Son of man

1. An expression occurring in both OT and NT, and used in the following applications. (1) A poet, synonym of ' man,' found in parallelism with ' man' (the word for ' man ' in the two clauses being in the original a ditlerent one). See the occurrences in § 6 ; and add Ps 144^" (for diiN-i^; II cin). (2) In Ezek. the title under which the prophet is regularly addressed by J", 2'- '3'-' and upwards of 90 times besides. Ezek. has a pro- found sense of the majesty of J" ; and the expression is no doubt intended to mark the distance which separated the prophet, as one of mankind, from Him. The title is borrowed from Kzek. in Dn 8". (3) In the vision in Dn 7 the glorious being whom Dan. sees brought ' with the clouds of heaven ' to the AJmightj', after the fourth beast (representing the empire of the Seleucid;c) is slain, to receive an everlasting and universal dominion (v."), is de- scribed as ' one like unto a son of man ' (Aram. 1;? cjK). The expression means simply a figure in human form. What the ligure was intended to denote has been the subject of much controversy. At an early date (see § II) it was undoubtedly in- terpreted of the Messiah, and the same view has been largely held down to the present time (e.q. by Ewald, Kiehin,and Bchrmann); but in the authors own interpretation of the vision (vv." ^) the 'saints of the Most High' take tlie place of tlie 'one like unto a son of man ' ; and this constitutes a strong ground for concluding that he himself understood by it the glorified and ideal people of Israel (see, further, the present writer's Comm. on Dan. p. 10311'.). The same exjiression in Greek (B^oioj iil(jj ivOpCmov : see RV) is applied also in Kev 1" 14" to the risen and gloriiied Christ. 2. The Son of man ' (i vlbi toO ivOfiwirov) is a designation of Christ, though one confined to the Gospels and Ac 7°", and, excejit Ac 7'" (where it occurs in Stephen's dying exclamation ), found only in the mouth of Christ Himself (the quota- tion in .In 12* forming no real exception). 3. Tlie following is a synopsis of the occurrences in the Synoptic Gospels, in the order given, or suggested, by St. Mark : — Ml 12" Hk 2» Lk 53 (hath authority on earth to forgive sins) (la lord of the sabbath) Mt l-.!aa. m. isasfj Lk 1210. 15" tl «a loaj (lOSSfU 128 1119 820 Iie"j 12-10 13" (S""! 7S4 9M 1-1130I 13« lOlS [SS'tl [9i8tl [1021(1 831 922 16" 83« »» 16» I9M] (82'tl 17» 98 [93') 1-ia 912 17ffl 931 9M 19ffl [1029»J I182S' 20H 1033 1831 2028 1D« let. 2227] ITU 24^ 17« 2430» (1328») (212'" 2430b ISM 2127 2136 24" ITM 24» P72I' 244« 2531 ICf. ISSSf) 263 (141-) 2C.24« 2U24I> 1421. 14211. 20« 12049') 1441 [14«-J 26« 1462 (28»'l [16«') (whosoever shall speak sword against the Son of man, etc.) (when men reproach you, etc, for the Son of man's sake) (shall not have finished the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come) (him shall the Son of man also confess before the ancrels of God^ (came eatini; and drinking) (hath not where to lay his head) (as Jonah was three days, etc. [Mt] ; as Jonah became a sign unto the Niiiev- ites, etc. [Lk]) (he that soweth the good seed \a the Son of man) || (will send forth his angels, etc.)H (who do men say that the Son of man is?) (must suffer many things, be killed, and rise again) (of him shall the Son of man bo ashamed, when he cometh in the glory, etc. [Mk, Lk] ; for the Son of man shall come in, etc. [Mt]) (shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming, etc.) (to tell the vision to no man till the Son of man be risen from the dead) (to suffer like Elijah [John the Bap- tist]) (shall be delivered Into the hands of men, etc., and [Mt, Slk] rise again) [18^] (in the regeneration, when the Son of man shall sit on the throne, etc.) (to be delivered to the chief priests, etc., and rise again) (to give his life a ransom for many) (when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man) (as the lightning . . . so shall be the coming of the Son of man) [2127"] (then