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International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

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COAL

kol (pecham, "charcoal"; compare Arabic fachm, "charcoal"; gacheleth, "burning coal" or "hot ember"; compare Arabic jacham, "to kindle"; shechor, "a black coal" (Lam 4:8); compare Arabic shachchar, "soot" or "dark-colored sandstone"; retseph (1 Ki 19:6), and ritspah (= Rizpah) (Isa 6:6), margin "a hot stone"; compare resheph, "a flame" (Song 8:6; Hab 3:5); anthrax, "a live coal" (Rom 12:20) (= gacheleth in Prov 25:22); anthrakia, "a live coal" (Jn 18:18; 21:9)): There is no reference to mineral coal in the Bible. Coal, or more properly lignite, of inferior quality, is found in thin beds (not exceeding 3 ft.) in the sandstone formation (see GEOLOGY OF PALESTINE , under Nubian Sandstone), but there is no evidence of its use in ancient times. Charcoal is manufactured in a primitive fashion which does not permit the conservation of any by-products. A flat, circular place (Arabic beidar, same name as for a threshing-floor) 10 or 15 ft. in diameter is prepared in or conveniently near to the forest. On this the wood, to be converted into charcoal, is carefully stacked in a dome-shaped structure, leaving an open space in the middle for fine kindlings. All except the center is first covered with leaves, and then with earth. The kindlings in the center are then fired and afterward covered in the same manner as the rest. While it is burning or smoldering it is carefully watched, and earth is immediately placed upon any holes that may be formed in the covering by the burning of the wood below. In several days, more or less, according to the size of the pile, the wood is converted into charcoal and the heap is opened. The charcoal floor is also called in Arabic mashcharah, from shachchar, "soot"; compare Hebrew shechor. The characteristic odor of the mashcharah clings for months to the spot.

In Ps 120:4, there is mention of "coals of juniper," the Revised Version, margin "broom," rothem. This is doubtless the Arabic retem, Retama roetam, Forsk., a kind of broom which is abundant in Judea and Moab. Charcoal from oak wood, especially Quercus coccifera, L., Arabic sindyan, is much preferred to other kinds, and fetches a higher price.

In most of the passages where English versions have "coal," the reference is not necessarily to charcoal, but may be to coals of burning wood. Pecham in Prov 26:21, however, seems to stand for charcoal:

"As coals are to hot embers, and wood to fire,

So is a contentious man to inflame strife."

The same may be true of pecham in Isa 44:12 and 54:16; also of shechor in Lam 4:8.

Alfred Ely Day


COAST

kost (gebhul, etc., "boundary"; compare gebhal, "mountain" and Arabic jebel, "mountain"; chebhel, literally, "a rope"; compare Arabic chabl (Josh 19:29 the King James Version; Zeph 2:5,6,7); choph, literally, "that which is washed"; compare Arabic chaffet (Josh 9:1 the King James Version; Ezek 25:16); paralios, literally, "by the sea" (Lk 6:17)): "Coast" (from Latin costa, "rib" or "side") in the sense of "seacoast," occurs but a few times in the Bible. In nearly all the many passages where the King James Version has "coast," the Revised Version (British and American) correctly has "border," i.e. "boundary," translating gebhul, etc.; in Acts 27:2 the American Standard Revised Version, "coast" is the translation of topos, literally, "place." That the seacoast is but seldom mentioned arises naturally from the fact that, while the promised land extended to the sea, the coast was never effectively occupied by the Israelites.

RVm in a number of places renders 'i English Versions of the Bible "isle" or "island" (which see), by "coastland," e.g. Isa 11:11; 23:6; 24:15; 59:18; Jer 25:22; Ezek 39:6; Dan 11:18; Zeph 2:11. In Isa 20:6, the King James Version has "isle," the King James Version margin"country," and the Revised Version (British and American) "coast-land." In Jer 47:4, the King James Version has "country," the King James Version marginand the Revised Version (British and American) "isle," and the Revised Version, margin "sea-coast."

See ISLE .

Alfred Ely Day


COAT

kot.

See CLOAK ;DRESS , etc.


COAT OF MAIL

mal.

See ARMOR ,ARMS ;BRIGANDINE .


COCK

kok (alektor; Latin gallus): There is no reference in the Old Testament to domesticated poultry, which was probably first introduced into Judea after the Roman conquest. See CHICKEN . The cock is several times mentioned in the New Testament and always with reference to its habit of crowing in eastern countries with such regularity as to be almost clocklike. The first full salute comes almost to the minute at half-past eleven, the second at half-past one, and the third at dawn. So uniformly do the cocks keep time and proclaim these three periods of night that we find cock-crowing mentioned as a regular division of time: "Watch therefore: for ye know not when the lord of the house cometh, whether at even, or at midnight, or at cockcrowing, or in the morning" (Mk 13:35). Jesus had these same periods of night in mind when he warned Peter that he would betray Him. Mt 26:34; Lk 22:34; Jn 13:38, give almost identical wording of the warning. But in all his writing Mark was more explicit, more given to exact detail. Remembering the divisions of night as the cocks kept them, his record reads: "And Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say into thee, that thou today, even this night, before the cock crow twice, shalt deny me thrice" (Mk 14:30). See CHICKEN . It is hardly necessary to add that the cocks crow at irregular intervals as well as at the times indicated, according to the time of the year and the phase of the moon (being more liable to crow during the night if the moon is at the full), or if a storm threatens, or there is any disturbance in their neighborhood.

Gene Stratton-Porter


COCK-CROWING

kok'-kro-ing (alektorophonia): An indefinite hour of the night between midnight and morning (Mk 13:35), referred to by all the evangelists in their account of Peter's denial (Mt 26:34,74; Mk 14:30; Lk 22:34; Jn 13:38). It is derived from the habit of the cock to crow especially toward morning.

See COCK .


COCKATRICE

kok'-a-tris, kok'-a-tris (tsepha`; tsph`oni; Septuagint, basiliskos, "basilisk" (which see), and aspis, "asp" (see ADDER ;ASP ;SERPENT )):A fabulous, deadly, monster. The name "cockatrice" appears to be a corruption of Latin calcatrix, from calcare, "to tread," calcatrix being in turn a translation of the Greek ichneumon, from ichnos, "track" or "footstep." Herpestes ichneumon, the ichneumon, Pharaoh's rat, or mongoose, a weasel-like animal, is a native of northern Africa and southern Spain. There are also other species, including the Indian mongoose. It preys on rats and snakes, and does not despise poultry and eggs.

Pliny (see Oxford Dictionary, under the word "Cockatrice") relates that the ichneumon darts down the open mouth of the crocodile, and destroys it by gnawing through its belly. In the course of time, as the story underwent changes, the animal was metamorphosed into a water snake, and was confused with the crocodile itself, and also with the basilisk. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, the cockatrice was believed as late as the 17th century to be produced from a cock's egg and hatched by a serpent, and "to possess the most deadly powers, plants withering at its touch, and men and animals being poisoned by its look. It stood in awe however of the cock, the sound of whose crowing killed it. .... The weasel alone among animals was unaffected by the glance of its evil eye, and attacked it at all times successfully; for when wounded by the monster's teeth it found a ready remedy in rue, the only plant which the cockatrice could not wither." The real ichneumon does kill the most deadly snakes, and has been supposed to resort to a vegetable antidote when bitten. It actually dies however when bitten by a deadly snake, and does not possess a knowledge of herbs, but its extraordinary agility enables it ordinarily to escape injury. It is interesting to see how the changing tale of this creature with its marvelous powers has made a hodge-podge of ichneumon, weasel, crocodile, and serpent.

The Biblical references (the King James Version Isa 11:8; 59:5; Jer 8:17) are doubtless to a serpent, the word "cockatrice," with its medieval implications, having been introduced by the translators of the King James Version.

See SERPENT .

Alfred Ely Day


COCKER

kok'-er (titheneo, "to nurse," "coddle," "pamper"): Occurs only in Ecclesiasticus 30:9 with the meaning "to pamper": "Cocker thy child, and he shall make thee afraid"; so Shakespeare, "a cockered silken wanton"; now seldom used; Jean Ingelow, "Poor folks cannot afford to cocker themselves."


COCKLE

kok'-'-l (King James Version margin "stinking weeds," the Revised Version, margin "noisome weeds"; bo'shah, from Hebrew root ba'ash, "to stink"; batos): "Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley" (Job 31:40). On account of the meaning of the Hebrew root we should expect that the reference was rather to repulsive, offensive weeds than to the pretty corn cockle. It is very possible that no particular plant is here intended, though the common Palestinian "stinking" arums have been suggested by Hooker.


CODE OF HAMMURABI

See HAMMURABI ,CODE OF .


COELE-SYRIA

se-le-sir'-i-a (the King James Version Celosyria; Koile Suria, "hollow Syria"): So the Greeks after the time of Alexander the Great named the valley lying between the two mountain ranges, Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. It is referred to in the Old Testament as Biq`ath ha-Lebhanon, "the valley of Lebanon" (Josh 11:17), a name the echo of which is still heard in el-Buqa`, the designation applied today to the southern part of the valley. This hollow, which extends about 100 miles in length, is the continuation northward of the Jordan valley. The main physical features are described under LEBANON (which see). The name, however, did not always indicate the same tract of territory. In Strabo (xvi.2) and Ptolemy (v.15), it covers the fertile land between Jebel esh-Sharqy and the desert presided over by Damascus. In 1 Esdras 2:17; 2 Macc 3:8, etc., it indicates the country South and East of Mt. Lebanon, and along with Phoenicia it contributed the whole of the Seleucid dominions which lay South of the river Eleutherus. Josephus includes in Coele-Syria the country East of the Jordan, along with Scythopolis (Beisan) which lay on the West, separated by the river from the other members of the Decapolis (Ant., XIII, xiii, 2, etc.). In XIV, iv, 5, he says that "Pompey committed Coele-Syria as far as the river Euphrates and Egypt to Scaurus." The term is therefore one of some elasticity.

W. Ewing


COFFER

kof'-er ('argaz): A small box such as that in which the Philistines placed their golden mice and other offerings in returning the Ark (1 Sam 6:8,11,15).


COFFIN

kof'-in.

See CHEST ;BURIAL .


COGITATION

koj-i-ta'-shun, ra`yon, "the act of thinking or reflecting," as in Dan 7:28, "my cogitations much troubled me" (the Revised Version (British and American) "my thoughts").


COHORT

ko'-hort: In the Revised Version, margin of Mt 27:27; Mk 15:16; Jn 18:3,12; Acts 10:1; 21:31; 27:1, the translation of speira (the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American), "band"); the tenth part of a legion; ordinarily about 600 men. In Jn 18 the word seems to be used loosely of a smaller body of soldiers, a detachment, detail.

See ARMY ;BAND .


COINS

koinz: There were no coins in use in Palestine until after the Captivity. It is not quite certain whether gold and silver were before that time divided into pieces of a certain weight for use as money or not, but there can be no question of coinage proper until the Persian period. Darius I is credited with introducing a coinage system into his empire, and his were the first coins that came into use among the Jews, though it seems probable that coins were struck in Lydia in the time of Croesus, the contemporary of Cyrus the Great, and these coins were doubtless the model upon which Darius based his system, and they may have circulated to some extent in Babylonia before the return of the Jews. The only coins mentioned in the Old Testament are the Darics (see DARIC ), and these only in the Revised Version (British and American), the word "dram" being used in the King James Version (Ezr 2:69; 8:27; Neh 7:70-72). The Jews had no native coins until the time of the Maccabees, who struck coins after gaining their independence about 143-141 BC. These kings struck silver and copper, or the latter, at least (see MONEY ), in denominations of shekels and fractions of the shekel, until the dynasty was overthrown by the Romans. Other coins were certainly in circulation during the same period, especially those of Alexander and his successors the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria, both of whom bore sway over Palestine before the rise of the Maccabees. Besides these coins there were the issues of some of the Phoenician towns, which were allowed to strike coins by the Persians and the Seleucids. The coins of Tyre and Sidon, both silver and copper, must have circulated largely in Palestine on account of the intimate commercial relations between the Jews and Phoenicians (for examples, see underMONEY ). After the advent of the Romans the local coinage was restricted chiefly to the series of copper coins, such as the mites mentioned in the New Testament, the silver denarii being struck mostly at Rome, but circulating wherever the Romans went. The coins of the Herods and the Procurators are abundant, but all of copper, since the Romans did not allow the Jewish rulers to strike either silver or gold coins. At the time of the first revolt (66-70 AD) the Jewish leader, Simon, struck shekels again, or, as some numismatists think, he was the first to do so. But this series was a brief one, lasting between 3 and 4 years only, as Jerusalem was taken by Titus in 70 AD, and this put an end to the existence of the Jewish state. There was another short period of Jewish coinage during the second revolt, in the reign of Hadrian, when Simon Barcochba struck coins with Hebrew legends which indicate his independence of Roman rule. They were of both silver and copper, and constitute the last series of strictly Jewish coins (see MONEY ). After this the coins struck in Judea were Roman, as Jerusalem was made a Roman colony.

H. Porter


COL-HOZEH

kol-ho'-ze (kol-chozeh, "all seeing"; Septuagint omits): A man whose son Shallum rebuilt the fountain gate of Jerusalem in the days of Nehemiah (Neh 3:15). The Col-hozeh of Neh 11:5 is probably another man.


COLA

ko'-la.

See CHOLA .


COLD

kold (qor; psuchros (adj.), psuchos (noun)): Palestine is essentially a land of sunshine and warmth.

1. Temperature in Palestine:

The extreme cold of northern latitudes is unknown. January is the coldest month; but the degree of cold in a particular place depends largely on the altitude above the sea. On the seacoast and plain the snow never falls; and the temperature reaches freezing-point, perhaps once in thirty years. In Jerusalem at 2,500 ft. above the sea the mean temperature in January is about 45 degrees F., but the minimum may be as low as 25 degrees F. Snow occasionally falls, but lasts only a short time. On Mt. Hermon and on the Lebanons snow may be found the whole year, and the cold is most intense, even in the summer. In Jericho and around the Dead Sea, 1,292 ft. below sea-level, it is correspondingly hotter, and cold is not known.

2. Provision against Cold:

Cold is of such short duration that no adequate provision is made by the people to protect themselves against the cold. The sun is always bright and warm, and nearly always shines for part of the day, even in winter. After sunset the people wrap themselves up and go to sleep. They prefer to wrap up their heads rather than their feet in order to keep warm. The only means of heating the houses is the charcoal brazier around which as many as possible gather for a little warmth. It is merely a bed of coals in an iron vessel. Peter was glad to avail himself of the little heat of the coals as late as the beginning of April, when the nights are often chilly in Jerusalem: "Having made a fire of coals; for it was cold: .... and Peter also was with them, standing and warming himself" (Jn 18:18). There is no attempt made to heat the whole house. In the cold winter months the people of the mountains almost hibernate. They wrap up their heads in shawls and coverings and only the most energetic venture out: "The sluggard will not plow by reason of the winter" (Prov 20:4, the King James Version "cold"). The peasants and more primitive people of the desert often make a fire in the open or in partial shelter, as in Melita where Paul was cast ashore after shipwreck: "The barbarians .... kindled a fire .... because of the cold" (Acts 28:2).

3. Dread of Cold:

The cold is greatly dreaded because it causes so much actual suffering: "Who can stand before his cold?" (Ps 147:17). The last degree of degradation is to have "no covering in the cold" (Job 24:7).

4. Cold Grateful in Summer:

In the heat of the long summer, the shadow of a rock or the cool of evening is most grateful, and the appreciation of a cup of cold water can easily be understood by anyone who has experienced the burning heat of the Syrian sun: "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country" (Prov 25:25); "cold of snow in the time of harvest" (Prov 25:13), probably with reference to the use of snow (shaved ice) in the East to cool a beverage.

Figurative uses: "The love of the many shall wax cold" (Mt 24:12); "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot" (Rev 3:15).

Alfred H. Joy


COLIUS

ko'-li-us (Kolios, 1 Esdras 9:23).

See CALITAS .


COLLAR

kol'-ar, kol'-er:

(1) (neTphah, plural neTphoth, literally, "drops," from naTaph, "to drop"). Jdg 8:26 includes neTphoth among the spoils taken from the Midianites and Ishmaelites; the Revised Version (British and American) "pendants," the King James Version "collars." Qimchi at the place suggests "perfume-dropper."

(2) (peh, literally, "mouth"). In Job 30:18 the word is used to indicate the collar band, or hole of a robe, through which the head was inserted. Job, in describing his suffering and writhing, mentions the disfiguring of his garment, and suggests that the whole thing feels as narrow or close-fitting as the neckband, or perhaps that in his fever and pains he feels as if the neckband itself is choking him.

(3) (tsinoq, Jer 29:26, "stocks"; the Revised Version (British and American) "shackles," which see; the Revised Version, margin "collar"). An instrument of torture or punishment.

Nathan Isaacs


COLLECTION

ko-lek'-shun:

(1) In the Old Testament (mas'eth, "something taken up"), used in 2 Ch 24:6,9 the King James Version with reference to the tax prescribed in Ex, 30:12,16; the Revised Version (British and American) "tax."

(2) In the New Testament "collection" is the translation given to logia, found only twice (classical, sulloge). It is used with reference to the collection which Paul took up in the Gentilechurches for the poor Christians in Jerusalem, as, for some reason, perhaps more severe persecutions, that church was especially needy (1 Cor 16:1,2; verse 2 the King James Version "gatherings"). Other words, such as bounty, contribution, blessing, alms, ministration, are used to indicate this same ministry. Paul seems to have ascribed to it great importance. Therefore, he planned it carefully long in advance; urged systematic, weekly savings for it; had delegates carefully chosen to take it to Jerusalem; and, in spite of dangers, determined himself to accompany them. Evidently he thought it the crowning act of his work in the provinces of Galatia, Asia, Macedonia and Achaia, for as soon as it was finished he purposed to go to Rome and the West (Acts 24:17; Rom 15:25,26; 2 Cor 8; 9).

See also COMMUNION .

G. H. Trever


COLLEGE

kol'-ej: This is the rendering of the King James Version for Hebrew Mishneh (mishneh, 2 Ki 22:14 = 2 Ch 34:22; compare Zeph 1:10). It is found in the Targum of Jonathan on 2 Ki 22:14 and rests on a faulty combination with Mishna, the well-known code of laws of the 2nd century AD. the Revised Version (British and American) renders "second quarter" (of the city); 2 Ch 34:22 the King James Version margin, "the school."


COLLOP

kol'-up (pimah): A slice of meat or "fat," the King James Version in Job 15:27, "maketh collops of fat (thick folds of flesh) on his flanks," said of the "wicked man." the American Standard Revised Version reads "(hath) gathered fat upon his loins."


COLONY

kol'-o-ni (kolonia, Greek transliteration of Latin colonia, from the root, col, "cultivate"): The word occurs but once (Acts 16:12) in reference to Philippi in Macedonia. Roman colonies were of three kinds and of three periods: (1) Those of the early republic, in which the colonists, established in conquered towns to serve the state as guardians of the frontier, were exempt from ordinary military service. They were distinguished as (a) c. civium Romanorum, wherein the colonists retained Roman citizenship, also called c. maritumae, because situated on the coast, and (b) c. Latinae, situated inland among the allies (socii), wherein the colonists possessed the ius Latinum, entitling them to invoke the Roman law of property (commercium), but not that of the family (connubium), and received Roman citizenship only when elected to magistracies. (2) The colonies of the Gracchan period, established in pursuance of the scheme of agrarian reforms, to provide land for the poorer citizens. (3) After the time of Sulla colonies were founded in Italy by the Republic as a device for granting lands to retiring veterans, who of course retained citizenship. This privilege was appropriated by Caesar and the emperors, who employed it to establish military colonies, chiefly in the provinces, with various rights and internal organizations. To this class belonged Philippi. Partly organized after the great battle of 42 BC, fought in the neighboring plain by Brutus and Cassius, the champions of the fated Republic, and Antonius and Octavian, it was fully established as a colony by Octavian (afterward styled Augustus) after the battle of Actium (31 BC), under the name Colonia Aug. Iul. Philippi or Philippensis. It received the ius Italicum, whereby provincial cities acquired the same status as Italian cities, which possessed municipal self-government and exemption from poll and land taxes.

See CITIZENSHIP ;PHILIPPI ;ROMAN .

William Arthur Heidel


COLOR; COLORS

kul'-er, kul'-erz: The word translated "color" in the King James Version is `ayin, which literally means "eye" or "appearance," and has been so translated in the Revised Version (British and American). In the New Testament the Greek prophasis, has the meaning of pretense or show (Acts 27:30; compare Rev 17:4 the King James Version). The references to Joseph's coat of many colors (Gen 37:3,13,12) and "garments of divers colors" (2 Sam 13:18,19) probably do not mean the color of the garment at all, but the form, as suggested in the American Revised Version, margin, "a long garment with sleeves." In Jdg 5:30 the word for "dip" or "dye" appears in the original and has been so translated in the American Standard Revised Version. (see DYE ). In 1 Ch 29:2 riqmah, meaning "variegated," hence, "varicolored," is found. In Isa 54:11, pukh is used. This name was applied to the sulfide of antimony (Arabic kochl) used for painting the eyes. Hence, the American Revised Version, margin rendering "antimony" instead of "fair colors" (see PAINT ). In Ezek 16:16 Tala', is found, meaning "covered with pieces" or "spotted," hence, by implication "divers colors."

Although the ancient Hebrews had no specific words for "color," "paint" or "painter," still, as we know, they constantly met with displays of the art of coloring among the Babylonians (Ezek 23:14) and Egyptians and the inhabitants of Palestine Pottery, glazed bricks, glassware, tomb walls, sarcophagi, wood and fabrics were submitted to the skill of the colorist. This skill probably consisted in bringing out striking effects by the use of a few primary colors, rather than in any attempt at the blending of shades which characterizes modern coloring. That the gaudy show of their heathen neighbors attracted the children of Israel is shown by such passages as Jdg 8:27; Ezek 23:12,16.

Two reasons may be given for the indefiniteness of many of the Biblical references to color. (1) The origin of the Hebrew people: They had been wandering tribes or slaves with no occasion to develop a color language. (2) Their religious laws: These forbade expression in color or form (Ex 20:4). Yielding to the attractions of gorgeous display was discouraged by such prophets as Ezekiel, who had sickened of the abominations of the Chaldeans (Ezek 23:14,15,16); "And I said unto them, Cast ye away every man the abominations of his eyes" (Ezek 20:7).

Indefiniteness of color language is common to oriental literature, ancient and modern. This does not indicate a want of appreciation of color but a failure to analyze and define color effects. The inhabitants of Syria and Palestine today delight in brilliant colors. Bright yellow, crimson, magenta and green are used for adornment with no evident sense of fitness, according to the foreigners' eyes, other than their correspondence with the glaring brightness of the eastern skies. A soapmaker once told the writer that in order to make his wares attractive to the Arabs he colored them a brilliant crimson or yellow. A peasant chooses without hesitation a flaring magenta or yellow or green zun-nar (girdle), rather than one of somber hues. The oriental student in the chemical or physical laboratory often finds his inability to distinguish or classify color a real obstacle. His closest definition of a color is usually "lightish" or "darkish." This is not due to color blindness but to a lack of education, and extends to lines other than color distinctions. The colloquial language of Palestine today is poor in words denoting color, and an attempt to secure from a native a satisfactory description of some simple color scheme is usually disappointing. The harmonious color effects which have come to us from the Orient have been, in the past, more the result of accident (see DYE ) than of deliberate purpose, as witness the clashing of colors where modern artificial dyes have been introduced.

This inability of the peoples of Bible lands to define colors is an inheritance from past ages, a consideration which helps us to appreciate the vagueness of many of the Biblical references.

The following color words occur in the King James Version or Revised Version: (1) bay, (2) black, (3) blue, (4) brown, (5) crimson, (6) green, (7) grey, (8) hoar, (9) purple, (10) red, (11) scarlet, (12) sorrel, (13) vermilion, (14) white, (15) yellow. In addition there are indefinite words indicating mixtures of light and dark: (a) grisled (grizzled), (b) ringstraked (ringstreaked), (c) speckled, (d) spotted.

(1) Bay or Red:

Bay or red is more properly translated "strong" in the Revised Version (British and American).

(2) Black (Blackish):

Eight different words have been translated "black." They indicate various meanings such as "dusky like the early dawn," "ashen," "swarthy," "moved with passion." Black is applied to hair (Lev 13:31; Song 5:11; Mt 5:36); to marble or pavement (Est 1:6); to mourning (Job 30:28,30; Jer 14:2); to passion (Jer 8:21 the King James Version; Lam 5:10); to horses (Zec 6:2,6; Rev 6:5); to the heavens (1 Ki 18:45; Job 3:5; Prov 7:9 the King James Version; Jer 4:28; Mic 3:6); to the sun (Rev 6:12); to the skin (racial) (Song 1:5,6); to flocks (Gen 30:32,33,15,40); to brooks because of ice (Job 6:16).

(3) Blue:

Blue (tekheleth, a color from the cerulean mussel): This word was applied only to fabrics dyed with a special blue dye obtained from a shellfish. See DYE . shesh in one passage of the King James Version is translated "blue" (Est 1:6). It is properly translated in the Revised Version (British and American) "white cloth." "Blueness of a wound" (Prov 20:30) is correctly rendered in the Revised Version (British and American) "stripes that wound." Blue is applied to the fringes, veil, vestments, embroideries, etc., in the description of the ark and tabernacle (Ex 25 ff; Nu 4:6 f; 15:38); to workers in blue (2 Ch 2:7,14; 3:14); to palace adornments (Est 1:6); to royal apparel (Est 8:15; Jer 10:9; Ezek 23:6; 27:7,24).

(4) Brown:

The Hebrew word meaning "sunburnt" or "swarthy" is translated "black" in the Revised Version (British and American) (Gen 30:32 ff).

(5) Crimson:

Crimson (karmil): This word is probably of Persian origin and applies to the brilliant dye obtained from a bug. A second word tola`ath, is also found. Its meaning is the same. See DYE . Crimson is applied to raiment (2 Ch 2:7,14; 3:14; Jer 4:30 the King James Version); to sins (Isa 1:18).

(6) Green (Greenish):

This word in the translation refers almost without exception to vegetation. The Hebrew yaraq, literally, "pale," is considered one of the three definite color words used in the Old Testament (see WHITE ;RED ). The Greek equivalent is chloros; compare English "chlorine." This word occurs in the following vs: Gen 1:30; 9:3; Ex 10:15; Lev 2:14 (the King James Version); 23:14 (the King James Version); 2 Ki 19:26; Ps 37:2; Isa 15:6; 37:27; Job 39:8; chloros, Mk 6:39; Rev 8:7; 9:4. ra`anan, closely allied in meaning to yaraq, is used to describe trees in the following passages: Dt 12:2; 1 Ki 14:23; 2 Ki 16:4; 17:10; 19:26; 2 Ch 28:4; Job 15:32; Ps 37:35; 52:8; Song 1:16; Isa 57:5; Jer 2:20; 3:6; 11:16; 17:2,8; Ezek 6:13; Hos 14:8. In the remaining verses the Hebrew equivalents do not denote color, but the condition of being full of sap, fresh or unripe (compare similar uses in English) (Gen 30:37 (the King James Version); Jdg 16:7,8; Ps 23:2; Song 2:13; Job 8:16; Ezek 17:24; 20:47; Lk 23:31). In Est 1:6 the Hebrew word refers to a fiber, probably cotton, as is indicated by the American Revised Version, margin. Greenish is used to describe leprous spots in Lev 13:49; 14:37. The same word is translated "yellow" in Ps 68:13.

(7) Gray:

The Hebrew sebhah, means old age, hence, refers also to the color of the hair in old age (Gen 42:38; 44:29; 44:31; Dt 32:25; Ps 71:18; Hos 7:9). See Hoar, next paragraph.

(8) Hoar (Hoary):

The same word which in other verses is translated "gray" is rendered "hoar" or "hoary," applying to the hair in 1 Ki 2:6,9; Isa 46:4; Lev 19:32; Job 41:32; Prov 16:31. Another Hebrew word is translated "hoar" or "hoary," describing "frost" in Ex 16:14; Job 38:29; Ps 147:16.

(9) Purple:

The Hebrew equivalent is 'argaman; Greek porphura. The latter word refers to the source of the dye, namely, a shell-fish found on the shores of the Mediterranean. See DYE . This color, which varied widely according to the kind of shellfish used and the method of dyeing, was utilized in connection with the adornment of the tabernacle (Ex 25; 26; 27; 28; 35; 36; 38; 39; Nu 4:13). There were workers in purple called to assist in beautifying the temple (2 Ch 2:7,14; 3:14). Purple was much used for royal raiment and furnishings (Jdg 8:26; Est 1:6; 8:15; Song 3:10; Mk 15:17,20; Jn 19:2,5). Purple was typical of gorgeous apparel (Prov 31:22; Jer 10:9; Song 7:5; Ezek 27:7,16; Lk 16:19; Acts 16:14; Rev 17:4; 18:12,16).

(10) Red:

The Hebrew 'adhom, is from dam, "blood," hence, "bloodlike." This is one of the three distinctive color words mentioned in the Old Testament (see GREEN ;WHITE ), and is found in most of the references to red. Four other words are used: (a) chakhlili, probably "darkened" or "clouded" (Gen 49:12; Prov 23:29); (b) chamar, "to ferment" (Ps 75:8 margin; Isa 27:2 the King James Version); (c) bahaT, probably "to glisten" (Est 1:6); (d) purros "firelike" (Mt 16:2,3; Rev 6:4; 12:3). Red is applied to dyed skins (Ex 25:5; 26:14; 35:7,23; 36:19; 39: 34); to the color of animals (Nu 19:2; Zec 1:8; 6:2; Rev 6:4; 12:3); to the human skin (Gen 25:25; ruddy, 1 Sam 16:12; 17:42; Song 5:10; Lam 4:7); to the eyes (Gen 49:12; Prov 23:29); to sores (Lev 13); to wine (Ps 75:8 m; Prov 23:31; Isa 27:2 the King James Version); to water (2 Ki 3:22); to pavement (Est 1:6); to pottage (Gen 25:30); to apparel (Isa 63:2); to the sky (Mt 16:2,3); to sins (Isa 1:18); to a shield (Nah 2:3).

(11) Scarlet:

Scarlet and crimson colors were probably from the same source (see CRIMSON ;DYE ). tola`ath, or derivatives have been translated by both "scarlet" and "crimson" (Greek kokkinos). A Chaldaic word for purple has thrice been translated "scarlet" in the King James Version (Dan 5:7,16,29). Scarlet is applied to fabrics or yarn used (a) in the equipment of the tabernacle (Ex 25 ff; Nu 4:8); (b) in rites in cleansing lepers (Lev 14); in ceremony of purification (Nu 19:6); to royal or gorgeous apparel (2 Sam 1:24; Prov 31:21; Lam 4:5; Dan 5:7,16,29, "purple"; Nah 2:3; Mt 27:28; Rev 17:4; 18:12,16); to marking thread (Gen 38:28,30; Josh 2:18,21); to lips (Song 4:3); to sins (Isa 1:18); to beasts (Rev 17:3); to wool (Heb 9:19).

(12) Sorrel:

This word occurs once in the Revised Version (British and American) (Zec 1:8).

(13) Vermilion:

This word, shashar, occurs in two passages (Jer 22:14; Ezek 23:14). Vermilion of modern arts is a sulfide of mercury. It is not at all improbable that the paint referred to was an oxide of iron. This oxide is still taken from the ground in Syria and Palestine and used for decorative outlining.

(14) White:

The principal word for denoting whiteness in the Hebrew was labhan, a distinctive color word. Some of the objects to which it was applied show that it was used as we use the word "white" (Gen 49:12). Mt. Lebanon was probably named because of its snow-tipped peaks (Jer 18:14). White is applied to goats (Gen 30:35); to rods (Gen 30:37); to teeth (Gen 49:12); to leprous hairs and spots (Lev 13; Nu 12:10); to garments (Eccl 9:8; Dan 7:9); as symbol of purity (Dan 11:35; 12:10; Isa 1:18); to horses (Zec 1:8; 6:3,1); to tree branches (Joel 1:7); to coriander seed (Ex 16:31). The corresponding Greek word, leukos, is used in New Testament. It is applied to hair (Mt 5:36; Rev 1:14); to raiment (Mt 17:2; 28:3; Mk 9:3; 16:5; Lk 9:29; Jn 20:12; Acts 1:10; Rev 3:4,5,18; 6:11; 7:9,13,14; 19,14); to horses (Rev 6:2; 19:11,14); to a throne (Rev 20:11); to stone (Rev 2:17); to a cloud (Rev 14:14). Besides labhan, four other Hebrew words have been translated "white": (a) chori, or chur, meaning "bleached," applied to bread (Gen 40:16); to linen (Est 1:6; 8:15); (b) tsach, or tsachor, literally, "dazzling," is applied to asses (Jdg 5:10); to human appearance (Song 5:10); to wool (Ezek 27:18); (c) dar, probably mother of pearl or alabaster (Est 1:6); (d) rir, literally, "saliva," and, from resemblance, "white of egg" (Job 6:6).

(15) Yellow:

This word occurs in Est 1:6 to describe pavement; in Lev 13 to describe leprous hair; in Ps 68:13 to describe gold.

Mixtures of colors: (a) grizzled (grisled), literally, "spotted as with hail," applied to goats (Gen 31:10,12); to horses (Zec 6:3,1); (b) ringstreaked (ringstraked), literally, "striped with bands," applied to animals (Gen 30:35 ff; 31:8 ff); (c) speckled, literally, "dotted or spotted," applied to cattle and goats (Gen 30:32 ff; 31:8 ff); to a bird (Jer 12:9); to horses (Zec 1:8 the King James Version); (d) spotted, literally, "covered with patches," applied to cattle and goats (Gen 30:32 ff). In Jude 1:23 "spotted" means "defiled."

Figurative: For figurative uses, see under separate colors.

LITERATURE.

Perrot and Chipiez, History of Art in Ancient Egypt, History of Art in Chaldea and Assyria, History of Art in Phoenicia and its Dependencies; Wilkinson, The Ancient Egyptians; Jewish Encyclopedia;EB; Delitzsch, Iris.

James A. Patch


COLOSSAE

ko-los'-e (Kolossai, "punishment"; the King James Version Colosse): A city of Phrygia on the Lycus River, one of the branches of the Meander, and 3 miles from Mt. Cadmus, 8,013 ft. high. It stood at the head of a gorge where the two streams unite, and on the great highway traversing the country from Ephesus to the Euphrates valley, 13 miles from Hierapolis and 10 from Laodicea. Its history is chiefly associated with that of these two cities. Early, according to both Herodotus and Xenophon, it was a place of great importance. There Xerxes stopped 481 BC (Herodotus vii.30) and Cyrus the Younger marched 401 BC (Xen. Anab. i.2,6). From Col 2:1 it is not likely that Paul visited the place in person; but its Christianization was due to the efforts of Epaphras and Timothy (Col 1:1,7), and it was the home of Philemon and Epaphras. That a church was established there early is evident from Col 4:12,13; Rev 1:11; 3:14. As the neighboring cities, Hierapolis and Laodicea, increased in importance, Colosse declined. There were many Jews living there, and a chief article of commerce, for which the place was renowned, was the collossinus, a peculiar wool, probably of a purple color. In religion the people were specially lax, worshipping angels. Of them, Michael was the chief, and the protecting saint of the city. It is said that once he appeared to the people, saving the city in time of a flood. It was this belief in angels which called forth Paul's epistle (Col 2:18). During the 7th and 8th centuries the place was overrun by the Saracens; in the 12th century the church was destroyed by the Turks and the city disappeared. Its site was explored by Mr. Hamilton. The ruins of the church, the stone foundation of a large theater, and a necropolis with stones of a peculiar shape are still to be seen. During the Middle Ages the place bore the name of Chonae; it is now called Chonas.

E. J. Banks


COLOSSIANS, EPISTLE TO THE

ko-losh'-ans, ko-los'-i-anz: This is one of the group of Paul's epistles known as the Captivity Epistles (see PHILEMON ,EPISTLE TO , for a discussion of these as a group).

I. Authenticity.

1. External Evidence:

The external evidence for the Epistle to the Colossians, prior to the middle of the 2nd century, is rather indeterminate. In Ignatius and in Polycarp we have here and there phrases and terminology that suggest an acquaintance with Colossians but not much more (Ignat., Ephes., x.3, and Polyc. x.1; compare with Col 1:23). The phrase in Ep Barnabas, xii, "in him are all things and unto him are all things," may be due to Col 1:16, but it is quite as possibly a liturgical formula. The references in Justin Martyr's Dialogue to Christ as the firstborn (prototokos) are very probably suggested by Col 1:15, "the firstborn of all creation" (Dial., 84, 85, 138). The first definite witness is Marcion, who included this epistle in his collection of those written by Paul (Tert., Adv. Marc., v. 19). A little later the Muratorian Fragment mentions Colossians among the Epistles of Paul (10b, l. 21, Colosensis). Irenaeus quotes it frequently and by name (Adv. haer., iii.14, 1). It is familiar to the writers of the following centuries (e.g. Tert., De praescrip., 7; Clement of Alexandria, Strom., I, 1; Orig., Contra Celsum, v. 8).

2. Internal Evidence:

The authenticity was not questioned until the second quarter of the 19th century when Mayerhoff claimed on the ground of style, vocabulary, and thought that it was not by the apostle. The Tubingen school claimed, on the basis of a supposed Gnosticism, that the epistle was the work of the 2nd century and so not Pauline. This position has been thoroughly answered by showing that the teaching is essentially different from the Gnosticism of the 2nd century, especially in the conception of Christ as prior to and greater than all things created (see V below). The attack in later years has been chiefly on the ground of vocabulary and style, the doctrinal position, especially the Christology and the teaching about angels, and the relation to the Ephesian epistle. The objection on the ground of vocabulary and style is based, as is so often the case, on the assumption that a man, no matter what he writes about, must use the same words and style. There are thirty-four words in Colossians which are not in any other New Testament book. When one removes those that are due to the difference in subject-matter, the total is no greater than that of some of the acknowledged epistles. The omission of familiar Pauline particles, the use of genitives, of "all" (pas), and of synonyms, find parallels in other epistles, or are due to a difference of subject, or perhaps to the influence on the language of the apostle of his life in Rome (von Soden). The doctrinal position is not at heart contradictory to Paul's earlier teaching (compare Godet, Introduction to the New Testament; Paul's Epistles, 440 f). The Christology is in entire harmony with Phil (which see) which is generally admitted as Pauline, and is only a development of the teaching in 1 Cor (8:6; 15:24-28), especially in respect of the emphasis laid on "the cosmical activity of the preincarnate Christ." Finally, the form in which Paul puts the Christology is that best calculated to meet the false teaching of the Colossian heretics (compare V below). In recent years H. Holtzmann has advocated that this epistle is an interpolated form of an original Pauline epistle to the Colossians, and the work of the author of the Epistle to the Ephesians (which see). A modification of this theory of interpolation has recently been suggested by J. Weiss (Theologische Literaturzeitung, September 29, 1900). Both these theories are too complicated to stand, and even von Soden, who at first followed Holtzmann, has abandoned the position (von Soden, Einleitung., 12); while Sanday (DB2) has shown how utterly untenable it is. Sober criticism today has come to realize that it is impossible to deny the Pauline authorship of this epistle. This position is strengthened by the close relationship between Colossians and Philemon, of which Renan says: "Paul alone, so it would seem, could have written this little masterpiece" (Abbott, International Critical Commentary, lviii). If Philemon (which see) stands as Pauline, as it must, then the authenticity of Colossians is established beyond controversy.

II. Place and Date.

The Pauline authorship being established, it becomes evident at once that the apostle wrote Colossians along with the other Captivity Epistles, and that it is best dated from Rome (see PHILEMON ,EPISTLE TO ), and during the first captivity. This would be about 58 or, if the later chronology is preferred, 63 or 64.

III. Destination.

The epistle was written, on the face of it, to the church at COLOSSAE (which see), a town in the Lycus valley where the gospel had been preached most probably by Epaphras (Col 17; 4:12), and where Paul was, himself, unknown personally (1:4,8,9; 2:1,5). From the epistle it is evident that the Colossian Christians were Gentiles (1:27) for whom, as such, the apostle feels a responsibility (2:1 ff). He sends to them Tychicus (4:7), who is accompanied by Onesimus, one of their own community (4:9), and urges them to be sure to read another letter which will reach them from Laodicea (4:16).

IV. Relation to Other New Testament Writings.

Beyond the connection with Ephesians (which see) we need notice only the relation between Colossians and Rev. In the letter to Laodicea (Rev 3:14-21) we have two expressions: "the beginning of the creation of God," and "I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne," in which we have an echo of Colossians which "suggests an acquaintance with and recognition of the earlier apostle's teaching on the part of John" (Lightfoot, Colossians, 42, note 5).

V. The Purpose.

The occasion of the epistle was, we may be sure, the information brought by Epaphras that the church in Colosse was subject to the assault of a body of Judaistic Christians who were seeking to overthrow the faith of the Colossians and weaken their regard for Paul (Zahn). This "heresy," as it is commonly called, has had many explanations. The Tubingen school taught that it was gnostic, and sought to find in the terms the apostle used evidence for the 2nd century composition of the epistle. Pleroma and gnosis ("fullness" and "knowledge") not only do not require this interpretation, but will not admit it. The very heart of Gnosticism, i.e. theory of emanation and the dualistic conception which regards matter as evil, finds no place in Colossians. The use of pleroma in this and the sister epistle, Eph, does not imply Gnostic views, whether held by the apostle or by the readers of the letters. The significance in Colossians of this and the other words adopted by Gnosticism in later years is quite distinct from that later meaning. The underlying teaching is equally distinct. The Christ of the Colossians is not the aeon Christ of Gnosticism. In Essenism, on the other hand, Lightfoot and certain Germans seek the origin of this heresy. Essenism has certain affinities with Gnosticism on the one side and Judaism on the other. Two objections are raised against this explanation of the origin of the Colossian heresy. In the first place Essenism, as we know it, is found in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea, and there is no evidence for its establishment in the Lycus valley. In the second place, no references are found in Colossians to certain distinct Essene teachings, e.g. those about marriage, washings, communism, Sabbath rules, etc.

The Colossian heresy is due to Judaistic influences on the one hand and to native beliefs and superstitions on the other. The Judaistic elements in this teaching are patent, circumcision (2:11), the Law (2:14,15), and special seasons (2:16). But there is more than Judaism in this false teaching. Its teachers look to intermediary spirits, angels whom they worship; and insist on a very strict asceticism. To seek the origin of angel worship in Judaism, as is commonly done, is, as A. L. Williams has shown, to miss the real significance of the attitude of the Jews to angels and to magnify the bitter jeers of Celsus. Apart from phrases used in exorcism and magic he shows us that there is no evidence that the Jew ever worshipped angels (JTS, X, 413 f). This element in the Colossian heresy was local, finding its antecedent in the worship of the river spirits, and in later years the same tendency gave the impulse to the worship of Michael as the patron saint of Colosse (so too Ramsay, Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes), under the word "Colossae"). The danger of and the falsehood in this teaching were twofold. In the first place it brought the gospel under the bands of the Law once more, not now with the formality of the Galatian opponents, but none the less surely. But as the apostle's readers are Gentiles (1:27) Paul is not interested in showing the preparatory aspect of the Law. He simply insists to them that they are quite free from all obligations of the Law because Christ, in whom they have been baptized (2:12), has blotted out all the Law (2:14). The second danger is that their belief in and worship of the heavenly powers, false ideas about Christ and the material world, would develop even further than it had. They, because of their union with Him, need fear no angelic being. Christ has triumphed over them all, leading them as it were captives in His train (2:15), as He conquered on the cross. The spiritual powers cease to have any authority over the Christians. It is to set Christ forward, in this way, as Head over all creation as very God, and out of His relation to the church and to the universe to develop the Christian life, that the apostle writes.

VI. Argument.

The argument of the Epistle is as follows:

Colossians 1:1,2:

Salutation.

Colossians 1:3-8:

Thanksgiving for their faith in Christ, their love for the saints, their hope laid up in heaven, which they had in and through the gospel and of which he had heard from Epaphras.

Colossians 1:9-13:

Prayer that they might be filled with the full knowledge of God's will so as to walk worthy of the Lord and to be fruitful in good works, thankful for their inheritance of the kingdom of His Son.

Colossians 1:14-23:

Statement of the Son's position, from whom we have redemption. He is the very image of God, Creator, pre-existent, the Head of the church, preeminent over all, in whom all the fullness (pleroma) dwells, the Reconciler of all things, as also of the Colossians, through His death, provided they are faithful to the hope of the gospel.

Colossians 1:24 through 2:5:

By his suffering he is filling up the sufferings of Christ, of whom he is a minister, even to reveal the great mystery of the ages, that Christ is in them, the Gentiles, the hope of glory, the object of the apostle's preaching everywhere. This explains Paul's interest in them, and his care for them, that their hearts may be strengthened in the love and knowledge of Christ.

Colossians 2:6 through 3:4:

He then passes to exhortation against those who are leading them astray, these false teachers of a vain, deceiving philosophy based on worldly wisdom, who ignore the truth of Christ's position, as One in whom all the Divine pleroma dwells, and their relation to Him, united by baptism; raised through the faith; quickened and forgiven; who teach the obligation of the observance of various legal practices, strict asceticisms and angel worship. This exhortation is closed with the appeal that as Christ's they will not submit to these regulations of men which are useless, especially in comparison with Christ's power through the Resurrection.

Colossians 3:5-17:

Practical exhortations follow to real mortification of the flesh with its characteristics, and the substitution of a new life of fellowship, love and peace.

Colossians 3:18 through 4:1:

Exhortation to fulfill social obligations, as wives, husbands, children, parents, slaves and masters.

Colossians 4:2-6:

Exhortation to devout and watchful prayer.

Colossians 4:7-18:

Salutations and greeting.

LITERATURE.

Lightfoot, Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon; Abbott, Ephesians and Colossians, International Critical Commentary; Peake, Colossians, Expositor's Greek Testament; Maclaren, Colossians, Expositor's Bible; Alexander, Colossians and Ephesians, Bible for Home and School; Moule, Colossians, Cambridge Bible; Haupt, Meyer's Krit. u. Exeg. Kom.; von Soden, Hand-Kom. zum New Testament.

C. S. Lewis


COLT; FOAL

kolt (`ayir, ben; polos, huios, with some word such as hupozugiou, understood; huios alone = "son"): The English words "colt" and "foal" are used in the Bible of the ass everywhere except in Gen 32:15, where the word "colt" is used of the camel in the list of animals destined by Jacob as presents for Esau. In most cases `ayir (compare Arabic `air, "ass") means "ass's colt," but it may be joined with ben, "son," as in Zec 9:9, where we have: `al-chamor we`al-`ayir ben-'athonoth, literally, "on an epi onon kai epi polon huion hupozugiou, "upon an ass, and upon a colt ass, and on an ass's colt, the son of the she-asses"; compare Mt 21:5 epi onon kai epi polon huion hupozugiou, "upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." In Jn 12:15 we have epi polon onou, and in the previous verse the diminutive, onarion. The commonest New Testament word for "colt" is polos, akin to which is German Fohle and English "foal" and "filly." The Latin pullus signifies either "foal" or "chicken," and in the latter sense gives rise to French poulet and English "pullet."

In view of the fact that horses are but little mehtioned in the Bible, and that only in connection with royal equipages and armies, it is not surprising that "colt" does not occur in its ordinary English sense.

Alfred Ely Day


COME

kum: The translation of many Hebrew and Greek words. In the phrase "The Spirit of Yahweh came mightily upon him" (Jdg 14:6,19; 15:14; 1 Sam 10:10; 11:6; 16:13), the word is tsaleah; Jdg 14:6; 15:14 "came mightily," which is the uniform translation of the Revised Version (British and American) (compare Jdg 13:25 "to move," i.e. to disturb or stir up). In Jdg 6:34; 1 Ch 12:18; 2 Ch 24:20, it is labhesh, "to clothe"; the Revised Version, margin "The Spirit .... clothed itself with Gideon" and .... "with Zechariah," "The Spirit clothed Amasai."

Among its many changes, the Revised Version (British and American) has "come forth" for "come" (Mt 2:6); "gone up" for "come" (Mt 14:32, a different text); "come all the way" for "come" (Jn 4:15); "got out upon the" for "come to" (Jn 21:9); "draw near" for "come" (Heb 4:16); "come" for "come and see" (Rev 6:1); "secure" for "come by" (Acts 27:16); "attain unto" for "come in" (Eph 4:13); and "I come" for "I come again" (Jn 14:28).

W. L. Walker


COMELINESS; COMELY

kum'-li-nes, kum'-li: Cognate with "becoming," namely, what is suitable, graceful, handsome. The servant of Yahweh in Isa 53:2 is without "comeliness" (hadhar, "honor"), i.e. there is in his appearance nothing attractive, while he is bowed beneath man's sin. "Praise is comely" (na'wah, f. of na'weh; Ps 33:1; 147:1), i.e. suitable or befitting "for the righteous," and, therefore, an honor and glory; "uncomely parts," aschemona (1 Cor 12:23), namely, less honorable. See also 1 Sam 16:18, "a comely person"; Song 6:4, "comely as Jerusalem." etc.


COMFORT

kum'-fert (nacham; parakaleo): The New Testament word is variously translated, as "comfort," "exhort," "beseech," the exact translation to be determined by the context. Etymologically, it is "to call alongside of," i.e. to summon for assistance. To comfort is to cheer and encourage. It has a positive force wanting in its synonym "console," as it indicates the dispelling of grief by the impartation of strength. the Revised Version (British and American) has correctly changed the translation of paramutheomai from the King James Version "comfort," to "consolation." So in the Old Testament, "Comfort ye my people" (Isa 40:1) is much stronger than "console," which affords only the power of calm endurance of affliction, while the brightest hopes of the future and the highest incentives to present activity are the gifts of the Divine grace that is here bestowed.

