We must not confound these words because our English ‘crown’ stands for them both. I greatly doubt whether anywhere in classical literature στέφανος is used of the kingly, or imperial, crown. It is the crown of victory in the games, of civic worth, of military valour, of nuptial joy, of festal gladness—woven of oak, of ivy, of parsley, of myrtle, of olive, or imitating in gold these leaves or others—of flowers, as of violets or roses (see Athenaeus, xv. 9–33); the ‘wreath,’ in fact, or the ‘garland,’ the German ‘Kranz’ as distinguished from ‘Krone;’ but never, any more than ‘corona’ in Latin, the emblem and sign of royalty. The διάδημα was this βασιλείας γνώρισμα, as Lucian calls it (Pisc. 35; cf. Xenophon, Cyr. viii. 3. 13; Plutarch, De Frat. Am. 18); being properly a white linen band or fillet, ‘taenia’ or ‘fascia’ (Curtius, 3:3), encircling the brow; so that no language is more common than περιτιθέναι διάδημα to indicate the assumption of royal dignity (Polybius, v. 57. 4; 1 Macc. 1:9; 11:13; 13:32; Josephus, Antt. xii. 10, 1), even as in Latin in like manner the ‘diadema’ alone is the ‘insigne regium’ (Tacitus, Annal. xv. 29). With this agree Selden’s opening words in his learned discussion on the distinction between ‘crowns’ and ‘diadems’ (Titles of Honour, c. 8, § 2): ‘However those names have been from antient time confounded, yet the diadem strictly was a very different thing from what a crown now is or was; and it was no other than only a fillet of silk, linen, or some such thing, Nor appears it that any other kind of crown was used for a royal ensign, except only in some kingdoms of Asia, but this kind of fillet, until the beginning of Christianity in the Roman Empire.’
A passage in Plutarch brings out very clearly the distinction here affirmed. The kingly crown which Antonius offers to Caesar the biographer describes as διάδημα στεφάνῳ δάφνης περιπεπλεγμένον (Coes. 61). Here the στέφανος is the garland or laureate wreath, with which the diadem proper was enwoven; indeed, according to Cicero (Phil. 2:34), Caesar was already ‘coronatus’ (==ἐστεφανωμένος), this he would have been as Consul, when the offer was made. It is by keeping this distinction in mind that we explain a version in Suetonius (Coes. 79) of the same incident. One places on Caesar’s statue ‘coronam lauream candidâ fasciâ praeligatam’ (his statues, Plutarch also informs us, were διαδήμασιν ἀναδεδεμένοι βασιλικοῖς); on which the tribunes command to be removed, not the ‘corona,’ but the ‘fascia;’ this being the diadem, in which alone the traitorous suggestion that he should suffer himself to be proclaimed king was contained. Compare Diodorus Siculus xx. 24, where of one he says, διάδημα μὲν οὐκ ἔκρινεν ἔχειν, ἐφόρει γὰρ ἀεὶ στεφανον.
How accurately the words are discriminated in the Septuagint and in the Apocrypha may be seen by comparing in the First Maccabees the passages in which διάδημα is employed (such as 1:9; 6:15; 8:14; 11:13, 54; 12:39; 13:32), and those where στέφανος appears (4:57; 10:29; 11:35; 13:39; cf. 2 Macc. 14:4). Compare
In the N. T. it is plain that the στέφανος whereof St. Paul speaks is always the conqueror’s, and not the king’s (
The only occasion on which στέφανος might seem to be used of a kingly crown is
[The following Strong's numbers apply to this section:G1238,G4735.]
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