shall appear the sign of the Son of man) (shall see the Son of man coming in (on) the clouds of heaven) (watch . . . that ye may be able . . . to stand before the Son of man) (as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man) p,727J ([as they were in those days . . .,] so shall be the coming, etc.) ([as the days of Lot . . .,] so shall it be in the day tliat the Son of man is revealed) (when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faitli on the earth Y) (came to sock and to save that wtiicb was lost) (in an hour that ye think not, etc.) (when the Son of man shall come in his glory) (after two days the passover cometh, and the Son of man is delivered, etc.) 2222f (goeth even as it is written of him) [22^11] (woe unto that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed) (is betrayed into the hands of sinners) (betrayeat thou the Son of man with a kiss Y) (from now ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power) (saying that the Son of man must be delivered, etc, and rise again) 17»o 188 IQio 1240 1221'] 22« 82«8 M7 30 14 26 = 69 timet • Cf. the words spoken by James, the brother of the Lord, lust before hiu martyrdom, u reported by iiegesippUB, ap. nueb. 11. 23 (see vol il. p. 642^). Mt 18" (I Lk 1610, though In a very different connexion). In Mt 2fjl3 the words in which the Son of man cometh,' and in Lk 9^ the clause ' For the Son of man came not to destroy men's lives but to save them,' are not in the best MSS ; cf. liVm on Mt lti>l, LkOW. The occurrences In the Fourth Gospel are Jn 1^ S'Si 62MAea 828 9» (kBD: cf. RVm), 1233.34 (gee 8» 8»), v.m 1331 (11 [or 12] times). None of these occurrences are parallel to any of those In the Synoptists. See, further, { 23. 4. If tlie occnrrences in the Synoptic Gospels are analyzed, it will be seen that tlie expression is attriuuted to Christ upon (probably) 40 distinct • The corresponding clause, or verse, entirely omitted (in Mk 828 either omitted or modified ; see p. 688). t 'Son of man' represented by a pron., or(&fk 01, Lk flST) by a paraphrase (' the kingdom of Cod '). J In instnictions to the disciples, attached to 10l-'*-l-Mk 07-ii = LkO»-0- j Observe that Lk ll»i>-both Mt 16 and Mt 12:», and thai Lkliai.8a=Mt 122-«i. S In the explanation of the parable of the Tares (no | lo Ilk, Lk^ ^80 SON OF MAN SON or MAN occasions, of wliicli 8 are reported bj- the three Gospels, 13 by two, and 19 by one. No instance is, however, reported in Mark which is not in one (or both) of the otlier two Gospels. The occasions fall naturally into two great gronps : (1) those in which the reference is to some aspect or other of the carthUj work of Christ, in the time of His humility (including, in particular, His sufferings and death) ; (2) those in which the reference is to His future co.nmrj in (jlory. It is important to bear in mind the ifact of tliese two applications of the expression ; for it has some bearing upon recent discussions of the subject. On the crucial passage, Mt 1613, see § 19. 5. Before, however, we can proceed to examine the meaning of the title, a prior question must be con- sidered, which has assumed, within recent years, great prominence. Jesus, it is not doubted, spoke, at least as a rule, not Greek hat A ramaic ; a proper method, therefore, it is urged, requires that we should begin by inquiring how the title Avould be expressed in Aramaic, and what meaning it would there possess. And when we proceed to trans- late back 6 ui6s tov dvOpwirov into Aramaic an unex- Eected and startling result discloses itself, which as involved students of the NT in great per- plexity. 