ὑπηρέτης, -ov, 6, (tr. ὑπό, and ἐρέτης fr. ἐρέσσω to row), fr. Aeschyl. and Hdt. down; a. prop. an under rower, subordinate rower. b. any one who serves with his hands; a servant; in the N.T. of the officers and attendants of magistrates as —of the officer who executes penalties, Mt. v. 25; of the attendants of a king, οἱ ὑπ. οἱ ἐμοί, my servants, retinue, the soldiers I should have if I were a king, Jn. xviii. 36; of the servants or officers of the Sanhedrin, Mt. xxvi. 58; Mk. xiv. 54, 65; Jn. vii. 32, 45 sq. ; xviii. 3, 12, 22; xix.6; Acts v. 22, 26; joined with δοῦλος (Plat. polit. p. 289 c.), Jn. xviii. 18 ; of the attendant of a synagogue, Lk. iv. 20; of any one ministering or rendering service, Acts xiii.5. Ὁ. any “ ὑπνος one who aids another in any work; an assistant: of a preacher of the gospel [A. V. minister, q. v. in B. D.], Acts xxvi. 16; ὑπηρέται λόγου, Lk. i. 2; Χριστοῦ, 1 Co. iv. 1. [Syn. see διάκονος, fin. ]

ὑπηρέτης hypēretēs 20x

pr. an under-rower, a rower, one of a ship’s crew; a minister, attendant, servant; an attendant on a magistrate, officer, Mt. 5:25; an attendant or officer of the Sanhedrin, Mt. 26:58; an attendant, or servant of a synagogue, Lk. 4:20; a minister, attendant, assistant in any work, Lk. 1:2; Jn. 18:36

ὑπηρέτης, -ου, ὁ

(< ὑπό + ἐρέτης, a rower) [in LXX: Pr 14:35 (עֶבֶד), Wi 6:4, al. ;]

prop., an under rower; hence, generally, a servant, attendant, minister: of a magistrate's attendant, Mt 5:25; of officers of the Synagogue or Sanhedrin, Mt 26:58, Mk 14:54, 65, Lk 4:20, Jo 7:32, 45, 46 18:3, 12, 22 19:6, Ac 5:22, 26; of the attendants of kings, οἱ ὑ. οἱ ἑμοί Jo 18:36; of Christian ministers, Ac 13:5 26:16; ὑπηρέται λόγου, Lk 1:2; Χριστοῦ, I Co 4:1; δοῦλοι κ. ὑ., Jo 18:18.†

