Abarim Publications' online Biblical Greek Dictionary
κυρος κυριος
The important nouns κυρος (kuros), authority, and κυριος (kurios), man of authority or "lord", appear to be the result of two separate forces of verbal formation: (1) the Proto-Indo-European root "kewh-", meaning to swell or be strong, and (2) the Sabine word "curis" meaning spear, which was a widely accepted mark of formal authority (says professor Tamas Notari in The Spear as the Symbol of Property and Power in Ancient Rome, 2007).
It appears that the root "kewh-" is the actual ancestor of κυρος (kuros), and the word "curis" a kind of adoptive one: an attractor upon which our words gravitated and settled. A closely comparable mechanism yielded ethnonyms like Saxons and Franks; a seax was a kind of knife and a franca was a javelin that demonstrated a person's social eminence. A person whose social status was annulled had "lost his spear" and was thus disenfranchised. Was his social status uncompromised, he could be frank and free, and speak frankly to whoever he wanted without scruples.
The most fundamental meaning of our root "kewh-" is that of gathering or accumulation but in a harmonic or cooperative sense and specifically purposed to result in the formation of a single unified product. Another important word that comes from this same root is the verb κυω (kuo), to be pregnant, which looks strikingly similar to the noun κυων (kuon), meaning dog.
Also note that the Hebrew word for man, namely אדם ('adam), closely relates to the noun אדמה ('adama), soil or earth, and that the word for a large heap of that, הר (har), mountain, is also used to imply a gathering of people in the sense of their culture (the "mountain" of such-and-such). Closely related to noun הר (har), mountain, is the verb הרה (hera), to be pregnant.
How to get pregnant
Pregnancy results from the physical union of a male and a female parent — and note that in gendered languages and cultures that live closely to the natural order, masculinity tends toward the single, law-enforcing governmental core of society (the king, the lead bull or stallion, the husband, God), whereas femininity tends toward the collective, spontaneous and artistic whole of it (the people, the herd, the wife, the Bride). Not all unions between the masculine and feminine result in pregnancy, not all pregnancy is carried full term, and not all infants survive into maturity. But when it does, the result is rather miraculous even though it happens often and has happened to the vast majority of animals alive on earth (note that colonization, hugely favored by Greeks and Phoenicians, is a form of asexual reproduction at the societal level).
Our root "kewh-" does not emphasize a mere accumulation or union but rather the result of the productive equilibrium within the accumulation. The ancients were wholly aware that being pregnant is a wholly other matter than simply being fat, and that likewise a properly governed people is a whole other matter than a people simply very rich. The ancients understood that a properly governed people might bring about something utterly beyond the formative grasp of either parent alone: no matter how perfect the most perfect king could be or how free the most perfect libertarian republic could get — that is course, unless it was indeed possible that a Virgin could be with child: see our article on Athens, and note that Athena's epithet Pallas is commonly derived from παλλακη (pallake), young girl, but may very well relate to παλλω (pallo), spear-holder.
Unlike the wolf (λυκος, lukos, this word is always masculine) or fox (αλωπηξ, alompex, this word is always feminine), the dog (κυων, kuon, may be conjugated either masculine or feminine) was willing to be domesticated (verb δαμαζω, damazo, means to tame; noun δαμαρ, damar, means wife; hence the name Damascus) and significantly help the shepherds (ποιμην, poimen) to control the herds.
The ancients realized that the quality of the harmony between the masculine and feminine aspects of society was proportional to the quality, and even genus, of the offspring. A well-governed, well-protected and well-provided for society that was very well-respected and very well allowed to do whatever it wished (within the legal), could bring forth things that not a single member of that society, nor its government, could have imagined.
First, of course, there was art of all sorts, through which people learned to express, explore and reveal themselves. Then there was language, which formed very much alike life itself, simply within the sea of interactions and random encounters of people who loved their neighbors as themselves and wanted to engage them and learn all about them: hence words like χαρις (charis), communal joy (Ephesians 2:8: "by charis you have been saved"), and χορος (choros), choir. And along all this came technology: no significant technological innovation was ever "ordered" by some king but always dawned within the minds of inquisitive inventors who were free to tinker with whatever the fancied tinkering with. The ancients realized that it is freedom-guaranteed-by-law, that is the most productive thing in the universe ("where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom", 2 Corinthians 3:17) — see our article on ελευθερια (eleutheria), freedom-by-law.
The Proto-Indo-European root "teks-" means to weave, and weaving was the first actual expression of human industry, which required an unusually complex harmony of technical and artistic skills, as well as animal husbandry and government: there had to be property law and thus law enforcement and societal stratification — see our article on the adjective αρτιος (artios), meaning precisely right, and the noun αρτος (artos), bread. These two word come from the same root that gave English words like art and artisan but also armor and arms: the attributes of war.