6. Let us first, for clearness, explain briefly the usage of the expression in Biblical Hebrew. In Biblical Hebrew, din -js or oixn -ja ' sons of man' (or 'of men,' — onsj being a collective term) occurs frequently, — though not so frequently as ci!;(rt) alone, and chiefly in poet, and later Heb., — to denote mankind in general (Gn 10', 1 S 26'^ 2 S 7>S Ps ll^(°l 12'-8t, «» 14= etc.j.t The sing, din-js 'sen of man' {i.e. not son of an individual man, t ut son {i.e. member) of the germs man) also occurs, viz. (a) in the address to Ezekiel 2'- ' 3'- ', and more than 90 times besides (so also Dn 8" ; cf. Enoch 60'» 71") ; (i) occasionally in poet, parallelism with i:"n or c'i:N Nu 23'9, Is 5P 56% Jer 49'« ( = v.'O = 50"' = (nearly) 51«), Ps 8m 80"i'»» 146' (II Q-anj 'nobles'). Job 16=1 (II -na ' man ')t 25" 35». 7. In Aramaic mn is not found. § The term which, speaking generally, corresponds is b'jx, ayx (in some dialects contracted, without difference of meaning, to ai), in the status emphaticus (corre- sponding to the def. art. in Heb.) «?.;«, Kf'r!? (contr. KjJi). 'Enasha (ndshd) mostly denotes ' man ' in a general or collective sense, though it occurs occa- sionally (p. 582'') in an individual sense : 'enc'is/t, {ndsh), on the other hand, not infrequently pos- sesses an individual sense, and also often sinks to express nothing more than ns, or 'one' (as in ' every one,' ' no one '). In some Aramaic dialects, however, though not in all, ' son {or sons) of man (men) ' is common — in prose, and not merely, as in Heb., chiefly in poeti-y — in the ordinary sense of man (or men), (lie distinctive force of bnr, ' son,' being no longer felt. The following are the main details of this usage : — (a) Judaean Aramaic. — In Biblical Aramaic, the plur. 'JJ NyiN ' 80na of men ' occurs Dn 2^ 521 (< driven from the sons of men,'— interchanging with 'driven from men ' (nc:n), va.si. 83 (22. 2». SO)) : elsewhere 'endshii is used, 2-3 (' the seed of men ') ; 416 (13) (' changed from (the heart of) men'); 41'- 25 3J (14. 'Ji 29) 621; 425, 32.33(22.28. 80) (just quoted); 78 (' eyes Hke the eyes of men'): Ezr4ll(B':N determined by the foil. gen.). '£'«««/( occurs in the indeterm. sense of ' a man,' 65 6'- 12 (8 131 (• of any god or man '), T-i n ; and in ' every man," ' no man," 210 310 55 6'2 (13), • Holsten and Oort reckon 42 occiMions, distinguishing Lk II80 bom Mt wo, and MU 8^ Lk S» from Mt 1627. t So Bi' N -J? Ps 42 (3) 492 (3)i> 629 (10), La 333. J But read here prob. DHK |5' (' and between a man, and,' etc). JThe Targ., where it has Dix 13 (as in Ezek, for OiN-p, ftod occasionally besides), means ' son of Adam.' Ezr6ii. Bar ^m7sft, 'a son of man,' occursoniy in the passaa-e of which more will be said below, Dn T' 'one like unto a son 0} man.' In the Targ. of Onltelos the plur. ttVYK "33 occurs On 6' 11», Nu 2319, Dt 326-28; tile biiig. bar '^ndsh does not occur at all, 'man' — where it is not expressed by 'Qi, NH^a {vir) — being represented alwaj'8 by 'endsh, 'indshd. In the Targ. of Jonathan (on the prophets) the plur. 'J^ NV'l'N occurs at least 20 times (as 1 S 1529 io7. 7 2Jio 2619); •cni'isli freiiuently (as Jos 15 211 gn 108) ; bar 'fiulsh only Is 5112 (cod. Kcuchl., in ed. Lag., mx m] 662, Jer 491s- S3 6040 5143, Mic Sii — in each case being suggested directly by the Hebrew. (b) In Nabat(ean Aramaic (some 30 inscriptions, chiefly sepulchral, mostly of &-14 lines each, dating from B.C. 9 to A.D. 76),t bar '^ndnh does not occur at all. Enush, indah occur pretty frequently, very much as in Daniel, in ' every one; 'no one,' etc. (see CIS II. i. 1977 '2063-8 2095- « 2103- ' 2127 etc.). (c) Galiltxan Aramaic. — In the Palest. Talm. (3-4 cent, a.d.) bar nush (determ. bar ndshd) occurs with great frequency, and means simply a (single, individual) man, slsv/i "id nn ' a certain man (did so and so),' tfci "13 Kin ' that man,' xc: n3 |nn ' this man," and in a weakened sense, with a neg. or 73 ' all,' as ' h« went out eii -\2 nDiyfi x'^l and found no one,' ai n3i ci 11 Sj ( = late Heb. P'Nl B"N ^3) ' every one.' } Obviously, in all these cases it would be absurd to render bar-ndshifi) by 'son oj man.' In the Palest. Lectionary (the ' Evangeliarium Hierosoly- mitanum,' ed. Erizzo, 1861, ed. Lagarde, in his Bibl. Syr. 1892), of the 5th cent, a.d., the usage is similar ; barndish standing regularly for a man' (as B'313 'yn = oi^tjpairtin or Sti/dfitrref ris, Lk 225 433 66 1030 15" etc.) ; and larnashd (determ.) for i i.,Upi,Ti>l, as Mt 44 1235. 