Any Ancient Greek Scholars?

[St.Gerard]

I am in a debate with my girlfriend’s father. He contends that the word “once” which undelined below cannot have a perpetual characteristic to it. He stated that the original Greek word “hapax” could not be used this way. It stands for something that is over and done with. He refers to Hebrew 9:26-28 to show how the word is used. I am looking to show him how this word can be used to represent something that happened one time, but is still occurring as opposed to “over and done with”. I have included the passage below. Anybody no where I can look to document this or have any info to contribute. Thanks,

St. Gerard
Hebrews 10 By this “will,” we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 11 Every priest stands daily at his ministry, offering frequently those same sacrifices that can never take away sins. 12 But this one offered one sacrifice for sins, and took his seat forever at the right hand of God; 13 now he waits until his enemies are made his footstool. 14 For by one offering he has made perfect forever those who are being consecrated. Hebrews 25 Not that he might offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters each year into the sanctuary with blood that is not his own; 26 if that were so, he would have had to suffer repeatedly from the foundation of the world. But now once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice. 27 Just as it is appointed that human beings die once, and after this the judgment, 28 so also Christ, offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to take away sin but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him.

 

[RyanL]

Afraid I can’t help with the Greek, but here’s some bible to support the eternal nature of the sacrifice:

Rev 13:8All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of **the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

**How could He have been slain from the “foundation of the world” if it was a singular moment in time after the foundation of the world? The only context that makes sense here is if the One True Sacrifice exists outside of time (read: eternally).

Rev 5:6And I looked, and behold, in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as though it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

The vision of St. John does not somehow “go back to a precise instant in time” - rather, St. John sees Jesus outside of time (read: eternally in Heaven) as a Lamb “as though it had been slain”. Not resurrected, mind you, but eternally sacrificed. Unless his contention is that the world was “laid foundation” at the cross and perpetuated in both directions in time (past and future), and that St. John time-warped back to this moment, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on with his “pet verse”. As I doubt that he’s trying to redefine space-time, quantum phsyics, and cosmology with his “only”, I think he may have to reconsider his position. Just a thought from the top of my head. You may want to look into what the Catechism says about the eternal nature of the Eucharist.

Good luck, and God bless,

RyanL

 

[DavidFilmer]

St. Gerard:

He stated that the original Greek word “hapax” could not be used this way. It stands for something that is over and done with. He refers to Hebrew 9:26-28

Possible future dad-in-law is absolutely right about the meaning of “hapax.”

But you mixed up your citations (and your Greek). Hebrews 9:26 says “It is appointed for man to die once.” Yes, this is the Greek term “hapax” and it means literally and numerically “one time and that is all, period.”

However, 'hapax" is NOT the partucilar Greek word used in Hebrews 10:10 (“the Sacrifice of Christ *once *for all”). That particular word is epharax, which means “upon one occasion” (but is still usually - imperfectly - translated into English as “once”).

Checkmate, future dad-in-law. BTW, I wonder, what is future dad-in-law’s source for this information? Is he an expert in ancient languages? Or has he been listening to some idiot protestant pastor who professes a (phony) knowlege of Greek?

 

[Scott_Waddell]

Are you sure we even need to get into a Greek discussion? I don’t see any incompatibiity with Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice and the Catholic teaching on the sacrifice of the mass. As Gary Hoge said: we are simply returning to the ever-full well that Jesus dug once for all.

Scott

 

[Scott_Waddell]

Here is Gary Hoge’s complete answer from his site:

1. What do you believe about the Mass?

Before I say what the Mass is, let me say what it is not: It is not a re-sacrificing of Christ. Jesus is not crucified again, He does not die again, He does not suffer again in the Mass. Rather, the Mass makes present to us the sacrifice that Christ made once-for-all on the cross. This is difficult to understand, but we must remember that our perspective is not the same as God’s. From our perspective, the crucifixion occurred at a point in the distant past, like the assassination of Lincoln, or the sinking of the Titanic. But Christ is eternal; thus He lives in the past, and the present, and the future at the same time. In a sense, the crucifixion is a part of His present experience, and always has been, and always will be. That is why the Bible describes him as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8).

We were not present at the crucifixion, but He makes it present to us through the Eucharist, and thus perpetuates His one sacrifice throughout the ages. In that glorious sacrament, time meets eternity, and God touches us. His one sacrifice is made present to us as often as we partake of it. That’s why the Bible says, “For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17). No matter how many times the Eucharist has been offered throughout history, there is still only one bread. Put another way, we drink continuously from the well He dug once for all.

That the Eucharist, the focal-point of the Mass, is truly the Body and Blood of the Lord has been the true teaching of the Christian Church from the very beginning. As Justin Martyr, a Christian who lived within memory of the apostles wrote,

We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration and is thereby living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and blood of that Incarnated Jesus. (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 66, A.D. 151).

 

[St.Gerard]

Thanks for your replies. I have included below where we are in this particular point of the debate. I don’t think he is quite grasping what I explained to him. I also wonder if he isn’t just being hard headed and refusing to try to understand. It does seem that the problem isn’t even with the word “once”, but what happened after Christ went into the Heavenly Sanctuary. My problem is that I am trying to research these ancient Greek terms and I’m running into snags. Catholic apoligetic site tell us about the meaning of certain words such as, remembrance, eating flesh, and a few others and give the translation and the transliteration. However, the New Testament Greek Lexicon which he is using is saying something closer to the bible translation. I don’t know anything about the NT Greek Lexicon or who wrote it. I have a Greek Bible text, but struggle to make sense of it because I don’t know the Greek alphbet yet. People from both sides throw the Greek around and interpret it, but I need to be able to see it. It is one thing to say it and another to be able to show it with a reliable interpretation that can be documented and supported.

