This indeed is the primary sense to which its commonest usages in classical Greek can be most conveniently referred. Thus it signifies (1) |(1) ‘A ship’s crew.’| ‘A ship’s crew’: e.g. Xen. Hell. i. 6. 16 διὰ τὸ ἐκ πολλῶν πληρωμάτων ἐς ὀλίγας (ναῦς) ἐκλελέχθαι τοὺς ἀρίστους ἐρέτας. In this sense, which is very frequent, it is generally explained as having an active force, ‘that which fills the ships’; and this very obvious explanation is recommended by the fact that πληροῦν ναῦν is a recognized expression for ‘manning a ship’, e.g. Xen. Hell. i. 6. 24. But πλήρωμα is used not only of the crew which mans a ship, but also of the ship which is manned with a crew; e.g. Polyb. i. 49. 4, 5 τὴν παρουσίαν τῶν πληρωμάτων ... τὰ προσφάτως παραγεγονότα πληρώματα, Lucian Ver. Hist. ii. 37, 38, ἀπὸ δύο πληρωμάτων ἐμάχοντο ... πέντε γὰρ εἶχον πληρώματα; and it is difficult to see how the word could be transferred from the crew to the ship as a whole, if the common explanation were correct. Fritzsche (Rom. II. p. 469 sq.), to whom I am chiefly indebted for the passages quoted in this paragraph, has boldly given the word two directly opposite senses in the two cases, explaining it in the one ‘ea quibus naves complentur, h. e. vel socii navales vel milites classiarii vel utrique’, and in the other ‘id quod completur, v. c. navigium’; but this severance of meaning can hardly be maintained. On the other hand, if we suppose that the crew is so called as ‘the complement,’ (i.e. ‘not that which fills the ship,’ but ‘that which is itself full or complete in respect of the ship’), we preserve the passive sense of the word, while at the same time the transference to the fully equipped and manned vessel itself becomes natural. In this sense ‘a complement’ we have the word used again of an army, |(2) ‘Population.’|Aristid. Or. I. p. 381 μήτε αὐτάρκεις εσἔσθαι πλήρωμα ἑνὸς οἰκέιου στρατεύματος παρασχέσθαι. (2) It sometimes signifies ‘the population of a city’, Arist. Pol. iii. 13 (p. 1284) μὴ μέντοι δυνατοὶ πλήρωμα παρασχέσθαι πόλεως (comp. iv. 4, p. 1291). Clearly the same idea of completeness underlies this meaning of the word, so that here again it signifies ‘the complement’: comp. Dion. Hal. A. R. vi. 51 τοῦ δ’ ὀλίγου καὶ οὐκ ἀξιομάχου πληρώματος τὸ πλεῖόν ἐστι δημοτικόν κ.τ.λ., Eur. Ion 663 τῶν φίλων πλήρωμ’ ἀθροίσας ‘the whole body of his friends’. |(3) ‘Total amount.’|(3) ‘The entire sum’, Arist. Vesp. 660 τούτων πλήρωμα τάλαντ’ ἐγγὺς δισχίλια γίγνεται ἡμῖν, ‘From these sources a total of nearly two thousand talents accrues to us’. |(4) ‘Entire term.’|(4) ‘The full term’, Herod. iii. 22 ὀγδώκοντα δ’ ἔτεα ζόης πλήρωμα ἀνδρὶ μακρότατον προκέεσθαι. |(5) ‘Fulfilment.’|(5) ‘The perfect attainment’, ‘the full accomplishment’, e.g. Philo de Abr. 46 (II. p. 39) πλήρωμα χρηστῶν ἐλπίδων. In short the fundamental meaning of the word generally, though perhaps not universally, is neither ‘the filling material’, nor ‘the vessel filled’; but ‘that which is complete in itself’, or in other words ‘plenitude, fulness, totality, abundance’.
Use of πλήρωμα in the Gospels.
Matt. ix. 16.
In the Gospels the uses of the word present some difficulty. (1) In Matt. ix. 16 αἴρει γὰρ τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἱματίου καὶ χεῖρον σχίσμα γίνεται, it refers to the ἐπίβλημα ῥάκους ἀγνάφου which has gone before; but πλήρωμα need not therefore be equivalent to ἐπίβλημα so as to mean the patch itself, as is often assumed. The following pronoun αὐτοῦ is most naturally referred to ἐπίβλημα; and if so πλήρωμα describes ‘the completeness’, which results from the patch. The statement is thus thrown into the form of a direct paradox, the very completeness making the garment more imperfect than before. |Mark ii. 21.|In the parallel passage Mark ii. 21 the variations are numerous, but the right reading seems certainly to be αἴρει τὸ πλήρωμα ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ, τὸ καινὸν τοῦ παλαιοῦ κ.τ.λ. The received text omits the preposition before αὐτοῦ, but a glance at the authorities is convincing in favour of its insertion. In this case the construction will be αἴρει τὸ πλήρωμα (nom.) ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ (i.e. τοῦ ἱματίου, which has been mentioned immediately before), τὸ καινὸν (πλήρωμἀ τοῦ παλαιοῦ (ἱματίοὐ; ‘The completeness takes away from the garment, the new completeness of the old garment’, where the paradox is put still more emphatically. |Mark vi. 43.| (2) In Mark vi. 43 the right reading is καὶ ἦραν κλασμάτων δώδεκα κοφίνους πληρώματα, i.e. ‘full’ or ‘complete measures’, where the apposition to κοφίνους obviates the temptation to explain πληρώματα as ‘ea quæ implent’. |Mark viii. 20.|On the other hand in Mark viii. 20 πόσων σπυρίδων πληρώματα κλασμάτων ἤρατε; this would be the prima facie explanation; comp. Eccles. iv. 6 ἀγαθόν ἐστι πλήρωμα δρακὸς ἀναπαύσεως ὑπὲρ πληρώματα δύο δρακῶν μόχθου. But it is objectionable to give an active sense to πλήρωμα under any circumstances; and if in such passages the patch itself is meant, it must still be so called, not because it fills the hole, but because it is itself fulness or full measure as regards the defect which needs supplying.
