the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Benediction (2)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (εὐλογία, benedictio)
This term has in the NT all the senses of běrâkâh in the OT. It signifies: (a) praises given to God or Christ (Revelation 5:12-13; Revelation 7:12, James 3:10); (b) in a sense exclusively biblical, favour or blessing from God (Hebrews 6:7); (c) a blessing asked for (Hebrews 12:17); (d) the blessing of the Christian gospel or calling (Romans 15:29, Galatians 3:14, Ephesians 1:3, 1 Peter 3:9); (e) the gifts or temporal goods bestowed on others (2 Corinthians 9:5); (f) by a figure, the cup of the Lord’s Supper, on account of the thanksgiving and praise offered in connexion with it (1 Corinthians 10:16); (g) the fine and flattering speeches (Romans 16:18) used by false teachers to lead away Christians-the only place in the NT where the word has its classical sense. It is the thought of the Apostle that Christianity is specially a religion which leads its followers to help and bless others (Romans 12:14, 1 Corinthians 4:12; 1 Corinthians 14:16, 1 Peter 3:9)-an altruistic faith which reminds one by contrast of the luxuriant use of anathema and excommunication in the Middle Ages, From the verb εὐλογεῖν has come the purely biblical and ecclesiastical word εὐλογητός, Vulgate benedictus, ‘blessed,’ which is the Septuagint translation of bârûk, participle of bârâk. God is called thus because praises are made to Him and He is the source of blessings (Romans 1:25; Romans 9:5, 2 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 11:31, Ephesians 1:3, 1 Peter 1:3).
The word ‘benedictions’ is more commonly used of those well-wishing or spiritual blessings in Christ which form such a characteristic part of the closing sentences of the Epistles of the NT, especially those of St. Paul. One of these benedictions, under the title of the Apostolic Benediction, has passed into use in the public worship of many Churches of Christendom. Let us take those sentences in chronological order, (1) ‘The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you’ (1 Thessalonians 5:28). The verb in these greetings is omitted, but it is better, with nearly all scholars, to interpret them as prayers, and so supply εἴη, than as declarations and supply ἐστί.* [Note: For an able defence of the Contrary view (ἐστι), see J. J. Owen in Bibliotheca Sacra, 1862, p. 707 ff.] The usual closing good wish in the letters of this period was ἔρρωσο or ἔρρωσθε = vale, ‘farewell,’ lit. [Note: literally, literature.] ‘be strong.’ With St. Paul everything was looked upon from the standpoint of Christ, and even courtesies were to receive a new significance. (2) ‘The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all’ (2 Thessalonians 3:18). This is preceded by a statement that the greeting is added by St. Paul in his own handwriting, and that this will be a constant custom as a certificate of genuineness. Compare the σεσημείωμαι (‘I have noted [or written, or sealed]’), generally contracted into σεση, with which many of the Egyptian papyrus letters and ostraca close,† [Note: Milligan, St. Paul’s Ep. to the Thessalonians, 1908, p. 130.] or the postscript in one’s own handwriting (ξύμβολον) which guaranteed an ancient letter.‡ [Note: Deissmann, Licht vom Osten, 105 (Eng. tr., Light from the Ancient East2, 1911, p. 153).] (3) ‘The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brethren. Amen’ (Galatians 6:18). The word ‘spirit’ is added as in keeping with the emphasis on spirit in the letter, and the word ‘brethren’ is given as a token of St. Paul’s affection in closing an Epistle in which he had to use stern rebuke. (4) ‘The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen’ (1 Corinthians 16:23-24). The second clause is peculiar here. It is explained by the fact that St. Paul had been compelled to use censures, and he wished the Corinthians to know that his love was still abounding towards them. It never failed (13:8). It was, as Chrysostom says, ‘some thing spiritual and exceedingly genuine.’ But that love is only in the sphere of Christ, so that everywhere the verb of desire (εἴη) is to be understood, as in the strict sense St. Paul could not love those who did not love the Lord (v. 22) or who destroyed God’s temples (3:17).