τέρας, fen. reparos, pl. τέρατα (cf. κέρας, init.), τό, (apparently akin to the verb rnpéw; accordingly something so strange as to cause it to be

τέρας teras 16x

a prodigy, portent, Acts 2:19; a signal act, wonder, miracle, Mt. 13:22; Jn. 4:48; Acts 2:43

τέρας, -ατος, τό

[in LXX chiefly for מוֹפֵת ;]

a wonder, marvel: in NT always pl., τ. κ. σημεῖα, Mt 24:24, al. (v.s. σημεῖον)

παράδοξον, θαυμάσιον. THESE words have this in common, that they are all used to characterize the supernatural works wrought by Christ in the days of his flesh; thus σημεῖον, John ii. 11; Acts ii. 19; τέρας, Acts ii. 22; John iv. 48; δύναμις, Mark vi. 2 ; Acts ii. 22; μεγαλεῖον, Luke i. 49; ἔνδοξον, Luke xiii. 17; παράδοξον, Luke v. 26; θαυμάσιον, Matt. xxi. 15 ; while the first three and the most usual are in like manner employed of the same supernatural works wrought in the power of Christ by his Apostles (2 Cor. xii. 12); and of the lying miracles of Antichrist no less (2 Thess. ii. 9). They will be found, on closer examination, not so much to represent different kinds of miracles, as miracles contemplated under different aspects and from different points of view. Tépas and σημεῖον are often linked together in the N. T. (John iv. 48; Acts ii. 22; iv. 30; 2 Cor. xii. 12); and times out of number in the Septuagint (Exod. vii. 3, 9; Deut. iv. 34; Neh. ix. 10; Dan. vi. 27); the first=nnin, and the second=nix; often also in profane Greek, in Josephus (Antt. xx. 8.6; Bell. Jud. Proém. 11); in Plutarch (Sept. Sap. Conv. 3); in Polybius (iii. 112. 8) ; in Philo (De Vit. Mos. i. 16); and in others. The ancients were fond of drawing a distinction between them, which however ὃ χοῖ. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 241 will not bear a moment’s serious examination. It is sufficiently expressed in these words of Ammonius: τέρας σημείου διαφέρει" τὸ μὲν yap τέρας παρὰ φύσιν γίνεται, τὸ δὲ σημεῖον παρὰ συνήθειαν ; and again by Theophylact (in Rom.xv. 19): διαφέρει δὲ σημεῖον καὶ τέρας τῷ τὸ μὲν σημεῖον ἐν τοῖς κατὰ φύσιν λέγεσθαι; καινοπρεπῶς μέντοι γινομένοις, οἷον ἐπὶ τοῦ τὴν πενθερὰν Πέτρον πυρέττουσαν εὐθέως ἰαθῆναι [Matt. viii. 15], τὸ δὲ τέρας ἐν τοῖς μὴ κατὰ φύσιν, οἷον τὸ τὸν ἐκ γενετῆς τυφλὸν ἰαθῆναι [John ix. 77 ; compare Suicer, Thes. s. v. σημεῖον. But in truth this distinction breaks down so entirely the instant it is examined, as Fritzsche, in a good note on Rom. xv. 19, has superabundantly shown, that it is difficnlt to understand how so many, by repeating, have given allowance to it. An earthquake, however rare, cannot he esteemed παρὰ φύσιν, cannot therefore, according to the distinction traced above, be called a τέρας, while yet Herodotus (vi. 98) gives this name to the single earthquake which in his experience had visited Delos. As little can a serpent snatched up in an eagle’s talons and dropped in the midst of the Trojan army be called beyond and beside nature, which yet Homer (Il. xii. 209) calls Διὸς τέρας αἰγιόχοιο. I notice here that the Homeric idea of the τέρας is carefully discussed by Niigelsbach, Homerische Theologie, Ὁ. 168 sqq. On the other hand, beyond and beside nature are the healing with a word of a man lame from his mother’s womb, the satisfying of many thousand men with a few loaves, the raising of a man four days dead from the grave, which all in Scripture go by the name of σημεῖα (Acts iv. 16; John vi. 14; xi. 47); compare Plutarch, Sept. Sap. Conv. 3, where a monstrous birth is styled both a τέρας and a σημεῖον. It is plain then that the distinction must be sought elsewhere. Origen has not seized it, who finds a prophetic element in the σημεῖον, which is wanting in the τέρας (in Rom. xv. 19): ‘ Signa [σημεῖα] appellantur in quibus cum sit 342 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xct. aliquid mirabile, indicatur quoque aliquid futurum. Prodigia [τέρατα vero in