Ψευδό-χριστος, -ov, 6, (ψευδής and χριστός), a false Christ (or Messiah), (one who falsely lays claim to the name and office of the Messiah): Mt. xxiv. 24; Mk. xili. 22.

ψευδόχριστος pseudochristos 2x

a false Christ, pretend Messiah, Mt. 24:24; Mk. 13:22*

*† ψευδό-χριστος, -ου ὁ a false Christ or Messiah, "a pretender to the Messianic office" (Swete, Mk., 309; cf. also Tr., Syn., § xxx): Mt 24:24, Mk 13:22 (cf. ἀντίχριστος).†

THE word ἀντίχριστος is peculiar to the Epistles of St. John, occurring five times in them (1 Lp. ii. 18, bis; ii. 22; iv. 3; 2 Hp. 7), and nowhere else in the N. T. But if he alone has the word, St. Paul, in common with him, designates the person of this great adversary, and the marks by which he shall be recognized; for all expositors of weight, Grotius alone excepted, are agreed that St. Paul’s ἄνθρωπος τῆς ἁμαρτίας, his υἱὸς τῆς ἀπωλείας, his 106 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ὃ xxx. ἄνομος (2 Thess. ii. 3, 8), is identical with St. John’s ἀντιχρίστος (see Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xx. 19. 2); and, indeed, to St. Paul we are indebted for our fullest instruction concerning this arch-enemy of Christ and of God. Passing by, as not relevant to our purpose, many discussions to which the mysterious announcement of such a coming foe has given rise, whether, for example, the Antichrist is a single person or a succession of persons, a person or a system, we occupy ourselves here with one question only; namely, what the force is of ἀντί in this composition. Is it such as to difference ἀντίχριστος from wevddχρίστος ὃ does ἀντέχριστος imply one who sets himself up against Christ, or, like ψευδόχριστος, one who sets himself ap in the stead of Christ? Does he proclaim that there is no Christ? or that he is Christ? There is no settling this matter off-hand, as some are so ready to do; seeing that ἀντί, in composition, has both these forces. Fora subtle analysis of the mental processes by which it now means ‘instead of,’ and now ‘against,’ see Pott, Htymol. Forschungen, 2nd edit. p. 260. It often expresses substitution; thus, ἀντιβασιλεύς, he who is instead of the king, ‘ prorex,’ ‘ viceroy ;’ ἀνθύπατος, “ proconsul ;’” ἀντίδειπνος, one who fills the place of an absent guest; ἀντίψυχος, one who lays down his life for others (Josephus, De Mace. 17 ; Ignatius, Ephes. 21) ; ἀντίλυτρον, the ransom paid instead of a person. But often also it implies opposition, a8 in ἀντίλογία (* contradiction’), ἀντίθεσις, ἀντικείμενος: and, still more to the point, as expressing not merely the fact of opposition, but the very object against which the opposition is directed, in ἀντινομία (see Suicer, Thes. 8. v.), opposition to law; ἀντίχειρ, the thumb, not so called, because equivalent in strength to the whole hand, but as set over against the hand; ἀντιφιλόσοφος, one of opposite philosophical opinions; ἀντικάτων, the title of a book which Cesar wrote against Cato; dvtT/@zos—not indeed in Homer, where, applied to Mygdon (II. iii. 186), to Polyphemus (Od. i. 70), and to the Ithacan suitors (xiv. 18; cf. Pindar, Pyth. iii. 88), it means ‘ godlike,’ that is, in strength and power ;—but yet, in later use, as in Philo; with whom ἀντίθεος νοῦς (De Conf. Ling. 19; De Somn. ii. 27) can be only the ‘adversa Deo mens;’ and so in the Christian Fathers; while the jests about an Antipater who sought to murder his father, to the effect that he was φερώνυμος, would be utterly pointless, if ἀντί in composition did not bear this meaning. I will not further cite ᾿Αντέρως, where the force of ἀντί is more questionable ; examples already adduced having sufficiently shown that ἀντί in composition implies sometimes substitution, sometimes opposition. There are words in which it has now this force, and now that, as these words are used by one writer or another. Thus ἀντιστράτηγος is for Thucydides (vii. 86) the commander of the hostile army, while for later Greek writers, such as Plutarch, who occupy themselves with Roman affairs, it is the standing equivalent for ‘ propretor.’ All this being so, they have equally erred, who, holding one view of Antichrist or the other, have claimed the name by which in Scripture he is named, as itself deciding the matter in their favour. It does not so; but leaves the question to be settled by other considerations.! To me St. John’s words seem decisive that resistance to Christ, and defiance of Him, this, and not any treacherous assumption of his character and offices, is the essential mark of the Antichrist; is that which, therefore, we should expect to find embodied in his name: thus see 1 John ii. 22; 2 John 7; and in the parallel passage, 2 Thess. li. 4, he is ὁ ἀντικείμενος, or ‘ the opposer ;’ and in this sense, if not all, yet many of the Fathers have understood the word. Thus Tertullian (De Presc. Her. 4): ‘ Qui antichristi, nisi Christi rebelles ?’ The Antichrist is, in Theo1 Liicke (Comm. iiber die Briefe des Johannes, pp. 190-194) excellently discusses the word. On the whole subject of Antichrist see Schneckenburger, Jahrbuch fiir Deutsche Theologie, vol. iv. p. 405 844. 108 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ὃ xxx. phylact’s language, ἐναντίος τῷ Χριστῷ, or in Origen’s (Con. Cels. vi. 45), Χριστῷ κατὰ διάμετρον ἐναντίος, “ Widerchrist,’ as the Germans have rightly rendered it; one who shall not pay so much homage to God’s word as to assert its fulfilment in himself, for he shall deny that word altogether; hating even erroneous worship, because it is worship at all, and everything that is called ‘God’ (2 Thess. ii. 4), but hating most of all the Church’s worship in spirit and in truth (Dan. vill. 11); who, on the destruction of every religion, every acknowledgment that man is submitted to higher powers than his own, shall seek to establish his throne; and, for God’s great truth that in Christ God is man, to substitute his own lie, that in him man is God. : The term ψευδόχριστος, with which we proceed to compare it, appears only twice in the N. T.; or, if we count, not how often it has been written, but how often it was spoken, only once; for the two passages in which it occurs (Matt. xxiv. 24; Mark xiii. 22) are records of the same discourse. In form it resembles many others in which ψεῦδος is combined with almost any other nouns at will. Thus ψευδαπόστολος (2 Cor. xi. 13), ψευδάδελφος (2 Cor. Xl. 26), ψευδοδιδάσκαλος (2 Pet. ii. 1), ψευδοπροφήτης (Matt. vii. 153; cf. Jer. xxxiii. 7), ψευδομάρτυρ (Matt. xxvi. 60; cf. Plato, Gorg. 472 Ὁ). So, too, in ecclesiastical Greek, ψευδοποιμήν, ψευδολατρεία ; and in classical, Ψευδάγγελος (Homer, Jl. xv. 159), ψευδόμαντις (Herodotus, iv. 69), and a hundred more. The ψευδόχριστος does not deny the being of a Christ ; on the contrary, he builds on the world’s expectations of such a person; only he appropriates these to himself, blasphemously affirms that he is the foretold One, in whom God’s promises and men’s expectations are fulfilled. Thus Barchochab,—‘ Son of the Star,’ as, appropriating the prophecy of Num. xxiv. 17, he called himself—who, in Hadrian’s reign, stirred up again the smouldering embers of Jewish insurrection into a flame so ὃ xxx. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 109 fierce that it consumed himself with more than a million of his fellow-countrymen,—was a Ψευδόχριστος : and such have been that long series of blasphemous pretenders and impostors, the false Messiahs, who, since the rejection of the true, have, in almost every age, fed and flattered and betrayed the expectations of the Jews. The distinction, then, is plain. The ἀντίχριστος denies that there is a Christ ; the ψευδόχριστος affirms himself to be the Christ. Both alike make war against the Christ of God, and would set themselves, though under different pretences, on the throne of his glory. And yet, while the words have this broad distinction between them, while they represent two different manifestations of the kingdom of wickedness, there is a sense in which the final ‘ Antichrist’ will be a ‘ Pseudochrist’ as well; even as it will be the very character of that last revelation of hell to gather up into itself, and to reconcile for one last assault against the truth, all anterior and subordinate forms of error. He will not, it is true, call himself the Christ, for he will be filled with deadliest hate against the name and offices, as against the whole spirit and temper, of Jesus of Nazareth, the exalted King of Glory. But, inasmuch as no one can resist the truth by a mere negation, he must offer and oppose something positive, in the room of that faith