35 2624- 24, Lk 829- 33. 35 etc. The same usage prevails in the Palest. Targums on the Pent.§, and on the Hagiographa (c. 7lh cent, a.d.): see, for instance, bar ndsh in Lv 21 42 61-2.4. -jl etc. ('if a man do so and so ' : Onk. in all such passages iri'K), Ps 80i»>' (for [3 DTK) 1154 1185- 8 1443a. 4 etc. ; U and bar ndshd in ' that man,' Lv 720i>- 21b. art 174. 9 198 etc. (Onk. always sm'a), Ps 85- « 66" 6013 ii9i;:4. (d) In Syriac, bamdsk, bamdshd, in the meaning man,' are very common. Examples : for DIK Ex 1313, is 4413, Jer 26 1014, Ezk !»• 10- -6 108. 14, Dn 78 ; tor i»»euT«, Curet. and Pesh., Mt 44 1212 43 1511. 11. 18 196, Pesh. Mk S 37, Jn 226 r^'L 23. 23, and (in ' every man ') Ro 2^ 34 1218 i6i9 (i,V riii>T»f), and elsewhere. TI 8. It thus appears that bar nds/i{a) is a common Aramaic expression, in which the force of the ' son ' has been so weakened by time as virtually to have disappeared, so that it practically means nothing more nor less than man (homo, Mensch, — not vir). The natural Aramaic original of A uiis toO avdp. would, however, seem to be barndsha. If, now, our Lord spoke Aramaic, and denoted Himself by this expression, what meaning can He have in- tended to convey by it? To this question, which is by no means a simple one, different answers have been given. (1) C. B. E. Uloth, who, it seems, was the first to set himself to answer it, came to the conclusion that Jesus called Himself 'the man,' meaning by the expression to point to His creaturely frailty and humility. (2) Eerdmans argued that the expression was not in the days of Christ a Mess, title, and was not used by Him as such. In opposition to the prevalent Mess, expectations, Jesus called Himself ' the man,' meaning it to be understood that He • Of. Dalman, Aram. Dialektproben, 1896, p. 8 (from the Megillaih Ta'anith, of 1-2 cent. A.D.; see Oi. p. 82, Oramm. del Jud.-Pal. Aram.Tt. 7). t See Euting, Sab. Jnschriften (1885). ed. and tr., witli notes by Noldeke ; or CIS 11. i. 196-224 ; se\ cral also reprinted in Lidzbarski, Nordsem. Bpigr. pp. 450-456. J See numerous examples m Lietzmann, .34-7 ; and cf. Dal- man, Aram. Diatektproben, pp. 28-30. The usage of the Palest. Midrashim is similar {xb. p. 15 ff.). § In which bar ndshia) occurs much more frequently than would be supposed from the terms used by Dalman {Vie Wane Jemi, 194). n And so, in the ' Fragmentary ' (Palest.) Targ to the Pent., in the recension from a Paris MS edited by Oinsburger (1899), even in Gn 126 ([moia n -O ••\2i) : of. Ex 19" (for r'K ; Onlf. NoyK), Nu 12' ns'D '■\2V pj 133 n-S (in the Leipz. MS [p. 85) p:k 133). H On the Samaritan see Fiebig [} 24 end], p. 14 fl. •• Godgeleerde Biidragea, 1862, p. 467 ff. SON OF MAN SOX OF MAN 581 was a man, and not more. Translated literally into Greek, it was not understood, and under the influence of apocalyptic phraseology (Dn 7" etc.) made into a title of Christ. (3) Wellhauson, in 1S94 and 1897, also considered that Jesus intended by the term to speak of Him- self as 'the man,' meaniuir, however, by the ex- pression the one who completely fulfilled the idea of man, and who as such was in specially close relation to the Father ; and the early Christians, not understanding how He could have so described Himself, in translating rendered barnaxha falsely by A vlbi Tov di/dputirov instead of by 6 AvOpojiros : tlie expression was thus brought into connexion with Dn 7", and so became a standing Messianic desig- nation of Christ.t (4) Arnold Meyer J called attention to the fact that in Aramaic, in particular in the Aramaic spoken in Galilee, it was not unusual for a person to speak of liim- (or her-) self as ' this man,' ' this woman '(k"i:j xinn, Knn'K tcnnjig and also that there are, even in the OT, passages in which, tliou^h the general term ' man ' is used, the reference is clearly to the speaker (Job 3^ IG'-') ; and he applied this principle to the explanation of at least some of the passages in the Gospels : sometimes, in usin" the expression, Jesus spoke of men in general (as Mk •2-^ 'Therefore vian is lord of the sabbath,' 12^^), sometimes He pointed by it to Himself (as Mk 2'"' ' that ye may know that a man hath authority on earth to forgive sins,' Mt 8™, 11'" a man came eating and drinking,' etc. ) : the early Greek-speaking Christians, translating it by 6 uids rou ivSpuiTTov, combined ^vith it associations derived from Dn 7". This explanation does not carry us very far. It is true, it might in the abstract (see § 2-2) be adopted for some of the passages cited ; but otherxvise the expression used in the Gospels is not, as in the Galila-an phrase quoted, 'this man '; nor does Meyer make any attempt to show how in the numerous other passages concerned, the pre- dictions of suilerings and the escliatological utter- ances, the exiires.sion ' a man ' could have been naturally employed by Christ (cf. Fiebig, p. 74 f.). (o) Lietzmann, as the result of a careful ex- amination of the existing evidence, literary and philological, rejecting the .solutions of his prede- cessors, reached the startling conclusion || that 'Jesus never applied to Himself the title "son of man" at all, because it does not exist in Aramaic, and upon linguistic grounds cannot exist,' — on account, viz., of tlie fact mentioned above, that barnujthd, though it is lit. ' tlie son of man,' in actual usage means simply 'the man,' so that the distinction made in the tireek between 6 Snidpunrot and A Mi Toii avBpilmov could not have existed in Aramaic (both expressions being translations of the same word, hariidjihd). The evangelical tradi- tion wliich attributes to Christ the use of this title is consequently false. The title arose in Greek : vl6s avOpurov, as a translation of bamdsh in such passages as Mk 2"'-, sounded strange ; it was consequently, under the influence of Dn 7", turned, under the form b uIAs toO d., into a title of Christ, first in the apocalyptic discourses declaring llis future napovala, and afterwards more generally in other di.scourses (])p. 91-95). And Lietzmann supports this conclu.-^ion by various subsidiary arguments, of which the principal are : (1) the fact that 'the son of man' was no accepted Messianic title in the age of Christ ; (2) the absence of the expression from the writings of St. Paul, which, he claims, is scarcely conceivable had it really been • Thful. Tiidtchr. 1804, pp. 153-176 ; 1896, pp. 49-7X. t /«-. u. Jiid. Getch. (ISW) p. 312 ; ed. 3 (1897), p. 8S1 ; cf . Ski2Zm und V.n-arbfUn, vi. (1S99) p. 200f. 1 Jetn MutUrtprac/if (IbDC), pp. 91-101, 140-149. I Dahiiun. Oramtnatil:, 77 I. ; DU WorU Jem, 204L I Dei i/«ucA«nnAn, 18»6, p. 8» used habitually by Christ ; (3) its absence likewise from the literature of the sub-aiiostolic ages, the Didarhe, Clement, I'olycarp, tlie Sliejiherd of Her- nias, etc., after a review of which Lietzmann findsit to be first alluded to by the Gno.stic sect of Ophites (pp. 62-G9), Marcion (c 120-1511 A.D.), and Ignatius {Ephes. XX. 2, ry vlw dvOpuirov Kal vl(^ $€ov). And Wellhausen, though for long he could not bring himself to such a tour de force ('Gewaltstreich '), was forced ultimately to agree with Lietzmann. The sense in which he formerly (see abovel supposed Christ to have used the expression he now considered to be too abstract, and could eon-s^e- quentlj' lind no alternative left but, bold as the step might appear, to deny that Christ used the expression at all. The title originated in Dn 7", being attributed first to Jesus in the eschatological passages (cf. Mk 13^, where, as Wellh. observes, ' the son of man ' is not expressly identified with the speaker) ; and its adoption afterwards as a "eneral self-designation of Jesus was perhaps facilitated by a misapprehension of passages such as Mk 2^, in which bamdsha, though meant gener- ally, was interpreted as referring specially to Christ. The general conclusion that Christ had not Himself used the title had been reached before, tboujrh without the use of the argument ba^ed upon the .