quibus tantummodo aliquid mirabile ostenditur. Rather the same miracle is upon one side a τέρας, on another a σημεῖον, and the words most often refer, not to different classes of miracles, but to different qualities in the same miracles; in the words of Lampe (Comm. in Joh. vol. 1. p. 513): ‘Hadem enim miracula dici possunt signa, quatenus aliquid seu occultum seu futurum docent; et prodigia, quatenus aliquid extraordinarium, quod stuporem excitat, sistunt. Hine sequitur signorum notionem latius patere, quam prodigiorum. Omnia prodigia sunt signa, quia in illum usum ἃ Deo dispensata, ut arcanum indicent. Sed omnia signa non sunt prodigia, quia ad signanduin res celestes aliquando etiam res communes adhibentur.’ Tépas, certainly not derived from τρέω, the terrifying, but now put generally in connexion with τηρέω, as being that which for its extraordinary character is wont to be observed and kept in the memory, is always rendered ‘wonder’ in our Version. It is the miracle regarded as a startling, imposing, amazement-wakening portent or prodigy; being elsewhere frequently used for strange appearances in the heavens, and more frequently still for monstrous births on the earth (Herodotus, vii. 57; Plato, Crat. 393 δὴ). It is thus used very much with the same meaning as the Latin ‘ monstrum’!=monestrum (Virgil, Ain. ii. 171: € Nec dubiis ea signa dedit Tritonia monstris’), or the Homeric σῆμα (Il. ii. 308: ἔνθ᾽ ἐφάνη μέγα σῆμα, δράκων). Origen (in Joh. tom. xiii. ὃ 60; in Rom. lib. x. § 12) long ago called attention to the fact that the name τέρατα is never in the N. T. applied to these words of wonder, except in associationwith some other name. They 1 On the similar group of synonymous words in the Latin, Augustine writes (De Civ. Det, xxi. 8): ‘ Monstra sane dicta perhibent a monstrando, quod aliquid significando demonstrant, et ostenta ab ostendendo, et portenta a portendendo, id est, preeostendendo, et prediyia quod porro dicant, id est, futura preedicant.” Compare Cicero, Divin. i. 42. §xcr. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 343 are often called σημεῖα, often δυνάμεις, often τέρατα καὶ onpeta, more than once τέρατα; σημεῖα, καὶ δυνάμεις, but never tepataalone. The observation was well worth the making ; for the fact which we are thus bidden to note is indeed eminently characteristic of the miracles of the N. T.; namely, that a title, by which more than any other these might seem to hold on to the prodigies and portents of the heathen world, and to have something akin to them, should thus never be permitted to appear, except in the company of some other necessarily suggesting higher thoughts about them. But the miracles are also σημεῖα. The σημεῖον Basil the Great (in Esai. vii. ὃ 198) defines well: ἔστι σημεῖον πρᾶγμα φανερόν, κεκρυμμένου Tivos καὶ ἀφανοῦς ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὴν δήλωσιν ἔχον : and presently after, ἡ μέντοι Τϊραφὴ τὰ παράδοξα, καὶ παραστατικά τινος μυστικοῦ λόγου σημεῖα καλεῖ. Among all the names which the miracles bear, their ethical end and purpose comes out in σημεῖον with the most distinctness, as in τέρας with the least. It is involved and declared in the very word that the prime object and end of the miracle is to lead us to something out of and beyond itself; that, so to speak, it is a kind of finger-post of God (διοσημεία, a sign from Zeus, is no unfrequent word in later Greek), pointing for us to this (Isai. vii. 11; xxxviii. 