This short research blog focuses on the development of the word แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ โto sinโ from the advent of Christianity to the late Byzantine era. The word, แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ, is widely used in the Bible as it appears forty-three times. To wordโs primary meaning in the Bible was to โerr and sinโ; however, from time to time, it was also used to signify the action of offending. แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ occurs in many different forms in the New Testament as we see it in aorist first-person singular active form แผญฮผฮฑฯฯฮฟฮฝโ eight times, second-person singular indicative middle six times, and second-person indicative active plural form three times.[1] I will trace the different nuances in the meaning of this word in the subsequent periods, especially in the late Byzantine period. My argument is that as several Greek and non-Greek sources indicate, the word แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ began having a military connotation in this period as it was applied to the Christian military units who had cooperated with the enemy forces, especially the Turks.
In Homeric times, แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ had no religious connotation. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament suggests that, initially, the word was used to convey the action of โmissingโ i.e failure to follow rules and signify a moral deficit or immoral physical undertaking. [2] However, in the later periods (c. 400 BCE), we begin seeing a shift from legal to religious use since แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ made its way to the Book of Kings in the old testament, meaning โto rebelโ against the god and his order in the earth.[3] From a theological standpoint, rebelling against the will of God means to err from the true path and therefore to sin. In this way, those who had intentionally deviated from moral or religious standards came to be defined as ฮฑฮผฮฑฯฯฯฮปฯฯ โthe sinful oneโ in the later Christian religious texts.[4]
แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ is mostly used to signify the action of โsinโ and neglecting the commands of God with an exception of โoffendingโ in the New Testament.[5] In the Book of Romans, for instance, we see the following structure: โฮณแฝฐฯ แผฮฝฯฮผฯฯ แผฅฮผฮฑฯฯฮฟฮฝ แผฮฝฯฮผฯฯ ฮบฮฑแฝถโ which means โIndeed without law I sinned without law also[โฆ]โ.[6] Here, แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ was used in the aorist, active, and indicative form. In another example, this time from the Book of Corinthians, the word is used in such a construction: โฮฟแฝฯฯฯ ฮดแฝฒ แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฮฟฮฝฯฮตฯ ฮตแผฐฯ ฯฮฟแฝบฯโ meaning โthus moreover sinning against those [โฆ]โ in the participle, present, active form.[7] Besides the action of sinning, แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ seems to be used in a different meaning, โto offendโ, in the Book of Apostles although a minor disagreement exists between various interpreters. Regarding the following phase: โฮฮฑฮฏฯฮฑฯฮฌ ฯฮน แผฅฮผฮฑฯฯฮฟฮฝ[โฆ]โ while New American Standard Bible renders the word as โcommittingโ, the King James version translate the term as โoffendingโ. However, the new international version disagrees with these suggestions, interpreting the whole phrase as โCaesar [in] anything sinned [โฆ]โ.[8]
