Boastful (212) (alazoneia - related word alazon) according to Thayer refers (a) in secular writings (from Aristophanes down) generally to empty, braggart talk sometimes also empty display in act, swagger, (b) an insolent and empty assurance, which trusts in its own power and resources and shamefully despises and violates divine laws and human rights and (c) an impious and empty presumption which trusts in the stability of earthly things (Jas 4:16). It speaks of pretension, arrogance in word and deed. (see Barclay's note below for more detail). The only other NT use of alazoneia is by James... James 4:16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Vincent writes that alazoneia means... It means, originally, empty, braggart talk or display; swagger; and thence an insolent and vain assurance in one’s own resources, or in the stability of earthly things, which issues in a contempt of divine laws. The vainglory of life is the vainglory which belongs to the present life. (In his note on Jas 4:16 Vincent writes) The kindred word alazon, a boaster, is derived from ale, a wandering or roaming; hence, primarily, a vagabond, a quack, a mountebank. From the empty boasts of such concerning the cures and wonders they could perform, the word passed into the sense of boaster. One may boast truthfully; but alazoneia is false and swaggering boasting. Revised (of Jas 4:16KJV) renders vauntings, and rightly, since vaunt is from the Latin vanus, empty, and therefore expresses idle or vain boasting. Barclay notes that alazon and the related word alazoneia have... behind them a most interesting picture, which makes them all the more vivid and meaningful. The Greeks derived them from ale, which means a wandering about; and an alazon was one of these wandering quacks who could be found shouting their wares in every market-place and in every fair-ground, and offering to sell men their patent cure-alls. Plutarch, for instance, uses it to describe a quack doctor (Plutarch, Moralia 523). It was the word for these quacks and cheapjacks who travelled the country and set up their stalls wherever crowds gathered, to sell their patent pills and potions, and to boast that they could cure anything. So in Greek the word came to mean a pretentious braggart. The Platonic Definitions define alazoneia as `the claim to good things which a man does not really possess'. Aristotle defines the alazon as the man `who pretends to praiseworthy qualities which he does not possess, or possesses in a lesser degree than he makes out' (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1127a 21). Again in the Rhetoric (1384a 6) he says that 'it is the sign of alazoneia to claim that things it does not possess belong to it'. Plato uses the word alazon to describe the 'false and boastful words' which can get into a young man's mind and drive out `the pursuits and true words which are the best guardians and sentinels in the minds of men who are dear to the gods' (Plato, Republic 560c). In the Gorgias Plato draws a picture of the souls of men before the judge in the afterworld, souls 'where every act has left its smirch, where all is awry through falsehood and imposture, alazoneia, and nothing straight because of a nurture that knew not the truth' (Plato, Gorgias 525a). Xenophon tells how Cyrus the Persian king, who knew men, defined the alazon: 'The name alazon seems to apply to those who pretend that they are richer than they are, or braver than they are, and to those who promise to do what they cannot do, and that, too, when it is evident that they do this only for the sake of getting something or making some gain' (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 2.2.12). In the Memorabilia he tells how Socrates utterly condemned such imposters. Socrates said they are found in every walk of life, but they were worst of all in politics. 'Much the greatest rogue of all, is the man who has gulled his city into the belief that he is fit to direct it' (Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.7.5). Theophrastus has a famous character sketch of the alazOn. 'Alazoneia', he begins, 'would seem to be, in fact, pretension to advantages which one does not possess'. The alatan is the man who will stand in the market-place and talk to strangers about the argosies he has at sea and his vast trading enterprises when his bank balance is precisely tenpence l He will tell of the campaigns he served with Alexander the Great, and how he was on terms of personal intimacy with him. He will talk about the letters which the chiefs of the state write to him for help and advice. When he is living in lodgings he will pretend that the house in which his room is situated is the family mansion, and that he is thinking of selling it because it is not commodious enough for the entertaining which he has to do (Theophrastus, Characters 23). The alazan was the braggart and the boaster out to impress men; the man with all his goods in the shop window; the man given to making extravagant claims which he can never fulfil. But we have still to see the alazon in his most damaging and dangerous form. It was not so very dangerous for a man to lay claim to a business or a fortune which he did not possess; but in the days of the NT there were men who made claims which were exceedingly dangerous. These men were the Sophists. The Sophists were Greek wandering teachers who claimed to sell knowledge; and, in effect, the knowledge they claimed to sell was the know-ledge of how to be a success in life. The Greeks loved words; and the Sophists claimed to give men subtle skill in words, so that, in the famous phrase `they could make the worse appear the better reason'. They claimed to give men that magic of words which would make the orator the master of men. Aristophanes pillories them in The Clouds. He says the whole object of their teaching was to teach men to fascinate the jury, to win impunity to cheat, and to find an argument to justify anything. Isocrates, the great Greek teacher, hated them. `They merely try,' he said, 'to attract pupils by low fees and big promises' (Isocrates, Sophist 10. 193a). He said : `They make impossible offers, promising to impart to their pupils an exact science of conduct by means of which they will always know what to do. Yet for this science they charge only £15 or £20... . They try to attract pupils by the specious titles of the subjects which they claim to teach, such as Justice and Prudence. `But the Justice and Prudence which they teach are of a very peculiar sort, and they give a meaning to the words quite different from that which ordinary people give; in fact they cannot be sure about the meaning themselves, but can only dispute about it. Although they profess to teach justice, they refuse to trust their pupils, and make them deposit the fees with a third party before the course begins' (Isocrates, Sophist 4. 291d). Plato savagely attacks them in his book called The Sophist : 'Hunters after young men of wealth and position, with sham education as their bait, and a fee for their object, making money by a scientific use of quibbles in private conversation, while quite aware that what they are teaching is wrong.' It is these men, and the like of them, of whom the NT is thinking, and against whom it warns the Christian. The warning is against the false teacher who claims to teach men the truth, and who does not know it himself. The world is still full of these people who offer men a so-called wisdom, who shout their wares wherever men meet, who claim to have the cure and the solution to everything. How can we distinguish these men? (i) Their characteristic is pride. In the Testament of Joseph, Joseph tells how he treated his brethren : 'My land was their land, and their counsel my counsel. And I exalted myself not among them in arrogance (alazoneia) because of my worldly glory, but I was among them as one of the least' (Testament of Joseph 17. 8). The alazon is the teacher who struts as he teaches, and who is fascinated by his own cleverness. (ii) Their stock in trade is words. The Sophist defended himself to Epictetus that the young men came to him looking for someone to teach them. 'To teach them to live?' demands Epictetus. And then he answers his own question : 'No, fool; not how to live, but how to talk; which is also the reason why he admires you' (Epictetus, Discourses 3.23). The alazon seeks to substitute clever words for fine deeds. (iii) Their motive is profit. The alazon is out for what he can get. Prestige for his reputation and money for his pocket is his aim. The programme he preaches is designed to return his party to power and himself to office. The alazon is not dead. There are still the teachers who offer worldly cleverness instead of heavenly wisdom; who spin fine words which never end in any lovely action; whose teaching is aimed at self-advancement and whose desire is profit and power. (Barclay, William: New Testament Words:. Westminster John Know Press, 1964) Help me, Lord, to live my life Free from selfishness and strife So that others clearly see Changes You have made in me. -- Sper