128
PROPITIATICy
PKOPITIATION
tiiey receive the command to separate Barnabas ttuu baul. This seems to imply some such position as we find in the Didachi (10), where the prophet (if tliere be one) is the proper person to conduct the public worship, and the only person free to give thanks in what words he thinks tit.
The prophets ranked next to the apostles (1 Co 12^, Eph 4"), and are even coupled with them (Eph 2* 3» dir. K. vpo(p. in this order will be NT prophets) as receivers of revelation and layers of foundations. Prophecy was not an office, but a special gift, coming not from men, but straight from Christ (xai oi>ris louKev, Eph 4"), and it might come to women too (Ac 21^ 1 Co 11^). The pro- phet spoke iv vfeO/MTi (Eph 3', Apoc. e.g. V : contrast iv imTaa-ei of the trances, Ac 10'° 22"), because the divine Spirit worked in him, 1 P 1", 1 Co 12" ; and he was also iryevjiariKds (1 Co 14", where TvfvfianKis at least includes irpoipip-qi), be- cause his human spirit was in full activity, and so steadily (inroTaaaerai, 1 Co 14'-) controlled the gifts of the Spirit that he was quite able to speak (Ro 12^) only in proportion to the faith that was in him.
Neglect of this self-restraint is visible at Corinth (1 Co 14-'''-", prophets need not all speak together), and may help to account for the early warning in 1 Th 5*. Later on 1 Jn 4' speaks of \pevSoirpo<priTai, and the woman Jezebel (Rev 2-°) implies false prophets in Asia. So also the Didachi (11) is very stringent in its cautions about prophets.
Of prophets expressly so called in NT, there are Agabus, the groups at Antioch, Judas and Silas, and the four daughters of PhUip. We need not go further ; but the last prophets we read of (Anon. an. Eus. HE v. 17) are Quadratus and Ammia in Philadelphia, perhaps in Hadrian's time. See, further, Selwyn, The Christian Prophets, 1900.
H. M. GWATKIN.
PROPITIATION.— This word occurs in AV only three times : Ko 3^ as the tr. of IXtumipioi' (iv Tpoiftero 6 9c6s IXoffTijpioc, — most probably [see Sanday-Headlam] an adj. masc, 'whom God set forth to be propitiatory ' [RVm]), and 1 Jn 2' 4'" as the tr. of l\a<rix6s {airrbs IXaj/idt i(m Tipl tCiv afxapTiCiv 7]fjiCiv ; d7r^<rTciXe rbv vlbv aiiTOu IXafffidv repl Twv aiiapmwv rjpiuiv) ; to which RV adds a fourth. He 2" (a merciful and faithful high priest . . . els rb l\ciiTK€a0ai ras apuipTLas toO XaoD, * to make pro- pitiation [AV ' reconciliation '] for the sins of the ppople '). It will be the object of the present article, firstly, to explain the meaning of the Greek words used, in the light of their usage in the LXX ; and, secondly, to examine the ideas associated with the Heb. words which they repre- sent commonly in the LXX.
1. 'IXaarripiov is in OT the regular rendering of ms: (in EV ' mercy - seat '), Ex 25" I") (here l\a(rr-npiov iirWeim), vv."-2> (18-^1 31? gtc. : IXa<rAiii Stands for (a) D-is? (EV 'atonement'), Lv 25' ri Ti/xipa. ToO I. (toD fJiX. Lv 23"- ^), Nu 5« 4 xpibi ToO i. ; (6) nxvn ' sin-offering,' Ezk 44'^ (so 45" iii\a<rpiis) ; (c) nri-^ip ' forgiveness,' Ps 130*, Dn 9» (Theod.); so ^fiX. Sir 5" (Heb. .-m-SD) ; [d) nt:;'N ' guilt,' Am 8" (falsely) : IXiuKOfjiat stands seven times for n'jj 'to forgive,' as 2 K 5'*, Ps 25" (for which rXeus e^va^ is more common), and three times for i;:, Ps 65^ 18^ 70", which, however, is far more frequently represented by the (intensive) com- pound iii\i(XKopuii (variously construed : see §§ 5, 7-10 ; and Westcott, Epp. of St. John, pp. 83-85). The use of the term in He 2" in connexion with the high-priest shows that IX. must there be re- garded as the equivalent of "e;, not of n'pj (which IS never said of the high-priest, or indeed of any human subject).* 'IXiir/to/tai is common in classical
" The conjttnuition, however, with an ace o( the sin, is, as Ritschl rightly remarks (p. 212), not that of the legal (J 10), but ot the DOn-legal (i 0 ; Ps 653) UCX unge.
Greek, where, however, it is construed regularly with an accus. of the deity (or person) propitiated (as 11. i. 100, 444, 472, ^oXtt^ 0ebv l\6.<iKovro ; Udt. V. 47, 0V(rlyiTL alrrbv IXiaKovrai, viii. 112, Oe/urroKXia Xirf)iM<Ti l\aaiixevoi) : in the LXX, on the contrary, this usage is not found except Gn 32-°, Zee 7" (efiX. Tb irpbaairof], and Pr IG'* (^fiX. aurbv, fig. of wrath), the word (^{i\.), when used of a human subject (§§10,ll),beingcommonlyconstruedabsolutelj',with Trepi of the person on whose behalf the propitiatory act is performed. The difl'erence marks a ditfer- ence between the heathen and the Biblical point of view : though the idea of i)roi)itiating God may be indirectly involved in the phrases used in the OT, it is very much less prominent than in the heathen writers ; the propitiatory sacrifice, or rite, has indeed generally for its aim the restora- tion of God's favour, and the ' forgiveness ' of the worshipper (Lv 4-° etc., § 12i), but there is not the same thought of directly appeasing one who is angry, with a personal feeling, against the ofl'ender, which is implied wlien the deity is the direct object of the verb (cf. Cremer, Wbrtcrb.; Westcott, p. 85; Kalisch, Lev. i. 316-318). In other words, the difter- ence corresponds with the fact that the higher Biblical conception of God is more spiritual and less anthropomorphic than that of heatnen writers.