which he will assail and endeavour utterly to abolish. And thus we may certainly conclude that the final Antichrist will reveal himself to the world,—for he too will have his ἀποκάλυψις (2 Thess. ii. 3, 8), his παρουσία (ver. 9), —as, in a sense, its Messiah; not, indeed, as the Messiah of prophecy, the Messiah of God, but still as the world’s saviour ; as one who will make the blessedness of as many as obey him, giving to them the full enjoyment of a present material earth, instead of a distant, shadowy, and uncertain heaven; abolishing those troublesome distinctions, now the fruitful sources of so much disquietude, abridging men of so many enjoyments, between the Church ~ 110 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § xxx. and the world, between the spirit and the flesh, between holiness and sin, between good and evil. It will follow, therefore, that however he will not assume the name of Christ, and so will not, in the letter, be a ψευδόχριστος, yet, usurping to himself Christ’s offices, presenting himself to the world as the true centre of its hopes, as the satisfier of all its needs and healer of all its hurts, he, ‘the Red Christ,’ as his servants already call him, will in fact take up and absorb into himself all names and forms of blasphemy, will be the great ψευδόχριστος and ἀντί. χρίστος in one. ὃ xxxl. μολύνω, μιαίνω. WE have translated both these words, as often as they occur in the N.T. (μολύνω, at 1 Cor. viii. 7; Rev. iii. 4; xiv. 4; μιαίνω, at John xviii. 28; Tit. i. 15; Heb. xii. 15; Jude 8), by a single word ‘ defile,’ which doubtless covers them both. At the same time they differ in the images on which they severally repose :;--- μολύνειν being properly ‘to besmear,’ or ‘besmirch,’ as with mud or filth, ‘ to defoul;’ which, indeed, is only another form of ‘defile;’ thus Aristotle (Hist. An. vi. 17. 1) speaks of swine, τῷ πηλῷ μολύνοντες ἑαυτούς, that is, as the context shows, crusting themselves over with mud (cf. Plato, Rep. vii. 5356: Cant. v. 3; Ecclus. xiii. 1): while μιαίνειν, in its primary usage, is not ‘ to smear’ as with matter, but ‘to stain’ as with colour. The first corresponds to the Latin ‘inquinare’ (Horace, Sat. i. 8. 37), ‘spurcare’ (itself probably connected with ‘porcus’), the German ‘ besudeln ;’ the second to the Latin ‘ maculare,’ and the German ‘ beflecken.’ It will follow, that while in a derived and ethical sense both words have an equally dishonorable signification, the μολυσμὸς σαρκός (2 Cor. vii. 1) being no other than the μιάσματα τοῦ κόσμου (2 Pet. ii. 20), both being also used of the defiling of women (cf. Gen. xxxiv. 5 ; Zech. xiv. 2),—this will only hold good so long as they are ὃ χχχπ. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 111 figuratively and ethically regarded. So taken indeed, μιαίvew is in classical Greek the standing word to express the profaning or unhallowing of aught (Plato, Legg. ix. 868 a; Tim. 69 d; Sophocles, Antig. 1031; cf. Lev. v. 3; John xviii. 28). In a literal sense, on the contrary, μιαίνειν may be used in good part, just as, in English, we speak of the staining of glass, the staining of ivory (Il. iv. 141; cf. Virgil, Zn. xii. 67); or as, in Latin, the ‘ macula’ need not of necessity be also a ‘labes;’ nor yet in English the ‘spot’ be always a ‘blot.? Μολύνειν, on the other hand, as little admits of such nobler employment in a literal as in a figurative sense.—The verb σπιλοῦν, a late word, and found only twice in the N. T. (Jam. iii. 6; Jude 23), is in meaning nearer to μιαίνειν. On it see Lobeck, Phrynichus, p. 28. ὃ xxxil. παιδεία, νουθεσία. Ir is worth while to attempt a discrimination between these words, occurring as they do together at Ephes. vi. 4, and being often there either not distinguished at all, or distinguished erroneously. Παιδεία is one among the many words, into which revealed religion has put a deeper meaning than it knew of, till this took possession of it; the new wine by a wondrous process making new even the old vessel into which it was poured. For the Greek, παιδεία was simply ‘ education ; ’ nor, in all the many definitions of it which Plato gives, is there the slightest prophetic anticipation of the new force which it one day should obtain. But the deeper apprehension of those who had learned that “foolishness is bound in the heart” alike “of a child” and of a man, while yet “the rod of correction may drive it far from him” (Prov. xxii. 15), led them, in assuming the word, to bring into it a further thought. They felt and understood that all effectual instruction for the sinful children of men, includes and implies chastening, or, as we are 112 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. ὃ χχχπ. accustomed to say, out of a sense of the same truth, ¢ correction.’ There must be ἐπανόρθωσις, or ‘ rectification ’ in it; which last word, occurring but once in the N. T., is there found in closest connexion with παιδεία (2 Tim. iii. 16). Two definitions of παιδεία--- 8 one by a distinguished heathen philosopher, the other by an illustrious Christian theologian,—may be profitably compared. This is Plato’s (Legg. ii. 659d): παιδεία μὲν ἐσθ᾽ ἡ παίδων ὁλκή τε καὶ ἀγωγὴ πρὸς τὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ νόμου λόγον ὀρθὸν εἰρημένον. And this is that of Basil the Great (In Prov. 1): ἔστιν ἡ παιδεία ἀγωγή τις ὠφέλιμος TH ψυχῇ» ἐπιπόνως πολλάκις TOV ἀπὸ κακίας κηλίδων αὐτὴν ἐκκαθαίρουσα. For as many as felt and acknowledged all which St. Basil here asserts, παιδεία signified, not simply ‘ eruditio,’ but, as Augustine expresses it, who has noticed the changed use of the word (Enarr. in Ps. cxviii. 66), ‘ per molestias eruditio.’ And this is quite the predominant use of παιδεία and παιδεύειν in the Septuagint, in the Apocrypha, and in the N. T. (Lev. xxvi. 18; Ps. vi. 1; Isai. liii. 5; Eeclus. iv. 173; xxii. 6, μάστιγες καὶ παιδεία : 2 Mace. vi. 12; Luke xxiii. 16; Heb. xii. 5,7, 8; Rev. iii. 19, and often). The only occasion in the N. T. upon which παιδεύειν occurs in the old Greek sense is Acts vii. 22. Instead of ‘nurture’ at Ephes. vi. 4, which is too weak a word, ‘ discipline’ might be substituted with advantage—the laws and ordinances of the Christian household, the transgression of which will induce correction, being indicated by παιδεία there. Νουθεσία (in Attic Greek νουθετία or νουθέτησις, Lobeck, Phrynichus, pp. 513, 520) is more successfully rendered, ‘admonition ;’ which, however, as we must not forget, has been defined by Cicero thus: “ Admonitio est quasi 1 The Greek, indeed, acknowledged, to a certain extent, the same, in his secondary use of ἀκόλαστος, which, in its primary, meant simply ‘ the unchastised.’ Menander too has this confession : 6 μὴ Sapels ἄνθρωπος οὐ παιδεύεται. (Meineke, Frragm. Com. Gir. p. 1055). And in other uses of παιδεύειν in profane Greek there are slight hints of the same: thus see Xenophon, Mem. i. 3. 5; Polybius, Hist. ii. 9. 6. gxxxu. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 113 lenior objurgatio.’ And such is νουθεσία here; it is the training by word—by the word of encouragement, when this is sufficient, but also by that of remonstrance, of reproof, of blame, where these may be required; as set over against the training by act and by discipline, which is παιδεία. Bengel, who so seldom misses, has yet missed the exact distinction here, having on ἐν παιδείᾳ καὶ νουθεσίᾳ this note: ‘ Harum altera occurrit ruditati; altera oblivioni et levitati. Utraque et sermonem et reliquam disciplinam includit.? That the distinctive feature of νουθεσία is the training by word of mouth is evidenced by such combinations as these: παραινέσεις καὶ νουθεσίαι (Plutarch, De Coh. Ird, 2); νουθετικοὶ λόγοι (Xenophon, Mem. i. 2. 21); διδαχὴ καὶ νουθέτησις (Plato, Rep. 111. 300 δ) ; νουθετεῖν καὶ διδάσκειν (Protag. 323 d). Relatively, then, and by comparison with παιδεία, νουθεσία is the milder term; while yet its association with παιδεία teaches us that this too is a most needful element of Christian education; that the παιδεία without it would be very incomplete ; even as, when years advance, and there is no longer a child, but a young man, to deal with, it must give place to, or rather be swallowed up in, the νουθεσία altogether. And yet the νουθεσία itself, where need is, will be earnest and severe enough; it is much more than a feeble Eli-remonstrance: ‘“‘ Nay, my sons, for it is no good report that I hear” (1 Sam. ii. 24) ; indeed, of Eli it is expressly recorded, in respect of those sons, οὐκ ἐνουθέτει αὐτούς (iii. 13). Plutarch unites it with μέμψις (Con). Prec. 13) ; with ψόγος (De