Godhead
Godhead
the nature or essential being of God (Act 17:29; Rom 1:20; Col 2:9).
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Godhead
(Acts 17:29; Rom. 1:20; Col. 2:9), the essential being or the nature of God.
Fuente: Easton’s Bible Dictionary
Godhead
godhed: The word Godhead is a simple doublet of the less frequently occurring Godhood. Both forms stand side by side in the Ancren Riwle (about 1225 ad), and both have survived until today, though not in equally common use. They are representatives of a large class of abstract substantives, formed with the suffix -head or -hood, most of which formerly occurred in both forms almost indifferently, though the majority of them survive only, or very preponderatingly (except in Scottish speech), in the form -hood. The two suffixes appear in Middle English as -hede and -hod, and presuppose in the Anglo-Saxon which lies behind them a feminine haeda (which is not actually known) by the side of the masculine had. The Anglo-Saxon word was originally a distinct substantive, meaning ‘person, personality, sex, condition, quality, rank’ (Bradley, in A New English Dict. on a Historical Basis, under the word -hood), but its use as a suffix early superseded its separate employment. At first -hede appears to have been appropriated to adjectives, -hod to substantives; but, this distinction breaking down and the forms coming into indiscriminate use, -hede grew obsolete, and remains in common use only in one or two special forms, such as Godhead, maidenhead (Bradley, as cited, under the word -head).
The general elimination of the forms in -head has been followed by a fading consciousness, in the case of the few surviving instances in this form, of the qualitative sense inherent in the suffix. The words accordingly show a tendency to become simple denotatives. Thus, the Godhead is frequently employed merely as a somewhat strong synonym of God although usually with more or less emphasis upon that in God which makes Him God. One of its established usages is to denote the Divine essence as such, in distinction from the three hypostases or persons which share its common possession in the doctrine of the Trinity. This usage is old: Bradley (op. cit.) is able to adduce instances from the 13th century. In this usage the word has long held the rank of a technical term, e.g. the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 1571, Art. I: And in the unity of this Godhead, there be three persons (compare the Irish Articles of 1615, and the Westminster Confession, II, 3); Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 6: There are three persons in the Godhead. Pursuant to the fading of the qualitative sense of the word, there has arisen a tendency, when the qualitative consciousness is vivid, to revive the obsolescent Godhood, to take its place; and this tendency naturally shows itself especially when the contrast with humanity is expressed. Carlyle, for example (French Revolution, III, Book vi, chapter iv, section 1), speaking of the posthumous reaction against Marat, writes: Shorter godhood had no divine man; and Phillips Brooks (Sermons, XIII, 237) speaks of Christ bridging the gulf between the Godhood and the manhood. Godhood seems, indeed, always to have had a tendency to appear in such contrasts, as if the qualitative consciousness were more active in it than in Godhead. Thus, it seems formerly to have suggested itself almost as inevitably to designate the Divine nature of Christ, as Godhead did to designate the common Divine essence of the Trinity. Bradley cites instances from 1563 down.
The fundamental meaning of Godhead is, nevertheless, no less than that of Godhood, the state, dignity, condition, quality, of a god, or, as monotheists would say, of God. As manhood is that which makes a man a man, and childhood that which makes a child a child, so Godhead is that which makes God, God. When we ascribe Godhead to a being, therefore, we affirm that all that enters into the idea of God belongs to Him. Godhead is thus the Saxon equivalent of the Latin Divinity, or, as it is now becoming more usual to say, Deity. Like these terms it is rendered concrete by prefixing the article to it. As the Divinity, the Deity, so also the Godhead is only another way of saying God, except that when we say the Divinity, the Deity, the Godhead, we are saying God more abstractly and more qualitatively, that is with more emphasis, or at least with a more lively consciousness, of the constitutive qualities which make God the kind of being we call God.
The word Godhead occurs in the King James Version only 3 times (Act 17:29; Rom 1:20; Col 2:9), and oddly enough it translates in these 3 passages, 3 different, though closely related, Greek words, , to theon , theiotes, , theotes.
