In this post I will look at three English words—“apology”, “martyr”, and “angel”—borrowed from ancient Greek with meanings somewhat different from their meanings in Greek. The lesson is that the original meaning of a word isn’t always a good guide to its current meaning. I begin with the word “apology”.
I. In the year 399 BC, the philosopher Socrates was put on trial in Athens, charged with introducing new and strange gods and corrupting the youth of the city. He was found guilty and condemned to death by drinking hemlock. Plato, who was a young follower of Socrates, has left us what purports to be Socrates’ speech to the court defending himself against these accusations. This speech is known as the “Apology of Socrates” (᾽Απολογία Σωκράτους); it’s one of the great documents of Western Literature, and it’s also quite short.
We don’t know how accurately this speech represents what Socrates actually said. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that it must be reasonably accurate, at least in spirit—after all, there were hundreds of people alive who had heard Socrates deliver his defense and who would have some memory of what he said—but it’s certainly not verbatim. But that’s not what I want to talk about in this post. Here I’m just interested in the word “apology” and what it means in the title of this speech, “The Apology of Socrates”.
In modern English, an apology is a regretful acknowledgment of wrongdoing. But Socrates by no means acknowledges that he has done anything wrong. On the contrary, he argues that he has done good for the city, and in the penalty phase of the speech, after he has been found guilty, he initially proposes (in section 36d) that he be rewarded with free dinners for the rest of his life. (Later, in section 38b, he suggests a fine of thirty minae, a substantial amount, which his friends promise to pay.)
The word ἀπολογία, which we transliterate as “apologia”, is the standard Greek term for a defense speech in a trial. I could quote many examples from ancient Greek texts, but I will mention just one, a speech I happened to be reading earlier this week, a defense speech written by Lysias, a professional speech writer who lived in Athens at the time of Socrates and Plato: ῾Υπερ Τοῦ ᾽Ερατοσθένους Φόνος ᾽Απολογία, or in English, “Apology in the Murder of Eratosthenes”. (Just as a footnote, Lysias, who wrote the speech, was not on trial; he wrote the speech for the man who was on trial, whose name we don’t know.) The word “apology” here is a transliteration of the Greek, not a translation; a better translation would be “defense”: “Defense in the Murder of Eratosthenes”. But we are probably stuck with the title “Apology of Socrates”, rather than the more accurate “Socrates’ Defense”.
English borrowed the Greek word “apology” at first in its Greek meaning, “defense”; Sir Thomas More used it in this sense in 1533. Shakespeare, however, used it in something like the modern meaning in Richard III (3.7.103), written around 1592. Here Buckingham asks Gloucester’s pardon for interrupting him: “And pardon us the interruption / Of thy devotion and right Christian zeal”; and Gloucester replies “My lord, there needs no such apology: /I do beseech you pardon me / Who, earnest in the service of my God, / Neglect the visitation of my friends”. It’s clear that Shakespeare takes “apology” to mean “to ask for pardon”, not “to defend”.
It’s not hard to understand this change of meaning: someone who has been charged with wrongdoing responds either with a defence (“I didn’t do it”, “I did it, but it wasn’t wrong”) or by asking pardon (“I’m sorry I did it, please forgive me”.)
II. Athenian legal procedure allowed both the prosecution and the defense to call witnesses; so, for example, in Lysias’ speech on the murder of Eratosthenes, the defendant calls several witnesses to support his side of the story. This supporting evidence has not been preserved in the manuscripts—it’s indicated just with the single word “Witnesses”. This translates the Greek word μἀρτυρες—the singular word “witness” in Greek is μάρτυς or μάρτυρ. This Greek word is obviously the origin of the English word “martyr”, “someone who bears testimony to the faith”, especially someone who willingly suffers death. The first Christian martyrs were the apostles who had “witnessed” the life and resurrection of Jesus, The Greek noun “martyr” is used over 30 times in the New Testament (the related verb form is also used, for instance in Acts 22:5), and almost always it means “witness”. For instance, at Matthew 18:15-16 Jesus tells his followers: “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”
In two passages, however, “martyr” seems to have the modern meaning, “a person who has suffered persecution for the faith. Thus at Acts 22:20 the Apostle Paul recounts his conversion experience. When Jesus appears to him in a vision and commands him to follow him, Paul protests to Jesus that before this vision he had joined in the persecution of the followers of Jesus: “And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I stood there giving my approval and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him.” The word “martyr” here could just mean “witness” (as in “the blood of your witness Stephen was shed”), but the context suggests the modern meaning of the word. At Revelation 2:13 John is describing his vision of Jesus, who says to him, “I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.” According to tradition, Antipas was bishop of Pergamon in the first century AD and was martyred during the reign of Nero. In these two passages we can see the meaning of “martyr” shift towards our present usage.
