Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Frank Gavin on "apostle" and "deacon"

  

Both “apostle” and “deacon” are Hebrew terms. Before the Christian era the pregnant use of the verb to send (shalaḥ) indicates a technical meaning like the use of αποστελλω in st. Mark vi. 7. The word shaliaḥ (shaluaḥ) is commonly met with in the sense of deputy, representative, agent, emissary, plenipotentiary. An old Rabbinic maxim is reflected in St. John xiii. 16b: “neither is he that is sent greater than he that sent him” for “he that is sent is like him who sends him”: the emissary is equal in (delegated) authority to him who empowers and sends him. The term shaliaḥ was used in many senses: for the official representative of the Sanhedrin; for the officiant at congregational worship in the Synagogue; for the representatives and accredited agents of God, as well as in other connections. The atmosphere of Acts ix. 1-2 is entirely in keeping with Jewish procedure: the “letters from the High Priest” would be accrediting testimonials, for which contemporary Hebrew offers a technical parallel, authorizing the venture of an official “emissary” sent off for a particular function. The word “deacon” or “minister” has ample precedent and parallel in Rabbinic literature, and its true congeniality can best be studied in the Semitic Christian milieu of the early Syriac literature. (Frank Gavin, The Jewish Antecedents of the Christian Sacraments [London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1928], 103-4)

 

 

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