Synonyms of the New Testament

or strings, which have before been strained or drawn tight,

its exact and literal antithesis being e]pi (from e]pi-

tei): thus Plato (Rep. i. 349 e): e]n t^? e]pita a]ne

tw?n xordw?n: and Plutarch (De Lib. Ed. 13) ta> to,

ta>j lu: and again (Lyc.

29): ou]k a@nesij h#n, a]ll ] e]pi: cf. Philo,

De Incorr. Mun. 13. Moses in the year of jubilee gave,

according to Josephus (Antt. iii. 12. 3), a@nesin t^? g^? a]po<

te a]ro futei. But no passage illustrates a@nesij

so well as one from the treatise just quoted which goes by

Plutarch's name (De Lib. Ed. 13): doten

a]napnoh>n tw?n sunexw?n po

h[mw?n ei]j a@nesin kai> spoudh>n di^ dia> tou?to ou] mo

e]grh kai> u!pnoj eu[re po kai>

ei]rh xeimw kai> eu]di e]nergoi> pra

a]lla> kai> e[ortai< . . . kaqo sw

kai> plhrw de<, a]ne po. Plato has the

same opposition between a@nesij and spoudh< (Legg. iv.

§ XLI. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 147
724 a); while Plutarch (Symp. v. 6) sets a@nesij, over

against stenoxwri, as a dwelling at large, instead of in

a narrow and straight room; and St. Paul over against

qli (2 Cor. viii. 13), not being willing that there should

be ‘ease’ (a@nesij) to other Churches, and ‘affliction’

(qli?yij), that is from an excessive contribution, to the

Corinthian. Used figuratively, it expresses what we, em-

ploying the same image, call the relaxation of morals

(thus Athenaeus, xiv. 13: a]kolasi a@nesij, setting it

over against swfrosu; Philo, De Cherub. 27; De Ebriet.

6: a@nesij, r[%qumi: De Merc. Meret. 2).

It will at once be perceived how excellently chosen e@xein

a@nesin at Acts xxiv. 23 is, to express what St. Luke has in

hand to record. Felix, taking now a more favourable view

of Paul's case, commands the centurion who had him in

charge, to relax the strictness of his imprisonment, to

keep him rather under honorable arrest than in actual

confinement; which partial relaxation of his bonds is

exactly what this phrase implies; cf. Ecclus. xxvi. 10;

Josephus, Antt. xviii. 6. 10, where a@nesij is used in a per-

fectly similar case.

The distinction, then, is obvious. When our Lord pro-

mises a]na
to the weary and heavy laden who come to

Him (Matt. xi. 18, 29), his promise is, that they shall cease

from their toils; shall no longer spend their labour for that

which satisfieth not. When St. Paul expresses his confi-

dence that the Thessalonians, troubled now, should yet find

a@nesij in the day of Christ (2 Thess. 7), lie anticipates for

them, not so much cessation from labour, as relaxation of

the chords of affliction, now so tightly drawn, strained

and stretched to the uttermost. It is true that this pro-

mise and that at the heart are not two, but one; yet for

all this they present the blessedness which Christ will

impart to his own under different aspects, and by help

of different images; and each word has its own fitness in

the place where it is employed.

148 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XLII.

§ xlii. tapeinofronsu.
THE work for which Christ's Gospel came into the world

was no less than to put down the mighty from their seat,

and to exalt the humble and meek. It was then only in

accordance with this its mission that it should dethrone

the heathen virtue megaloyuxi, and set up the despised

Christian grace tapeinofrosuin its room, stripping that

of the honour it had unjustly assumed, delivering this from

the dishonour which as unjustly had clung to it hitherto;

and in this direction advancing so far that a Christian

writer has called this last not merely a grace, but the

casket or treasure house in which all other graces are

contained (gazofula, Basil, Const. Mon. 16).

And indeed not the grace only, but the very word tapei-

nofrosuis itself a fruit of the Gospel; no Greek writer

employed it before the Christian nor, apart from the

influence of Christian writers, after. In the Septuagint

tapeinooccurs once (Prov. xxix. 23) and tapeinofronei?n

as often (Ps. cxxx. 2); both words being used in honour.

Plutarch too has advanced as far as tapeino (De Alex.

