[B-Greek] PAIS v DOULOS

James Ernest james.ernest at gmail.com
Wed Jan 28 07:46:25 EST 2009


I find Carl's suggestion ("what I suspect is that DOULOS is the socio-
economic term for a servant in relationship to a KURIOS in an OIKOS as
a socio-economic unit, while PAIS is what that servant is referred to
as by those whom he [or she . . .] works for/serves ") quite
interesting . . . you'd probably need to see further analysis of the
social implications before running with that. Even though you say
you're interested in OT slavery, I think you'd need to look at a book
or two by J. Albert Harrill:

The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity. Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1995. Reprinted in paperback edition, 1998. (See especially
the discussiosn of vocabulary in the first chapter.)

Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social and Moral Dimensions.
Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006.

Bert gave me permission to pass along this brief comment to the list:
"Not every Pais was a Doulos (pais being also a term for "boy" or
child),  but every Doulos was a Pais."

James Ernest


On Tue, Jan 27, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
>
> On Jan 26, 2009, at 9:25 PM, Stephen Baldwin wrote:
>
>>
>> Ladies and Gentlemen:
>> I am curious, reading in the LXX (Ex21:2) about Hebrew slaves to see
>> the noun PAIS where, being a rookie, I was fully expecting to see a
>> DOULOS. I was wondering whether anyone might be able to help my word
>> study.
>> In my library [such as it is], there seems to be very little on the
>> meaning of PAIS as servant/slave. Lots about it being a young man
>> etc. Louw&Nida imply (87.77) that a PAIS [=slave/servant] might have
>> had a better status "implication of kind regard". Kittel goes on at
>> very great length about the PAIS QEOU etc. but not a great deal else.
>>
>> But I would be interested to know the differences [if any] between
>> these words, and any other tidbits anyone might want to offer. I've
>> just noticed in Ex21:7 the mention of female hAI DOULAI which causes
>> the plot to thicken a bit more...
>>
>> As an off-topic aside, I'd be interested in anyone's recommendations
>> [off-list please] for further reading on the issue of slavery in the
>> OT and the other codes of that era. The work most mentioned is Isaac
>> Mendelsohn's book from 1949 I believe. Being a book of high-regard
>> and oft-quoted, it is of course out of stock or out of print and
>> very hard to obtain at a price commensurate with a recession :-)
>
> PAIS for slave goes way back in Classical Greek. I still remember the
> first time I saw PAIS used thus, right at the beginning of Plato's
> Republic (1.327a) Πολέμαρχος ὁ Κεφάλου
> ἐκέλευσε δραμόντα τὸν παῖδα
> περιμεῖναί ἑ κελεῦσαι. [POLEMARCOS hO KEFALOU
> EKELEUSE DRAMONTA TON PAIDA PERIMEINAI hE KELEUSAI] "Polemarchus son
> of Cephalus had told his slave to run and bid us wait up for him."
>
> I won't cite the entire lengthy entry in BDAG, but the relevant part
> is 3. one who is committed in total obedience to another, slave, servant
>        a. of slaves and personal attendants slave, servant
>        b. of special relationships
>        α. humans as God's servants, slaves
>        β. angels as servants of God
>        γ. of Christ in his relation to God. In this connection it has the
> mng. servant because of the identification of the 'servant of God'
> of certain OT pass. w. the Messiah
>
> You might compare the usage of "garçon" in French and the archaic
> taboo usage of "boy" in English to refer to a servant or slave. I'm
> just speculating here, but what I suspect is that DOULOS is the socio-
> economic term for a servant in relationship to a KURIOS in an OIKOS as
> a socio-economic unit, while PAIS is what that servant is referred to
> as by those whom he (or she -- PAIS is used even of a woman servant)
> works for/serves. I think that PAIS may function like diminutives and
> second-person singulars as terms that may function at either of two
> extremes: (1) a term of endearment ("my child"), and (2) a term of
> distancing, used for one whom one views as an inferior. At any rate,
> it certainly the case that Heb. EBD is represented in the LXX at least
> as frequently by PAIS as by DOULOS, very notably in the "Servant"
> poems of Second Isaiah.
>
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
>
>
>
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