Quick Definition
διάδημα, ατος, τό n.n. a head-wreath, crown
Strong's Definition
from a compound of 1223 and 1210; a "diadem" (as bound about the head)
KJV Usage: crown. Compare 4735
UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament
noun, n. | -τος | δέω
6.196 · Artifacts · Adornments
diadem crown a type of crown employed as a symbol of the highest ruling power in a particular area and therefore often associated with kingship In the NT διάδημα occurs only in REV 12:3 REV 13:1 REV 19:12, and such a crown may be described as ‘symbol of his power, worn on his head.’
UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament © United Bible Societies, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Thayer's Greek Lexicon
διάδημα, -ros, τό, (διαδέω to bind round), a diadem, i. e. the blue band marked with white with which Persian kings used to bind on the turban or tiara; the kingly ornament for the head: Rey. xii. 3; xiii. 1; xix. 12. (Xen. Cyr. 8,3,13; Esth.i.11; ii. 17 for 133 1 Mace. i. 9.)
Mounce Concise Greek Dictionary
διάδημα diadēma 3x
pr. a band or fillet; a diadem, the badge of a sovereign, Rev. 12:3; 13:1; 19:12*
Abbott-Smith Greek Lexicon
διάδημα, -τος, τό
(< διαδέω, to bind round), [in LXX for כֶּתֶר (as Es 1:11), etc. ;]
the band round the τιάρα of a Persian king; a diadem, the badge of royalty: Re 12:3 13:1 19:12.†
SYN.: στέφανος, the badge of "victory, of valour, of nuptial joy, of festal gladness " (but v. M, Th., i, 219; cf. DB, i, 530, 604).
Trench — Synonyms of the New Testament
We must not confound these words because our English ‘crown’ stands for them both. I greatly doubt whether anywhere in classical literature στέφανος 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 Athenzeus, 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 διάδημα was this βασιλείας γνώρισμα, as Lucian calls it (Pisc. 35 ; cf. Xenophon, Cyr. vill. 3.13; Plutarch, De Frat. Am. 18); being properly a white linen band or fillet, ‘tenia’ or ‘ fascia’ (Curtius, iii. 8), encircling the brow; so that no language is more common than περιτιθέναι διάδημα to indicate the assumption of royal dignity (Polybius, v. 57.4; 1 Macc. 1.9; xi. 13; xiii. 82; Josephus, Anti. xii. 10. 1), even as in Latin in like manner the ‘ diadema’ alone is the ‘insigne regium ’ (Tacitus, Annal. xv. 29). With this agree Selden’s opening words in his learned discussion on the distinction between ‘crowns’ and ‘diadems’ (Titles of Honour, c. 8, ὃ 2): ‘However those names have been from ancient time confounded, yet the diadem strictly was a very different thing from what a crown now is or was; being, indeed, no more than a fillet of silk, linen, or some such thing. Nor does it appear that any other kind of crown was used for a royal ensign, except only in some kingdoms of Asia, until the beginning of Christianity in the Roman Empire.’ A passage in Plutarch brings out very clearly the §xxit SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 75 distinction here affirmed. The kingly crown which Antonius offers to Cesar the biographer describes as διάδημα στεφάνῳ δάφνης περιπεπλεγμένον (Ces. 61). Here the στέφανος is the garland or laureate wreath, with which the diadem proper was enwoven; indeed, according to Cicero (Phil. ii. 84), Cesar was already ‘coronatus’ (=éoredavwpévos), this he would have been as Consul, when the offer was made. It is by keeping this distinction in mind that we explain a version in Suetonius (Ces. 79) of the same incident. One places on Cesar’s statue ‘ coronam lauream candida fascia preligatam’ (his statues, Plutarch also informs us, were diadjpacw ἀναδεδεμένοι βασιλικοῖς) ; on which the tribunes command to be removed, 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 contained. Compare Diodorus Siculus, xx. 54, where of one he says, διάδημα μὲν οὐκ ἔκρινεν ἔχειν, ἐφόρει γὰρ ἀεὶ στέφανον. How accurately the words are discriminated in the Septuagint and in the Apocrypha may be seen by comparing in the First Maccabees the passages in which διάδημα is employed (such as i.9; vi. 15; viii. 14; xi. 18, 54; xii. 89; xiii. 82), and those where στέφανος appears (iv. 57; x. 29; Xi. 35; xill. 89; cf. 2 Macc. xiv. 4). Compare Isai. Ixii. 8, where of Israel it is said that it shall be στέφανος κάλλους, but, as it is added, διάδημα βασιλείας. In the N. T. it is plain that the στέφανος whereof 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, ὃ 7. If St. Peter’s allusion (1 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 ἀμαράντινος στέφανος τῆς δόξης, with the garlands of earth which lose their beauty and freshness eosnoon.. At gam. 1. 12> Nev. ΠΤ} iol) iy. 4, 1 1g little probable that a reference, either near or remote, is intended to these Greek games; the alienation from which, as 76 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT §xxu idolatrous and profane, reached so far back, was so deep on the part of the Jews (Josephus, Antt. xv. 8.1-4; 1 Mace. 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 στέφανος, or the στέφανος τῆς ζωῆς, is the emblem, not of royalty, but of highest joy and gladness (cf. στέφανος ἀγαλλιάματος, 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 διάδημα (Rev. xii. 8 ; xiii. 1 [οὗ xvii. 9, 10, ai ἑπτὰ κεφαλαὶ. .. βασιλεῖς ἑπτά εἶσιν]; 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” (διαδήματα πολλά) ; 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 as ‘ diadems,’ that is, narrow fillets encircling the brow. These “many diadems’”’ will then be the tokens of the many royalties—of earth, of heaven, and of hell (Phil. 11. 