H. E. Jacobs


COMFORTABLY

kum'-fer-ta-bli (`al lebh, "to the heart"): "To speak to the heart," i.e. to speak kindly, to console, to comfort, is the ordinary Hebrew expression for wooing: e.g. Boaz spake "to the heart" of Ruth (Ruth 2:13 margin; the King James Version "friendly," the Revised Version (British and American) "kindly"). The beauty of the Hebrew term is illustrated in Gen 50:21 where Joseph "spake kindly" unto his brethren, winning them from fear to confidence. Rendered "comfortably" in five passages: thrice of human speaking, and twice of the tenderness of God's address to His people. David was urged to win back the hearts of the people by kind words: "speak comfortably" (2 Sam 19:7). Hezekiah in like manner comforted the Levites (2 Ch 30:22) and encouraged his captains (2 Ch 32:6). The term has exceptional wealth of meaning in connection with God's message of grace and forgiveness to His redeemed people. The compassionate love that has atoned for their sins speaks to the heart ("comfortably") of Jerusalem, saying "that her iniquity is pardoned" (Isa 40:2). The same promise of forgiveness is given to the penitent nation by the prophet Hosea (Hos 2:14); "comfortable words" (Zec 1:13), i.e. words affording comfort.

Dwight M. Pratt


COMFORTER

kum'-fer-ter: This is translation of the word patakletos, in the Johannine writings. In the Gospel it occurs in Jn 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7, and refers to the Holy Spirit. The word means literally, "called to one's side" for help. The translation "Comforter" covers only a small part of the meaning as shown in the context. The word "Helper" would be a more adequate translation. The Spirit does a great deal for disciples besides comforting them, although to comfort was a part of His work for them. The Spirit guides into truth; indeed, He is called the Spirit of truth. He teaches and quickens the memory of disciples and glorifies Christ in them. He also has a work to do in the hearts of unbelievers, convicting the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment (Jn 14 through 16). The Comforter remains permanently with disciples after He comes in response to the prayers of Christ. The word parakletos does not occur elsewhere in the Scriptures except in 1 Jn 2:1. In Job 16:2 the active form of the word (parakletos is passive) is found in the plural, where Job calls his friends "miserable comforters." The word "Comforter" being an inadequate, and the word "Helper" a too indefinite, translation of the word in the Gospel of John, it would probably be best to transfer the Greek word into English in so far as it relates to the Holy Spirit (see PARACLETE ).

In 1 Jn 2:1 the word parakletos refers to Christ: "If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Here the translation Advocate is quite correct. As the next verse shows the writer has in mind the intercession of Christ for Christians on the basis of His mediatorial work: "And he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world" (1 Jn 2:2).

See ADVOCATE ;HOLY SPIRIT ;PARACLETE .

E. Y. Mullins


COMFORTLESS

kum'-fert-les (orphanous, "orphans"): The Greek original is found but twice in the New Testament; rendered "comfortless" in Jn 14:18, the Revised Version (British and American) "desolate"; "fatherless" in Jas 1:27 (compare Ps 68:5). The term signifies bereft of a father, parents, guardian, teacher, guide, and indicates what must be the permanent ministry of the Holy Spirit to the disciples of Jesus, in comforting their hearts. In harmony with these parting words Jesus had called the chosen twelve "little children" (Jn 13:33); without Him they would be "orphans," comfortless, desolate. The coming of the Holy Spirit would make Christ and the Father forever real to them, an abiding spiritual presence.

Dwight M. Pratt


COMING OF CHRIST

See ADVENT ;PAROUSIA .


COMING, SECOND

See PAROUSIA .


COMMANDMENT, THE NEW

nu (entole kaine): The word "commandment" is used in the English versions of the Old Testament to translate several Hebrew words, more especially those meaning "word" (dabhar) as the ten words of God (Ex 34:28) or king's "command" (Est 1:12); "precept" (mitswah) of God (Dt 4:2), of a king (2 Ki 18:36); "mouth" or "speech" (peh) of God (Ex 17:1), of Pharaoh (2 Ki 23:35). They express theocratic idea of morality wherein the will or law of God is imposed upon men as their law of conduct (2 Ki 17:37).

1. Christ and the Old Commandment:

This idea is not repudiated in the New Testament, but supplemented or modified from within by making love the essence of the command. Jesus Christ, as reported in the Synoptics, came not "to destroy the law or the prophets .... but to fulfill" (Mt 5:17). He taught that "whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:19). He condemned the Pharisees for rejecting the commandments of God as given by Moses (Mk 7:8-13). There is a sense in which it is true that Christ propounded no new commandment, but the new thing in His teaching was the emphasis laid on the old commandment of love, and the extent and intent of its application. The great commandment is "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, .... (and) thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets" (Mt 22:34-40; Mk 12:28-34; compare Dt 6:5; Lev 19:18).

2. Principle instead of Law:

Whey the law realizes itself as love for God and man in men's hearts, it ceases to bear the aspect of a command. The force of authority and the active resistance or inertia of the subject disappear; the law becomes a principle, a motive, a joyous harmony of man's will with the will of God; and in becoming internal, it becomes universal and transcends all distinctions of race or class. Even this was not an altogether new idea (compare Jer 31:31-34; Ps 51); nor did Christ's contemporaries and disciples think it was.

3. Christ's Love Fulfilled in Death Becomes the Law of the Church:

The revolutionary factor was the death of Christ wherein the love of God was exemplified and made manifest as the basis and principle of all spiritual life (Jn 13:34). Paul therefore generalizes all pre-Christian morality as a system of law and commandments, standing in antithesis to the grace and love which are through Jesus Christ (Rom 5 through 7). Believers in Christ felt their experience and inward life to be so changed and new, that it needed a new term (agape = "love") to express their ideal of conduct (see CHARITY ). Another change that grew upon the Christian consciousness, following from the resurrection and ascension of Christ, was the idea that He was the permanent source of the principle of life. "Jesus is Lord" (1 Cor 12:3). Hence, in the Johannine writings the principle described by the new term agape is associated with Christ's lordship and solemnly described as His "new commandment." "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (Jn 13:34). To the Christians of the end of the 1st century it was already an old commandment which they had from the beginning of the Christian teaching (1 Jn 2:7; 2 Jn 5); but it was also a new commandment which ever came with new force to men who were passing from the darkness of hatred to the light of love (1 Jn 2:8-11).

4. The New Revelation:

The term in the Gospel we may owe to the evangelist, but it brings into relief an element in the consciousness of Jesus which the author of the Fourth Gospel had appreciated more fully than the Synoptists. Jesus was aware that He was the bearer of a special message from the Father (Jn 12:49; Mt 11:27), that He fulfilled His mission in His death of love and self-sacrifice (Jn 10:18), and that the mission fulfilled gave Him authority over the lives of men, "even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." The full meaning of Christ's teaching was only realized when men had experienced and recognized the significance of His death as the cause and principle of right conduct. The Synoptists saw Christ's teaching as the development of the prophetic teaching of the Old Testament. Paul and John felt that the love of God in Christ was a new thing: (a) new as a revelation of God in Christ, (b) new as a principle of life in the church, and (c) new as a union of believers with Christ. While it is love, it is also a commandment of Christ, calling forth the joyous obedience of believers.

See also BROTHERLY LOVE .

T. Rees


COMMANDMENT; COMMANDMENTS

ko-mand'-ment (mitswah; entole): The commandments are, first of all, prescriptions, or directions of God, concerning particular matters, which He wanted observed with reference to circumstances as they arose, in a period when He spake immediately and with greater frequency than afterward. They were numerous, minute, and regarded as coordinate and independent of each other. In the Ten Commandments, or, more properly, Ten Words, EVm (debharim), they are reduced to a few all-comprehensive precepts of permanent validity, upon which every duty required of man is based. Certain prescriptions of temporary force, as those of the ceremonial and forensic laws, are applications of these "Words" to transient circumstances, and, for the time for which they were enacted, demanded perfect and unconditional obedience. The Psalms, and especially Ps 119, show that even under the Old Testament, there was a deep spiritual appreciation of these commandments, and the extent to which obedience was deemed a privilege rather than a mere matter of constrained external compliance with duty. In the New Testament, Jesus shows in Mt 22:37,40; Mk 12:29,31; Lk 10:27 (compare Rom 13:8,10) their organic unity. The "Ten" are reduced to two, and these two to one principle, that of love. In love, obedience begins, and works from within outward. Under the New Testament the commandments are kept when they are written upon the heart (Heb 10:16). While in the Synoptics they are referred to in a more abstract and distant way, in both the Gospel and the Epistles of John their relation to Jesus is most prominent. They are "my commandments" (Jn 14:15,21; 15:10,12); "my Father's" (Jn 10:18; 15:10); or, many times throughout the epp., "his (i.e. Christ's) commandments." The new life in Christ enkindles love, and not only makes the commandments the rule of life, but the life itself the free expression of the commandments and of the nature of God, in which the commandments are grounded. Occasionally the word is used in the singular collectively (Ex 24:12; Ps 119:96; 1 Cor 14:37).

See TEN COMMANDMENTS ,THE .

H. E. Jacobs


COMMANDMENTS, THE TEN

See COMMANDMENT ;TEN COMMANDMENTS .


COMMEND

ko-mend':

(1) For paratithemi (Lk 23:46), translating the Hebrew paqadh (Ps 31:5), in the dying words of Jesus: "Into thy hands I commend my Spirit." the King James Version in Psalms has the more general word "commit." The use of the Greek word in the sense of "deposit what belongs to one into the hands of another" is not uncommon in the classics. So also the derivatives paratheke (2 Tim 1:12) and parakatatheke (1 Tim 6:20; 2 Tim 1:14). See DEPOSIT . This sense of the English, while slightly archaic, corresponds to the first meaning of the Latin, whence it comes, "to commit for preservation," especially of the dying; to commend children, parents, etc., to the care of others (for examples, see Harper's Latin Dictionary).

(2) For sunistiemi, "to stand together," and then, by standing together, to establish, prove, exhibit, as "righteousness" and "love of God" (Rom 3:5; 5:8), and thus to attest (2 Cor 3:1; 4:2), and, finally, to certify or to recommend a stranger (Rom 16:1; 2 Cor 6:4). The use of paristemi in 1 Cor 8:8 is equivalent.

(3) "To praise," epaineo (Lk 16:8), and sunistemi in 2 Cor 10:12,18; for the Old Testament, Hebrew hillel, in Gen 12:15 the King James Version; Prov 12:8.

H. E. Jacobs


COMMENTARIES

kom'-en-ta-riz:

I. THE WORD--GENERAL SCOPE

II. DIFFERENCES IN CHARACTER OF COMMENTARIES

III. RANGE OF COMMENTARIES

1. Early Commentaries

(1) Origen, etc.

(2) Chrysostom, etc.

2. Scholastic Period

Nicolas de Lyra

3. Reformation and Post-Reformation Periods

(1) Luther and Calvin

(2) Beza, Grotius, etc.

(3) Later Writers

4. 18th Century

(1) Calmer, M. Henry, etc.

(2) Patrick, Lowth, Scott

(3) Gill, Doddridge

(4) Bengel

5. The Modern Period--Its Characteristics

(1) Germany

(a) The Liberal School

(b) Believing Tendency

(i) Conservative

(ii) Critical

(iii) Mediating

(iv) Confessional

(v) Godet (Swiss)

(2) Britain and America

(a) Alford, Eadie

(b) Ellicott and Lightfoot

(c) Westcott

(d) Critical Influences--Broad Church

Stanley and Jowett

(e) General Commentaries (Series)

6. Recent Period

(1) Germany

(2) Britain and America

LITERATURE

I. The Word--General Scope.

Etymologically, a commentary (from Latin commentor) denotes jottings, annotations, memoranda, on a given subject, or perhaps on a series of events; hence, its use in the plural as a designation for a narrative or history, as the Commentaries of Caesar. In its application to Scripture, the word designates a work devoted to the explanation, elucidation, illustration, sometimes the homiletic expansion and edifying utilization, of the text of some book or portion of Scripture. The primary function of a good commentary is to furnish an exact interpretation of the meaning of the passage under consideration; it belongs to it also to show the connection of ideas, the steps of argument, the scope and design of the whole, in the writing in question. This can only be successfully accomplished by the help of a knowledge of the original language of the writing, and of the historical setting of the particular passage; by careful study of the context, and of the author's general usages of thought and speech; and by comparison of parallel or related texts. Aid may also be obtained from external sources, as a knowledge of the history, archaeology, topography, chronology, manners and customs, of the lands, peoples and times referred to; or, as in Deissmann's recent discoveries, from the light thrown on peculiarities of language by papyri or other ancient remains (see his Light from the Ancient East).

II. Differences in Character of Commentaries.

It is obvious that commentaries will vary greatly in character and value according as they are more scholarly, technical, and critical, entering, e.g. into philological discussions, and tabulating and remarking upon the various views held as to the meaning; or again, more popular, aiming only at bringing out the general sense, and conveying it to the mind of the reader in attractive and edifying form. When the practical motive predominates, and the treatment is greatly enlarged by illustration, application, and the enforcement of lessons, the work loses the character of commentary proper, and partakes more of the character of homily or discourse.

III. Range of Commentaries.

No book in the world has been made the subject of so much commenting and exposition as the Bible. Theological libraries are full of commentaries of all descriptions and all grades of worth. Some are commentaries on the original Hebrew or Greek texts; some on the English or other versions Modern commentaries are usually accompanied with some measure of introduction to the books commented upon; the more learned works have commonly also some indication of the data for the determination of the textual readings (see TEXTUAL CRITICISM ). Few writers are equal to the task of commenting with profit on the Bible as a whole, and, with the growth of knowledge, this task is now seldom attempted. Frequently, however, one writer contributes many valuable works, and sometimes, by cooperation of like-minded scholars, commentaries on the whole Bible are produced. It is manifestly a very slight survey that can be taken in a brief article of the work of commenting, and of the literature to which it has given rise; the attempt can only be made to follow the lines most helpful to those seeking aid from this class of books. On the use and abuse of commentaries by the preacher, C. H. Spurgeon's racy remarks in his Commenting and Commentaries may be consulted.

1. Early Commentaries:

Rabbinical interpretations and paraphrases of the Old Testament may here be left out of account (see next article; alsoTARGUM ;TALMUD ; F. W. Farrar's History of Interpretation, Lect II). Commentaries on the New Testament could not begin till the New Testament books themselves were written, and had acquired some degree of authority as sacred writings (see BIBLE ). The earliest commentaries we hear of are from the heretical circles of the Gnostics. Heracleon, a Valentinian (circa 175 AD), wrote a commentary on the Gospel of John (fragments in Origen), and on parts at least of the Gospel of Luke. Tatian, a disciple of Justin Martyr, about the same time, compiled his Diatessaron, or Harmony of the Four Gospels, on which, at a later time, commentaries were written. Ephraem Syrus (4th century) wrote such a commentary, of which an Armenian translation has now been recovered. The Church Father Hippolytus (beginning of 3rd century), wrote several commentaries on the Old Testament (Exodus, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Zechariah, etc.), and on Matthew, Luke and Revelation.

(1) Origen, etc.

The strongest impulse, however, to the work of commenting and exposition of Holy Scripture undoubtedly proceeded from the school of Alexandria--especially from Origen (203-254 AD). Clement, Origen's predecessor, had written a treatise called Hupotuposeis, or "Outlines," a survey of the contents of Holy Scripture. Origen himself wrote commentaries on all the books of the Old Testament, Ruth, Est and Eccl alone excepted, and on most of the books of the New Testament (Mark, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, James, Jude, Revelation excepted). He furnished besides, scholia, or notes on difficult passages, and delivered Homilies, or discourses, the records of which fill three folio volumes. "By his Tetrapla and Hexapla," says Farrar, "he became the founder of all textual criticism; by his Homilies he fixed the type of a popular exposition; his scholia were the earliest specimens of marginal explanations; his commentaries furnished the church with her first continuous exegesis" (op. cit., 188). Unfortunately, the Alexandrian school adopted a principle of allegorical interpretation which led it frequently into the most extravagant fancies. Assuming a threefold sense in Scripture--a literal, a moral, and a spiritual--it gave reins to caprice in foisting imaginary meanings on the simplest historical statements (Farrar, op. cit., 189 ff). Some of Origen's commentaries, however, are much freer from allegory than others, and all possess high value (compare Lightfoot, Galatians, 217). The later teachers of the Alexandrian school continued the exegetical works of Origen. Pamphilus of Caesarea, the friend of Eusebius, is said to have written Old Testament commentaries.

(2) Chrysostom, etc.

At the opposite pole from the allegorizing Alexandrian school of interpretation was the Antiochinn, marked by a sober, literal and grammatical style of exegesis. Its reputed founder was Lucian (martyred 311 AD); but its real heads were Diodorus of Tarsus( 379-94 AD) and Theodore of Mopsuestia (393-428 AD); and its most distinguished representative was John Chrysostom (347-407 AD). Chrysostom wrote continuous commentaries on Isaiah (only Isa 1 through 8:10 remaining) and on Galatians; but his chief contributions were his Homilies, covering almost the whole of the Old Testament and New Testament. Of these over 600 remain, chiefly on the New Testament. They are unequal in character, those on Acts being reputed the feeblest; others, as those on Matthew, Romans and Corinthians, are splendid examples of expository teaching. Schaff speaks of Chrysostom as "the prince of commentators among the Fathers" ( History, Ante-Nicene Per., 816). Thomas Aquinas is reported to have said that he would rather possess Chrysostom's homilies on Matthew than be master of all Paris. In the West, Ambrose of Milan (340-97 AD) wrote expositions of Old Testament histories and of Luke (allegorical and typical), and Jerome (346-420 AD) wrote numerous commentaries on Old Testament and New Testament books, largely, however, compilations from others.

2. Scholastic Period:

The medieval and scholastic period offers little for our purpose. There was diligence in copying manuscripts, and producing catenae of the opinions of the Fathers; in the case of the schoolmen, in building up elaborate systems of theology; but the Scriptures were thrown into the background.

Nicolas de Lyra.

The 14th century, however, produced one commentator of real eminence--Nicolas de Lyra (1270-1340). Nicolas was a Franciscan monk, well versed in Hebrew and rabbinical learning. While recognizing the usual distinctions of the various senses of Scripture, he practically builds on the literal, and exhibits great sobriety and skill in his interpretations. His work, which bears the name Postillae Perpetuae in Universa Biblia, was much esteemed by Luther, who acknowledged his indebtedness to it. Hence, the jest of his opponents, Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset (a notice of Lyra may be seen in Farrar, op. cit., 274-78).

3. Reformation and Post-Reformation Periods:

The Reformation brought men's minds back to the Scriptures and opened a new era in Biblical exposition and commentary. It became the custom to expound the Scriptures on Sundays and week-days in all the pulpits of the Protestant churches. "Luther's custom was to expound consecutively in a course of sermons the Old and New Testaments" (Kostlin). The Reformation began at Zurich with a series of discourses by Zwingli on the Gospel of Matthew. The same was true of Calvin, Beza, Knox and all associated with them. The production of commentaries or expository homilies was the necessary result.

(1) Luther and Calvin.

As outstanding examples may be mentioned Luther's Commentary on Galatians, and the noble commentaries of Calvin. Not all by any means, but very many of the commentaries of Calvin were the fruit of pulpit prelections (e.g. the expositions of Job, the Minor Prophets, Jeremiah, Daniel). Others, as the commentaries on Romans and the Psalms (reputed his best), were prepared with great care. Calvin's supreme excellence as a commentator is disputed by no one. From every school and shade of opinion in Christendom could be produced a chorus of testimony to the remarkable gifts of mind and heart displayed in his expositions of Scripture--to his breadth, moderation, fairness and modernness of spirit, in exhibiting the sense of inward genius of Holy Writ. The testimony of Arminius is as striking as any: "I exhort my pupils to peruse Calvin's commentaries .... for I affirm that he excels beyond comparison in the interpretation of Scripture, and that his commentaries ought to be more highly valued than all that is handed down to us by the library of the Fathers."

(2) Beza, Grotius, etc.

Lutheranism had its distinguished exegetes (Brenz, died 1572), who wrote able commentaries on the Old Testament, and in both the Calvinistic and Arminian branches of the Reformed church the production of commentaries held a chief place. Beza, Calvin's successor, is acknowledged to have possessed many of the best exegetical qualities which characterized his master. Grotius, in Holland (died 1645), occupies the foremost place among the expositors in this century on the Arminian side. His exegetical works, if not marked by much spirituality, show sagacity and learning, and are enriched by parallels from classical literature. The school of Cocceius (died 1669) developed the doctrine of the covenants, and reveled in typology. Cocceius wrote commentaries on nearly all the books of Scripture. His pupil Vitringa (died 1716) gained renown by his expositions of Isa and the Apocalypse.

(3) Later writers.

Partly fostered by the habit of basing commentary on pulpit exposition, the tendency early set in to undue prolixity in the unfolding of the meaning of Scripture. "In the Lutheran church," says Van Oosterzee, "they began to preach on whole books of the Bible; sometimes in a very prolix manner, as, e.g. in the case of the 220 sermons by one Striegnitz, a preacher at Meissen, on the history of Jonah, of which four are devoted to the consideration of the words `Unto Jonah' " (Practical Theol., 120). The habit spread. The commentaries of Peter Martyr (Swiss Reformer, died 1562) on Judges and Romans occupy a folio each; N. Byfield (Puritan, died 1622) on Colossians fills a folio; Caryl (Independent, died 1673) on Job extends to 2 folios; Durham (died 1658) on Isa 53 consists of 72 sermons; Venema (Holland, died 1787) on Jeremiah fills 2 quartos, and on the Psalms no less than 6 quartos. These are only samples of a large class. H. Hammond's A Paraphrase and Annotations on the New Testament, from an Arminian Standpoint belong to this period (1675). Another work which long took high rank is M. Poole's elaborate Synopsis Criticorum Biblicorum (5 volumes, folio, 1669-76)--a summary of the opinions of 150 Biblical critics; with which must be taken his English Annotations on the Holy Bible, only completed up to Isa 58 at the time of his death (1679). The work was continued by his friends.

4. 18th Century:

(1) Calmet, M. Henry, etc.

The 18th century is marked by greater sobriety in exegesis. It is prolific in commentaries, but only a few attain to high distinction. Calmet (died 1757), a learned Benedictine, on the Roman Catholic side, produced his Commentaire litteral sur tous les livres de l'Ancien et du Nouveau Testament, in 23 quarto volumes--a work of immense erudition, though now necessarily superseded in its information. On the Protestant side, Matthew Henry's celebrated Exposition of the Old and New Testament (1708-10) easily holds the first place among devotional commentaries for its blending of good sense, quaintness, original and felicitous remark, and genuine insight into the meaning of the sacred writers. It is, of course, not a critical work in the modern acceptation, and often is unduly diffuse. M. Henry's work extends only to the end of Acts; the remaining books were done by various writers after his death (1714). Le Clerc (died 1736) may be named as precursor of the critical views now obtaining on the composition and authorship of the Pentateuch His commentaries began with Gen in 1693 and were not Completed till 1731. Other commentators of note of Arminian views were Daniel Whitby (died 1726; converted to Arianism), and, later, Adam Clarke, Wesleyan (1762-1832), whose work extends into the next century. Clarke's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (1810-26), still held by many in high esteem, is marred to some extent by eccentricities of opinion.

(2) Patrick, Lowth, Scott.

In the Anglican church the names of chief distinction in this century are Bishop Patrick, Bishop Lowth, and later, Thomas Scott. Bishop Patrick, usually classed with the Cambridge Platonists (died 1707), contributed paraphrases and commentaries on the Old Testament from Genesis to Canticles, while Bishop Lowth (died 1787) acquired lasting fame by his Prelections on Hebrew Poetry, and A New Translation, with Notes on Isaiah. He was among the first to treat the poetical and prophetic writings really as literature. The commentaries of Patrick and Lowth were subsequently combined with those of Whitby and other divines (Arnold, etc.) to form a complete Critical Commentary (1809), which went through many editions. The well-known commentary of Thomas Scott (1747-1821), representing a moderate Calvinism, is a solid and "judicious" piece of work, inspired by an earnest, believing spirit, though not presenting any marked originality or brilliance. Brilliance is not the characteristic of many commentators of this age.

(3) Gill, Doddridge.

Two other English writers deserving notice are Dr. John Gill (died 1771; Calvinistic Baptist), who wrote Expositions on the Old Testament and the New Testament and a separate Exposition of the Song of Solomon--learned, but ponderous and controversial; and Dr. Philip Doddridge (died 1751), whose Family Expositor, embracing the entire New Testament, with a harmony of the Gospels, and paraphrases of the meaning, is marked by excellent judgment, and obtainea wide acceptance.

(4) Bengel.

Meanwhile a new period had been preluded in Germany by the appearance in 1742 of the Gnomon Novi Testamenti of J. A. Bengel (died 1751), a work following upon his critical edition of the New Testament issued in 1734. Though belonging to the 18th century, Bengel's critical and expository labors really herald and anticipate the best work in these departments of the 19th century His scholarship was exact, his judgment sound, his critical skill remarkable in a field in which he was a pioneer; his notes on the text, though brief, were pregnant with significance, and were informed by a spirit of warm and living piety.

The modern period, to which Bengel in spirit, if not in date, belongs, is marked by great changes in the style and character of commentaries. The critical temper was now strong; great advances had been made in the textual criticism of both Old Testament and New Testament (see TEXTUAL CRITICISM ); the work of the higher criticism had begun in the Old Testament; in Germany, the spirit of humanism, inherited from Lessing, Herder and Goethe, had found its way into literature; knowledge of the sciences, of oriental civilizations, of other peoples and religions, was constantly on the increase; scholarship was more precise and thorough; a higher ideal of what commentary meant had taken possession of the mind.

5. The Modern Period--Its Characteristics:

Learning, too, had enlarged its borders, and books on all subjects poured from the press in such numbers that it was difficult to cope with them. This applies to commentaries as to other departments of theological study. Commentaries in the 19th century, and in our own, are legion. Only the most prominent landmarks can be noted.

(1) Germany

(a) The liberal school.

In Germany, as was to be anticipated, the rise of the critical spirit and the profound influence exercised by it are reflected in most of the commentaries produced in the first half of the century. On the liberal side, the rationalistic temper is shown in the rejection of miracle, the denial of prediction in prophecy, and the lowering of the idea of inspiration generally. The scholarship, however, is frequently of a very high order. This temper is seen in De Wette (died 1849), whose commentaries on the New Testament, written when his views had become more positive, show grace and feeling; in Gesenius (died 1842), who produced an epoch-making commentary on Isaiah; in Knobel (died 1863), pronouncedly rationalistic, but with keen critical sense, as evinced in his commentaries on the Pentateuch and Joshua, Ecclesiastes, and Isaiah; in Hupfeld (died 1866) in his Commentary on the Psalms (4 volumes); in Hitzig (died 1875), acute but arbitrary, who wrote on the Psalms and most of the Prophets; above all, in Ewald (died 1875), a master in the interpretation of the poetical and prophetical books, but who commented also on the first three Gospels, on the writings of John, and on Paul's epistles. Ewald's influence is felt in the History of the Jewish Church by Dean Stanley, in England. The Exegetical Handbook (Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch) embraced compendious annotations by Knobel, Hitzig, Bertbeau (school of Ewald), etc., but also Olshausen (died 1839; wrote likewise on the New Testament), on all the books of the Old Testament.

(b) Believing tendency.

On the believing side, from a variety of standpoints, evangelical, critical, mediating, confessional, a multitude of commentaries on the Old Testament and New Testament were produced.

(i) Conservative:

The extremely conservative position in criticism was defended by Hengstenberg (died, 1869; on Psalms, Ecclesiastes, Ezekiel, John, Revelation), by Keil (died 1888) in the well-known Keil and Delitzsch series (Genesis to Esther, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Minor Prophets; also New Testament commentaries), and by Havernick (died 1845; Daniel, Ezekiel). Delitzsch (died 1890) wrote valued commentaries on Genesis, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah; also on Hebrews.

(ii) Critical:

After the rise of the Wellhausen school, he considerably modified his views in the newer critical direction. His New Commentary on Genesis (1887) shows this change, but, with his other works, is still written in a strongly believing spirit. On the other hand, the critical position (older, not newer) is frankly represented by A. Dillmann (died 1894) in his commentaries on the books of the Pentateuch and Joshua (English translation of Genesis, 1897; many also of the above works are translated).

(iii) Mediating:

The mediating school, largely penetrated by the influence of Schleiermacher, had many distinguished representatives. Among the most conspicuous may be named Lucke (died 1855), who wrote on John; Bleek, the Old Testament and New Testament critical scholar (died 1859), who has a work on the first three Gospels, and lectures on Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, Hebrews and Revelation (his Commentary on Hebrews is the best known), and Tholuck (died 1877), whose expositions and commentaries on Psalms, John, Romans and Hebrews with his Commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, are fine pieces of exegetical work.

A special place must be given to two names of high distinction in the present connection. One is J. P. Lange (died 1884), the projector and editor of the great Bibelwerk (theological and homiletical) in 22 volumes, to which he himself contributed the commentaries on Genesis to Numbers, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, John, Romans, Revelation, with introductions and homiletic hints. The other is H. A. W. Meyer (died 1873), whose Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament from Matthew to Philippians (the remaining books being done by other scholars, Lunemann, Huther, etc.) is an essential part of every New Testament scholar's equipment.

(iv) Confessional:

With the more positive and confessional theologians may be ranked E. R. Stier (died 1862). whose Words of the Lord Jesus (English translation in 8 volumes; Biblical, mystical, tendency to prolixity), with commentaries on 70 selected Psalms, Proverbs, 2nd Isaiah, Ephesians, Hebrews, James and Jude, found much acceptance. A. von Harless (died 1879) wrote a Commentary on Ephesians, praised by Tholuck as one of the finest extant. Philippi (died 1882), of Jewish extraction, best known by his Commentary on Romans, was strictly Lutheran. One of the ablest of the Lutheran Confessionalists was Luthardt (died 1892), whose works include a Commentary on John's Gospel. Ebrard (died 1887), as stoutly confessional on the Reformed side, has an esteemed Commentary on Hebrews.

(v) Godet (Swiss):

An eminent continental theologian who cannot be overlooked is the Swiss F. L. Godet (died 1900), whose admirable Commentary on John's Gospel, and commentaries on Romans and Corinthians are highly appreciated.

(2) Britain and America.

Meanwhile the English speaking countries were pursuing their own paths in the production of commentaries, either in continuing their old traditions, or in striking out on new lines, under the foreign influences which, from the beginning of the century, had begun to play upon them. In England Bishop Blomfield (died 1857) published Lectures on John and Acts. In the United States there appeared from the pen of Dr. J. A. Alexander, of Princeton (died 1860), a noteworthy Commentary on Isaiah, fully abreast of the modern learning, but staunchly censervative; also a Commentary on Psalms. From the same seminary proceeded the massive commentaries of Dr. Charles Hodge (Calvinistic) on Romans, Ephesians and Corinthians. Adapted for popular use and greatly in demand for Sunday-school purposes were the Notes, Critical, Explanatory and Practical of Albert Barnes (died 1871; New School Presbyterian). These Notes, the fruit of the use of the early morning hours in a busy pastoral life, covered the whole of the New Testament, with several books of the Old Testament (Job, Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel). Sensible and informative, rather than original or profound, they proved helpful to many. Over 1,000,000 copies are stated to have been sold. Of similar aim, though less widely known, were the Notes of Professor M. W. Jacobus (died 1876; on the New Testament, Genesis and Exodus).

(i) Alford, Eadie:

A new era was opened in critical commentary in England by the publication of the Greek Testament (1849-61) of Dean Alford (died 1871), followed by his New Testament for English Readers (1868). Here was presented a thoroughly critical treatment of the texts, with a full display of the critical apparatus, and notes philological and exegetical, accompanied by learned and lucid introductions, on all the books of the New Testament. About the same time appeared the solid, if more theological and homiletical, commentaries of the Scottish scholar, J. Eadie (died 1876), on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

(ii) Ellicott and Lighfoot:

Anglican scholarship produced its ripest fruits in this line in the classical Critical and Grammatical Commentary of Bishop Ellicott (died 1905) on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, Thessalonians, Pastoral Epistles, and the yet more remarkable series of commentaries of Bishop J. B. Lightfoot (died 1889), massive in learning, and wider in outlook than Ellicott's, on Galatians, Philemon, Colossians and Philemon. A large part of the value of Lightfoot's works consists in the special essays or dissertations on important subjects embodied in them (e.g. "St. Paul and the Three", "The Christian Ministry," "The Colossian Heresy," etc.).

(iii) Westcott:

With these names should be associated that of Bishop Westcott, Dr. Lightfoot's successor in the see of Durham (died 1901), whose commentaries on the Gospel and Epistles of John, and on He, take a place among the foremost. Bishop Moule, who, in turn, succeeded Dr. Westcott; has also written commentaries, simpler in character, on Romans, Ephesians, Philippians and Colossians, in the Cambridge Bible Series, and on Romans in the Expositor's Bible. In Old Testament exposition mention should be made of Bishop Perowne's valuable work on the Book of Psalms (2nd edition, revised, 1870), with his contributions to the Cambridge Bible (see below).

(iv) Critical Influences--Broad Church

Stanley and Jowett:

The critical and theological liberalism of Germany has made its influence felt in England in the rise of a Broad Church party, the best products of which in commentary were Dean Stanley's (died 1881) graphic and interesting Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (1855) and Dr. B. Jowett's Epistles of Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, and Romans, with Critical Notes and Dissertations (1855). The new spirit culminated in the appearance of the famous Essays and Reviews (1860), and in the works of Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch and Joshua (1862-79). Bishop Colenso had already published a translation of Romans, with commentary (1861).

(v) General Commentaries (Series):

Besides works by individual authors, there appeared during this period several general commentaries, to the production of which many writers contributed. The following may be mentioned. The Speaker's Commentary (10 volumes, 1871-82), under the general editorship of Canon F. C. Cook (died 1889), was called forth by the agitation over Bishop Colenso. Dr. Cook himself wrote introductions to Exodus, Psalms and Acts, and contributed the entire commentaries on Job, Habakkuk, Mark, Luke, 1 Peter, with parts of commentaries on Exodus, Psalms and Matthew. The work is of unequal value. A serviceable series is the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (1877 ff), edited by Bishop Perowne, with Smaller Cambridge Bible for Schools, and Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (still in process). Dr. Perowne (died 1904) himself contributed to the first-named the commentaries on Obadiah, Jonah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi and Galatians. Many valuable contributions appear in this series, e.g. A. F. Kirkpatrick on 1 and 2 Samuel and Psalms, A. B. Davidson on Job and Ezekiel, Driver on Daniel, G. G. Findlay on Thessalonians, etc. Next, under the editorship of Bishop Ellicott, were produced (1877-84) A New Testament Commentary for English Readers (3 volumes), and An Old Testament Commentary for English Readers (5 volumes), which contained some valuable work (Genesis by R. Payne Smith, Exodus by Canon G. Rawlinson, etc.). Akin to this in character was the Popular Commentary on the New Testament (4 volumes, 1879-83), edited by Dr. W. Schaff. This embraced, with other excellent matter, commentaries on Thessalonians by Dr. Marcus Dods, and on 1 and 2 Peter by Dr. S. D. F. Salmond. The Pulpit Commentary (49 volumes, 1880 ff), edited by J. S. Exell and Canon H. D. M. Spence, has expositions by good scholars, and an abundance of homiletical material by a great variety of authors. The series of Handbooks for Bible Classes (T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh) has a number of valuable commentaries, e.g. that of Dr. A. B. Davidson on He.

6. Recent Period:

In the most recent period the conspicuous feature has been the production of commentaries in series or by individual writers embodying the results of an advanced Old Testament criticism--in less degree of a radical New Testament criticism.

(1) Germany.

In Germany, in addition to the Kurzgefasstes exegetisches Handbuch, of older standing (see above), to which Dillmann contributed, may be mentioned Marti's Kurzer Hand-Commentar zum Altes Testament (1897 ff) and Nowack's Handkommentar zum Altes Testament; also Strack-and Zockler's Kurzgefasster Kommentar (Old Testament and New Testament; critical, but moderate). Marti contributes to his Hand-Commentar the volumes on Isaiah, Daniel and the Minor Prophets; Nowack contributes to his Handkommentar the volumes on Judges and Ruth, 1 and 2 Samuel and the Minor Prophets (of special importance in Nowack's series are the volumes on Genesis by H. Gunkel, and on Deuteronomy and Joshua by C. Steuernagel); Strack writes in his own work the volumes on Genesis to Numbers (Oettli contributes Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges). Much more conservative in spirit are the commentaries of H.C. von Orelli (Basel) on Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the Minor Prophets. In the New Testament, Meyer's Commentary has been "revised" by later writers, many of them (J. Weiss, W. Bousset, etc.) of much more advanced tendency than the original author.

(2) Britain and America.

In Britain and America like currents are observable. Professor T.K. Cheyne, who wrote a helpful commentary on the Prophecies of Isa (1880-81), and subsequently commentaries on Micah and Hosea (Cambridge Bible), Jeremiah (Pulpit Commentary), and on The Book of Psalms (1884), has become more and more extreme in his opinions. Of works in series the most important is The International Critical Commentary, edited by Drs. Driver and Plummer in England, and Dr. C. A. Briggs in the United States, of which 16 volumes in the Old Testament and the New Testament have already appeared. It need not be said that the commentaries in this series are always scholarly and able; those on the Old Testament are, however, all built on the Wellhausen foundations (see CRITICISM OF THE BIBLE . III). Dr. Driver himself writes on Deuteronomy; Dr. J. Skinner, on Genesis; Dr. G. F. Moore, on Judges; Dr. H. P. Smith, on 1 and 2 Samuel; Dr. Briggs, on Psalms; Dr. Toy, on Proverbs; Dr. W. R. Harper (died 1906), on Amos and Hosea; while Matthew in the New Testament is covered by W. C. Allen, Luke by Dr. Plummer, Romans by Drs. Sanday and Headlam, etc. A similar series is the Westminister Commentary, recently commenced, to which Dr. Driver contributes the volume on Genesis (1904; 7th edition, 1909). Yet another recent popular series is The Century Bible, to which again leading critical scholars lend their aid (Dr. W. H. Bennett on Genesis; also on "General Epistles"; Dr. A. R. S. Kennedy on 1 and 2 Samuel; Dr. Skinner on 1 and 2 Kings; Dr. A. S. Peake on Job; also on Hebrews; Dr. Driver on a group of the Minor Prophets, etc.). A well-planned one-vol Commentary on the Holy Bible, by various writers, has recently been edited by J. R. Dummelow (Cambridge). It is prefaced by a general Introduction, with a large number of articles on the principal subjects with which a reader of the Bible will desire to be acquainted.

It need only be added that very many of the foreign works mentioned above (not simply those specially noted) are now accessible in English translations.

LITERATURE.

Works and articles specially devoted to commentaries are not numerous. Dr. S. Davidson has an article "Commentary" in Kitto's Biblical Encyclopedia, Vol I. See also F. W. Farrar's Hist of Interpretation (Bampton Lects for 1885). G. H. Spurgeon's popular talks on Commenting and Commentaries are accompanied by extensive lists of Commentaries on all parts of the Bible (severely exclusive of works deemed dangerous). Lists of commentaries on the Bible as a whole, on the Old Testament and New Testament separately, and on the several books, may be seen in most good works on Introduction, or in prolegomena to commentaries on the different books; e.g. in the general Introduction prefixed to Lange's Commentary on Genesis; also in the lengthy sections on Jewish, Greek, Latin and Protestant commentators, and again in the "Index of the More Important Expository Works on the Books of the Old Testament." In Bleek's Introduction to the Old Testament, very full information is given up to the author's date. Full bibliographies of modern books, including commentaries on the Old Testament, are furnished in Dr. Driver's Introduction. Similar lists are given in other works regarding the New Testament. For the writers of the commentaries on the special books in the above-noted German and English series, lists may generally be seen attached to each volume of the series.

James Orr


COMMENTARIES, HEBREW

he'-broo:

1. Philo Judaeus

2. Targum

3. Midrash

4. Talmud

5. Karaites

6. Middle Ages

(1) Saadia ben Joseph

(2) Rashi

(3) Joseph Kara

(4) Abraham ibn Ezra

(5) Qimchis

(6) Maimonides

(7) Maimunists

(8) Kabbalists

(9) The "Zohar"

(10) Isaac Arama

7. Modern Times

Abarbanel

8. The Bi'urists

(1) Mendelssohn

(2) Zunz, etc.

(3) Malbim, Ehrlich, etc.

(4) Halevy, Hoffmann, Mueller

(5) Geiger, Graetz, Kohler

LITERATURE

The following outline alludes to the leading Jewish commentators and their works in chronological order. However widely the principles which guided the various Jewish schools of exegesis, or the individual commentatom, differ from those of the modern school, the latter will find a certain suggestiveness in the former's interpretation which well merits attention.

1. Philo Judaeus:

Philo Judaeus: A Hellenistic Jew of Alexandria, Egypt. Born about 20 BC; died after 40 AD. By his allegorical method of exegesis (a method he learned from the Stoics), Philo exercised a far-reaching influence not only on Jewish thought, but even more so on the Christian church. We have but to mention his influence on Origen and other Alexandrian Christian writers. His purpose in employing his allegorical method was, mainly, to reconcile Greek philosophy with the Old Testament.

See PHILO ,JUDAEUS .

Josephus cannot be called a Bible commentator in the proper sense of the term.

See JOSEPHUS .

2. Targum:

Targum (plural Targumim): The Aramaic translation of the Old Testament. Literally, the word designates a translation in general; its use, however, has been restricted to the Aramaic version of the Old Testament, as contrasted with the Hebrew text which was called miqra'. The Targum includes all the books of the Old Testament except Daniel and Ezra-Nehemiah, which are written in part in Aramaic. Its inception dates back to the time of the Second Temple, and it is considered a first approach to a commentary before the time of Jesus. For the Targum is not a mere translation, but rather a combination of a translation with a commentary, resulting in a paraphrase, or an interpretative translation--having its origin in exegesis. The language of this paraphrase is the vernacular tongue of Syria, which began to reassert itself throughout Palestine as the language of common intercourse and trade, as soon as a familiar knowledge of the Hebrew tongue came to be lost. The Targumim are:

TO THE PENTATEUCH

(1) Targum Onkelos or Babylonian Targum (the accepted and official);

(2) Targum yerushalmi or Palestinian Targum ("Pseudo-Jonathan"; aside from this (complete) Targum there are fragments of the Palestinian Targum termed "Fragment Targrim").

TO THE PROPHETS

(1) Targrim Jonathan ben Uzziel (being the official one; originated in Palestine and was then adapted to the vernacular of Babylonia);

(2) A Palestinian Targrim, called Targum yerushalmi (Palestinian in origin; edition Lagarde, "Prophetae Chaldaice").

Other Targumim (not officially recognized): (1) To the Psalms and Job; (2) to Proverbs; (3) to the Five Rolls; (4) to Chronicles--all Palestinian.

See TARGUM .

3. Midrash:

Midhrash: Apparently the practice of commenting upon and explaining the meaning of the Scriptures originated in the synagogues (in the time of Ezra), from the necessity of an exposition of the Law to a congregation many of whom did not or might not understand the language in which it was read. Such commentaries, however, were oral and extempore; they were not until much later crystallized into a definite form. When they assumed a definite and, still later, written shape, the name Midhrash (meaning "investigation," "interpretation," from darash, "to investigate" a scriptural passage) was given. The word occurs in 2 Ch 13:22 where the Revised Version (British and American) translates "commentary." From this fact some have drawn the inference that such Midhrashim were recognized and extant before the time of the Chronicler. They are: Midhrash Rabba' on the Pentateuch and the Five Rolls (the one on Gen occupies a first position among the various exegetical Midhrashim, both on account of its age and importance). Next comes the one on Lamentations. (Zunz pointed out that the Midhrash Rabba' consists of ten entirely different Midhrashim.) On the same ten books there is a similar collection, called ha-Midhrash ha-gadhol (the "Great Midrash"), being a collection of quotations from a good many works including the Midhrash Rabba'. Other Midhrashim are: The Midhrash Tanchuma' on the Pentateuch; the Mekhilta' on Exodus (this has been (Leipzig, 1909) translated into German by Winter and Wuensche; the latter also published, under the main title Bibliotheca Rabbinica, a collection of the old Midhrashim in a German translation with introductions and notes). Further, Ciphra' on Leviticus; Ciphre on Numbers and Dr; peciqta', which comments on sections taken from the entire range of Scriptures for various festivals. There are also extant separate Midhrashim on the Psalms, Proverbs, etc.

In this connection we have yet to mention the YalquT Shim`oni, a haggadic compilation attributed to the 11th or, according to Zunz, the 13th century. The YalquT extends over the whole of the Old Testament and is arranged according to the sequence of those portions of the Bible to which reference is made. Further, the YalquT ha-Maqiri, a work similar in contents to the YalquT Shim`oni, edition Greenup.

See COMMENTARIES ;MIDRASH .

4 Talmud:

Talmud (Talmudh): This term is used here to designate the entire body of literature exclusive of the Midhrash. Ample exegetical material abounds in the Talmud as it does in the Midhrashim. The critical notes on the Bible by some Talmudists are very characteristic of their intellectual temper. Some of them were extremely radical, and expressed freely their opinions on important problems of Bible criticism, such as on the integrity of the text, on doubtful authorship, etc. An Amora' of the 3rd century AD held the opinion that the story of Job is purely fictitious, both as to the name of the hero and as to his fate. The Talmudists also generalized, and set up critical canons. The "Baraitha', of the Thirty-two Rules" is the oldest work on Biblical hermeneutics (Philo's hermeneutical rules being rather fantastic), and contains exegetical notices valid to this very day. Hermeneutics, of course, is not exegesis proper, but theory of exegesis; one results from the other, however. This Baraitha' calls attention, for instance, to the fact that words occur in the Old Testament in an abbreviated form--a thing now generally accepted.

See TALMUD .

5. Karaites:

Karaites: "Followers of the Bible." They are sometimes referred to as the "Protestants of the Jews," professing to follow the Old Testament to the exclusion of the rabbinical tradition. The founder of this Jewish sect was a Bah Jew in the 8th century, Anan ben David, by name; hence, they were first called Ananites. The principal Karaite commentators of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries are: Benjamin Al-Nahawendi (he was the first to use the term "Karaites," "Ba`ale Miqra'"), Solomon ben Jeroham, Sahl ibn Mazliah, Yusuf al-Basir, Yafith ibn Ali (considered the greatest of this period), and Abu al-Faraij Harum. Of a later date we will mention Aaron ben Joseph and Aaron ben Elijah (14th century).

The struggle between the Rabbinites and the Karaites undoubtedly gave the impetus to the great exegetical activity among the Jews in Arabic speaking countries during the 10th and 11th centuries. The extant fragments of Saadia's commentary on the Pentateuch (not less than his polemical writings proper) are full of polemics against the Karaite interpretation. And the same circumstance aroused Karaites to like efforts.

6. Middle Ages:

Middle Ages: In the old Midhrashim as well as elsewhere the consciousness of a simple meaning of a text was never entirely lost. The principal tendencies in exegesis were four; these were afterward designated by the acrostic "PARDEC": i.e. PeshaT (or the simple philological explanation of words); Remez (or the allegorical); Derash (or the ethicohomiletical); and Codh (or the mystical). Naturally enough this division could never be strictly carried out; hence, variations and combinations are to be found.

(1) Saadia ben Joseph:

Saadia ben Joseph (892-942), the severest antagonist of the Karaites, translated the Old Testament into Arabic with notes. The parts published are: Pentateuch, Isa, Prov and Job.

Moses ha-Darshan (the Preacher) of Narbonne, France, and Tobiah ben Eliezer in Castoria, Bulgaria (11th century), are the most prominent representatives of midrashic-symbolic Bible exegesis. The former's work is known only by quotations, and contained Christian theological conceptions; the latter is the author of "Leqach Tobh" or "Peciqta' ZuTarta'" on the Pentateuch and the five Meghilloth.

(2) Rashi:

Rashi (Solomon ben Isaac, of Troyes; born 1040, died 1105) wrote a very popular commentary, which extends over the whole of the Old Testament, with the exception of Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and the last part of Job. He strives for the PeshaT, i.e. for a sober, natural and rational interpretation of the Bible. His is still a commentary both for the boy and the man among the Jews. Christian exegetes of the Middle Ages as well as of more modern times made Use of his Bible commentary. Nicolas de Lyra (see COMMENTARIES ) followed Rashi closely; and it is a known fact that Luther's translation of the Bible is dependent upon Nicolas de Lyra. Rashi's commentary has called forth numerous supercommentaries.

(3) Joseph Kara:

An independent and important exegete was Joseph Kara' (about 1100). He edited and partly completed Rashi's commentary, particularly the part on the Pentateuch

(4) Abraham ibn Ezra:

Abraham ibn Ezra's (1092-1168) commentary on the Pentateuch, like Rashi's commentaries, has produced many supercommentaries. His is very scholarly. He was the first to maintain that Isa contains the work of two authors; and his doubts respecting the authenticity of the Pentateuch were noticed by Spinoza.

(5) Qimchis:

The grammarians and the lexicographers were not merely exegetical expounders of words, but many of them were likewise authors of actual commentaries. Such were the Qimchis, Joseph (father), Moses and David (his sons); especially the latter. The Qimchis were the most brilliant contributors to Bible exegesis and Hebrew philology (like Ibn Ezra) in medieval times.

(6) Maimonides:

Maimonides (1135-1204): Philo employed his allegorical method for the purpose of bringing about a reconciliation of Plato with the Old Testament. Maimonides had something similar in view. To him Aristotle was the representative of natural knowledge and the Bible of supernatural--and he sought for a reconciliation between the two in his religious philosophy. Exegesis proper was the one field, however, to which this great genius made no contribution of first-class importance.

(7) Maimunist:

The Maimunist, those exegetes of a philosophical turn, are: Joseph ibn Aknin, Samuel ibn Tibbon, his son Moses, and his son-in-law, Jacob ben Abba Mari Anatolio, whose Malmadh ha-Talmidhim is the most important work of philosophical exegesis of the period.

