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Bible Dictionaries
Prize
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or According to the Gospels, reward (μισθός) finds a place in the teaching of the Kingdom of God. But the doctrine is redeemed from mercenariness by the fact that the reward is reckoned of grace and not of debt (Matthew 20:1-16, Luke 17:10) as well as by the nature of the reward. It is no mere external or material reward. Generally speaking, it is the Kingdom of God or, according to the Fourth Gospel, eternal life, that our Lord sets before His followers as the reward to which they may look forward. The blessedness which is to be theirs consists in the attainment of that moral perfection after which they strive. They that hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled: the merciful shall obtain mercy: the pure in heart shall see God.
The same doctrine is found in the apostolic writings. But here the reward is described as a prize. This phraseology is most common in the speeches and Epistles of St. Paul, but it occurs also in the Epistles of St. James and St. John and in the Revelation of St. John. The imagery is taken from the Greek games which occupied such a large place in Greek life and were invested with almost religious significance. The four great festivals were the Isthmian, the Nemean, the Olympian, and the Pythian games. Of these the Olympian were pre-eminent in theory, being the chief national festival of the Greeks, and in practice they outlasted all the others, continuing to be celebrated till the reign of Theodosius. But when the Epistles of St. Paul were written the chief interest of Greece was in the Isthmian games, which also from their proximity to Corinth were likely to supply the Apostle with the metaphors of the foot-race, the pugilistic contest, and the prize, of which he makes frequent use. The Isthmian games were held on the Isthmus of Corinth, in a grove of pine-trees sacred to Poseidon, near the shrines of the Isthmian Poseidon and Melicertes, in the first month of spring, in the second and fourth year of each Olympiad. The contests consisted of gymnastic exercises, horse races, and competitions in music. Besides the customary palm the prize in Pindar’s time consisted of a wreath of dry σέλινον (often translated ‘parsley,’ but more probably identical with the ‘wild celery’-apium graveolens). After the destruction of Corinth, a crown of pine-leaves was substituted for it. The Nemean games, which were celebrated in the valley of Nemea in the territory of the Argive town Cleonae, consisted of gymnastic, equestrian, and musical contests. The prize was a palm-branch and a garland of fresh σέλινον. The Olympian games, held in honour of Zeus at Olympia in the Peloponnesian district of Pisatis, consisted of foot-races, chariot-races, leaping, quoit and spear throwing, wrestling and boxing; and the prize was a wreath of the leaves of the sacred wild olive, said to have been originally planted by Heracles, which had been cut with a golden knife. The Pythian games, held on the Crissaean plain below Delphi, consisted of gymnastic and athletic contests similar to those held at Olympia, with the addition of musical ceremonies. The prizes were a wreath from the sacred bay-tree in the Vale of Tempe and a palm-branch (Seyffert, Dict. Class. Ant., pp. 326, 413, 427, 531).
It was doubtless these games, more particularly the Isthmian games, that suggested to St. Paul the comparison of the Christian life to a race and to a boxing-match, and led him to insist on the need for discipline and self-denial in order to gain success. And it is from these games that he borrows the figure of the prize which awaits the successful runner of the Christian race. In two passages (1 Corinthians 9:24, Philippians 3:14) the term used is βραβεῖον, the word regularly employed to denote the award to the victor in the games, a prize (Grimm-Thayer_, s.v.). It is also used by Clem. Rom. Ep. ad Cor. i. 5, ὑπομονῆς βραβεῖον; cf. Mart. Polyc. 17, and Tatian, ad Graec. 33. The word occurs in its Latin dress, bravium or brabium, in Tertullian, in the translation of Irenaeus, and in the Latin versions of the Scriptures. In 1 Corinthians 9:25, 2 Timothy 4:8, James 1:12; 1 Peter 5:4, Revelation 2:10; Revelation 3:11 the word used is στέφανος, meaning ‘wreath’ or ‘garland,’ such as was given as a prize to victors in the public games (Grimm-Thayer_, s.v.), whilst in 2 Timothy 2:5 the verb στεφανοῦται is used with the same reference. That the metaphor was borrowed from the Greek games is evident from 1 Corinthians 9:24-25, where not only is mention made of οἱ ἐν σταδίῳ τρέχοντες, but the φθαρτὸς στέφανος won by the successful competitor in the games is contrasted with the ἄφθαρτος στέφανος aimed at by the Christian.