\ramaic, by Volkraar in 1870, and especially by Oort (in De Uitdrukkitvj i lIk tcv a. in het AT, 1893), who, though he allowed that Jesus might have used the expression as a pjTubol of the future kingdom, argued that He did not use it as a self-designation ; it wa.s intnHiured first oa a personal title by the early (Christians from aj)ocalyplic litera- ture, and was ascribed afterwards to Jesus Hiuiself by the evangelists. 9. Such a conclusion, conflicting, as it does, with all the direct evidence that we possess on the subject, could not be accepted, except upon the clearest and strongest grounds ; and it is not sur- prising to find the leadinjr NT scholars on the Continent, including even those who approach the Gospel records from a thoroughly critical stand- point, opposed to it. The principal objections may be thus summarized. (1) The variations be- tween this title and the personal pron. presented by many of the parallel narratives (.see the Talile), show, indeed, that there are occasions on wliich we cannot be sure whether the term was actually used by our Lord or not, and it might be admitted (see § '22) that there were even other passages in which it had been attributed to Him incorrectly; but that an expression which in the Gosjiels is attribute<l solely to Him, and is never used by the evangelists themselves, slioiUd in reality have been never used by Him, but have been introduced into the Gospels entirely by the evangelists, implies an inversion of the facts which is hardly credible. (2) The attribution of the expression to Christ does not depend upon isolated texts in individual Gospels ; it has in many cases, as the Table shows, the support of the double, and even of the triple, Synoptic tradition. (3) Exactly the same usage is found, moreover, in the Independent tradition represented by the Fourth Gospel ; and, as Dr. Drumiiiond [§ '24] remarks, ' there seems to be no particular rea.son for its appearance in this Gospel, except the fact that it was at least believed to be a common expression in the mouth of Jesus.' Direct jiersoiial reminiscences unquestionably un- derlie both these traditions ; and, as the same authority further remarks, 'the apostles must have known whether their Master siioke of Him- self in the way recorded in the Gospels or not ; and the Gospels aresufliciently near apostolical .sources to make us pause before admitting that the Church is responsible for the appearance of so striking a characteristic ' as this title in the mouth ot Christ. (4) Even as-suming that the title was intro- duced into the escliatological passages in the inannei ■ Skuun u. Forarlieiun, vL (1899) pp. 188, 2001., 206, 214. B82 SON OF MAN SON OF MAN Bupposed, it is difficult to conjecture a motive for extending tlie usajje to a number of other passages of an entirely ditferent character (lialdensperger [§ 24], p. 254). (5) As regards the supposition that the ascription of the expression to Christ was due to the early Churcli, Dr. Drummond ob.serves : 'The Church was more likely to omit than to insert the phrase. Reliance is placed on the sUence of Christian writers to show that the plirase was not known. The Gospels conclusively prove that it icas known ; and to imagine that it was a favourite expression just durin"; the period when the Gospels were composed, and that before that time it was not known, and after that time it was not in common use, is to construct liistory to suit the h}'pothesis. The Church would have preferred some title apparently higher and more dignified.' (6) St. Paul, it is urged, never uses the title. But neither do the evangelists in speaking of Christ, and yet their own narratives show that they were acquainted with it, and believed it to have been used by Christ. Unless Ac 7° is to be eliminated as unhistorical, along with the