Joseph ibn Kacpi, chiefly known as a philosopher of the Maimunist type, deserves attention. Ibn Kacpi is an exegete of the first quality. His exposition of Isa 53 might be the work of the most modern scholar. He refers the prophecy to Israel, not to an individual, and in this his theory is far superior to that of some other famous Jewish expositors who interpret the chapter as referring to Hezekiah.

Through the philosophical homily, which began to be used after the death of Maimonides, Aristotle was popularized from the pulpit. The pulpit changed to a chair of philosophy. Aristotle's concepts--as Matter and Form, the Four Causes, Possibility and Reality--were then something ordinary in the sermon, and were very popular.

(8) Kabbalists:

The principal commentators with a Kabbalistic tendency are: Nachmanides (1194-1270?) whose great work is his commentary on the Pentateuch; Immanuel of Rome (1270?-1330?) who does, however, not disregard the literal meaning of the Scriptures; Bahya ben Asher (died 1340) who formulated the four methods of exegesis of "PaRDeC." referred to above; he took Nachmanides as his model; many supercommentaries were written on his commentary on the Pentateuch; and Gersonides (1288-1334), a maternal grandson of Nachmanides, who sees symbols in many Biblical passages; on account of some of his heretical ideas expressed in his philosophy, some rabbis forbade the study of his commentaries.

(9) The "Zohar":

We must not fail to make mention of the Zohar (the "Bible of the Kabbalists"), the book of all others in the Middle Ages that dominated the thinking and feeling of the Jews for almost 500 years, and which was in favor with many Christian scholars. This work is pseudepigraphic, written partly in Aramaic and partly in Hebrew. It first appeared in Spain in the 131h century, and was made known through Moses de Leon, to whom many historians attribute it.

(10) Isaac Arama:

Mention must also be made of Isaac Arama (1430-94), whose 'Aqedhah, his commentary on the Pentateuch (homiletical in style), was the standard book for the Jewish pulpit for centuries, much esteemed by the Christian world, and is still much read by the Jews, especially in Russia and Poland.

7. Modern Times:

Abarbanel:

Isaac Abravanel (or Abarbanel; 1437-1508): A statesman and scholar who came nearest to the modern idea of a Bible commentator by considering not only the literary elements of the Bible but the political and social life of the people as well. He wrote a general introduction to each book of the Bible, setting forth its character; and he was the first to make use of Christian commentaries which he quotes without the least prejudice. Moses Alshech (second half of 16th century) wrote commentaries, all of which are of a homiletical character. In the main the Jewish exegesis of the 16th and 17th centuries branched out into homileties.

We will pass over the critical annotations connected with the various editions of the Hebrew Bible, based upon the comparison of manuscripts, on grammatical and Massoretic studies, ete, such as those of Elijah Levita, Jacob ben Hayyim of Tunis (afterward a convert to Christianity), etc.

8. The "Bi'urists":

(1) Mendelssohn:

The "Bi'urists" ("Commentators"): A school of exegetes which had its origin with Mendelssohn's (1729-86) literal German translation of the Bible, at a time when Christian Biblical studies of a modern nature had made some progress, and under whose influence the Bi'urists wrote. They are: Dubno, Wessely, Jaroslav, tt. Homberg, J. Euchel, etc. They laid a foundation for a critieo-historical study of the Bible among modern Jews. It bore its fruit in the 19th century in the writings of Philippson, Munk, Fuerst, etc.

(2) Zunz, etc.:

The same century produced Zunz's (1794-1886) Gottesdienstlichen Vortraege der Juden, the book of "Jewish science."

(3) Malbim, Ehrlich, etc.:

It also produced three Jewish exegetes, Luzzatto in Italy, Malbim and Ehrlich in Russia (the latter since 1878 residing in New York); he published, in Hebrew a commentary on the Old Testament, entitled Miqra' ki-PeshuTah (Berlin, 1899-1901, 3 volumes), and, in German, Randglossen z. hebr. Bibel, two scholarly works written from the conservative standpoint (Leipzig, 1908-). Malbim was highly esteemed by the Christian commentators Franz Delitzsch and Muehlau, who studied under him.

(4) Halevy, Hoffmann, Mueller:

Others are Joseph Halevy, a French Jew, a most original Bible investigator, and D. Hoffmann (the last two named are adversaries of "higher criticism") and D. H. Mueller. M. Heilprin wrote a collection of Bibelkritische Notizen (Baltimore, 1893), containing comparisons of various passages of the Bible, and The Historical Poetry of the Ancient Hebrews (N.Y., 1879-80, 2 volumes), and the American rabbi B, Szold, a Commentary on Job (Baltimore, 1886), written in classic Hebrew, and with accurate scholarship and in which full account is taken of the work of the Massorites. A new Hebrew commentary on the whole of the Old Testament has been since 1903 in progress under the editorship of A. Kahana. This is the first attempt since Mendelssohn's Bi'ur to approach the Bible from the Jewish side with the latest philological and archaeological equipment. Among the authors are Kahana on Genesis and Jonah, Krauss on Isaiah, Chajes on Psalms and Amos, Wynkoop on Hosea and Joel, and Lambert on Daniel. This attempt well deserves attention and commendation.

There is still to be mentioned the work of M. M. Kalisch (1828-85), whose special object was to write a full and critical commentary on the Old Testament. Of his Historical and Critical Commentary on the Old Testament, with a New Tr, only the following parts were published: Exodus, 1855; Genesis, 1858; Leviticus (pts 1-2), 1867-72. They contain a resume of all that Jewish and Christian learning had accumulated on the subject up to the dates of their publication. In his Lev he anticipated Wellhausen to a large extent.

(5) Geiger, Graetz, Kohler:

We conclude with some names of the liberals: Geiger (whose Urschrift is extremely radical), Graetz, the great Jewish historian, and Kohler (president of the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, O.) whose Der Segen Jacobs is one of the earliest essays of "higher criticism" written by a Jew.

LITERATURE.

Steinschneider, Jewish Literature, London. 1857; Zunz. Gottesdienstlichen Vortraege der Juden, 2nd edition, Frankfurt a. M., 1892; Jew Encyclopedia (articles by Bacher and Ginzberg); Catholic Encyclopedia (article "Commentaries"); Rosenau, Jewish Biblical Commentators, Baltimore, 1906 (popular); Winter-Wuensche, Geschichte der Juedischen Literatur, Leipzig. 1892-95, 3 volumes (the best existing anthology of Jewish literature in a modern language; it contains very valuable introductions); Wogue, Histoire de la Bible et l'exegese biblique jusqu' a nos jours. Paris, 1881.

Adolph S. Oko


COMMENTARY

kom'-en-ta-ri (midhrash, "an investigation," from darash, "to search," "inquire," "explore"; the King James Version "story"): "The commentary of the prophet Iddo" (2 Ch 13:22), "the commentary of the book of the kings" (2 Ch 24:27). In these passages the word is not used exactly in its modern sense. The Hebrew term means "an imaginative development of a thought or theme suggested by Scripture, especially a didactic or homiletic exposition, or an edifying religious story" (Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, 5, 497). In the commentaries (Midhrashim) mentioned by the Chronicler as among his sources, the story of Abijah's reign was presumably related and elaborated with a view to moral instruction rather than historic accuracy.

See CHRONICLES ,BOOKS OF ;COMMENTARIES ,HEBREW .

M. O. Evans


COMMERCE

kom'-ers (emporia):

I. Old Testament Times.

1. Early Overland Commerce:

There were forces in early Hebrew life not favorable to the development of commerce. Intercourse with foreigners was not encouraged by Israel's social and religious customs. From the days of the appearance of the Hebrews in Canaan, however, some commercial contact with the peoples around was inevitable. There were ancient trade routes between the East and the West, as well as between Egypt and the Mesopotamian valley. Palestine lay as a bridge between these objective points. There were doubtless traveling merchants from very remote times, interchanging commodities of other lands for those of Palestine Some of the Hebrew words for "trading" and "merchant" indicate this (compare cachar, "to travel," rakhal, "to go about"). In the nomadic period, the people were necessarily dependent upon overland commerce for at least a part of their food supply, such as grain, and doubtless for articles of clothing, too. Frequent local famines would stimulate such trade. Companies or caravans carrying on this overland commerce are seen in Gen 37:25,28, "Ishmaelites" and "Midianites, merchantmen," on their way to Egypt, with spices, balm and myrrh. Jacob caused his sons to take certain products to Egypt as a present with money to Joseph in return for grain: balsam, spices, honey, myrrh, nuts, almonds (Gen 43:11 f). The presence of a "Bab mantle" among the spoils of Ai (Josh 7:21) indicates commerce between Canaan and the East.

2. Sea Traffic:

While there are slight indications of a possible sea trade as early as the days of the Judges (Jdg 5:17; compare Gen 49:13), we must wait till the days of the monarchy of David and especially Solomon for the commerce of ships. Land traffic was of course continued and expanded (1 Ki 10:15,28,29; 2 Ch 1:16). Sea trade at this time made large strides forward. The Philistines were earlier in possession of the coast. Friendship with Hiram king of Tyre gave Solomon additional advantages seaward (1 Ki 5; 9:26; 10:19-29; 2 Ch 8:17; 9:14), since the Phonicians were pre-eminently the Miditerranean traders among all the people of Palestine Later, commerce declined, but Jehoshaphat attempted to revive it (1 Ki 22:48; 2 Ch 20:36), but without success. Tyre and Sidon as great commercial centers, however, long impressed the life of Israel (Isa 23; Ezek 26 through 27). Later, in the Maccabean period, Simon acquired Joppa as a Jewish port (1 Macc 14:5), and so extended Mediterranean commerce.

3. Land Traffic in the Time of the Kings:

During the peaceful reign of Solomon, there came, with internal improvements and foreign friendships, a stimulus to traffic with Egypt and the Far East over the ancient trade routes as well as with Phoenicia on the northwest. He greatly added to his wealth through tariffs levied upon merchantmen (1 Ki 10:15). Trade with Syria in the days of Omri and Ahab is indicated by the permission Benhadad gave to Israelites to open streets, or trading quarters, in Damascus, as Syrians had in Samaria (1 Ki 20:34). The prophets disclose repeatedly the results of foreign commerce upon the people in the days of Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, and of Jeroboam II, under whom great material prosperity was attained, followed by simple luxury (Isa 2:6,7,16; Hos 12:1,7,8; Am 6:3-6). The people in their greed of gain could not observe Sabbaths and feast days (Am 8:5); compare Sabbath trading and its punishment in the days of the restoration (Neh 13:15-22). "Canaanite" became the nickname for traffickers (Zec 14:21; compare Isa 23:8).

II. New Testament Times.

After the conquests of Alexander 333 BC, trade between East and West was greatly stimulated. Colonies of Jews for trade purposes had been established in Egypt and elsewhere. The dispersion of the Jews throughout the Greek and Roman world added to their interest in commerce. The Mediterranean Sea, as a great Roman lake, under Roman protection, became alive with commercial fleets. The Sea of Galilee with its enormous fish industry became the center of a large trading interest to all parts. The toll collected in Galilee must have been considerable. Matthew was called from his collectorship to discipleship (Mt 9:9); Zaccheus and other publicans became rich collecting taxes from large commercial interests like that of balsam. Jesus frequently used the commerce of the day as illustration (Mt 13:45; 25:14-30). Along the Palestinian coast there were several ports where ships touched: Lydda, Joppa, Caesarea; and further north Ptolemais, Tyre, Sidon and Antioch (port Seleucia).

The apostle Paul made use of ships touching at points on the coast of Asia Minor, and the islands along the coast, and also doing coast trade with Greece, Italy and Spain, to carry on his missionary emterprises (Acts 13:4-13; 16:11 f; 18:18; 20:13-16; 21:1-8; 27:1-44; 28:1-14). The rapidity with which the gospel spread throughout the Roman world in the 1st century was due no little to the use of the great Roman highways, built partly as trade routes; as well as to the constant going to and fro of tradesmen of all sorts; some of whom like Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2,18,26), Lydia, (16:14,40) and Paul himself (who was a traveling tent-maker) were active in disseminating the new faith among the Gentiles. In Jas 4:13 we have a good representation of the life of a large number of Jews of this period, who would "go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain" (the King James Version).

See also TRADE .

Edward Bagby Pollard


COMMIT

ko-mit': Used in two senses:

(1) "To give in charge" or "entrust": sim, "to put" (Job 5:8); galal, "to roll" (Ps 37:5; Prov 16:3); paqadh, "to give, in charge" (Ps 31:5 the King James Version; compare Lk 23:46); tithemi, "committed to us (the Revised Version, margin "placed in us") the word of reconciliation" (2 Cor 5:19); paratheke, "that which I have committed unto him" (2 Tim 1:12; the Revised Version, margin "that which he hath committed unto me," Greek "my deposit"); "that which is committed unto thee" (1 Tim 6:20, Greek "the deposit"); "that good thing," etc. (2 Tim 1:14, Greek "the good deposit").

(2) "To do or practice (evil)": prasso "commit such things" (Rom 1:32, the Revised Version (British and American) "practice"; compare Rom 2:2). In 1 Jn 3:4,8 "doeth sin" (poieo, the King James Version "committeth sin") shows that it is not committing a single sin that is in view, but sinful practice.

W. L. Walker


COMMODIOUS

ko-mo'-di-us (aneuthetos, "not well placed"): The word occurs only in Acts 27:12. "As regards wintering, the place was certainly `not commodious,' but as regards shelter from some winds (including Northwest), it was a good anchorage" (Code of Hammurabi, XXIII, 639).


COMMON

kom'-un: koinos, in the classics, and primarily in the New Testament, means what is public, general, universal, as contrasted with idios, what is peculiar, individual, not shared with others. Thus, "common faith" (Tit 1:4), "common salvation" (Jude 1:3), refer to that in which the experience of all Christians unites and is identical: "common," because there is but one faith and one salvation (Eph 4:4-6). From this comes the derived meaning of what is ordinary and, therefore, to be disesteemed, as contrasted with what pertains to a class, and to be prized, because rare. This naturally coincides with Old Testament exclusivism, particularity and separation. Its religion was that of a separated people, with a separated class as its ministers, and with minute directions as to distinctions of meat, drink, times, places, rites, vessels, etc. Whatever was common or ordinary, it avoided. The New Testament, on the other hand, with its universalism of scope, and its spirituality of sphere, rose above all such externals. The salvation which it brought was directed to the redemption of Nature, as well as of man, sanctifying the creature, and pervading all parts of man's being and all relations of life. The antithesis is forcibly illustrated in Acts 10:14 f, where Peter says: "I have never eaten anything that is common and unclean," and the reply is: "What God hath cleansed, make not thou common."

H. E. Jacobs


COMMONWEALTH

kom'-un-welth (politeia): Spoken of theocracy (Eph 2:12). The same word is rendered "freedom," the King James Version; "citizenship" the Revised Version (British and American). Also in the sense of commonwealth in the Apocrypha (2 Macc 4:11; 8:17; 13:14); in the sense of citizenship (3 Macc 3:21,23).

See CITIZENSHIP .


COMMUNE; COMMUNICATE; COMMUNICATION

ko-mun', komun'-i-kat, ko-mu-ni-ka'-shun: To commune is to converse confidentially and sympathetically. It is represented in both Hebrew and Greek by several words literally signifying to speak (compare Lk 6:11, dialaleo; also Lk 22:4; Acts 24:26, homileo). To communicate is to impart something to another, so that it becomes common to giver and receiver. In 1 Tim 6:18, "willing to communicate" (the Revised Version, margin "sympathize"), represents a single word koinonikoi, and refers to the habit of sharing with others either sympathy or property. the Revised Version (British and American) gives "companionships" for homiliai in 1 Cor 15:33 (the King James Version "communications").

See also COMMUNION .


COMMUNION WITH DEMONS; DEVILS

de'-monz, (dev'-'-lz):

I. Use of Term:

The actual expression "communion with demons" (koinonoi ton daimonion) occurs but once in Scripture (1 Cor 10:20) where its figurative meaning is evident, but it is implied in the English version of a number of passages by the terms "one who has" or "those who have" "familiar spirits" (Lev 19:31; 20:6,27; Dt 18:11; 1 Sam 28:3,7,8,9; 2 Ki 21:6; 23:24; 1 Ch 10:13; 2 Ch 33:6; Isa 8:19; 19:3; 29:4). These passages seem to be somewhat incongruous with Paul's statement, but are in reality so intimately related to it as to give and receive light through the connection.

II. Teaching of Scripture.

To begin with, we may safely say, in general, that there is no ground for asserting that the Bible admits the possibility of conscious and voluntary communion with spirits. This is an essential element of popular demonology in all ages, but it is absent from Scripture. Even in the passages mentioned above which refer to necromancers and wizards, while, as we shall see, the words indicate that such practitioners professed to rely upon spirits in their divinations, the Scriptures carefully refrain from sanctioning these claims, and a number of features in the various passages serve to indicate that the true scriptural view is quite the opposite. As this is not a prevalent opinion, we should do well to examine the passages with some little care.

1. The New Testament:

(1) We may first deal with the New Testament. In the Gospels the demoniacs are consistently looked upon and treated as unconscious and helpless victims (see DEMON ,DEMONOLOGY ). The frequent use of this term "demonized" (daimonizomenoi) together with all that is told us of the methods of treating these eases adopted by our Lord and His apostles (see EXORCISM ) indicates the belief of the New Testament writers that the control of demons over men is obtained outside of or below the region of conscious volition and that the condition of the sufferers is pathological.

(2) The same must be said of the Lydian maiden whose cure by Paul is recorded in Acts 16:16. This is the one instance in the New Testament where divination is connected with spirits. The account emphasizes the excitable neurosis of the patient; and the belief on the part of the apostles and of the writer of Acts that the girl was not the conscious accomplice of her masters, but their unfortunate victim through her mysterious malady, is clear. She was treated, as the other eases recorded in the New Testament, not as a conscious wrongdoer, but as a sick person to be healed.

2. The Old Testament:

(1) Turning now to the Old Testament, the instance which requires the most careful treatment, because it holds the key to all the rest, is the narrative of Saul's visit to the Witch of Endor in 1 Sam 28:3-25. The Hebrew word 'obh which is usually translated "one who has a familiar spirit" (see list of passages at beginning of article) occurs in this narrative four times (verses 3, 7 twice, 8). According to the ordinary interpretation it is used in three different senses, two of which occur here. These three senses are (a) a person who controls a spirit, (b) the spirit controlled, (c) the power to control such a spirit. This meaning appears to be altogether too broad. Omitting to translate the word we have: (verse 3) "Saul had put away 'obhoth, and yidh`onim"; (verse 7), a woman, a mistress of an 'obh; (verse 8) "Divine unto me .... by the 'obh." It is extremely unlikely that the same word should be used in two senses so far apart as "person who has a spirit" and the "spirit itself" in the same context. In the last passage mentioned (verse 8) there is a double indication that the word 'obh cannot have either signification mentioned. Saul says: "Divine unto me by the 'obh and bring me up whomsoever I shall name unto thee." The expression "divine by" clearly points to some magical object used in divination. Control of a spirit through some magical object is familiar enough. The rest of Saul's statement confirms this view. The result of the divination is the calling up of a spirit. A spirit would hardly be used to call up another spirit. This conclusion is confirmed by the etymology. The word 'obh is supposed to mean "one who has a familiar spirit," from its root-significance of hollow and its primary meaning of wineskin. According to this derivation the word is applied to a necromancer on the supposition that the spirit inhabits his body and speaks from within. The transference to spirit is extremely unlikely and the explanation is not consistent with primitive ideas on spirit manifestation (see Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 'owb end).

(2) We, therefore, hold with H. P. Smith (International Critical Commentary, "Samuel" in the place cited.), though partly on different grounds, that the word 'obh has the same meaning in all the passages where it occurs, and that it refers to a sacred object or fetish by which spiritistic divination was carried on.

The significance of this conclusion is that the misleading expression "familiar spirit" disappears from the text, for Dr. Driver's interpretation of the companion word yidh`onim (see International Critical Commentary, Commentary on Deuteronomy in the place cited.) will scarcely be maintained in the face of this new meaning for 'obh. The prohibition contained in the law (Lev 20:27) against 'ohboth, and those using them, places them in the same catalogue of offense and futility with idol-worship in general.

(3) This opinion is confirmed by two separate items of evidence. (a) In the Witch of Endor story Samuel's appearance, according to the idea of the narrator, was due to a miracle, not to the magic power of the feeble and cheating old woman to whom Saul had resorted. God speaks through the apparition a stern message of doom. No one was more startled than the woman herself, who for once had a real vision (1 Sam 28:12). She not only gave a loud cry of astonishment and alarm but she described the figure which she saw as "a god coming up out of the each." The story is told with fidelity and clearly indicates the opinion that the actual appearance of a spirit is so violently exceptional as to indicate the immediate power and presence of God.

(b) In Isa 8:19 the 'obhoth and yidh`onim are spoken of as those who "chirp and mutter." These terms refer to the necromancers themselves Septuagint translates 'obhoth by eggastromuthoi = ventriloquists) who practiced ventriloquism in connection with their magical rites. In Isa 29:4 it is said "Thy voice shall be as an 'obh, out of the ground." Here 'obh is usually interpreted as "ghost," but it is far more probable (see Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament sub loc.) that it refers as in 8:19 to the ventriloqustic tricks of those who utter their oracles in voices intended to represent the spirits which they have evoked. They are stamped in these passages, as in the Witch of Endor narrative, as deceivers practicing a fraudulent article. By implication their power to evoke spirits with whom they were in familiar intercourse is denied.

3. The Meaning of Idol-Worship:

This leaves the way clear for a brief consideration of the words of Paul in 1 Cor 10:20 in connection with cognate passages in the Old Testament.

(1) He argues that since idol-worship is really demon-worship, the partaking of heathen sacrifice is a communion with demons and a separation from Christ. It is usually taken for granted that this characterization of heathen worship was simply a part of the Jewish-Christian polemic against idolatry. Our fuller knowledge of the spiritism which conditions the use of images enables us to recognize the fact that from the viewpoint of heathenism itself Paul's idea was strictly correct. The image is venerated because it is supposed to represent or contain an invisible being or spirit, not necessarily a deity in the absolute sense, but a super-human living being capable of working good or ill to men.

(2) In the King James Version the term devils is used in four Old Testament passages (Lev 17:7; Dt 32:17; 2 Ch 11:15; Ps 106:37). In the Revised Version (British and American) "devils" has disappeared from the text--the word he-goats appears in Lev 17:7 and 2 Ch 11:15, while "demons" appears in Dt 32:17 and Ps 106:37. The translation of se`irim as "he-goats" is literally correct, but conveys an erroneous conception of the meaning. The practice reprobated is the worship of Satyrs (see SATYR ) or wood-demons supposed to be like goats in appearance and to inhabit lonely places. The same word is used in Isa 13:21; 34:14. The word translated "demons" in the Revised Version (British and American) is shedhim, a term used only twice and both times in connection with the rites and abominations of heathen worship. It is interesting to note that the word shidu is applied to the beings represented by the bull-colossi of Assyria (Driver, Dt in the place cited.). Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament holds that the word shedhim is an Assyrian loan-word, while Briggs (ICC, Ps 106:37) holds that shedhim were ancient gods of Canaan. In either case the word belongs to heathenism and is used in Scripture to describe heathen worship in its own terminology. The interpretation of these beings as evil is characteristic of Biblical demonism in general (see DEMON , etc.). The worship of idols was the worship of personal beings more than man and less than God, according to Jewish and Christian ideas (see Driver op. cit., 363). Septuagint translates both the above words by daimonia.

4. Conclusion:

The term "communion with demons" does not imply any power on the part of men to enter into voluntary relationship with beings of another world, but that, by sinful compliance in wrongdoing, such as idol-worship and magical rites, men may enter into a moral identification with evil powers against which it is their duty to fight.

LITERATURE.

The Dictionaries and Commentaries dealing with the passages quoted above contain discussions of the various aspects of the subject. Jewish superstitions are ably treated by Edersheim, Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (8th edition), II, 771, 773.

Louis Matthews Sweet


COMMUNION; (FELLOWSHIP)

ko-mun'-yun: The terms "communion" and "fellowship" of the English Bible are varying translations of the words koinonia, and koinoneo, or their cognates. They designate acts of fellowship observed among the early Christians or express the unique sense of unity and fellowship of which these acts were the outward expression. The several passages in which these terms are used fall into two groups: those in which they refer to acts of fellowship, and those in which they refer to fellowship as experienced.

I. Acts of Fellowship.

The acts of fellowship mentioned in the New Testament are of four kinds.

1. The Lord's Supper:

Our information concerning the nature of the fellowship involved in the observance of this sacrament is confined to the single notice in 1 Cor 10:16,17, "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?" Owing to the presence of the material elements in the sacrament there is a temptation to limit the word for communion to the sense of partaking. This, however, does not entirely satisfy the requirements of the context. The full significance of the term is to be sought in the light of the argument of the whole section (verses 14-22).

Paul is making a protest against Christians participating in idolatrous feasts on the ground that such feasts are really celebrated in honor of the demons associated with the idols, and that those who participate in them come into fellowship with demons. As a proof of this point the apostle cites the Lord's Supper with which his readers are familiar. By partaking of the cup and the bread the communicants are linked together in unity: "We, who are many, are one bread, one body: for we all partake of the one bread." Thus the communion of the elements is a real communion of the worshippers one with another and with Christ. Unless the communion be understood in this spiritual sense Paul's illustration falls short of the mark.

See EUCHARIST .

2. Communism:

The term for fellowship as used in Acts 2:42 is by some interpreted in this sense: "They continued stedfastly in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the prayers." The fact that the four terms are used in pairs and that three of them refer to specific acts observed by the company of believers suggests that the term for fellowship also refers to some definite act similar to the others. It is very plausible to refer this to the community of goods described in the verses immediately following (see COMMUNITY OF GOODS ). The author might, however, with equal propriety have regarded the interchange of spiritual experiences as an act of worship in the same class with "the breaking of bread and the prayers."

3. Contributions:

Christian fellowship found a natural mode of expression in almsgiving. This is enjoined as a duty in Rom 12:13; 1 Tim 6:18; Heb 13:16. An example of such giving is the great collection raised among the Gentileconverts for the poor saints of Jerusalem (Rom 15:26; 2 Cor 8:4; 9:13). To this collection Paul attached so much importance as a witness to the spirit of fellowship which the gospel inspires in all hearts alike, whether Jew or Gentile, that he desired even at the peril of his life to deliver it with his own hand.

See COLLECTION .

4. Cooperation:

A form of fellowship closely related to almsgiving was that of formal aid or cooperation in Christian work, such as the aid given to Paul by the Philippians (Phil 1:5). A unique form of this cooperation is the formal endorsement by giving the fight hand of fellowship as described in Gal 2:9.

II. Fellowship as Experienced.

From the very beginning the early Christians experienced a peculiar sense of unity. Christ is at once the center of this unity and the origin of every expression of fellowship. Sometimes the fellowship is essentially an experience and as such it is scarcely susceptible of definition. It may rather be regarded as a mystical union in Christ. In other instances the fellowship approaches or includes the idea of intercourse. In some passages it is represented as a participation or partnership. The terms occur most frequently in the writings of Paul with whom the idea of Christian unity was a controlling principle.

In its various relations, fellowship is represented: (1) As a communion between the Son and the Father. The gospel record represents Jesus as enjoying a unique sense of communion and intimacy with the Father. Among many such expressions those of Mt 11:25-27 (compare Lk 10:21,22) and Jn 14 through 15 are especially important. (2) As our communion with God, either with the Father or the Son or with the Father through the Son or the Holy Spirit. "Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ" (1 Jn 1:3; compare also Jn 14:6,23,16). (3) As our communion one with another. "If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another" (1 Jn 1:7). Sometimes the idea of communion occurs in relation with abstract ideas or experiences: "Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness" (Eph 5:11); "the fellowship of his sufferings" (Phil 3:10); "the fellowship of thy faith" (Philem 1:6). In three passages the relation of the fellowship is not entirely clear: the "fellowship of the Spirit" (Phil 2:1); "the communion of the Holy Spirit" (2 Cor 13:14); and "the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 1:9). The fellowship is probably to be understood as that prevailing among Christians by virtue of the grace of Christ and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

It is not to be inferred that the idea of fellowship is limited to the passages in which the specific words for communion are used. Some of the clearest and richest expressions of unity and fellowship are found in the Gospels, though, these words do not occur in them. In fact, perhaps, the most familiar and forcible expressions of the idea are those in which they are represented symbolically, as in the parable of the Vine and the Branches (Jn 15:1 ff) or in the figure of the Body and its Members (Mt 5:29 ff; Rom 12:5; 1 Cor 12).

Russell Benjamin Miller


COMMUNITY OF GOODS

ko-mu'-ni-ti, (hapanta koina eichon, literally, "They had all things (in) common"): In Acts 2:44, it is said that, in the infant church at Jerusalem, "all that believed were together, and had all things common," and (4:34 f) "as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet." The inference from this, that there was an absolute disposal of all the property of all the members of the church, and that its proceeds were contributed to a common fund, has been disputed upon the ground that the example of Barnabas in selling "a field" for this purpose (4:37) would not have been mentioned, if this had been the universal rule. The thought conveyed is that all believers in that church held their property as a trust from the Lord, for the benefit of the entire brotherhood, and, as there was need, did as Barnabas.

No commandment, of which record has been preserved, prescribed any such course. It came from the spontaneous impulse of the sense of brotherhood in Christ, when the band of disciples was still small, making them in a sense one family, and under the external constraint of extreme want and persecution. So much there was, that they realized, under such conditions they had in common, that they were ready to extend this to all things. It was, in a sense, a continuance of the practice of a common purse in the band of immediate followers of our Lord during his ministry. The penalty inflicted on Ananias and Sapphira was not for any failure to comply fully with this custom, but because this freedom which they possessed (Acts 5:4) they falsely professed to have renounced, thus receiving in the estimation of their brethren a credit that was not their due. This custom did not last long. It was possible only within a limited circle, and under very peculiar circumstances. The New Testament recognizes the right of individual property and makes no effort to remove the differences that exist among believers themselves. The community of goods which it renders possible is spiritual (1 Cor 3:21 f), and not one of visible and external things. With respect to the latter, it enjoins upon the Christian, as a steward of God, the possession and administration of property for the progress of the kingdom of God, and the highest interests of men. The spirit of Acts 4:34 is always to pervade the association of believers as a true Christian community. Meyer, on the above passage, has suggested that it is not unlikely that the well-known poverty of the church at Jerusalem, and its long dependence upon the alms of other churches, may be connected with this early communistic practice, which, however justifiable and commendable at the time, bore its inevitable fruits in a subsequent season of great scarcity and lack of employment.

H. E. Jacobs


COMPACT; COMPACTED

kom-pakt', kom-pakt'-ed (chabhar, "to be joined"; sumbibazo, "to raise up together"): "Compact" appears as translation of chabhar in Ps 122:3, "Jerus .... a city that is compact together" (well built, its breaches restored, walls complete, and separate from all around it); and "compacted" (sumbibazo) occurs in the King James Version Eph 4:16, "fitly joined together and compacted," the Revised Version (British and American) "fitly framed and knit together." In the Revised Version (British and American) "compacted" is also the translation of sunistemi, "to set together" (2 Pet 3:5), "an earth compacted out of water and amidst (margin, through) water," which suggests the idea of water as the primary material (compare Gen 1:2).

W. L. Walker


COMPANY

kum'-pa-ni: The fertility of the original languages in synonyms and varied shades of meaning is seen by the fact that 20 Hebrew and 12 Greek words are represented by this single term. An analysis of these words shows that "company" is both an indefinite and limitless term, signifying few or many, and all kinds of assemblages of people, e.g.:

(1) Caravan, (a) migratory (Isa 21:13 the King James Version); (b) commercial (Gen 37:25 the King James Version); Job 6:19, "The companies of Sheba waited (in vain) for them."

(2) Military, gedhudh, "troop," hamon, 2 Ch 20:12; ro'sh, "head," "detachment"; Jdg 7:16,20: "three companies"; 9:34,37,43: "four companies."

(3) Band (chebher) or "gang," as rendered by Keil and Delitzsch; a gang of murderous priests (Hos 6:9).

(4) Camp or encampment (Gen 32:8,21; 50:9).

(5) Religious body, "company of prophets" (1 Sam 19:20).

(6) Assembly, congregation, "company of nations" (Gen 35:11; Ezek 38:4,7,13,15).

(7) A tumultuous crowd (2 Ki 9:17).

(8) Associate, companion, often with reference to moral affinity (Job 34:8; Prov 29:3; Acts 10:28), kollaomai, "to glue or cement together," indicative of the binding power of moral affinity (the Revised Version (British and American) "to join himself"); as a verb, to "company with" or "keep company" (Acts 1:21; 1 Cor 5:9,11; 2 Thess 3:14). In Apocrypha in the sense of "to cohabit" (Susanna 1:54,57,58).

(9) A host. "Great was the company," etc. (Ps 68:11 the Revised Version (British and American) "The women .... are a great host"). In the East it is the women who celebrate victories with song and dance (see 1 Sam 18:6,7).

(10) A chorus, dance (mecholah). "The company of two armies" (Song 6:13 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "the dance of Mahanaim").

(11) Meal party, klisia, "a reclining company at meals." "Make them sit down (Greek "recline") in companies" (Lk 9:14). Compare "companion," from Latin com, "together," and panis, "bread."

(12) A myriad, a ten-thousand, an indefinite number (murias; Heb 12:22 (the Revised Version (British and American) "hosts")).

(13) Companions on a journey, sunodia, "a journeying together" (Lk 2:44).

(14) Signifying kinship of spirit, idios, "one's own." "They came to their own company" (Acts 4:23).

(15) A mob (Acts 17:5 (the Revised Version (British and American) "a crowd")).

Dwight M. Pratt


COMPARATIVE RELIGION

kom-par'-a-tiv:

I. THE SUBJECT IN GENERAL

1. Universality of Religion

2. Theories of Its Origin and Growth of Religion

3. Evolution

II. RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO ETHNIC FAITHS AND THEIR TENETS

1. Karma

2. God

3. The Summum Bonum

4. Self-Revelation of God

5. Incarnation

6. Salvation

7. Faith

8. Approach to God

III. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ETHNIC FAITHS

1. Tenets Common to All Religions

2. Tendency to Degradation, not to Progress, in Ethnic Faiths

3. Mythology and Religion

4. Religion And Morality in Ethnic Faiths

IV. SUPPOSED RESEMBLANCES TO REVEALED RELIGION

1. Rites

2. Dogmas

3. Asserted Parallels to Gospel History

4. Virgin Birth

5. Heathen Aspirations and Unconscious Prophecies

6. Lessons Taught by Comparative Religion

LITERATURE

I. The Subject in General.

The science of comparative religion is perhaps the latest born of all sciences. Largely in consequence of this fact, our knowledge of what it really proves is still far from definite, and men draw most contradictory conclusions on this point. As in the case of all new sciences in the past, not a few people have endeavored under its shelter to attack Christianity and all revealed religion. These assaults already give signs of failure--as in similar cases previously--and a new evidence of Christianity is emerging from the conflict. It is only "a little learning" that is proverbially dangerous. The subject with which the science of comparative religion deals is religion in general and all the facts which can be learnt about all religions ancient and modern, whether professed by savages or prevalent among highly civilized communities, whether to be studied in sacred books or learnt orally from the people.

1. Universality of Religion:

In this way we learn first of all that religion is a universal phenomenon, found among all nations, in all conditions, though differing immensely in its teachings, ceremonies and effects in different places. It is perhaps the most powerful for good or evil of all the instincts (for it is an instinct) which influence mankind.

2. Theories of Origin and Growth of Religion:

To account for the origin and growth of religion various theories have been propounded: (1) "Humanism," which is the revival of the ancient view of Euhemeros (circa 400 BC) that all religion arose from fear of ghosts, and all the gods were but men who had died; (2) "Animism," which traces religion to early man's fancy that every object in Nature had a personality like his own; (3) the Astral Theory, which supposes that religion originated from worship of the heavenly bodies. It is clear that there are facts to support each of these hypotheses, yet no one of them satisfies all the conditions of the case. To (1) it has been replied that most tribes from the earliest times clearly distinguished between those deities who had been men, and the gods proper, who had never been men and had never died. Regarding (2), it should be observed that it admits that man's consciousness of his own personality and his fancy that it exists in other creatures also does not account for his worshipping them, unless we grant the existence of the sensus numinis within him: if so, then this explains, justifies, and necessitates religion. (3) The Astral Theory is in direct opposition to Euhemerism or Humanism. It ascribes personality to the heavenly bodies in man's early fancy; but it, too, has to presuppose the sensus numinis, without which religion would be impossible, as would be the science of optics if man had not the sense of sight.

3. Evolution:

It is often held that religion is due to evolution. If so, then its evolution, resulting ex hypothesi in Christianity as its acme, must be the working out of a Divine "Eternal Purpose" (prothesis ton aionon, Eph 3:11), just as has been the evolution of an amoeba into a man on the Evolutionary Theory. This would be an additional proof of the truth of Christianity. But, though doubtless there has been evolution--or gradual progress under Divine guidance--in religion, the fact of Christ is sufficient to show that there is a Divine self-revelation too. Hence, the claim of Christianity to be the absolute religion. "The pre-Christian religions were the age-long prayer, the Incarnation was the answer" (Illingworth). Christianity as revealed in Christ adds what none of the ethnic faiths could prove their claim to--authority, holiness, revelation.

II. Relation of Christianity to Ethnic Faiths and Their Tenets.

It is very remarkable that Christianity--though clearly not a philosophy but a religion that has arisen under historical circumstances which preclude the possibility of supposing it the product of Eclecticism--yet sums up in itself all that is good in all religions and philosophies, without the bad, the fearful perversions and corruptions of the moral sense, too often found in them. The more the study of comparative religion is carried on the more plainly evident does this become. It also supplements in a wonderful way the half-truths concealed rather than revealed in other systems, whether religious or philosophical. We subjoin a few instances of this.

1. Karma:

Karma is strongly insisted on in Hinduism and Buddhism. These teach that every deed, good or bad, must have its result, that "its fruit must be eaten" here or hereafter. So does Christianity quite as forcibly (Gal 6:7,8). But neither Indian faith explains how sin can be forgiven, evil be overruled for good, nor how, by trampling under foot their vices, men may rise higher (Aug., Sermo iii, De Ascensione). They recognize, in some sense, the existence of evil, and illogically teach that rites and certain ascetic practices help to overcome it. They know of no Atonement, though modern Hinduism endeavors to propitiate the deities by sacrifices, as indeed was done in Vedic times. Conscience they cannot explain. Christianity, while showing the heinousness of sin as no other system does, and so supplementing the others, supplements them still further by the Atonement, showing that God is just, and teaching how His very righteousness can be brought to "justify" the sinner (Rom 3:26).

2. God:

Mahayana Buddhism proclaims an immanent but not transcendent being (Dharma-kaya), who is "the ultimate reality that underlies all particular phenomena" (Suzuki), who wills and reflects, though not fully personal. He is not the Creator of the world but a kind of Animus mundi. He is the sum total of all sentient beings, and they have no individual existence, no "ego-soul." The world of matter has no real existence but is his self-manifestation. Christianity supplements and corrects this by teaching the transcendence as well as the immanence (Acts 17:28) of the Creator, who is at least personal, if not something higher, who is the Source of reality though not Himself the sole reality, and of our personality and life, and "who only hath immortality" (1 Tim 6:16).

3. The "Summum Bonum":

Vedantism and Cuffiism proclaim that ultimr~te absorption in the impersonal "It" is the summum bonum, and the Chandogya Upanishad says, "There is just one thing, without a second" (Book VI, 2 1, 2). Of this one thing everything is, so to speak, a part: there being no ultimate difference between the human and the Divine. Thus sin is denied and unreality proclaimed (Maya, illusion). The yearning for union with God underlying all this is satisfied in Christianity, which provides reconciliation with God and shows how by new spiritual birth men may become children of God (Jn 1:12,13) and "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Pet 1:4), without being swallowed up therein like a raindrop in the ocean: the union being spiritual and not material.

4. Self-Revelation of God:

Orthodox (Sunni) Muslim theology declares God to be separated from man by an impassable gulf and hence, to be unknowable. Philosophically this leads to Agnosticism, though opposed to Polytheism. Among the Jews the philosophy of Maimonides ends in the same failure to attain to a knowledge of the Divine or to describe God except by negations (Cepher Ha-madda`, 1 11). The Bible, on the other hand, while speaking of Him as invisible, and unknowable through merely human effort (Job 11:7,8; Jn 1:18), yet reveals Him in Christ, who is God and man. Jewish mysticism endeavored to solve the problem of creation by the invention of the 'Adham qadhmon (archetypal man), and earlier by Philo's Logos doctrine and the Memra' of the Targums. But these abstractions have neither reality nor personality. The Christian Logos doctrine presents no theoretical but the actual historical, eternal Christ (compare Jn 1:1-3; Heb 1:2).

5. Incarnation:

Heathenism seeks to give some idea of the Invisible by means of idols; Vaishnavism has its doctrine of avataras; Babiism and Bahaiism their dogma of "manifestations" (mazhar) in human beings; the `Ali-ilahis are so called because they regard `Ali as God. Instead of these unworthy theories and deifications, Christianity supplies the holy, sinless, perfect Incarnation in Christ.

6. Salvation:

Hinduism offers mukti (moksha), "deliverance" from a miserable existence; Christianity in Christ offers pardon, deliverance from sin, and reconciliation with God.

7. Faith:

Krishnaism teaches unreasoning "devotion" (bhakti) of "mind, body, property" to certain supposed incarnations of Krishna (Vishnu), quite regardless of their immoral conduct; Christianity inculcates a manly, reasonable "faith" in Christ, but only after "proving all things."

8. Approach to God:

Pilgrimages in Islam and Hinduism indicate but do not satisfy a need for approach to God; Christianity teaches a growth in grace. and in likeness to Christ, and so a spiritual drawing near to God.

III. General Characteristics of Ethnic Faiths.

1. Tenets Common to All Religions:

In all religions we find, though in many various forms, certain common beliefs, such as: (1) the existence of some spiritual power or powers, good or bad, superior to man and able to affect his present and future life; (2) that there is a difference between right and wrong, even though not clearly defined; (3) that there is an afterlife of some sort, with happiness or misery often regarded as in some measure dependent upon conduct or upon the observance of certain rites here. In the main the fact of the all but universal agreement of religions upon these points proves that they are true in substance. Even such an agnostic philosophy as original Buddhism was, has been constrained by human need to evolve from itself or admit from without deistic or theistic elements, and thus Buddha himself has been deified by the Mahayana School. Yet no ethnic faith satisfies the "human soul naturally Christian," as Tertullian calls it (Liber Apologeticus, cap. 17), for none of them reveals One God, personal, holy, loving, just, merciful, omniscient and omnipotent. Even Islam fails here. Ethnic religions are either (1) polytheistic, worshipping many gods, all imperfect and some evil, or (2) mystical, evaporating away, as it were, God's Personality, thus rendering Him a mental abstraction, as in the Hindu philosophical systems and in Mahayana Buddhism. Christianity as revealed in Christ does just what all other faiths fail to do, reconciling these two tendencies and correcting both.

2. Tendency to Degradation, not to Progress, in Ethnic Faiths:

As a general rule, the nearer to their source we can trace religions, the purer we find them. In most cases a degradation and not to progressive improvement manifests itself as time goes on, and this is sometimes carried to such an extent that, as Lucretius found in Rome and Greece, religion becomes a curse and not a blessing. Thus, for example, regarding ancient Egypt, Professor Renouf says: "The sublimer portions of the Egyptian religion are not the comparatively late result of a process of development. The sublimer portions are demonstrably ancient, and the last stage of the Egyptian religion was by far the grossest and most corrupt" (Hibbert Lectures, 91). Modern Hinduism, again, is incomparably lower in its religious conceptions than the religion of the Vedas. In Polynesia the same rule holds good, as is evident from the myths about Tangaroa. In Samoa he was said to be the son of two beings, the "Cloudless Heaven" and the "Outspread Heaven." He originally existed in open space. He made the sky to dwell in. He then made the earth. Somewhat later he was supposed to be visible in the moon! But a lower depth was reached. In Hawaii, Tangaroa has sunk to an evil being, the leader of a rebellion against another god, Tane, and is now condemned to abide in the lowest depths of darkness and be the god of death. In South Africa, Australia and elsewhere, traditions still linger of a Creator of all things, but his worship has been entirely laid aside in favor of lower and more evil deities.

3. Mythology and Religion:

Almost everywhere mythology has arisen and perverted religion into something very different from what it once was. The same tendency has more than once manitested itself in the Christian church, thus rendering a return to Christ's teachings necessary. As an instance, compare the modern popular religion of Italy with that of the New Testament. It is remarkable that no religion but the Christian, however, has shown its capability of reform.

4. Religion and Morality in Ethnic Faiths:

For the most part, in ethnic religions, there is no recognized connection between religion and morality. The wide extension of phallic rites and the existence of hierodoulai and hierodouloi in many lands show that religion has often consecrated gross immorality. Mythology aids in this degradation. Hence, Seneca, after mentioning many evil myths related of Jupiter, etc., says: "By which nothing else was effected but the removal from men of their shame at sinning, if they deemed such beings goals" (L. A. Seneca, De beata vita cap. 26). With the possibly doubtful exception of the religion of certain savage tribes, in no religion is the holiness of God taught except in Christianity and its initial stage, Judaism. Ethnic deities are mostly born of heaven and earth, if not identified with them in part, and are rarely regarded as creating them. It was otherwise, however, with Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism, and with certain Sumerian deities, and there are other exceptions, too. The "religions of Nature" have generally produced gross immorality, encouraged and even insisted upon as a part of their ritual; compare Mylitta-worship in Babylon and that of the "Mater deum," Venus, Anahita, etc.

IV. Supposed Resemblances to Revealed Religion.

1. Rites:

Much attention has been called to real or supposed community of rites and "myths," especially when any ethnic faith is compared with Christianity. Sacrifice, for instance, is an essential part of every religion. In Christianity none are now offered, except the "living sacrifice" of the believer, though that of Christ offered once for all is held to be the substance foreshadowed by Jewish sacrifices. Purificatory bathings are found almost everywhere, and that very naturally, because of the universality of conscience and of some sense of sin.

2. Dogmas:

Belief in the fiery end of the world existed among the Stoics, and is found in the Eddas of Scandinavia and the Puranas of India. Traditions of an age before sin and death came upon mankind occur in many different lands. Many of these traditions may easily be accounted for. But in some cases the supposed resemblance to revealed religion does not exist, or is vastly exaggerated. The Yoga philosophy in India is popularly supposed to aim at union with God, as does Christianity; but (so understood) the Yoga system, as has already been said, implies loss of personality and absorption into the impersonal, unconscious "It" (Tat). The doctrine of a Trinity is nowhere found, only Triads of separate deities. Belief in a resurrection is found in only very late parts of the Persian (Zoroastrian) scriptures, composed after centuries of communication with Jews and Christians. In the earlier Avesta only a "restoration" of the world is mentioned (compare Acts 3:21). Original (Hinayana) Buddhism teaches "immortality" (amata), but by this is meant Nirvana ("extinction"). Mithraism has been said to teach the "resurrection of the body," but, according to Eubulus and Porphyry, it taught rather the transmigration of the soul.

3. Asserted Parallels to Gospel History:

The assertion is often made that many of the leading gospel incidents in the life of our Lord are paralleled in other religions. It is said, for instance, that the resurrection of Adonis, Osiris and Mithra was believed in by their followers. It is true that, in some places, Adonis was said to have come to life the day after he had met his death by the tusk of a boar (the cold of winter); but everywhere it was recognized that he was not a man who had been killed, but the representative of the produce of the soil, slain or dying down in the cold weather and growing again in spring. As to Osiris, his tomb was shown in more than one place in Egypt, and his body was never supposed to have come to life again, though his spirit was alive and was ruler of the underworld. Mithra was admitted to be the genius of the sun. He was said to have sprung from a rock (in old Persian and Sanskrit the same word means "sky," "cloud" and "rock"), but not to have been incarnated, nor to have died, much less to have risen from the dead. The modern erroneous fancy that Mithraists believed in his resurrection rests solely on one or at most two passages in Christian writers, which really refer to the burial of Osiris and the removal of his body from the tomb by his hostile brother Typhon (Set). The high morality attributed to Mithraism and even to the worship of Isis rests on no better foundation than the wrong rendering of a few passages and the deliberate ignoring of many which contradict theory.

4. Virgin Birth:

Virgin birth, we have been told, is a doctrine of many religions. As a matter of fact, it is found in hardly one ethnic faith. Nothing of the kind was believed regarding Osiris, Adonis, Horus, Mithra, Krishna, Zoroaster. Of Buddha it is denied entirely in all the books of the Southern Canon (Pali), and is found expressed only vaguely in one or two late uncanonical works of the Northern (Sanskrit) School. It was doubtless borrowed from Christianity. Supernatural birth of quite a different (and very repulsive) kind is found in many mythologies, but that is quite another thing.

5. Heathen Aspirations and Unconscious Prophecies:

Heathenism contains some vague aspirations and unconscious prophecies, the best example of which is to be found in Vergil's Fourth Eclogue, if that be not rather due to Jewish influence. Any such foregleams of the coming light as are real and not merely imaginary, such, for instance, as the Indian doctrine of the avataras or "descents" of Vishnu, are to be accounted for as part of the Divine education of the human race. The "false dawn," so well known in the East, is not a proof that the sun is not about to rise, nor can its existence justify anyone in shutting his eyes to stud rejecting the daylight when it comes. It is but a harbinger of the real dawn.

6. Lessons Taught by Comparative Religion:

Comparative religion teaches us that religion is essential to and distinctive of humanity. The failures of the ethnic faiths no less than their aspirations show how great is man's need of Christ, and how utterly unable imagination has ever proved itself to be even to conceive of such an ideal character as He revealed to us in the full light of history and in the wonder-working effects of His character upon the lives and hearts of those who then and in all ages since have in Him received life and light.

LITERATURE.