Virt. Mor. 12; De Adul. et Am. 17); Philo with σωφρονισμός (Lisner, Obss. ad N. T. ὁ Philone, p. 427) ; while νουθετεῖν had continually, if not always, the sense of admonishing with blame (Plutarch, De Prof. Virt. 11; Conj. Prec. 22). Jerome, then, has only partial right, when he desires to get rid, at Ephes. vi. 4, and again at Tit. iii. 10, of ‘ correptio’ (still retained by the Vulgate), on the ground that in νουθεσία no rebuke Ἐπ Ι 114 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § χχχπι. or austerity is implied, as in ‘ correptio’ there certainly is: ‘Quam correptionem nos legimus, melius in Greco dicitur νουθεσία, que admonitionem magis et eruditionem quam austeritatem sonat.? Undoubtedly, in νουθεσία such is not of necessity involved, and therefore ‘correptio’ is not its happiest rendering; but it does not exclude, nay implies this, whenever it may be required: the derivation, from νοῦς and τίθημι, affirms as much: whatever is needed to cause the monition to be taken home, to be laid to heart, is involved in the word. In claiming for it, as discriminated from παιδεία, that it is predominantly what our Translators understand it, namely, admonition by word, none would deny that both it and νουθετεῖν are employed to express correction by deed; only we affirm that the other—the appeal to the reasonable faculties—is the primary and prevailing use of both. It will follow that in such phrases as these, ῥάβδου νουθέτησις (Plato, Legg. iii. 700 c), πληγαῖς νουθετεῖν (Legg. ix. 879d; cf. Rep. viii. 560 a), the words are employed in a secondary and improper, but therefore more emphatic, sense. The same emphasis lies in the statement that Gideon “ took thorns of the wilderness and briers, and with them he taught the men of Succoth ” (Judg. viii. 16). No one on the strength of this language would assert that the verb ‘to teach’ had not for its primary meaning the oral communicating of knowledge. On the relations between νουθετεῖν and διδάσκειν see Bishop Lightfoot, on Col. i. 28. § xxxili. ἄφεσις, πάρεσι5. "Αφεσις is the standing word by which forgiveness, or remission of sins, is expressed in the N.T. (see Vitringa, Obss. Sac. vol. i. pp. 909-933); though, remarkably enough, the LXX. knows nothing of this use of the word, Gen. iv. 13 being the nearest approach to it. Derived from ἀφιέναι, the image which underlies it is that of a releasing, as of a prisoner (Isai. lxi. 1), or letting go, as of a debt (Deut. xv. 3). Probably the year of jubilee, called constantly ἔτος, or ἐνιαυτὸς, τῆς ἀφέσεως, or Simply ἄφεσις (Lev. XXV. 31, 40; xxvii. 24), the year in which all debts were forgiven, suggested the higher application of the word, which is frequent in the N.T., though more frequent in St. Luke than in all the other books of the New Covenant put together. On a single occasion, however, the term πάρεσις τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων occurs (Rom. iii. 25). Our Translators have noticed in the margin, but have not marked in their Version, the variation in the Apostle’s phrase, rendering πάρεσις here by ‘remission,’ as they have rendered ἄφεσις elsewhere; and many have since justified them in this; whilst others, as I cannot doubt, more rightly affirm that St. Paul of intention changed his word, wishing to say something which πάρεσις would express adequately and accurately, and which ἄφεσις would not; and that our Translators should have reproduced this change which he has made. It is familiar to many, that Cocceius and those of his school found in this text one main support for a favourite doctrine of theirs, namely, that there was no remission of sins, in the fullest sense of these words, under the Old Covenant, no τελείωσις (Heb. x. I-4), no entire abolition of sin even for the faithful themselves, but only a present pretermission (πάρεσι5), a temporary dissimulation, upon God’s part, in consideration of the sacrifice which was one day to be; the ἀνάμνησις τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν remaining the meanwhile. On this matter a violent controversy raged among the theologians of Holland towards the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the following century, which was carried on with strange acrimony; and for a brief history of which see Deyling, Obss. Sac. vol. v. p. 209; Vitringa, Obss. Sac. vol. iv. p. 3; Venema, Diss. Sac. p. 72; while a full statement of what Cocceius did mean, and in his own words, may be found in his Commentary on the Romans, in loc. (Opp. vol. v. p. 62) ; and the same more 116 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § χχχπι. at length defended and justified in his treatise, Utilitas Distinctionis duorum Vocabulorwm Scripture, παρέσεως et ἀφέσεως (vol. ix. p. 121, 8q.). Those who at that time opposed the Cocceian scheme denied that there was any distinction between ἄφεσις and wdpeois; thus see Witsius, con. Fed. Dei, iv. 12. 