From this ancient root "teks-", meaning to weave, stem our English words textile, technology and (significantly) text. From the same root "teks-" also came the Greek noun τεκτων (tekton), which means artisan or "assembler" and describes the profession of Jesus and Joseph (usually incorrectly translated as "carpenter"). Closely related to this noun meaning assembler is the noun τεκνον (teknon), meaning child. In the old world, people considered their children to be "woven" together in the womb ("you wove me in my mother's womb", Psalm 139:13), just as much as a society's total technological and artistic output was considered its "child" ("to us a child is born, to us a son is given", Isaiah 9:6).
As masterfully described in the gospels, Jesus of Nazareth embodies the highest quality offspring a society can ever hope to bring forth. Ostensibly born in Bethlehem (which means both House of Bread and House of War; as noted above, also in Indo-European, the words art and armor are closely related), Jesus had an earthly and human mother, Mary, but she was a Virgin, like Athena, because Jesus' father was not human but none other than the Creator himself: the One whose eternal Oneness is the single one thing that governs the whole of existence but is itself not part of existence, that which preserves the perfect balance of all things within existence and which insists on Freedom-By-Law as the highest ideal within existence.
The mystery that the ancients pondered was how to shepherd a human society from the animalistic survival of the fittest, a lifestyle in which very little sophistication can hope to flourish, to one whose sensibilities are so highly developed that it may bring about the physical Body of a Divine Son, who draws his breath from the very Spirit of God.
The obvious first step was to do away with single human kings and form a Republic that is governed out of a senate of learned men, albeit men who were also able to protect society with an armed guard around it. This armed guard around society consisted of dedicated soldiers equipped with shields and spears (both defensive weapons) and a sword (an offensive weapon): two rings, one inner and one outer, both alike a crown of thorns.
Lords of Creation
It's not clear where the Sabine noun curis meaning spear comes from, but the chances are excellent that it stems from the Proto-Indo-European root "ker-", meaning to grow or become bigger (hence too the familiar Latin verb creo, from which English gets the verb to create). Root "ker-" and root "kewh-" are clearly not dissimilar and may very well have consolidated in our words κυρος (kuros) and κυριος (kurios).
It's not entirely clear who the Sabines were or what qualities their language possessed, but from the surviving words and names it seems that they were Indo-European. Still, long before the founding of Rome, the Mediterranean world was largely Semitic and was dominated by the Phoenicians and their empire based on trade. But long distance trade is not the only thing the Phoenicians had to offer: the alphabet as we know it was a Phoenician invention, the Hebrew alphabet, from which the Greek and Latin ones derive (and without which there would have been no Roman Republic or Empire, or famous Greek philosophy or even democracy). As we demonstrate in our article on the many Hebrew roots of the Greek language, not only the alphabet was imported into the Indo-European language basin but also a slew of handy terms and ideas. And that may have included the very idea of an enlightened Republic.
The Greeks and Illyrians had thoroughly colonized the south of Italy (see our article on the Appian Way), and as became widely celebrated in Virgil's Aeneid, the founders of Roman royalty came from survivors of the Trojan war. And although the Trojans are thought to have been Indo-European, it's by no means impossible that the Sabines were original Semitic, and had perhaps even grown out of a seed-population that was little more than a trading outpost, or a scouting camp. The verb סבב (sabab) means to go around or exist in some circular way. Not unlike our PIE roots "ker-" and "kewh-", the verb צבא (saba') means to means to swell up, but tends to describe a growing, or rather a getting better organized of a closely knit team or group. Noun צבא (saba') describes a group that functions internally and externally as a distinct unit: a team, a league, a sodality, a collective, an army division (hence the theonym Sabaoth, or "of hosts").
Taking all this into consideration, we here at Abarim Publications strongly suspect that our word κυρος (kuros) most crucially relates to the Hebrew verb כרר (karar), which describes making a circular motion, and particularly a repeated circular motion whilst forming something within the circle so formed. We further suspect that this same Hebrew verb gave rise to the noun κουρος (kouros), meaning son, as well as the names Corinth and Crete.
The Christ and the Spear
The tribes of ancient Rome were ruled by a proto-senate called curia, and it's probably no coincidence that Jesus was made to wear a "crown of thorns" and that his death was demonstrated by a spear. The word Christ means Person Without Earthly Superior, and much of humanity's trouble began when certain folks took it upon themselves to rule others. The proverbial first to do so was Cain, and his name indeed means Spear.
