G331 ἀνάθεμα (anáthema)

ἀνάθεμα, -ros, τό, (i. 4. TO ἀνατεθειμένον) ; 1. prop. a thing set up or laid by in order to be kept; spec. a votive offering, which after being consecrated to a god was hung upon the walls or columns of his temple, or put in some other conspicuous place: 2 Mace. ii. 13, (Plut. Pelop. c. 25); Lk. xxi. 5 in LT, for ἀναθήμασι RG Tr WH,;; for the two forms are sometimes confounded in the codd.; Moeris, ἀνάθημα ἀττικῶς, ἀνάθεμα ἑλληνικῶς. CE. ἐπίθημα, ἐπίθεμα, etc., in Lob. ad Phryn. p. 249 [cf. 445; Paral. 417; see also Lipsius, Gram. Unters. p.41]. 2. ἀνάθεμα in the Sept. is generally the translation of the Heb. D1n, α thing devoted to God without hope of being redeemed, and, if an animal, to be slain [Lev. xxvii. 28, 29]; therefore a person or thing doomed to destruction, Josh. vi. 17; vii. 12, ete. [W. 32]; a thing abominable and detestable, an accursed thing, Deut. vii. 26. Hence in the N. T. ἀνάθεμα denotes 8. acurse: ἀναθέματι avaθεματίζειν, Acts xxiii. 14 [W. 466 (434); B. 184 (159)]. b. a man accursed, devoted to the direst woes (i. q. ἐπικατάρατος) : ἀνάθεμα ἔστω, Gal. i. 8 sq.; 1 Co. xvi. 22; ἀνάθεμα λέγειν τινά to execrate one, 1 Co. xii. 3 (RG, but L T Tr WH have restored ἀνάθεμα Ἰησοῦς, sc. ἔστω); ἀνάθεμα εἶναι ἀπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ, Ro. ix. 3 (pregnantly i. q. doomed and so separated from Christ). Cf. the full remarks on this word in Fritzsche on Rom. vol. ii. 247 sqq-; Wieseler on Gal. p. 39 sqq.; [a trans. of the latter by Prof. Riddle in Schaff’s Lange on Rom. p. 302 sqq. ; see also Trench $y.; Bp. Lightfoot on Gal. 1. ο.; Ellicott ibid.; Tholuck on Rom. 1. c.; BB.DD. 5. vv. Anathema, Excommunication].

ἀνάθεμα anathema 6x

a devoted thing, ordinarily in a bad sense, a person or thing accursed, Rom. 9:3; 1 Cor. 12:3; 16:22; Gal. 1:8, 9; a curse, execration, anathema, Acts 23:14*

† ἀνάθεμα, -τος, τό

(< ἀνατίθημι), Hellenistic for Attic ἀνάθημα (Bl., § 27, 2);

prop. = τὸ ἀνατιθέμένον, that which is laid by to be kept, a votive offering (as ἀνάθημα in II Mac 2:13, Lk 21:5—where LT read -θεμα, v. M, Pr., 46).

[As equiv. in LXX for חֵרֶם,] devoted, a thing devoted to God (v. Driver, De., 98 f., and cf. Le 27:28-29), hence; of the sentence pronounced (De 13:15), a curse: Ac 23:14;

of the object on which the curse is laid, accursed (De 7:26): Ro 9:3, I Co 12:3 16:22, Ga 1:8, 9 (v. ICC on Ro.; Lft., Ga., 1:8, 9; Cremer, 547; Tr., Syn., § v; MM, VGT, s.v.).†

