03-A Word about Words

A Word about Words The purpose of this short Essay is to expound certain passages in the writings of St Paul, dealing with a religious question, which occupied him largely during one period of his career. The method I propose to myself will bring me face to face with the difficulties that beset any person who endeavours to set forth in one language ideas and thoughts originally stated in quite another. Differences of idiom, problems of grammar, and perhaps more especially the all but impossibility of rendering aright the niceties of vocabulary, form the chief of these difficulties. In the case of St Paul the grammar does not present (I should say) an insurmountable barrier. He had had the great advantage of birth in a Greek-speaking city, and probably spoke that language from the earliest days of his life. It was not with him, for instance, as it was with the Fourth Evangelist, in whose writings one comes across, every now and then, a sentence which will only translate by the employment of sheer violence. Vocabulary, on the other hand, is always, and must be, a trouble to the conscientious translator. For words are unfortunately ‘fluid,’ and not only has one to know what a Greek word used by St Paul meant first by origin, and then as used by him; but also what the English ‘equivalent’ (that is, would-be equivalent: for absolute ‘equivalence’ is a very rare phenomenon), employed by our own translators, conveyed when they first used it. This opening section then will wholly deal with words-the words that are ‘master-words’ in connexion with the paragraphs to be rendered later on.

They belong to three several languages; for students of the English New Testament are concerned, of necessity, with English and Latin and Greek. Hebrew (fortunately for me) is vastly less important, for as everybody knows the ‘Old Testament’ of the ‘New Testament’ writers is the Greek and not the Hebrew. The words I mean to discuss are δίκη and its derivatives; ‘justus’ and its derivatives; and the various verbal and nominal forms which derive from the English ‘right.’ The Greek must take precedence. In the late Dr Verrall’s delightful commentary on Euripides, Medea (published alas! how many years ago) he observes in one of his notes that the original meaning of Δίκη is the custom or order of nature. The well-known words of the second line of the chorus, that starts at 410,

καί δίκα καί πάντα πάλιν στρέφεται he renders ‘Nature and the universe are turned upside down.’

However I am not convinced that δίκα, in that place, means other than ‘right.’

Originally, however, δίκη obviously meant ‘way.’ The notion of ‘right’-ness is secondary, an accretion. This appears from the adverbial use of the accusative in Attic (κυνὸς δίκην ‘dog’s way,’ or ‘dog-fashion’). But there are also indications of the same sense in the Homeric poems. In fact, it is not disputed. The δίκη of kings’ means the ‘way’ they comport themselves (Od. iv. 691)-in this case the very opposite of anything that could be called ‘right,’ mere capricious favouring of one and disliking of another.

It is easy to imagine how ‘way’ or ‘usage’ might develope into ‘right.’ Anyhow it certainly did. So we start with the assumption that δίκη means (roughly) ‘right.’ The adverb δικαίως, in the Odyssey, means simply ‘rightly.’ The adjective δίκαιος is more often used of persons than it is of things. A man is called δίκαιος when he behaves reasonably, as a civilised person should. The δίκαιος is not a person on a lofty ethical platform; he is merely one who satisfies the dictates of common usage. The adjective, in those days, was manifestly only starting upon its upward path. We are a long way yet from the δίκαιος (say) of Plato, or again from the abstract noun that belongs to that δίκαιος, the same Master’s spacious δικαιοσύνη. Of course, the Greek Old Testament inherited both these terms, when they were in the full possession of the higher, more ethical, meaning that came with the centuries.

More important however than either the noun or the adjective (at least, originally), for Pauline purposes, is the verb that is cognate with them. Δικαιοῦν in classical Greek is found with varying senses. Sometimes it means to ‘set right,’ as in a fragment of Pindar (151), wherein Νόμος, sovran Νόμος, is described as δικαιῶν τὸ βιαιότατον ὑπερτάτᾳ χειρί. The instance given, of this ‘right’ (which is ‘might’), is the conduct of Herakles in ‘lifting’ Geryon’s cattle. It is also employed (as ‘justify’ is in Scots) of that summary ‘setting right’ of an evil doer which is achieved by his abolition. More often, however, it means ‘to deem right,’ or else to ‘demand.’ But the usages of the LXX are what concern us chiefly.