7); valuable, not so much for what it is, as for what it indicates of the grace and power of the doer, or of his immediate connexion with a higher spiritual world (Mark xvi. 20; Acts xiv. 3; Heb. ii. 4; Exod. vii. 9, 10; I Kin. xiii. 3). Lampe has put this well: ‘ Designat sane σημεῖον naturé sua rem non tantum extraordinariam, sensusque percellentem, sed etiam talem, que in rei alterius, absentis licet et future, significationem atque adumbrationem adhibetur, unde et prognostica (Matt. xvi. 3) et typi (Matt. xii. 39; Luc. xi. 29) nec non sacramenta, quale est illud circumcisionis (Rom. iv. 11), eodem nomine in N.T. exprimi solent. Aptissime ergo 244 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xct hee vox de miraculis usurpatur, ut indicet, quod non tantum admirabili modo fuerint perpetrata, sed etiam sapientissimo consilio Dei ita directa atque ordinata, ut fuerint simul characteres Messie, ex quibus cognoscendus erat, sigilla doctrine quam proferebat, et beneficiorum gratie per Messiam jam prestande, nec non typi viarum Dei, earumque circumstantiarum per quas talia beneficia erant applicanda.’ It is to be regretted that σημεῖον is not always rendered ‘sign’ in our Version; that in the Gospel of St. John, where it is of very frequent recurrence, ‘sign’ too often gives place to the vaguer ‘ miracle’; and sometimes not without serious loss: thus see ili. 2; vii. 31; x. 41; and above all, vi. 26. Bnt the miracles are also ‘ powers’ (δυνάμεις =‘ virtutes’), outcomings of that mighty power of God, which was inherent in Christ, Himself that “great Power of God” which Simon blasphemously allowed himself to be named (Acts viii. 10); these powers being by Him lent to such as were his witnesses and ambassadors. One must regret that in our Version δυνάμεις is translated now “ wonderful works” (Matt. vii. 22) ; now “ mighty works” (Matt. xi. 20; Luke x. 13); and still more frequently ‘ miracles’ (Acts ii. 22; 1 Cor. xii. 10; Gal. iii. 5); in this last case giving such tautologies as “ miracles and wonders” (Acts ii. 22; Heb. ii. 4); and always.causing something to be lost of the true intention of the word—pointing as it does to new and higher forces (ἐνέργειαι, ἐνεργήματα, τ Cor. xii. 6, 10), ‘ powers of the world to come’ (Heb. vi. 5), which have _ entered and are working in this lower world of ours. Delitzsch : ‘ Jedes Wunder ist eine Machtiiusserung der in die Welt der Schépfung, welche dem Tode verfallen ist, eintretenden Welt der Erlésung.’ With this is closely connected the term μεγαλεῖα, only occurring at Luke i. 49 (= magnalia’) and at Acts ii. 11, in which, as in δυνάμει», the miracles are contemplated as outeomings of the great. ness of God’s power and glory. δ xc. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 345 They are further styled ἔνδοξα (Luke xiii. 17), as being works in which the δόξα or glory of God and of the Son of God shone manifestly forth (John ii. 11; xi. 40; Luke v. 25; Acts iii. 13) They are παράδοξα (Luke v. 26), as being “new things” (Num. xvi. 30), not hitherto seen (Mark ii. 12), and thus beside and beyond all opinion and expectation of men. The word, though finding place only this once in the N.T., is of very frequent occurrence in ecclesiastical Greek. They are θαυμάσια (Matt. xxi. 15), as provoking admiration and astonishment (viii. 27 ; ix. 8, 333 xv. 31; Mark v. 20; Actsiii. 11). Θαύματα they are never called in the N.T., though often in the writings of the Greek Fathers. A word which conjurers, magicians, and impostors of various kinds had so long made their own could only after a while be put to nobler uses again. ὃ xcii. κόσμιος, σεμνός, ἱεροπρεπής. Κόσμιος and σεμνός are both epithets applied occasionally to things, but more frequently to persons. They are so nearly allied in meaning as to be often found together ; but at the same time are very clearly distinguishable the one from the other. Kéopuos, related to κόσμος in its earlier sense as “ ornament,’ while κοσμικός (Tit. ii. 12; Heb. ix. 1) is related to it in its secondary sense as ‘ world,’ occurs twice in the N. T., being rendered in our Version on one occasion ‘modest’ (1 Tim. ii. 9), on the other, ‘ of good behaviour’ (i Tim. iii. 2: marg. modest); and corresponds very nearly to the ‘compositus’ of Seneca (Hp. 114), to the ‘compositus et ordinatus’ (De Vit. Beat. 8), of the same. The ‘ ornatus,’ by which it is both times rendered in the Vulgate, is strangely at fault, though it is easy enough to see how the fault arose. It is a very favourite word with Plato, and is by him and others constantly applied to the citizen who is quiet in the land, who duly fulfils in his 346 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xcu. place and order the duties which are incumbent on hin as such; and isin nothing ἄτακτος (1 Thess. v. 14; ef. 2 Thess, 111. 