Some affirm that these are merely different spellings of the same word, and that they are used indifferently. Were the fact so, their fitness for a place in a book of synonyms would of course disappear; difference as well as likeness being necessary for this. Thus far indeed these have right—namely, that ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα, like εὕρημα ἀπα εὕρεμα, ἐπίθημα and ἐπίθεμα, must severally be regarded as having been once no more than different pronunciations, which issued in different spellings, of one and the same word. Nothing, however, is more common than for slightly diverse pronunciations of the same word finally to settleand resolve themselves into different words, with different orthographies, and different domains of meaning which they have severally appropriated to themselves; and which henceforth they maintain in perfect independence one of the other. I have elsewhere given 1 Therefore Milton could say (P. L. x. 84); ‘ Conviction to the serpent none belongs : ἢ this was a grace reserved for Adam and Eve, as indeed they only were capable of it. 16 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ὃν. numerous examples of the kind (English Past and Present, 10th edit. pp. 157-164); and a very few may here suffice: θράσος and Odpoos,!* Thrax’ and ‘ Threx,’ ‘ rechtlich’ and ‘redlich,’ ‘fray’ and ‘frey,’ ‘harnais’ and ‘harnois,’ ‘mettle? and ‘metal.’ That which may be affirmed of all these, may also be affirmed of ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα. Whether indeed these words had secured each a domain of meaning of its own was debated with no little heat by some of the chief early Hellenists. Foremost names among these are ranged on either side; Salmasius among them who maintained the existence of a distinction, at least in Hellenistic Greek ; Beza among those who denied it. Perhaps here, as in so many cases, the truth did not absolutely lie with the combatants on either part, but lay rather between them, though much nearer to one part than the other; the most reasonable conclusion, after weighing all the evidence on either side, being this—that such a distinction of meaning did exist, and was allowed by many, but was by no means recognized or observed by all. In classical Greek ἀνάθημα is quite the predominant form, the only one which Attic writers allow (Lobeck, Phrynichus, pp. 249, 445; Paralip. p. 391). It is there _ the technical word by which all such costly offerings as were presented to the gods, and then suspended or otherwise exposed to view in their temples, all by the Romans termed ‘donaria,’ as tripods, crowns, vases of silver or gold, and the like, were called; these being in this way separated for ever from all common and profane uses, and openly dedicated to the honour of that deity, to whom they were presented at the first (Xenophon, Anab. v. 3, 5; Pausanias, x. 9). But with the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, a new thought demanded to find utterance. Those 1 Gregory Nazianzene (Carm. ii. 34, 35.): θράσος δέ, θάρσος πρὸς τὰ μὴ τολμητέα. Scriptures spoke of two ways in which objects might be holy, set apart for God, devoted to Him. The children of Israel were devoted to Him; God was glorified in them: the wicked Canaanites were devoted to Him; God was glorified on them. This awful fact that in more ways _than one things and persons might be ὉΠ (Lev. xxvii. 28, 29)—that they might be devoted to God for good, and for evil; that there was such a thing as being “accursed to the Lord” (Josh. vi. 17; cf. Deut. xiii. 16: Num. xxi. 1-3) ; that of the spoil of the same city a part might be consecrated to the Lord in his treasury, and a part utterly destroyed, and yet this part and that be alike dedicated to Him (Josh. vi. 19, 21), “sacred and devote” (Milton) ;— this claimed its expression and utterance now, and found it in the two uses of one word; which, while it remained the same, just differenced itself enough to indicate in which of the two senses it was employed. And here let it be observed, that they who find separation from God as the central idea of ἀνάθεμα (Theodoret, for instance, on Rom. ix. 3: τὸ ἀνάθεμα διπλῆν ἔχει τὴν διάνοιαν" Kai yap τὸ ἀφιερώμενον τῷ Θεῷ ἀνάθημα ὀνομάζεται, καὶ τὸ τούτου ἀλλότρίον τὴν αὐτὴν ἔχει Tpocnyopiav),—are quite unable to trace a common bond of meaning between it and ἀνάθημα, which last is plainly separation to God; or to show the point at which they diverge from one another ; while there is no difficulty of the kind when it is seen that separation to God is in both cases implied.! Already in the Septuagint and in the Apocryphal books we find ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα beginning to disen1 Flacius Illyricus ( Clavis Script. 5. v. Anathema) excellently explains the manner in which the two apparently opposed meanings unfold themselves from a single root: ‘ Anathema igitur est res aut persona Deo obligata aut addicta; sive quia Ei ab hominibus est pietatis causi oblata: sive quia justitia Dei tales, ob singularia aliqua piacula veluti in suos carceres poenasque abripuit, comprobante et declarante id etiam hominum sententid. . . . Duplici enim de causa Deus vult aliquid habere; vel tanquam gratum acceptumque ac sibi oblatum; vel tanquam sibi exosum sueque ire ac castigationi subjectum ac debitum.’ Cc 18 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ὃν. gage themselves from one another, and from a confused and promiscuous use. How far, indeed, the distinction is observed there, and whether universally, it is hard to determine, from the variety of readings in various editions; but in one of the later critical editions (that of Tischendorf, 1850), many passages (such for instance as Judith. xvi. 19; Lev. xxvii. 28, 29; 2 Mace. ii. 13), which appear in some earlier editions negligent of the distinction, are found observant of it. In the N. T. the distinction that ἀνάθημα is used to express the ‘sacrum ’ in a better sense, ἀνάθεμα in a worse, is invariably maintained. It must be allowed, indeed, that the passages there are not numerous enough to convince a gainsayer; he may attribute to hazard the fact that they fall in with this distinction ; ἀνάθημα occurring only once: “ Some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts ” (ἀναθή-μασι, Luke xxi. 5; even here Codd. A and Ὁ and Lachmann read ἀναθέμασι); and ἀνάθεμα no more than six times (Acts xxiii. 14; Rom. ix. 3; 1 Cor. xii. 3; xvi. 22; Gal. i. 8,9). So far however as these uses reach, they confirm this view of the matter; while if we turn to the Greek Fathers, we shall find some of them indeed neglecting the distinction; but others, and these of the greatest among them, not merely implicitly allowing it, as does Clement of Alexandria (Coh. ad Gen. iv. 59: ἀνάθημα γεγόναμεν τῷ Θεῷ ὑπὲρ Χριστοῦ: where the context plainly shows the meaning to be, “we have become ὦ costly offering to God”); but explicitly recognizing the distinction, and tracing it with accuracy and precision ; see, for instance, Chrysostom, Hom. xvi. in Rom., as quoted by Suicer (Thes. s. v. ἀνάθεμα). And thas, putting all which has been urged together, —the anterior probability, drawn from the existence of similar phenomena in all languages, that the two forms of a word would gradually have two different meanings attached to them; the wondrous way in which the two δυι. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 19 aspects of dedication to God, for good and for evil, are thus ‘set out by slightly different forms of the same word ; the fact that every passage in the N. T., where the words occur, falls in with this scheme; the usage, though not perfectly consistent, of later ecclesiastical books,—I cannot but conclude that ἀνάθημα and ἀνάθεμα are employed not accidentally by the sacred writers of the New Covenant in different senses; but that St. Luke uses ἀνάθημα (xxi. 5), because he intends to express that which is dedicated to God for its own honour as well as for God’s glory ; St. Paul uses ἀνάθεμα because he intends that which is devoted to God, but devoted, as were the Canaanites of old, to his honour indeed, but its own utter loss; even as in the end every intelligent being, capable of knowing and loving God, and called to this knowledge, must be either ἀνάθημα or ἀνάθεμα to Him (see Witsius, Misc. Sac. vol. ii. p. 54, sqq.; Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. ii. p. 495, sqq.; Fritzsche on Rom. ix. 3; Hengstenberg, Christologie, 2nd ed. vol. iii. p- 655; Cremer, Biblisch-theologisches Worterbuch, 2nd ed. Ρ- 550).

