ἰδιώτης, -ov, ὁ, (ἴδιος), very com. in Grk. writ. fr. Hdt. down; prop. a privale person, opp. to a magistrate, ruler, king; but the noun has many other meanings also, each one of which is understood from its antithesis, as e. g. a common soldier, as opp. to a military officer; a writer of prose, as opp. to a poet. In the N. T. an unlearned, illiterate, man, opp. to the learned, the educated: Acts iv. 13; as often in class. Grk., unskilled in any art: in eloquence (Isocr. p. 48 a.), with dat. of respect, τῷ λόγῳ, 2 Co. xi. 6 [A. V. rude in speech]; a Christian who is not a prophet, 1 Co. xiv. 24; destitute of the ‘gift of tongues,’ ibid. 16, 23. [Cf. Trench § Ixxix.]

ἰδιώτης idiōtēs 5x

pr. one in private life, one devoid of special learning or gifts, a plain person, Acts 4:13; 2 Cor. 11:6; ungifted, 1 Cor. 14:16, 23, 24*

ἰδιώτης, -ου, ὁ

(< ἴδιος), [in LXX: Pr 6:8 (no Heb.)*;]

a private person, as opp. to the State or an official (βασιλεῖς κ. ἰδιῶται, Pr 6:8; and cf. MM, Exp., xv).

one without professional knowledge, unskilled, uneducated, unlearned: I Co 14:16, 23, 24 (R, mg., without gifts); ἀγράμματοι κ. ἰ., Ac 4:13; c. dat. (= cl. c. gen. rei), λόγῳ, II Co 11:6.†

