Testament (Hastings' Dictionary)

This word does not occur in the EV of the OT ; and, whereas in the AV of the NT it occurs 13 times, this number is reduced to 2 in the RV by the substitution of 'coYenant' in 11 places. In the NT the Gr. equivalent both of 'testament' and of 'covenant' is invariably Jio- BriKTj. In tlie LXX the same Gr. word is the equivalent of bcrith ('covenant') except in two passages, Dt 9" (iiai>Tiipi.ov , pi.) and 3 (1) K 11" (eVroX^, pi.), while it represents no other Heb.

word, according to the best authorities, except about 8 times : Ex 27-' 31' 32"^ {'edilt/i, 'testimony '), Dt 9' {dabar, 'yvord '), 2 Ch 25'' (kafMb, 'what is written '), Jer 41 (34) '* {dibrS habberith, ' words of the cove- n.ant '), Dn 9" (turah, ' law '), and Zee H" {'alidvdh, 'brotherhood'). This double exclusiveness is a peculiarity of the LXX version, for berith is often represented in the later versions of Aquila, Sym- inachus, and Theodotion by <rvi>6^Kri, the common Gr.

word for ' covenant ' in its more exact sense of compact between parties. Apparently, then, the choice of SmOiiK-q was deliberate, and has severely ruled out awB-fiKr), even where the latter would have been more strictly correct, as Ps 82 (83)° the compact made with one another by Edora, Moab, etc. ; 1 K (S) 23'* the covenant between David and Jonathan. Why this deliberate determina- tion, extending even to solecism ? The idea mainly associated witli bf.

rUh was religious, that of an independent, voluntary engagement or settlement on the part of God, and the 'least unsuitable' Gr. equivalent for this was SiaS^xj;, an arrange- ment by one, not awOifKri, an agreement between two ; for though JmS/jvi; meant, in ordinary Greek, a disposition by will, the verb hiaHBtaSm covered authoritative arrangements generally. This ' one- sided' sense of SiaS^Ki) (the acceptance of which is in harmony with Dr. Davidson's interpretation of hh-ith in art.

Covenant) comes out very clearly in such uses of it as in Sir 14"- " ' the coven.'int of the grave' (the imposition of death), 'the covenant . . "Thou sh.ilt die the death."' In Sir •242» oiaBiiKyi is made equivalent to the Law, and in 3(1) K 11" birith is ivroXai (commandments), which Solomon had not kept. But the Divine ' arrange- ment ' was a gr.acious one : ' the Divine SmS-^Ki] is a promise' (Vaughan on Ko O*, cf. Epli 2'-); hence St.

Paul, wliilc he uses SiaO-iiKri only 9 times, uses iirayyeXla 2o times, because it lays stress on God's free grace ; cf. Gn 15'" (' the Lord made a covenant n-ith Abraham ... I will give,' etc.) Ex 34"' ('I will make a covenant ... I will do mar\els'), Is 59" ('This is my covenant . . my spirit shall not depart').

It is true that there are conditions to be fulKUed ; but the idea is that God imposes these as part of His beneficent arrangement ; jnrt as a will imposes conditions, but is not a covenant in the strict sense of the term. (Cremer asserts that Philo u.ses dLaOriK-q in no other sense than that of 'one-sided' disposition).

The LXX translators made their choice of Jio- SiJki) before its older signification was seriously allected by the extensive spread of -will-making among the Greeks, and the assimilation by thera of 'Roman ideas on wills' (Ramsay, Galatians, p. 3G0).

Thus they had still at their disposal in the word the connotation of tlie solemnity and publicity of an irrevocable disposition by which, as a religious act, the maker of the disposition voluntarily, and by his own authority, bound his heir and, concurrently, himself in the presence of the community and its gods, assigning to the heir primarily the religious duties and rights of the family, and imposing arrangements which the heir had to carry out, and which he could at once undertake, and into the a^i vantages of which he could at once enter, wliile he who made the dis- position was still living.