Tylor, Anthropology; Jordan, Comparative Religion, Its Genesis and Growth; Falke, Zum Kampfe der drei Weltreligionen; Gould, Origin and Development of Religious Belief; Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion; Reville, Prolegomena to the History of Religions; Max Muller, Introduction to the Science of Religion; Hardwick, Christ and Other Masters; Kellogg, The Light of Asia and the Light of the World; Farrar, The Witness of History to Christ; A. Lung, Magic and Religion; The Making of Religion; Johnson, Oriental Religions and Their Relation to Universal Religion; Farnell, The Evolution of Religion; Howitt, The Native Tribes of Southeast Australia; Smith, Religion of the Semites; Reinach, Cultes, mythes et religions; Dilger, Erloschen des Menschen nach Hinduismus und Christentum; Rhys Davids, Origin and Growth of Religion; Kuenen, National Religions and Universal Religion (Hibbert Lectures, 1882); Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ (1862); Dodson, Evolution and Its Bearing on Religion; MacCulloch, Comparative Theology; Baumann, Uber Religionen und Religion; Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvolker; Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics; Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris; Dufourcq, Hist. comparee des rel. paiennes et de la religion juive; Oesterley, Evolution of Religious Ideas; Martindale, Bearing of Comp. Study of Religions on Claims of Christianity; W. Clair Tisdall, Comparative Religion.

W. St. Clair Tisdall


COMPARE

kom-par' (damah, mashal, [`arakh]; paraballo, sugkrino): "Compare" is the translation of damah, "to be like" (Song 1:9); of mashal, "to liken," "compare" (Isa 46:5); of `arakh, "to set in array," "compare" (Ps 89:6; Isa 40:18); of shawah, "to be equal" (Prov 3:15; 8:11).

In the New Testament sugkrino, "to judge" or "sift together," is translated "comparing," "comparing spiritual things with spiritual" (1 Cor 2:13 the English Revised Version), the American Standard Revised Version "combining" ("adapting the discourse to the subject," Thayer), the Revised Version, margin "interpreting spiritual things to spiritual (men)."

W. L. Walker


COMPASS; COMPASSES

kum'-pas, kum'-pas-iz: "Compass," noun, is the translation of chugh, "a circle," "vault" or "arch" ("when he set a compass upon the face of the depth" Prov 8:27 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American), the American Standard Revised Version "circle"; compare Job 26:10; and see CIRCLE ;VAULT OF EARTH ); of karkobh, "a margin" "border" (Ex 27:5, "the compass of the altar," the Revised Version (British and American) "the ledge round," so 38:4); the phrase "to fetch a compass" is the translation of sabhabh, "to turn about," "go round about" (Nu 34:5; Josh 15:3, the Revised Version (British and American) "turn about," 2 Sam 5:23; 2 Ki 3:9, the Revised Version (British and American) "make a circuit"); of perierchomai, "to go about" (Acts 28:13, the Revised Version (British and American) "made a circuit"; margin "Some ancient authorities read cast loose"; see CIRCUIT ).

"Compasses" is the Revised Version (British and American) for "compass," mechughah, an instrument for describing a circle: "He marketh it out with the compasses" (Isa 44:13) in making an idol.

The verb "to compass" occurs frequently in the senses of "to surround" and "to go round about," e.g. Gen 2:11, "which compasseth the whole land of Havilah," Dt 2:1, "We compassed (went around) mount Seir many days"; in Jer 31:22 we have "A new thing on the earth: a woman shall compass a man," the Revised Version (British and American) "encompass"; possibly as a suitor; but more probably as a protector. In those happy days, the protection of women (under God, 31:28) will be sufficient, while the men are at their work; "to encompass" ("The cords of death compassed me" Ps 18:4; "the waves of death," 2 Sam 22:5). "To gird" (Isa 50:11 the Revised Version (British and American)); "to lie around," "to be laid around" (Heb 5:2, "compassed with infirmity" (clothed with it); Heb 12:1, "compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses").

In Apocrypha we have "compassed about with yawning darkness" (The Wisdom of Solomon 19:17); "compassed the circuit of heaven" (Ecclesiasticus 24:5); "compassed with pomegranates of gold" (Ecclesiasticus 45:9); "The rainbow compasseth the heaven" (Ecclesiasticus 43:12); the course of the sun (1 Esdras 4:34).

W. L. Walker


COMPASSION

kom-pash'-un: Compassion is the translation of racham, "to love," "pity," "be merciful" (Dt 13:17; 30:3); of rachamim, "mercies" (1 Ki 8:50); of chamal, "to pity," "spare" (Ex 2:6; 1 Sam 23:21); rachum (Ps 78:38; 86:15; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8), is rendered by the American Standard Revised Version "merciful." We have splagchnizomai, "to have the bowels yearning," in Mt 9:36; 14:14, etc.; sumpatheo (Heb 10:34), "to suffer with (another)"; sumpathes (1 Pet 3:8, the Revised Version (British and American) "compassionate," margin, Greek, "sympathetic"); metriopatheo (Heb 5:2, the Revised Version (British and American) "who can bear gently with"); eleeo, "to show mildness," "kindness" (Mt 18:33; Mk 5:19; Jude 1:22, the Revised Version (British and American) "mercy"); oikteiro, "to have pity" or "mercy" (Rom 9:15 bis).

Both racham and splagchnizomai are examples of the physical origin of spiritual terms, the bowels being regarded as the seat of the warm, tender emotions or feelings. But, while racham applied to the lower viscera as well as the higher, splagchnon denoted chiefly the higher viscera, the heart, lungs, liver.

The Revised Version (British and American) gives "compassion" for "mercy" (Isa 9:17; 14:1; 27:11; 49:13; Jer 13:14; 30:18; Dan 1:9 the King James Version "tender love with"; for "bowels of compassion," 1 Jn 3:17); for "mercy" (Heb 10:28); "full of compassion" for "merciful" (the American Standard Revised Version "merciful" in all cases) (Ex, 34:6; Neh 9:17; Ps 103:8; Joel 2:13; Jon 4:2); "compassions for mercies" (Isa 63:15; Phil 2:1), for "repentings" (Hos 11:8).

Compassion, literally a feeling with and for others, is a fundamental and distinctive quality of the Biblical conception of God, and to its prominence the world owes more than words can express. (1) It lay at the foundation of Israel's faith in Yahweh. For it was out of His compassion that He, by a marvelous act of power, delivered them from Egyptian bondage and called them to be His own people. Nothing, therefore, is more prominent in the Old Testament than the ascription of compassion, pity, mercy, etc., to God; the people may be said to have gloried in it. It is summed up in such sayings as that of the great declaration in Ex 34:6: "Yahweh--a God full of compassion (the American Standard Revised Version merciful) and gracious" (compare Ps 78:38; 86:15; 111:4; 112:4; 145:8; Lam 3:22, "His compassions fail not"). And, because this was the character of their God, the prophets declared that compassion was an essential requirement on the part of members of the community (Hos 6:6; Mic 6:8; compare Prov 19:17). (2) In Jesus Christ, in whom God was "manifest in the flesh," compassion was an outstanding feature (Mt 9:36; 14:14, etc.) and He taught that it ought to be extended, not to friends and neighbors only, but to all without exception, even to enemies (Mt 5:43-48; Lk 10:30-37).

The God of the New Testament, the Father of men, is most clearly revealed as "a God full of compassion." It extends to the whole human race, for which He effected not merely a temporal, but a spiritual and eternal, deliverance, giving up His own Son to the death of the cross in order to save us from the worst bondage of sin, with its consequences; seeking thereby to gain a new, wider people for Himself, still more devoted, more filled with and expressive of His own Spirit. Therefore all who know the God and Father of Christ, and who call themselves His children, must necessarily cultivate compassion and show mercy, "even as he is merciful." Hence, the many apostolic injunctions to that effect (Eph 4:32; Col 3:12; Jas 1:27; 1 Jn 3:17, etc.). Christianity may be said to be distinctively the religion of Compassion.

W. L. Walker


COMPEL

kom-pel': Our English word always has in it now the flavor of force, not always, however, physical. It may be strong moral urgency, though "constrain" better expresses this.

1. In the Old Testament:

There are several words indicative of such strong pressure: (1) 'anac "to press": "none could compel" to drink (Est 1:8); (2) nadhach, "to drive," "force": "compelled Judah thereto" (the King James Version, the Revised Version, margin); "led Judah astray" the Revised Version (British and American) (2 Ch 21:11). The same word rendered "force," as the adulteress by flattering words her victim (Prov 7:21); (3) 'adhadh, "to serve": not to compel him to serve as a bond servant (Lev 25:39 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "make him serve"); (4) parats, "to break forth upon," "urge": "his servants compelled him" (1 Sam 28:23 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "constrained").

2. In the New Testament:

In the New Testament two words are found: (1) aggareuo: The word is of Persian origin and means to employ a courier. The Aggaroi were public couriers stationed by appointment of the kings of Persia, at fixed localities, with horses ready for use, to transmit speedily from one to another the royal messages. These couriers had authority to press into their service, in case of need, horses, vessels, and even men, they might meet (Josephus, Ant, XIII ii, 3); "compel thee to go a mile" (Mt 5:41 the King James Version; the Revised Version, margin "impress"); "compelled Simon to bear his cross" (Mt 27:32; Mk 15:21 the King James Version; the Revised Version, margin "impressed"). (2) anagkazo, "to constrain," whether by force, threats, entreaties, persuasion, etc.: "compel them to come in" (Lk 14:23 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "constrain"). This has been a favorite text of religious persecutors. As Robertson says in his history of Charles V, "As they could not persuade, they tried to compel men to believe." But it simply means that utmost zeal and moral urgency should be used by Christians to induce sinners to enter the Kingdom of God. Compare Acts 26:11.

George Henry Trever


COMPLAINING

kom-plan'-ing (tsewachah, "cry," "outcry," siach, "meditation," "complaint"): tsewachah is translated "complaining" (Ps 144:14, the Revised Version (British and American) "outcry," "no complaining (outcry) in our streets," i.e. "open places" where the people commonly assembled near the gate of the city (compare 2 Ch 32:6; Neh 8:1); a picture of peace in the city (compare Isa 24:11; Jer 14:2); some render "battlecry"; siach (the Revised Version (British and American) Prov 23:29, the King James Version "babbling"), of the drunkard.


COMPLETE

kom-plet': In the King James Version for pleroo, the verb ordinarily used for the coming to pass of what had been predicted. the King James Version translates this "complete" in Col 2:10; 4:12 to express the final and entire attainment of what is treated, leaving nothing beyond to be desired or hoped for; otherwise rendered in the Revised Version (British and American) ("made full"). In the Revised Version (British and American), c. appears once for Greek artios, from aro, "to join," in 2 Tim 3:17, in sense of "accurately fitted for," where the King James Version has "perfect."


COMPOSITION; COMPOUND

kom-po-zish'-un, kom'-pound (mathkoneth, "measure"); (subst.) (raqach, "to make perfume," roqach, "perfume"): Used of the sacred anointing oil (Ex 30:25,32,33) and of the holy perfume (Ex 30:37,38), which were not to be used for any profane purpose.


COMPREHEND

kom-pre-hend': Used in a twofold sense in both the Old Testament and New Testament. This double meaning appears in two Hebrew and two Greek words which signify in turn (1) mental or spiritual perception, (2) capacity to hold or contain, as in a measure or in an all-inclusive principle, e.g.:

(1) yadha`, "to see with the eyes or the mind," hence, "know," "understand." Job was urged by Elihu to accept as inscrutable the ways of God, inasmuch as His operations in the physical world are so mighty and mysterious that "we cannot comprehend" them (Job 37:5). Modern science, in unveiling the secrets of Nature, is opening the way for a better understanding of God's creative purpose and plan.

katalambano, "to lay hold of," hence, mentally to apprehend: used of the spiritual capacity of the Christian "to comprehend (the Revised Version (British and American) "apprehend") with all saints" (Eph 3:18) the measureless love of God; and of the inability of the unrenewed heart to know or perceive the revelation of God made in Christ: "the darkness comprehended it not" (Jn 1:5 the Revised Version (British and American) "apprehended"; the Revised Version, margin "overcame"; compare Jn 12:35).

(2) kul, "to measure" or "contain," as grain in a bushel. So God's immeasurable greatness is seen in His being able to hold oceans in the hollow of His hand and "comprehend the dust of the earth in a measure" (Isa 40:12).

anakephalaioo, "to sum up under one head," e.g. love includes every other moral principle and process. The entire law on its manward side, says Paul, "is comprehended (the Revised Version (British and American) "summed up") in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" (Rom 13:9).

Dwight M. Pratt


CONANIAH

kon-a-ni'-a (konanyahu, "Jah has rounded or sustained"; the King James Version Cononiah):

(1) A Levite, appointed with his brother Shimei by Hezekiah, the king, and Azariah, the ruler of the house of God, to be overseer of the oblations and tithes and the dedicated things (2 Ch 31:12,13).

(2) One of the chiefs of the Levites mentioned in connection with the passover celebration in Josiah's reign (2 Ch 35:9).


CONCEAL

kon-sel' (parakalupto): Found but once in the New Testament (Lk 9:45). The primary meaning is to cover by hanging something in front of the object hidden. The purpose of the one concealing is made prominent. There is, therefore, a reserve and studied progress in regard to the statement of facts, that is not always a suppression of truth (Prov 12:16,23). God withholds more than He reveals (Prov 25:2; compare Ps 97:2; 1 Tim 6:16).


CONCEIT

kon-set': An idiomatic rendering of a phrase, phronimoi en heautois, in Rom 11:25; 12:16; meaning literally, "wise with one's self," i.e. "in one's own opinion," or, as in parallel Old Testament passages (Prov 26:5,12 the Revised Version, margin), "in his own eyes" (Hebrew `ayin).


CONCEPTION, IMMACULATE

See IMMACULATE CONCEPTION .


CONCEPTION; CONCEIVE

kon-sep'-shun, kon-sev' (harah, and derivatives; sullambano): Physically, the beginning of a new life in the womb of a mother, "to catch on," used thus some forty times, as in Gen 3:16; 4:1; Ps 51:5. Metaphorically, applied to the start and growth within the heart, of thought, purpose, desire, e.g. "conceive mischief" (Job 15:35; Ps 7:14), "conceive chaff" (Isa 33:11). This figure is carried out in details in Jas 1:15: "Lust, when it hath conceived, beareth sin."


CONCERNING

kon-surn'-ing:

The Revised Version (British and American) makes frequent changes, such as "for," "as for," "from," "about," for "concerning"; "concerning" instead of "for," "of," "over," "in," "against," etc. Some of the other changes are, "unto that which is good" for "concerning" (Rom 16:19), "concerning" instead of "because of" (Jer 23:9), for "the miracle of" (Mk 6:52); for "with" (Mk 10:41), for "of the Lord" (Acts 18:25), "concerning Jesus" (diferent text), "by way of disparagement" (2 Cor 11:21), instead of "concerning reproach"; "Why askest thou me concerning that which is good?" (Mt 19:17) instead of "Why callest thou me good?" (different text; see the Revised Version, margin).

W. L. Walker


CONCISION

kon-sizh'-un (katatome, "mutilation," "cutting"): A term by which Paul contemptuously designates the merely fleshly circumcision upon which the Judaizers insisted as being necessary for Gentileconverts (Phil 3:2), as distinguished from peritome, the true circumcision (Phil 3:3). Compare Gal 5:12 and Dt 23:1, and see CIRCUMCISION .


CONCLUDE

kon-klood' (sumbibazo): Used only in Acts 16:10, where the King James Version has "assuredly gathering," i.e. "inferring." Where the King James Version has "conclude," the Revised Version (British and American) more accurately renders "reckon" (Rom 3:28); "giving judgment" (Acts 21:25); "shut up" (Rom 11:32; Gal 3:22).


CONCLUSION

kon-kloo'-zhun (coph): In Eccl 12:13 the King James Version, where the Revised Version (British and American) has "the end," namely, a summary of the entire argument of the book.


CONCORDANCE

kon-kor'-dans:

1. Nature of Work

2. Classes of Concordances

3. Their Indispensableness

4. Concordances to Latin Vulgate

5. Concordances to the Hebrew Old Testament

6. Concordances to the Septuagint

7. Concordances to the Greek New Testament

8. Concordances to the English Bible

LITERATURE

1. Nature of Work:

The object of a concordance of Scripture is to guide the reader to any passage he is in search of by means of an alphabetical arrangement of the words found in Scripture, and the bringing together under each word of all the passages in which that word occurs. Thus, in the verse: "Cast thy burden upon Yahweh" (Ps 55:22), the reader will look in the concordance under the words "cast" or "burden," and there will find a reference to the text. The merit of a concordance is obviously exhaustiveness and clearness of arrangement. There are abridged concordances of the Bible which give only the most important words and passages. These are seldom satisfactory, and a fuller work has in the end frequently to be resorted to.

2. Classes of Concordances:

The ordinary reader is naturally most familiar with concordances of the English Bible, but it will be seen that, for scholarly purposes, concordances are just as necessary for the Scriptures in their original tongues, and for versions of the Scriptures other than English There are required concordances of the Old Testament in Hebrew, of the New Testament in Greek, of the Septuagint version (Greek) of the Old Testament, of the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) version (Latin) of the New Testament, as well as of the translations of the Scriptures into German, French and other living languages. There are now, further, required concordances of the RVV of the English Old Testament and New Testament, as well as of the King James Version. There are needed, besides, good concordances to the Apocrypha, alike in its the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) forms. Textual criticism leads to modifications of the earlier concordances of the Hebrew and Greek texts. It is customary in concordances of the English version to facilitate reference by giving not only single words, but also phrases under which several passages are grouped, and to make the work more useful by furnishing lists of Scripture proper names, with their meanings, and, in the larger works, references to the Hebrew or Greek words for which the English words stand.

3. Their Indispensableness:

The indispensableness of a good concordance for the proper study of the Bible is so apparent that it is not surprising that, since the idea was first conceived, much labor has been expended on the preparation of such works. The wonder rather is that the idea did not occur earlier than it did. No single scholar could ever hope to produce a perfect work of the kind by his own efforts. Modern concordances are based upon the labors of previous generations.

4. Concordances to Latin Vulgate:

The oldest concordances date from the 13th century, and are based, as was then natural, upon the Latin Vulgate. A Concordantiae Morales is attributed to Antony of Padua (died 1231). The first concordance of which we have actual knowledge is that of Hugo of Caro, Dominican monk and cardinal (died 1263). It was called Concordantiae S. Jacobi from the monastery in which it was compiled. 500 monks are said to have been engaged upon its preparation. Hugo's Concordance became the basis of others into which successive improvements were introduced. The words of passages, at first wanting, were inserted; indeclinable particles were added; alphabetic arrangement was employed. Verse divisions were unknown till the time of Robert Stephens (1555).

See BIBLE .

5. Concordances to Hebrew Old Testament:

The earliest Hebrew concordance seems to have been that of Rabbi Mordecai ben Nathan (1438-48). It went through several editions and was translated into Latin by Reuchlin the (1556). Both original and translation contained many errors. It was improved by Calasio, a Franciscan friar (1621), and more thoroughly by John Buxtorf, whose Concordance was published by his son (1632). This latter formed the basis of Dr. Julius Furst's Libr. Sacrorum Vet. Test. Concordantive Heb atque Chaldaic; 1840 (English translation, Hebrew and Chaldean Concordance). A later Hebrew Concordance in Germany is that of Solomon Mandelkern (1896). In England, in 1754, appeared the valuable Hebrew Concordance, Adapted to the English Bible, by Dr. Taylor, of Norwich. With it may be classed The Englishman's Hebrew and Chaldaic Concordance (1843; revised edition, 1876).

6. Concordances to the Septuagint:

Though earlier attempts are heard of, the first printed concordance of the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament) was that of Trommius, published in Amsterdam in 1718, in the author's 84th year. This important work remained the standard till quite lately.

It is very complete, giving references not only to the Septuagint, but to other versions (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) in which the words occur, and showing by an index at the end the Hebrew or Chaldaic words to which the Greek words correspond. In 1887 Bagster published A Handy Concordance of the Septuagint. Earlier works are superseded by the recent publication (1892, 1897, 1900) of Hatch and Redpath's scholarly Concordance to the Septuagint, and Other Greek versions of the Old Testament.

7. Concordances to the Greek New Testament:

Concordances of the Greek New Testament began with that of Xystus Betulius (his real name was Birck) in 1554. The Concordance (Tameion) of Erasmus Schmid (1638) has often been reprinted and reedited. On it is based the useful abridged Concordance published by Bagster. Recent works are Bruder's (1842; 4th edition, 1888; based on Schmid, with many improvements); in America, Hudson's Critical Greek and English Concordance, revised by Ezra Abbot (1870); in England, Moulton and Geden's Concordance to the Greek Testament according to the Texts of Westcott and Hort, Tischendorf, and the English Revisers (1897).

8. Concordances to the English Bible:

The list of concordances to the English Bible is a long one; it is necessary here to particularize only a few of the chief. The oldest is a Concordance of the New Testament, brought out before 1540 by one Thomas Gybson, though, as appears from the Preface, it was principally the work of the printer John Day (the producer of Foxe's Book of Martyrs). The first Concordance to the whole Bible was that of John Marbeck (1550). In the same year was published a translation by Walter Lynne of the Index Librorum of Bullinger, Conrad Pelican and others, under the title of A Briefe and a Compendious Table, in manor of a Concordance, openying the waye to the principall Histories of the whole Bible, etc. Alex. Cruden, whose own Concordance, the most adequate of all, was published in 1737, enumerates most of his predecessors in the intervening period. Cruden's personal history is a pathetic one. A recurring mental malady overshadowed his career; but his indomitable perseverance and fixity of purpose, joined with a clear idea of what he wished to accomplish, enabled him to overcome all obstacles, and produce a book for which the Christian world is grateful. The work is entitled A Complete Concordance to the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, etc.; to which is added, a Concordance to the Books called Apocrypha. Mr. Spurgeon said regarding it, "Be sure you buy a genuine unabridged Cruden, and none of the modern substitutes, good as they may be at the price. .... You need only one; have none but the best." Many editions of this valuable book have been published. It no longer remains, however, the only authority, nor even the most complete and serviceable, though perhaps still the most convenient, for the purpose of the student. In 1873 was published the Analytical Concordance to the Bible by Robert Young, LL.D., to which an appendix has since been added. This bulky work contains "every word in alphabetical order, arranged under its Hebrew or Greek original; with the literal meaning of each and its pronunciation." It marks 30,000 various readings, and gives geographical and antiquarian notes. Yet more comprehensive is The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible by James Strong, LL.D. This includes the new feature of a comparative concordance of the Authorized and Revised (English) versions It embraces also condensed Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek words, to which references are made from the English words by figures. It thus differs in plan from Young's, which gives the Hebrew and Greek words in the body of the concordance at the head of the passages coming under them. Lastly must be noticed the very valuable work published in the same year (1894) in America by J.B.R. Walker, Comprehensive Concordance, with an Introduction by Marshall Curtiss Hazard. It is stated to give 50,000 more passages than Cruden.

LITERATURE.

See articles on "Concordance" in the various Dictionaries and Encyclopedias; articles by Dr. Beard in Kitto's Encyclopedia (Volume I); and by Dr. C. R. Gregory in the New The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge Encyclopedia (Volume III); Preface to Cruden's complete Concordance, and Introduction by Hazard to Walker's Comprehensive Concordance.

James Orr


CONCOURSE

kon'-kors (hamah, "to hum," "to make a noise"; sustrophe, "a turning" or "twisting together"): Hamah, usually translated by some word signifying "sound" is rendered "concourse" in Prov 1:21 (perhaps from the noise made by people thronging and talking together; compare 1 Ki 1:41, "uproar"), "She (wisdom) crieth in the chief place of concourse," the Revised Version, margin, Hebrew "at the head of the noisy (streets)"; sustrophe is translated "concourse" (Acts 19:40), a riotous crowd. Compare Judith 10:18.


CONCUBINAGE

kon-ku'-bi-naj.

See FAMILY .


CONCUPISCENCE

kon-ku'-pi-sens (epithumia): Not used in the Revised Version (British and American), but in the King James Version, Rom 7:8; Col 3:5; 1 Thess 4:5. The Greek noun, like the verb from which it comes, meaning "to yearn," "to long," "to have the heart set upon a thing," is determined in its moral quality by the source whence it springs or the object toward which it is directed. Thus, our Lord uses it to express the intensest desire of His soul (Lk 22:15). As a rule, when the object is not expressed, it refers to longing for that which God has forbidden, namely, lust. It is not limited to sexual desire, but includes all going forth of heart and will toward what God would not have us to have or be, as its use in the Septuagint of the Ten Commandments clearly shows, for "Thou shalt not covet" (Ex 20:17).

H. E. Jacobs


CONDEMN; CONDEMNATION

kon-dem', kon-dem-na'-shun:

1. In the Old Testament:

(1) The causative stem of rasha` "to declare (or make) wrong," "to condemn," whether in civil, ethical or religious relations. Taken in this sense the word needs no comment (Ex 22:9; Dt 25:1; Job 40:8); "Who then can condemn?" (Job 34:29, the King James Version "make trouble").

(2) `anash, "to fine." "Condemned the land" (2 Ch 36:3 the King James Version; the King James Version margin "mulcted"; the Revised Version (British and American) "amerced"; the American Standard Revised Version "fined"); "wine of the condemned" (Am 2:8; the Revised Version (British and American) "fined" (unjustly)).

(3) The active participle of shaphaT, "to judge." "From those that condemn his soul" (Ps 109:31 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "that judge his soul").

2. In the New Testament:

The New Testament usage is much more complicated, both because of the greater number of Greek words rendered "condemn" and "condemnation," and because the King James Version translates the same word in several different ways, apparently with no rule whatever.

(1) The most important word is krino, "to judge." From it are a number of derivative verbs and nouns. the Revised Version (British and American) has rigidly excluded the harsh words "damn" and "damnation," substituting "judge," "condemn," "judgment," "condemnation." This is proper, since the word damn (Latin, damnare, "to inflict loss" upon a person, "to condemn"), and its derivatives has, in process of time, suffered degradation, so that in modern English it usually refers to eternal punishment. This special application of the word for some centuries ran side by side with the original meaning, but even as late as Wycliffe's version the word "damn" is usually employed in the sense of condemn, as in Job 9:20, "My mouth shall dampne me." It is even applied to the condemnation of Jesus by the chief priests and scribes (Mk 10:33). This degeneration of the word is perhaps due, as Bishop Sanderson says, "not so much to good acts as to bad manners." Krino is rendered uniformly "judge" by the Revised Version (British and American), even where the context. compels the thought of condemnation (Jn 3:17,18; 12:47; Acts 7:7; "might be damned," 2 Thess 2:12 the King James Version; Rom 14:22; Jas 5:9).

(2) The more specific sense of condemn, however, is found in katakrino, "to judge one down" (Mt 12:41,42; Mk 14:64): "is damned if he eat" (Rom 14:23; 1 Cor 11:32 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "condemned"). See also Mk 16:16; 2 Pet 2:6.

(3) For "condemnation" there is the noun krima, or krima (for accent see Thayer's Lexicon), in a forensic sense, "the sentence of the judge" (Lk 23:40; Mt 23:14, omitted in the Revised Version (British and American); "condemnation of the devil" 1 Tim 3:6; 5:12; Jude 1:4).

(4) Much stronger is katakrima, "condemnation" (Rom 5:16,18; 8:1) with reference to the Divine judgment against sin.

(5) krisis, "the process of judgment," "tribunal" (Jn 3:19; 5:24), with reference to "the judgment brought by men upon themselves because of their rejection of Christ."

(6) A stronger word is the adjective autokatakritos, "self-condemned" (Tit 3:11; compare 1 Jn 3:20,21).

G. H. Trever


CONDESCENSION, OF CHRIST

kon-de-sen'-shun.

See KENOSIS .


CONDUCT

kon'-dukt.

See ETHICS .


CONDUIT

kon'-dit.

See CISTERN .


CONEY

ko'-ni (shaphan (Lev 11:5; Dt 14:7; Ps 104:18; Prov 30:26)): The word "coney" (formerly pronounced cooney) means "rabbit" (from Latin cuniculus). Shaphan is rendered in all four passages in the Septuagint choirogrullios, or "hedge-hog," but is now universally considered to refer to the Syrian hyrax, Procavia (or Hyrax) Syriaca, which in southern Palestine and Sinai is called in Arabic wabar, in northern Palestine and Syria Tabsun, and in southern Arabia shufun, which is etymologically closely akin to shaphan. The word "hyrax" (hurax) itself means "mouse" or "shrew-mouse" (compare Latin sorex), so that it seems to have been hard to find a name peculiar to this animal. In Lev 11:5 the Revised Version, margin, we find "rock badger," which is a translation of klip das, the rather inappropriate name given by the Boers to the Cape hyrax. The Syrian hyrax lives in Syria, Palestine and Arabia. A number of other species, including several that are arboreal, live in Africa. They are not found in other parts of the world. In size, teeth and habits the Syrian hyrax somewhat resembles the rabbit, though it is different in color, being reddish brown, and lacks the long hind legs of the rabbit. The similarity in dentition is confined to the large size of the front teeth and the presence of a large space between them and the back teeth. But whereas hares have a pair of front teeth on each jaw, the hyrax has one pair above and two below. These

teeth differ also in structure from those of the hare and rabbit, not having the persistent pulp which enables the rabbit's front teeth to grow continually as they are worn away. They do not hide among herbage like hares, nor burrow like rabbits, but live in holes or clefts of the rock, frequently in the faces of steep cliffs. Neither the hyrax nor the hare is a ruminant, as seems to be implied in Lev 11:5 and Dt 14:7, but their manner of chewing their food may readily have led them to be thought to chew the cud. The hyrax has four toes in front and three behind (the same number as in the tapir and in some fossil members of the horse family), all furnished with nails that are almost like hoofs, except the inner hind toes, which have claws. The hyraxes constitute a family of ungulates and, in spite of their small size, have points of resemblance to elephants or rhinoceroses, but are not closely allied to these or to any other known animals.

The camel, the coney and the hare are in the list of unclean animals because they "chew the cud but divide not the hoof," but all three of these are eaten by the Arabs.

The illustration is from a photograph of a group of conies in the Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, prepared by Mr. Douglas Carruthers, who collected these specimens in a cliff in the neighborhood of Tyre. Specimens from the Dead Sea are redder than those from Syria.

Alfred Ely Day


CONFECTION; CONFECTIONARY

kon-fek'-shun, kon-fek'-shun-a-ri (roqach "perfume," "spice," raqqahah, feminine "perfumer"):

(1) "Confection" is found in the King James Version only and but once "a confection after the art of the apothecary" (Ex 30:35; the Revised Version (British and American) "perfume"); but the Revised Version (British and American) renders 1 Ch 9:30, "the confection (the King James Version "ointment") of the spices." It stands for something "made up," a mixture of perfumes or medicines, but never sweetmeats, as confection means with us.

(2) Likewise a "confectionary" is a perfumer. This word, too, is found but once (1 Sam 8:13), "He will take your daughters to be perfumers (the King James Version "confectionaries"), and to be cooks, and to be bakers."

See PERFUME .

George B. Eager


CONFEDERATE; CONFEDERACY

kon-fed'-er-at, kon-fed'-er-a-si: "Confederate" as an adjective in the sense of united or leagued is twice the translation of berith "covenant," in several instances translated "league" (Gen 14:13, ba`al berith, "lord or master of a covenant," "an ally," "these were confederate with Abram"; compare Ps 83:5; once of nuach, "to rest," "Syria is confederate with Ephraim" (Isa 7:2, the Revised Version, margin "resteth on Ephraim"; also 1 Macc 10:47).

As a noun "confederate" occurs in 1 Macc 10:16, summachos, "confederates" (1 Macc 8:20,24,31; 14:40; 15:17).

Confederacy, as a "league," occurs as the translation of berith, "the men of thy confederacy" (Obad 1:7); as a conspiracy it occurs in Isa 8:12 twice, as translation of qesher from qashar, "to bind": "Say ye not, a confederate." Compare 2 Sam 15:12; 2 Ki 12:20, etc.

W. L. Walker


CONFER; CONFERENCE

kon'-fer, kon'-ferens: The equivalent of three Greek words of different shades of meaning. In Gal 1:16, prosanatithemi, had been used in classical writers for resorting to oracles (Lightfoot on Gal 2:6; Ellicott on Gal 1:16); hence, "to take counsel with," "to consult." In Acts 4:15, sumballo, "to compare views," "discuss"; and in Acts 25:12, sullaleo, "to talk together." Compare the single passage in the Old Testament (1 Ki 1:7).


CONFESSION

kon-fesh'-un (yadhah; homologeo, and their derivatives): The radical meaning is "acknowledgment," "avowal," with the implication of a change of conviction or of course of conduct on the part of the subject. In English "profession" (the King James Version 1 Tim 6:12; Heb 3:1; 4:14), besides absence of the thought just suggested, emphasizes the publicity of the act. Confession, like its Greek equivalent, connotes, as its etymology shows (Latin, con; Greek, homou), that the act places one in harmony with others. It is the uniting in a statement that has previously been made by someone else. Of the two Greek words from the same root in the New Testament, the compound with the Greek preposition ek found, among other places, in Mt 3:6; Acts 19:18; Rom 14:11; Phil 2:11, implies that it has come from an inner impulse, i.e. it is the expression of a conviction of the heart. It is referred anthropopathically to God in Job 40:14, where Yahweh says to the patriarch sarcastically: "Then will I also confess of (unto) thee"; and in Rev 3:5, where it means "to recognize" or "acknowledge."

When man is said to confess or make confession, the contents of the confession are variously distinguished. All, however, may be grouped under two heads, confession of faith and confession of sin. Confessions of faith are public acknowledgments of fidelity to God, and to the truth through which God is revealed, as 1 Ki 8:33. They are declarations of unqualified confidence in Christ, and of surrender to His service; Mt 10:32: "Every one .... who shall confess me before men." In Phil 2:11, however, confession includes, alongside of willing, also unwilling, acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Jesus. The word confession stands also for everything contained in the Christian religion--"the faith" used in the objective and widest sense, in Heb 3:1; 4:14. In both these passages, the allusion is to the New Testament. The "High Priest of our confession" (Heb 3:1) is the High Priest, of whom we learn and with whom we deal in that new revelation, which in that epistle is contrasted with the old.

Confessions of sins are also of various classes: (1) To God alone. Wherever there is true repentance for sin, the penitent freely confesses his guilt to Him, against whom he has sinned. This is described in Ps 32:3-6; compare 1 Jn 1:9; Prov 28:13. Such confession may be made either silently, or, as in Dan 9:19, orally; it may be general, as in Ps 51, or particular, as when some special sin is recognized; it may even extend to what has not been discovered, but which is believed to exist because of recognized inner depravity (Ps 19:12), and thus include the state as well as the acts of sin (Rom 7:18). (2) To one's neighbor, when he has been wronged (Lk 17:4): "If he sin against thee seven times in the day, and seven times turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him." It is to this form of c. that James refers (5:16): "Confess .... your sins one to another"; compare Mt 5:23 f. (3) To a spiritual adviser or minister of the word, such as the c. of David to Nathan (2 Sam 12:13), of the multitudes to John in the wilderness (Mt 3:6), of the Ephesians to Paul (Acts 19:18). This c. is a general acknowledgment of sinfulness, and enters into an enumeration of details only when the conscience is particularly burdened. (4) To the entire church, where some crime has created public scandal. As "secret sins are to be rebuked secretly, and public sins publicly," in the apostolic age, where there was genuine penitence for a notorious offense, the acknowledgment was as public as the deed itself. An illustration of this is found in the well-known case at Corinth (compare 1 Cor 5:3 ff with 2 Cor 2:6 f).

For auricular confession in the sense of the medieval and Roman church, there is no authority in Holy Scripture. It is traceable to the practice of examining those who were about to make a public confession of some notorious offense, and of giving advice concerning how far the circumstances of the sin were to be announced; an expedient that was found advisable, since as much injury could be wrought by injudicious publishing of details in the confession as by the sin itself. The practice once introduced for particular cases was in time extended to all cases; and the private confession of sin was demanded by the church as a condition of the absolution, and made an element of penitence, which was analyzed into contrition, confession and satisfaction. See the Examen Concilii Tridentini (lst edition, 1565) of Dr. Martin Chemnitz, superintendent of Brunswick, for a thorough exegetical and historical discussion of this entire subject. On the historical side, see also Henry Charles Lea, History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church (3 volumes, Philadelphia, 1896).

H. E. Jacobs


CONFIDENCE

kon'-fi-dens (baTach, and forms, kecel; parrhesia; peitho, pepoithesis, hupostasis): The chief Hebrew word translated "confidence" (baTach, and its forms) means, perhaps, radically, "to be open," showing thus what originated the idea of "confidence"; where there was nothing hidden a person felt safe; it is very frequently rendered "trust." In Ps 118:8,9 we have "It is better to take refuge in Yahweh than to put confidence in princes," and in 65:5, "O God of our salvation, thou that art the confidence (mibhTach) of all the ends of the earth." MibhTach is translated "confidence" in Job 18:14; 31:24; Prov 21:22, etc.

Kecel ("firmness," "stoutness") is rendered "confidence" in Prov 3:26, and kiclah in Job 4:6; peitho ("to persuade") is translated "confidence" in 2 Cor 2:3; Gal 5:10, etc.; pepoithesis, in 2 Cor 1:15; 8:22, etc.; hupostasis ("what stands under"), in 2 Cor 11:17; Heb 3:14; 2 Cor 9:4; parrhesia ("out-spokenness," "boldness") is invariably translated in the Revised Version (British and American) "boldness" (Acts 28:31; Heb 3:6; 4:16; 10:35; 1 Jn 2:28; 3:21; 5:14); tharseo or tharrheo ("to have good courage") is so translated in the Revised Version (British and American), "being therefore always of good courage" (2 Cor 5:6); "I am of good courage concerning you" (2 Cor 7:16), the King James Version "confident" and "confidence."

Revised Version has "confidence" for "hope" (Job 8:14); for "assurance" (Isa 32:17); for "trust" (2 Cor 3:4); for "same confident boasting" (2 Cor 9:4); "is confident" for "trusted" (Job 40:23); "to have confidence" for "thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust" (Phil 3:4); "confidently" for "constantly" (Acts 12:15); "confidently affirm" for "affirm" (1 Tim 1:7); conversely, we have for "his confidence" (Job 18:14), "wherein he trusteth," for "with confidence" (Ezek 28:26) "securely therein."

The Bible teaches the value of confidence (Isa 30:15; Heb 10:35), but neither in "gold" (Job 31:24), nor in man, however great (Ps 118:8,9; Jer 17:5), nor in self (Prov 14:16; Phil 3:3), but in God (Ps 65:5; Prov 3:26; 14:26), as revealed in Christ (Eph 3:12; 1 Jn 5:13,14).

W. L. Walker


CONFIRM; CONFIRMATION

kon-furm, konfer-ma'-shun: In the Old Testament represented by several Hebrew words, generally with reference to an increase of external strength, as "c. the feeble knees" (Isa 35:3); "c. the kingdom" (2 Ki 15:19); "c. inheritance" (Ps 68:9). In the New Testament, this external, objective sense is expressed by bebaioo, as in Mk 16:20; Rom 15:8. The strengthening of mind, purpose, conviction, i.e. the inner or subjective sense (Acts 14:22; 15:32,41) corresponds to episterizo. Used also of ratifying or making valid (kuroo) a covenant (Gal 3:15). The noun is used in the second sense (Heb 6:16; Phil 1:7). Confirmation, the rite, in some denominations, of admission to the full communion of the church, which the Roman church has elevated to the place of a sacrament, has only ecclesiastical, but no Scriptural, authority. It is grounded, however, in the Scriptural precedent of the laying on of hands after baptism.

See HANDS ,IMPOSITION ,LAYING ON OF .

H. E. Jacobs


CONFISCATION

kon-fis-ka'-shun.

See PUNISHMENTS .


CONFLICT

kon'-flikt (agon, "contest," "fight"): In Phil 1:30, "having the same c. which ye saw in me," and Col 2:1 the King James Version; 1 Thess 2:2 (the King James Version "contention"); athlesis (literally, "combat in the public games"), in Heb 10:32 (the King James Version "fight").

See also AGONY .


CONFORM; CONFORMABLE

kon-form', kon-form'-a-b'-l (summorphoo "to become or be like," or "of the same form"): Indicating an inner change of nature, working into the outward life (Rom 8:29; Phil 3:10,21); while suschematizo, "fashioned according to" (Rom 12:21 the Revised Version (British and American), the King James Version. "conformed"), refers to that which is external.


CONFOUND

kon-found': The physical origin of spiritual terms is well illustrated by the principal Hebrew words for "confounded" (rendered also "ashamed," etc.); bosh, is "to become pale" (2 Ki 19:26; Job 6:20; Ps 83:17; 129:5 the King James Version; Isa 19:9, etc.); chapher, "to become red" (Ps 35:4; Isa 1:29; 24:23, "the moon shall be confounded," Mic 3:7); yabhash, "to be dried up" (Jer 46:24 the King James Version; 48:1,20 the King James Version; 50:2 the King James Version; Zec 10:5); kalam, "to blush" (Ps 69:6 the King James Version; Isa 41:11, etc.). In Gen 11:7,9, of the confusion of tongues, the word is balal, "to mix," "mingle." In Jer 1:17 the King James Version it is chathath, "to bring or put down."

In New Testament, kataischuno, "to put to shame" (1 Cor 1:27 the King James Version; 1 Pet 2:6 the King James Version); and sugchuno, "to pour together," "bewilder' " (Acts 2:6; 9:22). the Revised Version (British and American) frequently gives "ashamed" and "put to shame" instead of "confounded."

W. L. Walker


CONFUSION

kon-fu'-zhun (bosheth, "shame, paleness," kelimmah, "blushing," tohu; akatastasia, sugchusis): In the Old Testament bosheth (1 Sam 20:30; Ps 109:29 the King James Version) and kelimmah (Ps 44:15; Isa 30:3) are the words most frequently translated "confusion"; tohu, "wastiness," "emptiness" is so translated (Isa 24:10; 34:11; 41:29), also qalon, "lightness," "contempt" (Job 10:15 = ignominy, the American Standard Revised Version) and tebhel, "profanation" (Lev 18:23; 20:12); ra`ash, "shaking," "trembling," rendered "confused" in Isa 9:5 the King James Version; compare the Revised Version (British and American). Greek akatashatasia, "instability" is translated "confusion" (1 Cor 14:33; Jas 3:16); sugchusis, "a pouring out together" (Acts 19:29). In The Wisdom of Solomon 14:26, "changing of kind" (the King James Version) is rendered "confusion of sex."

W. L. Walker


CONFUSION OF TONGUES

See BABEL ,TOWER OF ;TONGUES ,CONFUSION OF


CONGREGATION

kon-gre-ga'-shun (qahal, `edhah).

1. Terms Employed:

These two words rendered by "congregation" or "assembly" are used apparently without any difference of sense. They appear to include an assembly of the whole people or any section that might be present on a given occasion. Indeed, sometimes the idea appears to correspond closely to that conveyed by "horde," or even by "crowd." `Edhah is once used of bees (Jdg 14:8). It has been sought to distinguish the two words by means of Lev 4:13, "if the whole `edhah of Israel err, and the thing be hid from the eyes of the qahal." The qahal would then be the smaller body representing the whole `edhah, but the general usage is not favorable to this view (compare e.g. Ex 12:19, "cutting off from the `edhah of Israel," with Nu 19:20, "cutting off from the qahal"). The idea denoted by these words is said by Wellhausen to be "foreign to Hebrew antiquity," though it "runs through the Priestly Code from beginning to end" (Prolegomena 78). Yet it is Deuteronomy that presents us with laws excluding certain classes from the qahal, and the word is also found in Gen 49:6; Nu 22:4 (the Revised Version (British and American) "multitude"); Dt 5:22; 9:10; 31:30; Josh 8:35; 1 Sam 17:47; 1 Ki 8:14; Mic 2:5, and other early passages, while `edhah occurs in 1 Ki 12:20 (see further, Eerdmans, Das Buch Exodus, 80 f). On the other hand taste and euphony appear to be responsible for the choice of one or other of the words in many cases. Thus the Chronicler uses qahal frequently, but `edhah only once (2 Ch 5:6 = 1 Ki 8:5).

2. Legal Provisions:

Moses provided for the summoning of the congregation by trumpets (Nu 10:2-8). For the sin offering to be brought if the whole congregation erred, see Lev 4:13-21.

Dt 23:1-8 (in Heb 2 through 9) excludes bastards, Ammonites and Moabites from the assembly, even to the tenth generation, while Edomites and Egyptians were admitted in the third. Those who suffer from certain physical defects are also excluded.

3. Other Terms:

One other word must be noted, mo`edh. It occurs often in the phrase 'ohel mo`edh ("tent of meeting"; see TABERNACLE ). But in Nu 16:2 we find it used of certain princes who were "men of renown called to the assembly."

For atsereth, rendered by the Revised Version (British and American) "solemn assembly", see FEASTS . On miqra', see CONVOCATION .

Harold M. Wiener


CONGREGATION, MOUNT OF

(har-mo`edh Isa 14:13): The prophet has depicted the excitement caused in Sheol by the descent of the once mighty king of Babylon into the world of shades, and now himself points the contrast between the monarch's former haughty boastings and his present weak and hopeless condition: "Thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north." Instead he is brought down "to the uttermost parts of the pit" (Isa 14:15). By the "mount of congregation" (meeting or assembly) is evidently meant the fancied Olympus of the gods on some lofty northern height. The king vaunted that he would make his abode with the gods in heaven; now he is cast down to the depths of Sheol.

James Orr


CONIAH

ko-ni'-a (konyahu, "Jah is creating"): A form of the name Jehoiachin, found in Jer 22:24,28; 37:1.

See JEHOIACHIN .


CONONIAH

kon-o-ni'a.

See CONANIAH .


CONQUEROR

kon'-ker-er: Known only in the compound verb (hupernikomen, Rom 8:37): A usual meaning of the preposition in composition is "above all measure"; hence, "more than conquerors," the Revised Version (British and American), the King James Version. The comparison is to the completeness of the victory. Others may place their enemies in subjection; those here mentioned master not only their foes, but themselves. Others destroy their foes and their resources; while those who are "more than conquerors" convert foes into means of still farther promoting the interests for which they struggle (Rom 3:3-5). Nor is the victory external and transient, but internal and permanent.

H. E. Jacobs


CONSCIENCE

kon'-shens (he suneidesis):

I. SEQUENT CONSCIENCE

1. Judicial

2. Punitive

3. Predictive

4. Social

II. ANTECEDENT CONSCIENCE

III. INTUITIONAL AND ASSOCIATIONAL THEORIES

IV. THE EDUCATION OF CONSCIENCE

V. HISTORY AND LITERATURE

1. Earlier Views

2. Reformation and After

I. Sequent Conscience.

The aspect of conscience earliest noticed in literature and most frequently referred to at all times is what is called the Sequent Conscience--that is to say, it follows action.

1. Judicial:

This is judicial. No sooner is a decision formed than there ensues a judgment favorable or adverse, a sentence of guilty or not guilty. Conscience has often been compared to a court of law, in which there are culprit, judge, witnesses and jury; but these are all in the subject's own breast, and are in fact himself.

2. Punitive:

It is punitive. In the individual's own breast are not only the figures of justice already mentioned, but the executioner as well; for, on the back of a sentence of condemnation or acquittal, there immediately follows the pain of a wounded or the satisfaction of an approving conscience; and of all human miseries or blisses this is the most poignant. Especially has the remorse of an evil conscience impressed the human imagination, in such instances as Cain and Judas, Saul and Herod; and the poets, those knowers of human nature, have found their most moving themes in the delineation of this aspect of human experience. The ancient poets represented the terrors of conscience under the guise of the Erinyes or Furies, who, with swift, silent, unswerving footstep, tracked the criminal and pulled him down, while Shakespeare, in such dramas as Macbeth and Richard the Third, has burned the same lessons into the imagination of all readers of his works. The satisfaction of a good conscience may stamp itself on the habitual serenity of one face, and the accusations of an evil conscience may impart a hunted and sinister expression to another (compare The Wisdom of Solomon 17:11).

3. Predictive:

It is predictive. There is no instinct in the soul of man more august than the anticipation of something after death--of a tribunal at which the whole of life will be revised and retribution awarded with perfect justice according to the deeds done in the body. It is this which imparts to death its solemnity; we instinctively know that we are going to our account. And such great natural instincts cannot be false.

4. Social:

It is social. Not only does a man's own conscience pass sentence on his conduct, but the consciences of others pass sentence on it too; and to this may be due a great intensification of the consequent sensations. Thus, a crime may lie hidden in the memory, and the pain of its guilt may be assuaged by the action of time, when suddenly and unexpectedly it is found out and exposed to the knowledge of all; and, only when the force of the public conscience breaks forth on the culprit, driving him from society, does he feel his guilt in all its magnitude. The "Day of Judgment" (which see), as it is represented in Scripture, is an application of this principle on a vast scale; for there the character and conduct of everyone will be submitted to the conscience of all. On the other hand, a friend may be to a man a second conscience, by which his own conscience is kept alive and alert; and this approval from without may, in some cases, be, even more than the judgment within, an encouragement to everything that is good or a protection against temptation.

II. Antecedent Conscience.

From the Sequent is distinguished the Antecedent Conscience, which designates a function of this faculty preceding moral decision or action. When the will stands at the parting of the ways, seeing clearly before it the right course and the wrong, conscience commands to strike into the one and forbids to choose the other. This is its imperative; and--to employ the language of Kant--it is a categorical imperative. What conscience commands may be apparently against our interests, and it may be completely contrary to our inclinations; it may be opposed to the advice of friends or to the solicitations of companions; it may contradict the decrees of principalities and powers or the voices of the multitude; yet conscience in no way withdraws or modifies its claim. We may fail to obey, giving way to passion or being overborne by the allurements of temptation; but we know that we ought to obey; it is our duty; and this is a sublime and sacred word. The great crises of life arise when conscience is issuing one command and self-interest or passion or authority another, and the question has to be decided which of the two is to be obeyed. The interpreters of human life have known how to make use of such moments, and many of the most memorable scenes in literature are of this nature; but the actual history of mankind has also been dignified with numerous instances in which confessors and martyrs, standing on the same ground, have faced death rather than contravene the dictates of the authority within; and there never passes an hour in which the eye of the All-seeing does not behold someone on earth putting aside the bribes or self-interest or the menaces of authority and paying tribute to conscience by doing the right and taking the consequences.

