Synonyms of the New Testament

§ xxii. o[lo.
[Olo and te occur together, though their order

is reversed, at Jam. i. 4,—"perfect and entire " (cf. Philo,

De Sac. Ab. e Cain. 33: e@mplea kai> o[lo te:

Dio Chrysostom, Oral. 12, p. 203); e@mplea kai> o[lo te

besides in the N. T. (1 Thess. v. 23); o[lo, also, but

in a physical of an ethical sense, once (Acts iii. 16; cf.

Isai. i. 6). [Olo signifies first, as its etymology

declares, that which retains all which was allotted to it at

the first (Ezek xv. 5), being thus whole and entire in all

its parts (o[lo pantelh, Philo, De Mere. Meret. 1) ;

with nothing necessary for its completeness wanting. Thus

Darius would have been well pleased not to have taken

Babylon if only Zopyrus, who had maimed himself to

carry out the stratagem by which it fell, were o[lo.

still (Plutarch, Reg. et Imper. Apoph.). Again, unhewn

stones, as having lost nothing in the process of shaping

and polishing, are o[lo (Dent. xxvii. 6; 1 Macc. iv.

47); perfect weeks are e[bdoma (Lev. xxiii. 15);

and a man e]n o[loklh, is ‘in a whole skin’ (Lucian,

Philops. 8). We next find o[lo expressing that in-

tegrity of body, with nothing redundant, nothing deficient

(cf. Lev. xxi. 17-23), which was required of the Levitical

priests as a condition of their ministering at the altar,

which also might not be wanting in the sacrifices they

§ XXII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 75

offered. In both these senses Josephus uses it (Antt. iii.

12:2); as does Philo continually. It is with him the

standing word for this integrity of the priests and of the

sacrifice, to the necessity of which he often recurs, seeing

in it, and rightly, a mystical significance, and that these

are o[lo (De Vict. 2; De Vict.

Off. I, o[lo pantelw?j me: De Agricul.

29; De Cherub. 28 ; cf. Plato, Legg. vi. 759 c). Te is

used by Homer (Il. 1. 66) in the same sense.

It is not long before o[lo and o[loklhri, like the

Latin ‘integer’ and ‘integritas,’ are transferred from

bodily to mental and moral entireness (Suetonius, Claud.

4). The only approach to this in the Apocrypha is Wisd.

xv. 3, o[lo: but in an interesting and im-

portant passage in the Phaedrus of Plato (250 c; cf. Tim.

c), o[lo expresses the perfection of man before the

Fall; I mean, of course, the Fall as Plato contemplated

it; when to men, as yet o[lo a]paqei?j kakw?n, were

vouchsafed o[lo, as contrasted with those

weak partial glimpses of the Eternal Beauty, which are

all that to most men are now vouchsafed. That person

then or thing is o[lo, which is ‘omnibus numeris

absolutus,’ or e]n mhdeni> leipo, as St. James himself

(i. 4) explains the word.

The various applications of te are all referable to

the te, which is its ground. In a natural sense the

te are the adult, who, having attained the full limits

of stature, strength, and mental power within their reach,

have in these respects attained their te, as distinguished

from the ne or pai?dej, young men or boys (Plato, Legg.

xi. 929 c; Xenophon, Cyr. viii. 7. 6; Polybius, v. 29. 2).

This image of full completed growth, as contrasted with

infancy and childhood, underlies the ethical use of te

by St. Paul, he setting these over against the nh

Xrist&? (1 Cor. 6; xiv. 20; Ephes. iv. 13, 14; Phil.

iii, 15; Heb. v. 14; cf. Philo, De Agricul. 2); they cor-

respond in fact to the pate of I John ii. 13, 14, as dis-

76 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXII.

tinct from the neani and paidi. Nor is this ethical

use of te confined to Scripture. The Stoics distin-

guished the te in philosophy from the proko
, just

as at I Chron. xxv. 8 the te are set over against the

manqa. With the heathen, those also were te

who had been initiated into the mysteries; for just as the

Lord's Supper was called to> te (Bingham, Christ.

Antiquities, i. 4. 3), because there was nothing beyond it,

no privilege into which the Christian has not entered, so

these te of heathen initiation obtained their name as

having been now introduced into the latest and crowning

mysteries of all.

It will be seen that there is a certain ambiguity in our

word ‘perfect,’ which, indeed, it shares with teitself;

this, namely, that they are both employed now in a rela-

tive, now in an absolute sense; for only so could our

Lord have said, "Be ye therefore perfect (te), as

your Heavenly Father is perfect" (te), Matt. v. 48;

cf. xix. 21. The Christian shall be ‘perfect,’ yet not in

the sense in which some of the sects preach the doctrine

of perfection, who, as soon as their words are looked into,

are found either to mean nothing which they could not

have expressed by a word less liable to misunderstanding;

or to mean something which no man in this life shall

attain, and which he who affirms he has attained is

deceiving himself, or others, or both. The faithful man

shall be ‘perfect,’ that is, aiming by the grace of God to

be fully furnished and firmly established in the knowledge

and practice of the things of God (Jam. iii. 2; Col. iv. 12:

te peplhroforhme); not a babe in Christ to the

end, ‘not always employed in the elements, and infant

proposition and practices of religion, but doing noble

actions, well skilled in the deepest mysteries of faith and

holiness.'¹ In this sense St. Paul claimed to be te,
¹ On the sense in which 'perfection' is demanded of the Christian,

there is a discussion at large by Jeremy Taylor, Doctrine and Practice

of Repentance i. 3. 40-56, from which this quotation is drawn.

§ XXII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 77

even while almost in the same breath he disclaimed the

being teteleiwme (Phil. iii. 12, 15).

The distinction then is plain. The o[lo is one who

has preserved, or who, having once lost, as now regained,

his completeness: the te is one who has attained his

moral end, that for which he was intended, namely, to be

a man in Christ; however it may be true that, having

reached this, other and higher ends will open out before

him, to have Christ formed in him more and more.¹ In

the o[lo no grace which ought to be in a Christian

man is deficient; in the te no grace is merely in its

weak imperfect beginnings, but all have reached a certain

ripeness and maturity. [Olotelh, occurring once in the

N. T. (I Thess. v. 23; cf. Plutarch, De Plac. Phil. v. 21),

forms a connecting link between the two, holding on to

o[lo in its first half, to te in it second.

