to one another. Thus, as Augustine in an instructive passage brings out (Quest. lxxxiii. 74), the ‘imago’ ( =ei]kw but the ‘similitudo' (=o[moi ‘imago.’ The reason will at once be manifest why ei]kw is ascribed to the Son, as representing his relation to the Father (2 Cor. iv. 4; Col. i. 15; cf. Wisd. vii. 26); while among all the words of the family of o!moioj, not merely none are so employed in the Scripture, but they have all been expressly forbidden and condemned by the Church; that is, so soon as ever this has had reason to suspect that they were not used in good faith. Thus Hilary, address- ing an Arian, says, "I may use them, to exclude Sabellian error; but I will not suffer you to do so, whose intention is altogether different" (Con. Constant. Imp. 17-21).
and a]pau nearly allied, like e@soptron, a]tmi § xv. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 51 26), like skia< (Philo, Leg. Alleg. iii. 31; but not Heb. x. 1); which are all remoter approximations to the same truth, is indeed inadequate; but, at the same time, it is true as far as it goes; and in human language, employed for the setting forth of truths which transcend the limits of human thought, we must be content with approximate statements, seeking for the complement of their inade- quacy, for that which shall redress their insufficiency, from some other quarter. Each has its weak side, which must be supported by strength derived from elsewhere. Ei]kw weak; for what image is of equal worth and dignity with the prototype from which it is imaged? But it has also its strong side; it implies an archetype from which it has been derived and drawn; while o[moio words of this family, expressing mere similarity, if they did not actually imply, might yet suggest, and if they suggested, would seem to justify, error, and that with no compensating advantage. Exactly the same considera- tions were at work, here, which, in respect of the verbs
Church to allow the former and to condemn the latter. The student who would completely acquaint himself with all the aspects of the great controversy to which these words, in their relation to one another, gave rise, above all, as to the exact force of ei]kw find the materials admirably prepared to his hand by Petavius, De Trin.; iv. 6; vi. 5, 6; while Gfrorer (Philo, vol. i. p. 261 sqq.) will give him the very interest- ing, but wholly inadequate, speculations of the Alexandrian theosophists on the same subject. The second interest in the discrimination of these words lies in the question, which has often been discussed, whether in that great fiat announcing man's original con- stitution, "Let us make man in our image (kat ] ei]ko LXX., Ml,c, Heb.), after our likeness" (kaq ] o[mmoi tUmd, Heb.), anything different was intended by the second 52 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xv. from the first, or whether the second is merely to be regarded as consequent upon the first, "in our image," and therefore "after our likeness." Both the ei]kw 1 Cor. xi. 7; the o[moi is discussed at large by Gregory of Nyssa in a treatise which he has devoted exclusively to the question (Opp. 1638, vol. ii. pp. 22-34), but mainly in its bearing on controversies of his own day. He with many of the early Fathers, as also of the Schoolmen, affirmed a real distinction. Thus, the great Alexandrian theologians taught that the ei]kw something in which men were created, being common to all, and continuing to man as much after the Fall as before (Gen. ix. 6), while the o[moi toward which man was created, that he might strive after and attain it; Origen (De Prin. iii. 6): ‘Imaginis digni- tatem in prima, conditione percepit, similitudinis vero per- fectio in consummatione servata est;' cf. in Joan. tom. xx. 20; Irenaeus, v. 16. 2; Tertullian, De Bapt. 5. Doubtless the Platonist studies and predilections of the illustrious theologians of Alexandria had some influence upon them here, and on this distinction which they drew. It is well known that Plato presented the o[moiou?sqai t&? qe&? kata> to> dunato and indeed Clement (Strom. ii. 22) brings the great passage of Plato to bear upon this very discussion. The School- men, in like manner, drew a distinction, although it was not this one, between ‘these two divine stamps upon man.’ Thus Anselm, Medit. 1ma ; Peter Lombard, Sent. ii. dist. 16; H. de S. Victore, De Anima, 25; De Sac. i. 6. 2: ‘Imago secundum cognitionem veritatis, similitudo secundum amorem virtutis;' the first declaring the in- tellectual, as the second the moral, preeminence in which man was created. Many, however, have refused to acknowledge these, or any other distinctions, between the two declarations; as § xvi. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 53 Baxter, for instance, who, in his interesting reply to Elliott the Indian Missionary's inquiries on the subject, rejects them all as groundless conceits, though himself in general only too anxious for distinction and division (Life and Times, by Sylvester, vol. ii. p. 296). They were scarcely justified in this rejection. The Alexandrians, I believe, were very near the truth, if they did not grasp it altogether. There are portions of Scripture, in respect of which the words of Jerome, originally applied to the Apocalypse, ‘quot verba tot sacrameuta,’ hardly contain an exaggeration. Such an eminently significant part is the history of man's creation and his fall, all which in the first three chapters of Genesis is contained. We may expect to find mysteries there; prophetic intimations of truths which it might require ages upon ages to develop. And, without attempt- ing to draw any very strict line between ei]kw or their Hebrew counterparts, we may be bold to say that the whole history of man, not only in his original creation, but also in his after restoration and reconstitution in the Son, is significantly wrapped up in this double statement; which is double for this very cause, that the Divine Mind did not stop at the contemplation of his first creation, but looked on to him as "renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him" (Col. iii. 10, on which see Lightfoot in loco); because it knew that only as par- taker of this double benefit would he attain the true end for which he was ordained.