III. Intuitional and Associational Theories.

Up to this point there is little difficulty or difference of opinion; but now we come to a point at which very differing views emerge. It was remarked above, that when anyone stands at the parting of the ways, seeing clearly the right course and the wrong, conscience imperatively commands him which to choose and which to avoid; but how does anyone know which of the two alternatives is the right and which the wrong? Does conscience still suffice here, or is he dependent on another faculty? Here the Intuitional and the Associational, or--speaking broadly--the Scotch and the English, the German and the French schools of ethics diverge, those on the one side holding that conscience has still essential guidance to give, while those on the other maintain that the guidance must now be undertaken by other faculties. The Sensational or Experimental school holds that we are dependent on the authority of society or on our own estimate of the consequences of actions, while the opposite school teaches that in the conscience there is a clear revelation of certain moral laws, approving certain principles of action and disapproving others. The strong point of the former view is the diversity which has existed among human beings in different ages and in different latitudes as to what is right and what is wrong. What was virtuous in Athens might be sinful in Jerusalem; what is admired as heroism in Japan may be despised as fool-hardiness in Britain. To this it may be replied, first, that the diversity has been greatly exaggerated; the unanimity of the human conscience under all skies being greater than is allowed by philosophers of this school. "Let any plain, honest man," says Butler, "before he engages in any course of action, ask himself, Is this I am going about right, or is it wrong? Is it good, or is it evil? and I do not in the least doubt but that this question will be answered agreeably to truth and virtue by almost any fair man in almost any circumstances." Then, there are many moral judgments supposed to be immediate verdicts of conscience which are really logical inferences from the utterances of this faculty and are liable to all the fallacies by which reasoning in any department of human affairs is beset. It is only for the major premise, not for the conclusion, that conscience is responsible. The strong point of the Intuitional school, on the other hand, is the power and right of the individual to break away from the habits of society, and, in defiance of the commands of authority or the voices of the multitude, to follow a course of his own. When he does so, is it a logical conclusion as to the consequences of action he is obeying, or a higher intuition? When, for example, Christianity announced the sinfulness of fornication in opposition to the laxity of Greece and Rome, was it an argument about consequences with which she operated successfully, or an instinct of purity which she divined at the back of the actions and opinions of heathendom? The lettering of the moral law may have to be picked out and cleansed from the accumulations of time, but the inscription is there all the same.

IV. The Education of Conscience.

It may be, however, that a more exact analysis of the antecedent conscience is requisite. Between the categorical imperative, which commands to choose the right path and avoid the wrong, and the indicative, which declares that this is the right way and that the wrong, there ought perhaps to be assumed a certainty that one of the alternative ways is right and must be pursued at all hazards, while the other is wrong and must be abandoned at whatever cost. This perception, that moral distinctions exist, separate from each other as heaven and hell, is the peculiarity of conscience; but it does not exclude the necessity for taking time to ascertain, in every instance, which of the alternatives has the one character and which the other, or for employing a great variety of knowledge to make this sure. Those who would limit conscience to the faculty which utters the major premises of moral reasoning are wont to hold that it can never err and does not admit of being educated; but such a use of the term is too remote from common usage, and there must be room left for the conscience to enlighten itself by making acquaintance with such objective standards as the character of God, the example of Christ, and the teaching of Scripture, as well as with the maxims of the wise and the experience of the good.

Another question of great interest about the conscience is, whether it involves an intuition of God. When it is suffering the pain of remorse, who is it that inflicts the punishment? Is it only the conscience itself? Or is man, in such experiences aware of the existence of a Being outside of and above himself? When the will is about to act, it receives the command to choose the right and refuse the wrong; but who issues this command? Is it only itself, or does the imperative come with a sanction and solemnity betokening a higher origin? Conscience is an intuition of moral law--the reading, so to speak, of a luminous writing, which hangs out there, on the bosom of Nature--but who penned that writing? It used to be thought that the word Conscience implied, in its very structure, a reference to God, meaning literally, "knowledge along with another," the other being God. Though this derivation be uncertain, many think that it exactly expresses the truth. There are few people with an ethical experience of any depth who have not sometimes been overwhelmingly conscious of the approval or disapproval of an unseen Being; and, if there be any trustworthy argument for the existence of a Deity, prior to supernatural revelation, this is where it is to be found.

V. History and Literature.

Only a few indications of history can be given here.

1. Earlier Views:

The conscience, at least the sequent conscience, was identified in the ancient world, and the rise of a doctrine on the subject belongs to the period when the human mind, being shut out from public activity through political changes, was thrown back upon itself and began to watch closely its own symptoms. The word has a specially prominent place in the philosophical writings of Cicero. Strange to say, it does not occur in the Old Testament; but, though not the name, the thing appears there frequently enough. On the very first page of revelation, the voice of God is heard calling among the trees of the garden (Gen 3:8); and, in the very next incident, the blood of Abel cries out to heaven from the ground (Gen 4:10). In the New Testament the word occurs with tolerable frequency, especially in the speeches (Acts 24:16, etc.) and writings of Paul (Rom 2:15; 9:1; 13:5; 1 Cor 6:7-12, etc.); and this might have been expected to secure for it a prominent place in the doctrine of the church. But this did not immediately take effect, although Chrysostom already speaks of Conscience and Nature as two books in which the human mind can read of God, previous to supernatural revelation. In the Middle Ages the conscience received from two sources so much stimulation that both thing and name were certain to come into greater prominence in the speculations of the schools. The one of these influences was the rise of Monasticism, which, driving human beings into solitude, made the movements of their own minds the objects of everlasting study to themselves; and the other was the practice of auricular confession, which became, especially to many of the inmates of the houses of religion, the most interesting business of life; because, in order to meet the confessor, they scanned every thought and weighed every scruple, becoming adepts at introspection and self-discipline. Thus it came to pass that ethics took the form of Cases of Conscience, the priest having to train himself, or to be trained by professors and through books, to be able to answer every query submitted to him in the confessional. The ripest fruit of this method appears in the Summa of Aquinas, who discusses elaborately the doctrine of conscience, dividing it into two parts--synderesis (from sunteresis) and conscientia--the one of which supplies the major premises and cannot err, while the other draws the inferences therefrom and is liable to make mistakes. The Mystics identified the synderesis as the point in the spirit of man at which it can be brought into contact and connection with the Spirit of God.

2. Reformation and After:

At the Reformation the conscience was much in the mouths of men, both because the terrors of conscience formed a preparation for comprehending justification by faith and because, in appearing before principalities and powers in vindication of their action, the Reformers took their stand on conscience, as Luther did so memorably at the Diet of Worms; and the assertion of the rights of conscience has ever since been a conspicuous testimony of Protestantism; whereas Romanists, especially as represented by the Jesuits, have treated the conscience as a feeble and ignorant thing, requiring to be led by authority--that is, by themselves. The forms of medievalism long clung even to Protestant literature on this subject. It may not be surprising to find a High Churchman like Jeremy Taylor, in his Ductor Dubitantium, discussing ethics as a system of cases of conscience, but it is curious to find a Puritan like Baxter (in his Christian Directory), and a Scottish Presbyterian like David Dickson (in his Therapeutica Sacra) doing the same. Deism in England and the Enlightenment in Germany magnified the conscience, to which they ascribed such a power of revealing God as made any further revelation unnecessary; but the practical effect was a secularization and vulgarization of the general mind; and it was against these rather than the system which had produced them that Butler in England and Kant in Germany had to raise the standard of a spiritual view of life. The former said of the conscience that, if it had power as it had right, it would absolutely govern the world; and Kant's sublime saying is well known, at the close of his great work on Ethics: "Two things fill the soul with ever new and growing wonder and reverence, the oftener and the longer reflection continues to occupy itself with them--the starry heavens above and the moral law within." The rise of an Associational and Developmental Philosophy in England, represented by such powerful thinkers as the Mills, father and son, Professor Bain and Herbert Spencer, tended to dissipate the halo surrounding the conscience, by representing it as merely an emotional equivalent for the authority of law and the claims of custom, so stamped on the mind by the experience of generations that, its earthly source forgotten, it came to be attributed to supernatural powers. But this school was antagonized with success by such thinkers as Martineau and T. H. Green. R. Rothe regarded conscience as a term too popular and of too variable signification to be of much use in philosophical speculation; but most of the great succession of writers on Christian ethics who followed him have treated it seriously; Dorner especially recognizing its importance, and Newman Smyth bestowing on it a thoroughly modern treatment. Among German works on the subject that of Gass, which contains an appendix on the history of the term synderesis, is deserving of special attention; that by Kahler is unfinished, as is also the work in English by Robertson; The Christian Conscience by Davison is slight and popular. Weighty discussions will be found in two books on Moral Philosophy--the Handbook of Calderwood, and the Ethics of Mezes. But there is abundance of room for a great monograph on the subject, which would treat conscience in a comprehensive manner as the subjective standard of conduct, formed by progressive familiarity with the objective standards as well as by practice in accordance with its own authority and with the will of God.

James Stalker


CONSECRATE; CONSECRATION

kon'-se-krat, kon-se-kra'-shun.

1. In the Old Testament:

In the Old Testament for several Hebrew words of different meanings:

(1) charam: "I will consecrate (the Revised Version (British and American) "devote") their gain unto the Lord," i.e. the spoil of the nations shall be dedicated to the service of Yahweh (Mic 4:13).

See BAN ;CURSE .

(2) nazar, nezer (Nu 6:7,9,12; the Revised Version (British and American) "separate").

See NAZIRITE .

(3) qadhesh: "to be set apart," or "to be holy": of Aaron and his sons (Ex 28:3; 30:30; the Revised Version (British and American) "sanctify"). The silver and gold and brass and iron of the banned city of Jericho are "consecrated" things (the Revised Version (British and American) "holy") unto the Lord (Josh 6:19); of the priests (2 Ch 26:18); of sacrifices (2 Ch 29:33; 31:6; Ezr 3:5).

See HOLINESS .

(4) mille' yadh, literally, "to fill the hand"; and substantive plural millu'im, a peculiar idiom used frequently and generally for the installation of a priest into his office; and substantive for the installation offerings which were probably put into the priest's hands to symbolize his admission into office; hence, the phrase, "and thou shalt consecrate Aaron and his sons" (Ex 29:9; so 28:41; 29:29:33,15; 32:29; Lev 8:33; 16:32; 21:10; Nu 3:3; Jdg 17:5,12; 2 Ch 29:31); of Jeroboam's non-Levitical priesthood (1 Ki 13:33; 2 Ch 13:9); of the altar (Ezek 43:26) and of those who contributed to build the temple (1 Ch 29:5). Subst. of an act of installation (Lev 7:37; 8:33), and of installation offerings (Ex 29:22,26,27,31; Lev 8:22,28,29,31).

2. In the New Testament:

In the New Testament teleioo, "to make perfect" (Heb 7:28; the Revised Version (British and American) "perfected"); egkainizo, "to make new" (Heb 10:20; the Revised Version (British and American) "dedicated").

T. Rees


CONSENT

kon-sent': The verb implies compliance with the guidance and direction of another, and, therefore, a secondary and subordinate relation of approval, sympathy and concurrence on the part of the one who consents. He does not take the initiative, but yields to what the principal proposes. The phrase ek sumphonou, "by consent," means "by mutual agreement" (1 Cor 7:5), both parties concerned being placed on an equality. "With one consent" (Zeph 3:9, Hebrew "with one shoulder"; Lk 14:18) suggests, although it does not necessarily imply, the result of deliberation and consultation; it may have no other force than that of unanimity.

H. E. Jacobs


CONSIDER

kon-sid'-er: In the New Testament the force of the word is brought out most vividly in Mt 6:26 (katamanthano), where it means to "examine closely," as though the observer had to bend down for this purpose, and in Lk 12:27; Heb 10:24 (katanoeo, to "observe well"), while in Heb 13:7 the anatheoreo, "look up toward" or "look again at" is consistent with the reverential regard commended in the context. Used in the Old Testament for a variety of Hebrew terms, signifying inspecting (Prov 31:16), examining (Lev 13:13), giving serious thoughts to (Ps 77:5 ; Isa 1:3), it often means little more than "see" or "behold" (Ps 8:3; 9:13).

H. E. Jacobs


CONSIST

kon-sist' (sunistemi): To stand together, exist, subsist (Col 1:17, "in him all things consist," i.e. the continuance of the universe is dependent upon His support and administration). In Lk 12:15, it translates the verb eimi, "to be," to express the thought that wealth is only an accident, not an essential to the highest ideal of life.


CONSOLATION

kon-so-la'-shun (paraklesis): "Consolation of Israel" (Lk 2:25), refers to the fulfillment of the promises in Isa 40:1 ff. See COMFORT . "Son of consolation" (Acts 4:36 the King James Version and the American Revised Version, margin).

See BARNABAS .


CONSORT

kon-sort' (proskleroo, "to allot," Acts 17:4). The verb may be either in the middle or passive voice. the Revised Version (British and American), the King James Version, and Luther's German translation regard it as middle, and render it: "cast their lots with," "associated," "united with." In advocacy of the passive, see Alford's Greek Testament, proposing: "were added," as if by lot, the allotment eing determined by God who gave them the Holy Spirit directing their choice. The English has the Latin for "lot" as its base.


CONSPIRACY

kon-spir'-a-si.

See CONFEDERACY .


CONSTANT; CONSTANTLY

kon'-stant, kon'-stant-li: In 1 Ch 28 (chazaq) meaning "firm," "strong." In Prov 21:28 the adverb ("constantly") of the King James Version is replaced in the American Standard Revised Version by "shall speak so as to endure," the English Revised Version "unchallenged." the Revised Version (British and American) gives "confidently" for the King James Version "constantly" in Acts 12:15; Tit 3:8.


CONSTELLATIONS

kon-ste-la'-shuns (kecilim, literally, "Orions").

See ASTRONOMY , sec. II, 11.


CONSTRAIN

kon-stran': Generally in the sense of pressing urgently (2 Ki 4:8; Lk 24:29; Acts 16:15), to impel or carry away (2 Cor 5:14); sometimes to be compelled of necessity (Job 32:18; Acts 28:19; compare Gal 6:12).

See COMPEL .


CONSULT

kon-sult' (sha'al, malakh, ya`ats (Aramaic) ye`aT; sumbouleuomai):

(1) "To ask," "inquire," "seek advice." Ezekiel speaks of the king of Babylonian consulting the teraphim (Ezek 21:21) and the Israelites were admonished to have noting to do with "a consulter with a familiar spirit" (Dt 18:11).

See ASTROLOGY ;COMMUNION WITH DEMONS ;DIVINATION .

(2) "To take counsel," "devise," "plan." The various officials of Babylon "consulted together to establish a royal statute" (Dan 6:7; compare Mt 26:4).

(3) "To deliberate with one's self," "make up one's mind." Nehemiah consulted with himself as to what might be done for Jerusalem (Neh 5:7). Jesus spoke of a king "consulting" (the King James Version) whether he be able to wage a war (Lk 14:31; the Revised Version (British and American) "take counsel").

A. W. Fortune


CONSUME

kon-sum' (akhal, kalah, tamam; analisko): In Old Testament 'akhal ("to eat," "devour") occurs very frequently, and is translated "consumed" (Gen 31:40; Ex 15:7; Ps 78:63, etc.); kalah ("to finish") is also frequently translated "consume," "consumed" (Gen 41:30; Ex 32:10; Ps 59:13, etc.); tamam, "to be perfect," "finished" (Nu 17:13; Dt 2:15; Ps 73:19, etc.). There are many other words translated "consume" and "consumed," e.g. cuph, "to end" (Jer 8:13; Dan 1:44; Zeph 1:2,3); balah, "to fade," "wear away" (Job 13:28; Ps 49:14); gazal, implying violence (Job 24:19); caphah, "to end" (Gen 19:15,17; Isa 7:20, etc.); ashesh, "to be old" (Ps 6:7; 31:9,10 the King James Version); maqaq, "to become completed" (Ezek 4:17; Zec 14:12 bis); `asah kalah is rendered "utterly consume" (Neh 9:31); analisko, "to use up," occurs in Lk 9:54; Gal 5:15; 2 Thess 2:8 (the King James Version); dapanao, "to spend," is translated "consume" in Jas 4:3 (the Revised Version (British and American) "spend"); katanalisko, "to consume utterly," occurs only in Heb 12:29; "for our God is a consuming fire."

In the Revised Version (British and American) "devour," "devoured" are several times substituted for "consume," "consumed," e.g. Job 20:26; Jer 49:27; Nu 16:35; "boil well" (Ezek 24:10); for "be consumed with dying" (Nu 17:13), "perish all of us"; "consume" is substituted for "corrupt" in Mt 6:19; "my spirit is consumed," for "my breath is corrupt" (Job 17:1); instead of "the flame consumeth the chaff" (Isa 5:24) we have "as the dry grass sinketh down in the flame"; and for "whom the Lord shall consume" (2 Thess 2:8), the Revised Version (British and American) reads (after a different text) "whom the Lord Jesus shall slay," "consume" in the American Revised Version, margin.

W. L. Walker


CONSUMMATION

kon-su-ma'-shun (killayon from kalah): The word, meaning destruction, completion, or failing (Isa 10:23; 28:22; Dan 9:27) is translated interchangeably in the King James Version for another Hebrew word referring to a physical disease, and best translated "consumption"; compare Lev 26:16; Dt 28:22. Not used in the Revised Version (British and American). The Hebrew variously but more accurately translated "full end"; compare Dan 9:27; Isa 10:23; and "destruction"; compare Isa 10:22; 28:22. There seems therefore to be an inconsistency on the part of both the Authorized and Revised translations.

Walter G. Clippinger


CONSUMPTION

kon-sump'-shun (shachepheth, "wasting away"): One of the punishments which was to follow neglect or breach of the law. It may mean pulmonary consumption, which occurs frequently in Palestine; but from its association with fever in the texts, Lev 26:16; Dt 28:22, it is more likely to be the much more common condition of wasting and emaciation from prolonged or often recurring attacks of malarial fever.


CONTAIN

kon-tan'.

See CONTINENCY .


CONTEND; CONTENTION

kon-tend', kon-ten'-shun: The meeting of effort by effort, striving against opposition; sometimes physically, as in battle (Dt 2:9), or with horses (Jer 12:5), sometimes orally (Neh 13:11), sometimes spiritually (Isa 57:16). In the New Testament diakrinein, for the hostile separation of one from another, dispute (Jude 1:9), or epagonizomai (Jude 1:3), descriptive of the strain to which a contestant is put. The noun is almost universally used with an unfavorable meaning, and as worthy of condemnation, for an altercation arising from a quarrelsome disposition. "By pride cometh only contention" (Prov 13:10). The contentions at Corinth (1 Cor 1:11) called forth the rebukes of Paul. Where used in the King James Version in a good sense (1 Thess 2:2) the Revised Version (British and American) has "conflict." In Acts 15:39, the noun has a peculiar force, where English Versions of the Bible translates paroxusmos (whence English "paroxysm") by "sharp contention." The Greek word refers rather to the inner excitement and irritation than to its outward expression.

H. E. Jacobs


CONTENT; CONTENTMENT

kon-tent', kon-tent'-ment (ya`al; arkeo): To be free from care because of satisfaction with what is already one's own. The Hebrew means simply "to be pleased." The Greek brings out the full force of the word in 1 Tim 6:8; Heb 13:5. Contentment (1 Tim 6:6) is more inward than satisfaction; the former is a habit or permanent state of mind, the latter has to do with some particular occurrence or object.


CONTINENCY

kon'-ti-nen-si (egkrateuomai "to have self-control" or "continency" the Revised Version (British and American), "to contain" the King James Version): Paul, although he would that all men were like himself unmarried, yet advises that they should marry if they cannot control their sexual passions, and hold them in complete subjection to Christian motives (1 Cor 7:9). The same Greek verb is used in 1 Cor 9:25, and translated "is temperate" (the King James Version and the English Revised Version) of the athlete who during the period of training abstains from all indulgence in food, 'drink, and sexual passion. For the general principle as expressed in substantive egkrateia (Acts 24:25; Gal 5:23; 2 Pet 1:6) and adjective egkrates (Tit 1:8) see TEMPERANCE ,TEMPERATE .

T. Rees


CONTINUAL; CONTINUALLY

kon-tin'-u-al, kon-tin'-u-a-li: Without cessation, although there may be intervals between its presence; that which regularly recurs throughout a period, as Lk 24:53: "(They) were continually in the temple"; "lest .... by her continual coming" (Lk 18:5). In Old Testament for Hebrew tadhir, "pursue," as one drop of rain follows another in swift succession, but more frequently by tamidh for offerings repeated at intervals, as Ex 29:42; occasionally the Hebrew has the phrase literally meaning "all the day" (kol ha-yom), as Gen 6:5. In the New Testament most frequently for dia pantos, "through all" ("always" Mt 18:10; Heb 13:15), "sometimes," adialeiptos, "incessantly" (Rom 9:2 the King James Version) and dienekes, "continuously" (Heb 7:3).

H. E. Jacobs


CONTINUANCE

kon-tin'-u-ans: Not in the Revised Version (British and American); in Ps 139:16 the King James Version, as an interpretation of Hebrew yamim, "days," treating of God's prevision, where the Revised Version (British and American) has: "They were all written, even the days that were ordained for me," i.e. all my days were in view, before one of them actually existed. In Isa 64:5 the King James Version, for `olam, "of long time," the Revised Version (British and American); in Rom 2:7, for hupomone, "patience," the Revised Version (British and American), or still better, "steadlfastness," the Revised Version, margin.


CONTRADICTION

kon-tra-dik'-shun: the King James Version for antilogia (Heb 7:7; 12:3). In the former passage, the Revised Version (British and American) has "without any dispute," i.e. what has been said requires no argument; in the latter "gainsaying" which is scarcely an improvement, the reference being to the oral attacks upon the words and character of Jesus.


CONTRARY

kon'-tra-ri (qeri; enantios): In the Old Testament it has the sense of antagonistic, as one person opposed or hostile to the other, especially in Lev 26:21,23,14,27,28,40,41, where Yahweh declares His attitude toward the people in such phrases as: "If ye will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me; then I will walk contrary unto you in wrath."

In the New Testament it has a more varied significance and is applied to both material and human relations as simply opposite, set over against an object or thing. Used of the wind as in Mt 14:24; Mk 6:48; Acts 27:4, where it is spoken of as contrary. Refers also to conflicting doctrines, customs or beliefs, as 1 Tim 1:10, "and if there be any other thing contrary to the sound doctrine." Several other Greek words are translated with almost an identical meaning. Occasionally a prefix gives a slightly different shade of meaning.

Walter G. Clippinger


CONTRIBUTION

kon-tri-bu'-shun (koinonia, "communion" or "fellowship," Rom 15:26; 2 Cor 9:13): The meaning "contribution" is drawn from the context, rather than from the Greek word. The phrase in the passage cited, literally rendered, would be "to exercise" or "put fellowship into activity." The koinonia subsisting among believers because of their inner communion with Christ places them and their gifts and possessions at the service of one another (see COMMUNION ). They are enjoined. not to forget to communicate (Heb 13:16). To be "communicative" (koinonikoi) is to be a habit of their lives, the Christian principle being that of the holding of all property as a trust, to be distributed as there is need (Acts 2:44 f; 2 Cor 8:14 f). The first occasion for calling this fellowship into activity, by way of "contributions," was within the church at Jerusalem and for its needy members (see COMMUNITY OF GOODS ). The second occasion was repeatedly from the infant Gentilechurches for the poor within the same church (Acts 11:29; Rom 15:26; 2 Cor 8:1-4; 9:2); the fellowship thus widening from intra-congregational to general church benevolence. These contributions were gathered weekly (1 Cor 16:2 f), were proportioned to the means of the givers (Acts 11:29; 1 Cor 16:2), were not exacted or prescribed, in a legalistic manner, but were called forth as the free-will offerings of grateful hearts (2 Cor 8:7), springing from th community spirit, and were sent to their destination by accredited representatives of the congregations (1 Cor 16:3; Acts 11:30).

H. E. Jacobs


CONTRITE; CONTRITION

kon'-trit, kontrish'-un (dakka', "bruise"): Only in Old Testament (Ps 34:18; Ps 51:17; Isa 57:15); nakheh, "smitten" (Isa 66:2). Contrite, "crushed," is only the superlative of "broken"; "a contrite heart" is "a heart broken to pieces." In Holy Scripture, the heart is the seat of all feeling, whether joy or sorrow. A contrite heart is one in which the natural pride and self-sufficiency have been completely humbled by the consciousness of guilt. The theological term "contrition" designates more than is found in these passages. It refers to the grief experienced as a consequence of the revelation of sin made by the preaching of the law (Jer 23:29). The Augsburg Confession (Article XII) analyzes repentance into two parts: "Contrition and faith," the one the fruit of the preaching of the law, the other of the gospel. While contrition has its degrees, and is not equal in all persons, the promise of forgiveness is not dependent upon the degree of contrition, but solely upon the merit of Christ. It is not simply a precondition of faith, but, as hatred of sin, combined with the purpose, by God's aid, to overcome it, grows with faith.

H.E. Jacobs


CONTROVERSY

kon'-tro-ver-si (ribh, "strife," "contention"; homologoumenos, "confessedly," "without controversy"): Used frequently of disputes among men (as Dt 17:8) and then transferred to the justice of God as directed against the sins of men. Thus we read of Yahweh's controversy with the nations (Jer 25:31); with the inhabitants of the land (Hos 4:1); with His people (Mic 6:2). "Without controversy" (1 Tim 3:16), a positive rather than a negative expression, "by common consent," or better, "as unanimously confessed," introducing a quotation from a hymn or rhythmical confession of the early church.

H. E. Jacobs


CONVENIENT

kon-ven'-yent: In the Revised Version (British and American) limited to translation of kairos, "suitable time," "season," and its compounds: "that which is seasonable" or "opportune" (Mk 6:21; Acts 24:25). the King James Version is replaced, in Prov 30:8 the Revised Version (British and American), by "needful" (Hebrew choq), "feed me with the food that is needful for me"; Jer 40:4, by "right"; Eph 5:4, by "befitting"; in Rom 1:28, by "fitting," and in 1 Cor 16:12, by "opportunity."


CONVENT

kon-vent': Found in the King James Version margin of Jer 49:19: "Who will convent me in judgment?" and in Jer 50:44: "Who will convent me to plead?" The Hebrew term which is rendered convent is ya`adh, and it means to summon to a court, to call on to plead. Convent is obsolete, but it was formerly used, and meant to summon, or to call before a judge. Shakespeare used it several times. In King Henry VIII, Act V, he said, "The lords of the council hath commanded that the archbishop be convented to the council board."


CONVERSANT

kon-vur'-sant (halakh, "to go on," "to walk"): This word is translated "conversant" in Josh 8:35 the King James Version (margin "walked"), and 1 Sam 25:15 the King James Version meaning "going along with them;" the American Standard Revised Version "went."


CONVERSATION

kon-ver-sa'-shun (anastrophe, homilia): This word is another illustration of the changes which time makes in a living language. The modern sense of the term is mutual talk, colloquy, but in the King James Version it never means that, but always behavior, conduct. This broader meaning, at a time not much later than the date of the King James Version, began to yield to the special, limited one of today, perhaps, as has been suggested, because speech forms so large a part of conduct. The New Testament words for "converse" in the modern sense are homileo (Lk 24:14,15; Acts 20:11) and sunomileo (Acts 10:27).

(1) In the Old Testament the word used to indicate conduct is derekh, "way" the course one travels (the King James Version Ps 37:14; margin 50:23). It is the common Hebrew idea of conduct, possibly due, as Hatch thinks, to the fact that in Syria intercourse between village and village was so much on foot, with difficulty on stony tracks over the hills, and this is reflected in the metaphor.

(2) In the New Testament the idea of deportment is once rendered by tropos, "Let your conversation be without covetousness" (Heb 13:5 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "be ye free from the love of money"; the Revised Version, margin "let your turn of mind be free"). But the usual Greek word is anastrophe, "a turning up and down," possibly due to the fact, as Hatch again avers, that life in the bustling streets of Athens and Rome gave rise to the conception of life as quick motion to and fro. "Ye have heard of my conversation" (Gal 1:13 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "manner of life"). So also Eph 4:22; 1 Tim 4:12; Heb 13:7; "Let him show out of a good conversation" (Jas 3:13 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "by his good life"); "vexed with the filthy conversation" (2 Pet 2:7 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "lascivious life"); "holy conversation" (2 Pet 3:11 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "holy living"); "Our conversation is in heaven" (Phil 3:20 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "citizenship" (which see)). See also in the Apocrypha (Tobit 4:14; 2 Macc 5:8).

The translations in the Revisions put a wholesome emphasis upon conduct, and eliminate the danger of much misunderstanding. See further Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek.

G. H. Trever


CONVERSION

kon-vur'-shun:

I. The Words "Conversion," "Convert," in Biblical Usage.

1. In the English Bible:

The noun "conversion" (epistrophe) occurs in only one passage in the Bible, "They passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles" (Acts 15:3). Derived forms of the verb "convert" are used in the Revised Version (British and American) in Jas 5:19, "convert," "converteth" (5:20), "converted" (Ps 51:13, margin "return"), "converts" (Isa 1:27, margin "they that return"). In other instances where the King James Version uses forms of the verb "convert" the Revised Version (British and American) employs "turn again" (Isa 6:10; Lk 22:32; Acts 3:19), or "turn" (Isa 60:5; Mt 13:15; 18:3; Mk 4:12; Jn 12:40; Acts 28:27). In Ps 19:7 the reading of the King James Version, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul," has been changed by the revisers into "restoring the soul." The words commonly used in the English Bible as equivalent with the Hebrew and Greek terms are "turn," "return," "turn back," "turn again" (compare Dt 4:30; Isa 55:7; Jer 3:12 ff; 25:5; 35:15; Ezek 18:21-23; 33:11; Mal 3:7). Thus "convert" is synonymous with "turn," and "conversion" with "turning."

2. In the Old Testament:

The principal Hebrew word is :shubh; other words are panah, haphakh, cabhabh, in Hiphil. They are used (1) in the literal sense, for instance, Gen 14:7; Dt 17:16; Ps 56:9; Isa 38:8. (2) In the later prophetical writings the verb shubh refers, both in the Qal and Hiphil forms, to the return from the captivity (Isa 1:27; Jer 29:14; 30:3; Ezek 16:53; Zeph 2:7). (3) In the figurative, ethical or religious sense (a) from God (Nu 14:43; 1 Sam 15:11; 1 Ki 9:6); (b) more frequently to turn back to God (1 Sam 7:3; 1 Ki 8:33; Isa 19:22; Joel 2:12; Am 4:6 ff; Hos 6:11; 7:10).

3. In the New Testament:

The words used in the Septuagint and New Testament are strephein, and its compounds, apostr., anastr., epanastr., hupostr., and especially epistrephein. The latter word occurs 39 times in the New Testament. It is used (1) in the literal sense in Mt 9:22; 10:13; 24:18; Acts 9:40; 15:36, etc.; (2) in the figurative sense, in transitive form. (Lk 1:16 f; Jas 5:19 f). In Gal 4:9 and 2 Pet 2:21 it denotes to turn from the right way to the wrong. The opposite meaning, to turn from the wrong way to the right, we find in Lk 22:32; Acts 9:35; 11:21; 14:15; 15:19; 26:18; 2 Cor 3:16; 1 Thess 1:9; 1 Pet 2:25. In connection with metanoein, "repent," it is used in Acts 3:19; 26:20. The root word strephein is used in the figurative sense in Mt 18:3; Jn 12:40. Septuagint and Textus Receptus of the New Testament have here epistrephein.

II. The Doctrine.

While the words "conversion" and "convert" do not occur frequently in our English Bible the teaching contained therein is fundamental in Christian doctrine. From the words themselves it is not possible to derive a clearly defined doctrine of conversion; the materials for the construction of the doctrine must be gathered from the tenor of Biblical teaching.

1. Vague Use of the Word:

There is a good deal of vagueness in the modern use of the term. By some writers it is used in "a very general way to stand for the whole series of manifestations just preceding, accompanying, and immediately following the apparent sudden changes of character involved" (E.D. Starbuck, The Psychology of Religion, 21). " `To be converted,' `to be regenerated,' `to receive grace,' `to experience religion,' `to gain an assurance,' are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self, hitherto divided and consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior and happy in consequence of its hold upon religious realities. This at least is what conversion signifies in general terms" (William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, 189). In this general, vague way the term is used not only by psychologists, but also by theological writers and in common religious parlance. A converted man is a Christian, a believer, a man who has religion, who has experienced regeneration.

2. Specific Meaning:

In its more restricted meaning the word denotes the action of man in the initial process of salvation as distinguished from the action of God. Justification and regeneration are purely Divine acts, repentance, faith, conversion are human acts although under the influence and by the power of the Divine agency. Thus, conversion denotes the human volition and act by which man in obedience to the Divine summons determines to change the course of his life and turns to God. Arrested by God's call man stops to think, turns about and heads the opposite way. This presupposes that the previous course was not directed toward God but away from Him. The instances of conversion related in the Bible show that the objective point toward which man's life was directed may be either the service of idols (1 Thess 1:9) or a life of religious indifference, a self-centered life where material things engross the attention and deaden the sense of things spiritual (rich young ruler, Lk 18:22), or a life of sensuality, of open sin and shame (prodigal son, Lk 15:13) or even a mistaken way of serving God (Saul, Acts 26:9). Accordingly in conversion either the religious or the ethical element may predominate. The moral man who turns from self to God or, as Saul did, from an erroneous notion concerning God's will to a clear conception of his relation to God is more conscious of the religious factor. Conversion brings him into vital, conscious fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. The immoral man who is awakened to a realization of the holiness of God, of the demands of His law, and of his own sin and guilt is more conscious of the outward change in his manner of life. The ethical change is the more outstanding fact in his experience, although it can never be separated from the religious experience of the changed relation to God.

3. Mode:

The mode of conversion Varies greatly according to the former course of life. It may be a sudden crisis in the moral and intellectual life. This is very frequently the case in the experience of heathen who turn from the worship of idols to faith in Jesus Christ. A sudden crisis is frequently witnessed in the case of persons who, having lived a life of flagrant sin, renounce their former life. Conversion to them means a complete revolution in their thoughts, feelings and outward manner of life. In other instances conversion appears to be the climax of prolonged conflict for supremacy of divergent motives; and, again, it may be the goal of a gradual growth, the consummation of a process of discerning ever more clearly and yielding ever more definitely and thus experiencing ever more vitally truths which have been implanted and nurtured by Christian training. This process results in the conscious acceptance of Jesus Christ as the personal Saviour and in the consecration of life to His service. Thus conversion may be an instantaneous act, or a process which is more or less prolonged. The latter is more frequently seen in the case of children and young people who have grown up in Christian families and have received the benefit of Christian training. No conversions of this kind are recorded in the New Testament. This may be explained by the fact that most of our New Testament writings are addressed to the first generation of Christians, to men and women who were raised in Jewish legalism or heathen idolatry, and who turned to Christ after they had passed the age of adolescence. The religious life of their children as distinguished in its mode and manifestations from that of the adults does not appear to have been a matter of discussion or a source of perplexity so as to call forth specific instruction.

4. Conversion and Psychology:

Conversion comprises the characteristics both of repentance and of faith. Repentance is conversion viewed from its starting-point, the turning from the former life; faith indicates the objective point of conversion, the turning to God.

Of late the psychology of conversion has been carefully studied and elaborately treated by psychologists. Much valuable material has been gathered. It is shown that certain periods of adolescent life are particularly susceptible to religious influences (compare G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, II, chapter xiv; E.D. Starbuck, Psychology of Religion, etc.). Yet conversion cannot be explained as a natural process, conditioned by physiological changes in the adolescent, especially by approaching puberty. The laws of psychology are certainly God's laws as much as all other laws of Nature, and His Spirit works in harmony with His own laws. But in genuine conversion there is always at work in a direct and immediate manner the Spirit of God to which man, be he adolescent or adult, consciously responds. Any attempt to explain conversion by eliminating the direct working of the Divine Spirit falls short of the mark.

See REGENERATION ;REPENTANCE .

LITERATURE.

See REGENERATION .

J. L. Nuelsen


CONVICT; CONVICTION

kon-vikt', kon-vik'-shun (elegcho and compounds, "to prove guilty"): Usual translation of English Versions of the Bible, where the King James Version has "convince," as in Jn 8:46; Tit 1:9; Jas 2:9; once also replacing the King James Version "reprove" (Jn 16:8), while the Revised Version (British and American) changes the King James Version "convince" into "reprove" in 1 Cor 14:24. It always implies the presentation of evidence. It is a decision presumed to be based upon a careful and discriminating consideration of all the proofs offered, and has a legal character, the verdict being rendered either in God's judgment (Rom 3:19), or before men (Jn 8:46) by an appeal to their consciences in which God's law is written (Rom 2:15). Since such conviction is addressed to the heart of the guilty, as well as concerning him externally, the word "reprove" is sometimes substituted. To "convict .... in respect of righteousness, and of judgment" (Jn 16:8), refers to the conviction of the inadequacy and perversity of the ordinary, natural standards of righteousness and judgment, and the approval of those found in Christ, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, as the great interpreter and applier of the work of Christ.

H. E. Jacobs


CONVINCE

kon-vins' (elegcho): Another form etymologically of "convict," means to bring to a decision concerning the truth or the falsehood of a proposition (Job 32:12). As usually applied to what is of a more individual and private character, and having reference to what is either good or bad, or what is in itself without moral quality, it has given way in the Revised Version (British and American) to either "convict," "reprove" or "confute."

See CONVICT .


CONVOCATION

kon-vo-ka'-shun: A rendering for miqra' chiefly in the frequent "Holy Convocation"; but the word is sometimes used alone, e.g. Nu 10:2; Isa 1:13; 4:5. On a holy convocation no work could be done. The phrase differs from "solemn assembly," which in the Pentateuch is only applied to the concluding festivals at the end of Passover and Tabernacles, while "Holy Convocation" is used of the Sabbath and all the great holy days of the Mosaic legislation.


CONVULSING

kon-vuls'-ing (Mk 1:26 margin (the King James Version torn)).

See UNCLEAN SPIRIT .


COOKING

kook'-ing.

See FOOD .


COOL

kool (ruach, "wind"; katapsucho, "to cool down"): "Cool of the day" (Gen 3:8, margin "wind"), when the evening breeze has tempered the heat of the day, enabling Orientals to walk abroad. "Cool my tongue" (Lk 16:24), a phrase reflecting the Jewish notion that Abraham had power to rescue his descendants from the fires of Hades.


COOS

ko'-os.

See COS .


COPING

ko'-ping.

See HOUSE .


COPPER

kop'-er (nechosheth): The word is translated "copper" in only one passage (Ezr 8:27 the King James Version). In the American Standard Revised Version of this passage, "brass" has been substituted. Neither describes the actual alloy according to present definitions so well as the word "bronze." Copper was one of the earliest metals to be known and utilized in alloy, but copper, as a single metal, was probably little used. The remains of spears, balances, arms, vases, mirrors, statues, cooking utensils, implements of all kinds, etc., from Bible times are principally of an alloy of copper hardened with tin known today as bronze (see BRASS ). In such passages as Dt 8:9, where reference is made to the native metal or ores, "copper" should be substituted for "brass" as in the American Standard Revised Version (compare Job 40:18). This is true also of coins as chalkos, in Mt 10:9.

Our modern English word "copper" is derived from an old name pertaining to the island of Cyprus. Copper was known to the ancients as Cyprian brass, probably because that island was one of the chief sources for this metal. The Sinai peninsula and the mountains of northern Syria also contributed to the ancient world's supply (see Tell el-Amarna Letters). No evidences of copper ore in any quantity are found in Palestine proper.

See METAL ;MINE .

James A. Patch.

COPPERSmith

kop'-er-smith (chalkeus): The word is found in New Testament once only, in 2 Tim 4:14: "Alexander the coppersmith did (margin "showed") me much evil." As the Bible word rendered "copper" (see Ezr 8:27 the King James Version) is translated "brass" by the Revised Version (British and American), so the word here rendered "c." should be rendered "brazier," or "worker in brass."

See COPPER .


COPTIC VERSIONS

kop'-tik vur'-shunz:

I. LANGUAGE AND ALPHABET

1. Alphabet

2. Dialects.

II. VERSIONS

III. CHIEF EDITIONS

LITERATURE

I. Language and Alphabet.

1. Alphabet:

The Coptic alphabet consists of the Greek uncial letters, plus seven characters taken from the Egyptian demotic to express sounds not represented in the Greek It can be traced back to the 4th century, as the oldest Coptic manuscripts belong to the end of the 4th or beginning of the 5th century. The language still prevailed in Egypt in the 9th century, but was no longer understood in Middle Egypt in the 12th. Its last speaker died in 1633.

2. Dialects:

There were at least five written dialects and subdialects of Coptic. Of these the most important from a literary point of view was the (1) Buchairic, the dialect of Lower Egypt, often called Coptic paragraph excellence, and also (wrongly) Memphitic. It is used as the ecclesiastical language in the services of the Coptic church. The other four dialects are somewhat more closely allied to one another than to Buchairic, which shows greater traces of Greek influence. These dialects are, (2) the Sahidic (Sa`idi, or dialect of upper Egypt), also called Thebaic; (3) the Bashmuric--or rather Bushmuric--(for which Fayyumic has been suggested); (4) the Middle Egyptian proper (known from manuscripts found in the monastery of Jeremias near the Theban Serapeum), differing but little from (3); and (5) the Akhmimic (Akhmim = the ancient Chemmis). Akhmimic is more primitive and more closely related to ancient Egyptian than any other. Only a few fragments in it (of Exodus, Ecclesiastes, 2 Maccabees, the Minor Prophets, and Catholic epistles) have yet been found. The last three dialects are often classed together as "Middle Egyptian" and (4) is then called "Lower Sahidic."

II. Versions.

In all 5 dialects more or less complete versions of the Bible once existed. They were the earliest made after the early Syriac At latest they began in the 3rd century, though some (e.g. Hyvernat) say as early as the 2nd. It is thought that the Sahidic version was the earliest, then the Middle Egyptian and finally the Buchairic. The latter represents an early and comparatively pure Greek text, free from what are generally termed western additions, while the Sahidic, on the other hand, contains most of the peculiar western readings. It sometimes supports Codex Sinaiticus, sometimes Codex Vaticanus (B), sometimes both, but generally it closely agrees with codex D (Bezae), especially in the Acts. A Coptic (Sahidic) MS, written considerably before 350 AD, and published by the British Museum in April, 1912, contains Deuteronomy, Jonah, and Acts, and is older than any other Biblical manuscript (except a few fragments) yet known to exist. It proves that this Sahidic version was made about 200 AD. It in general supports the "Western" text of codex Bezae (D). Much of the New Testament especially still exists in Sahidic, though not Revelation. In Bubairic we have the Pentateuch, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, the 12 Minor Prophets, and fragments of the historical books of the Old Testament, besides the whole New Testament, though the Book of Revelation is later than the rest. In the other dialects much less had been preserved, as far as is known. In Bushmuric we have fragments of Isaiah, Lamentations, Ep. Jeremiah, and a good many fragments of the New Testament. In more than one dialect we have apocryphal gospels (see Texts and Studies,IV , number 2, 1896) and Gnostic papyri, etc. The Old Testament was translated from the Septuagint. The Psalms seem to have been translated about 303 AD.

III. Chief Editions.

The Buchairic Psalms were first published in 1659. Wilkins published the Buchairic New Testament at London in 1716, and the Pentateuch in 1731; Schwartze the Gospels in 1846-47; de Lagarde the Acts and Epistles in 1852. He also edited the Psalms (transliterated) in 1875, 151 in number, of which the last celebrates David's victory over Goliath. He added fragments of the Sahidic Psalter and of the Buchairic Proverbs Tattam published the Minor Prophets in 1836 and the Major in 1852 an edition of the Gospels in London in 1847, and of the rest of the New Testament in 1852 (SPCK), with a literal Arabic version. Horner's edition of the Buchairic New Testament (4 volumes, 1898, etc., Clarendon Press) and of Sahidic Gospels (1910, 3 vols) is the standard edition Ford published part of the Sahidic New Testament in 1799. Various editions of parts of Old Testament and New Testament have since appeared: e.g. Ciasca published fragments of the Sahidic Old Testament (Sacrorum Bibliorum Fragmenta Copto-Sahidica Musei Borgiani) at Rome, 1885-89.

LITERATURE.

Realencyclopadie fur prot. Theol. und Kirche, III; Hyvernat, Etude sur les versions coptes; Revue biblique, 1896, 1897; Zeitschrift fur agypt. Sprache; Journal of Theol. Studies, I, 3; Nestle, Text. Crit of Greek New Testament; Forbes Robinson, Texts and Studies, IV; Oesterley in Murray's New Bible Dict.

W. St. Clair Tisdall


COR

kor (kor): A liquid and dry measure, same as the homer, of about 90 gals. capacity (Ezek 45:14).

See HOMER ;WEIGHTS AND MEASURES .


COR-ASHAN

kor-ash'-an, ko-ra'-shan (English Revised Version, the King James Version Chor-ashan; kor `ashan, 1 Sam 30:30): The original reading was probably Bor-ashan, "well of Ashan."

See ASHAN .


CORAL

kor'-al (ra'moth, peninim): The red coral or precious coral, Corallium rubrum, is confined to the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas. It is the calcareous axis of a branching colony of polyps. It does not form reefs, but occurs in small masses from 40 to 100 fathoms below the surface. It differs totally in structure from the white corals which form coral reefs, belonging to the order of Octactinia or Eight-rayed Polyps, while the reef-building corals belong to the Hexactinia or Six-rayed Polyps.

Ra'moth, apparently from r. ra'am, "to be high" (compare rum, "to be high"), occurs in three passages. In Prov 24:7, EVV have "too high": "Wisdom is too high for a fool." In Job 28:12-19, where various precious things are compared with wisdom, English Versions of the Bible has "coral"(King James Version, margin "Ramoth"). It is mentioned here along with ceghor, "gold" (the Revised Version, margin "treasure"); kethem, "gold of Ophir"; shoham, "onyx" (the Revised Version, margin "beryl"); cappir, "sapphire"; zahabh, "gold"; zekhukhith, "crystal" (the Revised Version (British and American) "glass"); paz, "gold"; gabhish, "pearls" (the Revised Version (British and American) "crystal"); peninim, "rubies" (the Revised Version, margin "red coral" or "pearls"); piTedhah, "topaz." While the real meaning of some of these terms is doubtful (see STONES ,PRECIOUS ), they all, including ra'moth, appear to be precious stones or metals. In Ezek 27:16, ra'moth occurs with nophekh, "emeralds" (the Revised Version, margin "carbuncles"); 'argaman, "purple"; riqmah, "broidered work"; buts, "fine linen"; kadhkodh, "agate"(King James Version, margin "chrysoprase," the Revised Version (British and American) "rubies"). Here the context does not require a precious stone or metal, and Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) has sericum, i.e. "Chinese material" or "silk." Notwithstanding, therefore, the traditional rendering, "coral," the real meaning of ra'moth must be admitted to be doubtful.

Peninim (from the root panan, "to divide up," "to separate"; compare Arabic fanan, "a branch of a tree") occurs in Job 28:18; Prov 3:15; 8:11; 20:15; 31:10; Lam 4:7. In all these passages English Versions of the Bible has "rubies" (Job 28:18, the Revised Version, margin "red coral" or "pearls"; Lam 4:7, the Revised Version, margin "corals"). Everywhere a precious substance is indicated, but nowhere does the context give any light as to the nature of the substance, except in Lam 4:7, where we have the statement that the nobles of Jerusalem "were more ruddy in body" than peninim. This and the etymology favor a branching red substance such as precious coral. The occurrence of peninim and ra'moth together in Job 28:18 is, if we give the precedence to peninim, a further argument against ra'moth meaning "coral."

Alfred Ely Day


CORBAN

kor'-ban (qorban; doron; translated "a gift," "a sacrificial offering," literally, "that which is brought near," namely, to the altar): An expression frequently used in the original text of the Old Testament; in the English Bible it occurs in Mk 7:11; compare also Mt 15:5. It is the most general term for a sacrifice of any kind. In the course of time it became associated with an objectionable practice. Anything dedicated to the temple by pronouncing the votive word "Corban" forthwith belonged to the temple, but only ideally; actually it might remain in the possession of him who made the vow. So a son might be justified in not supporting his old parents simply because he designated his property or a part of it as a gift to the temple, that is, as "Corban" There was no necessity of fulfilling his vow, yet he was actually prohibited from ever using his property for the support of his parents. This shows clearly why Christ singled out this queer regulation in order to demonstrate the sophistry of tradition and to bring out the fact of its possible and actual hostility to the Scripture and its spirit.

William Baur


CORBE

kor'-be.

See CHORBE .


CORD

kord (chebhet, yether, methar, `abhoth; schoinion):

(1) The Arabic chab'l corresponds to the Hebrew chebhel and is still the common name for cord or rope throughout the East. Such ropes or cords are made of goat's or camel's hair, first spun into threads and then twisted or plaited into the larger and stronger form. Chebhel is translated rather inconsistently in the Revised Version (British and American) by "cord" (Josh 2:15; Job 36:8, etc.); by "line" (2 Sam 8:2; Mic 2:5; Ps 16:6; 78:55; Am 7:17; Zec 2:1); by "ropes" (1 Ki 20:31), and by "tacklings" (Isa 33:23).

(2) Yether corresponds to the Arabic wittar, which means catgut. With a kindred inconsistency it is translated the Revised Version (British and American) by "withes" (Jdg 16:7 the Revised Version, margin "bowstring"); by "cord" (Job 30:11), where some think it may mean "bowstring," or possibly "rein" of a bridle, and by "bowstring" (Ps 11:2), doubtless the true meaning.

(3) Methar is considered the equivalent of Arabic atnab, which means tent ropes, being constantly so used by the Bedouin. They make the thing so called of goat's or camel's hair. It is used of the "cords" of the tabernacle (Jer 10:20), of the "cords" of the "hangings" and "pillars" of the courts of the tabernacle in Exodus and Numbers, and figuratively by Isa (54:2), "Lengthen thy cords," etc.

