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Greeks, Chapter 7

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1
For, as I said,it is not an earthly discovery that was delivered to them,nor a mortal speculation that they count worthy to keep so diligently,nor are they entrusted with a dispensation of the mysteries of man.
2
But he himself — truly the Almighty, the Creator of all, and the invisible God —he himself from heaven implanted among menand firmly fixed in their heartsthe truth and the holy and incomprehensible word.
He did not, as one might suppose, send to mensome attendant, or angel, or ruler,or one of those who govern earthly affairs,or one of those entrusted with the heavenly provinces.
Rather, he sent the very craftsman and builder of all things —by whom he created the heavens,by whom he shut the sea within its own bounds,whose mysteries all the elements faithfully keep,
from whom the sun has received the measures of its daily course to keep,whom the moon obeys when he bids her shine by night,whom the stars obey, following the moon in her course,
by whom all things have been ordered and circumscribed and made subject:the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, the sea and all that is in it;fire, air, the abyss;the heights, the depths, and all that lies between.— this one he sent to them.[fn]
3 Was this, as some among men might reckon, for tyranny and fear and terror?
4 By no means; but in gentleness and meekness. As a king sending his son, a king, he sent him; sent him as God; sent him as to men; sent him as one saving, as one persuading, not forcing. For violence is not with God.[fn]
5 He sent him as calling, not pursuing; sent him as loving, not judging.
6 For he will send him judging; and who will endure his coming?[fn]
7 Do you not see those thrown to the wild beasts, that they might deny the Lord, and not overcome?
8 Do you not see that the more they are punished, the more others multiply?
9 These things do not seem [to be] works of man; these things are the power of God; these things are examples of his coming.

Footnotes

2

Creator of all: Greek παντοκτίστης (*pantoktistēs*), an apparently coined word not otherwise found in the searched Greek corpora until Andrew of Crete in the 8th century, who applies it to God as ὁ Παντόκτιστος ('the All-Creator'). It is absent from Liddell-Scott-Jones, and BDAG and Lampe cite it from this verse alone. The author pairs it with παντοκράτωρ (*pantokratōr*, 'Almighty') for the assonance — *pantokratōr kai pantoktistēs* — apparently forming it on the model of the Septuagint phrase 'the Creator of all' (ὁ πάντων κτίστης, 2 Maccabees 1:24; Sirach 24:8); so Meecham.

word: Greek λόγος (*logos*). This is not capitalized because the UPDV reserves the title 'Speech' for the Johannine corpus (John 1:1, 1 John 1:1, Revelation 19:13) where λόγος functions as a recognized Christological title. The author of Greeks uses λόγος elsewhere in the original text (chapters 1-10) in its ordinary sense — at 2:1 of his own 'new teaching' and at 8:2-3 of philosophers' 'words and claims' — and nowhere else as a title for the Son. When he names the Son he uses παῖς ('Child,' 8:9, 8:11, 9:1), υἱός ('Son,' 9:2, 9:4), and μονογενής ('only-begotten,' 10:2); in this very verse the Son is named as 'the craftsman and builder of all things' (τεχνίτης καὶ δημιουργός) whom God *sends*, distinct from the *word* God *implants in hearts*. See also Meecham, *The Epistle to Diognetus* (1949), who prefers the rendering 'teaching'; and Lienhard, 'The Christology of the Epistle to Diognetus' (1970), who treats λόγος here as a 'doubtful title' and finds the Logos-Christology of Diognetus 'almost untenable.'

craftsman and builder of all things: Greek τὸν τεχνίτην καὶ δημιουργὸν τῶν ὅλων (*ton technitēn kai dēmiourgon tōn holōn*). The same Greek pair τεχνίτης καὶ δημιουργός appears in Hebrews 11:10, where it is applied to God the Father (the only New Testament use of δημιουργός, the Platonic word for the world-fashioning maker). Here the pair is applied to the Son — the one God sends — among the earliest christological uses of the term. See note at Hebrews 11:10.

4

as to men: some editors insert the Greek word for 'man' before 'to men,' yielding 'as man, to men.' This edition follows the manuscript reading without the insertion, on the principle that the harder reading is more likely original: an explicit statement of the incarnation would be extraordinary in a document that nowhere else mentions this doctrine. See Lienhard (1970); Marrou.

6

There is a lacuna (gap in the text) after this verse. An unknown amount of text has been lost between 7:6 and 7:7.

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