Virt. ii. 4), but employs it in an ill sense; and the use by

heathen writers of tapeino, and other words of

this family, shows plainly how they would have employed

tapeinofrosu had they thought good to allow it. The

instances are few and exceptional in which tapeino sig-

nifies anything for them which is not grovelling, slavish,

and mean-spirited. It keeps company with kathfh

(Plato, Legg. iv. 774 c); with a]ndrapodw (Eth. Eudem.

3); with a]gennh (Lucian, De Calum. 24); with kathfh

(Plutarch, Fab. Max. 18); with a@docoj (De Vit. Pud. 14);

with douliko (Philo, Quod Omn. Prob. Lib.

4); with xamai (De Leg. Spec. I), and the like: just

as the German ‘Demuth,’ born as it was in the heathen

period of the language, is properly and originally ‘servilis

§ XLII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 149

animus,'—'deo' (=servus) constituting the first syllable

of it (Grimm, Worterbuch, s. v.)--and only under the in-

fluences of Christianity attained to its present position of

honour.

Still those exceptional cases are more numerous than

some will allow. Thus Plato in a very memorable passage

(Legg. iv. 716 a) links tapeino with kekosmhme, as in

Demosthenes we have lo tapeinoi<: while

Xenophon more than once sets the tapeino over against

the u[perh (Ages. ii. i i ; cf. AEschylus, Prom. Vinci.

328; Luke i. 51, 52): and see for its worthier use a noble

passage in Plutarch, De Prof. in, Virt. 10; and another, De

Sera Num. Vincd. 3, where the purpose of the divine punish-

ments is set forth as being that the soul may become su

nouj kai> tapeinh>, kai> kataj to>n qeo. Combined

with these prophetic intimations of the honour which should

one day be rendered even to the very words expressive of

humility, it is very interesting to note that Aristotle him-

self has a vindication, and it only needs to receive its due

extension to be a complete one, of the Christian tapei-

nofrosu (Ethic. Nic. iv. 3. 3; cf. Brandis, Aristoteles,

p. 1408; and Nagelsbach, Homer: Theologie, p. 336).

Having confessed how hard it is for a man t^? a]lhqei<%

megalo--for he will allow no megaloyuxi, or

great-souledness, which does not rest on corresponding

realities of goodness and moral greatness, and his mega-

lo is one megan a]ciw?n, a@cioj w@n--he

goes on to observe, though merely by the way and little

conscious how far his words reached, that to think humbly

of oneself, where that humble estimate is the true one, can-

not be imputed to any as a culpable meanness of spirit;

it is rather the true swfrosu (o[ ga>r mikrw?n a@cioj, kai>

tou. But if this be so (and

who will deny it?), then, seeing that for every man the

humble estimate of himself is the true one, Aristotle has

herein unconsciously vindicated tapeinofrosu as a grace

150 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XLII.
in which every man ought to abound; for that which he,

even according to the standard which he set up, confessed

to be a xalepo, namely t^? a]lhqei<% megalo, the

Christian, convinced by the Spirit of God, and having in

his Lord a standard of perfect righteousness before his

eyes, knows to be not merely a xalepo, but an a]du.

Such is the Christian tapeinofrosu, no mere modesty or

absence of pretension, which is all that the heathen would

at the very best have found in it; nor yet a self-made

grace; and Chrysostom is in fact bringing in pride again

under the disguise of humility, when he characterizes it

as a making of ourselves small, when we are great (tapeino-

frosun tapeinoi?:

and he repeats this often; see Suicer, Thes. s. v.). Far

truer and deeper is St. Bernard's definition: ‘Est virtus

qua, quis ex verissimci sui cognitione sibi ipsi vilescit;’ the

esteeming of ourselves small, inasmuch as we are so; the

thinking truly, and because truly, therefore lowlily, of

ourselves.

But it may be objected, how does this account of

Christian tapeinofronsu, as springing out of and resting

on the sense of unworthiness, agree with the fact that

the sinless Lord laid claim to this grace, and said, "I am

meek and lowly in heart" (tapeino>j t^? kardi<%, Matt. xi.

29)? The answer is, that for the sinner tapeinofronsu

involves the confession of sin, inasmuch as it involves the

confession of his true condition; while yet for the un-

fallen creature the grace itself as truly exists, involving

for such the acknowledgment not of sinfulness, which

would be untrue, but of creatureliness, of absolute de-

pendence, of having nothing, but receiving all things

of God. And thus the grace of humility belongs to the

highest angel before the throne, being as he is a creatures

yea, even to the Lord of Glory Himself. In his human

nature He must be the pattern of all humility, of all

creaturely dependence; and it is only as a man that

§ XLII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 151
Christ thus claims to be tapeino: his human life was a

constant living on the fulness of his Father's love; He

evermore, as man, took the place which beseemed the

creature in the presence of its Creator.