@Artioj, occurring only once in the N. T. (2 Tim. iii. 17),

and there presently explained more fully as e]chrtisme,

approximates in meaning more closely to o[lo, with

which we find it joined by Philo (De Plant. 29), than to

te. It is explained by Calvin, ‘in quo nihil est mu-

tilum,'—see further the quotation from Theodoret in Sui-

cer, s.v.,—and is found opposed to xwloChrysostom), to

kolobo (Olympiodorus), to a]na
(Theodoret). Vulcan

in Lucian (Sacrif. 6) is ou]k a@rtioj tw> po. If we ask

ourselves under what special aspects completeness is con-

templated in a@rtioj, it would be safe to answer that it is

not as the presence only of all the parts which are necessary

for that completeness, but involves further the adaptation

and aptitude of these parts for the ends which they were

designed to serve. The man of God, St. Paul would say

(2 Tim. iii.17), should be furnished an accomplished

with all which is necessary for the carrying out of the

work to which he is appointed.
¹ Seneca (Ep. 120) says of one, ‘Habebat perfectum animum, ad

summam sui adductus.'

78 SYNONMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXIII.
§ xxiii. ste.
WE must not confound these words because our English

‘crown’ stands for them both. I greatly doubt whether

anywhere in classical literature ste, is used of the

kingly, or imperial, crown. It is the crown of victory in

the games, of civic worth, of military valour, of nuptial

joy, of festal gladness—woven of oak, of ivy, of parsley,

of myrtle, of olive, or imitating in gold these leaves or

others—of flowers, as of violets or roses (see Athenaeus,

xv. 9-33); the ‘wreath,’ in fact, or the ‘garland,’ the

German ‘Kranz’ as distinguished from ‘Krone;’ but

never, any more than ‘corona’ in Latin, the emblem

and sign of royalty. The dia was this basilei

gnw, as Lucian calls it (Pisc. 35; cf. Xenophon, Cyr.

viii. 3. 13; Plutarch, De Frat. Am. 18); being properly a

white linen band or fillet, ‘taenia' or ‘fascia’ (Curtius,

iii. 3), encircling the brow; so that no language is more

common than peritiqe to indicate the assump-

tion of royal dignity (Polybius, v. 57. 4; r Macc. i. 9;

xi. 13; xiii. 32; Josephus, Antt. xii. 10, I), even as in

Latin in like manner the ‘diadema’ alone is the ‘insigne

regium’ (Tacitus, Annal. xv. 29). With this agree Sel-

den's opening words in his learned discussion on the

distinction between ‘crowns’ and ‘diadems’ (Titles of

Honour, c. 8, 2): ‘However those names have been from

antient time confounded, yet the diadem strictly was a

very different thing from what a crown now is or was;

and it was in other than only a fillet of silk, linen, or

some such thing. Nor appears it that any other kind of

crown was used for a royal ensign, except only in some

kingdoms of Asia, but this kind of fillet, until the be-

ginning of Christianity in the Roman Empire.'

A passage in Plutarch brings out very clearly the dis-

tinction here affirmed. The kingly crown which Antonius

§ XXIII. SYNONMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 79
offers to Caesar the biographer describes as dia

strefa (Caes. 61). Here the

ste is the garland or laureate wreath, with which

the diadem proper was enwoven; indeed, according to

Cicero (Phil. ii. 34), Caesar was already ‘coronatus’

(=e]stefanwme), this he would have been as Consul,

when the offer was made. It is by keeping this distinc-

tion in mind that we explain a version in Suetonius (Caes.

79) of the same incident. One places on Caesar's statue

‘coronam laureal, candida fascia praeligatam' (his statues,

Plutarch also informs us, were diadh

basilikoi?j); on which the tribunes command to be re-

moved, not the ‘corona,’ but the ‘fascia;’ this being the

diadem, in which alone the traitorous suggestion that he

should suffer himself to be proclaimed king was con-

tained. Compare Diodorus Siculus, xx. 24, where of one

he says, dian ou]k e@krinen e@xein, e]for a]ei> ste-

fanon.

How accurately the words are discriminated in the

Septuagint and in the Apocrypha may be seen by com-

paring in the First Maccabees the passages in which

dia is employed (such as i. 9; vi. 15; viii. 14; xi.

13, 54; xii. 39; xiii. 32), and those where ste ap-

pears (iv. 57; x. 29; xi. 35; xiii. 39; cf. 2 Macc. xiv. 4).

Compare Isai. lxii. 3, where of Israel it is said that it

shall be ste, but, as it is added, dia

basilei.

In the N. T. it is plain that the ste where of St.

Paul speaks is always the conqueror's, and not the king's

(1 Cor. ix. 24-26; 2 Tim. ii. 5); it is the same in what passes

for the Second Epistle of Clement, § 7. If St. Peter's allu-

sion (I Pet. v. 4) is not so directly to the Greek games,

yet he too is silently contrasting the wreaths of heaven

which never fade, the a]mara,

with the garlands of earth which lose their beauty and

freshness so soon. At Jam. i. 12; Rev. ii. 10; iii. 11; iv.

80 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXIII.
4, it is little probable that a reference, either near or

remote, is intended to these Greek games; the alienation

from which, as idolatrous and profane, reached so far

back, was so deep on the part of the Jews (Josephus, Antt.

xv. 8. 1-4; I Macc. i. 14; 2 Macc. iv. 9, 12); and no doubt

also of the Jewish members of the Church, that imagery

drawn from the prizes of these games would have rather

repelled than attracted them. Yet there also the ste,

or the ste, is the emblem, not of royalty,

but of highest joy and gladness (cf. ste

matoj, Ecclus. vi. 31), of glory and immortality. We may

the more confidently conclude that with St. John it was

so, from the fact that on three occasions, where beyond a

doubt he does intend kingly crowns, he employs dia

(Rev. xii. 3; xii. I [cf. xvii. 9, 10, ai[ e[pta> kefalai> . . .

