G3152 μάταιος (mátaios)

μάταιος, -αία (1 Co. xv. 17; [1 Pet. i. 187), -atov, also τος, -ov, (Jas. i. 26; Tit. iii. 9), [ef. WH. App. p.157; W. xxvi. 16; 1 Pet. v. 1; ν΄. ἃ gen. of the possessor ‘one | § 11, 1], (fr. μάτην), Sept. for ΔΙΊ, RW, 31D (a lie), ete. ; as in prof. auth. (Lat. vanus) devoid of force, truth, success, result, [A.V. uniformly vain]: univ.: ἡ θρησκεία, Jas. i. 26; useless, lo no purpose, ἡ πίστις. 1 Co. xv. 17; foolish, διαλογισμοί, 1 Co. iii. 20; ζητήσεις, Tit. iii. 9; given to vain things and leading away from salvation, avaστροφή, 1 Pet. i. 18. τὰ μάταια, vain things, vanities, of heathen deities and their worship (727), Jer. ii. 5; x. 3; 5307 πο 72, πορεύεσθαι ὀπίσω τῶν par. 2 K. xvii. BE 0933, parata, Jer. viii. 19; εἴδωλα, Deut. xxxil. 21; Jer. xiv. 22): Acts xiv. 15. [Cf. Trench, Syn. § xlix.]

μάταιος mataios 6x

idle, ineffective, worthless, 1 Cor. 3:20; groundless, deceptive, fallacious, 1 Cor. 15:17; useless, fruitless, unprofitable, Tit. 3:9; Jas. 1:26; from the Hebrew, erroneous in principle, corrupt, perverted, 1 Pet. 1:18; τὰ μάταια, superstition, idolatry, Acts 14:15*

μάταιος, -ον

(as in Att., but -αία, -αιον, I Co 15:17, I Pe 1:18; < μάτην), [in LXX for שָׁוְא, הֶבֶל, כָּזָב, etc.;]

vain, useless: ἀνωφελὴς κ. μ., Tit 3:9; πίστις, I Co 15:17; θρησκεία, Ja 1:26; διαλογισμοί, I Co 3:20(LXX); ἀναστροφή, I Pe 1:18; of idols and heathen gods, τὰ μ. (Je 2:5, IV Ki 17:15, al.): Ac 14:15.

SYN.: κενός, q.v.

