LrrERiTDRK. — H. F. Pelhani, Outlines of Roman HiMory, bk. V. ch. iii. ; J. B. Bury, A History of the liotnan Empire.^ ch. vi. ; A. H. J. Greenidge, Roman P'vhlic Life, ch. xi. ; for the regular course of an administrative career, see R. Ca{;:nat, Cottrs d'Epigraphie LallneS (1898, with Supplement 1904), pp. 86-155 ; Schurer, BJP i. ii. 43-48.
Alex. Souter,
GRACE (xdpis)-— The Gr. x"/"'. with which ' grace ' in Eng. fully corresponds, is one of those words (ef. dyandu, dydir-q, ' love ') which have been raised to a higher power and filled with a pro- founder content by the revelation of Jesus Christ. In accordance with its derivation from -xalpw, it originally signified in classical Gr. something that gives joy or delight, hence charm or wiiisomeness. I'roiii this it came to be used in a subjective sense of a tuurleous, kindly, or, as we say, a ' gracious ' dispusit iun ; and so became equivalent to goodwill or favour. From the sense of favour as an atti- tude of will and feeling, the transition was natural to ' a favour,' a concrete token of kindness and goodwill. Finally, as grace implies not only a giver but a receiver, it was employed to denote the gratitude felt by the latter for the favoui- be- stowed, and the thanks by which gratitude is ex- pressed (cf. the Eng. phrase ' grace before meat '). in nearly all these senses the word is found both in the LXX and the NT. But, while the LXX does not carry us beyond the point reached in the classical authors, when we pass to the NT the old meanings of x^P's are wonderfully enlarged, until, as Creiner saj-s (Lex. s.i\), 'it has become quite a different word in NT Greek, so that we may say it depended upon Christianity to realize its full meaning and to elevate it to its rightful sphere.'
1. Grace in the Gospels.— In AV of the Gospels, ' grace ' occurs only 4 times, once in Lk. (•2*') and thrice in Jn. (1"- ■"• "). When we turn to the RV, however, and include the marginal readings, we find the word in 4 other Lukan passages. Thrice it is used as a marginal alternative for ' favour ' or ' favoured ' (Lk 1^- '" 2^-), while in one important passage (4~) ' words of grace ' is substituted for ' gi-acious words.' In every case, both in Lk. and Jn. , the corresponding Gr. word is x^P"> with the exception of Lk 1^ wliere the derivative vb. xapiriu is used. Besides these passages in which either in AV or RV it is rendered 'grace,' x"/"' occurs 4 times in Lk. (6*-- ^- ** 17") in the sense of ' thanks."
( I ) AVe observe that grace is not a word or idea that is n^ed by the Synoptists generally, St. Luke luiuu till' only one who employs it. It is also worthy of notice that the term is not one which the Evangelist ever attributes to Jesus Himself. It is true that he represents Jesus as using xap'S •* times, but only in the ordinary colloquial sense of thanks. Thus, although x<ip's oi' 'grace' was to undergo something like a transfiguration through the influence of Christianity, and indeed was to become not only a specifically Christian word, but a word of which we might say that it shines like a jewel on the brow of Christ Himself, whose life and death and teaching gave birth to the ideas which it has come to express, it is not a term which we find in any of our Lord's recorded utter- ances.
In 4 out of the 5 Lukan passages in which ' grace ' occurs, it has the ordinary sense of ' favour.' Twice the Virgin ilary is declared to have been the object of the Divine favour (Lk 1-8- ™). Of Jesus it is said in one passage that the grace (or favour) of God was upon Him (2^°), and in another that He advanced in favour (or grace) M-ith both God and men (2"). The remaining passage (4-) is the only Synoptic one which may possibly caiTy us on to' the peculiar Christian sig- nificance of "the word. When Jesus preached His first sermon in the synagogue at Nazareth, His fellow-townsmen are said to have wondered iiri Tois X6701S TTj^ x'tp"''"- AV renders ' at the gracious words ' ; RV, more literally, ' at the words of grace.' But what does the expression mean ? Does it point merely, as has commonly been sup- posed, to our Lord's winsomeness and charm as a speaker, His grace of manner, His possession of
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one of tlie most ell'ective of the gifts of an orator '! Or is xapLTos to be taken not as a Hebraistic gen. of quality, but as an objective gen., so that 'words of grace ' = ' words aboiit grace ' 't It is not impos- sible that by this jjlirase, which is thus capable of a double interpretation, St. Luke intended to convey a twofold meaning, and to let his readers under- stand that the words of Christ, as Dr. Bruce puts it, were ' words of grace about grace ' (Exp. Gr. I'est. in loc. ). In any case, however, it seems pro- bable that the objective meaning was the one immediately before the Evangelist's mind. The fact that genitives of quality are frequent in writ- ings influenced by Heb., and that parallels to the use of xapis to denote the quality of charm in a speaker can be adduced not only from the LXX (Ec 10'=, Ps 44^ Sir 21i«), but from the classical authors (Hom. Od. viii. 175 ; Dem. Orat. li. 9), weighs little in comparison with the analogies ottered by the usage of St. Luke himself in Acts. It is admitted tliat \6yoi riji xi^P'to' avrov (Ac 14^ 20*=) means the message of salvation, and that ri 6ua77^\iov rrjs xapiTos toO 6eoO (20=*) means the gospel of the grace of God in the full Pauline and Chris- tian sense of the expression. Moreover, the text from which our Lord preached His Nazareth ser- mon (Lk 418- '», cf. Is 61'--') lends itself mo.st readily to this larger interpretation, and so do the opening words of the sermon itself, ' This day hath this Scripture been fulfilled in your ears ' (v.='). Noteworthy, too, in this connexion is the fact that in quoting tlie glowing words of the Evangelical prophet regarding ' the acceptable year of the Lord,' Jesus made the utterance still more gracious by omitting any reference to a coming day of Bivine vengeance (cf. v.''' with Is 61=). But, above all, we must bear in mind that whether the Third Gospel was written or not by Luke the companion of St. Paul, it is matter of common consent that strong Pauline influences run through it, and that more than any other it gives prominence to those aspects of our Lord's life and teaching which present His gospel as a message of Divine grace. This is the Gospel of the publican {W<^- 19=ff-), of the 'woman which was in the city, a sinner ' (7^™'), of the malefactor forgiven even as he hung upon his cross (23^'"f-). Above all, it is the gospel of the gi-eat ' Parables of Grace ' — the Lost Coin, tlie Lost Sheep, the Prodigal Son (15). It seems natural, therefore, to conclude that the Evangelist, on whom Christ's grace to the sinful had made so deep an impres- sion, intended in this ' frontispiece ' to his story of our Lord's public ministry, when he described the listeners in the synagogue as wondering at ' the words of grace which proceeded out of his mouth,' to set Jesus before us not merely as a winning speaker, but as the anointed herald of the grace of God. See also art. Graciousne.ss.