basilei?j e[pta< ei]sin]; xix. 12). In this last verse it is

sublimely said of Him who is King of kings and Lord of

lords, that "on his head were many crowns" (diadh

polla<); an expression, with all its magnificence, difficult

to realize, so long as we picture to our mind's eye such

crowns as at the present monarchs wear, but intelligible

at once, when we contemplate them ‘diadems,’ that is,

narrow fillets encircling the brow. These “many dia-

dems" will then be the tokens of the many royalties--

of earth, of heaven, and of hell (Phil. ii. 10)—which are

his; royalties once usurped or assailed by the Great Red

Dragon, the usurper of Christ's dignities and honours,

who has therefore his own seven diadems as well (xiii. 1),

but now openly and for ever assumed by Him whose

rightfully they are; just as, to compare earthly things

with heavenly, when Ptolemy, king of Egypt, entered

Antioch in triumph, he set two ‘crowns,’ or ‘diadems’

rather (diadh), on his head, the ‘diadem’ of Asia,

and the ‘diadem’ of Egypt (1 Macc. xi. 13); or as in

Diodorus Siculus (i. 47) we read of one e@xousan trei?j

basilei th?j kefalh?j, the context plainly showing

§ XXIV. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 81

that these are three diadems, the symbols of a triple

royalty, which she wore.

The only occasion on which ste might seem to

be used of a kingly crown is Matt. xxvi 29; cf. Mark xv.

17; John xix. 2; where the weaving of the crown of

thorns (ste), and placing it on the Saviour's

head, is evidently a part of that blasphemous masquerade

of royalty which the Roman soldiers would fain compel

Him to enact. But woven of such materials as it was,

probably of the juncus marinus, or of the lycium spinosum,

it is evident that dia could not be applied to it; and

the word, therefore, which was fittest in respect of the

material whereof it was composed, take the place of that

which would have been the fittest in respect of the pur-

pose for which it was intended. On the whole subject of

this § see The Dictionary of the Bible, s. vv. Crown and

Diadem; and Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, art. Coro-

nation, p. 464.

§ xxiv. pleoneci.
BETWEEN these words the same distinction exists as be-

tween our ‘covetousness’ and ‘avarice’ as between the

German ‘Habsucht’ and ‘Geiz.’ Pleoneci, primarily

the having more, and then in a secondary and more usual

sense, the desire after the having more, is the more active

sin, filarguri the more passive: the first, the ‘amor

sceleratus habendi,' seeks rather to grasp what it has not;

the second, to retain, and, by accumulating, to multiply

that which it already has. The first, in its methods of

acquiring, will be often bold and aggressive; even as it

may, and often will, be as free in scattering, and squander-

ing, as it was eager and unscrupulous in getting: the

pleone will be often ‘rapti largitor,’ as was Catiline;

characterizing whom Cicero demands (Pro Cael. 6): ‘Quis in

rapacitate avarior? quis in largitione effusior?’ even as

the same idea is very boldly conceived in the Sir Giles

82 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xxiv.
Overreach of Massinger. Consistently with this, we find

pleone joined with a!rpac (i Cor. v. 10); pleoneci

with baru (Plutarch, Arist. 3); pleoneci, with klopai<

(Mark vii. 2); with a]diki(Strabo, vii. 4. 6); with

filoneiki (Plato, Legg. iii. 677 b); and the sin defined by

Theodoret (in Ep. ad Rom. i. 30): h[ tou? plei

kai> tw?n ou] proshko: with which compare

the definition, whosesoever it may be, of ‘avaritia’ as

‘injuriosa a petitio alienorum’ (ad Herenn. iv. 25); and

compare further Bengel's note (on Mark vii. 22): ‘pleone-

ci, comparativum involvens, denotat medium quiddam

inter furtum et rapinam; ubi per varias artes id agitur

ut alter per se, sed cum laesione sui, inscius vel invites,

offerat, concedat et tribuat, quod indigne accipias.' It is

therefore fitly joined with ai]sxrokerdei (Polybius, vi. 46.

3). But, while it is thus with pleoneci, on

the other hand, the miser's sin (it is joined with mikro-

logi, Plutarch, Quom. Am. ab Adul. 36) will be often

cautious and timid, and will not necessarily have cast off

the outward shows of uprightness. The Pharisees, for

example, were fila (Luke xvi. 14): this was not

irreconcilable with the maintenance of a religious profes-

sion, which the pleonci would have manifestly been.

Cowley, the delightful prose which he has inter-

spersed with his verse, draws this distinction strongly and

well (Essay 7, Of Avarice), though Chaucer had done the

same before him (see his Persones Tale; and his descrip-

tion severall, of Covetise and Avarice in The Romaunt

of the Rose, 183-246). ‘There are,’ Cowley says, 'two

sorts of avarice; the one is but of a bastard kind, and

that is the rapacious appetite for gain; not for its own

sake, but for the pleasure of refunding it immediately

through all the channels of pride and luxury; the other

is the true kind, and properly so called, which is a rest-

less and unsatiable desire of riches, not for any further

end or use, but only to hoard and preserve, and per-

§ XXIV. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 83
petually increase them. The covetous man of the first

kind is like a greedy ostrich, which devours any metal,

but it is with an intent to feed upon it, and, in effect, it

makes a shift to digest and excern it. The second is like

the foolish chough, which loves to steal money only to

hide it.’

There is another point of view in which pleoneci

may be regarded as the larger term, the genus, of which

filarguri is the species; this last being the love of

money, while pleoneci is the drawing and snatching by

the sinner to himself of the creature in every form and

kind, as it lies out of and beyond himself the ‘indigentia’

of Cicero ('indigentia est libido inexp ebilis:' Tusc. iv.

9. 21); compare Dio Chrysostom, De varit. Orat. 17;

Augustine, Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 35, 36; and Bengel's pro-

found explanation of the fact, that, in the enumeration of

sins, St. Paul so often associates pleoneci with sins of the

flesh; as at 1 Cor. v. 11; Ephes. v. 3, 5; Col. 5: ‘Solet

autem jungere cum impuritate pleoneci, nam homo

extra Deum quaerit pabulum in creatura materiali, vel per

voluptatem, vel per avaritiam bonun alienum ad se

redigit.' But, expressing much, Bengel as not expressed

all. The connection between these two provinces of sin

is deeper and more intimate still; and his is witnessed

in the fact, that not merely is pleoneci, as signifying

covetousness, joined to sins of impurity but the word is

sometimes used, as at Ephes. v. 3 (see Jerome, in loc.), and

often by the Greek Fathers (see Suicer. Thes. s. v. : and

Hammond's excellent note on Rom. i. 29), to designate

these sins themselves; even as the root out of which they

alike grow, namely, the fiercer and ever fiercer longing

of the creature which has forsaken God, to fill itself

with the lower objects of sense, is one and the same.