SYN.: v.s. διάκονος

THE only passage in the N. T. in which θεράπων occurs is Heb. iii. 5: ‘‘ And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant” (ὡς θεράπων). The allusion here to Num. xii. 7 is manifest, where the Septuagint has given θεράπων as its rendering of 12; it has done the same elsewhere (Exod. iv. 10; Deut. iii. 24; Josh. i. 2), yet has not made this its constant rule, frequently rendering it not by θεράπων, but by δοῦλος, out of which latter rendering, no doubt, we have at Rev. xv. 8, the phrase, Μωῦσῆς ὃ δοῦλος τοῦ Θεοῦ. It will 1 Lampe: ‘Christus est Vitis vera, ... et qua talis preponi, quin et opponi, potest omnibus aliis qui etiam sub hoe symbolo in scriptis propheticis pinguntur.’ Six) SYNONYUS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 20 not follow that there is no difference between δοῦλος and θεράπων ; nor yet that there may not be occasions when the one word would be far more fitly employed than the other; but only that there are frequent occasions which do not require the bringing out into prominence of that which constitutes the difference between them. And such real difference there _ is. The δοῦλος, opposed to ἐλεύθερος (1 Cor. xii. 13 ; Rev. xiii. 16; xix. 18; Plato, Gorg. 502 d), having δεσπότης (Tit. 11. 9), or in the N. T. more commonly κύριος (Luke xii. 46), as its antithesis, is properly the ‘ bond-man,’ from δέω, ‘ ligo,’ one that isin a permanent relation of servitude to another, his will altogether swallowed up in the will of the other ; Xenophon (Cyrop. viii. 1.4): of μὲν δοῦλοι ἄκοντες τοῖς δεσπόταις ὑπηρετοῦσι. He is this, altogether apart from any ministration to that other at any one moment rendered; the θεράπων, on the other hand, is the performer of present services, with no respect to the fact whether as a freeman or slave he renders them; as bound by duty, or impelled by love; and thus, as will necessarily follow, there goes habitually with the word the sense of one whose services are tenderer, nobler, freer than those of the δοῦλος. Thus Achilles styles Patroclus his θεράπων (Homer, 11. xvi. 244), one whose service was not constrained, but the officious ministration of love; very much like that of the squire or page of the Middle Ages. Meriones is θεράπων to Idomeneus (xxiii. 113), Sthenelus to Diomed, while all the Greeks are θεράποντες "Apyos (ii. 110 and often ; οἵ. Nigelsbach, Homer. Theologie, p. 280). Hesiod in like manner claims to be Μουσάων θεράπων: not otherwise in Plato (Symp. 208 c) Eros is styled the ἀκόλουθος καὶ θεράπων of Aphrodite ; cf. Pindar, Pyth. iv. 287, where the θεράπων is contrasted with the Spacrys. With all which agrees the definition of Hesychius (οἱ ἐν δευτέρᾳ τάξει φίλοι), of Ammonius (οἱ ὑποτεταγμένοι φίλοι), and of Hustathius (τῶν φίλων ot δραστικώτεροι). In the verb θεραπεύειν (=* curare ’), as distinguished from δουλεύειν, and connected with ‘faveo,’ ‘foveo,’ θάλπω, the nobler and tenderer character of the service comes still more strongly out. It may be used of the physician’s 30 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT § ix watchful tendance of the sick, man’s service of God, and is beautifully applied by Xenophon (Mem. iv. 8. 9), to the care which the gods have of men. It will follow that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, calling Moses a θεράπων in the house of God (iii. δ), implies that he occupied a more confidential position, that a freer service, a higher dignity was his, than that merely of a δοῦλος, approaching more closely to that of an οἰκονόμος in God’s house; and, referring to Num. xii. 6-8, we find, confirming this view, that an exceptional dignity is there ascribed to Moses, lifting him above other δοῦλοι of God; ‘ egregius domesticus fidei tue’ Augustine (Conf. xii. 28) calls him; ef. Deut. xxxiv. 5, where he is οἰκέτης κυρίου. In agreement with this we find the title θεράπων κυρίου given to Moses (Wisd. x. 16), but to no other of the worthies of the Old Covenant mentioned in the chapter; to Aaron indeed at xviii. 21. It would have been well if our Translators had seen some way to indicate the exceptional and more honourable title here given to him who “ was faithful in all God’s house.’”’ The Vulgate, which has ‘famulus,’ has at least made the attempt (so Cicero, ‘ famule Idee matris’) ; Tyndal, too, and Cranmer, who have ‘ minister,’ perhaps as adequate a word as the language affords. Neither ought the distinction between διάκονος and δοῦλος to be suffered to escape in an English Version of the N. T. There is no difficulty in preserving it. Διάκονος, not from διά and κόνις, one who in his haste runs through the dust—a mere fanciful derivation, and forbidden by the quantity of the antepenultima in d:axovos—is probably from the same root as has given us διώκω, ‘to hasten after,’ or ‘ pursue,’ and thus indeed means ‘ a runner’ still (so Buttmann, Lezil. i. 219; but see Déderlein, Lat. Syn. vol. v. p. 185). The difference between διάκονος on one side, and δοῦλος and θεράπων on the other, is this—that διάκονος represents the servant more in his activity for the work (διάκονος τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, Col. 1. 23: 2 Cor. iii. 6; Eph. iii. 7); rather in his relation, either servile, as that of the δοῦλος, or more voluntary, as in the case ΙΧ ONY MS OF THE NEW. TESTAMENT 33 of the θεράπων, to a person. The attendants at a feast, and this with no respect to their condition as free or servile, are διάκονοι (John ii. 5; Matt. xxii. 18). The importance of preserving the distinction between δοῦλος and διάκονος may be illustrated from the parable of the Marriage Supper (Matt. xxii, 2-14). In our Version the king’s “ servants ”’ bring in _ the invited guests (ver. 3, 4, 8, 10), and his ‘servants’ are bidden to thrust out that guest who was without a wedding garment (ver. 13): but in the Greek, those, the bringers-in of the guests, are δοῦλοι: these, the fulfillers of the king’s sentence, are duaxovo.—this distinction being a most real one, and belonging to the essentials of the parable; the δοῦλοι being men, the ambassadors of Christ, who invite their fellow-men into his kingdom now, the διάκονοι angels, who in all the judgment acts at the end of the world evermore appear as the executors of the Lord’s will. The parable, it is true, does not turn on this distinction, yet these ought not any more to be confounded than the δοῦλοι and θερισταί of Matt. xiii. 27, 80; cf. Luke xix. 24. Οἰκέτης is often used as equivalent to δοῦλος. It certainly is so at 1 Pet. 11. 18; and hardly otherwise on the three remaining occasions on which it occursin the N. T. (Luke xvi. 18; Acts x. 7: Rom. xiv. 4); nor does the Septuagint (Exod. xxi. 27; Deut. vi. 21; Prov. xvii. 2) appear to recognize any distinction between them ; the Apocrypha as little (Keclus. x. 25). At the same time οἰκέτης (=‘ domesticus ’) fails to bring out and emphasize the servile relation so strongly as δοῦλος does; rather contemplates that relation from a point of view calculated to mitigate, and which actually went far to mitigate, its extreme severity. He is one of the household, of the ‘ family,’ in the older sense of this word ; not indeed necessarily one born in the house ; οἰκογενής is the word for this in the Septuagint (Gen. xiv. 14; Hecles. 11. 7); ‘verna,’ identical with the Gothic ‘bairn,’ in the Latin; compare ‘criado’ in the Spanish ; but one, as I have said, of the family; οἰκέτης ἐστὶν ὁ κατὰ τὴν οἰκίαν διατρίβων, κἂν ἐλεύθερος 7, κοινόν (Athenzeus, vi. 93); the word being used 32 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT τ 1x in the best times of the language with so wide a reach as to include wife and children; so in Herodotus (vii. 106, and often) ; while in Sophocles (Trach. 894) by the οἰκέται the children of Deianira can alone be intended. On the different names given to slaves and servants of various classes and degrees see Athenzus, as quoted above. “Ὑπηρέτης, Which only remains to be considered, is a word drawn from military matters; he was originally the rower (from ἐρέσσω, ‘remigo’), as distinguished from the soldier, on board a war-galley; then the performer of any strong and hard labour; then the subordinate official who waited to accomplish the behests of his superior, as the orderly who attends a commander in war (Xenophon, Cyrop. vi. 2. 18) ; the herald who carries solemn messages (Euripides, Hec. 508). Prometheus intends a taunt when he characterizes Hermes a8 Θεῶν ὑπηρέτης (AXschylus, Prom. Vinct. 990), one who runs on the errands of superior gods. In this sense, as an inferior minister to perform certain defined functions for Paul and Barnabas, Mark was their ὑπηρέτης (Acts xiii. 5) ; and in this official sense of lictor, apparitor, and the like, we find the word constantly, indeed predominantly used in the N. Τὶ, (Matt. v. 25: Luke iv. 20; John vii. 82; xviii. 18; Acts v. 22). The mention by St. John of δοῦλοι and ὑπηρέται together (xviii. 18) is alone sufficient to indicate that a difference is by him observed between them; from which difference it will follow that he who struck the Lord on the face (John xviii. 22) could not be, as some suggest, the same whose ear the Lord had just healed (Luke xxii. 51), seeing that this was a δοῦλος, that profane and petulant striker a ὑπηρέτης, of the High Priest. The meanings of διάκονος and ὑπηρέτης are much more nearly allied ; they do in fact continually run into one another, and there are innumerable occasions on which the words might be indifferently used; the more official character and functions of the ὑπηρέτης is the point in which the distinction between them resides. See Vitringa, De Synagogd Vetere, pp. 916-919, the Dictionary of the Bible, article Minister. SO PLNONIMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT - 33