§ [Note: G. Findlay, EGT, ‘1 Cor.’ 1900, p. 953. See also the excellent remarks of Robertson-Plummer, 1 Cor. (ICC, 1911), p. 402.] P. Bachmann. speaks of St. Paul’s final benediction here in these fitting words: ‘So ends a sound of faith, of hope and of love out of the deepest soul of the writer, and after such changing and manifold discussions he turns in his conclusion to the sentiment of his friendly and warm beginning,’|| [Note: | Der ersts Brief des Paulus an die Korinther, Leipzig, 1905, p. 480.] (5) ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all’ (2 Corinthians 13:14). The genitives here are subjective. It is the love which God has to us. This is always the use of St. Paul after ἀγάπη, ‘love’ (Romans 5:5; Romans 8:39, 2 Corinthians 5:14; 2 Corinthians 13:13 etc.). It is not communion with the Holy Spirit as an object, but a communion belonging to the Spirit, of which the Son is the founder and centre, and of which the Spirit is the means and vital force. The verse prays for a holy fellowship in the Divine life mediated by the Spirit, and it is a fitting conclusion to an Epistle agitated by strife. This triple benediction is well called by Bengel a ‘striking testimony’ to the Holy Trinity. ‘It offers,’ says J. H. Bernard, ‘a devotional parallel to the Baptismal Formula of Matthew 28:19; and the order of its clauses receives its explanation in the later words of St. Paul in Ephesians 2:18. It is the Grace of Christ which leads us towards the Love of God, and the Love of God when realised through the Spirit’s power, promotes the love of man (1 John 4:11), the holy fellowship fostered by the indwelling Spirit.’* [Note: EGT, ‘2 Cor.,’ 1903, p. 119.] The passage is one of the many evidences of how thoroughly part of the consciousness of the first Church were those ideas out of which grew the completely developed doctrine of the Trinity. That doctrine was thus not a deposit of Greek speculation on Jewish ground, but was the expression of the innermost life and thought of Christians from the beginning. At least it was of St. Paul, and in this respect he never had to defend his views. His view of the Son and Spirit as having their roots in the eternal life of the Godhead was taken as a matter of course by both Jewish and Gentile Christians. He never had to support the words of 2 Corinthians 13:14 against the charge of blasphemy. Their relegation of Christ and the Spirit to a substantial equality with God apparently offended no Christian sentiment.
J. Weiss recognizes this fact, and acknowledges that a growth in the estimate of Christ by the early Christians is hardly to be traced. It started at the full. He says: ‘There is hardly a trace of gradual development; almost at once the scheme of the Christology was complete; already in the New Testament the principal conceptions of the later dogma are essentially present, though to some extent only in germ; and there one detects already all the difficulties, which the later church had to face.… This regarding of God and Christ side by side, which exactly corresponds to the enthronement of the two together, is characteristic of primitive Christian piety.… The historian is bound to say that Christianity from its earliest beginnings, side by side with faith in God as Father, has also proved the veneration of Christ to be to it a perfectly natural form of religion.… The early Christians … believed that they were acting complete accordance with Christ’s mind, when they adored him and sang hymns to him quasi Deo.’† [Note: Christ: The Beginnings of Dogma, Eng. tr., 1911, pp. 12, 47, 48.]
(6) ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you’ (Romans 16:20). (7) ‘Grace be with you’ (Colossians 4:18). Notice the brevity. Von Soden speaks of the ‘Lapidarstil’ of the Epistle. (8) ‘The grace of our [some authorities, ‘the’] Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen’ [best authorities omit ‘Amen’] (Philemon 1:25). (9) ‘Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love our Lord Jesus Christ in uncorruptness’ (Ephesians 6:23-24). St. Paul’s benedictions are usually addressed directly to the reader, but here the third person is used, as is appropriate in a circular letter. Wieseler thinks that ‘brethren’ refers to the Jewish Christians and ‘all’ to the Gentiles, but this idea is fanciful. ‘Peace’ here is not simply a salutation of well-wishing, but has the Christian connotation of that peace which comes from reconciliation with God. Both peace and love go with faith, which is always presupposed in making the Christian. The ‘love’ is not Divine love but brotherly love, which shows itself where faith is, and through which faith works (Galatians 5:6). The primal cause and fountain is God the Father, the mediate and secondary is Jesus. This is always the order with St. Paul, and must be in Christianity if it is a monotheistic religion. ‘Grace’: it is the grace, besides which there is no other-the loving favour of our God.