The monsters of lust among the Roman emperors were

monsters of covetousness as well (Suetonius, Calig. 38-41).

Contemplated under this aspect, pleoneci has a much

84 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXV.
wider and deeper sense than filargur. Plato (Gorg. 493),

likening the desire of man to the sieve or pierced vessel of

the Danaids, which they were ever filling, but might never

fill,¹ has implicitly a sublime commentary on the word;

nor is it too much to say, that in it is summed up that

ever defeated longing of the creature, as it has despised

the children's bread, to stay its hunger with the husks of

the swine.

§ xxv. bo.
WHILE bo and poimai are both often employed

in a figurative and spiritual sense in the 0. T. (1 Chron.

xi. 2; Ezek. xxiv. 3; Ps. lxxvii. 72; Jer. xxiii. 2), and

poimai in the New; the only occasions in the latter, on

which bo, is so used, are John xxi. 5, 17. There our

Lord, giving to St. Peter that thrice-repeated commission

to feed his “lambs’ (ver. i 5), his "sheep" (ver. 16), and

again his "sheep" (ver. 17), uses first bo, then secondly

poi, returing to bo at the last. This return, on

the third and last repetition of the charge, to the word

employed on the first, has been a strong argument with

some for an absolute identity in the meaning of the

words. They have urged, with some show of reason, that

Christ could not have had progressive aspects of the

pastoral work in his intention here, else He would not

have come back in the end to the bo, with which He

began. Yet cannot ascribe to accident the variation of

the words, any more than the changes, in the same verses,

from a]gapa?n to filei?n (see p. 41), from a]rnito pro.

It is true that our Version, rendering bo and poi

alike by "Feed," as the Vulgate by "Pasce," has not

attempted to follow the changes of the original text, nor

¹ It is evident that the same comparison had occurred to Shakespeare:

The cloyed will,

That satiate yet unsatisfied desire,

That tub both filled and running.'

Cymbeline, Act i. Sc. 7.

§ XXV. SYNONYMS OF THE :NEIV TESTAMENT. 85

can I perceive any resources of language by which either

our own Version or the Latin could have helped itself

here. ‘Tend’ for poi is the best suggestion which I

could make. The German, by aid of ‘weiden’ (=bo)

and ‘huten’ (=poimai), might do it; but De Wette

has ‘weiden’ throughout.

The distinction, notwithstanding, is very far from

fanciful. Bo, the Latin ‘pascere,’ is simply ‘to feed:’

but poimai involves much more; the whole office of the

shepherd, the guiding, guarding, folding of the flock, as

well as the finding of nourishment for it. Thus Lampe:

‘Hoc symbolum totum regimen ecclesiasticum compre-

hendit;’ and Bengel: ‘Bo est pars tou? poimai.’

The wider reach and larger meaning of poimai makes

itself felt at Rev. 27; xix. 15; where at once we are

conscious how impossible it would be to substitute bo;

and compare Philo, Quod Det. Pot. Insid. 8.

There is a fitness in the shepherd's work for the setting

forth of the highest ministries of men for the weal of

their fellows, out of which the name, shepherds of their

people, has been continually transferred to those who are,

or should be, the faithful guides and guardians of others

committed to their charge. Thus kings in Homer are

poime: cf. 2 Sam. v. 2; vii. 7; Ps. lxxviii. 71. 72.

Nay more, in Scripture God Himself is a Shepherd (Isai.

xl. 11; Ezek. xxxiv. 11-31; Ps. xxiii.); and God manifest

in the flesh avouches Himself as o[ poimh>n o[ lao (John

x. 11); He is the a]rxipoimh (I Pet. v. 4); o[ men

tw?n proba (Heb. xiii. 20); as such fulfilling the pro-

phecy of Micah (v. 4). Compare a sublime passage in

Philo, De Agricul. 12, beginning: ou!tw me poimai

e]sti>n a]gaqo sofoi?j a]ndra

kai> yuxai?j te kai> qe&? t&? panhge-

mo, with the three §§ preceding.

But it may very naturally be asked, if poimai be thus

so much the more significant and comprehensive word, and

86 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXXVI.

if on this accoun the poi was added to the bo in

the Lord's latest instruction to his Apostle, how account

for his going back to bo again, and concluding thus,

not as we should expect with the wider, but with the

narrower charge, and weaker admonition? In Dean Stan-

ley's Sermons an Essays on the Apostolic Age, p. 138, the

answer is suggested. The lesson, in fact, which we learn

from this is a most important one, and one which the

Church, and all that bear rule in the Church, have need

diligently to lay to heart; this namely, that whatever else

of discipline and rule may be superadded thereto, still, the

feeding of the flock, the finding for them of spiritual

food, is the first and last; nothing else will supply the

room of this, nor may be allowed to put this out of

that foremost place which by right it should occupy.

How often, in a false ecclesiastical system, the preaching

of the Word loses its preeminence; the bofalls into

the background, is swallowed up in the poimai, which

presently becomes no true poimai, because it is not a

bo as well, but such a ‘shepherding’ rather as God's

Word by the prophet Ezekiel has denounced (xxxiv. 2, 3,

8, 10; cf. Zech. xi. 15-17; Matt. xxiii.)
xxvi. zh?loj, fqo.
THESE words are often joined together; they are so by

St. Paul (Gal. v. 20, 21); by Clement of Rome (1 Ep. § 3),

4, 5; and virtually by Cyprian in his little treatise, De

Zelo et Livore: by classical writers as well; by Plato (Phil.

47 e; Legg. iii. 679 c; Menex. 242 a); by Plutarch, Coriol.

