ἄφεσις, -ews, ἡ. (ἀφίημι); 1. release, as from bondage, imprisonment, ete.: Lk. iv. 18 (19), (Is. Ixi. 1 sq.; Polyb. 1, 79, 12, ete.). 2. ἄφεσις ἁμαρτιῶν forgiveness, pardon, of sins (prop. the letting them go, as if they had not been committed [see at length Trench § xxxiii.]), remission of their penalty: Mt. xxvi. 28; Mk. i. 4; Lk. i. 77; iii. 3; xxiv. 47; Acts ii. 38; v. 31; χ. 48: xiii. 38; xxvi. 18; Col. i. 145 τῶν παραπτωμάτων, Eph. i. 7; and simply ἄφεσις : Mk. iii. 29; Heb. ix. 22; x. 18, (φόνου, Plat. legg. 9 p. 869 d.; ἐγκλημάτων, Diod. 20, 44 [so Dion. Hal. 1. 8 § 50, see also 7, 33; 7, 46; esp. 7, 64; ἁμαρτημάτων, Philo, vit. Moys. iii. 17; al.]).

ἄφεσις aphesis 17x

dismission, deliverance, from captivity, Lk. 4:18 (2x); remission, forgiveness, pardon, Mt. 26:28

ἄφεσις, -εως, ἡ

(< ἀφίημι), [in LXX for יוֹבֵל, דְּרוֹר, etc. (v. Deiss., BS, 98 ff.; MM, s.v.);]

dismissal, release: Lk 4:18.

Metaph., of sins (never in LXX), pardon, remission of penalty: ἁμαρτιῶν, Mt 26:28, Mk 1:4, Lk 1:77 3:3 24:47, Ac 2:38 5:31 10:43 13:38 26:18, Col 1:14; παραπτωμάτων, Eph 1:7; absol., Mk 3:29, He 9:22 10:18 (cf. DB, ii, 56; DCG, i, 437, ii, 605; Cremer, 297 f.).†

SYN.: πάρεσις, q.v. (and cf. Tr., § xxxiii).

ἼΛφεσις is the standing word by which forgiveness, or remission of sins, is expressed in the N. T. (see Vitringa, Obss. Sac. vol. i. pp. 909-983) ; though, remarkably enough, the LXX. — knows nothing of this use of the word, Gen. iv. 18 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. 8). 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; while 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 §xxxut SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 109 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. 1-4), no entire abolition of sin even for the faithful themselves, but only a present pretermission (πάρεσις), 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 at length defended and justified in his treatise, Utilitas Distinctionis duorwm Vocabulorum Scripture, παρέσεως et ἀφέσεως (vol. ix. p. 121, sq.). Those who at that time opposed the Cocceian scheme denied that there was any distinction between ἄφεσις and πάρεσις ; thus see Witsius, Gicon. Pad. Dé. 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 im respect of the world ; they were right in maintaining that πάρεσις was not entirely equivalent to ἄφεσις. 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, ‘Hc 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 πάρεσις ἁμαρτημάτων, the pretermission το SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT §xxxui 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 Lom. vol. i. p. 199): ‘Conveniunt in hoc [ἄφεσις et πάρεσις] quod sive illa, sive hee tibi obtigerit, nulla peccatorum tuorum ratio habetur; discrepant eo, quod, hac data, facinorum tuorum peenas nunquam pendes; illé concessa, 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. 8. 2): παρῆκε τὴν ἁμαρτίαν. When the Son of Sirach (Kcclus. xxiii. 2) prays that God would not “’ pass by” his sins, he assuredly does not use οὐ μὴ παρῇ as = οὐ 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 wdpeois=addeors, the following passage from Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Antt. Rom. vii. 37), is adduced : τὴν μὲν ὁλοσχερῆ πάρεσιν oux εὕροντο, τὴν δὲ εἰς χρόνον ὅσον ἠξίουν ἀναβολὴν ἔλαβον. Not πάρεσις, however, here, but ὁλοσχερὴς πάρεσις, is equal to ἄφεσις, and no doubt the historian added that epithet, feeling that πάρεσις 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. iii. 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 §xxx1l SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 11 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 τῆς παρέσεως], 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 prxtermission 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 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 conmivance 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 xvi. 30), in other words, times of the ἀνοχὴ τοῦ Θεοῦ, this dvoxy being the correlative of πάρεσις, as χάρις is of ἄφεσις : 50 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 preetermission of offences, or ‘ preterition,’ as Hammond would render it (deducing the word, but wrongly, from πάρειμι, ‘preetereo’), will often be identical with the remission, the πάρεσις Will be one with the ἄφεσις. 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 112 SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT § xxxut temporary, and must always find place with a looking on toa 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 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 τοῦ Θεοῦ, the Psalmist himself declares (Ps. 1. 21; ef. Job xxii. 18; Mal. 11. 17; Ps. xxiii. 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 pretermisslonis [παρέσεως], peccata; tolerantiz [ἀνοχῆς], peccatores, contra quos non est persecutus Deusjus suum. Et hee 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 vindictaé adversus peccatum ipsum, ut esset ipse justus, et cum zelo pro peccatoris liberatione, ut esset ipse justificans.’ Compare Hammond (7m loc.), who has seized with accuracy and precision the true distinction between the words; and Godet, Comm. sur l’ Epitre aux Rom. iii. 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. 82, 34; 2 Pet. i. 9; ii. 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 it is said at Wisd xi. §xxxiv SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 113 23: παρορᾷς ἁμαρτήματα ἀνθρώπων eis 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 ἘΠΙ| Ὁ);

