And even at the age of the apostles, the Greek had already arrived at the very highest point of its cultivation. No history, no writer gives proof of any subsequent improvement. If, then, we desire with seriousness and truth to determine the significance of any term then in use, the same is alone to be found by an investigation of the Greek literature of that age.
There are two modes by which an idea expressed in one language is explained in another. Where both languages contain words of synonymous meaning, then the expressing the idea through the medium of the words in another language, is properly what we mean by “translation.” But in many instances, the second language contains no word or words which are synonymes of the term by which the idea is expressed in the language which we wish to translate. In that case we can accomplish the object only by transferring the term expressing the idea from the one language to the other. Example:—When the French exhibited to the natives here a padlock, the natives associated the thing with their idea of the tortoise, from the fancied mechanical resemblance, and with them the name of the one became the name of the other also. But when we exhibited to them a steamboat, they found their language destitute of any word to express their idea of the thing exhibited; consequently, they transferred into their own language the word steamboat, to express the new idea.
With a view to be enabled to come to a truthful decision as to the definiteness of the idea intended to be conveyed by the word doulos, when used in the writings of the apostles, let us make a suitable inquiry among the Greek authors read and studied at their time, regardless of what may be the result as to the establishment of any peculiar theory or favourite notion. Let a development of the truth be the sole object of the research, careless of what else may stand or fall thereby. And since all have not chosen to burden themselves with the toilsome lesson necessary in a preparation for such examination, we consent that such may pass it by with the same indifference with which they regard the study.
LESSON IV.
We commence our quotations from the Greek authors with the Cebetis Tabula, from the Gronovius edition, Glasgow, 1747:
P. 17.——διὸ καὶ ὅταν ἀναλώσῃ πανθ’ ὅσα ἔλαβε παρά τῆς τύχης, ἀναγκάζεται ταύταις ταῖς γυναιξὶ δουλεύειν, καὶ πάνθ’ ὑπομένειν, καὶ ἀσχημονεῖν, καὶ ποιεῖν ἕνεκεν τούτων ὅσα ἐστὶ βλαβερά.
P. 34. Τοὺς μεγίστους, ἔφη, καὶ τὰ μέγιστα θηρία, ἅ πρότερον αὐτὸν κατήσθιε, καὶ ἐκόλαζε, καὶ ἐποίει δοῦλον. Ταῦτα πάντα νενίκηκη, καὶ ἀπέῤῥιψεν ἀφ’ ἑαυτου, καὶ κεκράτηκεν ἑαυτοῦ, ὥστε ἐκεῖνα νῦν τούτῳ δουλεύουσι, καθαπερ οὕτος ἐκείνοις πρότερον.
Æschylus, Prometheus Chained. Line 463:
κἄζευξα πρῶτος ἐν ζυγοῖς κνώδαλα