THESE words occur together Acts iv. 13; ἀγράμματος nowhere else in the N. T., but ἰδιώτης on four other occasions (1 Cor. xiv. 16, 23, 24; 2 Cor. xi. 6). Where found together we must conclude that, according to the natural rhetoric of human speech, the second word is stronger than, and adds something to, the first: thus our Translators have evidently understood them, rendering ἀγράμματος “ unlearned,’ and ἐδιώτης ‘ignorant’; and so Bengel: “ἀγράμματος est rudis, ἰδιώτης rudior.’ When we seek more accurately to distinguish them, and to detect the exact notion which each conveys, ἀγράμματος need not occupy us long. It corresponds exactly to our ‘illiterate’ (γράμματα μὴ μεμαθηκώς, John vii. 15; Acts xxvi. 24; 2 Tim. iii. 15): being joined by Plato with ὄρειος, rugged as the mountaineer (Crit. 109 d), with ἄμουσος (Tim. 23 Ὁ): by Plutarch set over against the μεμουσωμένος (Adv. Colot. 26). But ἐδιώτης is a word of far wider range, of uses far more complex and subtle. Its primary idea, the point from which, so to speak, etymologically it starts, is that of the private man, occupying himself with his own things (ra ἴδια), as contrasted with the political; the man unclothed with office, us set over against and distinguished from him who bears some office in the state. But lying as it did very deep in the Greek mind, being one of the strongest convictions there, that in public life the true education of the man and the citizen consisted, it could not fail that the word should presently be tinged with something of contempt and scorn. The ἰδιώτης, staying at home while others were facing honourable toil, οἰκουρός, as Plutarch calls him (Phil. ewm Prine. 1), a ‘ house-dove,’ as our ancestors slightingly named him, unexercised in business, unaccustomed to deal with his fellow-men, is unpractical; and thus the word is joined with ἀπράγμων by Plato (Rep. x. 620 c; cf. Plutarch, De Virt. et Vit. 4), with ἄπρακτος by Plutarch (Phil. cum Prine. 1), who sets him over against the πολιτικὸς Kal πρακτικός. But more than this, he is often boorish, and thus ἰδιώτης is linked with ἄγροικος (Chrysostom, in 1 Ep. Cor. Hom. 3), with ἀπαίδευτος (Plutarch, Arist. et Men. Comp. 1), and other words such as these.! The history of ἰδιώτης by no means stops here, though we have followed it as far as is absolutely necessary to explain its association (Acts iv. 13) with ἀγράμματος, and the points of likeness and difference between them. But to explain why St. Paul should employ it at 1 Cor. xiv. 16, 23, 24, and exactly in what sense, it may be well to pursue this history a little further. There is a singular feature in the use of (du@tns which, though not very easy to describe, a few examples will at once make intelligible. There lies continually in it a negation of that particular skill, knowledge, profession, or standing, over against which it is antithetically set, and not of any other except that alone. For example, is the ἰδιώτης set over against the δημιουργός (as by Plato, Theag. 124 ¢), he is the unskilled man as set over against the skilled artificer; any other dexterity he may possess, but that of the δημιουργός is denied him. Is he set over against the ἰατρός, he is one ignorant of the physician’s art (Plato, Rep. 111. 389 ὃ: Philo, De Conf. Ling. 7); against the σοφιστής, he is one unacquainted with the dialectic fence of the sophists (Xenophon, De Venat. 13; cf. Hiero, i. 2; Lucian, Pisce. 34; Plutarch, Symp. iv. 2, 3); against the φιλόλογος 1 There is an excellent discussion on the successive meanings of ἰδιώτης in Bishop Horsley’s Tracts in Controversy with Dr. Priestley, Appewiix, Disquisition Second, pp. 475-485. Our English ‘idiot’ has also an instructive history. This quotation from Jeremy Taylor (Dissuasive from Popery, part ii. Ὁ. i. § 1) will show how it was used two hundred years ago: ‘S. Austin affirmed that the plain places of Scripture are sufficient to all laics, and all idiots or private persons.’ See my Select Glossary s. v. for other examples of the same use of the word. 304 SYNONYMs OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § υχχιχ᾿ (Sextus Empiricus, adv. Grammat. § 235), he has no interest in the earnest studies which occupy the other; prose writers are ἐδιῶται as contrasted with poets. Those unpractised in gymnastic exercises are ἰδιῶται as contrasted with the ἀθληταί (Xenophon, Hiero, iv. 6; Philo, De Sept. 6); subjects as contrasted with their prince (De Abran. 33); the underlings in the harvest-field are ἰδιῶται καὶ ὑπηρέται as distinguished from the ἡγεμόνες (De Soman. ii. 4); the weak are ἰδιῶται, ἄποροι and ἄδοξοι being qualitative adjectives, as contrasted with the strong (Philo, De Oreat. Princ. 5; οἵ. Plutarch, De Imper. Apoph. 1); and lastly, the whole congregation of Israel are ἰδιῶται as set over against the priests (De Vit. Mos. iii. 20). With these examples of the word’s use to assist us, we can come to no other conclusion than that the ἐδιῶται of St. Paul (1 Cor. xiv. 16, 23, 24) are the plain believers, with no special spiritual gifts, as distinguished from such as were possessed of such; even as elsewhere they are the lay members of the Church as contrasted with those who minister in the Word and Sacraments; for it is ever the word with which ἰδιῶτης is at once combined and contrasted that determines its meaning. For the matter immediately before us it will be sufficient to say that when the Pharisees recognized Peter and John as men ἀγράμματοι καὶ ἰδιῶται, in the first word they expressed more the absence in them of book-learning, and, confining as they would have done this to the Old Testament, the ἱερὰ γράμματα, and to the glosses of their own doctors upon these, their lack of acquaintance with such lore as St. Paul had learned at the feet of Gamaliel, in the second their want of that education which men insensibly acquire by mingling with those who have important affairs to transact, and by taking their own share in the transaction of such. Setting aside that higher training of the heart and the intellect which is obtained by direct communion with God and his truth, no doubt books and διχχχ, SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 305 public life, literature and politics, are the two most effectual organs of mental and moral training which the world has at its command—the second, as needs hardly be said, immeasurably more effectual than the first. He is ἀγράμματος who has not shared in the first, ἰδιώτης who has had no part in the second. δ lxxx. δοκέω, φαίνομαι. Ovr Translators have not always observed the distinction which exists between δοκεῖν (=‘videri’) and φαίνεσθαι (=‘apparere’). Aoxety expresses the subjective mental estimate or opinion about a matter which men form, their δόξα concerning it, which may be right (Acts xv. 28; 1 Cor. iv. 9 3; vii. 40: cf. Plato, Tim. 51 d, δόξα ἀληθήΞ), but which also may be wrong; involving as it always must the possibility of error (2 Macc. ix.10; Matt. vi. 7; Mark vi. 49; John xvi. 2; Acts xxvii. 