6, 7, 11); but τεταγμένος rather. It is associated by him, as by St. Paul, with σώφρων (Legg. vii. 802 e)—this indeed is everywhere its most constant companion (thus see Lysias, Orat. xxi. 163; Plutarch, Quom. Adul. ab Am. 36, and often) ; with ἥμερος (Plato, Rep. 111. 410 e); with νέμιμος (Gorg. 504 d); with ἐγκρατής (Phedr. 256 ὃ): with εὐσταλής (Meno, 90 a) ; with φρόνιμος (Phedo, τοῦ a); with στάσιμος (Rep. vii. 539 d); with εὔκολος (10. i. 329 d); with ἀνδῥεῖος (Id. iii. 399 6) ; with καλός (Ib. iii. 403 a); with εὔτακτος by Aristotle; with αἰδήμων by Epictetus (Enchir. 40); and by Plutarch (De Garrul. 4); with γενναῖος (Ib.); with εὐάγωγος (Phil. eum Princ. 2); opposed by Plato to ἀκόλαστος (Gorg. 494 a). Keeping company as κόσμιος does with epithets such as these, it must be admitted that an explanation of it like the following, ‘of well ordered demeanour, decorous, courteous’ (Webster), dwells too much on the outside of things; the same with still greater truth may be affirmed of Tyndale’s rendering, ‘ honestly apparelled ’ (1 Tim. 111. 2. No doubt the κόσμιος is all this; but he is much more than this. The well ordering is not of dress and demeanour only, but of the inner life ; uttering indeed and expressing itself in the outward conversation. Even Bengel has taken a too superficial view of the word, when at 1 Tim. 111. 2 he says, ‘ Quod σώφρων est intus, id κόσμιος est extra;’ though I cannot refuse the pleasure of quoting what he says in one of his most characteristic notes, unfolding more fully his idea of what in these two epithets is implied: ‘Homo novus festum quiddam est, et abhorret ab omni eo quod pollutum, confusum, inconditum, immoderatum, vehemens, dissolutum, affectatum, tetricum, perperum, lacerum, sordidum est: ipsi necessitati nature materieque, que ingerendo, digerendo, egerendo agitatur, parce et dissimulanter paret, §xcn. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 347 corporis que corruptibilis tecta habet vestigia.’? This, it must be confessed, goes a good deal deeper than does Philemon, the comic poet, in four lines preserved by Stobeus (Meineke, Fragm. Com. Gr. p. 822), describing who is κόσμιος, and who is not. I hardly know whether they are worth quoting, but they follow here: οὐκ ἂν λαλῇ τις μικρόν, ἐστὶ κόσμιος οὐδ᾽ ἂν πορεύηταί τις εἰς τὴν γῆν βλέπων " ὁ δ᾽ ἡλίκον μὲν ἡ φύσις φέρει λαλῶν, μηδὲν ποιῶν δ᾽ ἄσχημον οὗτος κόσμιος. But whatever may be implied in κόσμιος, and there is much, something more is involved in σεμνός. If the κόσμιος orders himself well in that earthly πολιτεία, of which he is a support and an orna.nent, the σεμνός has a grace and dignity not lent him from earth; but which he owes to that higher citizenship ‘which is also his; being one who inspires not respect orly, but reverence and worship. In profane Greek σεμνός is a constant epithet of the gods—of the Eumenides, the σεμναὶ θεαὶ, above all. It is used also constantly to qualify such things as pertain to, or otherwise stand in any very near relation with, the heavenly world. All this will appear the more clearly, when we enumerate some of the epithets wherewith it habitually is linked ; which are these: ἅγιος (Plato, Sophist. 249 a; cf. Clement of Rome, Cor. 1, where it is joined to ἁγνός and ἄμωμος); ὀρθός (Defin. 412) ; μέγας ( Theetet. 