(4) `Abhoth is thought to have its equivalent in the Arabic rubuts, which means a band, or fastening. See BAND . It is translated by "cords" in Ps 118:27; 129:4; by "bands" in Ezek 3:25; Job 39:10; Hos 11:4; by "ropes" in Jdg 15:13,14, and by "cart rope" in Isa 5:18. See CART . See also Nu 15:38 and AMULET. It Seems to have the meaning of something twisted or interlaced.

(5) In the New Testament "cord" is found in Jn 2:15, translating schoinion, but in Acts 27:32 the same Greek word is rendered "ropes."

Figurative: (1) of affliction (Job 36:8); (2) of God's laws (Ps 2:3); (3) of the artifices of the wicked (Ps 129:4; 140:5); (4) of sinful habits (Prov 5:22); (5) of true friendship or companionship (Eccl 4:12); (6) possibly of the spinal cord (Eccl 12:6); (7) of falsehood (Isa 5:18); (8) of the spirit of enterprise and devotion (Isa 54:2); (9) of God's gentleness.

George B. Eager


CORDS, SMALL

kordz (schoinion, the diminutive of schoinos, "a rush," hence, "a rope of rushes"): Translated "small cords" (Jn 2:15 the King James Version; the Revised Version (British and American) "cords"). The same word is translated "ropes" in Acts 27:32. See also Job 41:2 margin.


CORE

ko'-re (Kore): In the King James Version, Jude 1:11, used as a variant for Korah.

See KORAH , 3.


CORIANDER

kor-i-an'-der (gadh; korion): The fruit of the Coriandrum Sativum (Natural Order Umbelliferae), a plant indigenous around the Mediterranean and extensively cultivated. The fruits are aromatic and stomatic-carminative. They are of a grayish-yellow color, ribbed, ovate-globular and in size about twice that of a hemp-seed. "The manna was like coriander seed" (Nu 11:7; see also Ex 16:31.


CORINTH

kor'-inth (Korinthos, "ornament"): A celebrated city of the Peloponnesus, capital of Corinthia, which lay North of Argolis, and with the isthmus joined the peninsula to the mainland. Corinth had three good harbors (Lechaeum, on the Corinthian, and Cenchrea and Schoenus on the Saronic Gulf), and thus commanded the traffic of both the eastern and the western seas. The larger ships could not be hauled across the isthmus (Acts 27:6,37); smaller vessels were taken over by means of a ship tramway with wooden rails. The Phoenicians, who settled here very early, left many traces of their civilization in the industrial arts, such as dyeing and weaving, as well as in their religion and mythology. The Corinthian cult of Aphrodite, of Melikertes (Melkart) and of Athene Phoenike are of Phoenician origin. Poseidon, too, and other sea deities were held in high esteem in the commercial city. Various arts were cultivated and the Corinthians, even in the earliest times, were famous for their cleverness, inventiveness and artistic sense, and they prided themselves on surpassing the other Greeks in the embellishment of their city and in the adornment of their temples. There were many celebrated painters in Corinth, and the city became famous for the Corinthian order of architecture: an order, which, by the way, though held in high esteem by the Romans, was very little used by the Greeks themselves. It was here, too, that the dithyramb (hymn to Dionysus) was first arranged artistically to be sung by a chorus; and the Isthmian games, held every two years, were celebrated just outside the city on the isthmus near the Saronic Gulf. But the commercial and materialistic spirit prevailed later. Not a single Corinthian distinguished himself in literature. Statesmen, however, there were in abundance: Periander, Phidon, Timoleon.

Harbors are few on the Corinthian Gulf. Hence, no other city could wrest the commerce of these waters from Corinth. According to Thucydides, the first ships of war were built here in 664 BC. In those early days Corinth held a leading position among the Greek cities; but in consequence of her great material prosperity she would not risk all as Athens did, and win eternal supremacy over men: she had too much to 1ose to jeopardize her material interests for principle, and she soon sank into the second class. But when Athens, Thebes, Sparta and Argos fell away, Corinth came to the front again as the wealthiest and most important city in Greece; and when it was destroyed by Mummius in 146 BC, the treasures of art carried to Rome were as great as those of Athens. Delos became the commercial center for a time; but when Julius Caesar restored Corinth a century later (46 BC), it grew so rapidly that the Roman colony soon became again one of the most prominent centers in Greece. When Paul visited Corinth, he found it the metropolis of the Peloponnesus. Jews flocked to this center of trade (Acts 18:1-18; Rom 16:21 ff; 1 Cor 9:20), the natural site for a great mart, and flourishing under the lavish hand of the Caesars; and this is one reason why Paul remained there so long (Acts 18:11) instead of sojourning in the old seats of aristocracy, such as Argos, Sparta and Athens. He found a strong Jewish nucleus to begin with; and it was in direct communication with Ephesus. But earthquake, malaria, and the harsh Turkish rule finally swept everything away except seven columns of one old Doric temple, the only object above ground left today to mark the site of the ancient city of wealth and luxury and immorality--the city of vice paragraph excellence in the Roman world. Near the temple have been excavated the ruins of the famous fount of Peirene, so celebrated in Greek literature. Directly South of the city is the high rock (over 1,800 ft.) Acrocorinthus, which formed an impregnable fortress. Traces of the old ship-canal across the isthmus (attempted by Nero in 66-67 AD) were to be seen before excavations were begun for the present canal. At this time the city was thoroughly Roman. Hence, the many Latin names in the New Testament: Lucius, Tertius, Gaius, Erastus, Quartus (Rom 16:21-23), Crispus, Titus Justus (Acts 18:7,8), Fortunatus, Achaicus (1 Cor 16:17). According to the testimony of Dio Chrysostomus, Corinth had become in the 2nd century of our era the richest city in Greece. Its monuments and public buildings and art treasures are described in detail by Pausanias.

The church in Corinth consisted principally of non-Jews (1 Cor 12:2). Paul had no intention at first of making the city a base of operations (Acts 18:1; 16:9,10); for he wished to return to Thessalonica (1 Thess 2:17,18). His plans were changed by a revelation (Acts 18:9,10). The Lord commanded him to speak boldly, and he did so, remaining in the city eighteen months. Finding strong opposition in the synagogue he left the Jews and went to the Gentiles (Acts 18:6). Nevertheless, Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue and his household were believers and baptisms were numerous (Acts 18:8); but no Corinthians were baptized by Paul himself except Crispus, Gaius and some of the household of Stephanas (1 Cor 1:14,16) "the firstfruits of Achaia" (1 Cor 16:15). One of these, Gaius, was Paul's host the next time he visited the city (Rom 16:23). Silas and Timothy, who had been left at Berea, came on to Corinth about 45 days after Paul's arrival. It was at this time that Paul wrote his first Epistle to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 3:6). During Gallio's administration the Jews accused Paul, but the proconsul refused to allow the case to be brought to trial. This decision must have been looked upon with favor by a large majority of the Corinthians, who had a great dislike for the Jews (Acts 18:17). Paul became acquainted also with Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:18,26; Rom 16:3; 2 Tim 4:19), and later they accompanied him to Ephesus. Within a few years after Paul's first visit to Corinth the Christians had increased so rapidly that they made quite a large congregation, but it was composed mainly of the lower classes: they were neither `learned, influential, nor of noble birth' (1 Cor 1:26).

Paul probably left Corinth to attend the celebration of the feast at Jerusalem (Acts 18:21). Little is known of the history of the church in Corinth after his departure. Apollos came from Ephesus with a letter of recommendation to the brethren in Achaia (Acts 18:27; 2 Cor 3:1); and he exercised a powerful influence (Acts 18:27,28; 1 Cor 1:12); and Paul came down later from Macedonia. His first letter to the Corinthians was written from Ephesus. Both Titus and Timothy were sent to Corinth from Ephesus (2 Cor 7:13,15; 1 Cor 4:17), and Timothy returned by land, meeting Paul in Macedonia (2 Cor 1:1), who visited Greece again in 56-57 or 57-58.

LITERATURE.

Leake, Travels in the Morea, IlI, 229-304; Peloponnesiaca, 392 ff; Curtius, Peloponnesos, II, 514 ff; Clark, Peloponnesus, 42-61; Conybeare and Howson, The Life and Epistles' of Paul, chapter xii; Ramsay, "Corinth" (in HDB); Holm, History of Greece, I, 286 ff; II, 142, and 306-16; III, 31-44, and 283; IV, 221, 251, 347 and 410-12.

J. E. Harry


CORINTHIANS, FIRST EPISTLE TO THE

ko-rin'-thi-anz:

I. AUTHENTICITY OF THE TWO EPISTLES

1. External Evidence

2. Internal Evidence

3. Consent of Criticism

4. Ultra-Radical Attack (Dutch School)

II. TEXT OF 1 AND 2 CORINTHIANS

Integrity of 1 Corinthians

III. PAUL'S PREVIOUS RELATIONS WITH CORINTH

1. Corinth in 55 AD

2. Founding of the Church

IV. DATE OF THE EPISTLE

V. OCCASION OF THE EPISTLE

1. A Previous Letter

2. Letter from Corinth

VI. CONTENTS

1. General Character

2. Order and Division

3. Outline

(1) 1 Corinthians 1 through 6

(2) 1 Corinthians 7 through 10

(3) 1 Corinthians 11 through 16

VII. DISTINGUISHING FEATURES

1. Party Spirit

2. Christian Conscience

3. Power of the Cross

LITERATURE

I. Authenticity of the Two Epistles.

1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians and Romans, all belong to the period of Paul's third missionary journey. They are the most remarkable of his writings, and are usually distinguished as the four great or principal epistles; a distinction which not only is a tribute to their high originality and intrinsic worth, but also indicates the extremely favorable opinion which critics of almost all schools have held regarding their authenticity. Throughout the centuries the tradition has remained practically unbroken, that they contain the very pectus Paulinum, the mind and heart of the great apostle of the Gentiles, and preserve to the church an impregnable defense of historical Christianity. What has to be said of their genuineness applies almost equally to both.

1. External Evidence:

The two epistles have a conspicuous place in the most ancient lists of Pauline writings. In the Muratorian Fragment (circa 170) they stand at the head of the nine epistles addressed to churches, and are declared to have been written to forbid heretical schism (primum omnium Corinthiis schisma haeresis intredicens); and in Marcion's Apostolicon (circa 140) they stand second to Gal. They are also clearly attested in the most important writings of the subapostolic age, e.g. by Clement of Rome (circa 95), generally regarded as the friend of the apostle mentioned in Phil 4:3; Ignatius (Ad Ephes., chapter xviii, second decade of 2nd century); Polycarp (chapters ii, vi, xi, first half of 2nd century), a disciple of John; and Justin Martyr (born at close of let century); while the Gnostic Ophites (2nd century) were clearly familiar with both epistles (compare Westcott, Canon, passim, and IndexII ; also Charteris, Canonicity, 222-224, where most of the original passages are brought together). The witness of Clement is of the highest importance. Ere the close of the let century he himself wrote a letter to the Corinthians, in which (chapter xlvii, Lightfoot's edition, 144) he made a direct appeal to the authority of 1 Cor: "Take up the letter of Paul the blessed apostle; what did he write to you first in the beginning of the gospel? Verily he gave you spiritual direction regarding himself, Cephas, and Apollos, for even then you were dividing yourselves into parties." It would be impossible to desire more explicit external testimony.

2. Internal Evidence:

Within themselves both epistles are replete with marks of genuineness. They are palpitating human documents, with the ring of reality from first to last. They admirably harmonize with the independent narrative of Acts; in the words of Schleiermacher (Einltg., 148), "The whole fits together and completes itself perfectly, and yet each of the documents follows its own course, and the data contained in the one cannot be borrowed from those of the other." Complex and difficult as the subjects and circumstances sometimes are, and varying as the moods of the writer are in dealing with them, there is a naturalness that compels assent to his good faith. The very difficulty created for a modern reader by the incomplete and allusive character of some of the references is itself a mark of genuineness rather than the opposite; just what would most likely be the ease in a free and intimate correspondence between those who understood one another in the presence of immediate facts which needed no careful particularization; but what would almost as certainly have been avoided in a fictitious composition. Indeed a modicum of literary sense suffices to forbid classification among the pseudepigrapha. To take but a few instances from many, it is impossible to read such passages as those conveying the remonstrance in 1 Cor 9, the alternations of anxiety and relief in connection with the meeting of Titus in 2 Cor 2 and 7, or the ever-memorable passage which begins at 2 Cor 11:24 of the same epistle: "Of the Jews five times received I," ere, without feeling that the hypothesis of fiction becomes an absurdity. No man ever wrote out of the heart if this writer did not. The truth is that theory of pseudonymity leaves far more difficulties behind it than any it is supposed to solve. The unknown and unnamable literary prodigy of the 2nd century, who in the most daring and artistic manner gloried in the fanciful creation of those minute and life-like details which have imprinted themselves indelibly on the memory and imagination of mankind, cannot be regarded as other than a chimera. No one knows where or when he lived, or in what shape or form. But if the writings are the undoubted rescripts of fact, to whose life and personality do they fit themselves more exquisitely than to those of the man whose name stands at their head, and whose compositions they claim to be? They suit beyond compare the apostle of the missionary journeys, the tender, eager, indomitable "prisoner of the Lord," and no other. No other that has even been suggested is more than the mere shadow of a name, and no two writers have as yet seriously agreed even as to the shadow. The pertinent series of questions with which Godet (Intro to New Testament; Studies on the Epistles, 305) concludes his remarks on the genuineness may well be repeated: "What use was it to explain at length in the 2nd century a change in a plan of the journey, which, supposing it was real, had interest only for those whom the promised visit of the apostle personally concerned? When the author speaks of five hundred persons who had seen the risen Christ, of whom the most part were still alive at the time when he was writing, is he telling his readers a mere story that would resemble a bad joke? What was the use of discussing at length and giving detailed rules on the exercise of the glossolalia at a time when that gift no longer existed, so to say, in the church? Why make the apostle say: `We who shall be alive (at the moment of the Parousia)' at a time when everyone knew that he was long dead? In fine, what church would have received without opposition into its archives, as an epistle of the apostle, half a century after his death, a letter unknown till then, and filled with reproaches most severe and humiliating to it?"

3. Consent of Criticism:

One is not surprised, therefore, that even the radical criticism of the 19th century cordially accepted the Corinthian epistles and their companions in the great group. The men who founded that criticism were under no conceivable constraint in such a conclusion, save the constraint of obvious and incontrovertible fact. The Tubingen school, which doubted or denied the authenticity of all the rest of the epistles, frankly acknowledged the genuineness of these. This also became the general verdict of the "critical" school which followed that of Tubingen, and which, in many branches, has included the names of the leading German scholars to this day. F.C. Baur's language (Paul, I, 246) was: "There has never been the slightest suspicion of unauthenticity cast on these four epistles, and they bear so incontestably the character of Pauline originality, that there is no conceivable ground for the assertion of critical doubts in their case." Renan (St. Paul, Introduction, V) was equally emphatic: "They are incontestable, and uncontested."

4. Ultra-Radical Attack (Dutch School):

Reference, however, must be made to the ultra-radical attack which has gathered some adherents, especially among Dutch scholars, during the last 25 years. As early as 1792 Evanson, a retired English clergyman, rejected Rome on the ground that, according to Acts, no church existed in Rome in Paul's day. Bruno Bauer (1850-51-52) made a more sweeping attack, relegating the whole of the four principal epistles to the close of the 2nd century. His views received little attention, until, in 1886 onward, they were taken up and extended by a series of writers in Holland, Pierson and Naber, and Loman, followed rapidly by Steck of Bern, Volter of Amsterdam, and above all by Van Manen of Leyden. According to these writers, with slight modifications of view among themselves, it is very doubtful if Paul or Christ ever really existed; if they did, legend has long since made itself master of their personalities, and in every case what borders on the supernatural is to be taken as the criterion of the legendary. The epistles were written in the 1st quarter of the 2nd century, and as Paul, so far as he was known, was believed to be a reformer of anti-Judaic sympathies, he was chosen as the patron of the movement, and the writings were published in his name. The aim of the whole series was to further the interests of a supposed circle of clever and elevated men, who, partly imbued with Hebrew ideals, and partly with the speculations of Greek and Alexandrian philosophy, desired the spread of a universalistic Christianity and true Gnosis. For this end they perceived it necessary that Jewish legalism should be neutralized, and that the narrow national element should be expelled from the Messianic idea. Hence, the epistles The principles on which the main contentions of the critics are based may be reduced to two: (1) that there are relations in the epistles so difficult to understand that, since we cannot properly understand them, the epistles are not trustworthy; and (2) that the religious and ecclesiastical development is so great that not merely 20 or 30 years, but 70 or 80 more, are required, if we are to be able rationally to conceive it: to accept the situation at an earlier date is simply to accept what cannot possibly have been. It is manifest that on such principles it is possible to establish what one will, and that any historical literature might be proved untrustworthy, and reshaped according to the subjective idiosyncrasies of the critic. The underlying theory of intellectual development is too rigid, and is quite oblivious of the shocks it receives from actual facts, by the advent in history from time to time of powerful, compelling, and creative personalities, who rather mould their age than are moulded by it. None have poured greater ridicule on this "pseudo-Kritik" than the representatives of the advanced school in Germany whom it rather expected to carry with it, and against whom it complains bitterly that they do not take it seriously. On the whole the vagaries of the Dutch school have rather confirmed than shaken belief in these epistles; and one may freely accept Ramsay's view (HDB, I, 484) as expressing the modern mind regarding them, namely, that they are "the unimpeached and unassailable nucleus of admitted Pauline writings." (Reference to the following will give a sufficiently adequate idea of the Dutch criticism and the replies that have been made to it: Van Manen, EB, article "Paul," and Expository Times, IX, 205, 257, 314; Knowling, Witness of the Epistles; Clemen, Einheitlichkeit der p. B.; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, ICC; Godet, Julicher and Zahn, in their Introductions; Schmiedel and Lipsius in the Hand-Commentar.)

II. Text of 1 and 2 Corinthians:

Integrity of 1 Corinthians:

The text of both epistles comes to us in the most ancient VSS, the Syriac (Peshito), the Old Latin, and the Egyptian all of which were in very early use, undoubtedly by the 3rd century. It is complete in the great Greek uncials: Codex Sinaiticus (original scribe) and a later scribe, 4th century), Codex Vaticanus (B, 4th century), Codex Alexandrinus (A, 5th century, minus two verses, 2 Cor 4:13; 12:7), and very nearly complete in Codex Ephraemi (C, 5th century), and in the Greek-Latin Claromontanus (D, 6th century); as well as in numerous cursives. In both cases the original has been well preserved, and no exegetical difficulties of high importance are presented. (Reference should be made to the Introduction in Sanday and Headlam's Romans, ICC (1896), where section 7 gives valuable information concerning the text, not only of Roman, but of the Pauline epistles generally; also to the recent edition (Oxford, 1910), New Testament Graecae, by Souter, where the various readings of the text used in the Revised Version (British and American) (1881) are conveniently exhibited.) On the whole the text of 1 Cor flows on consistently, only at times, in a characteristic fashion, winding back upon itself, and few serious criticisms are made on its unity, although the case is different in this respect with its companion epistle Some writers, on insufficient grounds, believe that 1 Corinthians contains relics of a previous epistle (compare 5:9), e.g. in 7:17-24; 9:1-10:22; 15:1-55.

III. Paul's Previous Relations with Corinth.

1. Corinth in 55 AD:

When, in the course of his 2nd missionary journey, Paul left Athens (Acts 18:1), he sailed westward to Cenchrea, and entered Corinth "in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling" (1 Cor 2:3). He was doubtless alone, although Silas and Timothy afterward joined him (Acts 18:5; 2 Cor 1:19). The ancient city of Corinth had been utterly laid in ruins when Rome subjugated Greece in the middle of the 2nd century BC. But in the year 46 BC Caesar had caused it to be rebuilt and colonized in the Roman manner, and during the century that had elapsed it had prospered and grown enormously. Its population at this time has been estimated at between 600,000 and 700,000, by far the larger portion of whom were slaves. Its magnificent harbors, Cenchrea and Lechaeum, opening to the commerce of East and West, were crowded with ships, and its streets with travelers and merchants from almost every country under heaven. Even in that old pagan world the reputation of the city was bad; it has been compared (Baring-Gould, Study of Paul, 241) to an amalgam of new-market, Chicago and Paris, and probably it contained the worst features of each. At night it was made hideous by the brawls and lewd songs of drunken revelry. In the daytime its markets and squares swarmed with Jewish peddlers, foreign traders, sailors, soldiers, athletes in training, boxers, wrestlers, charioteers, racing-men, betting-men, courtesans, slaves, idlers and parasites of every description. The corrupting worship of Aphrodite, with its hordes of hierodouloi, was dominant, and all over the Greek-Roman world, "to behave as a Corinthian" was a proverbial synonym for leading a low, shameless and immoral life. Very naturally such a polluted and idolatrous environment accounts for much that has to be recorded of the semi-pagan and imperfect life of many of the early converts.

2. Founding of the Church:

Paul was himself the founder of the church in Corinth (1 Cor 3:6,10). Entering the city with anxiety, and yet with almost audacious hopefulness, he determined to know nothing among its people save Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor 2:2). Undoubtedly he was conscious that the mission of the Cross here approached its crisis. If it could abide here, it could abide anywhere. At first he confined himself to working quietly at his trade, and cultivating the friendship of Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2 f); then he opened his campaign in the synagogue where he persuaded both Jews and Greeks, and ultimately, when opposition became violent, carried it on in the house of Titus Justus, a proselyte. He made deep impressions, and gradually gathered round him a number who were received into the faith (Acts 18:7,8; 1 Cor 1:14-16). The converts were drawn largely but not entirely from the lower or servile classes (1 Cor 1:26; 7:21); they included Crispus and Sosthenes, rulers of the synagogue, Gaius, and Stephanas with his household, "the firstfruits of Achaia" (1 Cor 16:15). He regarded himself joyfully as the father of this community (1 Cor 4:14,15), every member of which seemed to him like his own child.

IV. Date of the Epistle.

After a sojourn of eighteen months (Acts 18:11) in this fruitful field, Paul departed, most probably in the year 52 (compare Turner, article "Chron. New Testament," HDB, I, 422 ff), and, having visited Jerusalem and returned to Asia Minor (third journey), established himself for a period of between two and three years (trietia, Acts 20:31) in Ephesus (Acts 18:18 onward). It was during his stay there that his epistle was written, either in the spring (pre-Pentecost, 1 Cor 16:8) of the year in which he left, 55; or, if that does not give sufficient interval for a visit and a letter to Corinth, which there is considerable ground for believing intervened between 1 Cor and the departure from Ephesus, then in the spring of the preceding year, 54. This would give ample time for the conjectured events, and there is no insuperable reason against it. Pauline chronology is a subject by itself, but the suggested dates for the departure from Ephesus, and for the writing of 1 Corinthians, really fluctuate between the years 53 and 57. Harnack (Gesch. der altchrist. Litt., II; Die Chron., I) and McGiffert (Apos Age) adopt the earlier date; Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler), 56; Lightfoot (Bib. Essays) and Zahn (Einl.), 57; Turner (ut supra), 55. Many regard 57 as too late, but Robertson (HDB, I, 485-86) still adheres to it.

V. Occasion of the Epistle.

1. A Previous Letter:

After Paul's departure from Corinth, events moved rapidly, and far from satisfactorily. He was quite cognizant of them. The distance from Ephesus was not great--about eight days' journey by sea--and in the constant coming and going between the cities news of what was transpiring must frequently have come to his ears. Members of the household of Chloe are distinctly mentioned (1 Cor 1:11) as having brought tidings of the contentions that prevailed, and there were no doubt other informants. Paul was so concerned by what he heard that he sent Timothy on a conciliatory mission with many commendations (1 Cor 4:17; 16:10 f), although the present epistle probably reached Corinth first. He had also felt impelled, in a letter (1 Cor 5:9) which is now lost, to send earnest warning against companying with the immoral. Moreover, Apollos, after excellent work in Corinth, had come to Ephesus, and was received as a brother by the apostle (1 Cor 3:5,6; 16:12). Equally welcome was a deputation consisting of Stephanas, Fortunatus and Achaicus (1 Cor 16:17), from whom the fullest information could be gained, and who were the probable bearers of a letter from the church of Corinth itself (1 Cor 7:1), appealing for advice and direction on a number of points.

2. Letter from Corinth:

This letter has not been preserved, but it was evidently the immediate occasion of our epistle, and its tenor is clearly indicated by the nature of the apostle's reply. (The letter, professing to be this letter to Paul, and its companion, professing to be Paul's own lost letter just referred to, which deal with Gnostic heresies, and were for long accepted by the Syrian and Armenian churches, are manifestly apocryphal. (Compare Stanley's Corinthians, Appendix; Harnack's Gesch. der altchrist. Litt., I, 37-39, and II, 506-8; Zahn, Einleitung., I, 183-249; Sanday, Encyclopedia Biblica, I, 906-7.) If there be any relic in existence of Paul's previous letter, it is possibly to be found in the passage 2 Cor 6:14 through 7:1; at all events that passage may be regarded as reminiscent of its style and message.) So that 1 Corinthians is no bow drawn at a venture. It treats of a fully understood, and, on the whole, of a most unhappy situation. The church had broken into factions, and was distracted by party cries. Some of its members were living openly immoral lives, and discipline was practically in abeyance. Others had quarrels over which they dragged one another into the heathen courts. Great differences of opinion had also arisen with regard to marriage and the social relations generally; with regard to banquets and the eating of food offered to idols; with regard to the behavior of women in the assemblies, to the Lord's Supper and the love-feasts, to the use and value of spiritual gifts, and with regard to the hope of the resurrection. The apostle was filled with grief and indignation, which the too complacent tone of the Corinthians only intensified. They discussed questions in a lofty, intellectual way, without seeming to perceive their real drift, or the life and spirit which lay imperiled at their heart. Resisting the impulse to visit them "with a rod" (4:21), the apostle wrote the present epistle, and dispatched it, if not by the hands of Stephanas and his comrades, most probably by the hands of Titus.

VI. Contents.

1. General Character:

In its general character the epistle is a strenuous writing, masterly in its restraint in dealing with opposition, firm in its grasp of ethical and spiritual principles, and wise and faithful in their application. It is calm, full of reasoning, clear and balanced in judgment; very varied in its lights and shadows, in its kindness, its gravity, its irony. It moves with firm tread among the commonest themes, but also rises easily into the loftiest spheres of thought and vision, breaking again and again into passages of glowing and rhythmical eloquence. It rebukes error, exposes and condemns sin, solves doubts, upholds and encourages faith, and all in a spirit of the utmost tenderness and love, full of grace and truth. It is broad in its outlook, penetrating in its insight, unending in its interest and application.

2. Order and Division:

It is also very orderly in its arrangement, so that it is not difficult to follow the writer as he advances from point to point. Weizsacker (Apos Age, I, 324-25) suggestively distinguishes the matter into (1) subjects introduced by the letter from Corinth, and (2) those on which Paul had obtained information otherwise. He includes three main topics in the first class: marriage, meat offered to idols and spiritual gifts (there is a fourth--the logia or collection, 1 Cor 16:1); six in the second class: the factions, the case of incest, the lawsuits, the free customs of the women, the abuse connected with the Supper and the denial of the resurrection. It is useful, however, to adhere to the sequence of the epistle In broadly outlining the subject-matter we may make a threefold division: (1) chapters 1 through 6; (2) chapters 7 through 10; and (3) chapter 11 through end.

3. Outline:

(1) 1 Corinthians 1 through 6:

After salutation, in which he associates Sosthenes with himself, and thanksgiving for the grace given to the Corinthians (1 Cor 1:1-9), Paul immediately begins (1 Cor 1:10-13) to refer to the internal divisions among them, and to the unworthy and misguided party cries that had arisen. (Many theories have been formed as to the exact significance of the so-called "Christus-party," a party whose danger becomes more obvious in 2 Cor. Compare Meyer-Heinrici, Comm., 8th edition; Godet, Intro, 250 ff; Stanley, Cor, 29-30; Farrar, Paul, chapter xxxi; Pfleiderer, Paulinism, II, 28-31; Weiss, Intro, I, 259-65; Weizsacker, Apos Age, I, 325-33, and 354 ff. Weizsacker holds that the name indicates exclusive relation to an authority, while Baur and Pfleiderer argue that it was a party watchword (virtually Petrine) taken to bring out the apostolic inferiority of Paul. On the other hand a few scholars maintain that the name does not, strictly speaking, indicate a party at all but rather designates those who were disgusted at the display of all party spirit, and with whom Paul was in hearty sympathy. See McGiffert, Apos Age, 295-97.) After denouncing this petty partisanship, Paul offers an elaborate defense of his own ministry, declaring the power and wisdom of God in the gospel of the Cross (1:14 through 2:16), returning in chapter 3 to the spirit of faction, showing its absurdity and narrowness in face of the fullness of the Christian heritage in "all things" that belong to them as belonging to Christ; and once more defending his ministry in chapter 4, making a touching appeal to his readers as his "beloved children," whom he had begotten through the gospel. In chapter 5 he deals with the case of a notorious offender, guilty of incest, whom they unworthily harbor in their midst, and in the name of Christ demands that they should expel him from the church, pointing out at the same time that it is against the countenancing of immorality within the church membership that he specially warns, and had previously warned in his former epistle Ch 6 deals with the shamefulness of Christian brethren haling one another to the heathen courts, and not rather seeking the settlement of their differences within themselves; reverting once more in the closing verses to the subject of unchastity, which irrepressibly haunts him as he thinks of them.

(2) 1 Corinthians 7 through 10:

In 1 Cor 7 he begins to reply to two of the matters on which the church had expressly consulted him in its ep., and which he usually induces by the phrase peri de, "now concerning." The first of these bears (chapter 7) upon celibacy and marriage, including the case of "mixed" marriage. These questions he treats quite frankly, yet with delicacy and circumspection, always careful to distinguish between what he has received as the direct word of the Lord, and what he only delivers as his own opinion, the utterance of his own sanctified common-sense, yet to which the good spirit within him gives weight. The second matter on which advice was solicited, questions regarding eidolothuta, meats offered to idols, he discusses in chapter 8, recurring to it again in chapter 10 to end. The scruples and casuistries involved he handles with excellent wisdom, and lays down a rule for the Christian conscience of a far-reaching kind, happily expressed: "All things are lawful; but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful; but not all things edify. Let no man seek his own, but each his neighbor's good" (10:23,14). By lifting their differences into the purer atmosphere of love and duty, he causes them to dissolve away. Chapter 9 contains another notable defense of his apostleship, in which he asserts the principle that the Christian ministry has a claim for its support on those to whom it ministers, although in his own case he deliberately waived his right, that no challenge on such a matter should be possible among them. The earlier portion of chapter 10 contains a reference to Jewish idolatry and sacramental abuse, in order that the evils that resulted might point a moral, and act as a solemn warning to Christians in relation to their own rites.

(3) 1 Corinthians 11 through 16:

The third section deals with certain errors and defects that had crept into the inner life and observances of the church, also with further matters on which the Corinthians sought guidance, namely, spiritual gifts and the collection for the saints. 1 Cor 11:1-16 has regard to the deportment of women and their veiling in church, a matter which seems to have occasioned some difficulty, and which Paul deals with in a manner quite his own; passing thereafter to treat of graver and more disorderly affairs, gross abuses in the form of gluttony and drunkenness at the Lord's Supper, which leads him, after severe censure, to make his classic reference to that sacred ordinance (verse 20 to end). Chapter 12 sets forth the diversity, yet true unity, of spiritual gifts, and the confusion and jealousy to which a false conception of them inevitably leads, obscuring that "most excellent way," the love which transcends them all, which never faileth, the greatest of the Christian graces, whose praise he chants in language of surpassing beauty (chapter 13). He strives also, in the following chapter, to correct the disorder arising from the abuse of the gift of tongues, many desiring to speak at once, and many speaking only a vain babble which no one could understand, thinking themselves thereby highly gifted. It is not edifying: "I had rather," he declares, "speak five words with my understanding, that I might instruct others also, than ten thousand words in a tongue" (14:19). Thereafter follows the immortal chapter on the resurrection, which he had learned that some denied (15:12). He anchors the faith to the resurrection of Christ as historic fact, abundantly attested (verses 3-8), shows how all-essential it is to the Christian hope (verses 13-19), and then proceeds by reasoning and analogy to brush aside certain naturalistic objections to the great doctrine, "then they that are Christ's, at his coming" (verse 23), when this mortal shall have put on immortality, and death be swallowed up in victory (verse 54). The closing chapter gives directions as to the collection for the saints in Jerusalem, on which his heart was deeply set, and in which he hoped the Corinthians would bear a worthy share. He promises to visit them, and even to tarry the winter with them. He then makes a series of tender personal references, and so brings the great epistle to a close.

VII. Distinguishing Features.

It will be seen that there are passages in the epistle of great doctrinal and historical importance, especially with reference to the Person of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Eucharist and the Resurrection; also many that illuminate the nature of the religious meetings and services of the early church (compare particularly on these, Weizsacker, Apos Age,II , 246 ff). A lurid light is cast on many of the errors and evils that not unnaturally still clung to those who were just emerging from paganism, and much allowance has to be made for the Corinthian environment. The thoroughness with which the apostle pursues the difficulties raised into their relations and details, and the wide scope of matters which he subjects to Christian scrutiny and criterion, are also significant. Manifestly he regarded the gospel as come to fill, not a part, but the whole, of life; to supply principles that follow the believers to their homes, to the most secluded sanctum there, out again to the world, to the market-place, the place of amusement, of temptation, of service, of trial, of worship and prayer; and all in harmony with knowing nothing "save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." For Paul regards that not as a restriction, but as a large and expansive principle. He sets the cross on an eminence so high that its shadow covers the whole activities of human life.

1. Party Spirit:

Three broad outstanding features of a practical kind may be recognized. The first is the earnest warning it conveys against a factious spirit as inimical to the Christian life. The Corinthians were imbued with the party spirit of Greek democracy, and were infected also by the sporting spirit of the great games that entered so largely into their existence. They transferred these things to the church. They listened to their teachers with itching ears, not as men who wished to learn, but as partisans who sought occasion either to applaud or to condemn. Paul recognizes that, though they are not dividing on deep things of the faith, they are giving way to "schisms" of a pettier and perhaps even more perilous kind, that appeal to the lowest elements in human nature, that cause scandal in the eyes of men and inflict grievous wounds on the Body of Christ. In combating this spirit he takes occasion to go below the surface, and to reveal the foundations of true Christian unity. That must simply be "in Christ." And this is true even if the divergence should be on higher and graver things. Any unity in such a case, still possible to cherish, must be a unity in Christ. None can be unchurched who build on Him; none severed from the true and catholic faith, who confess with their lips and testify with their lives that He is Lord.

2. Christian Conscience:

The epistle also renders a high ethical service in the rules it lays down for the guidance of the Christian conscience. In matters where the issue is clearly one of the great imperatives, the conflict need never be protracted. An earnest man will see his way. But beyond these, or not easily reducible to them, there are many matters that cause perplexity and doubt. Questions arise regarding things that do not seem to be wrong in themselves, yet whose abuse or the offense they give to others, may well cause debate. Meat offered to idols, and then brought to table, was a stumbling-block to many Corinthian Christians. They said: "If we eat, it is consenting to idolatry; we dare not partake." But there were some who rose to a higher level. They perceived that this was a groundless scruple, for an idol is nothing at all, and the meat is not affected by the superstition. Accordingly, their higher and more rational view gave them liberty and left their conscience free. But was this really all that they had to consider? Some say: "Certainly"; and Paul acknowledges that this is undoubtedly the law of individual freedom. But it is not the final answer. There has not entered into it a consideration of the mind of Christ. Christian liberty must be willing to subject itself to the law of love. Granted that a neighbor is often short-sighted and over-scrupulous, and that it would be good neither for him nor for others to suffer him to become a moral dictator; yet we are not quite relieved. The brother may be weak, but the very claim of his weakness may be strong. We may not ride over his scruples roughshod. To do so would be to put ourselves wrong even more seriously. And if the matter is one that is manifestly fraught with peril to him, conscience may be roused to say, as the apostle says: "Wherefore, if meat maketh my brother to stumble, I will eat no flesh for evermore."

3. Power of the Cross:

A third notable feature of the epistle is its exaltation of the cross of Christ as the power and wisdom of God unto salvation. It was the force that began to move and unsettle, to lift and change from its base, the life of that old heathen world. It was neither Paul, nor Apollos, nor Cephas who accomplished that colossal task, but the preaching of the crucified Christ. The Christianity of Corinth and of Europe began with the gospel of Calvary and the open tomb. It can never with impunity draw away from these central facts. The river broadens and deepens as it flows, but it is never possible for it to sever itself from the living fountain from which it springs.

LITERATURE.

The following writers will be found most important and helpful:

1. On Matters of Introduction (Both Epistles):

Holtzmann, Weiss, Hausrath, Harnack, Pfleiderer, Godet, Weizsacker, Julicher, Zahn, Salmon, Knowling, McGiffert, J. H. Kennedy, Ramsay, Sabatier, Farrar, Dobschutz, Robertson (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)), Sanday (Encyclopaedia Biblica), Plummer (DB), Ropes (Encyclopedia Brittanica, 11th edition).

2. Commentaries and Lectures (on 1 Corinthians or Both):

Meyer-Heinrici, Godet, T. C. Edwards, Hodge, Beet, Ellicott, Schmiedel (Hand-Comm.), Evans (Speakers' Commentary), Farrar (Pulpit Commentary), Lightfoot (chapters i through vii in Biblical Ess.), Lias (Cambridge Greek Testament), McFadyen, F. W. Robertson, Findlay (Expos. Greek Test.); and on 2 Corinthians alone: Klopper, Waite (Speakers' Comm.), Denney (Expos. Bible), Bernard (Expos. Greek Test.).

3. Ancient Writers and Special Articles:

For ancient writers and special articles, the list at close of Plummer's article in Smith, Dictionary of the Bible should be consulted.

R. Dykes Shaw


CORINTHIANS, SECOND EPISTLE TO THE

I. TEXT, AUTHENTICITY AND DATE

1. Internal Evidence

2. External Evidence

3. Date

II. RESUME OF EVENTS

III. THE NEW SITUATION

1. The Offender

2. The False Teachers

3. The Painful Visit

4. The Severe Letter

IV. HISTORICAL RECONSTRUCTION

V. INTEGRITY OF THE EPISTLE

1. 2 Corintians 6:14 through 7:1

2. 2 Corintians 10:1 through 13:10

VI. CONTENTS OF THE EPISTLE

1. 2 Corintians 1 through 7

2. 2 Corintians 8 through 9

3. 2 Corintians 10 through 13

VII. VALUE OF THE EPISTLE LITERATURE

I. Text, Authenticity and Date.

1. Internal Evidence:

Compare what has already been said in the preceding article. In the two important 5th-century uncials, Codex Alexandrinus (A) and Codex Ephraemi (C), portions of the text are lacking. As to the genuineness internal evidence very vividly attests it. The distinctive elements of Pauline theology and eschatology, expressed in familiar Pauline terms, are manifest throughout. Yet the epistle is not doctrinal or didactic, but an intensely personal document. Its absorbing interest is in events which were profoundly agitating Paul and the Corinthians at the time, straining their relations to the point of rupture, and demanding strong action on Paul's part. Our imperfect knowledge of the circumstances necessarily hinders a complete comprehension, but the references to these events and to others in the personal history of the apostle are so natural, and so manifestly made in good faith, that no doubt rises in the reader's mind but that he is in the sphere of reality, and that the voice he hears is the voice of the man whose heart and nerves were being torn by the experiences through which he was passing. However scholars may differ as to the continuity and integrity of the text, there is no serious divergence among them in the opinion that all parts of the epistle are genuine writings of the apostle.

2. External Evidence:

Externally, the testimony of the sub-apostolic age, though not so frequent or precise as in the case of 1 Corinthians, is still sufficiently clear to establish the existence and use of the epistle in the 2nd century Clement of Rome is silent when he might rather have been expected to use the epistle (compare Kennedy, Second and Third Corinthians, 142 ff); but it is quoted by Polycarp (Ad Phil., ii.4 and vi.1), and in the Epistle to Diognetus 5 12, while it is amply attested to by Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria.

3. Date:

It was written from Macedonia (probably from Philippi) either in the autumn of the same year as that in which 1 Corinthians was written, 54 or 55 AD, or in the autumn of the succeeding year.

II. Resume of Events.

Great difficulty exists as to the circumstances in which the epistle was written, and as to the whole situation between 1 and 2 Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians Paul had intimated his intention of visiting the Corinthians and wintering with them, coming to them through Macedonia (16:5-7; compare also Acts 19:21). In 2 Cor 1:15,16 he refers to a somewhat different plan, Corinth--Macedonia--Corinth--Judaea; and describes this return from Macedonia to Corinth as a second or double benefit. But if this plan, on which he and his friends had counted, had not been entirely carried out, it had been for good reason (1:17), and not due to mere fickleness or light-hearted change to suit his own convenience. It was because he would "spare" them (1:23), and not come to them "again with sorrow" (2:1). That is, he had been with them, but there had been such a profound disturbance in their relations that he dared not risk a return meantime; instead, he had written a letter to probe and test them, "out of much affliction and anguish of heart .... with many tears" (2:4). Thank God, this severe letter had accomplished its mission. It had produced sorrow among them (2:2; 7:8,9), but it had brought their hearts back to him with the old allegiance, with great clearing of themselves, and fear and longing and zeal (7:11). There was a period, however, of waiting for knowledge of this issue, which was to him a period of intense anxiety; he had even nervously regretted that he had written as he did (7:5-8). Titus, who had gone as his representative to Corinth, was to return with a report of how this severe letter had been received, and when Titus failed to meet him at Troas 2 Cor 2:13, he had "no relief for his spirit," but pushed on eagerly to Macedonia to encounter him the sooner. Then came the answer, and the lifting of the intolerable burden from his mind. "He that comforteth the lowly, even God, comforted" him (7:6). The Corinthians had been swayed by a godly sorrow and repentance (7:8), and the sky had cleared again with almost unhoped-for brightness. One who had offended (2:5 and 7:12)--but whose offense is not distinctly specified--had been disciplined by the church; indeed, in the revulsion of feeling against him, and in sympathy for the apostle, he had been punished so heavily that there was a danger of passing to an extreme, and plunging him into despair (2:7). Paul accordingly pleads for leniency and forgiveness, lest further resentment should lead only to a further and sadder wrong (2:6-11). But in addition to this offender there were others, probably following in his train, who had carried on a relentless attack against the apostle both in his person and in his doctrine. He earnestly defends himself against their contemptuous charges of fleshliness and cowardice (chapter 10), and crafty venality (12:16,17). Another Jesus is preached, a different spirit, a different gospel (11:4). They "commend themselves" (10:12), but are false apostles, deceitful workers, ministers of Satan, fashioning themselves into ministers of Christ (11:13,14). Their attacks are vehemently repelled in an eloquent apologia (chapters 11 and 12), and he declares that when he comes the third time they will not be spared (13:2). Titus, accompanied by other well-known brethren, is again to be the representative of the apostle 2 Cor 8:6,17 ff. At no great interval Paul himself followed, thus making his third visit (12:14; 13:1), and so far fulfilled his original purpose that he spent the winter peacefully in Corinth (compare Acts 20:2,3; Rom 15:25-27 and 16:23).

III. The New Situation.

It is manifest that we are in the presence of a new and unexpected situation, whose development is not clearly defined, and concerning which we have elsewhere no source of information. To elucidate it, the chief points requiring attention are: (1) The references to the offender in 2 Cor 2 and 7, and to the false teachers, particularly in the later chapters of the ep.; (2) the painful visit implicitly referred to in 2:1; and (3) the letter described as written in tears and for a time regretted (2:4; 7:8).

1. The Offender:

The offender in 1 Cor 5:1-5 had been guilty of incest, and Paul was grieved that the church of Corinth did not regard with horror a crime which even the pagan world would not have tolerated. His judgment on the case was uncompromising and the severest possible--that, in solemn assembly, in the name and with the power of the Lord Jesus, the church should deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh. On the other hand, the offender in 2 Cor 2:5 ff is one who obviously has transgressed less heinously, and in a way more personal to the apostle. The church, roused by the apostle to show whether they indeed cared for him and stood by him (2:9; 13:7), had, by a majority, brought censure to bear on this man, and Paul now urged that matters should go no farther, lest an excess of discipline should really end in a triumph of Satan. It is not possible to regard such references as applying to the crime dealt with in 1 Corinthians. Purposely veiled as the statements are, it would yet appear that a personal attack had been made on the apostle; and the "many" in Corinth (2 Cor 2:6), having at length espoused his cause, Paul then deals with the matter in the generous spirit he might have been expected to display. Even if the offender were the same person, which is most improbable, for he can scarcely have been retained in the membership, the language is not language that could have been applied to the earlier case. There has been a new offense in new circumstances. The apostle had been grievously wronged in the presence of the church, and the Corinthians had not spontaneously resented the wrong. That is what wounded the apostle most deeply, and it is to secure their change in this respect that is his gravest concern.

2. The False Teachers:

Esp. in the later chapters of 2 Corinthians there are, as we have seen, descriptions of an opposition by false teachers that is far beyond anything met with in 1 Corinthians. There indeed we have a spirit of faction, associated with unworthy partiality toward individual preachers, but nothing to lead us to suspect the presence of deep and radical differences undermining the gospel. The general consensus of opinion is that this opposition was of a Judaizing type, organized and fostered by implacable anti-Pauline emissaries from Palestine, who now followed the track of the apostle in Achaia as they did in Galatia. As they arrogated to themselves a peculiar relation to Christ Himself ("Christ's men" and "ministers of Christ," 2 Cor 10:7; 11:13), it is possible that the Christus-party of 1 Corinthians (and possibly the Cephas-party) may have persisted and formed the nucleus round which these newcomers built up their formidable opposition. One man seems to have been conspicuous as their ring-leader (2 Cor 10:7,11), and to have made himself specially obnoxious to the apostle. In all probability we may take it that he was the offender of 2 Cor 2 and 7. Under his influence the opposition audaciously endeavored to destroy the gospel of grace by personal attacks upon its most distinguished exponent. Paul was denounced as an upstart and self-seeker, destitute of any apostolic authority, and derided for the contemptible appearance he made in person, in contrast with the swelling words and presumptuous claims of his epistles It is clear, therefore, that a profound religious crisis had arisen among the Corinthians, and that there was a danger of their attachment to Paul and his doctrine being destroyed.

3. The Painful Visit:

2 Cor 12:14 and 13:1,2 speak of a third visit in immediate prospect, and the latter passage also refers to a second visit that had been already accomplished; while 2:1 distinctly implies that a visit had taken place of a character so painful that the apostle would never venture to endure a similar one. As this cannot possibly refer to the first visit when the church was founded, and cannot easily be regarded as indicating anything previous to 1 Corinthians which never alludes to such an experience, we must conclude that the reference points to the interval between 1 and 2 Corinthians. It was then beyond doubt that the visit "with sorrow," which humbled him (12:21) and left such deep wounds, had actually taken place. "Any exegesis," says Weizsacker justly, "that would avoid the conclusion that Paul had already been twice in Corinth is capricious and artificial" (Apostolic Age, I, 343). Sabatier ( Apostle Paul, 172 note) records his revised opinion: "The reference here (2:1) is to a second and quite recent visit, of which he retained a very sorrowful recollection, including it among the most bitter trials of his apostolical career."

4. The Severe Letter:

Paul not only speaks of a visit which had ended grievously, but also of a letter which he had written to deal with the painful circumstances, and as a kind of ultimatum to bring the whole matter to an issue (2 Cor 2:4; 7:8). This letter was written because he could not trust himself meantime to another visit. He was so distressed and agitated that he wrote it "with many tears"; after it was written he repented of it; and until he knew its effect he endured torture so keen that he hastened to Macedonia to meet his messenger, Titus, halfway. It is impossible by any stretch of interpretation to refer this language to 1 Corinthians, which on the whole is dominated by a spirit of didactic calm, and by a consciousness of friendly rapport with its recipients. Even though there be in it occasional indications of strong feeling, there is certainly nothing that we can conceive the apostle might have wished to recall. The alternative has generally been to regard this as another case of a lost epistle Just as the writer of Acts appears to have been willing that the deplorable visit itself should drop into oblivion, so doubtless neither Paul nor the Corinthians would be very anxious to preserve an epistle which echoed with the gusts and storms of such a visit. On the other hand a strong tendency has set in to regard this intermediate epistle as at least in part preserved in 2 Cor 10 through 13, whose tone, it is universally admitted, differs from that of the preceding chapters in a remarkable way, not easily accounted for. The majority of recent writers seem inclined to favor this view, which will naturally fall to be considered under the head of "Integrity."

IV. Historical Reconstruction.

In view of such an interpretation, we may with considerable probability trace the course of events in the interval between 1 and 2 Corinthians as follows: After the dispatch of 1 Corinthians, news reached the apostle of a disquieting character; probably both Titus and Timothy, on returning from Corinth, reported the growing menace of the opposition fostered by the Judaizing party. Paul felt impelled to pay an immediate visit, and found only too sadly that matters had not been overstated. The opposition was strong and full of effrontery, and the whole trend of things was against him. In face of the congregation he was baffled and flouted. He returned to Ephesus, and poured out his indignation in a severe epistle, which he sent on by the hands of Titus. Before Titus could return, events took a disastrous form in Ephesus, and Paul was forced to leave that city in peril of his life. He went to Troas, but, unable to wait patiently there for tidings of the issue in Corinth, he crossed to Macedonia, and met Titus, possibly in Philippi. The report was happily reassuring; the majority of the congregation returned to their old attachment, and the heavy cloud of doubt and anxiety was dispelled from the apostle's mind. He then wrote again--the present epistle--and forwarded it by Titus and other brethren, he himself following a little later, and finally wintering in Corinth as he had originally planned. If it be felt that the interval between spring and autumn of the same year is too brief for these events, the two epistles must be separated by a period of nearly 18 months, 1 Corinthians being referred to the spring of 54 or 55, and 2 Corinthians to the autumn of 55 or 56 AD. (Reference on the reconstruction should especially be made to Weizsacker's Apostolic Age, English translation, I; to Sabatier's Note to the English edition (1893) of his Apostle Paul; and to Robertson's article in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes).)

