λατρεύω ; fut. λατρεύσω ; 1 aor. eAdrpevoa; (λάτρις ἃ hireling, Lat. /atro in Enn. and Plaut.; λάτρον hire) ; in Grk. writ. a. to serve for hire; b. univ. fo serve, minister to, either gods or men, and used alike of slaves and of freemen; in the N. T. to render religious service or homage, to worship, (Hebr. 123, Deut. vi. 13; x. 12; Josh. xxiv. 15); in a broad sense, λατρ. θεῷ: Mt. iv. 10 and Lk. iv. 8, (after Deut. vi. 13); Acts vii. 7; xxiv. 14; xxvii. 23; Heb. ix.14; Rev. vii.15; xxii. 3; of the worship of idols, Acts vii. 42; Ro. i. 25, (Ex. xx. 5; xxiii. 24; Ezek. xx. 32). Phrases relating to the manner of worshipping are these: θεῷ [so R ΑἸ λατρεύειν | πνεύματι (dat. of instr.), with the spirit or soul, Phil. iii. 3, but LT Tr WH have correctly restored πνεύματι θεοῦ, i. e. prompted by, filled with, the Spirit of God, so that the dat. of the pers. (τῷ θεῷ) is suppressed ; ἐν τῷ πνεύpati μου ἐν τῷ evayy., in my spirit in delivering the glad tidings, Ro. i. 9; τῷ θεῷ ἐν καθαρᾷ συνειδήσει, 2 Tim. i. 3; μετὰ αἰδοῦς καὶ εὐλαβείας or [so L T Tr WH] per’ εὐλαβ. x. δέους, Heb. xii. 28; ἐν ὁσιότητι x. δικαιοσύνῃ, Lk. i. 74; (without the dat. θεῷ) νηστείαις x. δεήσεσι, Lk. ii. 37; λατρεύειν, absol., to worship God [ef. W. 593 (552))}, Acts xxvi. 7. in the strict sense; to perform sacred services, to offer gifts, to worship God in the observance of the rites instituted for his worship: absol., Heb. ix. 9; x. 2; spec. of the priests, to officiate, to discharge the sacred office: with a dat. of the sacred thing to which the service is rendered, Heb. viii. 5; xiii. 10. [(Eur., al.)]

λατρεύω latreuō 21x

to be a servant, to serve, Acts 27:23; to render religious service and homage, worship, Mt. 4:10; Lk. 1:74; spc. to offer sacrifices, present offerings, Heb. 8:5; 9:9

λατρεύω

(< λάτρις, a hired servant), [in LXX (always, as λατρεία, of the service of God or of heathen divinities) chiefly for עבד, Ex 3:12, al.; in Da LXX TH (3:12, al.) for פְּלַח;]

to work for hire.

to serve; in cl., also of divine service, to serve, worship, and so always in NT: c. dat. pers., τ. θεῷ, Mt 4:10, Lk 4:8(LXX), Ac 7:7 24:14 27:23, He 9:14, Re 7:15 22:3; of idol worship (cf. Ex 20:5, Ez 20:32), Ac 7:42, Ro 1:25; τ. θεῷ ἐν τ. πνεύματί μου, Ro 1:9; id. ἐν καθαρᾷ συνειδήσει, II Ti 1:3; μετ’ εὐλαβείας κ. δέους, He 12:28; ἐν ὁσιότητι κ. δικαιοσύνῃ, Lk 1:74; (without θεῷ) νηστείαις κ. δεήσεσι, Lk 2:37; πνεύματι θεοῦ, Phl 3:3; absol., Ac 26:7; ὁ λατρεύων, the worshipper, He 9:9 10:2; of ministerial service, c. dat. rei, He 8:5 13:10.†

SYN.: λειτουργέω, q.v.