ἄφεσις. In Egypt ἄφεσις τοῦ ὕδατος was apparently a technical expression for the ‘‘release” of the water from the sluices or canals for the purpose of irrigation, e.g. P Petr II. 13(2)** (B.c. 258-3) ἵνα ἐπισκευασθῶσι mpd τῆς τοῦ ὕδατος ἀφέσεως, “in order that they (sc. bridges) may be finished before the letting loose of the water” (Ed.), 76. III. 39%, and 44 verso i 18 1. τζῶν κατ]ὰ Πτολεμαίδα a[hjécewy ἠνώιξαμεν B θύρας]. In this sense the noun may be concrete, meaning apparently a *‘ channel” or “sluice” : P Oxy VI. 918Y- 30 (ii/A.D.) ἀπηλ(ιώτου) ὁδὸ(ς) δημοσί(α) ἐν ἡ ἄφεσις λιθίνη. Hence, as Deissmann has shown (25 p. 98 ff.), the increased vividness for the Egyptians of the pictures in Joel 1°°, Lam 347 through the use of ἀφέσεις by the LX X translators. The word is similarly employed to denote the official “release” of the harvest after the taxes had been paid, in order that the cultivators might then use it for their own purposes, as P Petr IT. 2(1)** (B.c. 260-59) τῆς μ]ήισθώσεως διαγορευούσης κομίσασθαι [αὐτὸὴν τὰ] ἐκφόρια ὅταν ἡ ἄφεσις δοθῇ, P Amh II. 43° (B.c. 173) ὅταν ἡ ἄφεσις τῶν πυρίνων καρπῶν γένηται, “whenever the release of the wheat crops takes place” (Edd. : see their note ad ἢ. and cf. Archiv iv. p. 69). The editors regard it as very doubtful whether the difficult phrase γῆ ἐν ἀφέσει, P Tebt I. 537 αἱ (B.c. 118), is to be explained in the same way, and in their note on P Tebt II. 3255 they suggest ‘‘in reduction,” or ‘‘on reduced terms” as a possible rendering. Mahaffy (P Petr III. p. 35) translates the same phrase in P Par 63177 (B.c. 165) by ‘‘ privileged land.” A nearer approach to the Pauline use for ‘‘ forgiveness” is afforded by the occurrence of the word in inscriptions for remission from debt or punishment, 6. g. AWichel 1340-7 (Cnidus, ii/B.c.) τᾶς τε ἀφέσιος τοῦ ταλάντου ὅ dav[ti] ἀφεῖσθαι Καλύμνιοι ὑπὸ ἸΠαυσιμάχου, Sy/7 226166 (Olbia on the Euxine, iii/B.c.) τοῖς μὲν ἀφέσεις ἐποιήσατο τῶν χρημάτων (and exacted no interest from other debtors), A/agn 93(c)'4% τὰ γὰρ ὀφειλόμ[ενα κατὰ τ]ὴν καταδίκην τῆς καθηκούσης τετευχέναι ἐξαγωγῆς ἤτοι εἰσ πραχθείσης τ]ῆς καταδίκης ἢ ἀφέσεως γενομένης : see also C/G 2058-7 (Olbia, ii/i B.c.), 23355 (Delos, time of Pompey) (Nageli, p. 56). With a gev. fers. it denotes the “release” of prisoners or captives, as Lk 418, νὰ 197?! (B.C. 284-3) ὅσοι δὶὲ αἰχμάλωτοι ἐγένοντο, ἐμφανίσας τῷ βα[σιλεῖ καὶ] λαβὼν αὐτοῖς ἄφε[σ]ιν κτλ., or “release” from some public duty, as P Oxy VII. τοζοῦ (a.p. 198-201) ᾧ Hyovp[evos] τοῦ ἔθνους τὸν ἀγῶνα τῆς ἀφέσεως ἐκδικ[ήσει-

