The vocabulary of the Greek testament : illustrated from the papyri and other non-literary sources (1914-1929)

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THE VOCABULARY OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT

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THE VOCABULARY OF THE

GREEK TESTAMENT ILLUSTRATED FROM THE PAPYRI AND OTHER NON-LITERARY SOURCES

BY

JAMES HOPE MOULTON, Late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge

;

Greenwood

D.D., D.Theol. Professor of Hellenistic

Greek and Indo-European Philology, Manchester University

AND

GEORGE MILLIGAN,

D.D.

Regius Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism,

Glasgow University

HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON

LIMITED 1914-1929

HI

Printed in igsg

Printed in Great Britain for Hodder and Stoughton, Limited, by Richard Clay & Sons, Limited, Bungay, Suffolk.

SEcN BY pp;

VHON

SERVICES

/ PREFATORY NOTE Upwards in

an

of twenty years ago Professor

effort to illustrate the Vocabulary

came a

of

H. Moulton asked me to join with him Greek Testament from recently discovered

J.

the

series of joint articles in the Expositor

during 1908 to In we found it possible to words. with certain 1914 publish representative 191 dealing Our collaboration the First Part of the Vocabulary : Part II followed in the next year. was then cut short by Dr. Moulton's tragic death, though I have done my utmost to The grasp and range of Dr. utilize any notes or references that he left behind him. non-literary texts.

First

1

Moulton's Greek scholarship are too well known to require acknowledgment here, but I may be allowed to record my own deep sense of personal loss in the removal at the height of his powers of one who was always the truest of friends and the most loyal of colleagues. It may be well, perhaps, to emphasize that it was in no way our aim to provide a complete Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, but rather to show the nature of the new light cast upon its language by the rich stores of contemporary papyri discovered in recent years. (See further the General Introduction to the present volume.) Apart from the papvri, considerable use has been made of the Greek inscriptions, and evidence from other non-literary sources has been freely cited, wherever it seemed likely to be useful. Very often words have been included for which our non-literary sources provide no illustration, in order to show from literary evidence, if forthcoming, or from its very absence, the relation of such words to the popular Greek.

H. Thayer's monumental edition of Grimm's Lexicon (Edinburgh, 1886), has been assumed throughout. Professor Souter's Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Oxford, 1916), a marvellous multum in parvo, and the excellent Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament by Professor G. Abbott-Smith (Edinburgh, In the later Parts of the Vocabulary frequent 1922) have been of the utmost value. revised and enlarged edition of E. made to W. Bauer's reference has also been zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments Worterbuch Preuschen's Griechisch-Deutsclics and F. to (Giessen, 1928), Preisigke's comprehensive Worterbuch der griechischen

The

use of Professor

J.

Papyrusurkunden, I. -III. i. (Berlin, 1925-1929). detailed in Abbreviations I. General.

Other books of reference

will be

found

For the ready assistance of many friends, too numerous to mention, in the carrying but a special word of thanks is due to through of this book, I am deeply grateful Professor W. G. Waddell, now of the Egyptian University, Cairo, who has read all the proofs with the most meticulous care, and has in addition furnished important ;

suggestions.

remains only to acknowledge the generosity and enterprise of Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton in undertaking the publication of the work, and to express my sense of the singular skill and accuracy with which the compositors and readers of the firm of Messrs. R. Clay & Sons, Bungay, have carried through an extremely intricate piece It

of printing.

G. MlLLIGAN. The University, Glasgow. July, 1929.

4 GENERAL INTRODUCTION Few

archaeological

in recent years have awakened more widespread recovered from the sands of Egypt, and documents papyrus

discoveries

interest than the countless

it is from them that our principal non-literary illustrations of the Vocabulary of the Greek Testament have been drawn, it may be well to describe briefly by way of Introduction what these papyri are, and what is the nature of their value for the New

as

Testament student.