The Gospel of Christ did not rehabilitate prao so

entirely as it had done tapeinofrosu but this, because

the word did not need rehabilitation to the same extent.

Prao did not require to be transformed from a bad

sense to a good, but only to be lifted up from a lower level

of good to a higher. This indeed it did need; for no one

can read Aristotle's portraiture of the pra?oj and of prao.

(Ethic. Nic. iv. 5), mentally comparing the heathen virtue

with the Christian grace, and not feel that Revelation has

given to these words a depth, a richness, a fulness of

significance which they were very far from possessing

before. The great moralist of Greece set prao as the

meso o]rgh?j, between the two o]rgilo

and a]orghsi, with, however, so much learning to the latter

that it might very easily run into this defect; and he

finds it worthy of praise, more because by it a man retains

his own equanimity and composure (the word is associated

by Plutarch with metriopa, De Frat. Am. 18; with

a]xoli, Cons. ad Uxor. 2; with a]necikaki, De Cap. ex In.

Uti1.9; with megalopa, De Ser. Num. Vind. 5; with

eu]pei, Comp. Num. et Lyc. 3; with eu]koli, De Virt. et

Vit. I), than for any nobler reason. Neither does Plu-

tarch's own graceful little essay, Peri> a]orghsi, rise any-

where to a loftier pitch than this, though we might have

looked for something higher from him. Prao is opposed

by Plato to a]grio (Symp. 197 d); by Aristotle to xale-

po (Hist. Anim. ix. i; cf. Plato. Rep. vi. 472f); by

Plutarch or some other under his name, to a]potomi (De

Lib. Ed. 18); all indications of a somewhat superficial

meaning by them attached to the word.

Those modern expositors who will not allow for the new

forces at work in sacred Greek, who would fain restrict,

152 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XLII.
for instance, prao of the N. T. to that sense which

the word, as employed by the best classical writers, would

have borne, deprive themselves and as many as accept

their interpretation of much of the deeper teaching in

Scripture:¹ on which subject, and with reference to this

very word, there are some excellent observations by F.

Spanheim, Dubia Evangelica, vol. iii. p. 398; by Rambach,

Inst. Herm. Sac. p. 169;² cf. also, passim, the lecture

or little treatise by Zerschwitz, Profangracitat und Biblischer

Sprachgeist, from which I have already given (p. I) an

interesting extract; and the article, Hellenistisches Idiom,

by Reuss in Herzog's Real-Encyclopadie. The Scriptural

prao is not in a man's outward behaviour only; nor

yet in his relations to his fellow-men; as little in his mere

natural disposition. Rather is it an inwrought grace of

the soul; an the exercises of it are first and chiefly

towards God Matt. xi. 29; Jam. i. 21). It is that temper

of spirit in which we accept his dealings with us as

good, and therefore without disputing or resisting; and it

is closely linked with the tapeinofrosu, and follows

directly upon it (Ephes. iv. 2; Col. iii. 12; cf. Zeph. iii.

12); because it is only the humble heart which is also

the meek; and which, as such, does not fight against

God, and more or less struggle and contend with Him.

This meekness, however, being first of all a meekness

before God, is also such in the face of men, even of

evil men, out a sense that these, with the insults and

injuries which they may inflict, are permitted and em-

¹ They will do this, even though they stop short of lengths to which

Fritzsche, a very learned but unconsecrated modern expositor of the

Romans, has rearched; who, on Rom. i. 7, writes: 'Deinde considerandum

est formula xa ei]rh in N. T. nihil aliud dici nisi quod Graeci

illo suo xais. eu# pra enuntiare consueverint, h. e. ut aliquis for-

tunatus sit, sive, ut cum Horatio loquar, Ep. i. 8. r, ut gaudeat et bene

rem gerat.'

² He concludes, 'Unde dignus esset reprehensione qui graciles illas et

exiles notiones quas pagani de virtutibus habuertmt Christianarum virtu-

tum nominibus subjiceret.'

