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G3667 ὁμοίωμα (homoíōma)
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Quick Definition

ὁμοίωμα, ατος, τό n.n. a likeness, form, similitude

Strong's Definition

from 3666; a form; abstractly, resemblance

KJV Usage: made like to, likeness, shape, similitude

UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament

noun, n. | -τος | ὁμοιόω

64.3 · Comparison

similarity, likeness, being similar the state of being similar to something

ROM 1:23 · ROM 5:14 · ROM 6:5 · ROM 8:3 · PHP 2:7 · REV 9:7

UBS Dictionary of the Greek New Testament © United Bible Societies, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Thayer's Greek Lexicon

ὁμοίωμα, -ros, τό, (ὁμοιόω), Sept. for 773A, N24, Dos, 32; prop. that which has been made after the likeness of something, hence a. a figure, image, likeness, representation: Ps. ον. (cvi.) 20; 1 Mace. iii. 48; of the image or shape of things seen in a vision, Rev. ix. 7 [ef. W. 604 (562) ] (Ezek. i. 5, 26, 28,ete. Plato, in Parmen. Ρ- 132 d., calls finite things ὁμοιώματα, likenesses as it were, in which τὰ παραδείγματα, i.e. ai ἰδέαι or τὰ εἴδη, are expressed). b. likeness i. e. resemblance (inasmuch as that appears in an image or figure), freq. such as amounts well-nigh to equality or identity: τινός, Ro. vi. 5; viii. 3 (on which see σάρξ, 3 fin. [ef. Weiss, BibL Theol. etc. 88 69 ¢. note, 78 c. note}); Phil. ii. 7 (see μορφή); εἰκόνος, a likeness expressed by an image, i. 6. an image like, Ro. i. 23; ἐπὶ τῷ ὁμοιώματι τῆς παραβάσεως ᾿Αδάμ, in the same manner in which Adam transgressed a command of God {see ἐπί, B. 2 a. η.], Ro. v. 14. Cf. the different views of this word set forth by Holsten, Zum Evangel. des Paulus u. Petrus, p. 437 sqq. and [esp. for exx.] in the Jahrbiich. f. protest. Theol. for 1875, p. 451 sqq., and by Zeller, Zeitschr. f. wissensch. Theol. for 1870, p. 301 sqq. [S¥YN. cf. εἰκών. fin.; Schmidt ch. 191.]

Mounce Concise Greek Dictionary

ὁμοίωμα homoiōma 6x

pr. that which is conformed or assimilated; form, shape, figure, Rev. 9:7; likeness, resemblance, similitude, Rom. 1:23; 5:14; 6:5; 8:3; Phil. 2:7*

Abbott-Smith Greek Lexicon

ὁμοίωμα, -τος, τό

(< ὁμοιόω), [in LXX for דְּמוּת, תַּבְנִית, תְּמוּנָה, etc.;]

that which is made like something; concrete, an image, likeness (Ps 105 (106):20, Ez 1:5, I Mac 3:48, al.): Re 9:7;

abstract, likeness, resemblance: Ro 5:14 6:5 8:3, Phl 2:7; ἐν ὁ. εἰκόνος, Ro 1:23.†

SYN.: εἰκών (q.v.), ὁμοίωσις.