— In

itself, the word papyrus is the name of a reed-plant at one time which L.) grew in great profusion in the river Nile, and (Cyperus papyrus, " or material to the name its paper" of antiquity formed from it. The pith writing gave was cut into long thin strips, which were laid of the the stem of plant papyrus (ftvftXos)

Papyrus as Writing Material.

down on a flat table and soaked with Nile water. A second layer was then placed crosswise on the top of the first, and the two layers were pressed together to form a single web or sheet. After being dried in the sun, and scraped with a shell or bone to remove 1 any roughness, a material not unlike our own brown paper was produced. The size of the papyrus sheets varied considerably, but for non-literary documents a was from nine to eleven inches in height, and from five to five and a half When more space than that afforded by a single sheet was required, inches in breadth. a number of sheets were joined together to form a roll, which could easily be extended or shortened as desired. Thus, to take the case of the New Testament autographs, which were almost certainly written on separate papyrus rolls, a short Epistle, like the Second with the Epistle to the Thessalonians, would be a roll of about fifteen inches in length the while St. Paul's in five some contents arranged columns, Epistle to longest Epistle, of the and a half. The shortest run to about feet eleven the Romans, would Gospels, the longest, St. Luke's, about thirty-one St. Mark's, would occupy about nineteen feet

common

size

;

And the Apocalypse of St. John has been estimated at fifteen feet. or thirty-two feet. Taking the other books on the same scale, Sir F. G. Kenyon, to whom the foregoing figures are also due, has calculated that if the whole New Testament was written out in roll, the roll would extend to more than two hundred feet in length, 2 This alone makes it clear that not until the an utterly unworkable size. obviously was and use was made of both sides of parchment or in their past, history papyrus stage vellum leaves, was it possible to include all the books of the New Testament in a single volume. The side of the papyrus on which the fibres ran horizontally, or the recto, as it came to be technically known, was from its greater smoothness, generally preferred for the case writing, while the back, or the verso, was reserved for the address, at any rate in But when space failed, the verso could also be utilized, as shown in a long of letters.

order on a single

1

See further Pliny, N.H.

(Oxford, 1899), 2

Handbook

xiii.

11-13, and

cf.

F. G.

Kenyon, The Palaeography of Greek Papyri

p. i4ff. to the

Textual Criticism of the

New

Testament, 2nd edit. (London, 1912), p. 35 vii

ff.

b

Vlll

which nineteen columns are written on the

in magical papyrus in the British Museum, 1 verso. the on recto, and the remaining thirteen the use of the verso, when fresh papyrus was of evidence abundant In any case we have the back of a business document, explainon a letter writes man a when not available, as find a "clean sheet" (xapriov tcaOapov), 2 or to moment at the unable been had ing that he as when the back of the official notification of the death of a certain Panechotes is used " do nothing mean or for a school-exercise or composition, embodying such maxims as hand and much corrected. 3 in a written or or beginner's cowardly," inglorious ignoble In other cases, before the verso has been so used, the original contents of the recto have been effaced or washed out, a practice which adds point to a familiar verse. In " blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was Col 2 14 we read that our Lord to us," and the verb used for "blotted out" (igaXelfas) was which us, contrary against So complete is the technical term for "washing out" the writing from a papyrus sheet. ,

was the forgiveness which Christ by His work secured,

that it completely cancelled the bore our signature (xeipoypacpov). old bond, that had hitherto been 32f Rev 3 5 ). Exod been 32 He made the bond as though it had never (cf. 20 a reed As regards other writing materials, pen (ypaiic6 a mistaken omisangular brackets ;

(


viui(i«v,

dywvtav

at present very

p.€

anxious

yevt'o-eai

'

(Edd.).

common with the meaning "to Thus P Petr II. 1 1 (1) tvo «L8wu.«v " that we may know what you are

is

about, and we may not be anxious" (Ed.) ; ib. III. 53 (/) oi yap cos £tuxcv dycoviwatv, "for we are in a state no ordinary anxiety" (Edd.); P Oxy IV. 744 4 (B.C.

(= Selections, ovv

p. 32),

p.r|

dywvujs, "

"do

not worry";

15f

ib.

*

of

trt

to worry."

I'va

Cor

(1

is

o'')

found

Michel 1006-

in

tt^v crup-uopLav KaQicrTavciv

1

cf.

:

(end of i/B.c).

"AXltl

(=

1)

(B.C.

ttji dStXfJifjL

Selections,

32).

p.

T\ap£-

" Hilarion

irXeto-Ta xatpetv,

to

Alis, his sister, heartiest greetings," Alis being doubtless wife

by a not uncommon Egyptian practice. 7 (iii/A.D.) Egyptian religion cf. P Oxy VI. SS6 tov K€ 'Io-ts £r|Tov