A word with such a connotation suited the idea of an irrevocable promise made by God to His chosen people, freely and on His own absolute authority, a promise of a religious inheritance into which they could at once enter by fulfilling the conditions which God, on the same absolute authority, imposed (Ramsay, Galatinns, p. 3G1 ff.) AtadT]Kr) is of course often 'used in the NT in the OT sense, Lk 1", Ac 3=», Ro 9^ Eph 2"^.

In some passages engagement and testamentary disposition seem to be combined (He 9", 1 Co 11"), the diaSriKTi being a testament in the light of the death, an engagement in the liglit of the blood shed as a pledge (Evans). The sense of ' will,' the ordinary Gr. sense, is an exclusively NT usage ; and this usage varies in its aspect according to the con- ceptions of the readers for whom the Epistles in which it occurs were designed.

Thus the Epistle to the Hebrews — even if it was intended for a Church in Jerusalem and not in Rome — was written to a people wlio knew only the Roman will, out of which the rabbinical will in Palestine arose, and on which it was modelled.

Hence the will there spoken of is regarded as in force only after the maker's death (9'°-"), and consequently the writer is led to argue that a death is connected with every Divine SiaB-qKri, specially with the last will, that of Christ ; and according to Roman law the last will was alone valid.

In Gal 3", on the other hand, where again a human will, a will dealing with an inheritance (3'*), furnishes the parallel, the writer conceives of a will known to his readers as irrevocable and unaUeralile, even by the maker, when once it has been made b}' him and ratified by public authority, and argues from this analog that the Law could not, as a hostile codicil, abrogate the Promise.

Further, the devolution under this will was a devolution of religious responsibilities and rights, and those who inherited these under the will became there and then soni as inheriting and continuing the faith of Abraham (3'). Such a will was not Roman but Greek, or rather Graico-Syrian, and its regulations are found in the Roman-Syrian law-book, which recognized Grteco-Syrian law as still largely in force in the Eastern provinces.

This law regarded will-making as per se son-making ; and where sons were thus made by adoption (tial 4"), which was not a Jewish practice of any importance, they could not he put away ; they were even in a better position than sons by birth. Thus the line of thought is that the believing Gentiles inlieriting and continuing the faith of Abraham became thereby adopted sons, with a title more secure than the ' Jews by nature.' But at Ko 8", ' If sons, then heirs,' the idea is TESTS.

OF XU PATRIAECUS TESTS. OF XII rATRIAFX'HS 721 reversed. Here we are in the atmospliere of Itoinan law ; and the idea in Roman law was that children must inherit. It is noticeable that the Latin word fccdus, signifying a covenant between parties, is also ai)iilied to an indupendent, 'onesided' disposition, arrangement, ini|iosition. When Lucretius (ii. 2o4) writes ol fwdcra fati he means nothing else than the arrangements imposed by fate ; and Vergil {Gcorg. i. 60) and Ovid (Met. x.

353), as well as Lucretius (v. 9"24), speak of the fa-ilcra imposed by nature. But the classical u.sage of iiaOriKri as 'will,' and the close connexion of the word in tlie OT with the idea of nXJjpos (inherit- ance), together with the intensification in the NT of the idea of sonship, combined to bring testa- meniiim into greater favour than fceilus as the rendering of Siadr/Kr), especially as /irdtis suggested equality and testamentum superiorit}-.

Unally, as a consequence, testamentum became the title of the documents containing the attested promises of blessings willed by God and bequeathed to us in the death of Christ. LiTERATrRB. — Ranisay, Bigtorieal Commentary on Galatiant ; Xliltcis, lieichttrec/it tmd Volktrecht ; Bruns and Saclmii, Ein ifiiriitch-rdmufchei lUc/'tshucft aus dem /iinften Jahrlivndert \ Crenier. Bibl.-Tfteol.

Wort^rbuch ; the publications by Orenfell and Hunt on the E^'^Titian papyri ; aod the various Com* mentaries and Bible Dictionaries. J, MaSSIE.