🔼The name Hermogenes: Summary
- Meaning
- Begotten Of Hermes, Begotten Of A New Word, Begotten Of A Boundary Breaking
- Etymology
- From (1) the name Hermes and hence the verb ερμηνευω (hermeneuo), to interpret or explain, and (2) the verb γινομαι (ginomai), to begin to be.
🔼The name Hermogenes in the Bible
The name Hermogenes occurs only once in the Bible. In his second (extant) letter to his young friend Timothy, Paul grimly observes that he somehow managed to have all who were with him in Asia turn away from him, including Phygelus and Hermogenes (2 Timothy 1:15).
Whether Paul repelled these people by being charmless or whether their theology didn't agree with his is not told, but in the hectic days of the first century, and especially as early as during Paul's missionary journeys, Christianity was a mere minute player in the much larger arena of theological and philosophical thought (see our articles on Stoics and Epicureans).
🔼Etymology of the name Hermogenes
The name Hermogenes consists of two elements. The first part comes from the name Hermes, which may have to do with the following words:
ερμηνευω
The verb ερμηνευω (hermeneuo) means to interpret, explain or translate, and emphasizes the crossing of borders (i.e. between language areas or schools of thought). It's obviously related to hermeneutics, or the branch of knowledge that deals with theories of interpretation.
The second part of our name comes from the verb γινομαι (ginomai), meaning to be, begin to be, or to be born:
γινομαι
The verb γινομαι (ginomai) means to begin to be, or begin to be in a certain state or condition. It's often used to mean to be born, but also to become something, start bearing fruit or the coming about of day or night. It may be used to mean to cause to begin, and thus to create or to perform, or even simply as to happen or to occur.
This important verb is the root of familiar words like γενεα (genea), generation, γενεαλογια (genelogia), genealogy, γενεσις (genesis), origin, and γενος (genos), offspring or family.
🔼Hermogenes meaning
The name Hermogenes means Begotten Of Hermes (says Spiros Zodhiates in his The Complete Wordstudy Dictionary), but more completely would be Begotten Of A New Word.