Trench — Synonyms of the New Testament

THERE is a twofold theological interest attending the distinction between εἰκών and the two words which are here brought into comparison with it; the first belonging to the Arian controversy, and turning on the fitness or unfitness of the words before us to set forth the relation of the Son to the Father ; while the other is an interest that, seeming at first sight remote from any controversy, has yet contrived to insinuate itself into more than one, namely, whether there be a distinction, and if so, what it is, between the ‘image’ (εἰκών) of God, 7m which, and the ‘ likeness’ (ὁμοίωσις) of God, after which, man was created at the beginning (Gen. i. 26). I need hardly remind those who will care to read this volume of the distinction drawn between the words during the course of the long Arian debate. Some there may be who are not acquainted with Lightfoot’s note on Col. i. 15 in his Commentary on the Colossians. ThemI must refer to his discussion on the words εἰκὼν τοῦ Θεοῦ. It is evident that εἰκών (from εἴκω, ἔοικα) and ὁμοίωμα might often be used as equivalent, and in many positions it would be indifferent whether one or the other were employed. Thus they are convertibly used by Plato (Phedr. 250 2), ὁμοιώματα and εἰκόνες alike, to set forth the carthly copies and resemblances of the archetypal things in the heavens. When, however, the Church found it necessary to raise up bulwarks against Arian error and equivocation, it drew a strong distinction between these two, one not arbitrary, but having essential difference in the words themselves for its ground. Ἐἰκών (=‘ imago’ =‘imitago ᾿Ξεἀπεικόνισμα, and used in the same intention of the Logos by Philo, Leg. Alleg. iii. 31), always assumes a prototype, that which it not merely resembles, but from which it is drawn, a παράδειγμα (Philo, zbid.); it is the German ‘Abbild,’ which invariably presumes a ‘Vorbild;’ thus Gregory Nazianzene (Orat. 36) : αὕτη yap εἰκόνος φύσις, μίμημα εἶναι τοῦ ἀρχετύπουις Thus, the monarch’s head on the coin is εἰκών (Matt. xxii. 20) ; the reflection of the sun in the water 48 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT § xv is εἰκών (Plato, Phedo, 99 d); the statue in stone or other material is εἰκών (Rev. xiii. 14); and, coming nearer to the heart of the matter than by any of these illustrations we have done, the child is ἔμψυχος εἰκών of his parents. But in the ὁμοίωμα or ὁμοίωσις, while there is resemblance, it by no means follows that it has been acquired in this way, that it is derived: it may be accidental, as one egg is like another, as there may exist a resemblance between two men in no way akin to one another. Thus, as Augustine in an instructive passage brings out (Quest. lxxxiii. 74), the ‘imago’ (=eixwy) includes and involves the ‘ similitudo,’ but the ‘ similitudo ’ (=éo/wors) does not involve the ‘imago.’ The reason will at once be manifest why εἰκών is ascribed to the Son, as representing his relation to the Father (2 Cor. iv.4; Col. i. 15; ef. Wisd. vii. 26); while among all the words of the family of ὄμοιος, not merely none are so employed in the Scripture, but they have all been expressly forbidden and condemned by the Church ; that is, so soon as ever this has had reason to suspect that they were not used in good faith. Thus Hilary, addressing an Arian, says, “‘I may use them, to exclude Sabellian error; but I will not suffer you to do so, whose intention is altogether different ’’ (Con. Constant. Imp. 17-21). Εἰκών, in this its augustest application, like χαρακτήρ and ἀπαύγασμα (Heb. i. 8), with which theologically it is nearly allied, like ἔσοπτρον, ἀτμίς, ἀπόρροια (Wisd. vii. 25, 26), like σκιά (Philo, Leg. Alleg. iii. 31; but not Heb. x. 1), which are all remoter approximations to the same truth, is indeed inadequate; but, at the same time, it is true as far as it goes; and in human language, employed for the setting forth of truths which transcend the limits of human thought, we must be content with approximate statements, seeking for the complement of their inadequacy, for that which shall redress their insufficiency, from some other quarter. Hach has its weak side, which must be supported by strength derived from elsewhere. Eixdév is weak; for what image is of equal worth and dignity with the prototype from which it is imaged? But it has also its strong side; it implies an §xv SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 49 archetype from which it has been derived and drawn ; while ὁμοιότης, ὁμοίωσις, and words of this family, expressing mere similarity, if they did not actually imply, might yet suggest, and if they suggested, would seem to justify, error, and that with no compensating advantage. Hixactly the same