ἀνάθεμα. Deissmann’s discovery of ἀνάθεμα in the ‘‘ Biblical Greek” sense, in a source entirely independent of Jewish influence, is a remarkable confirmation of his general thesis. At the end of a heathen curse from Megara, belonging to i/ii A.D., there is a separate line of large letters ANEOEMA which he (LAE p. 92 f.) interprets as = ava0epa— curse !” The weakening of the accented a to ε is explained as a vulgar Greek extension of the augment to a derivative (cf. Nageli p. 49, following Wackernagel). See on this the plentiful material in Hatzidakis Zinettung, p. 64 f. The verb occurs three times in the same curse, 1. 5 ἀναθεματίἵζομ]εν αὐτούς, 1. 8 ἀναθεμα[τί]ζομεν, and on the back 1. 8 f. ἀναθεματί[ {Ἰομὲεν τούτους]. For the complete text, as originally edited by Whinsch, see 7G III. 2, and also his Antzke Fluchtafein, p. 4 ff. Newton (Zssays in Archeology, p. 193 f.) describes a number of leaden tablets of about B.c. 150 discovered at Knidos, in a sacred precinct dedicated to Persephone and other deities, which were graven with similar azathemata. The person on whom the curse was to fall was always devoted to the vengeance of the two Infernal Goddesses, Demeter and her daughter, ‘‘ May he or she never find Persephone propitious !”” With 1 Cor 1674 may be compared the ending of a sepulchral inscription (iv/v A.D.) from Attica, where onany one’s interfering with the remains the curse is called ἀονη-- ἀνάθεμα ἤτω papav ἀθὰν (see Roberts-Gardner 387): the meaning Part I. » , αναιρεω of the Aramaic σύμβολον being wholly unknown, it could be used as a curse—like unknown words in later days! It should be ncted that the new meaning ‘‘curse” naturally attached itself to the late form ἀνάθεμα rather than to the older ἀνάθημα. Nouns in -pa tended to develop weak rootform by association with those in -ots, which always had it. The noun is MGr: thus ἀνάθεμα ἐσένα, “a curse on you”’ (Thumb, Handbook p. 38).

ἀνάθεμα (anathema) — devoted. ἀνάθεμα, poetry ἄνθεμα, ατος, τό, (ἀνατίθημι) properly, like{ἀνάθημα}, anything dedicated, [Refs 3rd c.BC+]

2. anything devoted to evil, an accursed thing, [LXX]; of persons. [NT]

II. curse, [Refs 1st c.AD+]