ὅσιος hosios 8x

pr. sanctioned by the supreme law of God, and nature; pious, devout, Tit. 1:8; pure, 1 Tim. 2:8; supremely holy, Acts 2:27; 13:35; Heb. 7:26; Rev. 15:4; 16:5; τὰ ὅσια, pledged bounties, mercies, Acts 13:34*

ὅσιος, -ον

(so sometimes in cl., but most freq. -α, -ον), [in LXX chiefly for חָסִיד, also for טָהוֹר, יָשָׁר, תָּמִים;]

religiously right, righteous, pious, Holy: of men, Tit 1:8, He 7:26; by meton., ὁ. χεῖρας, I Ti 2:8 (cf. De 32:4); of God, Re 15:4 16:5; as subst., ὁ ὅ., of the Messiah, Ac 2:27 13:35 (LXX); τὰ ὅ. Δανεὶδ τ. πιστά (Field, Notes, 121), Ac 13:34(LXX).†

SYN.: v.s. ἅγιος (cf. also DB, ii, 399b; iv, 352b, and ref. s.v. -ίως).

‘Iepos, probably the same word as the German ‘hehr’ (see Curtius, Grundziige, vol. v. p. 369), never in the N. T., and very seldom elsewhere, implies any moral excellence. It is singular how seldom the word is found there, indeed only twice (1 Cor. ix. 13; 2 Tim. iii. 15) ; and only once in the Septuagint (Josh. vi. 8: ἱεραὶ cadrvyyes); four times in 2 Maccabees, but not else in the Apocrypha; being in none of these instances employed of persons, who only are moral agents, but always of things. To persons the word elsewhere also is of rarest application, though examples are not wanting. Thus ἱερὸς ἄνθρωπος is in Aristophanes (Rane, 652) a man initiated in the mysteries ; kings for 328 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § uxxxvut. Pindar (Pyth. v. 97 [Diss., 131 Heyn.]) are ἱεροί, as having their dignity from the gods; for Plutarch the Indian gymnosophists are ἄνδρες ἱεροὶ καὶ αὐτόνομοι (De Alex. Fort. i. 10); and again (De Gen. Socr. 20), ἱεροὶ καὶ δαιμόνιοι ἄνθρωποι: and compare De Def. Orac. 2. ‘lepds (τῷ θεῷ ἀνατεθειμένος, Suidas) answers very closely to the Latin ‘sacer’ (‘quidquid destinatum est diis sacrwm vocatur’), to our sacred.” It is that which may not be violated, the word therefore being constantly linked with ἀβέβηλος (Plutarch, Quest. Rom. 27), with ἄβατος (Ibid.), with ἄσυλος (De Gen. Socr. 24); this its inviolable character springing from its relations, nearer or. remoter, to God; and @etos and ἱερός being often joined together (Plato, Tim. 45 a). At the same time the relation is contemplated merely as an external one; thus Pillon (Syn. Grees): “ ἅγιος exprime Vidée de sainteté naturelle et intérieure ou morale; tandis qu’ ἱερός, comme le latin sacer, n’exprime que Vidée de sainteté extérieure ou d’inviolabilité consacrée par les lois ou la coutume.’? See, however, Sophocles, Gdip. Col. 287, which appears an exception to the absolute universality of this rule. Tittman: ‘In voce ἱερός proprie nihil aliud cogitatur, quam quod res queedam aut persona Deo sacra sit, nulla ingenii morumque ratione habiti; imprimis quod sacris inservit.? Thus the ἱερεύς is a sacred person, as serving at God’s altar; but it is not in the least implied that he 15. ὦ holy one as well; he may be a Hophni, a Caiaphas, an Alexander Borgia (Grinfield, Schol. in N. T., p. 397). The true antithesis to ἱερός is βέβηλος (Plutarch, Quest. Rom. 27), and, though not so perfectly antithetic, μιαρός (2 Mace. v. 16). “Ὅσιος is oftener grouped with δίκαιος for purposes of discrimination, than with the words here associated with it; and undoubtedly the two constantly keep company together; thus in Plato often (Theet. 176b; Rep. x. 615 b; Legg. ii. 663 δὴ); in Josephus (Anét. viii. 9. 1), and in the N. T. (Tit. i. 8); and soalso the derivatives from these ; δΊΧχχγαι. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 329 ὁσίως and δικαίως (1 Thess. ii. 10) ; ὁσιότης and δικαιοσύνη (Plato, Prot. 329 δ; Luke i. 75 ; Ephes. iv. 24; Wisd. ix. 3; Clement of Rome, Cor. 48). The distinction too has been often urged that the ὅσιος is one careful of his duties toward God, the δίκαιος toward men; and in classical Greek no doubt we meet with many passages in which such a distinction is either openly asserted or implicitly involved: as in an often quoted passage from Plato (Gorg. 507 δ): καὶ μὴν περὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τὰ προσήκοντα πράττων, δίκαι ἂν πράττοι, περὶ δὲ θεοὺς ὅσια... Of Socrates, Marcus Antoninus says (vii. 66), that he was δίκαιος Ta πρὸς ἀνθρώπους, ὅσιος τὰ πρὸς θεούς : cf. Plutarch, Demet. 24; Charito, i. 10. 4; and ἃ large collection of passages in Rost and Palm’s Lexicon,s.v. There is nothing, however, which warrants the transfer of this distinction to the N. T., nothing which would restrict δίκαιος to him who should fulfil accurately the precepts of the second table (thus see Luke i. 6; Rom.i. 17; 1 John ii. 1); or ὅσιος to him who should fulfil the demands of the first (thus see Acts 11. 27; Heb. vii. 26). It is beforehand unlikely that such distinction should there find place. In fact the Scripture, which recognizes all righteousness as one, as growing out of a single root, and obedient toa single law, gives no room for such an antithesis as this. He who loves his brother, and fulfils his duties towards him, loves him in God and for God. The second great commandment is not coordinated with the first greatest, but subordinated to, and in fact included in, it (Mark xii. 30, 31). If ἱερός is ‘sacer,’ ὅσιος is ‘sanctus’ (=‘sancitus’), ‘quod sanctione antiqué et preecepto firmatum?’ (cf. Augus1 Not altogether so in the Luthyphro, where Plato regards τὸ δίκαιον, or δικαιοσύνη, as the sum total of all virtue, of which ὁσιότης or piety is apart. In this Dialogue, which is throughout a discussion on the ὅσιον, Plato makes Euthyphro to say (12 6): τοῦτο τοίνυν ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ, ὦ Σώκρατες, τὸ μέρος τοῦ δικαίου εἶναι εὐσεβές τε καὶ ὅσιον, τὸ περὶ τὴν τῶν θεῶν θεραπείαν: τὸ δὲ περὶ τὴν τῶν ἀνθρώπων τὸ λοιπὸν εἶναι τοῦ δικαίου μέρος. Socrates admits and allows this ; indeed, has himself forced him to it, 330 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. διυχχχυιπ. tine, De Fid. et Symb. 19), as opposed to “ pollutus.’ Some of the ancient grammarians derive it from ἅξεσθαι, the Homeric synonym for σέβεσθαι, rightly as regards sense, but wrongly as regards etymology; the derivation indeed of the word remains very doubtful (see Pott, Htym. Forschung. vol. i. p. 126). In classical Greek it is far more frequently used of things than of persons; ὁσία, with βουλή or δίκη understood, expressing the everlasting ordinances of right, which no law or custom of men has constituted, for they are anterior to all law and custom; and rest on the divine constitution of the moral universe and man’s relation to this, on that eternal law which, in the noble words of Chrysippus, is πάντων βασιλεὺς θείων τε καὶ ἀνθρωπίνων πραγμάτων : cf. Euripides, Hecuba, 799801. Thus Homer (Odyss. xvi. 423): οὐδ᾽ ὁσίη κακὰ ῥάπτειν ἀλλήλοισιν. The ὅσιος, the German ‘ fromm,’ is one who reverences these everlasting sanctities, and owns their obligation ; the word being joined with εὐσεβής (2 Mace. xii. 45), with evopxos (Plato, Rep. ii. 363 d), with θεῖος (Plutarch, De Def. Orac. 40); more than once set over against ἐπίopxos (Xenophon, Anab. ii.6.25). Those things are ἀνοσία, which violate these everlasting ordinances; for instance, a Greek regarded the Egyptian custom of marriage between a brother and sister, still more the Persian between a mother and son, as ‘incestum’ (incastum), μηδαμῶς ὅσια as Plato (Legg. viii. 838 δ) calls them, mixtures which no human laws could ever render other than abominable. Such, too, would be the omission of the rites of sepulture by those from whom they were due, when it was possible to pay them; if Antigone, for instance, in obedience to the edict of Creon, had suffered the body of her brother to remain unburied (Sophocles, Antig. 74). What the ὅσιον is, and what are its obligations, has never been more nobly declared than in the words which the poet puts into her mouths οὐδὲ σθένειν τοσοῦτον φόμην τὰ σὰ κηρύγμαθ᾽, ὥστ᾽ ἄγραπτα κἀσφαλὴ θεῶν νόμιμα δύνασθαι θνητὸν ὄνθ᾽ ὑπερδραμεῖν (453-5). Compare an instructive passage in Thucydides, ii. 52, where ἱερά and ὅσια occur together, Plato in like manuer (Legg. ix. 878 b) joining them with one another. This character of the ὅσιον as anterior and superior to all human enactments, puts the same antithesis between ὅσια and νόμιμα as exists between the Latin ‘ fas’ and ‘jus.’ When we follow ὅσιος to its uses in sacred Greek, we find it, as was inevitable, gaining in depth and intensity of meaning ; but otherwise true to the sense which it already had in the classical language. We have a striking testimony for the distinction which, in the minds of the Septuagint translators at least, existed between it and ἅγιος, in the very noticeable fact, that while ὅσιος is used some thirty times as the rendering of ὙΠ (Deut. xxxiii. 8; 2 Sam. xxii. 26; Ps. iv. 4), and ἅγιος nearly a hundred times as that of 72 (Exod. xix.6; Num. vi. 5; Ps. xv. 3), in no single instance is ὅσιος used for this, or ἅγιος for that; and the same law holds good, I believe, universally in the conjugates of these; and, which is perhaps more remarkable still, of the other Greek words which are rarely and exceptionally employed to render these two, none which is used for the one is ever used for the other; thus καθαρός, used for the second of these Hebrew words (Num. v. 17), is never employed for the first; while, on the other hand, ἐλεήμων (Jer. iii. 12), πολυέλεος (Exod. xxXxiv. 6), εὐλαβής (Mic. vii. 2), used for the former, are in no single instance employed for the latter. “Aytos=AIP (on the etymology of which word see the article in Herzog’s Real-Encyclopddie, Heiligkeit Gottes) and dyvos have been often considered different forms of one and the same word. At all events, they have in common that root ‘AI’, reappearing as the Latin ‘sac’ in * sacer,’ ‘sancio,’ and many other words. It will thus be 332 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § Uxxxvul. only natural that they should have much in common, even while they separate off, and occupy provinces of meaning which are clearly distinguishable one from the other. “Ayos is a word of rarest use in Attic Greek, though Porson is cert.inly in error when he says (on Euripides, Med. 750; and compare Pott, Etymol. Forsch. vol. lil. p. 577) thut iti; never used by the tragic poets; for see Alschylus, Suppl. 