19; and by others. Still, there are differences between

them; and this first, that zh?loj is a me, being used

sometimes in a good (as John ii. 17; Rom. x. 2; 2 Cor.

ix. 2), sometimes, and in Scripture oftener, in an evil sense

(as Acts v. 17; Rom. xiii. 13; Gal. v. 20; Jam. iii. 14, in

which last place, to make quite clear what zh?loj is meant,

§ XXVI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 87
it is qualified by the addition of pikro, land is linked with

e]ri): while fqo, incapable of good, is used always

and only in an evil, signification. When zh?loj, is taken in

good part, it signifies the honorable emulation,¹ with the

consequent imitation, of that which presents itself to the

mind's eye as excellent: zh?loj tw?n a]ri (Lucian, Adv.

Indoct. 17): zh?loj tou? belti (Philo, de Praem. et Poen.

3); filotimi zh?loj (Plutarch, De Alx. Fort. Or. ii. 6;

An Seni Resp. Ger. 25); zh?loj kai> mi (Herodian, 4);

zhlwth>j kai> mimhth (vi. 8). It is the Latin ‘aemmulatio,’

in which nothing of envy is of necessity included, however

such in it, as in our ‘emulation,’ may find place; the

German ‘Nacheiferung,’ as distinguished from ‘Eifer-

sucht.' The verb ‘aemulor,’ I need hardly observe, finely

expresses the difference between worth and unworthy

emulation, governing an accusative in cases where the

first, a dative where the second, is intended. South here,

as always, expresses himself well: We ought by all

means to note the difference between envy and emulation;

which latter is a brave and a noble thing, and quite of

another nature, as consisting only in a generous imitation

of something excellent; and that such an imitation as

scorns to fall short of its copy, but strives, if possible, to

outdo it. The emulator is impatient of a superior, not

by depressing or maligning another, but by perfecting

himself. So that while that sottish thing envy sometimes

fills the whole soul, as a great dull fog does the air; this,

on the contrary, inspires it with a new life and vigour,

whets and stirs up all the powers of it to action. And

surely that which does so (if we also abstract it from those

heats and sharpnesses that sometimes by accident may

¹ @Erij, which often in the Odyssey, and in the later Greek (not, I

believe, in the Iliad), very nearly resembled zh?loj, in this its meaning of

emulation, was capable in like manner of a nobler application; thus Basil

the Great defines it (Reg. Brev. Tract. 66): e@rij mer

tou? mh> e]la

88 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXVI.

attend it), must needs be in the same degree lawful and

laudable too, that it is for a man to make himself as use-

ful and accomplished as he can' (Works, London, 1737,

vol. v. p. 403; and compare Bishop Butler, Works, 1836,

vol. i. p. i s).

By Aristotle zh?loj is employed exclusively in this

nobler sense, as that active emulation which grieves, not

that another has the good, but that itself has it not ; and

which, not pausing here, seeks to supply the deficiencies

which it finds in itself. From this point of view he con-

trasts it with envy (Rhet. 2. II): e@sti zh?loj lu


fainome

a]ll ] o!ti ou]xi> kai> au[t&? e]sti: dio> kai> e]pieike

kai> e]pieikw?n: to> de> fqonei?n, fau?lon, kai> fau. The

Church Fathers follow in his footsteps. Jerome (Exp. in

Gal. v. 20): [zh?loj et in bonam partem accipi potest,

quum quis nititur ea quae bona sunt aemulari. Invidia

vero aliena felicitate torquetur;' and again (in Gal. iv.

17): ‘AEmulantur bene, qui cum videant in aliquibus esse

gratias, dona, virtutes, ipsi tales esse desiderant.' OEcu-

menius: e@sti zh?loj ki

tinoj a]fomoiwj o{ h[ spoudh< e]sti: cf. Plutarch,

Pericles, 2. Compare the words of our English poet:
'Envy, to which the ignoble mind's a slave,

Is emulation in the learned and brave.'

But it is only too easy for this zeal and honorable

rivalry to degenerate into a meaner passion; the Latin

‘simultas,' connected (see Doderlein, Lat. Synon. vol. iii.

p. 72), not with ‘simulare,’ but with ‘simul,’ attests the

fact: those who together aim at the same object, who are

thus competitors, being in danger of being enemies as

well; just as a!milla (which, however, has kept its more

honorable use, see Plutarch, Anim. an Corp. App. Pej. 3),

is connected with a!ma; and ‘rivales’ meant no more

at first than occupants of the banks of the same river

§ XXVI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 89
(Pott, Etym. Forsch. ii. 2. 191). These degeneracies which

wait so near upon emulation, and which sometimes cause

the word itself to be used for that into which it degene-

rates ('pale and bloodless emulation,' Shakespeare), may

assume two shapes: either that of a desire to make war

upon the good which it beholds in another, and thus to

trouble that good, and make it less; therefore we find

zh?loj and e@rij continually joined together (Rom. xiii. 13;

2 Cor. xii. 20; Gal. v. 20; Clement of Rome, I Ep. § 3,

36): zh?loj and filoneiki (Plutarch, De Cap. Inim. Util.

I): or, where there is not vigour and energy enough to

attempt the making of it less, there in may be at least the

wishing of it less; with such petty carping and fault-finding

as it may dare to indulge in--fqo and mw?moj being

joined, as in Plutarch, Praec. Reg. Reip. 27. And here in

this last fact is the point of contact which zh?loj has with

fqo (thus Plato, Menex. 242 a: prw?ton me>n zh?loj, a]po>

zh fqo: and AEschylus, Agamem. 939: o[ d ] a]fqo<-

nhtoj ou]k e]pi); the latter being essentially

passive, as the former is active and energic. We do not

find fqo in the comprehensive catalogue of sins at

Mark vii. 21, 22; but this envy, du, as AEschylus

(Agam. 755) has called it, shmei?on fu

ponhra?j, as Demosthenes (499, 21), pasw?n megi

a]nqrw
, as Euripides has done, and of which

Herodotus (iii. So) has said, a]rxh?qen e]mfu

could not, in one shape or other, be absent; its place is

supplied by a circumlocution, o]fqlmo>j ponhro (cf. Ec-

clus. xiv. 8, 10), but one putting it in connexion with

the Latin ‘invidia,’ which is derived, as Cicero observes

(Tusc. iii. 9), ‘a nimis intuendo fortuna alterius;' cf.