considerations were at work here, which, in respect of the verbs _ γεννᾶν and κτίζειν, did in this same controversy lead the Church to allow the former and to condemn the latter. The student who would completely acquaint himself with all the aspects of the great controversy to which these words, in their relation to one another, gave rise, above all, as to the exact force of εἰκών as applied to the Son, will find the materials admirably prepared to his hand by Petavius, De Trin. ii. 11; iv. 6; vi. 5,6; while Gfrérer (Philo, vol. i. p. 261 sqq.) will give him the very interesting, but wholly inadequate, speculations of the Alexandrian theosophists on the same subject. The second interest in the discrimination of these words lies in the question, which has often been discussed, whether in that great fiat announcing man’s original constitution, “Let us make man in our image (κατ᾽ εἰκόνα, 1X, Doy Heb.), after our likeness’? (καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν, LXX., niin Heb.), anything different was intended by the second from the first, or whether the second is merely to be regarded as consequent upon the first, ‘in our image,” and therefore “after our likeness” Both the εἰκών and ὁμοίωσις are claimed for man in the N. T.: the εἰκών, 1 Cor. xi. 7; the ὁμοίωσις, Jam. 111. 9. The whole subject is discussed at large by Gregory of Nyssa in a treatise which he has devoted exclusively to the question (Opp. 1638, vol ii. p. 22-34), but mainly in its bearing on controversies of his own day. He with many of the early Fathers, as also of the Schoolmen, affirmed a real distinction. Thus, the great Alexandrian theologians taught that the εἰκών was something im which men were created, being common to all, and continuing to man as much after the Fall as before (Gen. ix. 6), while the ὁμοίωσις was something toward which man was created, that he might strive after and 50 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT §xv attain it; Origen (De Prin. iii. 6) : ‘ Imaginis dignitatem in prima conditione percepit, similitudinis vero perfectio in consummatione servata est;’ cf. ὧν Joan. tom. xx. 20; Irenexus, v. 16. 2; Tertullian, De Bapt.5. Doubtless the Platonist studies and predilections of the illustrious theologians of Alexandria had some influence upon them here, and on this distinction which they drew. It is well known that Plato presented the ὁμοιοῦσθαι τῷ Θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν (Theat. 176 a) as the highest scope of man’s life ; and indeed Clement (Strom. ii. 22) brings the great passage of Plato to bear upon this very discussion. The Schoolmen, in like manner, drew a distinction, although it was not this one, between ‘ these two divine stamps upon man.’ Thus Anselm, Medit. 1™*; Peter Lombard, Sent. ii. dist. 16; H. de 5. Victore, De Animd, ii. 25; De Sac. i. 6. 2: ‘Imago secundum cognitionem veritatis, similitudo secundum amorem virtutis ;’ the first declaring the intellectual, as the second the moral, preéminence in which man was created. Many, however, have refused to acknowledge these, or any other distinctions, between the two declarations; as Baxter, for instance, who, in his interesting reply to Elliott the Indian Missionary’s inquiries on the subject, rejects them all as groundless conceits, though himself in general only too anxious for distinction and division (Life and Times, by Sylvester, vol. ii. p. 296). They were scarcely justified in this rejection. The Alexandrians, I believe, were very near the truth, if they did not grasp it altogether. There are portions of Scripture, in respect of which the words of Jerome, originally applied to the Apocalypse, ‘ quot verba tot sacramenta,’ hardly contain an exaggeration. Such an eminently significant part is the history of man’s creation and his fall, all which in the first three chapters of Genesis is contained. We may expect to find mysteries there; prophetic intimations of truths which it might require ages upon ages to develop. And, without attempting to draw any very strict line between εἰκών and ὁμοίωσις, or their Hebrew counterparts, we may be bold to say that the whole history §xvl SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 51 of man, not only in his original creation, but also in his after restoration and reconstitution in the Son, is significantly wrapped up in this double statement; which is double for this very cause, that the Divine Mind did not stop at the contemplation of his first creation, but looked on to him as ““ renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him” (Col. iii. 10, on which see Bishop Lightfoot in loco) ; because it knew that only as partaker of this double benefit would he attain the true end for which he was ordained. δ᾽ ΧΥΪ. ἀσωτία, ἀσέλγεια. Ir is little likely that one ἄσωτος will not be ἀσελγής 8180: but for all this ἀσωτία and ἀσέλγεια are not identical in meaning ; they will express different aspects of his sin, or at any rate contemplate it from different points of view. ᾿Ασωτία, a word in which heathen ethics said much more than they intended or knew, occurs thrice in the N. T. (Ephes. v.18; Tit. i.6; 1 Pet. iv. 4); once in the Septuagint (Prov. xxviii. 