[B-Greek] PAIS v DOULOS

Stephen Baldwin stbaldwi at hotmail.com
Fri Jan 30 00:00:54 EST 2009


Hello Carl, Ladies and Gentlemen:
Curiouser and curiouser...
Thank you all for your contributions and recommendations. Interesting stuff.
I would presume that there is a fair degree of overlap between the definitions of DOULOS and PAIS where PAIS is meaning slave/servant...
Also from Exodus 21, I notice that we add have a 3rd type of labo{u}rer, an OIKETHS v26-27.
I'd be interested to know, in the context of Ex21, whether all these terms refer to the same "class" of people / stratum of society,whether they are just variations on a theme or "technical"/legal terms or whatever...
But an off-topicatious whiff is in the air...

Rgds
Steve Baldwin
stbaldwi at hotmail.com








> CC: b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> From: cwconrad2 at mac.com
> To: stbaldwi at hotmail.com
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] PAIS v DOULOS
> Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 20:58:01 -0500
> 
> 
> 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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