Matt. xx. 15; and I Sam. xviii. 9: "Saul eyed," i. e.

envied, "David." The ‘urentes oculi’ of Persius (Sat. ii.

34), the ‘mal’ occhio’ of the Italians, must receive the

same explanation. Fqo, is the meaner sin,—and there-

fore the beautiful Greek proverb, o[ fqo

90 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXXVI.

xo,—being merely displeasure at another's good;¹

lu
, as the Stoics defined it

(Diogenes Laertins, vii. 63, III), lu

eu]pragi, as Basil (Hom. de Invid.), ‘aegritudo suscepta

propter alterius res secundas, quae nihil noceant invidenti,'

as Cicero (Tusc. iv. 8; cf. Xenophon, Mem. iii. 9. 8),

‘odium felicita is alienae,’ as Augustine (De Gen. ad Lit.

11-14),² with the desire that this good or this felicity may

be less: and this, quite apart from any hope that thereby

its own will be more (Aristotle, Rhet. ii. 10); so that it is

no wonder that Solomon long ago could describe it as

'the rottenness of the bones' (Prov. xiv. 30). He that is

conscious of it is conscious of no impulse or longing to

raise himself to the level of him whom he envies, but only

to depress the envied to his own. When the victories of

Miltiades would not suffer the youthful Themistocles to

sleep (Plutarc Them. 3), here was zh?loj in its nobler

form, an emulation which would not let him rest, till he

had set a Salamis of his own against the Marathon of his

great predecessor. But it was fqo which made that

Athenian citizen to be weary of hearing Aristides evermore

styled ‘The Just’ (Plutarch, Arist, 7); an envy which

contained no impulses moving him to strive for himself

after the justice which he envied in another. See on this

subject further the beautiful remarks of Plutarch, De Prof.

Virt. 14; and on the likenesses and differences between

mi?soj and fqo, his graceful essay, full of subtle analysis

of the human heart, De Invidid et Odio. Baskani, a word

frequent enough in later Greek in this sense of envy,

nowhere occurs in the N. T.; baskaionly once

(Gal. iii. 1).
¹ Augustine's definition of fqo (Exp. in Gal. v. 21) introduces

into it an ethical element which rarely if at all belongs to it: ‘Invidia

dolor animi est, cum indignus videtur aliquis assequi etiam quod non

appetebas.' This vould rather be ne and nemesa?n in the ethical ter-

minology of Aristotle (Ethic. Nic. ii. 7, 15; Rhet. ii. 9).

² ‘Sick of a strange disease, another's health.' Phineas Fletcher.

§ XXVII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 91

§ xxvii. zwh<, bi
THE Latin language and the English not less are poorer

than the Greek, in having but one word, the Latin ‘vita,’

the English ‘life,’ where the Greek has two. There

would, indeed, be no comparative poverty here, if zwh< and

biwere merely duplicates. But, contemplating life as

these do from very different points of view, it is inevitable

that we, with our one word for both, must use this one in

very diverse senses; and may possibly, through this equi-

vocation, conceal real and important differences from our-

selves or from others; as nothing is so effectual for this

as the employment of equivocal words

The true antithesis of zwh< is qa (Rom. viii. 38;

2 Cor. v. 4; Jer. viii. 3; Ecclus. xxx. 7; Plato, Legg. xii.

944 c), as of zh?n, a]poqnh (Luke xx. 38; I Tim. v. 6;

Rev. i. 18; cf. Il. xxiii. 70; Heroditus, i. 31; Plato,

Phaedo, 71 d; ou]k e]nantij t&? zh?n to> teqna;);

zwh<, as some will have it, being nearly connected with

a@w, a@hmi, to breathe the breath of life, which is the neces-

sary condition of living, and, as such is involved in like

manner in pneu?ma and yuxh<, in ‘spiritus’ and ‘anima.’

But, while zwh< is thus life intensive (‘vita qua vivimus’),

bi is life extensive ('vita quam vivimus’), the period or

duration of life; and then, in a secondary sense, the means

by which that life is sustained; and thirdly, the manner

in which that life is spent; the ‘line oir life,’ ‘profession,’

career. Examples of bi in all these senses the N. T.

supplies. Thus it is used as

a. The period or duration of life ; thus, Xro

(I Pet. iv. 3): cf. bi (Job x. 20): mh?koj bi

kai> e@th zwh?j (Prov. iii. 2): Plutarch (De Lib. Ed. 17),

stigmh> xro: again, bi (Cons.

ad Apoll. 25); and zwh> kai> bi (De Pla. Phil. v. 18).

b. The means of life, or ‘living,’ A. V.; Mark xii. 44;

92 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXVII.

Luke viii. 43; xv. 12; I John iii. 17, to>n bi:

cf. Plato, Gorg. 486 d; Legg. xi. 936 c; Aristotle, Hist. An.

ix. 23. 2; Euripides, Ion, 329; and often, but not always,

these means of life, with an under sense of largeness and

abundance.

g. The manner of life; or life in regard of its moral

conduct, having such words as tro

for its

equivalents, and not seldom such epithets as ko,

xrhsto, joined to it I Tim. ii. 2; so Plato (Rep.

i. 344 e), bi: Plutarch, di bi (De Virt. et

Vit. 2): and very nobly (De Is. et Os. 1), tou? de> ginw

ta> o@nta kai> fronei?n a]faireqe xro

[oi#mai] ei#nai th>n a]qanasi: and De Lib. Ed. 7, tetagme

bi: Josephus, Att. v. 10. I; with which compare Augus-

tine (De Trin. xii. II): Cujus vitae sit quisque; id est,

quomodo agat haec temporalia, quam vitam Graeci non zwh

sed bi vocant.’

