Barbarian

The word לעז (rendered barbarian; LXX, βαρβαρος,) in the Hebrew sense of it, signifies a stranger; one who knows neither the holy language nor the law. According to the notions of the Greeks, all nations who were not Greeks, or not governed by laws like the Greeks, were barbarians. The Persians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Arabians, Gauls, Germans, and even the Romans, were, in their phraseology, barbarians, however learned or polite they might be in themselves. St. Paul comprehends all mankind under the names of Greeks and barbarians: “I am a debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians; to the wise and to the unwise,”

Rom 1:14. St. Luke calls the inhabitants of the island of Malta barbarians, Act 28:2; Act 28:4. St. Paul, writing to the Colossians, uses the terms barbarian and Scythian almost in the same signification. In 1Co 14:11, he says, that if he who speaks a foreign language in an assembly be not understood by those to whom he discourses, with respect to them he is a barbarian; and, reciprocally, if he understand not those who speak to him, they are to him barbarians. Barbarian, therefore, is used for every stranger or foreigner who does not speak our native language, and includes no implication whatever of savage nature or manners in those respecting whom it is used. It is most probably derived from berbir, “a shepherd;” whence Barbary, the country of wandering shepherds; Bedouins, Sceni, Scythei, as if, wanderers in tents; therefore barbarians.

This term is used in the New Testament, as in classical writers, to denote other nations of the earth in distinction from the Greeks. ’I am debtor both to the Greeks and Barbarians.’ In Col 3:11, ’Greek nor Jew—Barbarian, Scythian’—Barbarian seems to refer to those nations of the Roman empire who did not speak Greek, and Scythian to nations not under the Roman dominion. In 1Co 14:11 the term is applied to a difference of language: ’If I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian (’as of another language,’ Geneva Vers.), and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian (’as of another language,’ Geneva Vers.) unto me.’ Strabo (xiv. 2) suggests that the word Bar-bar-os was originally an imitative sound, designed to express a harsh dissonant language, or sometimes the indistinct articulation of the Greek by foreigners.

According to the Greek idiom, all other nations, however learned and polite they might be, were "barbarians." Hence Paul comprehends all mankind under the names of "Greeks and barbarians," 1Ch 1:14 . Luke calls the inhabitants of the island of Malta, "barbarians," Mal 28:2,4 . Indeed, "barbarian" is used in Scripture for every stranger or foreigner who does not speak the native language of the writer, Psa 114:1, and includes no implication whatever of savage nature or manners in those respecting whom it is used.\par

Barbarian. "Every one not a Greek is a barbarian" is the common Greek definition, and in this strict sense, the word is used in Rom 1:14. It often retains this primitive meaning, as in 1Co 14:11; Act 28:24.

All not Greek, in contrast to the Greeks (Rom 1:14). Primitively all speaking an unknown tongue (1Co 14:11); the Maltese, as speaking a Punic dialect (Act 28:2; Act 28:4). Subsequently the word implied cruelty and savagery. Distinguished from Scythians, the wild races beyond the Roman empire; "barbarians" were within it (Col 3:11).

(βάρβαρος), a term used in the New Testament, as in classical writers, to denote other nations of the earth in distinction from the Greeks (Serv. ad Virg. AEn. 2:504). “I am debtor both to the Greeks and Barbarians” (Rom 1:14). (Comp. Plato, Polit. p. 260; Erat. p. 383; Theaet. p. 175; Pliny, 29:7; Aristot. De Caelo, 1:3; Polyb. v. 33, 5.) In Col 3:11, Greek nor Jew — Barbarian, Scythian” — βαρος seems to refer to those nations of the Roman empire who did not speak Greek, and Σκύθης to nations not under the Roman dominion. In 1Co 14:11, the term is applied to a difference of language: “If I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.” Thus Ovid, “Barbarus hic ego sum, quia non intelligor ulli” (Trist. v. 10, 37). In Acts 28, the inhabitants of Malta are called βάρβαροι, because they were originally a Carthaginian colony, and chiefly spoke the Punic language. In the Sept. βάρβαρος is used for the Hebrew לָעִז, laaz’, “a people of strange language” (Psa 114:1); Chaldee ברבראי. In the rabbinical writers the same Hebrews word is applied to foreigners in distinction from the Jews; and in the Jerusalem Talmud it is explained as meaning the Greek language; Rabbi Solomon remarks that whatever is not in the holy tongue is called by this term (Buxtorf, Lex. Talm. s.v.). According to Herodotus, the Egyptians called all men barbarians who did not speak the same language as themselves (ii. 158). Clement of Alexandria uses it respecting the Egyptians and other nations, even when speaking of their progress in civilization, as in his Strom. 1, ch. 16, § 74: “Barbarians have been inventors not only of philosophy, but likewise of almost every art. The Egyptians, and, in like manner, the Chaldaeans, first introduced among men the knowledge of astrology.” In a singular passage of Justin Martyr’s first Apology the term is applied to Abraham and other distinguished Hebrews: “We have learned and have before explained that Christ is the first- begotten of God, being the Word (or reason, λόγον ὄντα) of which the whole human race partake. And they who live agreeably to the Word (or reason, οἱ μετὰ λόγου βιώσαντες) are Christians, even though esteemed atheists: such among the Greeks were Socrates; Heraclitus, and the like; and among the barbarians (‘among other nations,’ Chevallier’s Trans.), ἐν βαρβάροις, Abraham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, and Elias, and many others,” Apol. 1:46. Strabo (14. 2) suggests that the word bar-bar-os was originally an imitative sound, designed to express a harsh, dissonant language, or sometimes the indistinct articulation of the Greek by foreigners, and instances the Carians, who, on the latter account, he conjectures, were termed by Homer βαρβαρόφωνοι (Iliad, 2:867), although it is doubtful whether in the same sense (Thucyd. 1:3).

