Trench, Synonyms NT.pdf

SYNONYMS

THE NEW TESTAMENT

RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D.D.

Digitized by Ted Hildebrandt, Gordon College, Wenham, MA

March 2006

London in 1880

PREFACE

THIS VOLUME, not any longer a little one, has grown

out of a course of lectures on the Synonyms of the

New Testament, which, in the fulfilment of my duties

as Professor of Divinity at King's College, London, I.

more than once addressed to the theological students

there. The long, patient, and exact studies in language

of our great Schools and Universities, which form so

invaluable a portion of their mental, and of their moral

discipline as well, could find no place during the two

years or two years and a half of the theological course-

at King's College. The time itself was too short to

allow this, and it was in great part claimed by more

pressing studies. Yet, feeling the immense value of

these studies, and how unwise it would be, because

we could not have all which we would desire, to

forego what was possible and within our reach, I two

or three times dedicated a course of lectures to the

comparative value of words in the New Testament—

and these lectures, with many subsequent additions

and some defalcations, have supplied the materials

of the present volume. I have never doubted that

(setting aside those higher and more solemn lessons,

which in a great measure are out of our reach to

impart, being taught rather by God than men), there

are few things which a theological teacher should

have more at heart than to awaken in his scholars an

enthusiasm for the grammar and the lexicon. We

shall have done much for those who come to us for

theological training and generally for mental guidance,

if we can persuade them to have these continually in

their hands; if we can make them believe that with

these, and out of these, they may be learning more,

obtaining more real and lasting acquisitions, such as

will stay by them, and form a part of the texture of

their own minds for ever, that they shall from these

be more effectually accomplishing themselves for their

future work, than from many a volume of divinity,

studied before its time, even if it were worth studying

at all, crudely digested and therefore turning to no

true nourishment of the intellect or the spirit.

Claiming for these lectures a wider audience than

at first they had, I cannot forbear to add a few obser-

vations on the value of the study of synonyms, not

any longer having in my eye the peculiar needs of any

special body of students, but generally; and on that

of the Synonyms of the New Testament in particular;

as also on the helps to the study of these which are at

present in existence; with a few further remarks which

my own experience has suggested.

The value of this study as a discipline for training

the mind into close and accurate habits of thought, the

iii

amount of instruction which may be drawn from it,

the increase of intellectual wealth which it may yield,

all this has been implicitly recognized by well-nigh all

great writers—for well-nigh all from time to time have

paused, themselves to play the dividers and discerners

of words—explicitly by not a few, who have proclaimed

the value which this study had in their eyes. And

instructive as in any language it must be, it must be

eminently so in the Greek—a language spoken by a

people of the subtlest intellect; who saw distinctions,

where others saw none; who divided out to different

words what others often were content to huddle con-

fusedly under a common term; who were themselves

singularly alive to its value, diligently cultivating the

art of synonymous distinction (the a]no<mata diairei?n ,

Plato, Laches , 197 d ); and who have bequeathed a

multitude of fine and delicate observations on the

right discrimination of their own words to the after-

world. 1 Many will no doubt remember the excellent

sport which Socrates makes of Prodicus, who was

possest with this passion to an extravagant degree

( Protag . 377 a b c ). 1

And while thus the characteristic excellences of

the Greek language especially invite us to the investi-

gation of the likenesses and differences between words,

to the study of the words of the New Testament there

are reasons additional inviting us. If by such investi-

gations as these we become aware of delicate variations

1 On Prodicus and Protagoras see Grote, History of Greece , vol. vi.

p. 67 ; Sir A. Grant, Ethics of Aristotle , 3rd edit. vol. i, p. 123. In

Grafenham's most instructive Gesch. der Klassischen Philologie there are

several chapters on this subject,

in an author's meaning, which otherwise we might

have missed, where is it so desirable that we should

miss nothing, that we should lose no finer intention of

the writer, as in those words which are the vehicles

of the very mind of God Himself? If thus the intel-

lectual riches of the student are increased, can this

anywhere be of so great importance as there, where

the intellectual may, if rightly used, prove spiritual

riches as well? If it encourage thoughtful meditation

on the exact forces of words, both as they are, in

themselves, and in their relation to other words, or in

any way unveil to us their marvel and their mystery,

this can nowhere else have a worth in the least ap-

proaching that which it acquires when the words with

which we have to do are, to those who receive them

aright, words of eternal life; while in the dead car-

cases of the same, if men suffer the spirit of life to

depart from them, all manner of corruptions and

heresies may be, as they have been, bred.

The words of the New Testament are eminently the

stoixei?a of Christian theology, and he who will not

begin with a patient study of those, shall never make

any considerable, least of all any secure, advances in

this: for here, as everywhere else, sure disappointment

awaits him who thinks to possess the whole without

first possessing the parts of which that whole is com-

posed. The rhyming couplet of the Middle Ages

contains a profound truth

‘Qui nescit partes in vanum tendit ad artes;

Artes per partes, non partes disce per artes.'

Now it is the very nature and necessity of the dis-

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