Our noun κυρος (kuros) describes authority or someone with supreme power, but with the important nuance of political or collective power. This noun does not express physical or military potency but social and mostly consensual power; it describes the kind of power that requires a society to exist, and is commonly asserted not by the odd demonstration of superiority but with a continuous display of symbols and regalia and of course the compliance of the people ruled. Mere ruling by merit of being powerful is mostly expressed by the noun κρατος (kratos; hence the familiar name Pantokrator), but our noun κυρος (kuros) has to do with the kind of government that finds itself naturally produced by the wider desires of a society that's becoming increasingly complex: a government from the people, for the people and by the people. Our noun κυρος (kuros) is closely akin another obvious kur-word, namely the verb κυρεω (kureo), which expresses agreement or social resonance, and carries a subtone of achieving social success and status.
Neither of the previous two words made it into the Bible, but a handful of derivations of κυρεω (kureo) did:
- The ubiquitous noun κυριος (kurios), meaning sir, mister, master, lord or Lord. It occurs 745 times in the New Testament; see full concordance. See below for a discussion of this noun and its derivatives.
- The verb κυροω (kuroo), meaning to acknowledge or demonstrate the inherent authority of someone or something; to validate, prove or confirm something so that it can be believed or accepted by more people. In that sense this verb means to substantiate (2 Corinthians 2:8 and Galatians 3:15 only). From this verb come:
- Prefixed with the particle of negation α (a): the verb ακυροω (akuroo), meaning to de-authorize, make void or deflate. Jesus uses this verb to state what the Pharisees did with the Word of God (Matthew 15:6, Mark 7:13). In Galatians 3:17 this verb occurs a third time, but now in tandem with the next.
- Together with the preposition προ (pro), meaning before: the verb προκυροω (prokuroo), meaning to ratify earlier (Galatians 3:17 only).
κυριος
From the verb κυρεω (kureo) derives the important noun κυριος (kurios), which reflects the same spear-carrying and social sense as the parent verb. The social power structures of the ancient world obviously worked different than our modern ones, but the noun κυριος (kurios) is actually surprisingly parallel with our words "sir" (which is short for "sire", which in turn is short for "senior" and means "elder" in the honorary and governmental sense) and "mister" (which is the same as "master", which comes from the Latin term of authority magister, which in turn comes from the same root as the familiar prefix mega-).
Our noun may be used as an appellation and then generally expresses natural respect for one's actual or implied social status (on a par with our "sir" or "mister"). But it may also be used as a substantive, in which case it means something like "gentleman". Our word denotes, or implies to denote, someone authorized or something validated, legitimated, ratified or substantiated when it's applied to a statement or something like that.
But the key point is that this word expresses inherent authority rather than assigned or forcibly wrought authority — it originally described the alpha male of a small tribe or household (and as such is on a par with the Hebrew word אב, ab, or "father") and although an alpha status must obviously be acquired by demonstration, once that is done this status remains in place by the merit of social consensus. Obviously, in more complex societies, the alpha male is the wiser one rather than the stronger one, but wisdom is demonstrated by results just the same (Luke 7:35).
It's precisely this natural selective principle that is referred to when Jesus amazed the people, teaching, not alike the scribes but having authority (Matthew 7:29) and although the word used here is εξουσιαζω (exousiazo), it actually illustrates our word kurios' second important nuance, namely that the kurios is an intimate part of the society he so fatherly governs. The kurios is the alpha male of the group he himself grew up in, or whose members are all his closest family or offspring. He's the kind of leader who loves his people because they are his own, and his people love him for the same reason. The word kurios does not refer to a distant windbag who does little beyond appropriating "his" people's tax money but carries the spirit that make people say abba, father (Romans 8:15, Galatians 4:6), or pant it in the ear of the husband they are crazy about (1 Peter 3:6). It's the kind of authority that comes from love and admiration, the kind that takes a people places, that brings about offspring, prosperity and great joy.
Our word kurios, significantly, refers to someone who's just one or two rungs higher up on the social ladder. It's what a private would say to a sergeant or a colonel to a general, but it is not what a private would say to a general.
Kurios Theos — mister God
In Greek mythology the word kurios was only very sporadically applied to the deity, simply because the Greek gods were far removed from humanity and interfered rather than co-existed with them. And when it was applied to Zeus, it referred to him being the Olympian alpha rather than humanity's. Judaic Christianity, with its baffling epithet Kurios Theos caused such a global revolution because it proclaimed the Almighty to also be humanity's kurios: one of us, and intimately involved with humanity because he is human! His government is one of the natural laws upon which we were designed to operate and he is our kurios not because he pummels us into submission but because we have the maturity to freely recognize his alpha qualities and subsequently ask him to govern our lives (Romans 1:20, Isaiah 9:6).
