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A NOTE ON HEBREWS 12:2

In Heb 12:1-3 the anonymous author concludes an impressive list of Israel's exem plars of faith with an exhortation to the readers to run their own race of faith with endurance, surrounded by the great "cloud of witnesses" enumerated in chap. 11. While engaged in this contest, however, they are to look to Jesus, "the pioneer and perfecter of faith." The latter phrase is a translation of . The first term of this dual description is variously understood as "ruler," "prince," "begin ner," "originator," or "founder." It is well-attested in Biblical Greek, occurring twice in Hebrews (also 2:10), twice in Acts (3:15; 5:31), and over thirty times in the various manuscripts of the Septuagint. Classical references are likewise numerous. The same cannot be said for . The standard lexicons and theological dictionaries either assert that Heb 12:2 is the first occurrence of the word or imply as much by the absence of other references.1 The commentaries concur, including the recent quartet of critical treatments by Harold W. Attridge, Paul Ellingworth, William L. Lane, and HansFriedrich Weiss.2 Sample comments: "unknown from other literature of the period" and "not attested in Greek literature prior to Hebrews."3 Even Wettstein's NovumTestamentum, with its massive collection of philological parallels, passes over the expression. It has been suggested that the author coined the word.4 But a parallel has been overlooked. The rhetor and historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, writing in Rome in the late first century BCE, uses the word. Several of Dionysius's essays deal with rhetorical theory and the styles of individual orators such as Lysias, Isocrates, and Demosthenes. In a separate essay he treats the life and style of Dinarchus, the last of the so-called Attic orators.5 In the opening lines of this essay he justifies his treatment of a lesser orator. The text and Usher's translation follow:

BAGD lists no other references, calling the word a hapax legpmenon (p. 810). G. Delling says: "Thus far the only instances are Christian] (from Hb.l2:2 on)" (", etc.," TDNT 8. 86). LSJ cites no other text (p. 1770). H. Balz and G. Schneider claim that is "attested only in Christian writings" (Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993] 3. 346). 2 Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989); Paul Elling worth, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993); William L. Lane, Hebrews IS, 9-13 (Waco: Word, 1991); Hans-Friedrich Wei, Der Brief an die Hebrer (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991). 3 Lane, Hebrews, 411, and Attridge, Hebrews, 356 n. 53, respectively. 4 Ellingworth, Hebrews, 640; James MofFatt, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Edinburgh: Clark, 1979) 196; J. H. Moulton and W. F. Howard, Grammar of New Testament Greek (Edinburgh: Clark, 1920) 2.365. 5 Dionysius's essay "On Dinarchus" appears in the second Loeb volume of The Critical Essays (trans. Stephen Usher; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985) and in the fifth volume of the Teubner edition (ed. . Usener and L. Radermacher; Stuttgart: Teubner, 1899).

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Literature

, , , <> ,... I said nothing about the orator Dinarchus in my writings on the ancient orators because he was neither the inventor of an individual style, as were Lysias, Isocrates and Isaeus, nor the perfecter of styles which others had invented, as I judge Demosthenes, Aeschines and Hyperides to have been. Dionysius contrasts two different groups of orators: those who invented or devised an original style of speaking and those who perfected or refined the styles invented by others. The contrasting Greek words are and . The significance of the latter term in Dionysius is clear. is one who perfects, refines, or brings to full flower that which is (in this case) the original work of others. The work of both "pio neers and perfecters" is commended by Dionysius, briefly and indirectly in the excerpt above, at greater length in the writings to which he refers. His discussion of Dinarchus requires comment precisely because the latter is neither pioneer nor perfecter, but able imitator. How does this single, non-Christian parallel contribute to the understanding of Heb 12:2? Most obviously, it indicates that the author of Hebrews did not coin the term, or at least was not the first to use it. It also attests to a very "ordinary" meaning for , one without mystic or cultic significance. There is, then, no need in Heb 12:2 to resort to the translation "consecrator" or "mystagogue," a rendering suggested by M. Dibelius.6 Words constructed on the - root may have served as technical terms for the mystery cults, but they simultaneously enjoyed quite ordinary usage.7 More importantly, the antithesis by which this parallel clarifies the meaning of is quite similar to that of Heb 12:2. Although is not identical to , the word with which the author of Hebrews pairs , it is a near synonym. Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary of Dionysius uses the words in a pleonastic doublet when he remarks that people offer their first sacrifices to Zeus and Hera because these gods are the originators () and inventors () of all things (5.73.2). Thus Hebrews' antithesis of / differs only slightly from Dionysius's antithe sis of /. Another author who presents a more complex but still perti nent parallel is Polybius. He notes that the Achaean League of 280 BCE had Aratus as its founder () and guide (), Philopoemen as its champion () and perfecter () and Lycortas as its securer () (2.40.2). The first two phases of this tripartite division approximate the antitheses in Heb 12:2 and Diony sius. These two parallelsDionysius On Dinarchus 1 and Polybius 2.40.2illustrate the fairly commonplace experience that in human affairs (e.g., rhetoric and politics) one
6 M. Dibelius, "Der himmlische Kultus nach dem Hebrerbrief," in Botschaft und Geschichte (Tbingen: Mohr, 1956) 2. 171. 7 The discovery of this lexical parallel demonstrates the wisdom of W. Bauer's observation (BAGD, xix): "The fact that the advances in our knowledge have freed one after another of these words [apparent hapaxes] from their isolation and demonstrated that they were part of the living language forces upon us the conclusion that the great mass of biblical words for which we do not yet have secular evidence also belong to that language."

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person or group often originates a style, institution, and so on, and then others refine and perfect it The distinction of Heb 12-2 then seems to be that both terms, in an overarching expression, are applied to a single person, Jesus 8 H e , according to the author, is both t h e originator and consummator of faith H e is t h e "prototype," b u t not one to b e transcended by subsequent improvements, for h e is also faith's paragon N. Clayton Croy l l l l C l a i r m o n t R d Decatur, GA 30030 Cf Aelius Ansdes's description of Zeus as "founder and fulfiller of all things" ( .. ) at the very end of the oration On Zeus
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