Our Translators have rendered all these words by ‘murderer,’ which, apt enough in the case of the first (
Ἀνθρωποκτόνος, exactly corresponding to our ‘manslayer,’ or ‘homicide,’ occurs in the N. T. only in the writings of St. John (8:44; 1
Σικάριος, which only occurs once in the N. T., and then, noticeably enough, on the lips of a Roman officer (
It will appear from what has been said that φονεύς may be any murderer, the genus of which σικάριος is a species, this latter being an assassin, using a particular weapon, and following his trade of blood in a special manner. Again, ἀνθρωποκτόνος has a stress and emphasis of its own. He to whom this name is given is a murderer of men, a homicide. Φονεύς is capable of vaguer use; a wicked man might be characterized as φονεὺς τῆς εὐσεβείας, a destroyer of piety, though he made no direct attack on the lives of men, a traitor or tyrant as φονεὺς τῆς πατρίδος (Plutarch, Praec. Ger. Reip. 19); and such uses of the word are not unfrequent.
[The following Strong's numbers apply to this section:G443,G4607,G5406.]
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