V. Integrity of the Epistle.

Although the genuineness of the various parts of the epistle is scarcely disputed, the homogeneity is much debated. Semler and some later writers, including Clemen (Einheitlichkeit), have thought that 2 Cor 9 should be eliminated as logically inconsistent with chapter 8, and as evidently forming part of a letter to the converts of Achaia. But the connection with chapter 8 is too close to permit of severance, and the logical objection, founded on the phraseology of 9:1, is generally regarded as hypercritical. There are two sections, however, whose right to remain integral parts of 2 Cor has been more forcibly challenged.

1. 2 Corinthians 6:14 through 7:1:

The passage 2 Cor 6:14 to 7:1 deals with the inconsistency and peril of intimate relations with the heathen, and is felt to be incongruous with the context. No doubt it comes strangely after an appeal to the Corinthians to show the apostle the same frankness and kindness that he is showing them; whereas 7:2 follows naturally and links itself closely to such an appeal. When we remember that the particular theme of the lost letter referred to in 1 Cor 5:9 was the relation of the converts to the immoral, it is by no means unlikely that we have here preserved a stray fragment of that epistle

2. 2 Corinthians 10:1 through 13:10:

It is universally acknowledged that there is a remarkable change in the tone of the section 2 Cor 10:1 through 13:10, as Compared with that of the previous chapters In the earlier chapters there is relief at the change which Titus has reported as having taken place in Corinth, and the spirit is one of gladness and content; but from chapter 10 onward the hostility to the apostle is unexpectedly represented as still raging, and as demanding the most strenuous treatment. The opening phrase, "Now I Paul" (10:1), is regarded as indicating a distinctive break from the previous section with which Timothy is associated (1:1), while the concluding verse, 13:11 to end, seem fittingly to close that section, but to be abruptly out of harmony with the polemic that ends at 13:10. Accordingly it is suggested that 13:11 should immediately follow 9:15, and that 10:1 through 13:10 be regarded as a lengthy insertion from some other epistle. Those who, while acknowledging the change of tone, yet maintain the integrity of the epistle, do so on the ground that the apostle was a man of many moods, and that it is characteristic of him to make unexpected and even violent transitions; that new reports of a merely scotched antagonism may come in to ruffle and disturb his comparative contentment; and that in any case he might well deem it advisable finally to deliver his whole soul on a matter over which he had brooded and suffered deeply, so that there might be no mistake about the ground being cleared when he arrived in person. The question is still a subject of keen discussion, and is not one on which it is easy to pronounce dogmatically. On the whole, however, it must be acknowledged that the preponderance of recent opinion is in favor of theory of interpolation. Hausrath (Der Vier-Capitel-Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, 1870) gave an immense impetus to the view that this later section really represents the painful letter referred to in 2 Cor 2 and 7. As that earlier letter, however, must have contained references to the personal offender, the present section, which omits all such references, can be regarded as at most only a part of it. This theory is ably and minutely expounded by Schmiedel (Hand-Kommentar); and Pfleiderer, Lipsius, Clemen, Krenkel, von Soden, McGiffert, Cone, Plummer, Rendall, Moffatt, Adeney, Peake, and Massie are prominent among its adherents. J. H. Kennedy (Second and Third Cor) presents perhaps the ablest and fullest argument for it that has yet appeared in English. On the other hand Sanday (Encyclopaedia Biblica) declares against it, and Robertson (Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)) regards it as decidedly not proven; while critics of such weight as Holtzmann, Beyschlag, Klopper, Weizsacker, Sabatier, Godet, Bernard, Denney, Weiss, and Zahn are all to be reckoned as advocates of the integrity of the epistle.

VI. Contents of the Epistle.

The order of matter in 2 Corintians is quite clearly defined. There are three main divisions: (1) chapters 1 through 7; (2) chapters 8 through 9; and (3) chapters 10 through 13.

1. 2 Corinthians 1 through 7:

The first seven chapters in 2 Corinthians as a whole are taken up with a retrospect of the events that have recently transpired, joyful references to the fact that the clouds of grief in connection with them have been dispelled, and that the evangelical ministry as a Divine trust and power is clearly manifested. After a cordial salutation, in which Timothy is associated, Paul starts at once to express his profound gratitude to God for the great comfort that had come to him by the good news from Corinth, rejoicing in it as a spiritual enrichment that will make his ministry still more fruitful to the church (1:3-11). He professes his sincerity in all his relations with the Corinthians, and particularly vindicates it in connection with a change in the plan which had originally promised a return ("a second benefit") to Corinth; his sole reason for refraining, and for writing a painful letter instead, being his desire to spare them and to prove them (1:12; 2:4,9). Far from harboring any resentment against the man who had caused so much trouble, he sincerely pleads that his punishment by the majority should go no farther, but that forgiveness should now reign, lest the Adversary should gain an advantage over them (2:5-11). It was indeed an agonizing experience until the moment he met Titus, but the relief was all the sweeter and more triumphant when God at length gave it, as he might have been sure He would give it to a faithful and soul-winning servant of Christ (2:12-17). He does not indeed wish to enter upon any further apologies or self-commendation. Some believe greatly in letters of commendation, but his living testimonial is in his converts. This he has, not of himself, but entirely through God, who alone has made him an efficient minister of the new and abiding covenant of the Spirit, whose glory naturally excels that of the old dispensation which fadeth because it really cannot bring life. Regarding this glorious ministry he must be bold and frank. It needs no veil as if to conceal its evanescence. Christ presents it unveiled to all who turn to Him, and they themselves, reflecting His glory, are spiritually transformed (3:1-18). As for those who by God's mercy have received such a gospel ministry, it is impossible for them to be faint-hearted in its exercise, although the eyes of some may be blinded to it, because the god of this world enslaves them (4:4). It is indeed wonderful that ministers of this grace should be creatures so frail, so subject to pressure and affliction, but it is not inexplicable. So much the more obvious is it that all the power and glory of salvation are from God alone (4:7,15). Yea, even if one be called to die in this ministry, that is but another light and momentary affliction. It is but passing from a frail earthly tent to abide forever in a heavenly home (5:1). Who would not long for it, that this mortal may be swallowed up in immortality? Courage, therefore, is ours to the end, for that end only means the cessation of our separation from Christ, whom it is a joy to serve absent or present. And present we shall all ultimately be before Him on the judgment throne (5:10). That itself unspeakably deepens the earnestness with which preachers of the gospel seek to persuade men. It is the love of Christ constraining them (5:14) in the ministry of reconciliation, that they should entreat men as ambassadors on Christ's behalf (5:20). So sacred and responsible a trust has subdued the apostle's own life, and is indeed the key to its manifold endurance, and to the earnestness with which he has striven to cultivate every grace, and to submit himself to every discipline (6:1-10). Would God the Corinthians might open their hearts to him as he does to them! (Let them have no fellowship with iniquity, but perfect holiness in the fear of God, 6:14 through 7:1.) He has never wronged them; they are enshrined in his heart, living or dying; he glories in them, and is filled with comfort in all his affliction (6:11-13; 7:2-4). For what blessed comfort that was that Titus brought him in Macedonia to dispel his fears, and to show that the things he regretted and grieved to have written had done no harm after all, but had rather wrought in them the joyful change for which he longed! Now both they and he knew how dear he was to them. Titus, too, was overjoyed by the magnanimity of their reception of him. The apostle's cup is full, and "in everything he is of good courage concerning them" (2 Cor 7:16).

2. 2 Corinthians 8 through 9:

In the second section, 2 Cor 8 through 9, the apostle, now abundantly confident of their good-will, exhorts the Corinthians on the subject of the collection for the poor saints at Jerusalem. He tells them of the extraordinary liberality of the Macedonian churches, and invites them to emulate it, and by the display of this additional grace to make full proof of their love (8:1-8). Nay, they have a higher incentive than the liberality of Macedonia, even the self-sacrifice of Christ Himself (8:9). Wherefore let them go on with the good work they were so ready to initiate a year ago, giving out of a willing mind, as God hath enabled them (8:10-15). Further to encourage them he sends on Titus and other well-known and accredited brethren, whose interest in them is as great as his own, and he is hopeful that by their aid the matter will be completed, and all will rejoice when he comes, bringing with him probably some of those of Macedonia, to whom he has already been boasting of their zeal (8:16-9:5). Above all, let them remember that important issues are bound up with this grace of Christian liberality. It is impossible to reap bountifully, if we sow sparingly. Grudging and compulsory benevolence is a contradiction, but God loveth and rewardeth a cheerful giver. This grace blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Many great ends are served by it. The wants of the needy are supplied, men's hearts are drawn affectionately to one another, thanksgivings abound, and God himself is glorified (9:6-15).

3. 2 Corinthians 10 through 13:

The third section, 2 Cor 10 through 13, as has been pointed out, is a spirited and even passionate polemic, in the course of which the Judaizing party in Corinth is vigorously assailed. The enemies of the apostle have charged him with being very bold and courageous when he is absent, but humble enough when he is present. He hopes the Corinthians will not compel him to show his courage (10:2). It is true, being human, he walks in the flesh, but not in the selfish and cowardly way his opponents suggest. The weapons of his warfare are not carnal, yet are they mighty before God to cast down such strongholds as theirs, such vain imaginations and disobedience. Some boast of being "Christ's," but that is no monopoly; he also is Christ's. They think his letters are mere "sound and fury, signifying nothing"; by and by they will discover their mistake. If he should glory in his authority, he is justified, for Corinth was verily part of his God-appointed province, and he at least did not there enter on other men's labors. But it would be well if men who gloried confined themselves to glorying "in the Lord." For after all it is His commendation alone that is of any permanent value (10:3-18). Will the Corinthians bear with him in a little of this foolish boasting? Truly he ventures on it out of concern for them (11:2). And as they are manifest adepts in toleration, abounding in patience toward those who have come with a different gospel, they may perhaps extend some of their indulgence to him, for though he cannot lay claim to a polished oratory comparable to that of these "super-eminent" apostles, yet at least he is not behind them in knowledge (11:4-6). Can it be that he really sinned in preaching the gospel to them without fee or reward? Was it a mark of fleshly cunning when he resolved not to be burdensome to them, while he accepted supplies from Macedonia? Ah! it was not because he did not love them, but because he decided to give no occasion to those who were too ready to blame him--those false apostles, who, like Satan himself, masqueraded as angels of light and ministers of righteousness (11:7-15). Come, then, let him to this glorying, this poor folly, which they in their superlative wisdom bear with so gladly in the case of those insolent creatures who now bully and degrade them (11:16-21). Hebrews! Israelites! So is he. Ministers of Christ! There he excels them--in labors, in perils, in persecutions; in burdens, anxieties, sympathies; in visions and revelations of the Lord; in infirmities and weaknesses that have made more manifest in him the strength of Christ 2 Cor 11:22-12:10. Certainly all this is folly, but they are most to blame for it who, through lack of loyalty, have forced him to it. Did he injure them by declining to be burdensome? Is it so sore a point? Let it be forgiven! Yet when he comes again he will take no other course (12:11-18). They must not imagine that in all this he is excusing himself to them. He is sincerely and affectionately concerning himself for their edifying. He trembles lest when they meet again they should be disappointed in each other; lest they should be found in unworthy strife and tumults, and lest he should be humbled of God before them, having cause to mourn over some who are hardened and impenitent in their sins (12:19-21). For they must meet again--he is coming for the third time--and this time he will not spare. Let them prove themselves whether they be in the faith; for surely they must know whether Christ be in them. He earnestly prays for their goodness and honor; not to the end that no display of his power may be called for, but simply that he will be glad to appear weak if they should appear strong. Could they but believe it, their perfecting is the aim of all his labors (13:1-10). And so, with words of grace and tenderness, exhorting them to unity and peace, and pronouncing over them the threefold benediction, he bids them farewell (13:11-4).

VII. Value of the Epistle.

The chief element of value in this epistle is the revelation it gives of the apostle himself. Through all its changing moods, Paul, in perfect abandon, shows us his very soul, suffering, rejoicing, enduring, overcoming. It has been truly said that "it enables us, as it were, to lay our hands upon his breast, and feel the very throbbings of his heart." (1) In relation to his converts, it shows us how sensitive he was, how easy it was to touch him on the quick, and to wound his feelings. The apostle was very human, and nowhere are his kindred limitations more obvious than in these present incidents. He would probably be the first to acquiesce, if it were said that even with him the creed was greater than the life. In the hastily written and nervously repented passages of that severe epistle; in the restless wandering, like a perturbed spirit, from Troas to Macedonia, to meet the news and know the issue of his acts, we see a man most lovable indeed, most like ourselves when issues hang in the balance, but a man not already perfect, not yet risen to the measure of the stature of Christ. Yet we see also the intensity with which Paul labored in his ministry--the tenacity with which he held to his mission, and the invincible courage with which he returned to the fight for his imperiled church. He loved those converts as only a great soul in Christ could love them. His keenest sorrow came in the disaster that threatened them, and he flew to their defense. He had not only won them for Christ, he was willing to die that he might keep them for Christ. (2) The epistle is charged with a magnificent consciousness on the apostle's part of his high calling in Christ Jesus. He has been called with a Divine calling to the most glorious work in which a man can engage, to be to this estranged earth an ambassador of heaven. Received as Divine, this vocation is accepted with supreme devotion. It has been a ministry of sorrow, of strain and suffering, of hairbreadth escapes with the bare life; with its thorn in the flesh, its buffering of Satan. Yet through it all there rings the note of abounding consolation in Christ Jesus, and never was the "power of Christ," resting on frail humanity, more signally manifested.

LITERATURE.

See the references to both epistles, and to 2 Corinthians alone, under this heading in the preceding article. To the list there given should be added Moffatt's Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament, 1911; valuable for its critical presentation of recent views, and for its references to the literature.

R. Dykes Shaw


CORINTHUS

ko-rin'-thus: Latin form for Greek Korinthos in the subscription to Rom (the King James Version).

See CORINTH .


CORMORANT

kor'-mo-rant (shalakh; kataraktes; Latin Corvus marinus): A large sea-fowl belonging to the genus Phalacrocorax and well described by the Hebrew word used to designate it--which means a "plunging bird." The bird appears as large as a goose when in full feather, but plucked, the body is much smaller. The adult birds are glossy black with bronze tints, touched with white on the cheeks and sides as a festal dress at mating season, and adorned with filamentary feathers on the head, and bright yellow gape. These birds if taken young and carefully trained can be sent into the water from boats and bring to their masters large quantities of good-sized fish: commonly so used in China. The flesh is dark, tough and quite unfit to eat in the elders on account of their diet of fish. The nest is built mostly of seaweed. The eggs are small for the size of the birds, having a rough, thick, but rather soft shell of a bluish white which soon becomes soiled, as well as the nest and its immediate surroundings, from the habits of the birds. The young are leathery black, then covered with soft down of brownish black above and white beneath and taking on the full black of the grown bird at about three years. If taken in the squab state the young are said to be delicious food, resembling baked hare in flavor. The old birds are mentioned among the abominations for food (Lev 11:13-19; Dt 14:12-18).

Gene Stratton-Porter


CORN

korn (daghan; sitos): A word used for cereals generally (Gen 27:28,37, etc., the King James Version) much as our English word "corn." the American Standard Revised Version almost invariably substitutes "grain" for "corn." The latter may be taken to include (1) barley, (2) wheat, (3) fitches (vetches), (4) lentils, (5) beans, (6) millet, (7) rye--the wrong translation for vetches, (8) pulse--for all these see separate articles. Rye and oats are not cultivated in Palestine For many references to corn see AGRICULTURE ;FOOD . "A corn kokkos, the Revised Version (British and American) "grain"] of wheat" is mentioned (Jn 12:24).


CORNELIUS

kor-ne'-li-us (Kornelios, "of a horn"): The story of Cornelius is given in Acts 10:1 through 11:18.

1. His Family and Station:

The name is Roman and belonged to distinguished families in the imperial city, such as the Scipios and Sulla. Thus he was probably an Italian of Roman blood. Julian the Apostate reckons him as one of the few persons of distinction who became a Christian. He was evidently a man of importance in Caesarea and well known to the Jews (Acts 10:22). He was a centurion in the Italian cohort. To understand this we must note that the Roman army was divided into two broad divisions, the legions and the auxiliary forces.

See ARMY ,ROMAN .

Legions were never permanently quartered in Palestine until the great war which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem, 70 AD. From the year 6 AD, when Palestine was made into province of the second rank, until 66 AD, it was garrisoned by auxiliary troops recruited amongst the Samaritans and Syrian Greeks. The headquarters were naturally at Caesarea, the residence of the procurator. But it would not have been prudent for a garrison in Palestine to be composed wholly of troops locally recruited. Therefore the Roman government mingled with the garrison 600 soldiers, free Italian volunteers. With this cohort Cornelius was connected as centurion.

2. His Character:

He is described as devout and God-fearing, i.e. at least, one of those men so numerous in that effete age of decadent heathenism who, discontented with polytheism, yearned for a better faith, embraced, therefore, the monotheism of the Jews, read the Scriptures, and practiced more or less of the Jewish rites. He was well reported of by the Jews, and his religion showed itself in prayer at the regular hours, and in alms to the people (of Israel). Even Jewish bigotry was dumb in presence of so noble a man. Moreover, he seems to have made his house a sort of church, for his kinsfolk and friends were in sympathy with him, and among the soldiers who closely attended him were some devout ones (Acts 10:1,27).

3. His Admission into the Christian Church:

The story of his conversion and admission into the Christian church is told with some minuteness in Acts 10. Nothing further is known of Cornelius, though one tradition asserts that he founded the church in Caesarea, and another legend that he became the bishop of Scamandros.

4. Significance of the Incident:

The exact importance of the incident depends upon the position of Cornelius before it occurred. Certainly he was not a proselyte of the sanctuary, circumcised, under the law, a member of the Jewish communion. This is abundantly evident from Acts 10:28,34,45; 11:3,18; 15:7,14. But was he not an inferior form of proselyte, later called "proselytes of the gate"? This question has been much debated and is still under discussion. Ramsay (St. Paul the Traveler, 43) says that the expression, "God-fearing," applied to him, is always used in Acts with reference to this kind of proselytes. Such were bound to observe certain regulations of purity, probably those, this author thinks, mentioned in Acts 15:29, and which stand in close relation to the principles laid down in Lev 17 through 18 for the conduct of strangers dwelling among Israel. Renan, on the other hand, denies that Cornelius was a proselyte at all, but simply a devout Gentile who adopted some of the Jewish ideas and religious customs which did not involve a special profession. The importance of the whole transaction to the development of the church seems to depend on the circumstance that Cornelius was probably not a proselyte at all. Thus we regard Cornelius as literally the first-fruits of the Gentiles. The step here taken by Peter was therefore one of tremendous importance to the whole development of the church. The significance of the incident consists exactly in this, that under Divine direction, the first Gentile, not at all belonging to the old theocracy, becomes a Spirit-filled Christian, entering through the front door of the Christian church without first going through the narrow gate of Judaism. The incident settled forever the great, fundamental question as to the relations of Jew and Gentile in the church. The difficulties in the way of the complete triumph of Peter's view of the equality of Jews and Gentiles in the Kingdom of Christ were enormous. It would have been indeed little short of miraculous if the multitude of Christian Pharisees had not raised the question again and again. Did they not dog Paul's steps after the Council? Certainly Ramsay is wrong in saying that the case of Cornelius was passed over or condoned as exceptional, for it was used as a precedent by both Peter and James (Acts 15:7,14).

As for Peter's subsequent conduct at Antioch, no one who knows Peter need be surprised at it. The very accusation that Paul hurled at him was that for the moment he was carried into inconsistency with his principles (hupokrisis). Of course, this incident of Cornelius was only the first step in a long development; but the principle was forever settled. The rest in due time and proper order was sure to follow. By this tremendous innovation it was settled that Christianity was to be freed from the swaddling bands of Judaism and that the Christian church was not to be an appendix to the synagogue. The noble character of Cornelius was just fitted to abate, as far as possible, the prejudices of the Jewish Christians against what must have seemed to them a dangerous, if not awful, innovation.

G. H. Trever


CORNER

kor'-ner (miqtsoa`, pe'ah, pinnah; arche, gonia, akrogoniaios): In Ex 26:24; Ezek 41:22; 46:21,22, miqtsoa`, "angle" is translated "corner"; pe'ah, "side," "quarter" and pinnah "corner," "front," "chief," are more frequently so translated, e.g. Ex 25:26; Lev 19:9; Jer 9:26; 25:23; and Ex 27:2; 1 Ki 7:34; Ps 118:22; Isa 28:16 ("corner-stone"); Jer 51:26. Other words are kanaph, "wing" (Isa 11:12; Ezek 7:2); katheph, "shoulder" (2 Ki 11:11 the King James Version, twice); pa`am, "foot" (Ex 25:12 the King James Version); zawiyoth, "corner-stones" (Ps 144:12; Zec 9:15, translated "corners").

For "corner" the Revised Version (British and American) has "side" (Ex 36:25), "corner-stone" (Zec 10:4), also for "stay" (Isa 19:13); instead of "teacher removed into a corner" (Isa 30:20), "be hidden," "hide themselves"; for "corners" we have "feet" (Ex 25:12; 1 Ki 7:30); "ribs" (Ex 30:4; 37:27); for "divide into corners" (Neh 9:22), "allot after their portions"; for "into corners" (Dt 32:26), "afar"; the words to Israel (Isa 41:9) "called thee from the chief men 'atsilim thereof" are rendered by the Revised Version (British and American) "called thee from the corners thereof" (of the earth).

In the New Testament we have gonia ("angle," "corner"), "in the corners of the streets" (Mt 6:5), "the head of the corner" (Mt 21:42), "the four corners of the earth" (Rev 7:1; 20:8); arche ("a beginning") (Acts 10:11; 11:5); "chief corner stone" (Eph 2:20; 1 Pet 2:6), is a translation of akrogoniaios ("at the extreme angle").

W. L. Walker


CORNER GATE

kor'-ner gat.

See JERUSALEM .


CORNER-STONE

kor'-ner ston (pinnah, zawith; akrogoniaios): Part of the public or imposing buildings, to which importance has been attached in all ages and in many nations, both on account of its actual service and its figurative meaning. Ordinarily its use in the Bible is figurative, or symbolical. No doubt the original meaning was some important stone, which was laid at the foundation of a building.

(1) With the Canaanites, who preceded Israel in the possession of Palestine, corner-stone laying seems to have been a most sacred and impressive ceremonial. Under this important stone of temples, or other great structures, bodies of children or older persons would be laid, consecrating the building by such human sacrifice (see FORTIFICATION ,II , 1). This was one of many hideous rites and practices which Israel was to extirpate. It may throw light on the curse pronounced upon the rebuilding of Jericho (Josh 6:26; see PEFS , January, 1904, July, 1908).

See CANAAN .

(2) Old Testament references.--The Hebrew word pinnah, "corner," is found or implied in every occurrence of this idea. Derived from a root signifying "to turn," it means "turning," and therefore "edge" or "corner." Ordinarily it is used with 'ebhen, "stone" (Ps 118:22); or it may occur alone, having acquired for itself through frequent use the whole technical phrase-idea (Zec 10:4 the King James Version).

Figurative Uses:

While all the passages indicate the stone at the corner, there appear to be two conceptions: (a) the foundation-stone upon which the structure rested (Job 38:6; Isa 28:16; Jer 51:26); or (b) the topmost or cap-stone, which linked the last tier together (Ps 118:22; Zec 4:7); in both cases it is an important or key-stone, and figurative of the Messiah, who is "the First and the Last." In Job 38:6 it beautifully expresses in figures the stability of the earth, which Yahweh created. In Zec 10:4 the leader or ruler in the Messianic age is represented by the corner-stone. The ancient tradition of the one missing stone, when the temple was in building, is reflected in or has been suggested by Ps 118:22 (Midrash quoted by Pusey under Zec 4:7). It is probable that we should read in Ps 144:12 not "corner-stones," but "corner-pillars," or supports (compare Greek Caryatides) from a different Hebrew word, zawith, Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, under the word

(3) New Testament passages.--Ps 118:22 is quoted and interpreted as fulfilled in Jesus Christ in a number of passages: Mt 21:42; Mk 12:10; Lk 20:17; Acts 4:11 and 1 Pet 2:7; it is also the evident basis for Eph 2:20. Isa 28:16 is quoted twice in the New Testament: Rom 9:33, from Septuagint combined with the words of Isa 8:14, and in 1 Pet 2:6, which is quoted with some variation from Septuagint. The Old Testament passages were understood by the rabbis to be Messianic, and were properly so applied by the New Testament writers.

See also HOUSE .

Edward Mack


CORNERS OF THE EARTH

See EARTH ,CORNERS OF THE .


CORNET

kor'-net.

See MUSIC .


CORNFLOOR

korn'-flor (goren daghan): "Thou hast loved a reward upon every cornfloor" (Hos 9:1 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "hire upon every grainfloor"). Israel had deserted Yahweh for supposed material benefits and regarded bounteous crops as the gift of the heathen gods which they worshipped. Yahweh would therefore cause the corn (grain) and wine to fail (Hos 9:2).

See also THRESHING-FLOOR .


CORONATION

kor-o-na'-shun (protoklisia): Occurs in 2 Macc 4:21 (the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "enthronement") where Apollonius was sent into Egypt for the coronation of Ptolemy Philometor as king. The Greek word protoklisia occurs nowhere else, and its meaning is uncertain. The reading in Swete is protoklesia, and this means "the first call."


CORPSE

korps: This word in the King James Version is the translations of two Hebrew words, pegher, and gewiyah, while nebhelah, and guphah, which mean the same, are translated "body," with which the English word "corpse" (Latin, corpus) was originally synonymical. Therefore we find the now apparently unnecessary addition of the adjective "dead" in 2 Ki 19:35 and Isa 37:36. The Greek equivalent is ptoma, literally, "a fallen body," "a ruin" (from pipto, "to fall"), in Mk 6:29; Rev 11:8,9.

Corpses were considered as unclean and defiling in the Old Testament, so that priests were not to touch dead bodies except those of near kinsfolk (Lev 21:1-3), the high priest and a Nazirite not even such (Lev 21:11; Nu 6:6-8). Nu 19 presents to us the ceremonial of purification from such defilement by the sprinkling with the ashes of a red heifer, cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet.

It was considered a great calamity and disgrace to have one's body left unburied, a "food unto all birds of the heavens, and unto the beasts of the earth" (Dt 28:26; 2 Sam 21:10; Ps 79:2; Isa 34:3; Jer 7:33, etc.). Thence is explained the merit of Rizpah (2 Sam 21:10), and of the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead, who protected or recovered and buried the mutilated bodies of Saul and his sons (1 Sam 31:11-13; 2 Sam 2:4-7; compare 1 Ch 10:11,12).

See BURIAL .

Even the corpses of persons executed by hanging were not to remain on the tree "all night," "for he that is hanged is accursed of God; that thou defile not thy land which Yahweh thy God giveth thee for an inheritance" (Dt 21:23).

H. L. E. Luering


CORRECTION

ko-rek'-shun (mucar, usually rendered "instruction," is translated "correction" in several passages): The verb from which the noun is derived signifies "to instruct" or "chastise." The idea of chastisement was very closely connected in the Hebrew mind with that of pedagogy. See CHASTISEMENT . the Revised Version (British and American) and the American Standard Revised Version have changed "correction" of the King James Version to "instruction" in Jer 7:28, reversing the order in the margins. shebheT, rendered "rod" in Job 21:9, is unnecessarily changed to "correction" in 37:13. In 2 Tim 3:16, epanorthosis, is translated "correction." The difference between correction, discipline and instruction Was not clearly drawn in the Hebrew mind.

W. W. Davies


CORRUPTION

ko-rup'-shun: The Hebrew words mishchath, mashchath, mashchith, and their Greek equivalents, phthora, and diaphthora, with numerous derivatives and cognate verbs, imply primarily physical degeneration and decay (Job 17:14; Acts 2:27, etc.). The term shachath, which the King James Version translates with "corruption" in Jon 2:6, ought to be rendered "pit,". as in Ps 30:9; 35:7 et passim, while shachath beli in Isa 38:17 means the "pit of nothingness," i.e. of destruction.

Figurative: At an early time we find the above-given words in a non-literal sense denoting moral depravity and corruption (Gen 6:11; Ex 32:7; Hos 9:9; Gal 6:8, etc.), which ends in utter moral ruin and hopelessness, the second death. The question has been raised whether the meaning of these words might be extended so as to include the idea of final destruction and annihilation of the spirit. Upon careful examination, however, this question must be denied both from the standpoint of the Old Testament and of the New Testament. Apart from other considerations we see this from the metaphors used in the Scriptures to illustrate the condition of "corruption," such as the "unquenchable fire," the "worm" which "dieth not" (Mk 9:43,18; compare Isa 66:24), and "sleep" (Dan 12:2), where a careful distinction is made between the blissful state after death of the righteous and the everlasting disgrace of the godless. The later Jewish theology is also fully agreed on this point. The meaning of the words cannot therefore extend beyond the idea of utter moral degradation and depravity.

H. L. E. Luering


CORRUPTION, MOUNT OF

(har ha-mashchith; to oros tou Mosoath): The hill on the right hand of which Solomon built high places for Ashtoreth, Chemosh and Milcom (2 Ki 23:13). The mountain referred to is no doubt the Mount of Olives. The high places would, therefore, be on the southern height called in later Christian writings the "Mount of Offence," and now, by the Arabs, Baten el-Hawa. Har ha-mashchith is probably only a perversion of har ha-mishchah, "Mount of Anointing," a later name of the Mount of Olives.

W. Ewing


COS

kos (Kos, "summit"; the King James Version Coos): An island off the coast of Caria, Asia Minor, one of the Sporades, mountainous in the southern half, with ridges extending to a height of 2,500 ft.; identified with the modern Stanchio. It was famous in antiquity for excellent wine, amphorae, wheat, ointments, silk and other clothing (Coae vestes). The capital was also called Cos. It possessed a famous hospital and medical school, and was the birthplace of Hippocrates (the father of medicine), of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and of the celebrated painter Apelles. The large plane tree in the center of the town (over 2,000 years old) is called "the tree of Hippocrates" to this day. The older capital, Astypalaea, was in the western part of the island, the later (since 366 BC) in the eastern part. From almost every point can be seen beautiful landscapes and picturesque views of sea and land and mountain.

Cos was one of the six Dorian colonies. It soon became a flourishing place of commerce and industry; later, like Corinth, it was one of the Jewish centers of the Aegean, as well as one of the financial centers of the commercial world in the eastern Mediterranean. Among the benefactors of the people of Cos was Herod the Great. It is mentioned in connection with Paul's third missionary journey in Acts 21:1, and in its relations with the Jews in 1 Macc 15:23; Ant, XIV, vii, 2; x, 15; BJ, I, xxi. 11. For a list of works on the island see Paton-Hicks, Inscriptions of Cos, ix.

J. E. Harry


COSAM

ko'-sam (Kosam): An ancestor of Jesus in Luke's genealogy in the 5th generation before Zerubbabel (Lk 3:28).


COSMOGONY

koz-mog'-o-ni.

See ANTHROPOLOGY ;CREATION ;EARTH ;EVOLUTION ;WORLD .


COSMOLOGY

koz-mol'-o-ji.

See WORLD ;PROVIDENCE .


COSTLINESS

kost'-li-nes (timiotes, "preciousness," "an abundance of costly things"): Found only in Rev 18:19, "made rich by reason of her costliness."


COTES

kots.

See SHEEPCOTE .


COTTAGE

kot'-aj.

See HOUSE .


COTTON

kot'-'-n (karpac is the better translation, as in the Revised Version, margin, where the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) have "green" in Est 1:6): The Hebrew karpac is from the Persian kirpas and the Sanskrit karpasa, "the cotton plant." The derived words originally meant "muslin" or "calico," but in classical times the use of words allied to karpac--in Greek and Latin--was extended to include linen. The probability is in favor of "cotton" in Est 1:6. This is the product of Gossypium herbaceum, a plant originally from India but now cultivated in many other lands.


COUCH

kouch (substantive.).

See BED .

Couch (verb): rabhats, "to crouch," "lurk," as a beast in readiness to spring on its prey. "If thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door" (Gen 4:7, the King James Version "lieth"), waiting for it to open. Cain is warned to beware of the first temptations to evil, in his case especially a sullen and jealous disposition (compare Dante, Inferno, I, 30). See ABEL ;CAIN . The tribe of Judah is compared for its bravery to a recumbent lion or lioness (Gen 49:9; compare Nu 24:9 f); and Issachar to "a strong ass, couching down between the sheepfolds" (Gen 49:14, the King James Version "between two burdens"; compare Jdg 5:16). "The deep that coucheth beneath" (Dt 33:13), probably the springs of water, or possibly, as Driver suggests, "the subterranean deep, pictured as a gigantic monster."

See ABYSS .

M. O. Evans


COUCHING-PLACE

kouch'-ing-plas (marbets; once in English Versions of the Bible, Ezek 25:5): The same Hebrew word, however, which means simply "place of lying down" of animals in repose, is used also in Zeph 2:15 where the translation is "a place .... to lie down in." The figure, a common one in Scripture (see besides, Isa 17:2; 27:10), suggests desolation.


COULTER

kol'-ter.

See PLOW .


COUNCIL; COUNCILLOR

koun'-sil, koun'-siler (sumboulion): An assembly of advisers (Acts 25:12); a body of those taking counsel (see Schurer's Jewish People in the Time of Christ,I (1), 60). Distinguished from sunedrion, the supreme court of the Jews, by being of a less formal character, i.e. less of an institution. For "council" in the latter sense, its most frequent use, see SANHEDRIN . A councilor (Greek bouleutes) was a member of the Sanhedrin. Applied to Joseph of Arimathea (Mk 15:43; Lk 23:50). In the King James Version "counsellor."


COUNSEL; COUNSELLOR

koun'-sel, koun'-seler (sumboulion): Ordinarily found as object of verb "to take" or "to give," expressing, beside the idea of a practical end to be reached, that of consultation and deliberation among those united in a common cause (Mt 12:14; Mk 3:6). A counselor (sumboulos) is a confidential adviser (Rom 11:34); often in the Old Testament (Isa 9:6; Prov 24:6, etc.). Confounded in the King James Version with "councillor" (see above), the latter being an official adviser, which the former does not necessarily mean.


COUNT

kount (caphar, manah; psephizo): Used of arithmetical computation "to number" (Ps 139:18; Nu 23:10); also for kathabh, "to reckon," to indicate classification among or identification with, "count for a stranger" (Job 19:15); "count for his enemy" (Job 33:10). In the New Testament the arithmetical computation is less prominent, except in the sense of "calculate," psephizo, sumpsephizo, "to reckon with pebbles," each pebble representing a unit (Lk 14:28; Acts 19:19); of moral estimate, hegeomai and logizomai (Phil 3:7,13). The noun, from Hebrew kacath, "a count of" (Ex 12:4), namely, in the arithmetical sense.

H. E. Jacobs


COUNTENANCE

koun'-te-nans:

(1) The noun (see also under the wordFACE ) is the translation of a variety of Hebrew and Greek expressions, panim; prosopon, being the most frequent. Besides these there are found mar'eh, "appearance," "shape," "comeliness," "visage," `ayin, "the eye," to'ar, "appearance," "figure," etc., and Aramaic ziw. To the Oriental the countenance mirrors, even more than to us, the character and feelings of the heart. The countenance (mar'eh) is"fair" (1 Sam 17:42; 2 Sam 14:27; Dan 1:15); in 1 Sam 16:12, literally, "fair of eyes"; "comely" (Song 2:14); "beautiful" ([~to'ar, 1 Sam 25:3); "cheerful" (panim, Prov 15:13); "angry" (Prov 15:23); "fierce" (Dan 8:23); "troubled" (Ezek 27:35); "sad" (1 Sam 1:18; Neh 2:2,3; Eccl 7:3). The countenance is "sharpened" i.e. made keen (Prov 27:17); it "falls," i.e. looks despondent, disappointed (Gen 4:5,6); is "cast down" (Job 29:24); "changed" (Job 14:20; compare "altered" into glory, Lk 9:29; Dan 5:6,9,10; 7:28, Aramaic ziw). To settle one's countenance stedfastly upon a person (2 Ki 8:11) is synonymous with staring or gazing at a person. Not infrequently we find compound expressions such as "light of countenance," i.e. favor (Job 29:24; Ps 4:6; 44:3; 89:15; 90:8); health of countenance" (Ps 41:11; 43:5); "help of countenance" (Ps 42:5); "rebuke of countenance" (Ps 80:16); "pride of countenance" (Hebrew 'aph, literally, "haughty," "lofty nose," Ps 10:4).

(2) As verb (Hebrew hadhar, "to countenance") we find the word in the King James Version of Ex 23:3, where the Revisers translate "Neither shalt thou favor (the King James Version "countenance") a poor man in his cause." Here the meaning seems to be that no distinction of persons shall be made by the judge. See Lev 19:15, where, however, a different word is used. There is therefore no need of the emendation proposed by Knobel and accepted by Kautzsch, who would read gadhol, "great," for wedhal, "and the poor" of the text. The Septuagint has penes, "poor."

H. L. E. Luering


COUNTER-CHARM

koun'-ter-charm.

See AMULET ;CHARM .


COUNTERFEIT

koun'-ter-fit (kibdelos, anatupoo, homoioo): "Counterfeit" occurs as the translation of kibdelos, "mixed with dross," "not genuine" (The Wisdom of Solomon 15:9, "to make counterfeit things," the Revised Version (British and American) "mouldeth counterfeits," spurious things, imitations"); 2:16 the Revised Version (British and American) "base metal" (compare Septuagint Lev 19:19; Dt 22:11, "mingled garment," and 2 Cor 13:5,6, adokimos, "reprobate" (silver)). "Counterfeit" in the older sense of a representation occurs in The Wisdom of Solomon 14:17 (anatupoo, "to make a likeness"), "counterfeit of his visage," the Revised Version (British and American) "imagining the likeness from afar," and Ecclesiasticus 38:27 (homoioo, "to make like"), "to counterfeit imagery," the Revised Version (British and American) "to preserve likeness in his portraiture."

W. L. Walker


COUNTERVAIL

koun-ter-val' (shawah, "equalize"): To thwart or overcome by acting against with equal force; thus, "The enemy could not countervail the king's damage" or loss (Est 7:4 the American Standard Revised Version reads "The adversary could not have compensated for the king's damage"). "Nothing doth countervail (the Revised Version (British and American) "can be taken in exchange for") a faithful friend" (Ecclesiasticus 6:15).


COUNTRY

kun'-tri ('erets, "land," sadheh, "field"; agros, "field," chora, "region"): The foregoing are the principal words rendered "country" in English Versions of the Bible, though we find also 'adhamah, "earth" (Jon 4:2); 'i, "island" (Jer 47:4 the King James Version); gelilah, "circuit" (Ezek 47:8 the King James Version); chebhel, "rope" (Dt 3:14); maqom, "place" (Gen 29:26 the King James Version); nepheth,"hill" or "height" (Josh 17:11 the King James Version); genos, "race" (Acts 4:36 the King James Version); ge, "earth" (Mt 9:31 the King James Version; Acts 7:3 the King James Version); patris, "native land" (Lk 4:23; Jn 4:44; Heb 11:14); perichoros, "country (the American Standard Revised Version "region") round about" (Mt 14:35; Lk 3:3; 4:37; 8:37). In Heb 11:14 ff, "heaven" is referred to as a country. Egypt and Assyria were "far countries" (Jer 8:19 the King James Version; Zec 10:9). The hill country (compare the numerous Gibeahs (gibh`ah, "a hill")) was the mountainous region to the North or to the South of Jerusalem. The low country, shephelah (see SHEPHELAH ), consisted of the foothills to the west of the hill country. The south country or NEGEB (neghebh), which see, was the dry, extreme southern part of Palestine,approximately between Beersheba and Kadesh-barnea.

Alfred Ely Day


COUNTRYMAN

kun'-tri-man (sumphuletes): "Of the same tribe" (1 Thess 2:14); also in idiomatic rendering (genos) for those of one's own race or kin (2 Cor 11:26; Gal 1:14 the King James Version, "one's own nation"). Compare Mk 6:4; Rom 9:3; and see COUSIN ;KINSMAN , etc.


COUPLE

kup'-l:

(1) Used as a noun, indicates two objects of the same kind that are considered together. Thus we read of a couple of cakes (2 Sam 13:6, used loosely), and a couple of asses (2 Sam 16:1, Hebrew tsemedh).

(2) Used as a verb, it means to join or fasten one thing to another. This term occurs most frequently in the description of the tabernacle (see Ex 26:6,9,11; 36:10,13,16). Couple is used in 1 Pet 3:2 to describe the joining of fear to chaste behavior (Hebrew chabhar) .


COUPLING

kup'ling: Is the FV rendering of machbereth. This Hebrew word means joining, or the place where one thing is joined to another, as of the curtains of the tabernacle (Ex 26:4,5), and of the different parts of the ephod (Ex 28:27; 39:20).

It is also the English Versions of the Bible rendering of mechabberoth, and this refers more to the thing that joins the two objects, as beams of wood (2 Ch 34:11), or hooks of iron (1 Ch 22:3).


COURAGE

kur'-aj: Hebrew chazaq, "to show oneself strong" (Nu 13:20; 2 Sam 10:12; 1 Ch 19:13; 2 Ch 15:8; Ezr 10:4; Ps 27:14; 31:24; Isa 41:6); ruach, "spirit," "animus" (Josh 2:11 the King James Version); 'amats, "to be alert" (physically and mentally), "to be agile," "quick," "energetic" (Dt 31:6,7,23; Josh 1:6,9,18; 10:25; 1 Ch 22:13; 28:20); lebhabh, "the heart," and figuratively, "person," "spirit" (Dan 11:25); Greek tharsos, "cheer" (Acts 28:15). A virtue highly esteemed among all nations, one of the four chief "natural" (cardinal) virtues (The Wisdom of Solomon 8:7), while cowardice ranks as one of the mortal sins (Ecclesiasticus 2:12,13; Rev 21:8).


COURSE

kors (from Latin cursus, "a running," "race," "voyage," "way"):

(1) euthudromeo, "forward or onward movement," as of a ship: "We made a straight course" (Acts 16:11; compare Acts 21:1); "We had finished our course." (the Revised Version (British and American) "voyage," Acts 21:7).

(2) A (prescribed or self-appointed) path, as of the sun: "Swift is the sun in his course" (1 Esdras 4:34); of the stars: "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera" (Jdg 5:20 the King James Version) (see ASTRONOMY ;ASTROLOGY ); of a river (or irrigating canal?): "as willows by the watercourses" (Isa 44:4); of a race (techo "that the word of the Lord may have free course." (the Revised Version (British and American) "may run") (2 Thess 3:1).

(3) A career in such a course (dromos): "I have finished my (the Revised Version (British and American) "the") course" (2 Tim 4:7); "as John fulfilled (the Revised Version (British and American) "was fulfilling") his course" (Acts 13:25); "that I might finish (the Revised Version (British and American) "may accomplish") my course" (Acts 20:24).

(4) A way or manner, as of life: "Every one turned to his course" (Jer 8:6); "their course is evil" (Jer 23:10); "walked according to the course aion, the Revised Version, margin "age"] of this world" (Eph 2:2).

(5) Orderly succession: "sang together by course" (the American Standard Revised Version "sang one to another") (Ezr 3:11); "by course" (the Revised Version (British and American) "in turn") (1 Cor 14:27); the courses of the priests and Levites (1 Ch 27:1-15; 1 Ch 28:1; 2 Ch 5:11; Lk 1:5,8).

See PRIESTS AND LEVITES .

(6) A row or layer, as of masonry: "All the foundations of the earth are out of count" (the Revised Version (British and American) "are moved"; the American Standard Revised Version "are shaken") (Ps 82:5).

(7) (The tongue) "setteth on fire the course (the Revised Version (British and American) "wheel") of nature" (Jas 3:6). The cycle of generation (ton trochon tes geneseos) here means the physical world as constituted by the round of origin and decay, and typified by the Orphic (legendary) cycle of births and deaths through which the soul passes in metempsychosis.

See also GAMES .

William Arthur Heidel


COURSE OF PRIESTS AND LEVITES

See PRIESTS AND LEVITES .


COURT

kort.

See HOUSE .


COURT OF THE GENTILES

See TEMPLE (HEROD'S ).


COURT OF THE SABBATH

See COVERED WAY .


COURT OF THE SANCTUARY; TABERNACLE; TEMPLE

kort, sank'~-tu-a-ri: By "court" (chatser) is meant a clear space enclosed by curtains or walls, or surrounded by buildings. It was always an uncovered enclosure, but might have within its area one or more edifices.

1. The Tabernacle:

The first occurrence of the word is in Ex 27:9, where it is commanded to "make the court of the tabernacle." The dimensions for this follow in the directions for the length of the linen curtains which were to enclose it. From these we learn that the perimeter of the court was 300 cubits, and that it consisted of two squares, each 75 ft., lying East and West of one another. In the westerly square stood the tabernacle, while in that to the East was the altar of burnt offering. This was the worshipper's square, and every Hebrew who passed through the entrance gate had immediate access to the altar (compare W. Robertson Smith, note on Ex 20:26, Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church, 435). The admission to this scene of the national solemnities was by the great east gate described in Ex 27:13-16 (see EAST GATE ).

2. Solomon's Temple:

The fundamental conception out of which grew the resolve to build a temple for the worship of Yahweh was that the new structure was to be an enlarged duplicate in stone of the tent of meeting (see TEMPLE ). The doubling in size of the holy chambers was accompanied by a doubling of the enclosed area upon which the holy house was to stand. Hitherto a rectangular oblong figure of 150 ft. in length and 75 ft. in breadth had sufficed for the needs of the people in their worship. Now an area of 300 ft. in length and 150 ft. in breadth was enclosed within heavy stone walls, making, as before, two squares, each of 150 ft. This was that "court of the priests" spoken of in 2 Ch 4:9, known to its builders as "the inner court" (1 Ki 6:36; compare Jer 36:10). Its walls consisted of "three courses of hewn stone, and a course of cedar beams" (1 Ki 6:36), into which some read the meaning of colonnades. Its two divisions may have been marked by some fence. The innermost division, accessible only to the priests, was the site of the new temple. In the easterly division stood the altar of sacrifice; into this the Hebrew laity had access for worship at the altar. Later incidental allusions imply the existence of "chambers" in the court, and also the accessibility of the laity (compare Jer 35:4; 36:10; Ezek 8:16).

3. The Great Court:

In distinction from this "inner" court a second or "outer" court was built by Solomon, spoken of by the Chronicler as "the great court" (2 Ch 4:9). Its doors were overlaid with brass (bronze). Wide difference of opinion obtains as to the relation of this outer court to the inner court just described, and to the rest of the Solomonic buildings--particularly to "the great court" of "the house of the forest of Lebanon" of 1 Ki 7:9,10. Some identify the two, others separate them. Did this court, with its brass-covered gates, extend still farther to the East than the temple "inner" court, with, however, the same breadth as the latter? Or was it, as Keil thinks, a much larger enclosure, surrounding the whole temple area, extending perhaps 150 cubits eastward in front of the priests' court (compare Keil, Biblical Archaeology, I, 171, English translation)? Yet more radical is the view, adopted by many modern authorities, which regards "the great court" as a vast enclosure surrounding the temple and the whole complex of buildings described in 1 Ki 7:1-12 (see the plan, after Stade, in G. A. Smith's Jerusalem, II, 59). In the absence of conclusive data the question must be left undetermined.

4. Ezekiel's Temple:

In Ezekiel's plan of the temple yet to be built, the lines of the temple courts as he had known them in Jerusalem are followed. Two squares enclosed in stone walling, each of 150 ft., lie North and South of one another, and bear the distinctive names, "the inner court" and "the outer court" (Ezek 8:16; 10:5).

5. Temple of Herod:

In the Herodian temple the old nomenclature gives place to a new set of terms. The extensive enclosure known later as "the court of the Gentiles" does not appear under that name in the New Testament or in Josephus What we have in the tract Middoth of the Mishna and in Josephus is the mention of two courts, the "court of the priests" and "the court of Israel" (Middoth, ii.6; v. 1; Josephus, BJ, V, v, 6). The data in regard to both are difficult and conflicting. In Middoth they appear as long narrow strips of 11 cubits in breadth extending at right angles to the temple and the altar across the enclosure--the "court of Israel" being railed off from the "court of the priests" on the East; the latter extending backward as far as the altar, which has a distinct measurement. The design was to prevent the too near approach of the lay Israelite to the altar. Josephus makes the 11 cubits of the "court of Israel" extend round the whole "court of the priests, " inclusive of altar and temple (see TEMPLE ; and compare G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, II, 506-9, with the reconstruction of Waterhouse in Sacred Sites of the Gospels, 111 ff). For the "women's court," see TREASURY .

Many expressions in the Psalms show how great was the attachment of the devout-minded Hebrew in all ages to those courts of the Lord's house where he was accustomed to worship (e.g. Ps 65:4; 84:2; 92:13; 96:8; 100:4; 116:19). The courts were the scene of many historical events in the Old Testament and New Testament, and of much of the earthly ministry of Jesus. There was enacted the scene described in the parable of the Pharisee and Publican (Lk 18:10-14).

W. Shaw Caldecott


COURTS, JUDICIAL

joo-dish'-al, ju-dish'-al.