Usage in St. Paul’s Epistles.
From the Gospels we pass to the Epistles of St Paul, whose usage bears more directly on our subject. And here the evidence seems all to tend in the same direction. |1 Cor. x. 26.|(1) In 1 Cor. x. 26 τοῦ Κυρίου γὰρ ἡ γῆ καὶ τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῆς it occurs in a quotation from Ps. xxiv (xxiii). 1. The expressions τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς γῆς, τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θαλάσσης, occur several times in the LXX (e.g. Ps. xcvi (xcv). 11, Jer. viii. 16), where τὸ πλήρωμα is a translation of מלא, a word denoting primarily ‘fulness’, but having in its secondary uses a considerable latitude of meaning ranging between ‘contents’ and ‘abundance’. This last sense seems to predominate in its Greek rendering πλήρωμα, and indeed the other is excluded altogether in some passages, e.g. Cant. v. 13 ἐπὶ πληρώματα ὑδάτων. |Rom. xiii. 10.|(2) In Rom. xiii. 10 πλήρωμα νόμου ἡ ἀγάπη, the best comment on the meaning of the word is the context, ver. 8 ὁ ἀγαπῶν τὸν ἕτερον νόμον πεπλήρωκεν, so that πλήρωμα here means the ‘completeness’ and so ‘fulfilment, accomplishment’: see the note on Gal. v. 14. |Rom. xv. 29.|(3) In Rom. xv. 29 ἐν πληρώματι εὐλογίας Χριστοῦ ἐλεύσομαι, it plainly has the sense of ‘fulness, abundance’. |Gal. iv. 4.|(4) In Gal. iv. 4 ὅτε δὲ ἦλθεν τὸ πλήρωμα τοῦ χρονοῦ and |Eph. i. 10.|Ephes. i. 10 εἰς οἰκονομίαν τοῦ πληρώματος τῶν καιρῶν, its force is illustrated by such passages as Mark i. 15 πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρὸς καὶ ἤγγικεν ἡ βασιλεία κ.τ.λ., Luke xxi. 24 ἄχρι οὗ πληρωθῶσιν καιροὶ ἐθνῶν (comp. Acts ii. 1, vii. 23, 30, ix. 23, xxiv. 27), so that the expressions will mean ‘the full measure of the time, the full tale of the seasons’. |Rom. xi. 25.|(5) In Rom. xi. 25 πώρωσις ἀπὸ μέρους τῷ Ἰσραὴλ γέγονεν ἄχρις ὁῦ τὸ πλήρωμα τῶν ἐθνῶν εἰσέλθῃ, it seems to mean ‘the full number’, ‘the whole body’, (whether the whole absolutely, or the whole relatively to God’s purpose), of whom only a part had hitherto been gathered into the Church. |Rom. xi. 12.|(6) In an earlier passage in this chapter the same expression occurs of the Jews, xi. 12 εἰ δὲ τὸ παράπτωμα αὐτῶν πλοῦτος κόσμου καὶ τὸ ἥττημα αὐτῶν πλοῦτος ἐθνῶν, πόσῳ μᾶλλον τὸ πλήρωμα αὐτῶν. Here the antithesis between ἥττημα and πλήρωμα, ‘failure’ and ‘fulness’, is not sufficiently direct to fix the sense of πλήρωμα; and (in the absence of anything to guide us in the context) we may fairly assume that it is used in the same sense of the Jews here, as of the Gentiles in ver. 25.
General result.
Thus, whatever hesitation may be felt about the exact force of the word as it occurs in the Gospels, yet substantially one meaning runs through all the passages hitherto quoted from St Paul. In these πλήρωμα has its proper passive force, as a derivative from πληροῦν ‘to make complete’. It is ‘the full complement, the entire measure, the plenitude, the fulness’. There is therefore a presumption in favour of this meaning in other passages where it occurs in this Apostle’s writings.
Theological passages in
We now come to those theological passages in the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians and in the Gospel of St John, for the sake of which this investigation has been undertaken. They are as follows;
Colossians and Ephesians.