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Bible Dictionaries
Silver (2)
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (ἄργυρος, ἀργύριον, Lat. argentum; from ἀργός, ‘shining’)
Silver is one of the precious or ‘noble’ metals, used from the earliest times as a means of exchange and adornment. With the exception of gold, it is the most malleable and ductile of all substances. Gold was ‘estimated at thirteen times the value of silver’ (Herod. iii. 95), but the proportion varied considerably at different periods.
1. Articles of silver are mentioned among the costly wares sold in the market of the apocalyptic Babylon-Imperial Rome (Revelation 18:12). As this metal has a perfect metallic lustre and takes a very high polish, it was often used for mirrors. The aquila, or standard of the Roman legion, was of silver (Cic. in Cat. i. ix. 24). ‘Milites argentati’ were soldiers whose shields were covered or plated with silver (Livy, ix. 40). In a great house there were many ‘vasa argentea’ (2 Timothy 2:20, Vulg. [Note: Vulgate.] ; cf. Hor. Sat. ii. 7, 72 f.). Rome’s principal supply of silver came from southern Spain. The Maccabees heard what the conquering race ‘did in the land of Spain, that they might become masters of the mines of silver and gold which were there’ (1 Maccabees 8:3). Strabo (iii. ii. 10), quoting Polybius, says that 40,000 men were regularly employed in the silver mines of New Carthage (Carthagena), which yielded daily to the Roman people a revenue of 25,000 drachmae.
2. As silver was the everyday medium of exchange in the ancient world, the Gr. ἀργύριον, like the Heb. כֶּסֶף, frequently denoted money (cf. Fr. argent). When Simon the Magian offered Peter money (χρήματα) for the power to work miracles by the Holy Spirit, the Apostle answered, in horror of this ‘simony,’ or trafficking in sacred things, ‘Thy money (ἀργύριον, Revised Version ‘silver’) perish with thee.’ Xenophon (Cyrop. iii. i. 33) has the phrase εἰς ἀργύριον λογισθέντα, ‘calculated in our money,’ and ἀργύριον καθαρόν (Theocritus, xv. 36) meant ‘hard cash.’
3. The magical books which were publicly burned in Ephesus during St. Paul’s great mission there were priced at 50,000 [pieces] of silver (ἀργυρίον μυριάδας πέντε, Acts 19:19). The coin understood is the drachma or denarius. When Rome became mistress of the Hellenic world, she allowed the Attic coinage to be continued along with her own monetary system. Since the δραχμή and the denarius were practically equal in value, they became convertible terms. As the denarius-drachma (translated ‘shilling’ in the American Revised Version ) was about 9½d., the books destroyed were worth nearly £2000. Many silver shrines, or miniatures of the temple of Diana, were made and sold in the same city. A gild of silversmiths (ἀργυροκόποι, cf. Septuagint Judges 17:4, Jeremiah 6:29), of which Demetrius was probably the president during the last year of St. Paul’s residence at Ephesus, made their living largely by this lucrative business.
4. In depicting the fate of rich men, James (James 5:3) says that their gold and silver are ‘rusted’ (κατίωται). This is not strictly accurate, as both of these metals have the property of resisting corrosion; but silver is readily blackened or tarnished in an atmosphere of sulphuretted hydrogen.
Literature.-Article ‘Argentum’ in W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1848; W. Jacob, Inquiry into Production and Consumption of the Precious Metals, 1831.
James Strahan.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Silver (2)'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/silver-2.html. 1906-1918.