Here are two or three capital instances of the verb in the Old Testament, culled thanks to the kindly aid of Dr Hatch’s monumental work. In Genesis 44:16 Judah says to his brother Joseph (after the discovery of the governor’s cup in the sack), “wherein shall we clear ourselves?” (τί δικαιωθῶμεν;). In Exodus 23:7 the LXX (here differing from the Hebrew, but giving an excellent sense) reads “Thou shalt not put right the impious for gifts” (οὐ δικαιώσεις τὸν ἀσεβῆ ἕνεκεν δώρων). In 2 Samuel 15:4 poor foolish Absalom says, in his disloyal way, “O that I were made judge in the land; that every man might come unto me … and I would set him right!” (καὶ δικαιώσω αὐτόν).

There are also two passages in the Psalms which are well worth citing; the familiar “for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified” (ὅτι οὐ δικαιωθήσεται ἐνώπιον σου πᾶς ζῶν); and 73:13, “Surely in vain have I set right my heart” (ματαίως ἐδικαίωσα τὴν καρδίαν μου).

These instances, I think, will help to bear out my contention that δικαιοῦν (in O.T.) does not mean to ‘make righteous’ in the sense of ‘right doing,’ or even (as is argued) to ‘account as right-doing,’ but simply to ‘set right’-which is quite another matter. The fact is, δίκαιος (in St Paul) has two different senses, one technical and one normal. Employed technically it means ‘in the right,’ or simply ‘right,’ corresponding to δικαιοῦν ‘to set right.’ Otherwise (and the context in all cases decides the sense) it means ‘righteous,’ in the ordinary way. The same remark applies to the abstract noun. We must expect to find that too employed in two perfectly distinct senses. Sometimes it means the condition of one who is ‘righteous’ (in the sense ‘right doing’); sometimes (and this is the technical usage) the condition of one who is ‘right,’ that is, right with God. The original Latin translators, when confronted with these words, were set a difficult problem. How should they render δίκαιος, and how, as a consequence, the derivatives of that adjective? They pitched upon ‘justus,’ and invented (it would seem) the compound ‘justificare.’ Now ‘justus’ will do very well for the ethical δίκαιος, but is hopelessly inadequate for the theological one. The root of the word is a root which expresses ‘binding’; and ‘jus,’ its immediate parent, means ‘natural right.’ Of persons, ‘justus’ means ‘upright’; of things either ‘righteous,’ that is ‘well grounded’ (as in justa causa); or else ‘rightful’ (as in justa uxor). This will show that it is (as I contend) an adequate equivalent for δίκαιος in its more normal and regular sense; that is, ‘honest,’ ‘right dealing,’ ‘righteous.’ But where are we when we come to the other sense of δίκαιος? ‘Justus’ obviously is no equivalent for ‘right’; that is ‘in the right.’ This sense (which I hold to be undoubted) is really derived from δικαιοῦν, by a kind of ‘backward action.’ Neither will ‘justus’ do for the adjective, nor ‘justificare’ for the verb. ‘Justus’ can only mean ‘right dealing’; and ‘justificare’ accordingly can only mean ‘make right dealing.’ And that can never convey the meaning of St Paul. Nor can I think of a way in which it could have been successfully rendered in Latin. ‘Rectus’ would hardly do (and ‘rectificare’); and besides the Latin translators were far more keen to be literal than ever they were to be lucid. So one would be inclined to conclude from studying them. In English we are better off: for we really have equivalents. There is ‘right’ (to be sure) for δίκη; there is the verb ‘to right’ for δικαιοῦν; there is the adjective ‘right’ for δίκαιος in the one sense, and ‘righteous’ for it in the other. The root meaning (to be sure) of this family of words is different altogether from that of the corresponding terms in Latin and in Greek. Δίκη is the ‘way’; ‘jus’ is ‘that which binds’; while right is ‘what is ruled’ or ‘straight.’ The ‘right’ man and the ‘righteous’ man are the men who respectively are ‘straight’ and ‘straight dealing.’ But is it not a calamity that (owing to unhappy Latin influence) δικαιοῦν should be rendered by ‘justify’? At least, it seems so to me. And moreover it appears entirely gratuitous. For the resources of our English are not, in this respect, one whit behind the resources of Luther’s German. Yet he made his meaning plain (that is, the Apostle’s meaning) to very simple people: and it can hardly be maintained our English does. Later on, when we come to the text, I hope to demonstrate it. Perhaps I might add just this. According to Professor Skeat the ‘righteous’ man is the man who is ‘wise in right’ (the ‘right-wise’ in fact). It is not for the ignorant to question the results arrived at by the learned. But if the Professor is right, and the ‘-eous’ is not merely terminative, then ‘righteous’ becomes indeed even less suitable than I had thought it, as a rendering for δίκαιος, where that word represents the person, who is merely ‘right-with-God.’ To call him ‘wise in right’ is simply hopelessly beside the mark.