851. Itsfundamental idea is separation, and, so to speak, consecration and devotion to the service of Deity ; thus ἱερὸν μάλα ἅγιον, a very holy temple (Xenophon, Hell. iii. 2. 19); it ever lying in the word, as in the Latin ‘sacer,’ that this consecration may be as ἀνάθημα or ἀνάθεμα (see back, page 16). Note in this point of view its connexion with dys, dyos : which last it may be well to observe is recognized now not as another form of ἄγος, and as being indeed no more than the Ionie form of the same word, but fundamentally distinct (Curtius, Grundziige, Ὁ. 155 sqq.). - But the thought lies very near, that what is set apart from the world and to God, should separate itself from the world’s defilements, and should share in God’s purity; and in this way ἅγιος speedily acquires a moral significance. The children of Israel must be an ἔθνος ἅγιον, not merely in the sense of being God’s inheritance, a λαὸς περιούσιος, but as separating themselves from the abominations of the heathen nations round (Lev. xix. 2; xi. 44); while God Himself, as the absolutely separate from evil, as repelling from Himself every possibility of sin or defilement, and as warring against these in every one of his creatures,! obtains this title of ἅγιος by highest right of all (Lev. x. 3; 1 Sam. ii. 2; Rev. ili. 7; iv. 8). It is somewhat different with ἁγνός. “᾿Αγνεία (1 Tim. 1 When Quenstedt defines the holiness of God as ‘ summa omnis labis expers in Deo puritas,’ this, true as far as it goes, is not exhaustive. One side of this holiness, namely, its intolerance of unholiness and active war against it, is not brought out. § uxxxvi. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 333 iv. 12; v. 2) in the Definitions which go by Plato’s name too vaguely and too superficially explained (414 a) εὐλάβεια τῶν πρὸς τοὺς θεοὺς ἁμαρτημάτων" τῆς θεοῦ τιμῆς κατὰ φύσιν θεραπεία : too vaguely also by Clement of Alexandria aS TOV ἁμαρτημάτων ἀποχή; or again as φρονεῖν ὅσια (Strom. v. 1); is better defined as ἐπίτασις σωφροσύνης by Suidas (it is twice joined with σωφροσύνη in the Apostolic Fathers : Clement of Rome, Cor. 64; Ignatius, Zphes. 20), as ἐλευθερία παντὸς μολυσμοῦ σαρκὸς Kal πνεύματος by Phavorinus. “Αγνός (joined with ἀμίαντος. Clement of Rome, Cor. 20) is the pure ; sometimes only the externally or ceremonially pure, as in this line of Huripides, ἁγνὸς γάρ εἰμι χεῖρας, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τὰς φρένας (Orestes, 1604; cf. Hippolytus, 316, 317, and ἁγνίζειν as = ‘ expiare,’ Sophocles, Ajax, 640). This last word never rises higher in the Septuagint than to signify a ceremonial purification (Josh. iii. 5; 2 Chron. xxix. 5; cf. 2 Mace. i. 33); neither does it rise higher in four out of the seven occasions on which it occurs in the N. T. (John xi. 55; Acts xxi. 24, 26; xxiv. 18, which is also true of ἁγνισμός, Acts xxi. 26). ‘ Ayvos however signifies often the pure in the highest sense. It isan epithet frequently applied to heathen gods and goddesses, to Ceres, to Proserpine, to Jove (Sophocles, Philoct. 1273) ; to the Muses (Aristophanes, Rane, 875; Pindar, Olymp. vii. 60 [Diss., 109 Heyn.], and Dissen’s note); to the Seanymphs (Euripides, Iphig. in Aul. 982); above all in Homer to Artemis, the virgin goddess, and in Holy Scripture to God Himself (1 John iii. 3). For this nobler use of dyvos in the Septuagint, where, however, it is excessively rare as compared to ἅγιος, see Ps. xi. 7; Prov. xx.9. As there are no impurities like those fleshly, which defile the body and 1 In the vestibule of the temple of Aisculapius at Epidaurus were inscribed these lines, which rank among the noblest utterances of the ancient world. They are quoted by Theophrastus in a surviving fragment of his work, Περί Εὐσεβείας : - 35} ἁγνὸν χρὴ ναιοῖο θυώδεος ἐντὸς ἰόντα » ἔμμεναι" ἁγνείη δ᾽ ἔστι φρονεῖν ὄσια. 234 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § uxxxix. the spirit alike (1 Cor. vi. 18, 19), so dyvés is an epithet predominantly employed to express freedom from these (Plutarch, Prec. Cunj. 44; Quest. Rom. 20; Tit. ii. 5; ef. Herzog, Real-Encyclop. s. v. Keuschheit); while sometimes in a still more restricted sense it expresses, not chastity merely, but virginity; as in the oath taken by the priestesses of Bacchus (Demosthenes, Adv. Newram, 1371): εἰμὶ καθαρὰ καὶ ἁγνὴ ἀπ᾽ ἀνδρὸς συνουσίας : with which compare ἀκήρατος γάμων τε ἁγνός (Plato, Legg. viii. 840 e; and Euripides, Hippolytus, 1016) ; ἁγνεία too sometimes owns a similar limitation (Ignatius, ad Polyc. 5). If what has been said is correct, Joseph, when tempted to sin by his Egyptian mistress (Gen. xxxix. 7-12), approved himself ὅσιος, in reverencing those everlasting sanctities of the marriage bond, which God had founded, and which man could not violate without sinning against Him: “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” he approved himself ἅγιος in that he separated himself from any unholy fellowship with his temptress ; he approved himself ἁγνός in that he kept his body pure and undefiled. δ Ixxxix. φωνή, λόγος.