In both these words the notion of service lies, but of service under certain special limitations in the second, as compared with the first. Aartpevew, allied to λάτρις, ‘a hired servant,’ Adtpov, ‘hire,’ and perhaps to λεία, Anis (so Curtius), is, properly, ‘ to serve for hire,’ and therefore not of compulsion, as does a slave, though the line of separation between λάτρις and δοῦλος is by no means always observed. Already in classical Greek both it and λατρεία are occasionally transferred from the service of men to the service of the higher powers; as by Plato, Apol. 23 c: ἡ τοῦ Θεοῦ λατρεία: cf. Phedr. 244 e; and Euripides, Troad. 450, where Cassandra is ἡ ᾿Απόλλωνος λάτρις : and a meaning, which in Scripture is the only one, is anticipated in part. In the Septuagint, λατρεύειν never expresses any other service but either that of the true God, or of the false gods of heathenism ; for Deut. xxviii. 48, a seeming exception, is not such in fact; and Augustine has perfect right when he says (De Cw. Dei, x. 1, 2): ‘ Λατρεία secundum consuetudinem qua locuti sunt qui nobis divina eloquia condiderunt, aut semper, aut tam frequenter ut pene semper, ea dicitur servitus que pertinet ad colendum Deum ;’ and again (con. Faust. xx. 21): ‘Cultus qui grece latria dicitur, latine uno verbo dici non potest, cum sit quedam proprie divinitati debita servitus.’ Λειτουργεῖν boasts a somewhat nobler beginning; from λεῖτος (Ξεδημόσιος), and ἔργον: and thus εἰς τὸ δημόσιον ἐργάζεσθαι, to serve the State in a public office or function. Like λατρεύειν, it was occasionally transferred to the highest ministry of all, the ministry to the gods (Diodorus Siculus, i. 21). When the Christian Church was forming its terminology, which it did partly by shaping new words, but partly by elevating old ones to higher than their previous uses, of the latter kind it more readily adopted those before employed in civil and political life, than such as had already played their part in religious matters; and this, even when §xxxv SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 119 it was seeking for the adequate expression of religious truth. The same motives were here at work which induced the Church more willingly to turn basilicas,—buildings, that is, which had been used in civil life.—than temples, into churches ; namely, because they were less haunted with the clinging associations of heathenism. Of the fact itself we have a notable example in the words λειτουργός, λειτουργία, λειτουργεῖν, and in the prominent place in ecclesiastical language which they assumed. At the same time the way for their adoption into a higher use had been prepared by the Septuagint, in which λειτουργεῖν (=n) is the constant word for the performing of priestly or ministerial functions (Exod. xxvill. 89; Ezek. xl. 46); and by Philo (De Prof. 17). Neither in the Septuagint, however, nor yet by the Christian writers who followed, were the words of this group so entirely alienated from their primary uses as λατρεία and λατρεύειν had been ; being still occasionally used for the ministry wnto men (2am. x, 15.5.1 Kin. x.6; 2 Kin, iy. 45; hom, xv. 21; Phil. ii. 25, 30). From the distinction already existing between the words, before the Church had anything to do with them, namely, that λατρεύειν was ‘to serve,’ λειτουργεῖν, ‘to serve in an office and ministry,’ are to be explained the different uses to which they are severally turned in the N. T., as previously in the Septuagint. To serve God is the duty of all men; λατρεύειν, therefore, and λατρεία, are demanded of the whole people (Exod. iv. 23; Deut. x. 12; Josh. xxiv. 31; Matt. iv. 10; Luke i. 74; Acts vii. 7; Rom. ix. 4; Heb. xii. 28); but to serve Him in special offices and ministries can be the duty and privilege only of some, who are specially set apart to the same; and thus in the O. T. the λειτουργεῖν and the λειτουργία are ascribed only to the priests and Levites who were