13; cf. Plato, Hep. iv. 423.43; Gorg. 458 a, δόξα ψευδής: Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 6. 22; Mem. i. 7. 4, ἰσχυρόν, μὴ ὄντα, δοκεῖν, to have a false reputation for strength) ; φαίνεσθαι on the contrary expresses how a matter phenomenaliy shows and presents itself, with no necessary assumption of any beholder at all ; suggesting an opposition, not to the ὄν, but to the voovuevov. Thus, when Plato (Rep. 111. 408 a) says of certain heroes in the Trojan war, ἀγαθοὶ πρὸς τὸν πόλεμον ἐφάνησαν, he does not mean they seemed good for the war and were not, but they showed good, with the tacit assumption that what they showed, they also were. So too, when Xenophon writes ἐφαίνετο ἴχνια ἵππων (Anab. i. 6. 1), he would imply that horses had been actually there, and left their footprints on the ground. Had he used δοκεῖν, he would have implied that Cyrus and his company took for the tracks of horses what indeed might have been such, but what also might not have been such at all; cf. Mem. iii. 10. 2. Zoune: ‘ δοκεῖν cernitur in opinione, que fulsa esse potest x 306 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xxx. et vana; sed φαίνεσθαι plerumque est in re extra mentem, quamvis nemo opinatur.? Thus δοκεῖ φαίνεσθαι (Plato, Phedr. 260 d; Legg. xii. 960 d). Even in passages where δοκεῖν may be exchanged with εἶναι, it does not lose the proper meaning which Zeune has ascribed to it here. There is ever a predominant reference to the public opinion and estimate, rather than to the actual being; however the former may be the faithful echo of the latter (Prov. xxvii. 14). Thus, while there is no touch of irony, no shadow of depreciation, in St. Paul’s use of of δοκοῦντες at Gal. ii. 2, of of δοκοῦντες εἶναί τι presently after (ver. 6)—exactly which same phrase occurs in Plato, Euthyd. 303 d, where they are joined with σεμνοί —and while manifestly there could be no slight intended, seeing that he so characterizes the chief of his fellow Apostles, the words for all this express rather the reputation in which these were held in the Church than the worth which in themselves they had, however that reputation of theirs was itself the true measure of this worth (Ξ- ἐπίσημοι, Rom. xvi. 7). Compare Euripides, Troad. 608, where τὰ δοκοῦντα are set over against τὰ μηδὲν ὄντα, Hee. 295, and Porphyry, De Abst. ii. 40, where of δοκοῦντες in like manner is put absolutely, and set over against τὰ πλήθη. In the same way the words of Christ, of δοκοῦντες ἄρχειν τῶν ἐθνῶν (Mark x. 42) =‘they who are acknowledged rulers of the Gentiles,’ cast no doubt on the reality of the rule of these, for see Matt. xx. 25 ; though indeed there may be a slight hint, looking through the words, of the contrast between the worldly shows and the heavenly realities of greatness ; but as little are they redundant (cf. Josephus, Antt. xix. 6. 3; Susan. 5: and Winer, Gramm. ὃ Ixvii. 4). But as on one side the mental conception may have, but also may not have, a corresponding truth in the world of realities, so on the other the appearance may have a reality beneath it, and φαίνεσθαι is often synonymous with εἶναι and γίγνεσθαι (Matt. ii. 7; xiii. 26); but it may also §rxxx. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 307 have none; φαινόμενα, for instance, are set off against τὰ ὄντα τῇ ἀληθείᾳ by Plato (Rep. x. 596¢), being the reflections of things, as seen in a mirror: or shows, it may be, which have no substance behind them, as the shows of goodness which the hypocrite makes (Matt. xxiii. 28). It must not be assumed that in this latter case φαίνεσθαι runs into the meaning of δοκεῖν, and that the distinction is broken down between them. That distinction still subsists in the objective character of the one, and the subjective character of the other. Thus, at Matt. xxiii. 27, 28, the contrast is not between what other men took the Pharisees to be, and what they really were, but between what they showed themselves to other men (φαίνεσθε τοῖς ἀνθρώποις δίκαιοι), and what in very truth they were. Δοκεῖν signifying ever, as we have seen, that subjective estimate which may be formed of a thing, not the objective show and seeming which it actually possesses, it will follow that our rendering of Jam. i. 26 is not perfectly satisfactory: “If any man among you seem to be religious (δοκεῖ θρῆσκος εἶναι), and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain.” This, verse, as it here stands, must before now have perplexed many. How, they will have asked, can a man “seem to be religious,” that is, present himself to others as such, when his religious pretensions are belied and refuted by the license of an unbridled tongue? But render the words “If any man among you thinketh himself religious” (cf. Gal. vi. 3, where δοκεῖ is rightly so translated ; as it is in the Vulgate here, “se putat religiosum esse”), “and bridleth not his tongue, &c.,” and all will then be plain. Τὸ is the man’s own mental estimate of his spiritual condition which δοκεῖ expresses, an estimate which the following words declare to be altogether erroneous. Compare Heb. iv. 1, where for δοκῇ the Vulgate has rightly ‘existimetur.’ Ifthe Vulgate in dealing with δοκεῖν here is right, while our Translators are wrong, elsewhere in dealing with x2 308 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 8 .xxxt. φαίνεσθαι it is wrong, while these are right. At Matt. vi. 18 (“that thou appear not unto men to fast”), it has ‘ne videaris,’ although at ver. 16 it had rightly ‘ut appareant’; but the disciples in this verse are warned, not against the hypocrisy of wishing to be supposed to fast when they did not, as this ‘ne videaris? might imply, but against the ostentation of wishing to be known to fast when they did; as lies plainly in the ὅπως μὴ φανῇς of the original. The force of φαίνεσθαι, attained here, is missed in another passage of our Version; although not through any confusion between it and δοκεῖν, but rather between it and φαίνειν. We render ἐν ols φαίνεσθε ὡς φωστῆρες ἐν κόσμῳ (Phil. ii. 15), ““ διηοπρ whom ye shine as lights in the world; ” where, instead of £ ye shine,’ it should stand, ‘ye are seen,’ or ‘ye appear.’ To justify “ye shine” in this place, which is common to all the Versions of the English Hexapla, St. Paul should have written φαίνετε (cf. John i. 5; 2 Ῥρί. 1. 19; Rev. i. 16), and not, as he has written, φαίνεσθε. It is worthy of note that, while the Vulgate, having ‘lucetis,’ shares and anticipates our error, an earlier Latin Version was free from it; as is evident from the form in which the verse is quoted by Augustine (Enarr. in Ps. exlvi. 4): ‘In quibus apparetis tanquam luminaria in ceelo,’