The men who wrote the Septuagint replaced God's personal name YHWH first with the Hebrew name Adonai (from the word אדן, adon, meaning sir) and subsequently with the Greek kurios and that is why our English Bibles speak of "Lord" all over the Old Testament. This is really quite unfortunate, since the name YHWH refers to natural reality and the Way Things Are rather than to a social structure or human government — Hebrew theology was never a religion in the modern sense of the word but rather a form of proto-science (1 Kings 4:33-34, Romans 1:20). The literary character of Jesus Christ, on the other hand, is much more politically charged, also because the epithet Christ belonged to the king of Israel, and early Christianity, with its many responses to Roman imperial theology, was as much a political movement as a theological one.
Still, our translations speak of "Lord", which in modern English defines a category of dignity nearly wholly reserved for the divine, and which forces a distinction between human and divine dignity which may not exist. Or in other words: the people who wrote the Bible spoke of mister God and mister Jesus in the same way as they would mention a mister Bob or mister Mike. This may seem a bit blasphemous to the English ear but in many languages the Almighty is addressed with the common word for mister or sir (to mention a few: Dutch: Heer; German: Herr, Spanish: Senor; Serbian: Gospodin; Polish: Pan). It's not always overly emphasized what a miraculous and revolutionary thing that is, but it is. It's like calling outer space your back yard, and it demonstrates a level of theological maturity that is virtually unique in the mythological world. It's the kind of maturity that allows a person to see himself as a capable, authorized and responsible co-regent of reality together with the Creator (John 15:15, 2 Timothy 2:12, Ephesians 2:6).
The Greek authors of the Bible addressed the deity with the word with which anybody would address anybody else out of general sense of manners, but also the word that expresses active and involved leadership of any kind, from your local shift supervisor to (on rare occasions) a distant emperor. Hence our word has no equivalent in English, but overlaps with words like sir, gentleman, mister, master, boss, manager, employer, leader and even governor. Here at Abarim Publications we try to maintain some degree of consistency by translating the single forms of our word mostly with "lord", the plural with "masters" and the vocative forms with "sir" and "gentlemen". The feminine forms of our word we dub "mistress" and the vocative "lady".
In the New Testament, our noun is applied to:
- YHWH (Matthew 4:7, Acts 7:49, James 4:15), sometimes in conjunction with familiar epithets such as Sabaoth (Romans 9:29, James 5:4), Pantokrator (2 Corinthians 6:18), and in the familiar phrase Lord of lords (Kurios ton kurieuonton; 1 Timothy 6:15).
- Jesus Christ (Matthew 17:4, John 4:1, 1 Corinthians 9:5, and of course many more locations).
- The Roman emperor, but note that he was called kurios by procurator Festus whilst speaking to king Agrippa (Acts 25:26).
- Certain real but not further specified powers or else cultural manifestations, known by some as gods (1 Corinthians 8:5).
- People whose social rank allowed them to direct or instruct others: a property owner (Matthew 20:8, Galatians 4:1), a slave owner (Matthew 10:24, Acts 16:16), the head of a household (Matthew 15:27), a husband (1 Peter 3:6).
- A curiously plural bunch of owners or exploiters (kurioi), for instance of the one donkey foal upon which Jesus entered Jerusalem (Luke 19:33), or of the Philippian slave girl Paul was forced to deal with (Acts 16:19).
- In this sense our noun may be used to describe the manager of a process (manager of the harvesting process; Matthew 9:38) or the master of a ceremony or host of a feast (of the Sabbath; Matthew 12:8).
- Anyone who required to be addressed with the respect due to one's status: a servant his master (Matthew 13:27), a son his father (Matthew 21:30), a pupil his teacher (Matthew 8:25), dignitaries among each other (Matthew 27:63), or a stranger in conversation (Mark 7:28, John 4:11).
From our noun κυριος (kurios) come the following derivatives:
- The feminine κυρια (kuria), meaning mistress (2 John 1:1 and 1:5 only).
- The adjective κυριακος (kuriakos), meaning of or belonging to a kurios; lordly or masterly (1 Corinthians 11:20 and Revelation 1:10 only).
- The verb κυριευω (kurieuo), meaning to have or exercise authority over (Luke 22:25, Romans 14:9, 2 Corinthians 1:24). This word is also used to describe the dominion of death (Romans 6:9) or sin (Romans 6:14) or law (Romans 7:1). This word is used 7 times, see full concordance, and from it derives:
- Together with the prefix κατα (kata), meaning down: the verb κατακυριευω (katakurieuo), meaning to overpower or subdue. This word occurs 4 times; see full concordance.
- The noun κυριοτης (kuriotes), meaning authority or dominion. This word appears to have been associated with a certain level of civil authority, some kind of civil servant or perhaps the whole of the bureaucratic machine. Some commentators demand that this word denotes some kind of angelic genus, but that is with very little merit. It occurs 4 times; see full concordance.