Bible Lexicons

*† βατταλογέω , -ῶ

(Rec. βαττολ -, D, βλαττ - = βατταρίζω , prob. onomatop.; v. MM, s v; DCG, ii, 499b, 790 a);

to stammer, repeat idly: Matthew 6:7 (Cremer, 765).†

In D this word is βλαττολογέω , the form of which suggests an approximation towards the Latin blatero—[query cf. provincial English blether, with same meaning, both starting from *mlatero]. The Latin text (d) has not the word, so that if Latin influence is recognizable here it must lie somewhere in the complex history of the Bezan text itself. Βαττολογέω may be by haplology for βατταλολογέω , in which some connexion may be suspected with Βάτταλος on the one side, the nickname of Demosthenes, and Aramaic battâl (";leer, nichtig,"; says Wellhausen on Matthew 6:7) on the other. Whether Greek or Aramaic, or neither, is the borrower, we must not stay to ask. If the great orator was thus nicknamed because of the torrent of words at his command, which made envious rivals call him ";the gabbler, it will fit his case better than the highly improbable ";stammering"; connexion, and will suit the ἐν τη πολυλογίᾳ by which the verb is explained in Matthew 6:7. (See Holden on Plutarch’s Demosthenes, ch. iv.)