§ XLIII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 153

ployed by Him for the chastening and purifying of his

elect. This was the root of David's prao, when Shimei

cursed and flung stones at him—the consideration, namely,

that the Lord had bidden him (2 Sam. xvi. 11), that it

was just for him to suffer these things, however unjustly

the other might inflict them; and out of like convictions

all true Christian prao must spring. He that is meek

indeed will know himself a sinner among sinners;—or, if

there was One who could not know Himself such, yet He

too bore a sinner's doom, and endured therefore the con-

tradiction of sinners (Luke ix. 35, 36; John xviii. 22, 23);

—and this knowledge of his own sin will teach him to

endure meekly the provocations with which they may pro-

voke him, and not to withdraw himself from the burdens

which their sin may impose upon him (Gal. vi. 1; 2 Tim.

ii. 25; Tit. iii. 2).

Prao, then, or meekness, if more than mere gentle-

ness of manner, if indeed the Christian grace of meek-

ness of spirit, must rest on deeper foundations than its

own, on those namely which tapeinofrosu, has laid for it,

and can only subsist while it continues to, rest on these.

It is a grace in advance of tapeinofrosu, not as more

precious than it, but as presupposing it, and as being

unable to exist without it.

§ xliii. prao
Tapeinofrosu and e]piei, though joined together by

Clement of Rome (1 Ep. § 56), are in their meanings too

far apart to be fit subjects of synonymous discrimination;

but prao, which stands between, holds on to both. The

attempt has just been made to seize its points of contact

with tapeinofrosu. Without going over this ground

anew, we may consider the relations to e]piei in which

it stands.

The mere existence of such a word as e]piei is itself a

154 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XLIII.

signal evidence f the high development of ethics among

the Greeks.¹ It expresses exactly that moderation which

recognizes the impossibility cleaving to all formal law, of

anticipating and providing for all cases that will emerge,

and present themselves to it for decision; which, with

this, recognizes the danger that ever waits upon the

assertion of legal rights, lest they should be pushed into

moral wrongs, let the ‘summum jus’ should in practice

prove the ‘summa injuria’; which, therefore, urges not

its own rights to the uttermost, but, going back in part or

in the whole from these, rectifies and redresses the in-

justices of justice.² It is thus more truly just than strict

justice would have been; being di be

dikai, as Aristotle expresses it (Ethic.Nic. v. 10. 6); ‘es

ist namlich nicht das gesetzlich gerechte, sondern das

dasselbe berichtigende' (Brandis); being indeed, again to

use Aristotle's words, e]pano


to> kaqo:³ and he sets the a]kribodi, the man who

stands up for the last tittle of his legal rights, over

against the e]pieikh. In the Definitions which go under

Plato's name (412 b) it is dikai sumfero

twsij: it is joined by Lucian (Vit. Auct. 10) to ai]dw>j and
¹ No Latin word exactly and adequately renders it; ‘clementia’ sets

forth one side of it, ‘aequitas’ another, and perhaps ‘modestia’ (by which

the Vulgate translates it, 2 Cor. x. 1) a third; but the word is wanting

which should set forth all these excellencies reconciled in a single and a

higher one.

² In the words of Persius (iv. i t),

‘rectum discernit ubi inter

Curva subit, vel cum fallit pede regula varo.’

³ Daniel, a considerable poet, but a far more illustrious thinker, in a

poem addressed to Lord Chancellor Egerton very nobly expands these

words, or the thought in these words; indeed, the whole poem is written

in honour of e]pieior ‘equity,’ as being

‘the soul of law,

The life of justice, and the spirit of right.'

Soo too in Spenser's Fairy Queen the Legend of Artegal is devoted to the

glorifying of the Christian grace of e]piei

§ XLIII. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 155

metrio, and in a fragment of Sophocles is opposed to

a[plw?j di. Correctio ejus, Grotius defines it, in quo lex

propter universalitatem deficit. Eu]gnwmosu in its mean-

ing approaches very closely to e]piei; but has not as

completely been taken up into the scientific language of

ethics. This aspect of e]piei, namely that it is a going

back from the letter of right for the better preserving of

the spirit, must never be lost sight of. Seneca (De Clem.

ii. 7) well brings it out: Nihil ex his facit, tanquam

justo minus fecerit, sed tanquam id quod constituit, jus-

tissimum sit;' and Aquinas: ‘Diminutiva est poenarum,

secundum rationem rectam; quando scilicet oportet, et in

quibus oportet.' Goschel, who has written so much and

so profoundly on the relations between theology and juris-

prudence, has much on this matter which, is excellent (Zur

Philos. und Theol. des Rechts und der Rechtgeschichte, 1835,

pp. 428-438).