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 (διαδήματα), on his head, the ‘diadem’ of Asia, and the ‘diadem’ of Egypt (1 Mace. xi. 13) ; or as in Diodorus Siculus (i. 47) we read of one ἔχουσαν τρεῖς βασιλείας ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς, the context plainly showing that these are three diadems, the symbols of a triple royalty, which she wore. The only occasion on .which στέφανος might seem to be used of a kingly crown is Matt. xxvii. 29; cf. Mark xv. 17; John xix. 2; where the weaving of the crown of thorns §xxiv_ SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 77 ἜΣ (στέφανος ἀκάνθινος), 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 lyciwm spinosum, it is evident that διάδημα could not be applied to it; and the word, therefore, which - was fittest in respect of the material whereof it was composed, takes the place of that which would have been the fittest in respect of the purpose for which it was intended. On the whole subject of this § see The Dictionary of the Bible, 5. vv. Crown and Diadem; and Dictionary of Chnstian Antiquities, art. Coronation, p. 464. § Χχῖν. πλεονεξία, φιλαργυρία. BETWEEN these words the same distinction exists as between our ‘covetousness’ and ‘avarice,’ as between the German ‘Habsucht’ and ‘Geiz.’ Πλεονεξία, primarily the having more, and then in a secondary and more usual sense, the desire after the having more, is the more active sin, φιλαργυρία 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 squandering, as it was eager and unscrupulous in getting: the πλεονέκτης will be often ‘ rapti largitor,’ as was Catiline; characterizing whom Cicero demands (Pyro Cel. 6): ‘Quis in rapacitate avarior? quis in largitione effusior ?’ even as the same idea is very boldly conceived in the Sir Giles Overreach of Massinger. Consistently with this, we find πλεονέκτης joined with ἅρπαξ (1 Cor. v. 10); πλεονεξία With βαρύτης (Plutarch, Arist. 3); πλεονεξίαι with κλοπαί (Mark vii. 22): with ἀδικίαι (Strabo, vil. 4. 6); with φιλονεικίαι (Plato, Legg. iii. 677 ὃ); and the sin defined by Theodoret (in Hp. ad Rom. i. 80): ἡ τοῦ πλείονος ἔφεσις, καὶ TOV οὐ προσηκόντων ἡ ἁρπαγή: With which compare the 78 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT xxiv definition, whosesoever it may be, of ‘avaritia’ as ‘ injuriosa appetitio alienorum’ (ad Herenn. iv. 25) ; and compare further Bengel’s note (on Mark vii. 22): ‘ πλεονεξία, comparativum involvens, denotat medium quiddam inter furtum et rapinam ; ubi per varias artes id agitur ut alter per se, sed cum lesione sul, inscius vel invitus, offerat, concedat et tribuat, quod indigne accipias.’ It is therefore fitly joined with αἰσχροκερδεία (Polybius, vi. 46. 8). But, while it is thus with πλεονεξία, φιλαργυρία, on the other hand, the miser’s sin (it is joined with puxporoyia, 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 φιλάργυροι (Luke xvi. 14): this was not irreconcilable with the maintenance of a religious profession, which the πλεονεξία would have manifestly been. Cowley, in the delightful prose which he has interspersed among 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 description severally of Covetise and Avarice in The Romaunt of the fiose, 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 restless and unsatiable desire of riches, not for any further end or use, but only to hoard and preserve, and perpetually 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 πλεονεξία may be regarded as the larger term, the genus, of which φιλαργυρία is the species; this last being the love of money, while πλεονεξία is the drawing and snatching by the sinner to himself of the creature in every form and kind, as it lies out of ν᾿ §xxiv SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 79 and beyond himself; the ‘indigentia’ of Cicero (‘ indigentia est libido inexplebilis;’ Tusc. iv. 9. 21); compare Dio Chrysostom, De Avarit. Orat. 17; Augustine, Hnarr. in Ps. exviii. 35, 36; and Bengel’s profound explanation of the fact, that, in the enumeration of sins, St. Paul so often associates πλεονεξία With sins of the flesh ; as at 1 Cor.v. 11; Ephes. v. 8, 5; Col. 111. 5: ‘Solet autem jungere cum impuritate πλεονεξίαν, nam homo extra Deum querit pabulum in creaturaé materiali, vel per voluptatem, vel per avaritiam: bonum alienum ad se redigit.’ But, expressing much, Bengel has not expressed all. The connexion between these two provinces of sin is deeper and more intimate still; and this is witnessed in the fact, that not merely is πλεονεξία, as signifying covetousness, joined to sins of impurity, but the word is sometimes used, as at Hphes. 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 oat 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. 88-41). Contemplated under this aspect, πλεονεξία has a much wider and deeper sense than φιλαργυρία. 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,' 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. i 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. Se. 7. 80 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT §xxv ὃ xxv. Bock, ποιμαίνω.
Liddell-Scott-Jones — Greek-English Lexicon
διάδημα (diadēma) — diadem. διάδημα, ατος, τό, (διαδέω) band or fillet: especially band round the τιάρα worn by the Persian king, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; by his successors, [Refs 2nd c.AD+]; by kings generally, [LXX+1st c.BC+]
II. Ὀσίριδος δ., ={ἅλιμος}, Ps.[Refs 1st c.AD+]
