🔼The name Thaddaeus: Summary
- Meaning
- Breast Boy
- You Deck Yourself Out, You Prowl, Man Of Testimony
- Etymology
- From תדי (taddai), a variant of שד (shad), breast.
- From the root עדד ('adad), having to do with repetition.
🔼The name Thaddaeus in the Bible
The name Thaddaeus belongs to one of the twelve disciples of Jesus (mentioned in Matthew 10:3 and Mark 3:18 only), who was also named Lebbaeus. Why Thaddaeus was also called Lebbaeus is a mystery, because even though these names may roughly refer to the same physical area (Thaddaeus to the breast, Lebbaeus to the heart), these names are still quite different. It's like giving someone named Foot the nickname Hoof.
Rather strikingly, the majority of names in the New Testament more or less obviously also link the story in which they occur to a famous namesake (see for instance our articles on Onesimus, Pyrrhus, Zacharias), but our name Thaddaeus appears to be unattested before it appeared in the gospel. The name Lebbeus, likewise, is new.
Nothing more is known about Thaddaeus, but post-Biblical tradition holds him to be the same as Jude.
🔼Etymology of the name Thaddaeus
The etymology of Thaddaeus is not clear and those popularly offered don't really satisfy.
Our name is most commonly explained to be an equivalent or paraphrase of the name Lebbaeus, and this wouldn't be unthinkable since in the Bible many characters have multiple names (for instance: Peter a.k.a. Cephas; Saul a.k.a. Paul, Joseph Barsabbas a.k.a. Justus). However, the vast majority of double names are translations or adaptations or blatant replacements across languages (from Hebrew or Aramaic into Greek or Latin), whereas Thaddaeus and Lebbaeus are both explained to derive from Aramaic words.
The name Lebbaeus is thought to derive from לבב (lebab), meaning heart (or courage), whereas Thaddaeus is thought to be a Greek transliteration of the Aramaic name תדאי (Taddai), in turn thought to derive from the noun תדא (tadda), meaning [female] breast. This latter word is a known but relatively rare Aramaic variant of the much more common word שד (shad), meaning the same.
Why Aramaic needed a variant of this word שד (shad), which also exists as-is in Aramaic, isn't clear. But perhaps, this variant תדא (tadda) — as used in Talmudic commentaries on for instance Genesis 49:25, "blessings of the breasts and the womb" — was adopted to detract from words that are spelled the same or highly similar to the word שד (shad), any of which may have inspired almost a dozen Biblical names, including the important but mysterious theonym Shaddai:
שדד
The verb שדד (shadad) means to deal violently with, ruin or destroy. Noun שד (shad) or שוד (shud) means havoc, violence or devastation.
An identical verb, which in the middle ages was pointed slightly different, is שדד (sadad), which describes the harrowing of a field: to act violently upon a field. Whether formally related or not, the noun שדמה (shedema) means field, and nouns שדי (saday) and שדה (sadeh) do too, and may denote either a cultivated field or a wild one, where wild animals live.
Speaking of wild animals, the noun שד (shed) is a loan word but its adoption was probably lubricated by the similar words treated above. It describes a mythological creature, namely the entity called sedu, a kind of protecting spirit depicted as a winged bull, in essence not unlike the more familiar genius and daemon. Note the similarity between this word שד (shed) and the noun שד (shad), meaning havoc.
Slightly more surprising, a third identically spelled noun, שד (shad), describes the mammalian breast, whether human or animal. This noun is assumed to stem from an unused verb שדה (shadeh), meaning to moisten in cognate language, which is identical to the assumed verb that yields the nouns שדי (saday) and שדה (sadeh), meaning field, suggesting an emphasis on natural irrigation.
In cognate languages, these same nouns also mean [wet] mountain, and beside the link between a moist, fruitful mountain and a milk dispensing breast: milk is dispensed to infants, whereas the belief in supernatural bullies is a mark of an immature mind.
The continued problem is that both these words לבב (lebab), meaning heart and שד (shad), breast, exist identically both in Hebrew and Aramaic, and it remains unexplained why this person needed two names in the same language, one of which derives from a rare variant of a much more common original. One solution is to abandon the idea that these two names are synonymous, and that our name Thaddeus rather stems from an unattested noun, or else a simple second or third person (which would explain the leading ת, taw) of any of the following verbs:
עדד
Root עדד ('adad) describes a repeated passing by or over, or a repeated encountering. Noun עדה ('idda) describes any well-worn item.
Verb עדה ('ada I) means to advance or pass on. Nouns עד ('ad) and ועד (w'ad) describe the difficult concept of a future era advancing upon the now, or else the prey or booty upon which a predator advances. The conjunction עד ('ad) or עדי ('ady) means "as far as" or until.
The same verb, namely עדה ('ada II) is used to mean to adorn or ornament oneself — that is: to have items approach the canvas of one's bulk in order to testify of some social rank or perhaps the trade or order one belongs to. Noun עדי ('adi) means ornamentation: fancy or declarative things worn on one's body or clothes.
Verb יעד (ya'ad) means to meet, habitually and repeatedly rather than incidentally. Noun עדה ('eda) means congregation or some other joint collective. Nouns מועד (mo'ed), מועד (mo'ad) and מועדה (mu'ada) describe a place (or time) of meeting.
Verb עוד ('ud) means to return and repeat. Noun עוד ('od) denotes an addition, repetition or continuance. Nouns עד ('ed), עדה ('eda), עדה ('eda), עדת ('edut), עדות ('edut) and תעודה (te'uda) all mean witness or testimony in various nuances, and verb עוד ('ud) means to bear witness.
🔼Thaddaeus meaning
Our name Thaddaeus may indeed mean Breast Boy, perhaps to demonstrate his own immaturity (Suckling), or else that of his pupils (as in "I gave you milk": 1 Corinthians 3:2) or even to connect him to the entire human kosmos: see our article on γαλα (gala), milk. The Greek equivalent of our word for breast is μαστος (mastos). The "beating of one's breast" in demonstration of one's grief (Luke 23:48) was directed toward one's στηθος (stethos), which may actually have described one's lap rather than one's chest.
But our name may also derive from the group of words that have to do with a repeated passing or covering, and hence mean "You Adorn [Yourself]" (Jeremiah 4:30 and 31:4, Isaiah 61:10, Ezekiel 16:13, Hosea 2:13) or "Man Of Testimony", and even "You Advance [Upon Your Prey]", which would correspond to the noun לבי (lebi), lion, from which may come the name Lebbaeus.