1.04. Holiness in the Septuagint Version and in the Aprocypha
CHAPTER IV HOLINESS IN THE SEPTUAGINT VERSION AND IN THE APOCRYPHA
WE come now to the Greek Septuagint (p. 1 6), in which we see Hebrew thought robing itself in European language, and thus unconsciously equipping itself for the conquest of the West, a conquest destined to exercise so mighty an influence on the history of the Kingdom of God, and the fortunes of the world. A word was needed to receive, and to carry forth unalloyed to the nations who spoke Greek, the great truths wrapped up in the Hebrew word we have just been considering. A very common word, an almost exact Greek counterpart to the Hebrew word, was ready for the translator s use. What ever, man or thing, was supposed to stand in some special relation to deity, was said, without consideration of its inherent quality, to be iepos. And, as we have seen, this was the radical Hebrew conception of Holiness. It is, however, significant that the Greek word was never used, whereas the Hebrew word often was, as an attribute of God. But, in a few passages, Greek writers assert the great truth that of all sacred objects the good man is the most sacred ; and they thus approach the moral conception of holiness, of which we have found traces in the Old Testament, and which is so conspicuous a feature of the New. Therefore, in spite of the above-mentioned shortcoming, it might seem that the word iepos was no unworthy Greek representative of the Hebrew conception of Holiness. From this honour, however, the word was, throughout the Septuagint, utterly and rudely thrust out. As a rendering of the adjective holy, it never occurs. And only once is the substantive iepov used in the frequent New Testament sense of sanctuary, viz. in the one strange passage (Ezekiel 28:18) in which we read of the sanctuary, not of Jehovah, but of Tyre. The reason is not far to seek. lepu i had been polluted by contact with the corruptions of idolatry; and was therefore unfit for service in the Temple of God. Of this, we have had an illustration in the sacred prostitutes of Corinth. It is true that in the Hebrew language a similar corruption had defiled (see Deuteronomy 23:17) one member of the family of sacred words. But the defiled member was rigidly excluded from the service of God : and the defilement went no further. Whereas, in Greek, the defilement reached and saturated every member. With the Hebrew word, as a result of its consecration to the service of Jehovah, and in spite of the occasional profanation of sacred things, were associated ideas of purity and goodness. With the Greek word, in consequence of the fearful debasement of idolatry, were associated conceptions the vilest and worst. Another word must therefore be found to carry to the nations of the West, in its purity, the Hebrew conception of Holiness. This honourable office was conferred on the comparatively rare word ayios. Its rarity was a recommendation. For, that it had so few associations of its own made it the fitter to take up the meaning, and appropriate to itself the associations, of the Hebrew word. And its associations, though few, were suitable. In classical Greek, it is never found as a predicate of gods or men ; and was therefore free from the ideas of imperfection and sin which belonged in the minds of idolaters both to gods and men. It is frequently used by Herodotus, and occasionally by other writers, to describe temples of special sacredness ; and seems to denote the reverence which their connection with the deity gave them a right to claim.
It is probably akin to a^o/icu, used by Homer (Iliad bk. 1:21, etc.) to denote reverence for the gods and for parents. It was evidently a nobler and purer word than /epo?. The difference arose from the fact that, owing to the degradation of idolatry, there were objects supposed to stand in close relation to the gods, which had no claim whatever to man’s real reverence. A very good example of the distinction is quoted in Cremer’s excellent New Testament Lexicon, from Plato: " Amorous and untamed men are unable to abstain from the most holy bodies ; " which Cremer properly contrasts with the sacred bodies of the sacred slaves, in Strabo bk, 6:272. See p. 28.
Such being the associations of the words, the authors of the Septuagint, deeply conscious of the difference between the gods of Greece and the One God of Israel, rejected tepo?, which was already occupied by conceptions partly impure, and chose ^09, which was in part unoccupied and in part occupied by a pure conception, viz. reverence, to receive and bear to the nations of Europe the definite Mosaic conception of Holiness. To represent the modifications of the Hebrew word, the Greek translators thrust aside the existing though rare derivatives of #709, and derived directly from 7to9 a family of words of which every member was altogether new in Greek literature. In Judges 16:17, for the words " Nazarite of God," which the Alexandrian MS. reproduces, the Vatican MS. gives ayw eoi). And rightly so. For the Nazarite was holy. And this holiness, Samson’s deep sin could not obliterate. In the Apocrypha, the use of ayws and its cognates corresponds exactly to its use in the Septuagint, i.e. to the use of the Hebrew word. The purely ritual use is found in Jud