Besides its use in legal and religious spheres, towards the late Byzantine period, we begin seeing the word, แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ, or its variants in Greek and Turkish texts in the military context. With the Turkish advance towards western Asia Minor and the Balkans in the later 13th and early 14th centuries, the local Greek-speaking people began adjusting to the newly established political reality in their respective territories by means of cooperating with their new rulers. A significant portion of the Greek population in these regions had converted to Islam, while others participated in the Ottoman military system as auxiliary units. As the later Byzantine writer Pachymeres states in his ฮฯฯฮฟฯฮฏฮฑ, the Greeks from Anatolia, โแผฯฮนฮผฮนฮพฮฌฮฝฯฯฮฝ ฮบฮฑแฝถ แฟฌฯฮผฮฑรญฯฮฝ แผฮพ แผฮฝฮฑฯฮฟฮปแฟฯโ, had occasionally joined the Turkish forces to raid the Byzantine territories in the hopes of acquiring material gain.[9] Besides Pachymeres, Doukas also refers to these Greek collaborators in his historical work, calling them โฮผฮนฮพฮฟฮฒฮฑฯฮฒฮฑฯฮฟฮนโ meaning half-Greek and half-Turks.[10] Although these authors shunned using the word, แผฮผฮฑฯฯฯฮปฯฯ, several Turkish authors borrow this term from their Greek correspondents. An early Ottoman called Aลฤฑkpaลazade reports that the founder of the Ottoman principality, Osman Gazi, had a โmartolosโ ( ู ุงุฑุชููุณ) by the name of Artun who acted as a spy in the Byzantine territories for the Ottomans.[11] After the Ottoman conquests in the Balkans, as the land surveys indicate, the Ottomans had given landed estates to several Christian military units who were also called โmartolosโ.[12]
Lastly, after the mid-fourteenth century, the Ottomans also formed provincial forces in mainland Greece named โarmatolosโ which had a clear phonetic resemblance with the word โamartolosโ. Although several scholars argued that this term had derived from a medieval loan word from Latin arma โweaponโ via Greek ฮฑฯฮผฮฑฯฮฟฮปฯฯ it is also within the boundaries of possibility that the development of that word might have originated from ฮฑฮผฮฑฯฯฯฮปฯฯ since the use of the latter preceded the former. During the Greek War of Independence (1821-1828), these ฮฑฯฮผฮฑฯฮฟฮปฯฯ units had actively participated in military encounters against the Ottoman forces as we are able to trace their role in Greek folk songs: โฯฯ ฮปฮปฮฟฮณฮนฯฯฮตฮฏฯฮต ฯฮฟ ฮบฮฑฮปฮฌ, /ฯฯฮน (: ฮณฮนฮฑฯฮฏ) ฯฮฑฯ ฮบฮฑฮฏฮผฮต ฯฮฑ ฯฯฯฮนฮฌยท / ฮณฯฮฎฮณฮฟฯฮฑ ฯโ ฮฑฯฮผฮฑฯฮฟฮปฮฏฮบฮน,/ ฮฟฯโ ฮตฯฯฯฮผฮฑฯฯฮต ฯฮฑฮฝ ฮปฯฮบฮฟฮนโ โThink well, / that [why] we burn your villages; / quickly the armatoliki, / that we come like wolvesโ.[13]
In sum, แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ had no religious implications during Homeric times as it was used to convey the idea of โmissingโ (i.e. โmissing the markโ). However, in the later periods, it started appearing in the Bible as the word began to signify the act of transgression against the word of God. In the late Byzantine period, however, a derivation of this word, แผฮผฮฑฯฯฯฮปฯฯ, was used for Christians who cooperated with the enemy forces since it was thought that they rebelled against God by aligning themselves with the non-Christian adversaries.
[1] Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Search for word: แผฮผฮฑฯฯฮฌฮฝฯ.
[2]Danker, Frederick W. et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Exeter: Eerdmans, 1974) 44.
[3] Ibid. 43.
[4] Oxford Classical Greek Dictionary, ed. James Morwood and John Taylor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)
[5] Geoffrey W. Bromiley. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Exeter: William Eerdmen Publishing, 1985. 49.
[6] www.biblegateway.com, Romans 2:12-16.
[7] www.biblegateway.com, Corinthians 8-12.
[8] www.biblegateway.com, Acts 25:8.
[9] George Pachymeres, Relations Historiques, ed. Albert Failler, 5 vols (Paris, 1984โ2000) 4:643.18.
[10] Doukas, Decline and Fall of Byzantium to the Ottoman Turks by Doukas, ed. Harry Magouilas. Detroit, 1975. 33.
[11] Aลฤฑkpaลazade, Osmanoฤullarฤฑโnฤฑn Tarihi ed. Kemal Yavuz and Yekta Saraรง. ฤฐstanbul: MAS Matbaacฤฑlฤฑk, 2003. 324.
[12] Suret-i Defter-i Sancak-ฤฑ Tirhala, ed. Melek Delilbasi and Muzaffer Arikan, (Ankara: TTK, 2001) 296-334.
[13] Demetrius Petropoulos, ฮตฮปฮปฮทฮฝฮนฮบฮฑ ฮดฮทฮผฮฟฯฮนฮบฮฑ ฯฯฮฑฮณฮฟฯ ฮดฮนฮฑ Vol1 (Greek Popular Songs), (Athens: ฮฮฑฯฮนฮบฮท ฮฒฮนฮฒฮปฮนฮฟฮธฮทฮบฮท, 1958): 3-65.