ἰδιώτης. In Sy// 84716 (Delphi—B.c. 185) the witnesses to a manumission are the priest, two representatives of the ἄρχοντες, and five ἰδιῶται, “ private citizens”: cf. 76. 8468 (B.c. 197) and OG/S go* (B.c. 196) where again a distinction is drawn between ἱερεῖς and οἱ ἄλλοι ἰδιῶται. In connexion witi: the difficult 1 Cor 148 8, Thieme (p. 32) cites Magn 9955 (beg. ii/B.C.) φερόμενον ὑπὸ τῶν [ἰ]διωτῶϊν, where the word may have some reference to worship at the founding of a sanctuary in honour of Serapis, but the context is far from clear. In P Fay 1912 (ii/A.p.) the Emperor Hadrian refers to his father’s having died at the age of forty—i8.aTms, ‘‘a private person,” and in P Oxy XII. 140914 (A.p. 278) we read of overseers chosen—é§ ἀρχόντων ἢ kal ἰδιωτῶν, ‘from magistrates or private persons”: cf. P Ryl 11. 111(a)!7 (censusreturn—c. A.D. 161) ἰδιώ(της) Aaoy(padotpevos), ‘a private person paying poll-tax.” The adj. ἰδιωτικός is similarly used with reference to a private bank—t8wtiKki τράπεζα--in P Lond 1168?! (a.p. 18) (=III. p. 137), and in 24. 9328 (A.D, 211) (=TIII. p. 149) with reference to δάνεια ἤτοι ἰδιωτικὰ ἢ δημόσια : cf. the Will, P Tebt 11. 38178 (a.p. 123) (= Selections, p. 79), where Thaesis bequeaths her property to her daughter on condition that she discharges her private debts—SevAvtdoe ὧν ἐὰν hava 7 Θαῆσις ὀφίλουσα ἰδιοτικῶν χρεῶν, and BGU V. 121018 (c. A.D. 150) Tlacropédpo[is] ἐξὸν ἰδιωτικῶν ἐφίεσθαι τάξεων, ““ Pastophoren ist es erlaubt, nach Laienstellungen zu streben” (Ed.). See further Preisigke Fachwérter, p. 101. To the rare use of ἰδιώτης to denote absence of military rank, a private, in P Hib I. 30% (B.c. 300-271) and 7d. 89? (B.C. 239), we can now add P Hamb I.26" (B.c. 215). In contrast to rhetoricians and philosophers, Epictetus describes himself as ἰδιώτης (iii. 7. 1, a/.): cf. 2 Cor 118, and see Epict. iii. 9. 14 οὐδὲν ἣν ὁ ᾿Εἰπίκτητος, ἐσολοίκιζεν, ἐβαρβάριζεν (cited by Heinrici 1 27. Char. p. 2).