also; but for all this a]swtiand a]se tical in meaning; they will express different aspects of his sin, or at any rate contemplate it from different points of view.
54 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XVI. more than they intended or knew, occurs thrice in the N. T. (Ephes. v. 18; Tit. i. 6; I Pet. 4); once in the Septuagint (Prov. xxviii. 7) and once in the Apocrypha, being there joined with kw further the adverb a]sw once in the Septuagint (Prov. vii. 11). At Ephes. v. 18 we translate it ‘excess;’ in the other two places, ‘riot,’ as
‘luxuria' and ‘luxuriose,' words implying in medieval Latin a loose and profligate habit of living which is strange to our ‘luxury' and ‘luxuriously’ at the present: see my Select Glossary, s. vv. in proof. @Aswtoj is sometimes taken in a passive sense, as =a@swstoj (Plutarch, Alcib. 3); one who cannot be saved, sw Clement of Alexandria (Paedag. I) explains it, ‘per- ditus' (Horace, Sat. i. 2. 15), ‘heillos,’ or as we used to say, ‘losel,’ ‘hopelost’ (this noticeable word is in Grimeston's Polybius); Grotius: ‘Genus hominum ita lin- mersorum vitiis, ut eorum salus deplorata sit;’ the word being, so to speak, prophetic of their doom to whom it was applied.1 This, however, was quite the rarer use; more commonly the a@swtoj is one who himself cannot save, or spare, = ‘prodigus;’ or, again to use a good old English word more than once employed by Spenser, but which we have now let go, a ‘scatterling.’ This extra- vagant squandering of means Aristotle notes as the proper definition of a]swti u[perbolh> peri> xrh ethical terminology; the e]leuqe man, keeps the golden mean between the two a@kra, namely,
‘1uxu perditium,’ proceeds: ‘ipsa si cupiat Salus,
No doubt in the Greek original there was a threefold play here on a@swtoj, swthri in Latin has hindered Terence from preserving. § xvi. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 55
noble stinginess (‘tenacitas,’ Augustine, Ep. 167. 2), on the other. It is in this view of a]swti viii. 560 e), when he names the various catachrestic terms, according to which men call their vices by the names of the virtues which they caricature, makes them style their a]swti ‘Pro luxuries liberalitas dicitur.’ It is at this stage of its meaning that Plutarch joins with it polute But it is easy to see that one who is a@swtoj in this sense of spending too much, of laying out his expenditure on a more magnificent scheme than his means will war- rant, slides easily, under the fatal influence of flatterers, and of all those temptations with which he has surrounded himself, into spending on his own lusts and appetites of that with which he parts so freely, laying it out for the gratification of his own sensual desires. Thus the word takes a new colour, and indicates now not only one of a too expensive, but also and chiefly, of a dissolute, debauched, profligate manner of living; the German 'liederlich.' Aristotle has noted this (Ethic. Ntc. iv. I. 36): dio> kai>,
he explains a prior statement: tou>j a]kratei?j kai> ei]j a]kola- si In this sense a]swti a]swti ii. 5). The two meanings will of course run often into one another, nor will it be possible to keep them strictly asunder. Thus the several examples of the a@swtoj, and of a]swti rather of one kind, sometimes of the other. The waster of his goods will be very often a waster of everything 56 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xvi. besides, will lay waste himself—his time, his faculties, his powers; and, we may add, uniting the active and passive meanings of the word, will be himself laid waste; he at once loses himself, and is lost. In the Tabula of Cebes, ]Aswti cules, keeps company with ]Akrasi kei The etymology of a]se some going so far to look for it as to Selge, a city of Pisidia, whose inhabitants were infamous for their vices; while others derive it from qe word as the German ‘schwelgen’ see, however, Donald- son, Cratylus, 3rd edit. p. 692. Of more frequent use than
‘lasciviousness’ (Mark vii. 22; 2 Cor. xii. 21; Gal. v. 19; Ephes. iv. 29; I Pet. iv. 3; Jude 4); though sometimes ‘wantonness' (Rom. xiii. 13; 2 Pet. ii. 18); as in the Vulgate now ‘impudicitia,’ and now ‘luxuria;’ even as it is defined in the Etymologicon Magnum as e[toimo pa?san h[donh purities and lusts of the flesh exclusively in their eye, they have certainly given to the word too narrow a meaning.