36. But in this they erred ; for while Cocceius and his followers were undoubtedly wrong, in saying that for the faithful, so long as the Old Covenant subsisted, there was only a πάρεσις, and no ἄφεσις ἁμαρτημάτων, in applying to them what was asserted by the Apostle ὧν respect of the world; they were right in maintaining that πάρεσις was not entirely equi' valent to ddeous. Beza, indeed, had already drawn attention to the distinction. Having in his Latin Version, as first published in 1556, taken no notice of it, he acknowledges at a later period his omission, saying, ‘ Hac duo plurimum inter se differunt;’ and now rendering πάρεσις by ‘ dissimulatio.’ In the first place, the words themselves suggest a difference of meaning. If ἄφεσις is remission, ‘ Loslassung,’ πάρεσις, from παρίημι, will be naturally ‘ pretermission,’ ‘ Vorbeilassung,’—the πάρεσι5 ἁμαρτημάτων, the pretermission or passing by of sins for the present, leaving it open in the future either entirely to remit, or else adequately to punish them, as may seem good to Him who has the power and right to do the one or the other. Fritzsche is not always to my mind, but here he speaks out plainly and to the point (Ad Rom. vol. i. p. 199): ‘ Conveniunt in hoc [ἄφεσις et πάρεσι5] quod sive illa, sive hee tibi obtigerit, nulla peccatorum tuorum ratio habetur ; discrepant eo, quod, hic data, facinorum tuorum pcenas nunquam pendes; ill& concessd, non diutius nullas peccatorum tuorum poenas lues, quam ei in iis connivere placuerit, cui in delicta tua animadvertendi jus sit.’ And the classical usage both of παριέναι and of πάρεσις bears out this distinction. Thus Xenophon (Hipp. 7. 10): ἁμαρτήματα ov χρὴ παριέναι ἀκόλαστα : while of Herod Josephus tells us, that being desirous to punish a certain offence, yet for other considerations he passed it by (Antt. XV. 3. 2): παρῆκε τὴν ἁμαρτίαν. When the Son of Sirach (Ecclus. xxiii. 2) prays that God would not ‘pass by” his sins, he assuredly does not use od μὴ παρῇ as =od μὴ ἀφῇ, but only asks that he may not be without a wholesome chastisement following close on his transgressions. On the other side, and in proof that rdpecis = ἄφεσις, the following passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Antt. Rom. vii. 37), is adduced: τὴν μὲν ὁλοσχερῆ πάρεσιν οὐχ εὕροντο, τὴν δὲ εἰς χρόνον ὅσον ἠξίουν ἀναβολὴν ἔλαβον. Not πάρεσι-, however, here, but ὁλοσχερὴς πάρεσις, is equal to ἄφεσις, and no doubt the historian added that epithet, feeling that mapeots would have insufficiently expressed his meaning without it. : Having seen, then, that there is a strong primd facie probability that St. Paul intends something different by the πάρεσις ἁμαρτημάτων, in the only place where he employs this phrase, from that which he intends in the many where he employs ἄφεσις, that passage itself, namely Rom. 111. 25, may now be considered more closely. It appears in our Version: “ Whom God hath set forth to ‘be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.” I would venture to render it thus: ‘ Whom God hath set forth as a propitiation, through faith in his blood, for a manifestation of his righteousness because of the pretermission [διὰ τὴν πάρεσιν, not διὰ THs Tapécews |, in the forbearance of God, of the sins done aforetime;’ and his exact meaning I take to be this—‘ There needed a signal manifestation or display of the righteousness of God, on account of the long preetermission or passing over of sins, in his infinite forbearance, with no adequate expression of his wrath against them, during all those long ages which preceded the coming of 118 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § χχχπι. Christ ; which manifestation of God’s righteousness