1. Their Organization:

At the advice of Jethro, Moses appointed judges (shopheTim, Ex 18). In Egypt it appears that the Hebrews did not have their own judges, which, of course, was a source of many wrongs. Leaving Egypt, Moses took the judicial functions upon himself, but it was impossible that he should be equal to the task of administering justice to two and one-half million people; hence, he proceeded to organize a system of jurisprudence. He appointed judges over tens, fifties, hundreds, thousands--in all 78,600 judges. This system was adequate for the occasion, and these courts respectively corresponded practically to our Justices of the Peace, Mayor's Court, District Court, Circuit Court. Finally, there was a Supreme Court under Moses and his successors. These courts, though graded, did not afford an opportunity of appeal. The lower courts turned their difficult cases over to the next higher. If the case was simple, the judge over tens would take it, but if the question was too intricate for him, he would refer it to the next higher court, and so on until it finally reached Moses. There were certain kinds of questions which the tens, fifties, and hundreds would not take at all, and the people understood it and would bring them to the higher courts for original jurisdiction. When any court decided it, that was the end of that case, for it could not be appealed (Ex 18:25,26). On taking possession in Palestine,the judges were to be appointed for every city and vicinity (Dt 16:18), thus giving to all Israel a speedy and cheap method of adjudication. Though not so prescribed by the constitution, the judges at length were generally chosen from among the Levites, as the learned class. The office was elective. Josephus states this plainly, and various passages of the Scriptures express it positively by inference (see Dt 1:13). Jephthah's election by vote of the people is clearly set forth (Jdg 11:5-11).

2. Character of the Judges:

Among the Hebrews, the law was held very sacred; for God Himself had given it. Hence, those who administered the law were God's special representatives, and their person was held correspondingly sacred. These circumstances placed upon them the duty of administering justice without respect to persons (Dt 1:17; 16:18). They were to be guided by the inalienable rights granted to every citizen by the Hebrew constitution: (1) No man was to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law (Nu 35:9-34). (2) Two or three witnesses were required to convict anyone of crime (Dt 17:6; 19:2-13). (3) Punishment for crime was not to be transferred or entailed (Dt 24:16). (4) A man's home was inviolate (Dt 24:10,11). (5) One held to bondage but having acquired liberty through his own effort should be protected (Dt 23:15,16). (6) One's homestead was inalienable (Lev 25:23-28,34). (7) Slavery could not be made perpetual without the person's own consent (Ex 21:2-6).

3. Their Work:

Gradually a legal profession developed among the Hebrews, the members of which were designated as "Lawyers" or "Scribes" also known as "Doctors of the Law" (Lk 2:46). Their business was threefold: (1) to study and interpret the law; (2) to instruct the Hebrew youth in the law; and (3) to decide questions of the law. The first two they did as scholars and teachers; the last either as judges or as advisers in some court, as, for instance, the Senate of Jerusalem or some inferior tribunal. No code can go into such details as to eliminate the necessity of subsequent legislation, and this usually, to a great extent, takes the form of judicial decisions founded on the code, rather than of separate enactment; and so it was among the Hebrews. The provisions of their code were for the most part quite general, thus affording large scope for casuistic interpretation. Regarding the points not explicitly covered by the written law, a substitute must be found either in the form of established custom or in the form of an inference drawn from the statute.

As a result of the industry with which this line of legal development was pursued during the centuries immediately preceding our era, Hebrew law became a most complicated science. For the disputed points, the judgments of the individual lawyers could not be taken as the standard; hence, the several disciples of the law must frequently meet for a discussion, and the opinion of the majority then prevailed. These were the meetings of the "Doctors." Whenever a case arose concerning which there had been no clear legal decision, the question was referred to the nearest lawyer; by him, to the nearest company of lawyers, perhaps the Sanhedrin, and the resultant decision was henceforth authority.

Before the destruction of Jerusalem technical knowledge of the law was not a condition of eligibility to the office of judge. Anyone who could command the confidence of his fellow-citizens might be elected, and many of the rural courts undoubtedly were conducted, as among us, by men of sterling quality, but limited knowledge. Such men would avail themselves of the legal advice of any "doctor" who might be within reach; and in the more dignified courts of a large municipality it was a standing custom to have a company of lawyers present to discuss and decide any new law points that might arise. Of course, frequently these men were themselves elected to the office of judge, so that practically the entire system of jurisprudence was in their hands.

4. Limitations under Roman Rule:

Though Judea at this time was a subject commonwealth, yet the Sanhedrin, which was the body of supreme legislative and judicial authority, exercised autonomous authority to such an extent that it not only administered civil cases in accordance with Jewish law--for without such a right a Jewish court would be impossible--but it also took part to a great extent in the punishment of crime. It exercised an independent police power, hence, could send out its own officers to make arrests (Mt 26:47; Mk 14:43; Acts 4:3; 5:17,18). In cases that did not involve capital punishment, its judgments were final and untrammeled (Acts 4:2-23; 5:21-40). Only in capital punishment cases must the consent of the procurator be secured, which is not only clearly stated in Jn 18:31, but is also evident in the entire course of Christ's trial, as reported by the Synoptic Gospels. In granting or withholding his consent in such cases, the procurator could follow his pleasure absolutely, applying either the Jewish or Roman law, as his guide. In one class of cases the right to inflict capital punishment even on Roman citizens was granted the Sanhedrin, namely, when a non-Jewish person overstepped the bounds and entered the interior holy place of the temple. Even in this case the consent of the procurator must be secured, but it appears that the Roman rulers were inclined to let the law take its course against such wanton outrage of the Jews' feelings. Criminal cases not involving capital punishment need not be referred to the procurator.

5. Time and Place of Sessions:

The city in which the Sanhedrin met was Jerusalem. To determine the particular building, and the spot on which the building stood, is interesting to the archaeologist, not to the student of law. The local courts usually held their sessions on the second and fifth day (Monday and Thursday) of the week, but we do not know whether the same custom was observed by the Great Sanhedrin. On feast days no court was held, much less on the Sabbath. Since the death penalty was not to be pronounced until the day after the trial, such cases were avoided also on the day preceding a Sabbath or other sacred day. The emphasis placed on this observance may be seen from the edicts issued by Augustus, absolving the Jews from the duty of attending court on the Sabbath.

See DOCTOR ;LAWYER ;SANHEDRIN ;SCRIBES .

Frank E. Hirsch


COUSIN

kuz'-'-n (anepsios): Only in Col 4:10, where Mark is said to be "cousin" (Revised Version) to Barnabas, and not as in the King James Version, "sister's son." The renderings "cousin" of the King James Version for suggenes, in Lk 1:36,58 were probably understood at the time of the translation, in the wider, and not in the more restricted, sense of the term, now almost universally prevalent. In view of this the renderings "kinswoman," "kinsfolk" in the Revised Version (British and American) are preferable. As a title of honor and dignity, it occurs in 1 Esdras 4:42, etc.

See KINSMAN .


COUTHA

kou'-tha, koo'-tha.

See CUTHAH .


COVENANT OF SALT

solt (berith melach; halas, classical Greek hals): As salt was regarded as a necessary ingredient of the daily food, and so of all sacrifices offered to Yahweh (Lev 2:13), it became an easy step to the very close connection between salt and covenant-making. When men ate together they became friends. Compare the Arabic expression, "There is salt between us"; "He has eaten of my salt," which means partaking of hospitality which cemented friendship; compare "eat the salt of the palace" (Ezr 4:14). Covenants were generally confirmed by sacrificial meals and salt was always present. Since, too, salt is a preservative, it would easily become symbolic of an enduring covenant. So offerings to Yahweh were to be by a statute forever, "a covenant of salt for ever before Yahweh" (Nu 18:19). David received his kingdom forever from Yahweh by a "covenant of salt" (2 Ch 13:5). In the light of these conceptions the remark of our Lord becomes the more significant: "Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace one with another" (Mk 9:50).

Edward Bagby Pollard


COVENANT, ARK OF THE

kuv'-e-nant, kuv'-e-nant.

See ARK OF THE COVENANT .


COVENANT, BOOK OF THE

(cepher ha-berith):

1. Historical Connection

2. Analysis

3. Critical Theories

4. True, or Biblical Conception

5. Nature of the Laws

LITERATURE

The name given in Ex 24:7 to a code or collection of laws found in the preceding chapters, 20 through 23, as the terms of the covenant made with Yahweh, and given for Israel's guidance until a more complete legislation should be provided. In this covenant between Yahweh and Israel, Moses served as mediator; animals were sacrificed, the blood thus shed being also called "the blood of the covenant" (dam haberith, Ex 24:8).

1. Historical Connection:

This brief book of laws occupies a fitting and dearly marked place in the Pentateuchal collection. Examination of the historical context shows that it is put where it belongs and belongs where it is put. A few months after the Exodus (Ex 19:1) Israel arrived at Sinai. Immediately at the command which Moses had received from Yahweh in the Mount, they prepared themselves by a ceremonial of sanctification for entrance into covenant relation with Yahweh. When the great day arrived for making this covenant, Moses in the midst of impressive natural phenomena went again to meet Yahweh in the top of the mountain. On his return (Ex 19:25), the words of the law, or the terms of the covenant, were declared to the people, and accepted by them. The first part of these covenant-terms, namely, the Decalogue (Ex 20:2-17), was spoken by the Divine voice, or its declaration was accompanied by awe-inspiring natural convulsions (Ex 20:18). Therefore in response to the pleadings of the terrified people Moses went up again into the mountain and received from Yahweh for them the rest of the "words" and "ordinances" (Ex 24:3); and these constitute the so-called Book of the Covenant (Ex 20:22 through 23). In this direct and unequivocal manner the narrator connected the book with the nation's consecration at Sinai. The prophets regarded the making of the Sinaitic covenant as the marriage of Israel and Yahweh, and these laws were the terms mutually agreed upon in the marriage contract.

2. Analysis:

While it is not possible to arrange the materials of this document into hard-and-fast divisions, the following analysis may be suggestive and serviceable: (1) directions concerning worship, specifying prohibition of images and the form of altar for animal sacrifices (Ex 20:23-26); (2) ordinances for protection of Hebrew slaves, including betrothal, for a price, of daughter (Ex 21:2-11); (3) laws concerning injuries, (a) to man by man (Ex 21:12-27), (b) to man by beast (Ex 21:28-32), (c) to beast by man (Ex 21:33,14), (d) to beast by beast (Ex 21:35,36); (4) concerning theft (Ex 22:1-4); (5) concerning damage to a neighbor's property, including violence to his daughter (Ex 22:5-17); (6) sundry laws against profaning Yahweh's name, under which are included proper worship, avoidance of oppression and dutiful offering of first-fruits (Ex 22:18-31); (7) against various forms of injustice and unbrotherliness (Ex 23:1-9); (8) festal occasions, including the Sabbatical year and the three annual feasts: unleavened bread, first-fruits and ingathering (Ex 23:10-17); (9) warning against certain wrong practices in their sacrifices (Ex 23:18,19); (10) in conclusion, a promise of God's continual presence with them in the person of His Angel, and the consequent triumph over enemies (Ex 23:20-33).

3. Critical Theories:

In this legislation are found two forms of laws or deliverances: (1) the ordinances (mishpaTim), which deal principally with civil and moral matters, are like court decisions, and are introduced by the hypothetical "if"; (2) words, or commands (debharim), which relate chiefly to religious duties, being introduced by the imperative "thou shalt." The critical analysis and dismemberment of the books of Moses, if accepted, renders the simple historical explanation of the introduction to this body of laws untrue and impossible. The four chapters are assigned to JE, the Decalogue to E, and the Book of the Covenant to the Jahwist (Jahwist) or Elohim (E), the repetition of the Decalogue in Ex 32 through 34 being the Jahwist's account. Ordinarily the Book of the Covenant is held to be earlier than the Decalogue, and is indeed the oldest body of Hebrew legislation. However, it could not have been given at one time, nor in the wilderness, since the laws are given for those in agricultural life, and seem to be decisions made at various times and finally gathered together. Furthermore, this more primitive code either contradicts the later legislation of the Deuteronomist (D) and the Priestly Code (P) or reveals an entirely different point of view. The chief contradictions or divergences are: nature and number of altars, absence of an official priestly class, and simpler conception of the annual feasts as agricultural celebrations. Jahwist-Elohim (JE) came into united form in the 9th or 8th century, but this body of laws existed much earlier, embodying the earliest legal developments of Hebrew life in Canaan. It is suggested by some, as Driver, LOT, although he does not attempt the analysis, that this code is itself a composite of various layers and ages.

See CRITICISM (GRAF-WELLHAUSEN HYPOTHESIS ).

4. True, or Biblical Conception:

But in favor of the simpler interpretation of these laws as the ethical obligations of the new bond between Yahweh and Israel some statements deserve to be made. If a solemn league and covenant was made at Sinai--and to this all the history, all the prophets and the Psalms give testimony--there must have been some statement of the germinal and fundamental elements of the nation's moral relation to Yahweh. Such statement need not be final nor exhaustive, but rather intended to instruct and guide until later and more detailed directions might be given. This is exactly the position and claim of the Book of the Covenant; and that this was the thought of the editor of the Pentateuch, and that this is the first and reasonable impression made by the unsuspecting and connected reading of the record, can hardly be questioned by candid minds. In answer to the criticism that the agricultural flavor of the laws presupposes settlement in Canaan--a criticism rather remarkable for its bland ignorance--it may be suggested: (1) Israel had occupied in Egypt an agricultural section, and must have been able either to form or to receive a body of laws dealing with agricultural pursuits. (2) They were on the march toward a land in which they should have permanent settlement in agricultural life; and not the presence of allusions to such life, but rather their absence, should cause surprise. (3) However, references to settled farm life are not so obtrusively frequent as those seeking signs would have us think. References to the animal life of the flock and herd of a shepherd people, such as the Israelites were at Sinai, are far more frequent (Ex 21:28,33,15; 22:1,10; 23:4, etc.). The laws are quite generic in form and conception, enforcing such duties as would devolve upon both temporary nomad and prospective tillers of the soil. R. B. Taylor therefore (article in one-vol Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes)) accepts this code as originating in the desert wanderings.

In answer to the view, best presented by Wellhausen in Proleg. and W. R. Smith in OTJC, that this code is in conflict with later legislation, it may be said that the Book of the Covenant, as an ethical and civil summary, is in its proper place in the narrative of the sojourn at Sinai, and does not preclude the expectancy of more elaborate organization of both ceremonial and civil order. But the whole question relates more properly to discussion of the later legislation or of the particular topics in dispute (which see). For a thorough treatment of them consult W. H. Green, Hebrew Feasts.

5. Nature of the Laws:

In the Book of the Covenant the moral elements strongly emphasized are: simplicity, directness and spirituality of worship; a high and equitable standard of right; highest consideration for the weak and the poor; humane treatment of dumb animals; purity in the relations of life; the spirit of brotherhood; and the simple and joyful life. Whatever development in details came with later legislation did not nullify the simple but lofty standards of the earlier laws.

LITERATURE.

Driver, Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, under "Exodus"; Wellhausen, Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel; Comp. d. Hexateuch; W. R. Smith, Smith, The Old Testament in the Jewish Church; W. H. Green, Hebrew Feasts; Higher Criticism of the Pentateuch; Dillmann, Commentary on Exodus-Leviticus.

Edward Mack


COVENANT, IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

Diatheke, was the word chosen by the Septuagint translators to render the Hebrew berith, and it appears thus nearly 300 times in the Greek Old Testament in the sense of covenant, while suntheke and entolai are each used once only. The choice of this word seems to have been occasioned by a recognition that the covenant which God makes with men is not fully mutual as would be implied in suntheke, the Greek word commonly used for covenant (although not a New Testament word), while at the same time the rarity of wills among the Jews made the common sense of diatheke relatively unfamiliar. The Apocryphal writers also frequently use the same word in the same sense and no other.

In the New Testament diatheke is used some thirty times in a way which makes it plain that its translation must be "covenant." In Gal 3:15 and Heb 9:15-17 it is held by many that the sense of covenant must be set aside in favor of will or testament. But in the former passage it can be taken in the sense of a disposition of affairs or arrangement made by God, a conception in substantial harmony with its regular New Testament use and with the sense of berith. In the passage in Hebrews the interpretation is more difficult, but as it is acknowledged on all hands that the passage loses all argumentative force if the meaning testament is accepted, it seems best to retain the meaning covenant if possible. To do this it is only necessary to hold that the death spoken of is the death of the animal sometimes, if not, indeed, commonly slain in connection with the making of a covenant, and that in the mind of the author this death symbolized the death of the contracting parties so far at least as to pledge them that thereafter in the matter involved they would no more change their minds than can the dead. If this view is taken, this passage falls in line with the otherwise invariable use of the word diatheke by Jewish Hellenists.

See TESTAMENT .

LITERATURE.

Lightfoot, Commentary on Gal; Ramsay, Commentary on Gal; Westcott, Commentary on Hebrews; article on Heb 9:15-17, Baptist Review and The Expositor., July, 1904.

David Foster Estes


COVENANT, IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

kuv'-e-nant (berith):

I. GENERAL MEANING

II. AMONG MEN

1. Early Idea

2. Principal Elements

3. Different Varieties

4. Phraseology Used

III. BETWEEN GOD AND MEN

1. Essential Idea

2. Covenants Recorded in the Old Testament

3. Phraseology Used

4. History of Covenant Idea

LITERATURE

I. General Meaning.

The etymological force of the Hebrew berith is not entirely certain. It is probable that the word is the same as the Assyrian biritu, which has the common meaning "fetter," but also means "covenant." The significance of the root from which this Assyrian word is derived is uncertain. It is probable that it is "to bind," but that is not definitely established. The meaning of biritu as covenant seems to come directly from the root, rather than as a derived meaning from fetter. If this root idea is to bind, the covenant is that which binds together the parties. This, at any rate, is in harmony with the general meaning of the word.

In the Old Testament the word has an ordinary use, when both parties are men, and a distinctly religious use, between God and men. There can be no doubt that the religious use has come from the ordinary, in harmony with the general custom in such cases, and not the reverse. There are also two shades of meaning, somewhat distinct, of the Hebrew word: one in which it is properly a covenant, i.e. a solemn mutual agreement, the other in which it is more a command, i.e. instead of an obligation voluntarily assumed, it is an obligation imposed by a superior upon an inferior. This latter meaning, however, has clearly been derived from the other. It is easy to see that an agreement, including as the contracting parties those of unequal position, might readily include those agreements which tended to partake of the nature of a command; but the process could not readily be reversed.

II. Among Men.

1. Early Idea:

We consider first a covenant in which both contracting parties are men. In essence a covenant is an agreement, but an agreement of a solemn and binding force. The early Semitic idea of a covenant was doubtless that which prevailed among the Arabs (see especially W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, 2nd edition, passim). This was primarily blood-brotherhood, in which two men became brothers by drinking each other's blood. Ordinarily this meant that one was adopted into the clan of the other. Hence, this act involved the clan of one of the contracting parties, and also brought the other party into relation with the god of this clan, by bringing him into the community life of the clan, which included its god. In this early idea, then, "primarily the covenant is not a special engagement to this or that particular effect, but bond of troth and life-fellowship to all the effects for which kinsmen are permanently bound together" (W. Robertson Smith, op. cit., 315 f). In this early ceremonial the religious idea was necessarily present, because the god was kindred to the clan; and the god had a special interest in the covenant because he especially protects the kindred blood, of which the stranger thus becomes a part. This religious side always persisted, although the original idea was much modified. In later usage there were various substitutes for the drinking of each other's blood, namely, drinking together the sacrificial blood, sprinkling it upon the parties, eating together the sacrificial meal, etc.; but the same idea found expression in all, the community of life resulting from the covenant.

2. Principal Elements:

The covenant in the Old Testament shows considerable modification from the early idea. Yet it will doubtless help in understanding the Old Testament covenant to keep in mind the early idea and form. Combining statements made in different accounts, the following seem to be the principal elements in a covenant between men. Some of the details, it is to be noted, are not explicitly stated in reference to these covenants, but may be inferred from those between God and men. (1) A statement of the terms agreed upon (Gen 26:29; 31:50,52). This was a modification of the earlier idea, which has been noted, in which a covenant was all-inclusive. (2) An oath by each party to observe the terms, God being witness of the oath (Gen 26:31; 31:48-53). The oath was such a characteristic feature that sometimes the term "oath" is used as the equivalent of covenant (see Ezek 17:13). (3) A curse invoked by each one upon himself in case disregard of the agreement. In a sense this may be considered a part of the oath, adding emphasis to it. This curse is not explicitly stated in the case of human covenants, but may be inferred from the covenant with God (Dt 27:15-26). (4) The formal ratification of the covenant by some solemn external act. The different ceremonies for this purpose, such as have already been mentioned, are to be regarded as the later equivalents of the early act of drinking each other's blood. In the Old Testament accounts it is not certain that such formal act is expressly mentioned in relation to covenants between men. It seems probable, however, that the sacrificial meal of Gen 31:54 included Laban, in which case it was a covenant sacrifice. In any case, both sacrificial meal and sprinkling of blood upon the two parties, the altar representing Yahweh, are mentioned in Ex 24:4-8, with allusions elsewhere, in ratification of the covenant at Sinai between Yahweh and Israel. In the covenant of God with Abraham is another ceremony, quite certainly with the same purpose. This is a peculiar observance, namely, the cutting of animals into two parts and passing between the severed portions (Gen 15:9-18), a custom also referred to in Jer 34:18. Here it is to be noted that it is a smoking furnace and a flaming torch, representing God, not Abraham, which passed between the pieces. Such an act, it would seem, should be shared by both parties, but in this case it is doubtless to be explained by the fact that the covenant is principally a promise by Yahweh. He is the one who binds Himself. Concerning the significance of this act there is difference of opinion. A common view is that it is in effect a formal expression of the curse, imprecating upon oneself the same, i.e. cutting in pieces, if one breaks the terms of the covenant. But, as W. R. Smith has pointed out (op. cit., 481), this does not explain the passing between the pieces, which is the characteristic feature of the ceremony. It seems rather to be a symbol that the two parties "were taken within the mystical life of the victim." (Compare the interpretation of Heb 9:15-17 in COVENANT, IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.) It would then be an inheritance from the early times, in which the victim was regarded as kindred with the tribe, and hence, also an equivalent of the drinking of each other's blood.

The immutability of a covenant is everywhere assumed, at least theoretically.

Other features beyond those mentioned cannot be considered as fundamental. This is the case with the setting up of a stone, or raising a heap of stones (Gen 31:45,46). This is doubtless simply an ancient custom, which has no direct connection with the covenant, but comes from the ancient Semitic idea of the sacredness of single stones or heaps of stones. Striking hands is a general expression of an agreement made (Ezr 10:19; Ezek 17:18, etc.).

3. Different Varieties:

In observing different varieties of agreements among men, we note that they may be either between individuals or between larger units, such as tribes and nations. In a great majority of cases, however, they are between the larger units. In some cases, also, when an individual acts it is in a representative capacity, as the head of a clan, or as a king. When the covenant is between tribes it is thus a treaty or alliance. The following passages have this use of covenant: Gen 14:13; 21:27,32; 26:28; 31:44; Ex 23:32; 34:12,15; Dt 7:2; Josh 9:6,7,11,15,16; Jdg 2:2; 1 Sam 11:1; 1 Ki 3:12; 15:19 parallel 2 Ch 16:3; 1 Ki 20:34; Ps 83:5; Isa 33:8; Ezek 16:61; 17:13-19; 30:5; Dan 11:22; Am 1:9. In other cases it is between a king and his subjects, when it is more a command or ordinance, as 2 Sam 3:12,13,11; 5:3 parallel 1 Ch 11:3; Jer 34:8-18; Dan 9:27. In other cases it is between individuals, or between small groups, where it is an agreement or pledge (2 Ki 11:4 parallel 2 Ch 23:1; Job 31:1; 41:4; Hos 10:4). Between David and Jonathan it is more specifically an alliance of friendship (1 Sam 18:3; 20:8; 23:18), as also apparently in Ps 55:20. It means an alliance of marriage in Mal 2:14, but probably not in Prov 2:17, where it is better to understand the meaning as being "her covenant with God."

4. Phraseology Used:

In all cases of covenants between men, except Jer 34:10 and Dan 9:27, the technical phrase for making a covenant is karath berith, in which karath meant originally "to cut." Everything indicates that this verb is used with reference to the formal ceremony of ratification above mentioned, of cutting animals in pieces.

III. Between God and Men.

1. Essential Idea:

As already noted, the idea of covenants between God and men doubtless arose from the idea of covenants between men. Hence, the general thought is similar. It cannot in this case, however, be an agreement between contracting parties who stand on an equality, but God, the superior, always takes the initiative. To some extent, however, varying in different cases, is regarded as a mutual agreement; God with His commands makes certain promises, and men agree to keep the commands, or, at any rate, the promises are conditioned on human obedience. In general, the covenant of God with men is a Divine ordinance, with signs and pledges on God's part, and with promises for human obedience and penalties for disobedience, which ordinance is accepted by men. In one passage (Ps 25:14), it is used in a more general way of an alliance of friendship between God and man.

2. Covenants Recorded in the Old Testament:

A covenant of this general kind is said in the Old Testament to have been made by God with Noah (Gen 9:9-17 and elsewhere). In this the promise is that there shall be no more deluge. A covenant is made with Abraham, the thought of which includes his descendants. In this the promise of God is to multiply the descendants of Abraham, to give them the land of Canaan, and to make them a blessing to the nations. This is narrated in Gen 15:18; 17:2-21, etc. A covenant is made with the nation Israel at Sinai (Horeb) (Ex 19:5; 24:7,8; 34:10,27,28, etc.), ratified by a covenant sacrifice and sprinkling of blood (Ex 24:4-8). This constituted the nation the peculiar people of God, and was accompanied by promises for obedience and penalties for disobedience. This covenant was renewed on the plains of Moab (Dt 29:1). In these national covenants the individual had a place, but only as a member of the nation. The individual might forfeit his rights under the covenant, however, by deliberate rebellion against Yahweh, sinning "with a high hand" (Nu 15:30 f), and then he was regarded as no longer a member of the nation, he was "cut off from among his people," i.e. put to death. This is the teaching of the Priestly Code (P), and is also implied elsewhere; in the mercy of God, however, the punishment was not always inflicted. A covenant with the tribe of Levi, by which that became the priestly tribe, is alluded to in Dt 33:9; Jer 33:21; Mal 2:4 ff. The covenant with Phinehas (Nu 25:12,13) established an everlasting priesthood in his line. The covenant with Joshua and Israel (Josh 24) was an agreement on their part to serve Yahweh only. The covenant with David (2 Sam 7 parallel 1 Ch 17; see also Ps 89:3,18,34,39; 132:12; Jer 33:21) contained a promise that his descendants should have an everlasting kingdom, and should stand to God in the relation of sonship. The covenant with Jehoiada and the people (2 Ki 11:17 parallel 2 Ch 23:3) was an agreement on their part to be the people of Yahweh. The covenant with Hezekiah and the people (2 Ch 29:10) consisted essentially of an agreement on their part to reform the worship; the covenant with Josiah and the people (2 Ki 23:3), of an agreement on their part to obey the Book of the Law. The covenant with Ezra and the people (Ezr 10:3) was an agreement on their part to put away foreign wives and obey the law. The prophets also speak of a new covenant, most explicitly in Jeremiah, but with references elsewhere, which is connected with the Messianic time (see Isa 42:6; 49:8; 55:3; 59:21; 61:8; Jer 31:31,33; 32:40; 50:5; Ezek 16:60,62; 20:37; 34:25; 37:26; Hos 2:18).

3. Phraseology Used:

Various phrases are used of the making of a covenant between God and men. The verb ordinarily used of making covenants between men, karath, is often used here as well. The following verbs are also used: heqim, "to establish" or "confirm"; nathan, "to give"; sim, "to place"; tsiwwah, "to command"; `abhar, "to pass over," followed by be, "into"; bo, "to enter," followed by be; and the phrase nasa' berith `al pi, "to take up a covenant upon the mouth of someone."

4. History of Covenant Idea:

The history of the covenant idea in Israel, as between God and man, is not altogether easy to trace. This applies especially to the great covenants between God and Israel, namely, the one with Abraham, and the one made at Sinai. The earliest references to this relation of Israel to Yahweh under the term "covenant" are in Hos 6:7; 8:1. The interpretation of the former passage is doubtful in details, but the reference to such a covenant seems clear. The latter is considered by many a

later addition, but largely because of this mention of the covenant. No other references to such a covenant are made in the prophets before Jeremiah. Jeremiah and Ezekiel speak of it, and it is implied in Second-Isaiah. It is a curious fact, however, that most of the later prophets do not use the term, which suggests that the omission in the earlier prophets is not very significant concerning a knowledge of the idea in early times.

In this connection it should be noted that there is some variation among the Hexateuchal codes in their treatment of the covenants. Only one point, however, needs special mention. The Priestly Code (P) gives no explicit account of the covenant at Sinai, and puts large emphasis upon the covenant with Abraham. There are, however, apparent allusions to the Sinaitic covenant (Lev 2:13; 24:8; 26:9,15,25,44,45). The facts indicate, therefore, principally a difference of emphasis.

In the light partly of the facts already noted, however, it is held by many that the covenant idea between God and man is comparatively late. This view is that there were no covenants with Abraham and at Sinai, but that in Israel's early conceptions of the relation to Yahweh He was their tribal God, bound by natural ties, not ethical as the covenant implies. This is a larger question than at first appears. Really the whole problem of the relation of Israel to Yahweh throughout Old Testament history is involved, in particular the question at what time a comprehensive conception of the ethical character of God was developed. The subject will therefore naturally receive a fuller treatment in other articles. It is perhaps sufficient here to express the conviction that there was a very considerable conception of the ethical character of Yahweh in the early history of Israel, and that consequently there is no sufficient reason for doubting the fact of the covenants with Abraham and at Sinai. The statement of W. Robertson Smith expresses the essence of the matter (op. cit., 319): "That Yahweh's relation is not natural but ethical is the doctrine of the prophets, and is emphasized, in dependence on their teaching, in the Book of Deuteronomy. But the passages cited show that the idea had its foundation in pre prophetic times; and indeed the prophets, though they give it fresh and powerful application, plainly do not regard the conception as an innovation."

A little further consideration should be given to the new covenant of the prophets. The general teaching is that the covenant was broken by the sins of the people which led to the exile. Hence, during the exile the people had been cast off, the covenant was no longer in force. This is stated, using other terminology, in Hos 3:3 f; 1:9; 2:2. The prophets speak, however, in anticipation, of the making of a covenant again after the return from the exile. For the most part, in the passages already cited, this covenant is spoken of as if it were the old one renewed. Special emphasis is put, however, upon its being an everlasting covenant, as the old one did not prove to be, implying that it will not be broken as was that one. Jeremiah's teaching, however, has a little different emphasis. He speaks of the old covenant as passed away (31:32). Accordingly he speaks of a new covenant (31:31,33). This new covenant in its provisions, however, is much like the old. But there is a new emphasis upon individuality in approach to God. In the old covenant, as already noted, it was the nation as a whole that entered into the relation; here it is the individual, and the law is to be written upon the individual heart.

In the later usage the specific covenant idea is sometimes less prominent, so that the term is used practically of the religion as a whole; see Isa 56:4; Ps 103:18.

LITERATURE.

Valeton, ZATW, XII, XIII (1892-93); Candlish, The Expositor Times, 1892, Oct., Nov.; Kraetzschmar, Die Bundesvorstellung im Altes Testament, Marburg, 1896; articles "Covenant" in Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible (five volumes) and Encyclopedia Biblica.

George Ricker Berry


COVENANT, THE NEW

(berith chadhashah, Jer 31:31; he diatheke kaine, Heb 8:8,13, etc., or nea, Heb 12:24: the former Greek adjective has the sense of the "new" primari1y in reference to quality, the latter the sense of "young," the "new," primarily in reference to time):

1. Contrast of "New" and "Old"--The Term "Covenant"

2. Christ's Use at the Last Supper

3. Relation to Exodus 24

4. Use in Epistle to the Hebrews

5. The Mediator of the New Covenant

6. "Inheritance" and "Testament"

7. Relation to Jeremiah 31:31-34

8. To Ezekiel

9. Contrast of Old and New in 2 Corinthians 3

1. Contrast of "New" and "Old"--the Term "Covenant":

The term "New" Covenant necessarily implies an "Old" Covenant, and we are reminded that God's dealings with His people in the various dispensations of the world's history have been in terms of covenant. The Holy Scriptures by their most familiar title keep this thought before us, the Old Testament and the New Testament or Covenant; the writings produced within the Jewish "church" being the writings or Scriptures of the Old Covenant, those within the Christian church, the Scriptures of the New Covenant. The alternative name "Testament"--adopted into our English description through the Latin, as the equivalent of the Hebrew berith, and the Greek diatheke, which both mean a solemn disposition, compact or contract--suggests the disposition of property in a last will or testament, but although the word diatheke may bear that meaning, the Hebrew berith does not, and as the Greek usage in the New Testament seems especially governed by the Old Testament usage and the thought moves in a similar plane, it is better to keep to the term "covenant." The one passage which seems to favor the "testament" idea is Heb 9:16,17 (the Revisers who have changed the King James Version "testament" into "covenant" in every other place have left it in these two verses), but it is questionable whether even here the better rendering would not be "covenant" (see below). Certainly in the immediate context "covenant" is the correct translation and, confessedly, "testament," if allowed to stand, is an application by transition from the original thought of a solemn compact to the secondary one of testamentary disposition. The theological terms "Covenant of Works" and "Covenant of Grace" do not occur in Scripture, though the ideas covered by the terms, especially the latter, may easily be found there. The "New Covenant" here spoken of is practically equivalent to the Covenant of Grace established between God and His redeemed people, that again resting upon the eternal Covenant of Redemption made between the Father and the Son, which, though not so expressly designated, is not obscurely indicated by many passages of Scripture.

2. Christ's Use at Last Supper:

Looking at the matter more particularly, we have to note the words of Christ at the institution of the Supper. In all the three Synoptists, as also in Paul's account (Mt 26:28; Mk 14:24; Lk 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25) "covenant" occurs. Matthew and Mark, "my blood of the (new) covenant"; Lk and Paul, "the new covenant in my blood." The Revisers following the critical text, have omitted "new" in Matthew and Mark, but even if it does not belong to the original MS, it is implied, and there need be little doubt that Jesus used it. The old covenant was so well known to these Jewish disciples, that to speak of the covenant in this emphatic way, referring manifestly to something other than the old Mosaic covenant, was in effect to call it a "new" covenant. The expression, in any case, looks back to the old and points the contrast; but in the contrast there are points of resemblance.

3. Relation to Exodus 24:

It is most significant that Christ here connects the "new" covenant with His "blood." We at once think, as doubtless the disciples would think, of the transaction described in Ex 24:7, when Moses "took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people" those "words," indicating God's undertaking on behalf of His people and what He required of them; "and they said, All that Yahweh hath spoken will we do, and be obedient," thus taking up their part of the contract. Then comes the ratification. "Moses took the blood (half of which had already been sprinkled on the altar), and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant which Yahweh hath made with you concerning all these words" (verse 8). The blood was sacrificial blood, the blood of the animals sacrificed as burnt offerings and peace offerings (Ex 24:5,6). The one half of the blood sprinkled on the altar tells of the sacrifice offered to God, the other half sprinkled on the people, of the virtue of the same sacrifice applied to the people, and so the covenant relation is fully brought about. Christ, by speaking of His blood in this connection, plainly indicates that His death was a sacrifice, and that through that sacrifice His people would be brought into a new covenant relationship with God. His sacrifice is acceptable to God and the virtue of it is to be applied to believers--so all the blessings of the new covenant are secured to them; the blood "is poured out for you" (Lk 22:20). He specifically mentions one great blessing of the new covenant, the forgiveness of sins--"which is poured out for many unto remission of sins" (Mt 26:28).

4. Use in Epistle to the Hebrews:

This great thought is taken up in Hebrews and fully expounded. The writer draws out fully the contrast between the new covenant and the old by laying stress upon the perfection of Christ's atonement in contrast to the material and typical sacrifices (Heb 9:11-23). He was "a high priest of the good things to come," connected with "the greater and more perfect tabernacle." He entered the heavenly holy place "through his own blood," not that of "goats and calves," and by that perfect offering He has secured "eternal redemption" in contrast to the temporal deliverance of the old dispensation. The blood of those typical offerings procured ceremonial cleansing; much more, therefore, shall the blood of Christ avail to cleanse the conscience "from dead works to serve the living God"--that blood which is so superior in value to the blood of the temporal sacrifices, yet resembles it in being sacrificial blood. It is the blood of Him "who, through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God." It is the fashion in certain quarters nowadays to say that it is not the blood of Christ, but His spirit of self-sacrifice for others, that invests the cross with its saving power, and this verse is sometimes cited to show that the virtue lies in the surrender of the perfect will, the shedding of the blood being a mere accident. But this is not the view of the New Testament writers. The blood-shedding is to them a necessity. Of course, it is not the natural, material blood, or the mere act of shedding it, that saves. The blood is the life. The blood is the symbol of life; the blood shed is the symbol of life outpoured--of the penalty borne; and while great emphasis must be laid, as in this verse it is laid, upon Christ's perfect surrender of His holy will to God, yet the essence of the matter is found in the fact that He willingly endured the dread consequences of sin, and as a veritable expiatory sacrifice shed His precious blood for the remission of sins.

5. The Mediator of the New Covenant:

On the ground of that shed blood, as the writer goes on to assert, "He is the mediator of a new covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance" (Heb 9:15). Thus Christ fulfils the type in a twofold way: He is the sacrifice upon which the covenant is based, whose blood ratifies it, and He is also, like Moses, the Mediator of the covenant. The death of Christ not only secures the forgiveness of those who are brought under the new covenant, but it was also for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, implying that all the sacrifices gained their value by being types of Christ, and the forgiveness enjoyed by the people of God in former days was bestowed in virtue of the great Sacrifice to be offered in the fullness of time.

6. "Inheritance" and "Testament":

Not only does the blessing of perfect forgiveness come through the new covenant, but also the promise of the "eternal inheritance" in contrast to the earthly inheritance which, under the old covenant, Israel obtained. The mention of the inheritance is held to justify the taking of the word in the next verse as "testament," the writer passing to the thought of a testamentary disposition, which is only of force after the death of the testator. Undoubtedly there is good ground for the analogy, and all the blessings of salvation which come to the believer may be considered as bequeathed by the Saviour in His death, and accruing to us because He has died. It has, in that sense, tacitly to be assumed that the testator lives again to be His own executor and to put us in possession of the blessings. Still, we think there is much to be said in favor of keeping to the sense of "covenant" even here, and taking the clause, which, rendered literally, is: "a covenant is of force (or firm) over the dead," as meaning that the covenant is established on the ground of sacrifice, that sacrifice representing the death of the maker of the covenant. The allusion may be further explained by a reference to Gen 15:9,10,17, which has generally been considered as illustrating the ancient Semitic method of making a covenant: the sacrificial animals being divided, and the parties passing between the pieces, implying that they deserved death if they broke the engagement. The technical Hebrew phrase for making a covenant is "to cut a covenant."

There is an interesting passage in Herodotus iii. 8, concerning an Arabian custom which seems akin to the old Hebrew practice. "The Arabians observe pledges as religiously as any people; and they make them in the following manner; when any wish to pledge their faith, a third person standing between the two parties makes an incision with a sharp stone in the palm of the hand, nearest the longest fingers of both the contractors; then taking some of the nap from the garments of each, he smears seven stones placed between him and the blood; and as he does this he invokes Bacchus and Urania. When this ceremony is completed, the person who pledges his faith binds his friends as sureties to the stranger, or the citizen, if the contract is made with a citizen; and the friends also hold themselves obliged to observe the engagement"--Cary's translation.

Whatever the particular application of the word in Gen 15:17, the central idea in the passage is that death, blood-shedding, is necessary to the establishment of the covenant, and so he affirms that the first covenant was not dedicated without blood, and in proof quotes the passage already cited from Ex 24, and concludes that "apart from shedding of blood there is no remission" (24:22).

See COVENANT ,IN THE NEW TESTAMENT .

7. Relation to Jeremiah 31:31-34:

This new covenant established by Christ was foretold by the prophet Jeremiah, who uses the very word "new covenant" in describing it, and very likely Christ had that description in mind when He used the term, and meant His disciples to understand that the prophetic interpretation would in Him be realized. There is no doubt that the author of He had the passage in mind, for he has led up to the previous statement by definitely quoting the whole statement of Jer 31:31-34. He had in Jer 7 spoken of the contrast between Christ s priesthood "after the order of Melchizedek" (verse 11) and the imperfect Aaronic priesthood, and he designates Jesus as "the surety of a better covenant" (verse 22). Then in Jer 8, emphasizing the thought of the superiority of Christ's heavenly high-priesthood, he declares that Christ is the "mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises" (verse 6). The first covenant, he says, was not faultless, otherwise there would have been no need for a second; but the fault was not in the covenant but in the people who failed to keep it, though perhaps there is also the suggestion that the external imposition of laws could not suffice to secure true obedience. "For finding fault with them he saith, Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah." The whole passage (Jer 8 through 12) would repay careful study, but we need only note that not only is there prominence given to the great blessings of the covenant, perfect forgiveness and fullness of knowledge, but, as the very essence of the covenant--that which serves to distinguish it from the old covenant and at once to show its superiority and guarantee its permanence--there is this wonderful provision: "I will put my laws into their mind, and on their heart also will I write them: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." This at once shows the spirituality of the new covenant. Its requirements are not simply given in the form of external rules, but the living Spirit possesses the heart; the law becomes an internal dominating principle, and so true obedience is secured.

8. To Ezekiel:

Ezekiel had spoken to the same effect, though the word "new covenant" is not used in the passage, chapter 36:27: "I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep mine ordinances, and do them." In chapter 37 Ezekiel again speaks of the great blessings to be enjoyed by the people of God, including cleansing, walking in God's statutes, recognition as God's people, etc., and he distinctly says of this era of blessing: "I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them" (verse 26). Other important foreshadowings of the new covenant are found in Isa 54:10; 55:3; 59:21; 61:8; Hos 2:18-23; Mal 3:1-4. We may well marvel at the spiritual insight of these prophets, and it is impossible to attribute their forecasts to natural genius; they can only be accounted for by Divine inspiration.

The writer to the Hebrews recurs again and again to this theme of the "New Covenant"; in 10:16,17 he cites the words of Jeremiah already quoted about writing the law on their minds, and remembering their sins no more. In Heb 12:24, he speaks of "Jesus the mediator of a new covenant," and "the blood of sprinkling," again connecting the "blood" with the "covenant," and finally, in Heb 13:20, he prays for the perfection of the saints through the "blood of an eternal covenant."

9. Contrast of Old and New in 2 Corinthians 3:

In 2 Cor 3 Paul has an interesting and instructive contrast between the old covenant and the new. He begins it by saying that "our sufficiency is from God; who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life" (3:5,6). The "letter" is the letter of the law, of the old covenant which could only bring condemnation, but the spirit which characterizes the new covenant gives life, writes the law upon the heart. He goes on to speak of the old as that "ministration of death" which nevertheless "came with glory" (3:7), and he refers especially to the law, but the new covenant is "the ministration of the spirit," the "ministration of righteousness" (3:8,9), and has a far greater glory than the old. The message of this "new covenant" is "the gospel of Christ." The glory of the new covenant is focused in Christ; rays forth from Him. The glory of the old dispensation was reflected upon the face of Moses, but that glory was transitory and so was the physical manifestation (3:13). The sight of the shining face of Moses awed the people of Israel and they revered him as leader specially favored of God (3:7-13). When he had delivered his message he veiled his face and thus the people could not see that the glow did not last; every time that he went into the Divine presence he took off the veil and afresh his face was lit up with the glory, and coming out with the traces of that glory lingering on his countenance he delivered his message to the people and again veiled his face (compare Ex 34:29-35), and thus the transitoriness and obscurity of the old dispensation were symbolized. In glorious contrast to that symbolical obscurity, the ministers of the gospel, of the new covenant, use great boldness of speech; the veil is done away in Christ (3:12 ff). The glory which comes through Him is perpetual, and fears no vanishing away.

Archibald McCaig


COVER; COVERING

kuv'-er, kuv'-er-ing: The translation of several Hebrew words. The covering of the ark (mikhceh, Gen 8:13) was possibly the lid of a hatchway (compare Mitchell, World before Abraham, 215).

To the sons of Kohath was assigned the task of caring for the furniture of the Tabernacle whenever the camp was moved, a suitable covering (kacah) of sealskin being designated for each of the specially sacred objects, the temple curtains also being used (Nu 4:8,9,11,12 ff).

Nu 19:15 (tsamidh) may refer to anything used as a lid or covering; Job 24:7; 31:19 (kecuth) refer to clothing or bed-covering.

Figurative: "Abaddon hath no covering"; (kecuth) from God (Job 26:6); "He will destroy .... the face of the covering (ha-loT) that covereth all peoples" (Isa 25:7). The removal of the veil, often worn as a token of mourning (compare 2 Sam 19:4), signified the destruction of death.

W. N. Stearns


COVERED WAY

kuv'-erd wa (mecakh, "a covered walk"): Mentioned in 2 Ki 16:18 (the King James Version "covert") as a gallery belonging to the temple, concerning the purpose of which opinions differ. Some consider it to have been the place where the king stood or sat during the Sabbath services; others, a public place for teaching; others, the way by which the priest entered the sanctuary on the Sabbath.


COVERING, FOR THE HEAD

kuv'-er-ing, (peribolaion): Mentioned in the New Testament only in 1 Cor 11:15: "For her hair is given her for a covering," literally, "something cast round," probably equivalent to "veil" (which see). Read in the light of the context: "Every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoreth her head" (verse 5). The meaning would seem to be that Nature itself, in providing women with a natural veil, has taught the lesson underlying the prevailing custom, that woman should not be unveiled in the public assemblies.

George B. Eager


COVERT

kuv'-ert: Now seldom used, except for game, and then generally spelt "cover." "A covered way" (2 Ki 16:18 the King James Version); also a shelter of any kind (Isa 4:6); "a hiding place," "a lair," "a hut" (Job 38:40); "a place of secrecy," "a secret way" (1 Sam 25:20; Job 40:21; Ps 61:4; Isa 16:4; 32:2); "a den," "a lair" (Jer 25:38).


COVET

kuv'-et ('awah; zeloo, "to desire earnestly," "to set the heart and mind upon anything"): Used in two senses: good, simply to desire earnestly but legitimately. e.g. the King James Version 1 Cor 12:31; 14:39; bad, to desire unlawfully, or to secure illegitimately (batsa`; epithumeo, Rom 7:7; 13:9, etc.); hence, called "lust" (Mt 5:28; 1 Cor 10:6), "concupiscence" (the King James Version Rom 7:8; Col 3:5).


COVETOUSNESS

kuv'-et-us-nes: Has a variety of shades of meaning determined largely by the nature of the particular word used, or the context, or both. Following are some of the uses: (1) To gain dishonestly (batsa`), e.g. the King James Version Ex 18:21; Ezek 33:31. (2) The wish to have more than one possesses, inordinately, of course (pleonexia), e.g. Lk 12:15; 1 Thess 2:5. (3) An inordinate love of money philarguros, the King James Version Lk 16:14; 2 Tim 3:2; philarguria, 1 Tim 6:10); negative in Heb 13:5, the King James Version.

Covetousness is a very grave sin; indeed, so heinous is it that the Scriptures class it among the very gravest and grossest crimes (Eph 5:3). In Col 3:5 it is "idolatry," while in 1 Cor 6:10 it is set forth as excluding a man from heaven. Its heinousness, doubtless, is accounted for by its being in a very real sense the root of so many other forms of sin, e.g. departure from the faith (1 Tim 6:9,10); lying (2 Ki 5:22-25); theft (Josh 7:21); domestic trouble (Prov 15:27); murder (Ezek 22:12); indeed, it leads to "many foolish and hurtful lusts" (1 Tim 6:9). Covetousness has always been a very serious menace to mankind, whether in the Old Testament or New Testament period. It was one of the first sins that broke out after Israel had entered into the promised land (Achan, Josh 7); and also in the early Christian church immediately after its founding (Ananias and Sapphira, Acts 5); hence, so many warnings against it. A careful reading of the Old Testament will reveal the fact that a very great part of the Jewish law--such as its enactments and regulations regarding duties toward the poor, toward servants; concerning gleaning, usury, pledges, gold and silver taken during war--was introduced and intended to counteract the spirit of covetousness.

Eerdmans maintains (Expos, July, 1909) that the commandment, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house" (Ex 20:17), meant to the Israelite that he should not take anything of his neighbor's possessions that were momentarily unprotected by their owner. Compare Ex 34:23 ff. Thus, it refers to a category of acts that is not covered by the commandment, "Thou shalt not steal." It is an oriental habit of mind from of old that when anyone sees abandoned goods which he thinks desirable, there is not the least objection to taking them, and Ex 20:17b is probably an explanation of what is to be understood by "house" in 20:17a.

Examples of covetousness: Achan (Josh 7); Saul (1 Sam 15:9,19); Judas (Mt 26:14,15); Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11); Balaam (2 Pet 2:15 with Jude 1:11).

William Evans


COW; KINE

kou, kin (baqar (compare Arabic baqar, "cow"); `eghlath baqar (Isa 7:21); parah (compare Arabic furar, "young of a sheep, goat, or cow"); paroth `aloth (1 Sam 6:7,10), "milch kine," from `ul , "to suckle"; 'eleph): In Am 4:1, the term, "kine of Bashan," is applied to the voluptuous women of Samaria. In Gen 41:1-36 is the narration of Pharaoh's dream of the seven fat and seven lean kine. In Isaiah's vision (Isa 11:7) we have: "And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together." Cows do not seem to have been sacrificed. The sacrifice of the kine that brought the ark back from the Philistines (1 Sam 6:14) was due to the exceptional circumstances.

See CALF ;CATTLE .

Alfred Ely Day


COZ

koz (kots, "thorn"): A man of Judah (1 Ch 4:8). the American Standard Revised Version has added the article, making the name Hakkoz without sufficient reason. The name occurs with the article (Ha-qots) in Ezr 2:61; Neh 3:4,21; 7:63, and 1 Ch 24:10, but not with reference to the same person. Coz was of the tribe of Judah, while Hakkoz belonged to the family of Aaron.


COZBI

koz'-bi (kozbi, "deceitful"): A Midianite woman, distinguished as the daughter of Zur, "head of the people of a fathers' house in Midian." She was slain by Phinehas at Shittim in company with "Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a fathers' house among the Simeonites" (Nu 25:6-18).


COZEBA

ko-ze'-ba (1 Ch 4:22).

See ACHZIB .



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