such in the catalogue of sins at Mark vii. 21, 22, is best described as wanton lawless insolence; being somewhat stronger than the Latin ‘protervitas,’ though of the same quality, more nearly ‘petulantia,’ Chrysostom (Hom. 37
the Great (Reg. Brev. Int. 67) as dia h} mh> fe observes, is very closely allied to the u[bristiko a]ko who dares whatsoever his caprice and wanton petulance may suggest.1 None would deny that a]se § XVI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 57 play itself in acts of what we call lasciviousness; 'for there are no worse displays of u!brij than in these; but still it is their petulance, their insolence, which this word, linked by Polybius (v. II ) with bi its two renderings in our Version, ‘wantonness' is the best, standing as it does in a remarkable ethical con- nexion with a]se meaning.
In a multitude of passages the notion of lasciviousness is altogether absent from the word. In classical Greek it is defined (Bekker's Anecdota, p. 451) h[ met ] e]phreasmou? kai>
he characterizes the blow which Meidias had given him, as in keeping with the known a]se this and u!brij together (Cont. Meid. 514); linking elsewhere a]selgw?j, with despotikw?j (Or. xvii. 21), and with propetw?j (Or. lix. 46). As a]se outrage on the part of Alcibiades, committed against an honorable citizen of Athens (Alcib. 8); indeed, the whole picture which he draws of Alcibiades is the full-length portrait of an a]selgh geian as a frequent cause of revolutions (Pol. v. 4). Josephus ascribes a]se to build a temple of Baal in the Holy City itself (Antt. viii. 13. i); and the same to a Roman soldier, who, being on guard at the Temple during the Passover, provoked by an act of grossest indecency a tumult, in which many lives were lost (xx. 5. 3). Other passages, helpful to a fixing of the true meaning of the word, are 3 Macc. ii. 26; Polybius, viii. 14. 1; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 1. 26; and see the quotations in Westein, i. p. 588. ]Ase a]swti quae ab AEschine opponitur t^? metrio capital note, but too long to quote, on all that a]se ceitis on Gal. v. § 136. 58 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XVII. of a]swti geia, lawless insolence and wanton caprice. § xvii. qigga AN accurate synonymous distinction will sometimes cause us at once to reject as untenable some interpretation of Scripture, which might, but for this, have won a certain amount of allowance. Thus, many interpreters have ex- plained Heb. xii. 18: " For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched" (yhlafwme civ. 32: "He toucheth the hills, and they smoke;" and call in aid the fact that, at the giving of the Law, God came down upon mount Sinai, which "was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it" (Exod. xix. 18). But decisively forbidding this is the fact that
to exercise a moulding, modifying influence upon it, but at most a feeling of its surface (Luke xxiv. 39: i John i. I); this, it may be, with the intention of learning its composi- tion (Gen. xxvii. 12, 21, 22); while not seldom it signifies no more than a feeling for or after an object, without any actual coming in contact with it at all. It continually ex- presses a groping in the dark (Job v. 14); or of the blind (Isai. lix. 10; Gen. xxvii. 12; Deut. xxviii. 29; Judg. xvi. 26); tropically sometimes (Acts xvii. 27); compare Plato (Phaed. 99 b), yhlafw?ntej w!sper e]n sko tophanes, Pax, 691; Eccles. 315, and Philo, Quis Rer. Div. Haer. 51. Nor does the yhlafw reference was just made, the ‘mons palpabilis,’ or ‘trac- tabilis,’ as the Vulgate has it, mean any-thing else: ‘Ye are not come,’ the Apostle would say, to any material mountain, like Sinai, capable of being touched and handled; not, in this sense, to the mountain that might be felt, but to the heavenly Jerusalem, to a nohto an ai]sqhto § XVII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 59