7) and once in the Apocrypha, being there joined with κῶμοι (2 Macc. vi. 4). We have further the adverb ἀσώτως, at Luke xv. 13; and ἄσωτος once in the Septuagint (Prov. vii. 11). At Ephes. v. 18 we translate it ‘excess;’ in the other two places, ‘riot,’ as ζῶν ἀσώτως, ‘in riotous living;’’ the Vulgate always by ‘luxuria’ and ‘luxuriose,’ words implying in medieval Latin a loose and profligate habit of living which is strange to our ‘luxury ’ and ‘luxuriously’ at the present; see my Select Glossary, 8. vv. in proof. ἴλσωτος is sometimes taken in a passive sense, aS = ἄσωστος (Plutarch, Alcib. 8); one who cannot be saved, σώζεσθαι μὴ δυνάμενος, aS Clement of Alexandria (Pedag. ii. 1.7) explains it, ‘ perditus’ (Horace, Sat. i. 2. 15), ‘heillos,’ or as we used to say, a ‘losel,’ a ‘hopelost’ (this noticeable word is in Grimeston’s Polybius) ; Grotius: ‘Genus hominum ita immersorum vitiis, ut eorum salus deplorata sit;’ the word being, so to speak, prophetic of E 2 52 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT §xv1 their doom to whom it was applied.!. This, however, was quite the rarer use ; more commonly the ἄσωτος is one who himself cannot save, or spare,=‘ prodigus ;’ or, again to use a good old English word more than once employed by Spenser, but which we have now let go, a ‘ scatterling.’” This extravagant squandering of means Aristotle notes as the proper definition of ἀσωτία (Ethic. Nic. iv. 1. 8): ἀσωτία ἐστὶν ὑπερβολὴ περὶ χρήματα. The word forms part of his ethical terminology ; the ἐλευθέριος, or the truly liberal man, keeps the golden mean between the two ἄκρα, namely, dowria (= ‘effusio’) on one side, and ἀνελευθερία, or ignoble stinginess (= ‘tenacitas,’ Augustine, Hp. 167. 2), on the other. It is in this view of ἀσωτία that Plato (Rep. viii. 560 6), when he names the various catachrestic terms, according to which men call their vices by the names of the virtues which they caricature, makes them style their dowria, μεγαλοπρέπεια : compare Quintilian (Inst. viii. 36): ‘Pro luxuria liberalitas dicitur.’ But it is easy to see that one who is dowros in this sense of spending too much, of laying out his expenditure on a more magnificent scheme than his means will warrant, slides easily, under the fatal influence of flatterers, and of all those temptations with which he has surrounded himself, into a spending on his own lusts and appetites of that with which he parts so freely, laying it out for the gratification of his own sensual desires. Thus the word takes a new colour, and indicates now not only one of a too expensive, but also, and chiefly, of a dissolute, debauched, profligate manner of living; the German ‘liederlich.’ Aristotle has noted this (Ethic. Nic. iv. 1. 85): διὸ καὶ ἀκόλαστοι αὐτῶν [τῶν ἀσώτων] 1 Thus in the Adelphi of Terence (vi. 7), one having spoken οὗ a youth ‘luxu perditum,’ proceeds : ‘ipsa si cupiat Salus, Servare prorsus non potest hance familiam.’ No doubt in the Greek original there was a threefold play here on ἄσωτος. σωτηρία and σώζειν, which the absence of a corresponding group of words in Latin has hindered Terence from preserving. §xvi SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 53 εἰσιν οἱ πολλοί" εὐχερῶς γὰρ ἀναλίσκοντες καὶ εἰς τὰς ἀκολασίας δαπανηροί εἰσι, καὶ διὰ τὸ μὴ πρὸς τὸ καλὸν ζῆν, πρὸς τὰς ἡδονὰς ἀποκλίνουσι. Here he explains a prior statement: τοὺς. ἀκρατεῖς καὶ εἰς ἀκολασίαν δαπανηροὺς ἀσώτους καλοῦμεν (tid. ὃ 8). In this sense ἀσωτία is used in the N. T.; as we find ἀσωτίαι and κραιπάλαι joined elsewhere together (Herodian, ii. 5). The two meanings will of course run often into one another, nor will it be possible to keep them strictly asunder. Thus the several examples of the ἄσωτος, and of ἀσωτία, which Athenzus (iv. 59-67) gives, are sometimes rather of one kind, sometimes of the other. The waster of his goods will be very often a waster of everything besides, will lay waste himself—his time, his faculties, his powers; and, we may add, uniting the active and passive meanings of the word, will be himself laid waste; he at once loses himself, and is lost. In the Tabula of Cebes, ᾿Ασωτία, one of the courtesans, the temptresses of Hercules, keeps company with ᾿Ακρασία, ᾿Απληστία and Κολακεία. The etymology of ἀσέλγεια is wrapped in obscurity ; some going so far to look for it as to Selge, a city of Pisidia, whose inhabitants were infamous for their vices; while others derive it from θέλγειν, probably the same word as the German ‘ schwelgen:’ see, however, Donaldson, Cratylus, 8rd edit. p. 692. Of more frequent use than ἀσωτία in the N. T., it is in our Version generally rendered ‘lasciviousness’ (Mark vii. 22; 2 Cor. xii, 21; Gal. v. 19; Ephes. iv. 19: 1 Pet. iv. 3; Jude 4); though sometimes ‘ wantonness’ (Rom. xiii. 13; 2 Pet. 11. 