THESE words nowhere in the N.T. occur together; but on several occasions in the Septuagint, as for instance at Job xx. Seen Xk es οὐ! 1%. Δ. clos ἐσ ie nC lemontaor Rome, Cor. 6; and not unfrequently in classical Greek; as in Sophocles (Hlec. 324); in Aristotle (Hthic. Nic. i. 2. 1); and in Plutarch (Adv. Colot. 17). We deal with them here solely in their ethical use; for seeing that μάταιος knows, at least in Scripture, no other use, it is only as ethically employed that κενός can be brought into comparison with it, or the words made the subject of discrimination. The first, κενός, is ‘ empty,’ ‘ leer,’ ‘ gehaltlos,’ ‘ inanis’ ; the second, μάταιος, ‘ vain,’ ‘ eitel ’ (‘idle’), ‘ erfolglos,’ ‘ vanus.’ In the first is characterized the hollowness, in the second the aimlessness, or, if we may use the word, the resultlessness, connected as it is with μάτην, of that to which this epithet is given. Thus κεναὶ ἐλπίδες (Aischylus, Pers. 104; ef. Job. vii. 6; Kcclus. xxxiv. 1, where they are joined with ψευδεῖς) are empty hopes, such as are built on no solid foundation; and in the N. T. κενοὶ λόγοι (Ephes. v. 6; cf. Deut. xxxii. 47; Exod. v. 9) are words which have no inner substance and kernel of truth, hollow sophistries and apologies for sin ; κόπος κενός, labour which yields no return (1 Cor. xv. 58) ; 80. κενοφωνίαι (1 Tim. vi. 20; 2 Tim. ii. 16); cf. κενολογία (Plutarch, Adv. Stoic. 22), and κενοδοξία (Phil. ii. 8), by Suidas explained ματαία τις περὶ ἑαυτοῦ οἴησις. St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians (1 Thess. ii. 1) that his entrance to them was not κενή, not unaccompanied with the demonstration of Spirit and of power. When used not of things but of persons, κενός predicates not merely an absence and emptiness of good, but since the moral nature of man endures no vacuum, the presence of evil. It is thus employed only once in the N. T., 170 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT §Xt.1x namely at Jam. ii. 20, where the ἄνθρωπος κενός is one in whom the higher wisdom has found no entrance, but who is puffed up with a vain conceit of his own spiritual insight, ‘aufgeblasen,’ as Luther (on Coloss. ii. 18) has it. Compare the ἄνδρες κενοί of Judg. ix. 4; Plutarch De seips. Laud. 5): τοὺς ἐν TO περιπατεῖν ἐπαιρομένους καὶ ὑψαυχενοῦντας ἀνοήτους ἡγούμεθα καὶ κενούς : and compare further the Greek proverb, κενοὶ κενὰ φροντίζουσι (Gaisford, Param. Grect, p. 146). But if κενός thus expresses the emptiness of all which is not filled with God, μάταιος, as observed already, will express the aimlessness, the leading to no object or end, the vanity, of all which has not Him, who is the only true object and end of any intelligent creature, for its scope. In things natural it is μάταιον, as Gregory of Nyssa, in his first Homily on Ecclesiastes explains it, to build houses of sand on the seashore, to chase the wind, to shoot at the stars, to hunt one’s own shadow. Pindar (Pyth. iii. 87 Diss., 40-1 Heyn.) exactly describes the μάταιος as one μεταμώνια θηρεύων ἀκράντοις ἐλπίσιν. That toil is μάταιος which can issue in nothing (Plato, Legg. vy. 735 δ); that grief is μάταιος for which no ground exists (Axioch. 869 c); that is a μάταιος εὐχή Which in the very nature of things cannot obtain its fulfilment (Euripides, Iphig. in Tawr. 688) ; the prophecies of the false prophet, which God will not bring to pass, are μαντεῖαι μάταιαι (Ezek. xiii. 6, 7, 8; ef. Ecclus. xxxiv. 5); so in the N. T. μάταιοι καὶ ἀνωφελεῖς ζητήσεις (Tit. iii. 9) are idle and unprofitable questions whose discussion can lead to no advancement in true godliness; cf. ματαιολογία (1 Tim. i. 6; Plutarch, De Lib. Educ. 9), ματαιολόγοι (Tit. i. 10), vain talkers, the talk of whose lips can tend only to poverty, or to worse (Isai. xxxiil. 6: LXX.); ματαιοπονία (Clement of Rome, Cor. 9), labour which in its very nature is in vain. Ματαιότης is a word altogether strange to profane Greek ; one too to which the old heathen world, had it possessed it, could never have imparted that depth of meaning which in Scripture it has obtained. For indeed that heathen world was itself too deeply and hopelessly sunken in ‘ vanity’ to be ΣΥΝ (SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT τὴι fully alive to the fact that it was sunken in it at all; was committed so far as to have lost all power to pronounce that judgment upon itself which in this word is pronounced upon it. One must, in part at least, have been delivered from the ματαιότης, to be in a condition at all to esteem it for what it truly is. When the Preacher exclaimed ‘All is vanity’ (EKecles. i. 2), it is clear that something in him was not vanity, else he could never have arrived at this conclusion. Hugh of §. Victor: ‘ Aliquid ergo in ipso fuit quod vanitas non fuit, et id contra vanitatem non vane loqui potuit.’ Saying this I would not for an instant deny that some echoes of this cry of his reach us from the moral waste of the old heathen world. From none perhaps are they heard so often and so distinctly as from Lucretius. How many of the most pathetic passages in his poem do but draw out at greater length that confession which he has more briefly summed up in two lines, themselves of an infinite sadness : ‘ Ergo hominum genus incassum frustraque laborat Semper, et in curis consumit inanibus sevom.’ But if these confessions are comparatively rare elsewhere, they are frequent in Scripture. It is not too much to say that of one book in Scripture, I mean of course the book of The Preacher, it is the key-word. In that book ματαιότης, or its Hebrew equivalent >a, occurs nearly forty times; and this ‘ vanity,’ after the preacher has counted and cast up the total good of man’s life and labours apart from God, constitutes the zero at which the sum of all is rated by him. The false gods of heathendom are eminently τὰ μάταια (Acts xiv. ck. 2 Coton. σι 16: Jer, χΣ. 15. Jon... 9): ine ματαιοῦσθαι is ascribed to as many as become followers of these (Rom. i. 21; 2 Kin. xvii. 15; Jer. ii. 5; xxviii. 17, 18) ; inasmuch as they, following after vain things, become themselves ματαιόφρονες (8 Mace. vi. 11), like the vain things which they follow (Wisd. xiii. 1 ; xiv. 21-81) ; their whole conversation vain (1 Pet. i. 18), the ματαιότης having reached to the very centre and citadel of their moral being to the νοῦς itself 172 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT $51. (Ephes. iv. 17). Nor is this all; this ματαιότης, or δουλεία τῆς φθορᾶς (Rom. viii. 21), for the phrases are convertible, of which the end is death, reaches to that entire creation which was made dependent on man; and which with a certain blind consciousness of this is ever reaching out after a deliverance, such as it is never able to grasp, seeing that the restitution of all other things can only follow on the previous restitution of man. On this matter Olshausen (on Rom. viii. 20, 21) has some beautiful remarks, of which I can quote but a fragment : ‘ Jeder natiirliche Mensch, ja jedes Thier, jede Pflanze ringt uber sich hinaus zu kommen, eine Idee zu verwirklichen, in deren Verwirklichung sie ihre ἐλευθερία hat, ἃ. h. das der géttlichen Stimmung volkommen entsprechende Seyn; aber die ihr Wesen durchziehende Nichtigkeit (Ps. xxxix. 6; Pred. i. 2, 14), d. h. die mangelnde Lebensfiille, die darin begriindete Verginglichkeit und deren Ende, der Tod, lisst kein geschaffenes Ding sein Ziel erreichen ; jedes Individuum der Gattung fangt vielmehr den Kreislauf wieder von neuem an, und ringt trostlos wider die Unméoglichkeit, sich zu vollenden.’ There is much, too, excellently said on this ‘vanity of the creature’ in an article in the Zeitschrift fiir Luther. Theol. 1872, p. 50 sqq.; and in another by Koster in the Theol. Stud. u. Krit. 1862, p. 755 sqq. § 1. ἱμάτιον, χιτών, ἱματισμός, χλαμύς, στολή, ποδήρης. THE reader need not be alarmed here in prospect of a treatise de Re Vestiarid; although such, with the abundant materials ready to hand in the works of Ferrarius, Braun, and others, might very easily be written, and need cost little more trouble than that of transcription. I do not propose more than a brief discrimination of a few of the words by which garments are most frequently designated in the N.T. ἽἹμάτιον, properly a diminutive of tua (Ξε εῖμα), although like so many words of our own, as ‘ pocket,’ ‘latchet,’ it has quite lost the force of a diminutive, is the word of commonest §L SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 173 use, when there is no intention to designate one manner of garment more particularly than another (Matt. xi. 8; xxvi. 65). But ἱμάτιον is used also in a more restricted sense, of the large upper garment, so large that a man would sometimes sleep in it (Exod. xxii. 26), the cloke as distinguished _ from the χιτών or close-fitting inner vest; and thus περιβάλλειν ἱμάτιον (it is itself called περιβόλαιον, Exod. xxii. 9 ; περιβολή, Plutarch, Conj. Prac. 12), but ἐνδύειν χιτῶνα (Dio Chrysostom, Orat. vil. 111). “ἹἹμάτιον and χιτών, as the upper and the under garment, occur constantly together (Acts ix. 39; Matt. v. 40; Luke vi. 29; John xix. 23). Thus at Matt. v. 40 our Lord instructs his disciples: “If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat (χιτῶνα), let him have thy cloke (ἱμάτιον) also.’’ Here the spoiler is presumed to begin with the less costly, the under garment, which we have rendered, not very happily, the ‘coat’ (Dictionary of the Buble, art. Dress), from which he proceeds to the more costly, or upper ; and the process of spoliation, being a legal one, there is nothing unnatural in such a sequence ; but at Luke vi. 29 the order is reversed: ‘ Him that taketh away thy cloke (ἱμάτιον) forbid not to take thy coat (χιτῶνα) also.’ As the whole context plainly shows, the Lord is here contemplating an act of violent outrage; and therefore the cloke or upper garment, as that which would be the first seized, is also the first named. In the Asopic fable (Plutarch, Prac. Conj. 12), the wind with all its violence only makes the traveller to wrap his ἱμάτιον more closely round him, while, when the sun begins to shine in its strength, he puts off first his ἱμάτιον, and then his χιτών. One was styled γυμνός, who had laid aside his ἱμάτιον, and was only in his χιτών; not ‘naked,’ as our Translators have it (John xxi. 7), which suggests an unseemliness that certainly did not find place; but stripped for toil (cf. Isai. xx. 2; lviii. 