vel quidquid sensu percipitur aut investigatur quovis modo; plane ut Tacitus (Ann. iii. 12) oculis contrectare dixit, nec dissimili ratione Cicero (Tusc. iii. 15) mente con- trectare. Et Sina quidem mons ideo ai]sqhto quia Sioni opponitur, quo in monte, que sub sensus cadunt, non spectantur; sed ea tantum, quae mente atque aninio percipi possunt, nohta<, pneumatika<, h]qika<. Appo- site ad h. 1. Chrysostomus (Hom. 32 in Ep. ad Hebr.):
The so handling of any object as to exert a modifying influence upon it, the French ‘manier,' as distinguished from ‘toucher,’ the German ‘betagten,’ as distinguished from ‘beruhren,’ would be either a!ptesqai1 or qigga These words may be sometimes exchanged the one for the other, as at Ex. xix. 12 they are; and compare Aristotle,
passages at Coloss. ii. 21 ; but in the main the first is stronger than the second; a!ptesqai, (=’contrectare’) than
a passage of Xenophon (Cyr. i. 3. 5), where the child Cyrus, rebuking his grandfather's delicacies, says: o!ti se o[rw?,
stronger that it can be used, which certainly qigga could not, of the statuary's shaping of his materials (Plu- tarch, Max. cum Principibus, I); the self-conscious effort, which is sometimes present to this, being always absent from the other. Our Version, then, has exactly reversed the true order of the words, when, at Col. ii. 21, it trans- lates mh> a!y^, mhde< geu not, handle not.'' The first and. last prohibitions should
tuagint are, o[ a[pto 60 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XVIII.
not, touch not;" just as in the Latin Versions ‘tangere,’ which now stands for a!ptesqai, and ‘attaminare,’ or ‘con- trectare,’ for qigei?n, should be transposed. How much more vividly will then come out the ever ascending scale of superstitious prohibition among the false teachers at Colosse. To abstain from ‘handling’ is not sufficient; they forbid to ‘taste,’ and, lastly, even to ‘touch,’ those things from which, according to their notions, uncleanness might be contracted. Beza has noted this well: ‘Verbum qi cente semper oratione intelligatur crescere superstitio.’ The verb yau the Septuagint. There is, I may observe in conclusion, a very careful study on this group of words in Schmidt's
Gospel found, and, so to speak, glorified; enlarged the borders of its meaning; lifted it up into a higher sphere; made it the expression of far deeper thoughts, of far mightier truths, than any of which it had been the vehicle before. It was, indeed, already in use; but as the Chris- tian new-birth was not till after Christ's birth; as men were not new-born, till Christ was born (John i. 12); as their regeneration did not go before, but only followed his generation; so the word could not be used in this its highest, most mysterious sense, till that great mystery of the birth of the Son of God into our world had actually found place. And yet it is exceedingly interesting to trace these its subordinate, and, as they proved, prepara- tory uses. There are passages (as, for instance, in Lucian, (Musae Encom. 7) in which it means revivification, and nothing more. In the Pythagorean doctrine of the trans- § XVIII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 61 migration of souls, their reappearance in new bodies was called their paliggenesi ii. 6: De Isid. et Osir. 35: ]Osi For the Stoics the word set forth the periodic renovation of the earth, when, budding and blossoming in the spring- time, it woke up from its winter sleep, and, so to speak, revived from its winter death: which revival therefore Marcus Antoninus calls (ii. 1) th>n periodikh>n paliggene- si paliggenesi world out of fire, which the Stoics taught, (De Incorr. Mun. 17, 2 1; De Mun 15); while in another place, of Noah and those in the Ark with him, he says (De Vit. Mos. ii. 12): paliggenesi some heretics, who, bringing old heathen speculations into the Christian Church, a]pei his restoration to his dignities and honours, after his return from exile, ‘hanc paliggenesi which compare Philo, Leg. ad Cai. 41. Josephus (Antt. xi. 3. 9) characterizes the restoration of the Jewish nation after the Captivity, as th>n a]na patri Yüklə 3,52 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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