The most direct, but not the exclusive,1 vehicle in the Greek of the New Testament of the idea which we commonly express in our current speech by the term “redeem” and its derivatives, is provided by a group of words built up upon the Greek term λύτρον, “ransom.”2 The exact implications of this group of words as employed by the writers of the New Testament have been brought into dispute.3 It seems desirable therefore to look afresh into their origin and usage sufficiently to become clear as to the matter, and the inquiry may perhaps be thought to possess enough intrinsic interest to justify going a little farther afield in it, and entering somewhat more into details, than would be necessary for the immediate purpose in hand.
I
To begin at the beginning, at any rate, the ultimate base to which this group of words goes back seems to be represented by the Sanscrit lû, which bears the meaning of “to cut,” or “to clip”; hence it is inferred that the earliest implication of the general Indo-European root lu was to set free by cutting a bond. The Greek primitive of this base, λύειν, has the general meaning of “to loose,” which is applied and extended in a great variety of ways. When applied to men, its common meaning is “ ‘to loose, release, set free,’ especially from bonds or prison, and so, generally, from difficulty, or danger.” It developed a particular usage with reference to prisoners,4 which is of interest to us. In this usage, it means, in the active voice, “to release on receipt of ransom,” “to hold to ransom”; and in the middle voice, “to secure release by payment of ransom,” “to ransom” in the common sense of that word,5 passing on to a broader usage of simply “to redeem” (in which it is applied not merely to prisoners but to animals and landed property6) and even “to buy.”7 It also acquired the sense of paying debts, and, when used with reference to wrong-doings, a sense of “undoing” or “making up for,” which is not far removed from that of making atonement for, them.8
Naturally, the usual derivatives and compounds are formed from λύειν. Among the former the abstract active substantive, λύσις, is especially interesting to us because among its various senses it reflects both of the usages of its primitive to which we have just called attention. It is used of a release, deliverance, effected by the payment of a ransom—a “ransoming.”9 And it is used of a cleansing from guilt by means of an expiation—an “atonement.”10 Little less interesting, however, are the nouns of agent, of which several are formed, bearing the general sense of “deliverer”—λύσιος (λύσειος), λυτήρ (λύτειρα), λύτωρ. Λύσιος was used in the Dionysiac myth as an epithet of Dionysus,11 and in the Orphics a great part was played by the θεοὶ λύσιοι.12 In the Second Book of the “Republic,”13 Plato makes Adeimantos, performing the office of advocatus diaboli, urge in favor of being wicked and reaping its gains, that the penalties of wickedness may very easily be escaped: the gods can be propitiated, and so we can sin and pray, and then sin and pray some more,—and if you talk of a dread hereafter, why, are there not mysteries and λύσιοι θεοί to whom we can look for deliverance? The form λυτήρ obtained sufficient currency to render it possible for the Christian poet Nonnus, the paraphrast of John, to employ it as a designation of our Lord, whom he calls “the Deliverer of the whole human race (ὅλης Λυτῆρα γενέθλης).”14 But Nonnus was somewhat precious in his choice of words.