The words, however, that most concern us here are ireiroLdivai, 'to be confident,' and ■weiroWriffis, 'confidence,' the latter being in the NT an ex- clusively Pauline word and found only once in the LXX (2 K 18'»). They both belong to the language of deep personal feeling, and it is not surprising that they appear more frequently in 2 Cor. and Phil, than in all the other Epistles put together. The confidence cherished by St. Paul is a state of mind springing out of faith and rising to the firm persuasion that God's purposes with himself, Avith his converts, and with all that pertains to the kingdom of Christ are right and cannot fail of accomplishment. In this 'confidence' he enjoys his boldness in Christ and access through Clirist to God (Eph 31^). He is ' confident of this very thing, that he which began a good work in you wiU perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ' (Ph 1®). His 'confidence' as regards himself (Ph 2"^, AV and RV ' trust '), and as regards his converts and their compliance with his counsels, is in God (Gal 5'", 2 Th 3S Philem^i). It comes from union with Christ, and has God for its ultimate goal (2 Co 3''). Clement in 1 Corinthians (xxvi. 1) speaks of those who have served God religiously ' in the confidence of an honest faith.' He mentions, too, many wonderful gifts of God — 'life in immortal- ity, splendour in righteousness, truth in boldness, faith in confidence, and temperance in sanctifica- tion ' (xxxv. 2).
Whilst there is such a confidence, there is also a confidence which is misplaced — confidence in ourselves (Ro 2^9, 2 Co I*), in the flesh (Ph S^'-), the confidence of which Hennas says [Siin. ix. 22. 3) that ' vain confidence is a great demon.'
T. NiCOL.
CONFIRMATION. — (a) The word 'confirm' in the NT sometimes represents aTTjpLi^u} or iiruTTripl^u, used of the strengthening of Christians, of love, faith, etc., in Ac 14^ U^ « ; cf. 18^3 (RV ' stablish,'
AV ' strengthen '). arTipll-u is usually (about 12 times) translated ' stablish ' or ' establish ' (in Lk 16-'' it is used of the ' fixing' of a gulf). — (b) ' Con- firm ' and ' confirmation ' are used to translate /3e/3at(5w and /Se/Satwcns in Ro IS*, 1 Co P- 8, He 2^ 6i«, Ph 1'', ' Mk ' 16-", with the same meaning. The same Gr. verb is rendered ' stablish ' or ' establish ' in 2 Co pi, Col 2^ He IS^.— (c) 'Confirm' is also the word used for Kvpoco or irpoKvpbw in connexion with a covenant or will (Gal 3^^- ^'', which may re- fer to what we should call ' registration ' ; see W. M. Ramsay, Hist. Com. on Galatians, 1899, p. 354) ; in 2 Co 28 it is used of love.— (rf) In Tit 3» bia^e^aibu) is translated ' affirm.' In He 6'^ ixeai- T€Vio is rendered in AV ' confirm,' in RV and AVm ' interpose,' in RVm ' mediate.'
For the rite of confirmation, see Baptism, §§ 6, 8.
A. J. Maclean.
CONGREGATION.— In Tindale's Version (1534) and in Cranmer's (1539) ' congregation ' was used in- stead of ' churcli ' to translate both e/c/cXijo-ta and awa- 7W717. But Wyclif had used ' church,' and the Geneva Version, followed by AV, reverted to it. RV, with one exception, has 'church' exclusively in the text, though in several places ' congregation ' appears in the margin. The exception is He 2^^ wiiere in the quotation from Ps 22^ ' congregation ' is in the text and ' church ' in the margin. F. J. A. Hort (The Christian Ecclesia, London, 1897) chose 'Ecclesia' as a word free from the disturbing as- sociations of ' church ' and ' congregation,' though the latter has not only historical standing (as above) but also the advantage of suggesting some of these elements of meaning which are least forcibly brought out by the word ' church ' according to our present use (cf. ExpT viii. [1896-97] 386). So far, however, as there is any substantive difterence between the two words as found in the English Bible, the * congregation ' of RVm points to an actual church assembled in one place.
In the NT ^^^-\7?(^'a naturally designates the Christian Church. The associations of o-wayuryrj were against its Christian use, though it is retained in Ja 2^' to describe an assembly of Jewish-Chris- tians ; but this is explained by the destination of the letter — 'to the twelve tribes which are of the Dispersion.'
In St. Paul's address to the elders of Miletus (Ac 20") we see the old Jewish ffwaywyifi in the process of passing into the more distinctively Chris- tian iKK\i]ffla. He quotes Ps 74^ ' Remember thy congregation which thou didst purchase of old ' ; but for the LXX (rwaywyr) he puts iKKXijala. Thus in the Apostle's hands this passage becomes ' one of the channels through which the word " ecclesia " came to denote God's people of the future ' [ExpT viii. 387). Cf. also art. Assembly ; and, for the Heb. and Gr. terms in the OT, art. ' Congregation ' in HDB. W. M. Geant.
CONSCIENCE (<TvvelS7}<ni). — 1. The word and its history. — Both the Lat. conscientia, from which 'conscience' is derived, and the Gr. a-vveldrjaif, of which it is the invariable rendering in the NT, have originally the more general meaning of ' conscious- ness'— the knowledge of any mental state. Down to the 17th cent., as the AV itself bears witness, ' conscience ' too was sometimes used in this -wider sense. In 1 Co 8'' ' conscience of the idol,' and in He 10^ 'conscience of sins,' would now be better rendered 'consciousness.' Some exegetes would prefer ' consciousness ' to ' conscience ' in 1 P 2^^ ' conscience toward (or of) God.' With these excep- tions, ' conscience ' in the NT denotes not conscious- ness generally, but the moral faculty in particular — that power by which we apprehend moral truth and recognize it as having the authority of moral law. The history of the words ' conscience,' eon-