In bi thus used as manner of life, there is an ethical

sense often inhering, which, in classical Greek at least, zwh<

does not possess. Thus in Aristotle (Politics, i. 13. 13),

it is said that he slave is koinwno>j zwh?j, he lives with the

family, but not koinwno>j bi, he does not share in the

career of his master; cf. Ethic. Nic. x. 6. 8 ; and he draws,

according to Ammonius, the following distinction: bi

e]sti> logikh> zwh<: Ammonius himself affirming bi, to be

never, except incorrectly, applied to the existence of plants

or animals, but only to the lives of men.¹ I know not

how he reconciled this statement with such passages as

these from Aristotle, Hist. Anim. 15; ix. 8. 1; un-

less, indeed, he included him in his censure. Still, the

distinction which he somewhat too absolutely asserts (see

Stallbaum's ote on the Timaeus of Plato, 44 d), is a real

one: it displays itself with singular clearness in our words

'zoology' and ‘biography;’ but not in ‘biology,’ which,

¹ See on these two synonyms, Viimel, Synon. Worterbuch, p. 168, sq.;

and Wyttenbach Animad. in Plutarchum, vol. iii. p. 166.

§ XXVII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 93
as now used, is a manifest misnomer.¹ We speak, on one

side, of ‘zoology,’ for animals (zw?a) have the vital prin-

ciple; they live, equally with men, and are capable of being

classed and described according to the different workings

of this natural life of theirs: but, on the other hand, we

speak of ‘biography;’ for men not merely live, but they

lead lives, lives in which there is that moral distinction

between one and another, which may make them worthy

to be recorded. They are e@th zwh?j, but o[doi> bi (Prov.

iv. 10); cf. Philo, De Carit. 4, where of Moses he says

that at a certain epoch of his mortal course, h@rcato meta-

ba.

From all this it will follow, that, while qa and zwh<

constitute, as observed already, the true antithesis, yet

they do this only so long as life is physically contemplated;

thus the Son of Sirach (xxx. 17): kreir

zwh>n pikra>n h} a]r]r[w. But so soon as a moral

element is introduced, and ‘life’ is regarded as the oppor-

tunity for living nobly or the contrary, the antithesis is

not between qa and zwh<, but qa and bi: thus

compare Xenophon (De Rep. Lac. ix. I): ai]retw

to>n kalo>n qa tou? ai]sxrou? bi, with Plato

(Legg. xii. 944 d): zwh>n ai]sxra>n a]rnu ta

ma?llon h} met ] a]ndrein kai> eu]dai. A

reference to the two passages will show that in the latter

it is the present boon of shameful life, (therefore zwh<,)

which the craven soldier prefers to an honorable death;

while in the former, Lycurgus teaches that an honorable

death is to be chosen rather than a long and shameful

existence, a bi (Empedocles, 326) a bi

(Xenophon, Mem. iv. 8. 8; cf. Meineke, Flagm. Com. Graec.

142); a bi (Plato, Apol. 38 a); a ‘vita non
¹ The word came to us from the French. Gottfried Reinhart Trevi-

sanus, who died in 1837, was its probable inventor in his book, Biologie,

ou la Philosophic de la Nature vivante, of which the first volume appeared

in 1802, Some flying pages by Canon Field, of Norwich, Biology and

Social Science, deal well with this blunder.

94 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXVII.

vitalis;’ from which all the ornament of life, all the

reasons for living, have departed. The two grand chap-

ters with which the Gorgias of Plato concludes (82, 83)

constitute a fine exercise in the distinction between the

words themselves, as between their derivatives no less;

and Herodotus, vii. 46, the same.

But all this being so, and bi, not zwh<, the ethical word

of classical Greek, a thoughtful reader of Scripture might

not unnaturally be perplexed with the fact that all is there

reversed; for no one will deny that zwh< is there the nobler

word, expressing as it continually does all of highest and

best which the saints possess in God; thus ste

zwh?j (Rev. ii. 10), cu(ii. 7), bi

(iii. 5), u!dwr zwh?j (xxi. 6), zwh> kai> eu]se(2 Pet. i. 3),

zwh> kai> a]fqarsi (2 Tim. i. 10), zwh> tou? qeou? (Ephes. iv.

18), zwh> ai]w(Matt. xix. 16; Rom. ii. 7),¹ zwh> a]kata<-

lutoj (Heb. vii. 16); h[ o@ntwj zwh< (I Tim. vi. 19); or some-

times zwh< with no further addition (Matt. vii. 14; Rom.

v. 17, and often); all these setting forth, each from its

own point of view, the highest blessedness of the creature.

Contrast with them the following uses of bi tou?

bi (Luke viii. 14), pragmatei?ai tou? bi (2 Tim. ii. 4),

a]lazonei (I John ii. 16), bi (iii. 17),

meri (Luke xxi. 34). How shall we explain

this?

A little reflection will supply the answer. Revealed

religion, and it alone, puts death and sin in closest con-

nexion, declare them the necessary correlatives one of

the other (Gen i.–iii. ; Rom. v. 12); and, as an involved

consequence, in like manner, life and holiness. It is God's

word alone which proclaims that, wherever there is death,

it is there because sin was there first; wherever there is

no death, that is, life, this is there, because sin has never

been there, or having once been, is now cast out and ex-
¹ Zwh> ai]w occurs once in the Septuagint (Dan. xii. 2; cf. zwh>

a]e, 2 Macc. vii. 36), and in Plutarch, De.Is. et Os, I.

§ XXVII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 95

gelled. In revealed religion, which thus makes death to

have come into the world through sin, and only through

sin, life is the correlative of holiness. Whatever truly

lives, does so because sin has never found place in it, or,

having found place for a time, has since been overcome

and expelled. So soon as ever this is felt and understood,

zwh< at once assumes the profoundest moral significance;

it becomes the fittest expression for the very highest

blessedness. Of that whereof we predicate absolute zwh<,

we predicate absolute holiness of the same. Christ affirm-

ing of Himself, e]gw< ei]mi h[ zwh< (John xiv. 6; cf. I John

i. 2; Ignatius, ad Smyrn. 4: Xristo>j to> a]lhqino>n h[mw?n

z^?n), implicitly affirmed of Himself that He was absolutely

holy; and in the creature, in like manner, that alone truly

lives, or triumphs over death, death at once physical and

spiritual, which has first triumphed over sin. No wonder,

then, that Scripture should know of no higher word than

zwh< to set forth the blessedness of God, and the blessedness

of the creature in communion with God.