ὑπηρέτης. The variety of uses of ὑπηρέτης connected with the general idea of ‘‘service τ᾿ may again be illustrated from the papyri—P Hal I. 147 (mid. iii/n.c.) ἐνγύος μὲν παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ λαμβανέτω ὃ πράκτωρ ἢ ὁ ὑπηρέτης παραμονῆς, P Tebt I. 45° (B.C. 113) ὑπηρέτου γεωργῶν τῶν ἐκ τῆς αὐτῆς (Κερκεοσίρεως), ““ assistant of the cultivators of the said (Kerkeosiris),’” P Oxy II. 25918 (A.p. 23) διὰ Βίλλου διοικητικ[οὔ] ὑπηρέτίου, ‘through Billus, assistant to the dioecetes,’”’ P Fay 2659 (A.D. 150) Σαραπίων ὑπηρέτης (‘clerk ’’) μεταδέδωκα Φαμί(ενὼθ) B, P Oxy VI. 899% (a.p. 200) ὑπηρέτης ἐπή[ν]εγκα, “I, assistant, have brought the petition,” P Oxy I. 65°": (iii/a.p.) παράδοτε τῷ ἀποσταλέντι ὑπηρέτ[ῃ] Παχοῦμιν. .. ὅρα μὴ κατάσχητε τὸν ὑπηρέτην», ‘deliver up to my officer whom I have sent Pachoumis. See that you do not detain the officer’”’ (Idd.), and inscribed on a pillar in the market-place of Magnesia the words τόπος ὑπηρετῶν οἰκοδόμων ἐπὶ ΤΠωλλίωνος κτλ. (Magn 239—time of Hadrian?): see Thieme, p. 33, where the common use of ὑπηρέτης as a cult-title along with διάκονος and μάγειρος is noted in illustration of Lk 455. In the same connexion Plummer (/CC ad /.) cites from Schiirer Geschichte ii. p. 441, n.** (= H/P II. ii. p. 66f.) a Roman epitaph to a Jew who held a similar office— Φλαβιος Ιουλιανος ὑπηρετης Φλαβια IovAcavyn θυγατηρ πατρι Ev εἰρηνη ἡ κοιμησις σου.