ὅσιος, “*holy,” ‘* pious,” is of course common in inscrr. dealing with religion. Note Sy// 814 (=* 1199)7, a leaden plate from Cnidus containing an invocation of ὅσ[ι]α on certain persons if they restore a trust (παραθήκη) and ἀν[όσια] if they do not. The meaning seems to help us for ὅσια AavelS in Ac 1335 (from LXX: Field Mores, p. 121), as does the combination ὅσια καὶ ἐλεύθερα in other inscrr., such as Sy// 815 (=* 1180) ἐμοὶ δ᾽ ε(ἴ)η ὅσια καὶ ἐλεύθερα ὁμοστεγησάσηι ἢ ὧι ποῖτε] τρόπωι ἐπιπλεκομένηι. For the adj. see also a iii/B.C. law regulating mourning for the dead, Syll 879 (=* 1219) "5 where it is laid down regarding women who do not conform—pa, ὅσιον αὐταῖς εἶναι, ὡς ἀσεβούσαις, θύειν μηθενὶ θεῶν ἐπὶ δέκα ἔτη, and notice P Flor IIT. 334! (ii/A.D.) σφράγισον τὸ δαπανηθὲν ἀνάλωμα εἰς τοὺς θησαυρούς, εἰς ἢ (‘‘a vulgarism for a simple 9” (Ed.)) ὅσιόν ἐστι. The acc. fem. pl. ὁσίους in 1 Tim 2° is best explained as ‘‘an isolated slip, affected by the analogy of other adj. in—tos fem.” (Moulton Gy. ii. p. 157). On the ὅσιοι ᾿Ιουδαῖοι of P Par 68c.14 as the successors of the ᾿Ασιδαῖοι of the Maccabean period see the introd. p. 348. Deissmann, however, prefers to regard it as a general title of honour self-applied by the Alexandrian Jews (BS p. 68 n.2). In Aristeas 234 ‘‘to honour the gods” is said to consist—od δώροις οὐδὲ θυσίαις, ἀλλὰ ψυχῆς καθαρότητι καὶ διαλήψεως ὁσίας (cf. 2 Macc 1275).

