i. The history of ypacpri, ypa<pai, as applied to literary documents, does not seem to have been exactly the same as that of its congener ypd/x/xa, ypdn/Mara. The latter appears to have been current first as the appropriate appellation of an alpha- betical character, and to have grown gradually upward from that lowly employment to designate documents of less or greater extent, as ultimately made up of alphabetical characters. Although, therefore, the singular to ypd/mfia is used of any written thing, it is apparently, when applied to ' writings,' most naturally employed of brief pieces like short inscriptions or proverbs, or of the shorter portions of documents such as clauses — though it is also used of those larger sections of works which are more commonly designated as 'books.' It is rather the plural, to, ypd/m/j-ara, which seems to have suggested itself not only for extended treatises, but indeed for documents of all kinds. When so employed, the plural form is not to be pressed. Such a phrase as ' Moses' ypdixixara ' (Jn 5'*''), for example, probably ascribes to Moses only a single book — what we call the Pentateuch ; and such a phrase as lepd ypdiJ./j.aTa (2 Ti 3^') does not suggest to us a ' Divine library,' but brings the OT before us as a unitary whole. On the other hand, ypafprj, in its application to literary products, seems to have sprung lightly across the intermediate steps to designate which ypd/j./j.a is most appropri- ately used, and to have been carried over at once from the ' m riting ' in the sense of the script to the 'writing' in the sense of the Scripture. Kindred with ypd/jL/j.a as it is, its true synonymy in its literary aitjjlication is rather with such words as /ii;3Xos (^L^Xiov) and \6yos, in common with which it most naturally designates a complete literary piece, whether ' treatise ' or 'book. ' Where thought of from the material point of view as .so much paper, so to sjieak, a literary work was apt to be called a /3(/3\os {(Si^Xiof) ; when thought of as a rational product, thought presented in words, it was apt to be spoken of as a X670S : intermediate between the two stood ypa<(>ri {ypdpL/xa), which was apt to come to the lips when the ' web of words ' itself was in mind. In a word, /3i/3Xos {13lj3\lov) was the most exact word for the 'book,' ypacpri (ypdfj.p.a) for the 'document' inscribed in the 'book,' X070S for the ' treatise ' which the ' document ' records ; while as between ypo.<pri and ypafifia, ypd/j,fia, pre- serving the stronger material flavour, gravitates
somewhat towards /3^/3Xos (j3(.j3\iop), and ypacpr) looks upward somewhat toward \6yos. AVhen, in tlio development of the publisher's trade, the system of making books in great rolls gave way to the ' small -roll system,' and long works came to be broken up into ' books,' each of which was inscribed in a 'volume,' these separate 'books' attached to themselves this whole series of designations, each Avith its appropriate implication. Smaller sections were properly called nepioxo-l, t6woi, x'^P'^o-t ypdix/xaTa (the last of which is the proper term for ' clauses '), i)ut very seldom, if ever, in classical Greek, ypoL<paL.
5. The current senses of these several terms are, of course, more or less reflected in their NT use. But we are struck at once with the fact that ypacprj occurs in the NT solely in its pregnant technical usage as a designation of the Sacred Scriptures. There seems no intrinsic reason why it should not, like ypd/j./uiaTa, be freely used for non-sacred ' writ- ings.' In point of fact, however, throughout the NT ypa.<p-n is ever something ' which the Holy Ghost has spoken through the mouth ' of its human authors (Ac P*^), and which is therefore of indefect- ible, because Divine, authority. It is perhaps even more remarkable that even on this high plane of technical reference it never occurs, in accordance with its most natural, and in the classics its most frequent, .sense of 'treatise,' as a term to describe the several books of which the OT is composed. It is tempting, no doubt, to seek to give it such a sense in some of the passages where, occurring in the singular, it yet does not seem to designate the Scriptures in their entirety, and Dr. Hort appears for a moment almost inclined to yield to the temptation (on 1 P 2®, note the 'probable'). It is more tempting still to assume that behind the common use of the plural at ypa<pal to designate the Scriptures as a whole, there lies a previous current usage by which each book which enters into the composition of these ' Scriptures ' was designated by the singular r; ypa<f>-q. But in no single passage where 7/ ypatpri occurs does it seem possible to give it a reference to the ' treatise ' to which the appeal is made ; and the common employment in profane Greek of ypacpai (in the plural) for a single docu- ment, discourages the assumption that (like rd /SijSXi'a) when applied to the Scriptures it has refer- ence to their composite character. The truth seems to be that whether the plural ai ypa<pai or the singular t? yp°-<Pv i^ employed, the application of the term to the OT writings by the writers of the NT is based upon the conception of these OT writings as a unitary whole, and designates this body of writings in their entirety as the one well- known authoritative documentation of the Divine word. This is the fundamental fact with respect to the use of these terms in the NT from which all the other facts of their usage How.