ἰδιώτης (idiōtēs) — unlearned. ἰδῐώτ-ης, ου, ὁ, (ἴδιος) private person, individual, opposed to the State, ξυμφέροντα καὶ πόλεσι καὶ ἰδιώταις [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to γένος, [Refs 4th c.BC+]

II. one in a private station, opposed to to one holding public office, or taking part in public affairs, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to βασιλεύς, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to ἄρχων, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to δικαστής, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to πολιτευόμενος, [Refs 4th c.BC+]; opposed to ῥήτωρ, [Refs 4th c.BC+]; private soldier, opposed to στρατηγός, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; layman, opposed to priest, [NT+2nd c.BC+]: as adjective, ἰ. ἄνδρες [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ἰ. θεοί homely (with play on ἴδιος), [Refs 5th c.BC+]

II.2. common man, plebeian, οἱ ἰ. καὶ πένητες [Refs 1st c.AD+]; ἰ. καὶ εὐτελής, opposed to βασιλεύς, [Refs 2nd c.AD+]

II.3. as adjective, ἰ. βίος private station, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ἰ. λόγος everyday speech, [Refs 1st c.BC+]

III. one who has no professional knowledge, layman, καὶ ἰατρὸς καὶ ἰ. [Refs 5th c.BC+]; of prose-writers, ἐν μέτρῳ ὡς ποιητής, ἢ ἄνευ μέτρου ὡς ἰ. [Refs]; opposed to to a professed orator, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; to a trained soldier, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ἰδιώτας, ὡς εἰπεῖν, χειροτέχναις (-νας codices) ἀνταγωνισαμένους [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to ἀσκητής, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to ἀθλητής, [Refs 4th c.BC+]; opposed to a professed philosopher, [Refs 1st c.BC+] K.; opposed to δημιουργός, [Refs 5th c.BC+] adjective, ὁ ἰ. ὄχλος, opposed to artificers, [Refs 1st c.AD+]

III.2. with genitive of things, unpractised, unskilled in a thing, ἰατρικῆς [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ἰ. κατὰ τοὺς πόνους, κατὰ τὸν ὕπνον, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

III.3. generally, raw hand, ignoramus, ἄν τε δεινοὶ λάχωσιν ἄν τε ἰδιῶται.. [Refs 4th c.BC+]; παιδάρια καὶ ἰ., of slaves, [Refs 2nd c.AD+]; ἀμαθὴς καὶ ἰ., opposed to τεχνίτης, [Refs]; vocative ἰδιῶτα, as a term of abuse, [Refs 4th c.BC+]

III.4. 'average man', opposed to a person of distinction, [Refs 1st c.AD+]

IV. ἰδιῶται, οἱ, one's own countrymen, opposed to ξένοι, [Refs 5th c.BC+]