ὑπηρέτης (hupēretēs) — servant. ὑπηρέτ-ης, ου, ὁ, (ἐρέτης) Doric dialect ὑπηρέτας [Refs 4th c.BC+]:— rower, τοὶ ὑ. τᾶν μακρᾶν ναῶν [Refs]

II. underling, servant, attendant, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; ὑ. [τῆς πόλεως], opposed to ἄρχων, [Refs 4th c.BC+]; τῶν ἰατρῶν, τῶν δικαστῶν ὑ., [Refs 5th c.BC+]; used in Trag. and Attic dialect to express all kinds of subordinate relations, as Hermes is ὑ. θεῶν, [Refs 4th c.BC+]; the Delphians are Φοίβου ὑπηρέται, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; Neoptolemus is ὑ. to Odysseus, [Refs]: sometimes with dative, τῷ θεῷ ὑ. [Refs 5th c.BC+]; τοῖς νόμοις[Refs 5th c.BC+]; opposed to οἰκέτης, [Refs 5th c.BC+] a helper in every work, [Refs]

II.2. at Athens,

II.2. a the servant who attended each man-at-arms (ὁπλίτης) to carry his baggage, rations, and shield, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; sometimes light-armed as slingers or bowmen, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

II.2. b ὁ τῶν ἕνδεκα ὑ. the assistant of the Eleven, employed in executions of state-criminals, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

II.2. c a petty officer of the Council, [Refs 4th c.BC+]

II.3. plural, staff-officers in immediate attendance on the general, aides-de-camp, adjutants, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; also, officer attached to τάξις, σύνταγμα, or ἑκατονταρχία, [Refs 1st c.BC+]

II.4. servitor in the cult of Mithras, [Refs]