A. T. CHAPMAN,
MARALAH (ny7>; B MapayeAdd, A Μαριλά, Luc. Mapa\d).—A place on the west border of Zebulun,
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MARANATHA 24) Jos 19%. The Pesh. has Ramath-ta'le’, ‘height of the fox.’ The site is quite uncertain. For con-
jectures see Dillm. ad loc. C. R. CONDER.
MARANATHA.— An expression used by the Apostle Paul in 1 Co 16” ‘If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema maranatha.’ It has somewhat perplexed the interpreters from early times {10 down to the present. They have been puzzled to determine its connexion, its com- position, and its significance. The early Greek expositors who attempt to explain it (as Chrysost. Hom. 44 on 1 Co, Migne, 61, x. col. 377 ; Theodoret in Migne, 82, iii. 373; John of Damascus, Migne, 95, ii. 705; Theophylact, Migne, 124, ii. 793, ete., down to Euthym. Zig. ad loc. vol. i. 369, Athens, 1887), together with the early lexicographers (as Hesychius, ed. Schmidt, iii. 71; Suidas, ed. Gaisford, 2397, ete.), generally agree in translating it ‘The (or ‘our’) Lord came’ or ‘has come.’ ‘This render- ing is corroborated by marginal annotations in one or two of the later MSS (see Tisch. Nov. Test. Gr., ed. octava crit. maior, ad loc.); and with it agree, though amid some vacillation, the leading Lat. expositors also (as Jerome, ad loc., Migne, 30, xi. 772; August., Migne, 33, vol. ii. 1161; Pseudo- Ambros. ad loc., Migne, 17, iv. 276).
But the association of the expression with ‘ ana- thema’ seems to have led gradually to a minatory interpretation of it, so that the phrase thus formed came to be regarded as a kind of reduplicated com- mination, or a curse reinforced bya prayer. Traces of its official use in this sense may oe found as far back at least as the 7th cent. (see F. Kober, Der Kirchenbann, Tiibingen, 1857, p. 40f.; du Cange, Gloss. med. et infim. Lat., ed. L. Favre, 1885, vol. v. s.v.; compare Tertull. de Pudivitia, § 14, where, however, the reading is doubtful) ; indeed, a still earlier instance of this use is afforded by one of the two or three occurrences of the term which are all that have yet been met with in extra-biblical Greek. A sepulchral inscription, believed to be of the 4th or bth cent., from the island of Salamis (referred to by Schmiedel in the Hand-Commentar on Cor. l.c., 2nd ed. ii. 208 sq., and given in the C/G vol. iv. p. 475, inser. 9303, Berlin, 1877), which marks the ‘eternal home’ of the ‘reader’ Agathon and his wife, for each of whom a separate compartment has been prepared, closes as follows: ‘But if any
rivate man or any other person dare to deposit a ody here besides our two, let him give account to God, and be anathema maranathan’ (sic). ‘The Pauline order is deviated from here in the Greek, so that maranatha is separated by one word from anathema; but the maledictory import is plain. This imprecatory use of the expression was thought to be substantiated by its assumed correspondence to the third or hizhest degree of Ἐπὴν excom- munication. the Shammatha. The word Sham- matha (variously interpreted, see Buxtorf, Lez. Chald. etc. 2466) was held by some to mean ‘The Lord cometh’ (οὐ, the name, being taken as a substitute for the tetragram), and thus to furnish an analogy which had been followed by the Apostolic Church. For this view the authority of such eminent Jewish scholars as Rabbi Solo- mon Ha-Levi, known among Christians as Paulus Burgensis (15th cent.), and Elias Levita in hic Tishbi (16th cent.), has been unwarrantably claimed (cf. e.g. Leigh, Critica Sacra, s.v. Mapava@d). For Elias makes no mention of maranatha, and follows Rab in the Talmud (Moed Katan, l7a ; see Buxtorf, u.s.) in taking ‘shammatha’ as equivalent to sham metha, ‘there's death’; while Paulus Burgensis (in Lyra, vi. 6la, Basel, 1508) finds in ‘anathema maranatha’ a combination of the three alleged forms or grades of Jewish ecclesiastical censure, maranatha being a (post-apostolic) corruption trom
242 MARANATHA
a mutilated ‘inacharam’ (maran) and ‘shammatha’ (atha). Echoes, however, of the Talmudic inter- retation of shammatha meet us, apparently, in
uther’s ‘accursed to death’ (‘maharam motha’), and the ‘Let him be had in execration, yea, ex- communicate to death’ of the Genevan version of 1557; while W. Mace, in his NZ Greek and English, 1729, gives simply ‘Let him be acvurst’ as the rendering of ny entire phrase. This imprecatory sense of the Pauline term, which was thus linked to supposed Jewish precedent, though without warrant either in philology or in fact (see John Lightfoot, Works, etc., ed. 1684, ii. 796 f., or Hore in Acta apost. etc., Amst. 1679, Ρ. 107f.; Schiirer, HJP w. i. 60 81), received, nevertheless, the endorsement of such names as Beza, Bibliander, Bullinger, Capito, Calvin (ef. Suicer, Thesaurus, etc. i. 604; Pfeiffer, Dubia Vexata, etc. 4th ed. 1699, p. 944 sq. for references), and others too numerous to catalogue here. Ilustra- tion of its prevalence and persistency is afforded by its adoption in our English Bibles (with the single exception of the Rhemish) from Tindale’s to the Authorized Version. Indeed, although a comma seems to have been inserted between ‘anathema’ and ‘maranatha’ as early as the Cambridge folio of 1629, it was removed again in Blayney’s standard ed. of 1769, and is wanting in not a few modern editions (see Scrivener, Cambridge Paragraph Bible, Introd. p. lxxxii, reprinted under the title The Authorized Edition of the English Bible, Cambr. 1884, p. 191). Other isolated instances occur of dissent from the prevalent theory that the words should be combined into a malediction. For ex- ample, in Robert Stephens’ edd. of the Gr. text issued in 1549 and 1551 a colon (or stop) is inserted after anathema, as also in the Elzevir edd. of 1624 and 1633; an English Bible, also, bearing the im- print of Henry Hills, London, 1660, although it puts no stop after anathema, adds at maranatha the marginal note, ‘That is, The Lord is come.’ Nevertheless, the compound imprecatory interpre- tation has lived on quite to modern times, and has even found its way into popular literature.