It follows that those expositors of Ephes. iv. 18 are in

error, who there take a]phllotriwme,

as ‘alienated from a divine life,' that is, ‘from a life lived

according to the will and commandments of God’ (‘remoti a

vita, illa quae secundum Deum est:' as Grotius has it),

zwh< never signifying this. The fact of such alienation was

only too true; but the Apostle is not affirming it here, but

rather the miserable condition of the heathen, as men

estranged from the one fountain of life (para> Soi> phgh>

zwh?j, Ps. xxxv. 10); as not having life, because separated

from Him who only absolutely lives (John v. 26), the living

God (Matt. xvi. 16; I Tim. iii. 15), in fellowship with

whom alone any creature has life. Another passage,

namely Gal. v. 25, will always seem to contain a tautology,

until we give to zwh< (and to the verb zh?n as well) the force

which has been claimed for it here.

96 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXVIII.

§ xxviii. ku.
A MAN, according to the later Greek grammarians, was

despo in respect of his slaves (Plato, Legg. vi. 756 e),

therefore oi]kodespo, but ku in regard of his wife and

children; whole in speaking either to him or of him, would

give him this title of honour; "as Sara obeyed Abraham,

calling him lord" (kun kalou?sa, I Pet. iii. 6;

cf. I Sam. i. 8; cf. Plutarch, De Virt. Mul. s. vv. Mi

kai> Megistw<). There is a certain truth in this distinction.

Undoubtedly there lies in ku the sense of an authority-

owning limitations—moral limitations it may be; it is

implied too that the wielder of this authority will not

exclude, in wielding it, a consideration of their good over

whom it is exercised; while the despo exercises a more

unrestricted power and absolute domination, confessing no

such limitations or restraints. He who addresses another

as de, puts an emphasis of submission into his

speech, which ku would not have possessed; therefore

it was that the Greeks, not yet grown slavish, refused this

title of despo to any but the gods (Euripides, Hippol.

88: a@nac, qeou>j ga>r despo); while

our own use of 'despot,’ ‘despotic,’ ‘despotism,’ as set over

against that of ‘lord,’ ‘lordship,’ and the like, attests

that these words are coloured for us, as they were for those

from whom we have derived them.

Still, there were influences at work tending to break

down this distinction. Slavery, or the appropriating,

without payment, of other men's toil, however legalized,

is so abhorrent to men's innate sense of right, that they

seek to mitigate, in word at least, if not in fact, its

atrocity; and thus, as no southern Planter in America

willingly spoke of his 'slaves,' but preferred some other

term, so in antiquity, wherever any gentler or more hu-

mane view of slavery obtained, the antithesis of despo

§ XXVIII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 97
and dou?loj, would continually give place to that of ku

and dou?loj. The harsher antithesis might still survive, but

the milder would prevail side by side with it. We need

not look further than to the writings of St. Paul, to see

how little, in popular speech, the distinction of the gram-

marians was observed. Masters are now ku, (Ephes. vi.

9; Col. iv. I), and now despo (I Tim. 1. I, 2; Tit. ii.

9; cf. I Pet. ii. 18), with him; and compare Philo, Quod

Omn. Prob. Lib. 6.

But, while all experience shows how little sinful man

can be trusted with unrestricted power over his fellow,

how certainly he will abuse it—a moral fact attested in

our use of ‘despot’ as equivalent with ‘tyrant,’ as well as

in the history of the word ‘tyrant’ itself it can only be

a blessedness for man to regard God as the absolute Lord,

Ruler, and Disposer of his life; since with Him power is

never disconnected from wisdom and from love: and, as

we saw that the Greeks, not without a certain sense of

this, were well pleased to style the gods despo, however

they might refuse this title to any other; so, within the

limits of Revelation, despo, no less than ku, is ap-

plied to the true God. Thus in the Septuagint, at Josh.

v. 14; Prov. xxix. 25; Jer. iv. 10; in the Apocrypha, at

2 Macc. v. 17, and elsewhere; while in the N. T. on these

occasions: Luke ii. 29; Acts iv. 24; Rev. vi. 10; 2 Pet. ii.

Jude 4. In the last two it is to Christ, but to Christ

as God, that the title is ascribed. Erasmus, indeed, out

of that latent Arianism, of which, perhaps, he was scarcely

conscious to himself, denies that, at Jude 4, despo is to

be referred to Christ; attributing only ku to Him, and

despo to the Father. The fact that in the Greek text,

as he read it, qeo followed and was joined to despo,

no doubt really lay at the root of his reluctance to ascribe

the title of despoto Christ. It was for him not a phi-

lological, but a theological difficulty, however he may have

sought to persuade himself otherwise.

98 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XXIX.
This despo did no doubt express on the lips of the

faithful who used it, their sense of God's absolute disposal

of his creatures, of his autocratic power, who "doeth ac-

cording to is will in the army of heaven and among the

inhabitants of the earth" (Dan. iv. 35), more strongly

than ku, would have done. So much is plain from

some words of Philo (Quis Rer. Div. Haer. 35), who finds

evidence of Abraham's eu]la, of his tempering, on one

signal occasion, boldness with reverence and godly fear, in

the fact that, addressing God, he forsakes the more usual

ku, and substitutes dein its room; for despo,

as Philo proceeds to say, is not ku only, but fobero>j

ku, and implies, on his part who uses it, a more entire

prostration of self before the might and majesty of God

than ku, would have done.

§ xxix. a]lazw.

THESE words occur all of them together at Rom. i. 30,

though in a order exactly the reverse from that in which

I have found it convenient to take them. They constitute

an interesting subject for synonymous discrimination.

]Alazw occurring twice in the Septuagint (Hab. ii. 5;

Job xxviii. 8), is found as often in the N. T. (here and at

2 Tim. iii. 2); while a]lazonei, of which the Septuagint

knows nothing, appears four times in the Apocrypha

(Wisd. v. 8; xvii. 7; 2 Macc. ix. 8; xv. 6), and in the

N. T. twice (Jam. iv. 16; 1 John ii. 16). Derived from

a@lh 'a wandering about,' it designated first the vagabond

mountebanks ('marktschreyers'), conjurors, quacksalvers,

or exorcists (Acts xix. 13; I Tim. v. 13); being joined

with go