18) ; as in the Vulgate now ‘impudicitia,’ and now ‘luxuria;’ even as it is defined in the Htymologicon Magnum as ἑτοιμότης πρὸς πᾶσαν ἡδονήν. If our Translators or the Latin had impurities and lusts of the flesh exclusively in their eye, they have certainly given to the word too narrow a meaning. ᾿Ασέλγεια, which, it will be observed, is not grouped with such in the catalogue of sins at Mark vii. 21, 22, is best described as wanton lawless insolence ; being somewhat stronger than the Latin ‘ protervitas,’ though of the same quality, more nearly ‘ petulantia,’ Chrysostom 54 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT §xvi (Hom. 87 in Matt.) joining ἰταμότης with it. It is defined by Basil the Great (Reg. Brev. Int. 67) as διάθεσις ψυχῆς μὴ - ἔχουσα ἢ μὴ φέρουσα ἄλγος ἀθλητικόν. The ἀσελγής, as Passow observes, is very closely allied to the ὑβριστικός and ἀκόλαστος, being one who acknowledges no restraints, who dares whatsoever his caprice and wanton petulance may suggest. None would deny that ἀσέλγεια may display itself in acts of what we call ‘lasciviousness;’ for there are no worse displays of ὕβρις than in these; but still it is their petulance, their insolence, which this word, linked by Polybius (v. 111) with Bia, expresses. Of its two renderings in our Version, ‘ wantonness’ is the best, standing as it does in a remarkable ethical connexion with ἀσέλγεια, and having the same duplicity of meaning. In numerous passages the notion of lasciviousness is altogether absent from the word. In classical Greek it is defined (Bekker’s Anecdota, p. 451) 7 per’ ἐπηρεασμοῦ καὶ θρασύτητος Bia. Thus, too, Demosthenes in his rst Philippic, 42, denounces the ἀσέλγεια of Philip; while elsewhere he characterizes the blow which Meidias had given him, as in keeping with the known ἀσέλγεια of the man, joining this and ὕβρις together (Cont. Meid. 514); linking elsewhere ἀσελγῶς with δεσποτικῶς (Or. xvii. 21), and with προπετῶς (Or. lix. 46). As ἀσέλγεια Plutarch characterizes a similar outrage on the part of Alcibiades, committed against an honorable citizen of Athens (Alcib. 8) ; indeed, the whole picture which he draws of Alcibiades is the full-length portrait of an ἀσελγής. Aristotle notices δημαγωγῶν ἀσέλγειαν as a frequent cause of revolutions (Pol. v. 4). Josephus ascribes ἀσέλγεια and μανία to Jezebel, daring, as she did, to build a temple of Baal in the Holy City itself (Antt. viii. 13. 1); and the same to a Roman soldier, who, being on 1 Thus Witsius (Melet. Leid. p. 465) observes: " ἀσέλγειαν dici posse omnem tam ingenii, quam morum proterviam, petulantiam, lasciviam, que ab Aischine opponitur τῇ μετριότητι καὶ σώὠφροσύνῃ.᾽ There is a capital note, but too long to quote, on.all that ἀσέλγεια includes by Cocceius on Gal. v. 19. § XVII “SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 55 guard at the Temple during the Passover, provoked by an act of grossest indecency a tumult, in which many lives were lost (xx. 5. 3). Other passages, helpful to a fixing of the true meaning of the word, are 3 Macc. ii. 26; Polybius, viii. 14. 1; Eusebius, Hist. Hecl. vi. 1. 26; and see the quotations in Wetstein, vol. i. p. 588. ᾿Ασέλγεια, then, and ἀσωτία are clearly distinguishable ; the fundamental notion of ἀσωτία being wastefulness and riotous excess; of ἀσέλγεια, lawless insolence and wanton caprice.

Moulton & Milligan — Vocabulary of the Greek NT

ὁμοίωμα. According to Souter Zex. s.v. ὁμοίωμα, ‘‘a thing made like” something else (concrete), differs from ὁμοιότης, “‘resemblance” (abstract), much as szmz/acrum differs from similitudo. As distinguished from εἰκών, which implies an archetype, the ‘‘likeness” or ‘‘form’’ in ὁμοίωμα may be accidental, as one egg is like another: cf. Rom 54, Phil 27, and see Trench Syz. p. 47 ff. The word is found in a difficult context in OG/S 669% (i/A.D.) Kal viv τοῖς αὐτοῖς παραγγέλλω μηδὲν ἐξ ὁμοιώμαϊτος ἐπι]γράφειν ἀλ[λ]αχῆι ἄλλο τι τῶν καθόλου χωρὶς τοῦ κρεῖναι τὸν ἔπαρχον.

Liddell-Scott-Jones — Greek-English Lexicon

ὁμοίωμα (homoiōma) — likeness. ὁμοί-ωμα, ατος, τό, likeness, image, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ἐξ ὁμοιώματος in accordance with the practice in similar cases, by analogy, [Refs 1st c.AD+]

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