203 6); τίμιος (Crito, 51 a); μέτριος (Clement of Rome, Cor. 1); βασιλικός (Plutarch, Quom. A yd. Poét. 8); ἔντιμος (Prec. Ger. Reip. 31); μεγαλοπρεπής (De Def. Orac. 30) ; θεῖος and φοβερός. From all this it is plain that there lies something of majestic and awe-inspiring in σεμνός, which does not at all lie in κόσμιος, although this has nothing about it to repel, but all rather to invite and to attract, μαλακὴ καὶ εὐσχήμων βαρύτης being Aristotle’s happy definition of σεμνότης (Rhet. ii. 17), making it as he does the golden mean between dpecxeia, or unmanly 348 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. §xcn. assentation, at one extreme, and αὐθάδεια, or churlish bearishness, pleasing itself, and careless how much it displeases others, at the other; even as in Plutarch σεμνός is associated with φιλικός (Quom. Am. ab Adul. 26); with ἡδύς (Conviv. 4, Proém.) ; with φιλάνθρωπος, with ἐπιεικής, and other like words; so too with προσηνής in Josephus (Anté. xi. 6.9). Butall this does not exclude the fact that the σεμνός is one who, without in as many words demanding, does yet challenge and inspire reverence and, in our earlier use of the word, worship, the word remaining true to the σέβω with which it is related. How to render it in English is not very easy to determine. On the one occasion that it qualifies things rather than persons (Phil. iv. 8), we have translated it by ‘honest,’ an unsatisfactory rendering (marg. venerable) ; and this, even though we include in ‘honest’ all which was included in it at the time when our Translation was made. Alford has here changed ‘honest’ into ‘ seemly’; if changed at all, I should prefer ‘honorable.’ On the other three occasions it is rendered ‘grave’ (1 Tim. lii. 8,11; Tit. ii. 2); while σεμνότης is once ‘honesty (1 Tim. ii. 2), and twice ‘ gravity’ (1 Tim. iil. 4; Tit. ii. 7). Here too it must be owned that ‘ grave’ and ‘ gravity ’ are renderings which fail to cover the full meaning of their original. Malvolio in Twelfth Night is ‘ grave,’ but his very gravity is itself ridiculous; and the word we want is one in which the sense of gravity and dignity, and of these as inviting reverence, is combined; a word which I fear we may look for long without finding. ‘Iepomperns belongs to the best age of the Greek language, being used by Plato (Theag. 122 d) and by Xenophon (Conv. viii. 40), in this unlike ὁσιοπρεπής and dytompeT ys, which are of later ecclesiastical formation. Like κόσμιος it belongs to that large group of noticeable words, which, being found nowhere else in St. Paul’s Epistles, and indeed nowhere else in the N. T., are yet found in the Pastoral Epistles, some of them occurring several times over in ὃ χο. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 349 these. The number and character of these words, the new vein of Greek which St. Paul in these later Epistles opens,’ constitute a very remarkable phenomenon, one for which no perfectly satisfactory explanation has hitherto been offered. Alford indeed in his Prolegomena to these Epistles has made a valuable contribution to such an explanation ; but after all has been said, it remains perplexing still. Tt will follow from what has been already claimed for σεμνός that ἱεροπρεπής is more nearly allied in meaning to it than to κόσμιος. It expresses that which beseems a sacred person, thing, or act. On the one occasion of its use in the N. T. (Tit. ii. 3-5), it is joined with σώφρων, being an epithet applied to women professing godliness, who shall be in their bearing or behaviour ἱεροπρεπεῖς, or “‘as becometh holiness ”’ (cf. 1 Tim. ii. 10), or ‘reverent in demeanour’ as it is rendered in our Revised Version. That such behaviour will breed reverence and awe, we may reasonably expect, but this is not implied in ἱεροπρεπής as it is in σεμνός, and here we must find the distinction between them.