ἄφεσις (aphesis) — forgiveness. ἄφεσις, εως, ἡ, (ἀφίημι) letting go, release, περὶ τῆς τῶν πλοίων ἀφέσεως Philipp. cited in [Refs 5th c.BC+]; γῆ ἐν ἀφέσει land in private hands, opposed to βασιλική, [Refs 2nd c.BC+] __b of persons, dismissal: in ritual, λαοῖς ἄ.[Refs 4th c.AD+]; release, [NT+2nd c.BC+]

2. with genitive, ἀ. φόνου quittance from murder, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; discharge from a bond, [Refs 4th c.BC+]; opposed to ἀπόδοσις χρημάτων, [Refs 5th c.BC+]; exemption from attendance, leave of absence, [Refs 4th c.BC+]; ἀ. τῆς στρατείας exemption from service, [Refs 1st c.AD+]; remission of a debt, ταλάντου[Refs 2nd c.BC+]; χρημάτων[Refs 3rd c.BC+]; i.e. καταδίκης, [Refs]

2. b forgiveness, NT.Mark.3.29; ἁμαρτιῶν[NT]

3. relaxation, exhaustion, [Refs 5th c.BC+]

4. divorce, τινὶ πέμπειν[Refs 1st c.AD+]

5. starting of horses in a race, ἵππων ἄ. ποιεῖν[Refs 1st c.BC+]: hence, starting-post itself, ἰσώσας τἀφέσει (Musgr. for τῇ φύσει) τὰ τέρματα having made the winning-post one with the starting-post, i.e. having completed the δίαυλος and come back to the starting-post, uncertain conjecture in [Refs 5th c.BC+]: metaphorically, the first start, beginning of anything, [Refs 4th c.AD+]

6. discharge, emission, ὕδατος[Refs 4th c.BC+]; the dropping of a foal, [Refs]

6. b discharge, release of an engine, [Refs 3rd c.BC+]

7. ={ἀφεσμός}, [Refs 4th c.BC+]

8. release, ὕδατος[Refs 3rd c.BC+]: hence, in concrete sense, conduit, sluice,[Refs 3rd c.AD+]channels, [LXX]

9. Astrology texts, reckoning of the vital quadrant, [Refs 2nd c.AD+] simply, starting from.., [Refs]