Bible Lexicons

For the relation of νέος to καινός in the papyri see s.v. καινός. The two words are found together, according to the editor’s restoration, in P Flor III. 369.2 (A.D. 139–149) ἐκ [κ (αι)]νῆς καὶ νέας περ ̣ι ̣[σ ]τάσεω ̣ς. The adj. is applied to the ";new"; year in P Strass II. 91.18 (B.C. 87 ?) τοῦ νέου ἔτους, and in the letter of an anxious wife to her husband, P Giss I. 19.11 (ii/A.D.) τῆι α ̄ [ἡμέρᾳ ] τοῦ νέου ἔτους νὴ τὴν σὴν [σωτη ]ρ ̣ίαν ἄ [γ ]ευστος ἐκοιμώμην, ";on the first day of the new year I swear by your safety I went to bed without tasting food,"; although, as the editor points out, that day was generally regarded as a laeta dies (Ovid Fasti i. 87). For νέος in relation to crops cf. P Oxy III. 500.19 (A.D. 130) ἐγ νέων [γε ]νημάτων, and ib. VII. 1024.35 (A.D. 129) ἐκ νέων ἀποδώσει τὰς ἴσας, ";he shall repay an equivalent amount out of the new crop"; (Ed.). An inscr. from Akoris (Teneh) marks the state of the water of the river Nile as—τὸ ἐπ [άγαθ ]ον γόνιμ [ον ] νέον ὕδωρ (Preisigke 991.5—A.D. 290). On the use of νέος to denote a full-grown man of military age, see Ramsay Teaching, p. 41, and on the Νέοι as a social club of men over twenty (as contrasted with the ῎ Εφηβοι on the one hand and the Γερουσία on the other), see the same writer in C. and B. i. p. 110 f. : cf. also OGIS 339.31 (c. B.C. 120) γυμνασίαρχός τε αἱρεθεὶς τῆς τε εὐταξίας τῶν ἐφήβων καὶ τῶν νέων προενοήθη, and Syll 524 ( = .3959).5 (ii/B.C.) οἵδε ] ἐνίκων τῶν τε παίδων καὶ τῶν ἐφήβω [ν καὶ τῶν ] νέων τοὺς τιθεμένους ἀγῶνας —the νέων being described elsewhere in this document as ἀνδρῶν. The reading Νέαν Πόλιν (for Νεάπολιν), which is adopted by the critical editors in Acts 16:11, is supported by inscrr. from B.C. 410 onwards : see Meisterhans Gr. p. 137, Winer-Schmiedel Gr. P. 37.