τέρας. For τέρας in its NT sense of ‘‘ wonder,” ‘‘ portent,” we may cite Vett. Val. p. 34174 ἐὰν δέ πως τὸ δωδεκατημόριον εἰς θηριῶδες ἐκπέσῃ ἢ TO τούτῳ διάμετρον ἢ of τούτων κύριοι, τέρας ἢ ἄλογον ζῷον ἀποφαίνεσθαι. For MGr τέρατο, κε miracle,” see Thumb Hand. ὃ 105, n}. 2 ἐς

τέρας (teras) — wonders. τέρας, τό: genitive Epic dialect αος (not in [Refs 8th c.BC+], Ionic dialect εος [Refs 5th c.BC+]: plural, nominative Epic dialect τέραα [Refs 8th c.BC+], Ionic dialect τέρεα [Refs 5th c.BC+]; genitive Epic dialect τεράων [Refs 8th c.BC+]; dative Epic dialect τεράεσσι [LXX+8th c.BC+]; genitive singular τέρως variant in [Refs 8th c.BC+]:— sign, wonder, marvel, portent, ἡμῖν μὲν τόδ᾽ ἔφηνε τ. Ζεύς [Refs 8th c.BC+]; ᾐτέομεν δὲ θεὸν φῆναι τ. [Refs 8th c.BC+]; Ζεὺς δ᾽ Ἔριδα προΐαλλε.., πολέμοιοτ. μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχουσαν a sign of coming battle, [Refs 8th c.BC+]; especially of signs in heaven, ἀστέρα ἧκε Κρόνου πάϊς.., ναύτῃσι τ[Refs]; and with passive Verbs, τ. φανήτω [Refs 8th c.BC+]:—so always when the first syllable is lengthened, [NT+8th c.BC+]

II. in concrete sense, monster, Διὸς τ. αἰγιόχοιο, of the [Refs 8th c.BC+]; of a serpent, [Refs]; δάϊον τ., of Typhoeus, [Refs 4th c.BC+]; ἀπρόσμαχον τ., of Cerberus, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; οὔρειον τ., of the Sphinx, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ταῦρον, ἄγριον τ. [Refs 4th c.BC+]; used by Cicero of Caesar, [Refs]

II.2. monstrous birth, monstrosity, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ὡς ἔθρεψεν ἔκπαγλον τ. [Refs 4th c.BC+]

III. in colloquial language, τέρας λέγεις καὶ θαυμαστόν [Refs 5th c.BC+]; 'a marvel' of a cup, [Refs 3rd c.BC+]: plural, of incredible statements, [Refs 1st c.BC+]