I am convinced that my translation of the Greek word “hapax” (once) refers to a once for all event which cannot reoccur, and this is the way any first century person would read the Greek language. This may sound like I’m being a stubborn, quarrelsome know-it-all, but I know what I’m talking about on the meaning of this ancient word. You will not find a New Testament Greek scholar or linguistic authority who will vouch for Scott Hahn’s claim that “… it doesn’t have to mean that. It can mean something that occurred and is still in the stage of occurring.”

Your recent email continues with reference to Scott Hahn, “He stated that he believes that this use of the word makes more sense in these passages.” Of course it makes more sense to him because he comes to the text with a preconceived notion of what the text is suppose to say. For Hahn, Hebrews 9 must support his belief of the ongoing sacrifice in the Heavenly Sanctuary on the part of Christ. My contention is that Hebrews 9 does not support his belief, and he cannot change the meaning of Greek words to force his belief upon the text.

What does Hebrews 9 teach? I focused upon verses 26-28 because the meaning of the word “once” is illustrated clearly without having to refer to any Greek lexicons. Verse 27 says, “And it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” All men die once and only once; it is not a reoccuring event. It has ongoing consequences, like a wedding, but I do not die over and over, nor do I wed my wife again and again. This is why the Eucharist is a memorial of remembrance, like the Passover. Each of these ceremonies looks back to an hsitorical event in which God provided deliverance from bondage.

You and I have different interpretations of Christ’s ongoing intercession in heaven. The book of Hebrews teaches that Christ entered heaven to “make intercession for them” (Heb. 7:25). The word intercession means “to entreat, todeal with.” Christ is representing us before the Father, advocating for uswhile the Holy Spirit does the same thing within us (Romans 8:26-27). I do notbelieve Hebrews is teaching that intercession is a continual presentation ofChrist’s sacrifice in the Heavenly Sanctuary. The Holy Spirit is doing the samething (interceding) within the Christian, and that is not the presentation of anoffering in a sanctuary.

 

[RyanL]

St. Gerard's Father-in-Law to be:

This is why the Eucharist is a memorial of remembrance, like the Passover.

Here is a key point to make. The Passover*** is not*** “simply” a rememberance. Let us not confuse what he think is with what *actually *is or was. In the Seder meal, the first question asked by the youngest male Jew present is, “Why is this night different than any other?” Not why “was” - why “is”. It clearly has continued effect, both symbollically and (for the Jews) actually. If you go back and read the Passover account and the requirements for sacrifice (which I highly recommend), you will see that it required that a yearling lamb without blemish should be slain and consumed (with unleavened bread and wine). Furthermore, this was to happen for all time. This no longer happens in any Jewish home I have ever heard of - they buy their lamb at the store. The sacrifice is no longer there - but it was! By making this sacrifice a mandatory part of the Passover feast, God was bringing the reality of the Passover into the present. By making this sacrifice present at every Passover feast, God was allowing them to participate in a very real way in the original Passover. This is the reason that St. Paul can talk about the following:

1 Cor 5: For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. 8 Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Good luck, God bless, and don’t forget the power of prayer,
RyanL

 

[St.Gerard]

Thanks Ryanl, I agree. I have already told him this and he came back over the top with this prior response trying to correct me. I am now looking for a way to document this with something other than a Catholic source. I have looked at a lot of Jewish web sites. When I dig far enough in, some will admit that they do attempt to relive the historical event. However, for the most part, they use the word commemorate which can be applied to any secular holiday as well. I like the info from the liturgy that you provided, but I don’t think it is quite strong enought to document it to a noncatholic. Let me know if you know of any better info to support.

St. Gerard

 

[Deus_Solus]

St. Gerard, let me just say that I know how you feel. I am in a similar debate about the nature of the sacrifice of the Mass myself, and your question piqued my interest. I will have to make a more full response later, but I have recently been dealing with the Hebrews 9 passage as well.

Like Scott said, the incompatibility is only a perceived one. Catholics wholeheartedly agree that Christ died only once (it is part of the nature of the space-time continuum that an event in history can only occur once), but I digress.

If you want to get into the Greek of this passage, I have a quick point you may want to get into:

It was necessary, then, for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence. Hebrews 9:23-24

The writer of Hebrews is contrasting the cleansing of the Old Covenant by sprinkling of blood on the altar (see Leviticus 5), with the cleansing of the heavenly things by the blood of Christ. If the writer had intended to a “once for all, and then no more” cleansing, he would not have used the Greek “θυσιαις” which in this case is plural for sacrifice, indicating a multiplicity of sacrifices being offered in heaven. The plural is punctuated by the singular in v26, implying that the same sacrifice is offered. So what does our High Priest (Hebrews 3:1, 4:14, 6:20) offer? How about a High Priest in the order of Melchizedek (Genesis 14:18, Hebrews 5:10)?

 

[DavidFilmer]

Scott Waddell:

Are you sure we even need to get into a Greek discussion? I don’t see any incompatibiity with Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice…

Of course, this is true. One could also say that God created the earth “once for all.” Who could argue with that? But we still continue to enjoy the very real and very present effects of that Divine act.

But it’s easy to argue the Greek anyway, especially when the future pop-in-law mixes up his terms (hapax /* epharax*). As I said previously, hapax means “once and only once” while epharax means “at one time” or “upon one occasion.”

In fact, this distinction actually strenghtens the Catholic case. Our case could still stand even if Paul had used hapax in 10:10 (as he did in 9:26). But WHY did Paul switch to a different word in 10:10? “Hapax” is a very common term, but “epharax” is unusual. Paul had to have a REASON to use this rather uncommon term in 10:10.

Could it be that Paul deliberately avoided the more numerically precise term hapax to avoid the very confusion that we see today in English (where both terms are often imperfectly translated as “once”)?