The nature of the ἄφθαρτος στέφανος set before the Christian is further defined in the NT. In 2 Timothy 4:8 it is described as ὁ τῆς δικαιοσύνης στέφανος, ‘the crown or garland which belongs to, or is the due reward of, righteousness’; in James 1:12 and Revelation 2:10 as τὸν στέφανον τῆς ζωῆς, ‘the crown or garland which consists of eternal life’ (cf. 1 Timothy 6:12); and in 1 Peter 5:4 as τὸν ἀμαράντινον τῆς δόξης στέφανον, ‘the crown or garland consisting of glory which will never fade,’ in contrast to the garlands of σέλινον, olive, laurel, or pine won by the competitors in the games, which withered sooner or later. βραβεῖον is described in Philippians 3:14 as τὸ βραβεῖον τῆς ἄνω κλήσεως τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, ‘the prize of God’s high call in Christ Jesus’ (J. Moffatt, The New Testament: A New Translation, London, 1914, ad loc.).
That the prospect of winning this prize is a legitimate motive in inciting the Christian to exert himself to the utmost in the Christian ἄγων and δρόμος is implied in 2 Timothy 4:7-8, where it is evident that St. Paul was inspired to fight the good fight, to finish the course, to keep the faith, by the hope of having τὸν τῆς δικαιοσύνης στέφανον bestowed on him by the righteous Judge at that day: and it is explicitly asserted by him in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 and Philippians 3:12-14. In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 St. Paul, taking the foot-race as his illustration, says in effect to his readers, ‘It is not enough merely to run-all run; but as there is only one who is victorious, so you must run, not with the slowness of the many, but with the energy of the one’ (Stanley, ad loc.). ‘In the Christian race there is no competition. The prize is within the reach of all. But then each runner must be as much in earnest as though there were competition and only one prize. And this is what the Apostle expresses. He does not say “run so-in such a way-as to obtain”-but, “run so-as those runners run-in order that ye may obtain.” In their case there is rivalry, and therefore they are in earnest. In your case there is no rivalry; but their earnestness of purpose is an example to you’ (Howson, Metaphors of St. Paul, pp. 151, 152). When St. Paul adds (1 Corinthians 9:25), ‘They do it to win a fading crown, we do it for an unfading,’ he makes still clearer the reference to the Greek games, and also the legitimacy of the desire for the prize as a motive to Christian exertion. According to his teaching in this passage the hope of the prize conduces to earnestness of purpose, self-restraint, definiteness of aim, and persevering effort. The same truths are expressed in Philippians 3:12-14, where, speaking of himself, St. Paul says, ‘I press on, if so be that I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus.… One thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize (βραβεῖον) of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,’ where the imagery and terminology are plainly borrowed from the Greek games, more particularly the foot-race, and where the prospect of the βραβεῖον nerves the Apostle to press on and reach forward toward the goal. In agreement with this is Revelation 2:10, where the hope of receiving τὸν στέφανον τῆς ζωῆς is held out as a reason for being faithful unto death; and also Revelation 3:11, where the angel of the Church in Philadelphia is exhorted to hold fast ‘that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown’ (τὸν στέφανόν σου). Thus all the passages in the writings of the Apostolic Church in which reward is represented as a prize (βραβεῖον) or garland of victory (στέφανος) uniformly teach that the hope of winning the prize or garland is a legitimate motive in stimulating the Christian to greater earnestness and faithfulness and persevering effort.
Literature.-O. Seyffert, Dict. Class. Ant., ed. Nettleship and Sandys, London, 1902; Liddell and Scott’s Gr.-Eng. Lex., Oxford, 1869; Grimm-Thayer_, Gr.-Eng. Lex. of the NT2, Edinburgh, 1890; J. B. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, pt. i. [London, 1890] vol. ii.; R. Mackintosh, art._ ‘Reward’ in DCG_; Exp_, 2nd ser., i. [1881] 401, 7th ser., x. [1910] 97, 224; W. J. Conybeare-J. S. Howson, The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, London, 1870, vol. ii. ch. xx.; J. S. Howson, Metaphors of St. Paul, do., 1870; Comm. on passages quoted, esp. A. P. Stanley, The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians3, do., 1865, where notes on 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 are of special value.
J. W. Slater.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Prize'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/p/prize.html. 1906-1918.