found place, when He set forth no other and no less than his own Son to be the propitiatory sacrifice for sin’ (Heb. ix. 15, 22). During long ages God’s extreme indignation against sin and sinners had not been pronounced; during all the time, that is, which preceded the Incarnation. Of course, this connwance of God, this his holding of his peace, was only partial; for St. Paul has himself just before declared that the wrath of God was revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness of men (Rom. i. 18) ; and has traced in a few fearful lines some ways in which this revelation of his wrath displayed itself (i. 24-32). Yet for all this, it was the time during which He suffered the nations to walk in their own ways (Acts xiv. 16) ; they were “the times of ignorance ” which “God winked at” (Acts xvii. 30), in other words, times of the ἀνοχὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ, this dvoyy being the correlative of rdpecis, as χάρις is of ἄφεσις : so that the finding ἀνοχή here is a strong confirmation of that view of the word which has been just maintained. But this position in regard of sin could, in the very nature of things, be only transient and provisional. With a man, the pretermission of offences, or ‘ preeterition,’ as Hammond would render it (deducing the word, but wrongly, from πάρειμι, “ preetereo ἢ), will often be identical with the remission, the πάρεσις will be one with the ἄφεσιο. Man forgets; he has not power to bring the long past into judgment, even if he would; or he has not righteous energy enough to undertake it. But with an absolutely righteous God, the πάρεσις can only be temporary, and must always find place with a looking on to a final settlement; forbearance is no acquittance; every sin must at last either be absolutely forgiven, or adequately avenged ; for, as the Russian proverb tells us, ‘God has no bad debts.? But in the meanwhile, so long as these are still uncollected, the πάρεσις itself might seem to call in question the absolute §xxxm1. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. τις righteousness of Him who was thus content to pass by and to connive. God held his peace, and it was only too near to the evil thought of men to think wickedly that He was such a one as themselves, morally indifferent to good and to evil. That such with too many was the consequence of the ἀνοχὴ tod Θεοῦ, the Psalmist himself declares (Ps. 1. 21; cf. Job xxii. 13; Mal.ii.17; Ps.lxxiii.11). But now (ἐν τῷ νῦν καιρῷ) God, by the sacrifice of his Son, had rendered such a perverse misreading of his purpose in the past dissimulation of sin for ever impossible. Bengel: ‘Objectum preetermissionis [ rapécews |, peccata; tolerantiz [ἀνοχῆς ]» peccatores, contra quos non est persecutus Deus jus suum. Et hec et illa quamdiu fuit, non ita apparuit justitia Dei: non enim tam vehementer visus est irasci peccato, sed peccatorem 5101 relinquere, ἀμελεῖν, negligere, Heb. viii. 9. At in sanguine Christi et morte propitiatorid ostensa est Dei justitia, cum vindicté adversus peccatum ipsum, ut esset ipse justus, et cum zelo pro peccatoris liberatione, ut esset ipse justificans.? Compare Hammond (in loc.), who has seized with accuracy and precision the true distinction between the words; and Godet, Comm. sur V Epitre auaz Rom. 111. 25, 26, who deals admirably with the whole passage. He, then, that is partaker of the ἄφεσις, has his sins forgiven, so that, unless he bring them back upon himself by new and further disobedience (Matt. xviii. 32, 34; 2 Pet. i. 9; 11. 20), they shall not be imputed to him, or mentioned against him any more. The πάρεσις, differing from this, is a benefit, but a very subordinate one; it is the present passing by of sin, the suspension of its punishment, the not shutting up of all ways of mercy against the sinner, the giving to him of space and helps for repentance, as itis said at Wisd. xi. 23: παρορᾷς ἁμαρτήματα ἀνθρώπων εἰς μετάνοιαν : cf. Rom. ii. 3-6. If such repentance follow, then the πάρεσις will lose itself in the ἄφεσις, but if not, then the punishment, suspended, but not averted, in due time will arrive (Luke xiii. 9). 120 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. § χχχιν.

ψευδόχριστος (pseudochristos) — false Christ. ψευδόχριστος, ὁ, in plural, false Christs, [NT]