Synonyms of the New Testament :: Richard C. Trench

lxxii. σαρκικός, σάρκινος.

A Discussion on the relations between ψυχικός and σαρκικός naturally draws after it one on the relations between σαρκικός and another form of the same, σάρκινος, which occurs three, or perhaps four, times in the N. T.; only once indeed in the received text (2 Cor. 3:3); but the evidence is overwhelming for the right it has to a place at Rom. 7:14; Heb. 7:16, as well, while a proponderance of evidence is in favour of allowing σάρκινος to stand also at 1 Cor. 3:1.

Words with the termination in -ινος, μετουσιαστικά as they are called, designating, as they most frequently do, the stuff of which anything is made (see Donaldson, Cratylus, 3rd edit. p. 458; Winer, Gramm. § xvi. 3; Fritzsche, Ep. ad Rom. vol. ii. p. 46), are common in the N. T.; thus θύϊνος, of thyine wood (Rev. 18:12), ὑάλινος, of glass, glassen (Rev. 4:6), ὑακίνθινος (Rev. 9:17), δερμάτινος (Matt. 3:4), ἀκάνθινος (Mark 15:17). One of these is σάρκινος, the only form of the word which classical antiquity recognized (σαρκικός, like the Latin ‘carnalis,’ having been called out by the ethical necessities of the Church), and at 2 Cor. 3:3 well rendered ‘fleshy’; that is, having flesh for the substance and material of which it is composed. I am unable to affirm that the word ‘fleshen’ ever existed in the English language. If it had done so, and still survived, it would be better still; for ‘fleshy’ may be ‘carnosus,’ as undoubtedly may σάρκινος as well (Plato, Legg. x. 906 c; Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. iii. 9. 3), while ‘fleshen’ must mean what σάρκινος means here, namely ‘carneus,’ or having flesh for its material. The former existence of such a word is not improbable, many of a like form having once been current, which have now passed away; as, for example, ‘stonen,’ ‘hornen,’ ‘hairen,’ ‘clayen’ (all in Wiclif’s Bible), ‘threaden’ (Shakespeare), ‘tinnen’ (Sylvester), ‘milken,’ ‘breaden,’ ‘reeden,’ with many more (see my English Past and Present, 10th edit. p. 256). Their perishing is to be regretted, for they were often by no means superfluous. The German has ‘steinig’ and ‘steinern,’ and finds use for both; as the Latin does for ‘lapidosus’ and ‘lapideus,’ for ‘saxosus’ and ‘saxeus.’ We might have done the same for ‘stony’ and ‘stonen’; a ‘stony’ place is one where the stones are many, a ‘stonen’ vessel would be a vessel made of stone (see John 2:6; Rev. 9:20, Wiclif’s Version, where the word is found). Or again, a ‘glassy’ sea is a sea resembling glass, a ‘glassen’ sea is a sea made of glass. And thus too ‘fleshly,’ ‘fleshy,’ and ‘fleshen,’ would have been none too many; as little as are ‘earthly,’ ‘earthy,’ and ‘earthen,’ for each of which we are able to find its own proper employment.

‘Fleshly’ lusts (‘carnal’ is the word oftener employed in our Translation, but in fixing the relations between σαρκικός and σάρκινος, it will be more convenient to employ ‘fleshly’ and ‘fleshy’) are lusts which move and stir in the ethical domain of the flesh, which have in that rebellious region of man’s corrupt and fallen nature their source and spring. Such are the σαρκικαὶ ἐπιθυμίαι (1 Pet. 2:11), and the man is σαρκικός who allows to the σάρξ a place which does not belong to it of right. It is in its place so long as it is under the dominion of the πνεῦμα, and receives a law from it; but becomes the source of all sin and all opposition to God so soon as the true positions of these are reversed, and that rules which should have been ruled. When indeed St. Paul says of the Corinthians (1 Cor. 3:1) that they were σάρκινοι, he finds serious fault indeed with them; but the accusation is far less grave than if he had written σαρκικοί instead. He does not hereby charge them with positive active opposition to the Spirit of God—this is evident from the ὡς νήπιοι with which he proceeds to explain it—but only that they were intellectually as well as spiritually tarrying at the threshold of the faith (cf. Heb. 5:11, 12); making no progress, and content to remain where they were, when they might have been carried far onward by the mighty transforming powers of that Spirit freely given to them of God. He does not charge them in this word with being antispiritual, but only with being unspiritual, with being flesh and little more, when they might have been much more. He goes on indeed, at ver. 3, 4, to charge them with the graver guilt of allowing the σάρξ to work actively, as a ruling principle in them; and he consequently changes his word. They were not σάρκινοι only, for no man and no Church can long tarry at this point, but σαρκικοί as well, and, as such, full of “envying and strife and divisions.”

In what way our Translators should have marked the distinction between σάρκινος and σαρκικός here it is not so easy to suggest. It is most likely, indeed, that the difficulty did not so much as present itself to them, accepting, as they probably did, the received text, in which there is no variation of the words. At 2 Cor. 3:3 all was plain before them: the σάρκιναι πλάκες are, as they have given it well, the “fleshy tables”; Erasmus observing to the point there, that σάρκινος, not σαρκικός, is used, ‘ut materiam intelligas, non qualitatem.’ St. Paul is drawing a contrast between the tables of stone on which the law of Moses was written and the tables of flesh on which Christ’s law is written, and exalting the last over the first; and so far from ‘fleshy’ there being a dishonourable epithet, it is a most honourable, serving as it does to set forth the superiority of the new Law over the old—the one graven on dead tables of stone, the other on the hearts of living men (cf. Ezek. 11:19; 36:26; Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10; 10:16).

[The following Strong's numbers apply to this section:G4559,G4560.]

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