ὅσιος (hosios) — sacred. ὅσι-ος, α, ον, also ος, ον [Refs 5th c.BC+]:— hallowed, i. e. sanctioned or allowed by the law of God or of nature, δίκη [Refs 6th c.BC+]; οὐχ ὅ. unhallowed, ὕβρις [Refs 5th c.BC+] —The sense of ὅσιος often depends on its relation on the one hand to δίκαιος (sanctioned by human law), on the other to ἱερός (sacred to the gods):

1. opposed to δίκαιος, sanctioned by divine law, hallowed, holy (μόριον τοῦ δικαίου τὸ ὅ. [Refs 5th c.BC+] things of human and divine ordinance, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; θεοὺς ὅσιόν τι δρᾶν discharge a duty men owe the gods, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; τὸ ὅσιον, ={εὐσέβεια}, [Refs 5th c.BC+]: in an imprecatory formula, ἀποδοῦσι μὲν αὐτοῖς ὅσια ᾖ, μὴ ἀποδοῦσι δὲ ἀνόσια [Refs]

2. opposed to ἱερός, permitted or not forbidden by divine law, profane, ἱερὰ καὶ ὅ. things sacred and profane, ἐς ὀλιγωρίαν ἐτράποντο καὶ ἱερῶν καὶ ὁ. ὁμοίως [Refs 5th c.BC+]; κοσμεῖν τὴν πόλιν καὶ τοῖς ἱεροῖς καὶ τοῖς ὁ. with sacred and profane buildings, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ὁ ταμίας τῶν ὁ. [Refs 3rd c.BC+]; ὅ. χωρίον a lawful place (for giving birth to a child), [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ὅσιόν ἐστι followed by infinitive, it is lawful, not forbidden by any law, [Refs 5th c.BC+]nefas est, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; οὐκ ὅσιον ποιεῦμαι I deem it impious, [Refs 4th c.BC+]; οὐδὲ ὅσια (i.e. ἐστι).. μιαίνειν [Refs 5th c.BC+].α; λέγειν [Refs 5th c.BC+]

II. of persons, pious, devout, religious, ἄνδρες [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ὅ. θιασῶται, μύσται, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to ἀνόσιος, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to ἐπίορκος, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ὅσιος εἴς τινα, περὶ ξένους, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

II.2. sinless, pure, ἐξ ὁ. στομάτων [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ὅ. ἔστω καὶ εὐαγής Legal Solonis cited in [Refs 5th c.BC+] in regard to the sacred rites of his forefathers, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; also ὅσιαι χέρες pure, clean hands, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

II.3. rarely of the gods, holy, [Refs 5th c.AD+]

II.4. title of five special priests at Delphi, [Refs 1st c.AD+]

II.5. οἱ ὅσιοι 'the saints', [LXX]

III. adverb ὁσίως [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ὁ. ἂν ὑμῖν ἔχοι τοῦτον θύειν.. it would be right for you that he should.., [Refs 5th c.BC+]participle, ὁ. ἂν ἔχοι αὐτῷ μὴ δεχομένῳ.. [Refs]: comparative -ώτερον[Refs 5th c.BC+]: superlative, ὡς -ώτατα διαβιῶναι τὸν βίον [Refs 8th c.BC+]