7; Job xxii. 6; Jam. 11. 15; and in the Latin, ‘sere nudus,’ Georg. i. 299). It is naturally his ἱμάτιον which Joseph leaves in the hands of his temptress (Gen. xxxix. 12; while at Jude 23 χιτών has its fitness. 174 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 651 Ἵματισμός, ἃ word of comparatively late appearance, and belonging to the κοινὴ διάλεκτος, is seldom, if ever, used except of garments more or less stately and costly. It is the ‘ vesture ’—this word expressing it very well—of kings; thus of Solomon in all his glory (1 Kin. x. 5; cf. xxii. 80); is associated with gold and silver, as part of a precious spoil (Exod. 111. 22; xii. 85; cf. Acts xx. 33); is found linked with such epithets as ἔνδοξος (Luke vii. 25 ; ef. Isai. iii. 18, δόξα τοῦ ἱματισμοῦ), ποικίλος (Hizek. xvi. 18), διάχρυσος (Ps. xliv. 10), πολυτελής (1 Tim. ii. 9; οὗ, Plutarch, Apoph. Lac. Archid. 7) ; is a name given (Matt. xxvii. 35; John xix. 24) to our Lord’s χιτών, which was woven all of a piece (ἄῤῥαφος, John xix. 23), and had that of cost and beauty about it which made even the rude Roman soldiers unwilling to rend, and so to destroy it. The purple robe with which our Lord was arrayed in scorn by the mockers in Pilate’s judgment-hall is a χλαμύς (Matt. xxvii. 28-31). Nor can we doubt that the word has its strictest fitness here. Χλαμύς so constantly signifies a garment of dignity and office, that χλαμύδα περιτιθέναι was a technical phrase for assuming a magistracy (Plutarch, An Sen. Ger. Resp. 26). This might bea civil magistracy ; but χλαμύς, like ‘paludamentum’ (which, and not ‘sagum,’ is the nearest Latin equivalent), far more commonly expresses the robe with ᾿ which military officers, captains, commanders or imperators, would be clothed (2 Mace. xii. 35); and the employment of χλαμύς in the record of the Passion leaves little doubt that these profane mockers obtained, as it would have been so easy for them in the pretorium to obtain, the cast-off cloke of some high Roman officer, and with this arrayed the sacred person of the Lord. We recognise a certain confirmation of this supposition in the epithet κόκκινος which St. Matthew gives it. It was ‘scarlet,’ the colour worn by Roman officers of rank; so ‘chlamys coccinea’ (Lampridius, Alex. Severus, 40) ; χλαμύς περιπόρφυρος (Plutarch, Prec. Ger. Ieip. 20). That the other Evangelists describe it as ‘purple’ (Mark xv. 17; John xix. 2) does not affect this statement; for the ‘ purple’ $= SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 175 of antiquity was a colour almost or altogether indefinite (Braun, De Vest. Sac. Heb. vol. i. p. 220; Gladstone, Studies on Homer, vol. iii. p. 457). Στολή, from στέλλω, our English ‘ stole,’ is any stately robe ; and as long sweeping garments would have eminently this _ stateliness about them, always, or almost always, a garment reaching to the feet, or trainlike sweeping the ground. The fact that such were oftenest worn by women (the Trojan women -are ἑλκεσίπεπλοι in Homer) explains the use which ‘ stola’ in Latin has predominantly acquired. The Emperor Marcus Antoninus tells us in his Meditations, that among the things which he learned from his tutor, the famous Stoic philosopher Rusticus, was, not to stalk about the house in a στολή (μὴ ἐν στολῇ Kat οἶκον περιπατεῖν, i. 7). It was, on the contrary, the custom and pleasure of the Scribes to ‘“‘ walk in long clothing ”’ (Mark xii. 38 ; cf. Luke xx. 46), making this solemn ostentation of themselves in the eyes of men. στολή is in constant use for the holy garments of Aaron and his descendants (Exod. xxviii. 2; xxix. 21; στολὴ δόξης they are called, Keclus. 1. 11); or, indeed, for any garment of special solemnity, richness, or beauty ; thus στολὴ λειτουργική (Exod. xxxi. 10) ; and compare Mark xvi. 5; Luke xv. 22; Rev. vi. 11; vii. 9; Esth. vi. 8,11; Jon. iii. 6. Tlodjpys, naturalised in ecclesiastical Latin as ‘podéris’ (of which the second syllable is short), is properly an adjective, =‘talaris;’ thus ἀσπὶς ποδήρης, Xenophon, Cyrop. vi. 2. 10 (Ξε θυρεός, Ephes. vi. 16); ποδήρες ἔνδυμα, Wisd. xviii. 24; ποδήρης πώγων, Plutarch, Quom. Am. ab Adul. 7; being severally a shield, a garment, a beard, reaching down to the feet. It differs very little from στολή. Indeed the same Hebrew word which is rendered zodypys at Ezek. ix. 2, 8, is rendered στολή, ibid. x. 2, and στολὴ ἁγία, ibid. 6, 7. At the same time, in the enumeration of the high-priestly garments, this στολή, Or στολὴ ἁγία, signifies the whole array of the high priest ; while the ποδήρης (χιτὼν ποδήρης Plutarch calls it in his curious and strangely inaccurate chapter about the Jewish festivals, Symp. iv. 6. 6) is distinguished from it, and signifies 176 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT § 11 one portion only, namely, the robe or chetoneth (Exod. xxviii. 2,4; Ecclus. xlv. 7, 8). There are other words which might be included in this group, as ἐσθής (Luke xxiii. 11), ἔσθησις (Luke xxiv. 4), ἔνδυμα (Matt. xxii. 12) ; but it would not be very easy to assign severally to each of these a domain of meaning peculiarly its own. On the whole subject see Marriott, Vestiarvwm Christianum, pp. vil. seq. ᾿ 5 tA 7 14 A 3 /