separated to minister in holy things; they only are λειτουργοί (Num. iv. 24; 1 Sam. ii, 11; Nehem. x. 39; Ezek. xliv. 27); which language, mutatis mutandis, reappears in the New, where not merely is that old priesthood and ministry designated by this language (Luke i. 23; Heb. ix. 120 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT §xxxvi 21; x. 11), but that of apostles, prophets, and teachers in the Church (Acts xiii. 2; Rom. xv. 16; Phil. ii. 17), as well as that of the great High Priest of our profession, τῶν ἁγίων λειτουργός (Heb. viii. 2). In later ecclesiastical use it has been sometimes attempted to push the special application of λειτουργία still further, and to limit its use to those prayers and offices which stand in more immediate relation to the Holy Eucharist: but there is no warrant in the best ages of the Church for any such limitation; thus see Suicer, Thes. s. v.; Bingham, Christian Antiqq. xiii. 1. 8; Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. i. p. 285 ; Augusti, Christ. Archiiol. vol. ii. p. 587 ; Scudamore, Notitia Eucharistica, p. 11. It may be urged against the distinction here drawn that λατρεύειν and λατρεία are sometimes applied to official ministries, as at Heb. ix. 1. 6. This is, of course, true ; just as where two circles have the same centre, the greater will necessarily include the less. The notion of service is such a centre here ; in λειτουργεῖν this service finds a certain limitation, in that it is service in an office: it follows that every λειτουργία will of necessity be a λατρεία, but not the reverse, that every λατρεία will be a λειτουργία. No passage better brings out the distinction between these two words than Eeclus. iv. 14: of λατρεύοντες αὐτῇ [i.e. τῇ Σοφίᾳ] λειτουργήσουσιν “Αγίῳ. ‘They that serve her, shall minister to the Holy One.” δ᾽ ΧΧΧΥΪ. πένης, πτωχός. In both these words the sense of poverty, and of poverty in this world’s goods, is involved; and they continually occur together in the Septuagint, in the Psalms especially, with no rigid demarcation of their meanings (as at Ps. xxxix. 18; Ixxiii. 22; Ixxxi. 4; ef. Ezek. xviii. 12; xxii. 29); very much as ae “poor and needy; ” and whatever distinction may exist in the Hebrew between ἡ" 3 3ὲ and ‘2, the Alexandrian translators have either considered it not reproducible by the help of these words, or have not cared Sxxxvl SYVONVUMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 121 to reproduce it; for they have no fixed rule, translating the one and the other by πτωχός and πένης alike. Still there are passages which show that they were perfectly aware of a distinction between them, and would, where they thought good, maintain it; occasions upon which they employ πένης (as Deut. xxiv. 14, 15; 2 Sam. xii. 1, 3, 4), and where πτωχός. would have been manifestly unfit. Πένης occurs but once in the N. T., and on that one occasion in a quotation from the Old (2 Cor. ix. 9), while πτωχός between thirty and forty times. Derived from πένομαι, and connected with πόνος, πονέομαι, and the Latin ‘penuria,’ it properly signifies one so poor that he earns his daily bread by his labour; Hesychius calls him well αὐτοδιάκονος, one who by his own hands ministers to his own necessities. The word does not indicate extreme want, nor a condition verging upon it, any more than does the ‘pauper’ and ‘paupertas’ of the Latin; but only the ‘res angusta’ of one for whom πλούσιος would be an inappropriate epithet. What was the popular definition of a πένης we learn from Xenophon (Mem. iv. 2. 