numerous occurrences of the title in the mouth of Christ found in the Gospels, it must have been known at the time of Stephen's martyrdom as a designation of Jesus ; for otiierwise there would be no sufficient cause in Steplien's exclama- tion to account for the fury of tlie Jews (Drum- mond). Schmiedel, moreover, argues at length tliat the use made of Ps 8 in 1 Co 15" and He 2'" presupposes the acquaintance of the a]jostles with the expression as a designation of Clirist ; the fact that they do not use it more frequently is not difficult to explain. They wrote largely for converts from heathenism, wlio would be liable to misunderstand it; and they naturally chose by preference terms which would give prominence to the Divinity of Christ. The case would be similar with the sub-apostolic writers. Barnab. 12'''"', however, which, it had been alleged, was proof tliat the wTiter was unacquainted with the title, had been wrongly explained (as Lietzmann after- wards admitted t). 10. All tliese considerations would, however, un- doubtedly have to yield, if it were philologieally certain that ' the son of man ' could not have been an expression used by our Lord. The reasons ad- duced in support of this conclusion are, beyond question, weighty ; we must consider carefully whether they are conclusive. In the first place, it must be clearly understood that we have no actual knoirledqe of the Aram, original used (presumably) bj Christ. We have no records of ttie Galila-an dialect as early as the first cent. A.D. ; and hence the Aram, original of ' the son of man ' is a matter not of actu;U know- ledge, but of inference. Tliree possibilities nuist lie kept in view. (1) Wellh. says that bamasli[d) in the sense of 'man' is common to Aramaic dialects in general ; but this statement is in excess of the evidence ; its occurrence in the exceptional passage Dn 7'' (in whicli a semi-poetical expression wonlcl be but natural) is not proof that it was in general use in that sense in Bibl. Aramaic ; and it is not found in other passages of Dn. (as 7'), in wliich, if it were as commonly in use as it is in the Jerus. Talm., it might be naturally expected. It does not occur in the Aram, of Ont., and oitcurs but rarely in that of Jon. (§ la); and tliough Wellh. (pp. vi, 195) explains its absence from these Targums by the fact that their authors adhered closely to the Heb. (in which, as pointed out in § 6, the sing. ' son of man ' is of rare occurrence), yet it is not certain that this explanation is the ;orrect one. The Pal. Targ. on the Psalms and • Prot. ilonaUhf/le, Juli 1898, p. 260 ff. t Theol. Arl: aus dcm Ithein. Pred.-Verein, 1898, H. 2, p. 8. Job, and the Pesh., are also in general literal translations, and yet bar nash(d) occurs in both frequently (cf. above, § 7 (c), {d}}. Onlj. uses regularly CJ'M for 'soul' (=per80n), Lv 2 il 51- i •• etc. ; and Kinn ke-j-n for ' that soul,' On 17H, Ex 31i«, Lv 720 21. 27 198 20« and elsewhere. In all these passage pseudo-Jon. uses as refjutarly 'barnash,' 'barnasha.' So in Dt f" s (for 0"1N.^) pseudo-Jon. has KB'3 ^3, while Onk. has KB'O'K ; and in the expression 'the work of man's {or men's) hands' DIN is rendered bj batnashiii) in the Palest. Targruras (Ps llM )3.6ii>, 2 Ch sal"), "but by fmleha in Onk. (Dt 42») and Jon. (2 K 1918, Is 3718). Similarly isnjx is rendered in the Pal. Targums bv bamdslHa), Ps 8' ff^.o 103I6 1041» etc., but by Yiulnha in Jon. (Is 13' 246 51 .2 662). ct. also Ps 1188>' (Pal. Targ. : C'3 ID) with Jer 17» (Jon. : nBTN). So Fiebig, p. 11. It is true (V>7jd(Ad is used mostly as a collective terra ; but Wellh. 