μάταιος. P Oxy I. 5839 (a.p. 288) τὰ μάταια ἀναλώματα, ‘useless expense.” For the adv. see P Oxy VII. 10271° (i/a.D.) ἀγνοεῖν α[ὐ]τὸν τὴν τῶν ἐμοὶ yevn[pévwv] (/. γεγενη-) ἀσφαλιῶν θέσιν, ‘* wherein he vainly relates that he was ignorant of the securities which had been given to me” (Ed.), and the sepulchral inser. A@zbel 29824 — Tis τοὐμὸν δύστηνον ἐπ᾽ οὔνομα γράψε TO χαῖρε; τίς κωφὴν ματέως θήκατό μοι χάριτα ; The fluctuation between the fem. μάταιος (Tit 39, Jas 17°) and ματαία (1 Cor 1517, 1 Pet 118) is found also in classical texts (Moulton Gy. ii. ὃ 64). In Vett. Val. p. 35616 μάταια “*yes viles,” and in 2) p. 276% μάταιοι = “znepti”: see Kroll’s Index, p. 404.

μάταιος (mataios) — futile. μάται-ος [μᾰ], α, ον [Refs 4th c.BC+]; also ος, ον[Refs 5th c.BC+]: (μάτη):—

I. vain, empty, idle:

I.1. of words, acts, etc., μάταια νομίζομεν [Refs 6th c.BC+]; μ. λόγοι idle tales or words, [Refs 5th c.BC+].; μ. ἔπεα[Refs 4th c.BC+]; μ. ὑλάγματα, ποιφύγματα,[Refs]; μ. εὐχή E.[same place]; μάταια βάζειν τινά [Refs 5th c.BC+]; μ. ἡδονή S.[same place]; δοξοσοφία [Refs 5th c.BC+]; τὰ μ. ἀναλώματα useless expenses, [Refs 3rd c.AD+]; but also, μ. ἔπος a word of offence, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

I.2. of persons, empty, foolish, ματαιότεροι νόον [Refs 6th c.BC+]; φῦλον ματαιότατον [Refs 5th c.BC+]; worthless, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

II. rash, irreverent, profane, frequently in [Refs 4th c.BC+]; αὐτουργίαι μ., of matricide and the like, “Eu.” [same place]; χαρὰ μ. mad merriment, [Refs]; τὸ μὴ μ. seriousness, gravity,[Refs 5th c.BC+]

III. adverb -ως idly, without ground,[Refs 5th c.BC+]; μ. ἐρεῖν to no purpose, [Refs 5th c.BC+]