The archetype and pattern of this grace is found in

God. All his goings back from the strictness of his rights

as against men; all his allowance of their imperfect righte-

ousness, and giving of a value to that which, rigorously

estimated, would have none; all his refusals to exact ex-

treme penalties (Wisd. xii. 18; Song of Three Children, 18;

2 Macc. x. 4; Ps. lxxxv. 5: o!ti su< Kuj kai>

e]peikh>j kai> polue: cf. Clement of Rome, I Ep. § 29:

e]pieikh>j kai> eu@splagxnoj Path: Plutarch, Coriol. 24;

Peric. 39; Caes. 57); all his keeping in mind whereof we

are made, and measuring his dealings with us thereby;

all of these we may contemplate as e]piei upon his

part; even as they demand in return the same, one toward

another, upon ours. Peter, when himself restored, must

strengthen his brethren (Luke xxii. 32). The greatly

forgiven servant in the parable (Matt. xviii.. 23), having

known the e]piei of his lord and king, is justly expected.

to shew the same to his fellow servant. The word is often

joined with filanqrwpi (Polybius, v. 10. 1; Philo, De

156 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § XLIII.
Vit. Mos. i. 36 ; 2 Macc. ix. 27); with h[mero (Philo, De

Car. 18; Plutarch, De Vit. Pud. 2); with makroqumi

(Clement of Rome, 1 Ep. § 13); with a]necikaki (Wisd. ii.

19); often too with prao: thus, besides the passage

in the N. T. (2 Cor. x. I), by Plutarch (Peric. 39; Caes. 57;

cf. Pyrrh. 23; De Prof. Virt. 9). It will be called a]nandri

by as many as seek to degrade a virtue through the calling

it the name of the vice which is indeed only its caricature

(Aristides, De Concord. i. p. 529).

The distinction between prao, and e]piei Estius

(on 2 Cor. x. i) sets forth in part, although incompletely:

‘Mansuetudo [prao] magis ad animum, e]piei vero

magis ad exteriorem conversationem pertinet;' compare

Bengel: ‘prao virtus magis absoluta, e]piei magis

refertur ad alios.’ Aquinas too has a fine and subtle dis-

cussion on the relations of likeness and difference between

the graces which these words severally denote (Summ.

Theol. 2a 3^ae, qu. 157): Utrum Clementia et Mansuetudo

sint penitus idem.' Among other marks of difference he

especially presses these two: the first that in ‘clementia’

(=e]piei) these is always the condescension of a su-

perior to an inferior, while in ‘mansuetudo’ (prao)

nothing of the kind is necessarily implied: ‘Clementia est

lenitas superioris adversus inferiorem: mansuetudo non

solum est superioris ad inferiorem, sed cujuslibet ad quem-

libet;' and the second, that which has been already urged,

that the one grace is more passive, the other more active,

or at least that the seat of the prao is in the inner

spirit, while the e]piei must needs embody itself in

outward acts: ‘Differunt ab invicem in quantum de-

mentia est moderativa exterioris punitionis, mansuetudo

proprie diminuit passionem irae.’

It is instructive to note how little of one mind our

various Translators from Wiclif downward have been as

to the words which should best reproduce e]piei and

e]pieikh for the English reader. The occasions on which

§ XLIV. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 157

e]piei occur are two, or reckoning to> e]pieike as an

equivalent substantive, are three (Acts xxiv. 4; 2 Cor. x.

1; Phil. iv. 5). It has been rendered in all these ways:

‘meekness,’ ‘courtesy,’ ‘clemency,’ ‘softness,’ ‘modesty,’

‘gentleness,’ ‘patience,’ ‘patient mind,’ ‘moderation.’

]Epieikh, not counting the one occasion already named,

occurs four times (I Tim. iii. 3; Tit.iii. 2; Jam. iii. 17;

i Pet. ii. 18), and appears in the several Versions of our

Hexapla as ‘temperate,’ ‘soft,’ ‘gentle,’ ‘modest,’ ‘pa-

tient,’ ‘mild,’ ‘courteous.’ ‘Gentle’ and ‘gentleness,’

on the whole, commend themselves as the best; but the

fact remains, which also in a great me sure excuses so

much vacillation here, namely, that we have no words in

English which are full equivalents of the Greek. The

sense of equity and fairness which is in them so strong is

more or less wanting in all which we offer in exchange.