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Bible Lexicons
Old & New Testament Greek Lexical Dictionary Greek Lexicon
Strong's #1087 - γερουσία
- Thayer
- Strong
- Mounce
- a senate, council of elders
- to denote the chief council of nations or cities
- the Sanhedrin
- Book
- Word
- Parsing
γερουσί-α, ἡ,
I
1. Council of Elders, senate, E. Rh. 401: esp. at Sparta, D. 20.107, Arist. Pol. 1270b24, IG 5(2).345.10 (Orchom. Arc., ii/i B. C.); cf. γερωΐα and γεροντία; also of the Carthaginian Senate, Arist. Pol. 1272b37; and the Roman, Plu. 2.789e, Jul. Or. 2.97b; of the Jewish Sanhedrin, Acts 5:21, cf. LXX Exodus 3:16.
2. sacred college, ἱερὰ γ. IG 3.702 (Eleusis), cf. 7.2808 (Hyettus, iii B. C.), etc.
II = πρεσβεία, E. Rh. 936.
γερουσία, γερουσίας, ἡ (adjective γερούσιος, belonging to old men, γέρων), a senate, council of elders; used in secular authors of the chief council of nations and cities (ἐν ταῖς πόλεσι αἱ γερουσιαι, Xenophon, mem. 4, 4, 16; in the O. T. of the chief council not only of the whole people of Israel, Exodus 3:16, etc.; 1 Macc. 12:6, etc.; but also of cities, Deuteronomy 19:12, etc.); of the Great Council, the Sanhedrin of the Jews: Acts 5:21, where to τό συνέδριον is added καί πᾶσαν τήν γερουσίαν τῶν υἱῶν Ἰσραήλ and indeed (καί explicative) all the senate, to signify the full Sanhedrin. Cf. Schürer, Die Gemeindeverfassung d. Juden in Rom in d. Kaiserzeit nach d. Inschriften dargestellt. Leips. 1879, p. 18f; Hatch, Bamp. Lects. for 1880, p. 64f.)
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γερουσία , -ας , ἡ
(< γέρων ),
[in LXX (Hex. only in OT) for H2205;]
a council of elders, senate; in NT, of the Sanhedrin (Cl. Rev. i, 43 f.; DB, ext., 99): Acts 5:21.†
Copyright © 1922 by G. Abbott-Smith, D.D., D.C.L.. T & T Clarke, London.
Bishop Hicks has shown (CR i. p. 43 f.) the important place occupied by the γερουσία in Ephesus and other Greek cities in Roman imperial times, and consequently how the term, and not βουλή , came to be applied to the Sanhedrin in Acts 5:21. In Syll 740.2 (A.D. 212) ἔ ]δοξεν τῇ ἱερᾷ γερουσίᾳ τοῦ Σωτῆρος [Ἀ ]σκληπιοῦ κτλ , the editor remarks on the singular use of the word for a private sacred college : on ib. 882 (Cos—imperial time) τοῦ μνημείου τούτου ἡ γερουσία κήδεται , he suggests the same connotation, and on ib. 737.132 (ii/A.D.) he argues an application to the ἱερὰ γερουσία of Eleusis (see his reff.). These will suffice to show that a γερουσία concerned, like the Sanhedrin, with res sacrae was nothing unusual. The use of the word for lay senates of various kinds is of course abundant, and does not concern us : see inter alia Ramsay C. and B. ii. p. 438 ff., and Ferguson Legal Terms common to the Macedonian Inscrr. and the NT (Chicago, 1913), p. 30 ff. The two terms of Acts 5:21 appear together in Cagnat IV. 836.7 (Hierapolis,? ii/A.D. or after) ἀποδώσει τῷ [σ ]εμνοτάτῳ συνεδρίωι γερουσίας δηνάρια χείλια (for violating a tomb).
Copyright © 1914, 1929, 1930 by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan. Hodder and Stoughton, London.
Derivative Copyright © 2015 by Allan Loder.