The word appears to have acquired a reproachful sense during the wars with the Persians; their country was called ἡ βάρβαρος (γÁ) (Demosth. Philippians 3). In 1Co 5:13, 1Ti 3:7, we have “those outside” (οἱ ἔξω), and Mat 6:32, “the nations” (τὰ ἔθνη), used Hebraistically for “the Gentiles” (גּוֹיַם, אַיַּים, in very much the same sort of sense as that of βάρβαροι), to distinguish all other nations from the Jews; and in the Talmudists we find Palestine opposed to “the lands” (אֲרָצוֹת), just as Greece was to Barbaria or ἡ βάρβαρος (comp. Cic. Fin. 2:15; Lightfoot, Centuria Chorogr. ad init.). And yet so completely was the term βάρβαρος accepted, that even Josephus (Ant. 11:7, 1; 14:10, 1; 26:6, 8; War, introd.; Apion, 1:11 and 22) and Philo (Opp. 1:29) scruple as little to reckon the Jews among them as the early Romans did to ap. ply the term to themselves (“Demophilus scripsit, Marcus vertit barbare,” Plaut. Asin. prol. 10). Very naturally, the word, after a time, began to involve notions of cruelty and contempt (θηρὸς βαρβάρου, 2Ma 4:25; 2Ma 15:2, etc.), and then the Romans excepted themselves from the scope of its meaning (Cic. De Rep. 1:37, § 68). Afterward only the savage nations were called barbarians, though the Greek Constantinopolitans called the Romans ““barbarians” to the very last (Gibbon, 51; 6:351, ed. Smith). See Iken, De Scythis et Barbaris, in the Biblioth. Brem. 1, v. 767 sq.; Kype, Observ. 2:152; Schleusner, Thes. Phil. 1:50: Dougtei Analect. 2:100 sq, Rauth, Ueb. Sinn u. Gebrauch des Wortes Barbar (Nurnb. 1814). SEE HELLENIST.

Barbarian. This term is used to denote any one who was not a Greek. In its scriptural use It does not imply any rudeness or savageness of nature or manners. Act 28:2; Act 28:4 and Rom 1:14.

βάρβαρος. The word signifies ’foreigner, alien:’ it was used by the Romans for any people who did not understand Latin or Greek. In Rom 1:14 they are in contrast to the Greeks. In 1Co 14:11, a person hearing another speak in a language he did not understand would account him and be accounted a foreigner. The inhabitants of Melita were so called by Luke. Act 28:2-4. In Col 3:1 the ’barbarian’ is in contrast to the uncultivated Scythian.

BARBARIAN.—The Eng. word is used in Act 28:2; Act 28:4, Rom 1:14, 1Co 14:11, Col 3:11 to translate a Gr. word which does not at all connote savagery, but means simply ‘foreign,’ ‘speaking an unintelligible language.’ The expression first arose among the Greeks in the days of their independence, and was applied by them to all who could not speak Greek. When Greece became subject to Rome, it was then extended to mean all except the Greeks and Romans. There may be a touch of contempt in St. Luke’s use of it, but St. Paul uses it simply in the ordinary way; see esp. 1Co 14:11.

A. Souter.

The Greeks of the age of independence divided mankind into two classes-Hellenes or Greeks, and Barbarians, the latter term having a special reference to those who did not speak the Greek language and were thus unintelligible to the inhabitants of Hellas. The word itself is almost certainly onomatopoetic, being an imitation of the way in which the peoples seemed to speak. It occurs for the first time in Homer (Il. ii. 867), and is used of the Carians (Êᾶñåò âáñâáñüöùíïé). Plato divides the human race into Hellenes and Barbarians (Polit. 262 D). Even the Romans called themselves Barbarians till Greek literature came to be naturalized in Rome; and both Philo and Josephus regard the Jews and their tongue as barbarous. By and by the word came to be used as descriptive of all the defects which the Greeks thought foreign to themselves and natural to all other peoples, but the first and the main idea conveyed by the term is that of difference of language.

In the NT history of the early Church we find the term used in four different places.-(1) In Act_28:2-4 it is applied by St. Luke to the Phœnician inhabitants of Malta, perhaps with a slight hint of contempt on the part of the author. (2) The Apostle Paul in 1Co_14:11 refers to the ecstatic speaking with tongues, and declares that if any speak in an unknown tongue, ‘I shall be to him that speaketh a Barbarians, and he that speaketh will be a barbarian unto me.’ Here the word is used in the original sense of one who speaks in an unknown tongue. (3) In the statement (Rom_1:14), ‘I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarian,’ St Paul uses the common conventional division of mankind; and, like Philo and Josephus, classes the Jews among the Barbarians. (4) In Col_3:11 we have a looser use of the term ‘Greek and Jew … barbarian and Scythian.’ The Apostle has been speaking of the abolition of all distinction in the offer of the gospel, and the classes selected are not mutually exclusive but mentioned with reference to heresies in the Colossian Church (cf. J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians3, 1879, p. 216). The Apostle offers the gospel not merely to learned Greeks but to barbarians, and even to Scythians, who are popularly regarded as the lowest type of this class.

Literature.-Thayer Grimm’s Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the NT, tr. Thayer , s.v.; see also articles in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) and Encyclopaedia Biblica .

W. F. Boyd.