‡ [Note: See excursus on χάρις and χαριτοῦν in J. A. Robinson, Ephesians, 1903, pp. 221-228.] The ‘incorruptness’ (ἀφθαρσία) does not at all mean ‘sincerity’ as in Authorized Version , but imperishableness (cf. Romans 2:7, 1 Corinthians 15:42; 1 Corinthians 15:50 etc., 2 Timothy 1:10), and refers to the quality of their love. They have taken hold already of that endless and unbroken life in which love has triumphed over death and dissolution.* [Note: A. Robinson, op. cit. 137-138, gives a long discussion. See also almost any scientific commentary, like Meyer, Lange, Ellicott, Alford, etc.] The true Christian’s love is like God’s eternal, and it is directed towards, not simply God the Father (that is a matter of course), but towards Jesus, who with the Father is the object of his faith, hope and love, that is, of his worship. (10) ‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit’ (some Manuscripts , but not the best, ‘with you all’) (Philippians 4:23). The chronological order of the rest of the Epistles is not so certain. We follow that of Zahn. (11) ‘Peace be unto you all that are in Christ’ (1 Peter 5:14). ‘Peace’: the simple Hebrew salutation proper in St. Peter’s autograph. (12) ‘Grace be with you’ (1 Timothy 6:21); The same as in Col.; some Manuscripts read ‘with thee.’ The plural in itself is not sufficient to show that the Epistle was intended for the Church as a whole. ‘The study of papyrus letters,’ says J. H. Moulton,† [Note: Expositor, 6th ser., vii. [1903] 107.] ‘will show that singular and plural alternated in the same document with apparently no distinction of meaning.’ (13) ‘The Lord be with thy spirit. Grace be with you’ (2 Timothy 4:22). ‘Lord’ here means Christ, as generally in the Epistles. See Thayer Grimm’s Gr.-Eng. Lexicon of the NT, tr. Thayer with references. Close personal association between Jesus and Timothy is prayed for. (14) ‘Grace be with you all’ (Titus 3:15). (15) ‘Grace be with you all. Amen’ (Hebrews 13:25). (16) ‘Peace unto thee’ (3 John 1:14). This is a Jewish greeting; cf. John 6:23; John 19:20. (17) ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with the saints’ (Revelation 22:21). On the true reading see textual note in Expositor’s Greek Testament and the references there given. Moffatt thinks this sentence was used at the close of the reading in worship, and from that custom slid into the text here. ‘Apocalypses were sometimes east in epistolary form, used in worship, and circulated by means of public reading.’‡ [Note: See Moffatt, EGT,’ Revelation,’ 1910, p. 493 f.] It will be seen from the above that in apostolic times there was no stereotyped form of benediction, just as there was not either then or later any stereotyped form of public worship.
We extend the list to a few benedictions in extra-canonical Epistles in or near apostolic times. (18) ‘The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you and with all men in all places who have been called by God and through Him, through whom he glory,’ etc. (Clement of Rome, Ep. to Corinthians, 65 [a.d. 97]). (19) ‘The Lord of glory and of every grace be with your spirit’ (Ep. of Barnabas, 21 [a.d. 75-130, date uncertain]). Ignatius gives nothing like the apostolical benedictions, but the simple: ‘Fare ye well in God the Father and in Jesus Christ our common hope’ (ad Eph. 21), ‘Fare ye well in godly concord’ (Mag. 15), ‘Fare ye well unto the end in the patient waiting for Jesus Christ’ (Romans 10), ‘Fare ye well in Christ Jesus our common hope’ (Phil. 11), ‘Fare ye well in the grace of God’ (Smyr. 13), and ‘Fare ye well in the Lord’ (ad Pol. 8).
The Aaronitic benediction (Numbers 6:22-26), though always used in the synagogue, does not appear in our ancient sources or in any Church liturgy (except in the Spanish) until Luther introduced it in his Mass (1526). It was also used in the German Protestant Masses. For the use of benedictions in later Church history, see the articles in Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 3 ii. 588ff.; Dict. of Christian Antiquities i. 193ff.
Literature.-See the brief but excellent article in F. Vigouroux, Dict. de la Bible, Paris, 1891-99, i. 1581-83; W. J. Yeomans in Princeton Rev. xxxiii. [1861] 286-321; J. H. Bernard in Expositor, 6th ser., viii. [1903] 372ff.; and the works mentioned above.
J. Alfred Faulkner.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Benediction (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/b/benediction-2.html. 1906-1918.
