(c) If ' the Son of Man,' telling of descent from heaven, spoke of a closer association with God than did any other current Messianic title, so did it speak also of closer association with man — with the race. All narrow particrdarism falls away. He who bears this title is no mere ' Son of David,' or ' King of Israel.' Especially when regard is had to the idiomatic use of na in Aramaic, as of p in Hebrew, such a title expresses in tiie strongest possible way that He who is called by it has the nature and the qualities of , mankind, and that He who calls Him- self by it claims thereby relationship with man everywhere.
It is in such reasons as these that we may find the true clue to our Lord's adoption of this name — not in its supposed unfamiliarity, nor in an ambi- guity enabling the speaker to use it in one sense, while He could confidently anticipate that it would be understood in anotl^er by His hearers.
5. Why did our Lord's followers, with the exception of Stephen, not apply this title to Him? — The fact that a designation which meets us so frequently in the Gospels is, with the single exception of Ac V^, wholly absent from the rest of the NT, is remarkable and significant. But of what? Wellhausen and Lietzmann answer, of this : that it was unknown to St. Paul and the other writers of the Epistles and to the author of the Apocalypse that such a title was emjiloyed by Jesus, and that the presumption is that only after their day was it introduced into the Gospels. But how this could be done, and how such an important modification of the most cherished records of the Church could be carried out with such enduring success, there is nothing to show. Certainly it is not safe to conclude that St. Paul and other NT writers did not know that this was our Lord's self- designation because they make no direct reference to it. Schmiedel (I.e. p. 260 f.) points to He 2««- as affording evidence that the name was not unknown to the writer of that Epistle. Similarly, he holds that St. Paul in 1 Co 15^'' makes his reference to Ps 8 because of the presence in that psalm of the terms which he associated with his Lord — ' the Son of Man.' Schmiedel is on firmer ground when he goes on to rebut the contention, that had St. Paul known of the title he must have cited it in such a verse as 1 Co 15^'. He urges that it should be borne in mind that St. Paul wrote for Greeks, who would not, like the Jews, understand by ' the son of man' simply 'man,' but would take 'son' quite literally. To this may be added that, apart
SON OF PERDITION
SORROW, MAN OF SORROWS 665
from the suggestion of a purely human parentage, which Gentiles might receive from the title, its use would for them lay an undue, and therefore a mis- leading, stress on our Lord's humanity. To the Jew ' tlie Son of Man ' suggested the Lord from heaven ; not so to the Gentile. Where the associa- tion of the name with heavenly origin and majesty could not be assumed, there the Apostles and early e.xponents of Christianity adopted other terms as they spoke or wrote of their risen and ascended Lord, and proclaimed Him as ' the Christ, the Son of God' (Jn 20^'). To use the words of Dalman (op. cit. p. 266), ' the Church was quite justified in refusing, on its part, to give currency to the title ; for in the meantime " the Son of Man " had been set upon the throne of God, and was, in fact, no longer merely a man, but a Ruler over heaven and earth, "the 'Lord," as St. Paul in the Epistles to the Thessalonians, .and the Teaching of the Apostles in its apocalyptic statement, rightly designate Him who comes with the clouds of heaven.'
In short, the absence of the title ' the Son of Man ' from other early Christian records than the Gospels, is significant of the widening range of the Church's appeal beyond the confines of Judaism ; its retention in the Gospels is no less significant of the fidelity with which the words of Jesus were preserved by His followers.
LiTERATURR. — For a summary of various interpretations of 'the Son of Man,' see articles by Driver in Hastings' DB\ N. Schmidt in EBi ; and Baldensperger in Theol. Rundschau, 1900, Hefte 6 und 7. Many of tlie more important modern contribu- tions have already been indicated. Of those not directly cited may be mentioned : Appel, Die Selbstbezeiehnung Jesu ; Bruce, Kiiu/doin, of God ; Sanday, Expositor, Jan. 1891 ; Bartlet, ib. Dec. 1892 ; Stanton, The Jewish and the Christian Messiah ; Wendt, The T'eaching of Jesus ; Keira, Jesus of Nazara ; Weiss, Life of Christ. GEORGE P. GoULD.
SON OF PERDITION.
ii. (g).
See Judas Iscariot,
SON OF THE LAW See Boyhood and Edu- cation.
SONS OF THUNDER.— See Boanerges.
SOP. — 1. The meaning of the word. — ' Sop' occurs in E V only in Jn IS^s 6«- ^7. so ( AVm ' morsel '). It is akin in derivation to 'sup' and 'soup,' and denotes food soaked in liquid before being eaten. The Gr. word in each case is ^pia/xiov, dim. of \po}fj.6s, ' a morsel.' \f/iofj.ioi/ does not occur in LXX, but \{/cj/j.6i is found in Ru 2", Job 31", and in EV is rendered 'morsel.' Its use in Ruth — 'Dip thy morsel (\pu3fx6v) in the vinegar' — is exactly analo- gous to that of xpoifiLov in John.