III. In ancient Greek, the word “aggelos” (ἄγγελος) is an ordinary word meaning “messenger”. In Book 11 of the Iliad, for instance, the Greek army is suffering losses because Achilles has withdrawn from the fighting. He sends Patroklos to find out who has been wounded. When he reaches the Greek camp, Nestor asks him to sit and offers him refreshment. Patroklos declines, because he should get back and tell Achilles the situation: “Now I will go back as a messenger (“aggelos”) and tell Achilles” (Il.11.652). (See also Il.2.786, Il.5.804, Il.10.286, Il.22.438, etc; also Od.5.29, Od.8.270, Od.15.458, Od.16.468, Od.24.405, etc.) It’s not hard to find examples in other Greek authors, but I won’t take the time to cite them here. The point is just that the word “aggelos” is an ordinary ancient Greek word for a messenger.
The word “aggelos” also occurs in the Greek New Testament. At the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew, we learn that Joseph was espoused to Mary, but she was found to be pregnant. While Joseph ponders what he should do about the situation, a messenger of the Lord comes to him in a dream and tells him to go ahead and marry her, because she has conceived of the Holy Spirit. Joseph wakes from his dream and does as the messenger of the Lord has told him to do. Here are the two passages in Greek (Matt.1:20 and Matt.1.24): ταῦτα δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐνθυμηθέντος ἰδοὺ ἄγγελος κυρίου κατ᾽ ὄναρ ἐφάνη αὐτῷ and ἐγερθεὶς δὲ ὁ Ἰωσὴφ ἀπὸ τοῦ ὕπνου ἐποίησεν ὡς προσέταξεν αὐτῷ ὁ ἄγγελος κυρίου. Note the phrase ἄγγελος κυρίου in both.
I have translated ἄγγελος κυρίου by the English “messenger of the Lord”, but if you are familiar with this passage, you may remember the translation “angel of the Lord”. That’s the translation in the King James’ Version, and also in the New International Version, the English Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version, and several others that I checked. The English word “angel” is derived from the Greek “ἄγγελος” and specifically from these and other Biblical passages.
My preference, however, is to translate ἄγγελος κυρίου in these passages as “messenger of the Lord”. Most of the original readers of the Gospel would have known the word “ἄγγελος” as the ordinary general word for messenger, and so they would have understood the phrase “ἄγγελος κυρίου” as “messenger of the Lord”. Gradually the word in this context would have taken on a more specific meaning, the meaning of the English word “angel”, that is, a kind of spiritual being, sometimes, but not necessarily, acting as a messenger of God.
It’s worth noting that already in Homer the word “ἄγγελος” can refer to a divine messenger. At Iliad 2.20-34, for instance, Zeus sends Dream to deliver a (deceptive) message to Agamemnon; Dream tells Agamemnon, “I am a messenger of Zeus” (Διὸς δε τοι ἄγγελός εἰμι). (See also Il.24.292, 296, where Hekabe calls birds of omen messengers of Zeus.) Dream is a “messenger” of Zeus but not an “angel”—the ancient Greeks didn’t have the concept of what we call an angel. I don’t know if the author of the Gospel according to Matthew had read the Iliad, but the divine “aggelos” sent to Joseph certainly fits the cultural context: the appearance of a divine messenger to Joseph in a dream is anticipated by the appearance of a divine messenger to Agamemnon in a dream.
The Art of Reading Slowly 