87): τοὺς μὲν οἶμαι μὴ ἱκανὰ ἔχοντας εἰς ἃ δεῖ τελεῖν, TEevyTas* τοὺς δὲ πλείω τῶν ἱκανῶν, πλουσίους. It was an epithet commonly applied to Socrates, and πενία he claims more than once for himself (Plato, Apol. 93.c; 81 c). What his πενία was we know (Xenophon, Cicon. ii. 8), namely, that all which he had, if sold, would not bring five Attic minz. So, too, the Πενέσται in Thessaly (if, indeed, the derivation of the name from πένεσθαι is to stand), were a subject population, but not reduced to abject want ; on the contrary, retaining secondary rights as serfs or cultivators of the soil. But while the πένης is ‘pauper,’ the πτωχός is ‘mendicus ;’ he is the ‘ beggar,’ and lives not by his own labour or industry, but on other men’s alms (Luke xvi. 20, 21); being one therefore whom Plato would not endure in his ideal State (Legg. xi. 986 c). If indeed we fall back on etymologies, προσαίτης (which ought to find place in the text at Jolin ix. 8), or ἐπαίτης, would be the more exactly 122 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ὃ xxxvi ? equivalent to our ‘beggar ;’ while πτωχός is generally taken for one who in the sense of his abjectness and needs crouches (ἀπὸ τοῦ πτώσσειν) in the presence of his superiors ; though it may be safest to add here the words of Pott (Htym. Forsch. vol. iii. p. 933), ‘falls dieser wirklich nach scheum unterwirfigem Wesen benannt worden, und nicht als petax.’ The derivation of πτωχός, as though he were one who had fallen from a better estate (ἐκπεπτωκὼς ἐκ τῶν ὄντων : see Herodotus, 111. 14), is merely fanciful: see Didymus, im Ps. xii. 5, in Mai’s Nov. Pat. Bibl. vol. vii. part 11. p. 165. The words then are clearly distinct. A far deeper depth of destitution is implied in πτωχεία than in πενία, to keep which in mind will add vividness to the contrasts drawn by St Paul, 2 Cor. vi. 10; viii. 9. The πένης may be so poor that he earns his bread by daily labour; but the πτωχός 18 so poor that he only obtains his living by begging. There is an evident climax intended by Plato, when he speaks of tyrannies (Rep. x. 618 a), εἰς πενίας τε καὶ φυγὰς καὶ εἰς πτωχείας τελευτώσας. The πένης has nothing superfluous, the πτωχός nothing at all (see Doderlein, Lat. Synon. vol. 111. Ὁ. 117). Tertullian long ago noted the distinction (Adv. Mare. iv. 14), for, dealing with our Lord’s words, μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοί (Luke vi. 20), he changes the ‘ Beati pauperes,’ Which still retains its place in the Vulgate, into ‘ Beati mendicz,’ and justifies the change, ‘Sic enim exigit interpretatio vocabuli quod in Greco est;’ and in another place (De Idol. 12) he renders it by ‘egeni.’ The two, πενία (=‘ paupertas,’ cf. Martial, ii. 32: ‘Non est paupertas, Nestor, habere nihil’) and πτωχεία (=‘ egestas’), may be sisters, as one in Aristophanes will have them (Plut. 549) ; but if such, yet the latter far barer of the world’s good than the former ; and indeed Πενία in that passage seems inclined wholly to disallow any such near relationship at all. The words of Aristophanes, in which he discriminates between them, have been often quoted : πτωχοῦ μὲν yap βίος, ὃν σὺ λέγεις, ζῆν ἐστιν μηδὲν ἔχοντα * τοῦ δὲ πένητος, ζῆν φειδόμενον, καὶ τοῖς ἔργοις προσέχοντα, περιγίγνεσθαι δ᾽ αὐτῷ μηδὲν, μὴ μέντοι μηδ᾽ ἐπιλείπειν, §xxxvi SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 123 ὃ XXXvil. θυμός, ὀργή, παροργισμός.

λατρεύω in Biblical Greek always refers to the service or worship of the true God or of heathen divinities: see SH on Rom 1°, where the relation of the verb to λειτουργέω is discussed. For its relation to δουλεύω see Thackeray Gy. i. p. 8: cf. also Anz Subsidia, p. 296.

λατρεύω (latreuō) — to minister. λατρ-εύω, Elean λατρείω (which see), work for hire or pay, [Refs 6th c.BC+]: to be in servitude, serve, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

2. λ. τινί to be subject or enslaved to, [Refs 5th c.BC+]: with accusative person, serve, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; λ. νόμοις obey, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; λ. καιρῷ, = Latin temporibus inservire, [Refs 1st c.AD+]; τῷ κάλλει λ. to be devoted to.., [Refs 5th c.BC+]

3. serve the gods with prayers and sacrifices, λ. Φοίβῳ [Refs 5th c.BC+] render due service, [Refs]; πόνον.. τόνδ᾽ ἐλάτρευσα θεᾷ [Refs]