's argument (p. v) to shou "that it_ is used so always, and that consequently, unless bar ('()?uis/i(a) were in use. there would have been no means of expressing the idea of (a single, particular) man {homo) in Aram.,ia surely not conclusive; for in Onlj. Kl.in Kf 3'n, as has been just shown, occurs repeatedly in the sense of thai mun (oonip. in Heb. the analogous indi- \'idual and collective applications of C"N). So Fiebig, p. 11. The Aram, dialects do diller from one another in details of linguistic usage ; and though barndsh(a,) is common in the Galila^an dialects of the 3rd or 4th cent. A.D., it may not, as Dalraan points out, liave been equally common in the 1st cent. ; and if usage had not at that time obliterated the distinctive force of the first part of the compound, bar nclsha might have been used by Christ in the sense of 'the Son of man.' It must, however, be allowed that Fiebig [§ 24] has made it probable (pp. 33-36, 59 f.) from quotations in the Jerus. Talm. that bar iKVihid) = ' man ' was current in Galilee in the 2nd cent. A.D. (2) In the Sin. (Curet.) and Pesh. versions of NT, ' the Son of man ' is, for distinction from the barnd.'ihd which stands for o SLvBpuiro^, alwaj's repre- sented by b'reh d'lidshdf (lit. hii son, that of man, — the pleonasm being an idiom very common in Aram. J), — grammatically (Nbld.) 'a more strongly determined form of harnd.ihd.' If in the Aram, spoken in the time of Christ barncLsh(d) was really in common use in the sense of ' man,' there does not seem to be any sufficient reason why, if our Lord desired to express the idea of ' the Son of man,' He should not have made use of this expres- sion. There would be nothing unsuitable in ita being an unusual and emphatic one ; and that there was some Semitic expression bearing this meaning appears, as Hilgenfeld has pointed out,§ from the fact that in the Gospel ace. to the Hebrews, which Jerome himself translated from Aramaic (or, as he elsewhere says, from Hebrew), there was a saying of Christ, addressed to James, which (in Jerome's tr.) reads, ' Frater mi, comede panem tuum, quia resurrexit ^/w« /wminis a dormientibus.'!! From a comnumication printed by Dr. Dnimniond.K it appear! that Prof. Noldeke also is disposed to agree with Wellhausen. To differ from Prof. Noldeke on a point of Aramaic or Arabic See, for some illustrations, Dalm. Oramm. 34-40. t B^rSh d'baimdshd 'Son of the son of man' is certainlv ■ ' theological barbarism ' ; it does not, however, occur (as Wellh., by an oversight, says, p. 194n.) in the Pesh., but in the Palest. Lectionary. } See, e.g., Dalm., Dialektproben, p. 15, 1. 2, [NOT an3 = whos« son? .Tpim an3 = the son of Hezekiah. So Dn 2«> 38- > rtc, and constantly in Syriac (a-s Mt 1' [thrice)). According to Wellh. 6'rM d'rutsha (on account of the sing. suff. and the following virtual plural) is ' unmoglich ' (p. vi). But svy» is regularly in the Tj,'g. constnicd with a sing. ; and Job 720 14I9 3316, Pesh., are precise /ormn/ parallels (see, further, Fiebig, p. 48 tf.): more- over, if the expression were 'impossible' in Synac, would the Butbi>rs of the Svriac versions of the Gospels have employed it? ? X. f. Wiss. fheol. 1897, 476 (ct. Berl.phUol. Wochenschr. 1897, Heft 4"9) ; ISDO, 150. i| Jerome, de Virit III. c. 2 eTid (ed. Bened. rv. li. lOi ; ed. Vail. ii. 817; Migne, ii. 613); see Hilgenf. Evangg. sec. Uebr. etc. q\im supersunt (1866), pp. 17 ff., 29. Lietzniann's reply (Theol. Arb. p. 10) is to the effect that even here the title miul be of Greek origin, because it i, ^ only in Greek that the con- ditions for its having arisen can be shown to have existed. 1l Joum. 0} Theol. Studies, Apr. 1901, p. 857 1. SOX OF MAN SON OF MAN 583 usage would be to court certain error ; but from tbe terms in wiiich he expresses himself, it does not seem that he nieiiiis to pronounce an absolute philolo^cal veto a^^ainst the position tliat Jesuji may have spoken of Himself in Aramaic as the Son of man.' (3) No doubt our Lord, as a rule, spoke in Aramaic; but, as I'rof. Sanday has remarked to the jireseiit writer, it is quite jiossihle that He may, ujiOii occasion, have sjioken also in Greek. In this case, which is more than a mere abstract possibility, tlie expression 6 vib^ rov avBptjmov may actually have been sometimes heard upon His lips. 11. Uriqin and meaning of the term as used in