To theion means that which is Divine, concretely, or, shortly, the Deity. Among the Greeks it was in constant use in the sense of the Divine Being, and particularly as a general term to designate the Deity apart from reference to a particular god. It is used by Paul (Act 17:29) in an address made to a heathen audience, and is inserted into a context in which it is flanked by the simple term God ( , ho theos) on both sides. It is obviously deliberately chosen in order to throw up into emphasis the qualitative idea of God; and this emphasis is still further heightened by the direct contrast into which it is brought with the term man. Being, then, the offspring of God, we ought not to think that it is to gold or silver or stone graven by art and device of man that the Godhead is like. In an effort to bring out this qualitative emphasis, the Revised Version, margin suggests that we might substitute for the Godhead here the periphrastic rendering, that which is Divine. But this seems both clumsy and ineffective for its purpose. From the philological standpoint, the Godhead is very fair equivalent for to theion, differing as it does from the simple God precisely by its qualitative emphasis. It may be doubted, however, whether in the partial loss by Godhead of its qualitative force in its current usage, one of its synonyms, the Divinity (which is the rendering here of the Rhemish version) or the Deity, would not better convey Paul’s emphasis to modern readers.
Neither of these terms, Divinity, Deity, occurs anywhere in the King James Version, and Deity does not occur in the Revised Version (British and American) either; but the Revised Version (British and American) (following the Rhemish version) substitutes Dignity for Godhead in Rom 1:20. Of the two, Dignity was originally of the broader connotation; in the days of heathendom it was applicable to all grades of Divine beings. Deity was introduced by the Christian Fathers for the express purpose of providing a stronger word by means of which the uniqueness of the Christians’ God should be emphasized. Perhaps Divinity retains even in its English usage something of its traditional weaker connotation, although, of course, in a monotheistic consciousness the two terms coalesce in meaning. There exists a tendency to insist, therefore, on the Deity of Christ, rather than his mere Divinity, in the feeling that Divinity might lend itself to the notion that Christ possessed but a secondary or reduced grade of Divine quality. In Act 17:29 Paul is not discriminating between grades of Divinity, but is preaching monotheism. In this context, then, to theion does not lump together all that is called God or is worshipped, and declare that all that is in any sense Divine should be esteemed beyond the power of material things worthily to represent. Paul has the idea of God at its height before his mind, and having quickened his hearers’ sense of God’s exaltation by his elevated description of Him, he demands of them whether this Deity can be fitly represented by any art of man working in dead stuff. He uses the term to theion, rather than ho theos, not merely in courteous adoption of his hearers’ own language, but because of its qualitative emphasis. On the whole, the best English translation of it would probably be the Deity. The Godhead has ceased to be sufficiently qualitative: the Godhood is not sufficiently current: the Divine is not sufficiently personal: the Divinity is perhaps not sufficiently strong: Deity without the article loses too much of its personal reference to compensate for the gain in qualitativeness: the Deity alone seems fairly to reproduce the apostle’s thought.
The Greek term in Rom 1:20 is theiotes, which again, as a term of quality, is not unfairly rendered by Godhead. What Paul says here is that the everlasting power and Godhead of God are clearly perceived by means of His works. By Godhead he clearly means the whole of that by which God is constituted what we mean by God. By coupling the word with power, Paul no doubt intimates that his mind is resting especially upon those qualities which enter most intimately into and constitute the exaltation of God; but we must beware of limiting the connotation of the term – all of God’s attributes are glorious. The context shows that the thought of the apostle was moving on much the same lines as in Act 17:29; here, too, the contrast which determines the emphasis is with corruptible man, and along with him, with the lower creatures in general (Rom 1:23). How could man think of the Godhead under such similitudes – the Godhead, so clearly manifested in its glory by its works! The substitution for Godhead here of its synonym Divinity by the Revised Version (British and American) is doubtless due in part to a desire to give distinctive renderings to distinct terms, and in part to a wish to emphasize, more strongly than Godhead in its modern usage emphasizes, the qualitative implication which is so strong in theiotes. Perhaps, however, the substitution is not altogether felicitous. Divinity, in its contrast with Deity, may have a certain weakness of connotation clinging to it, which would unsuit it to represent theiotes here. It is quite true that the two terms, Divinity and Deity, are the representatives in Latin Patristic writers respectively of the Greek theiotes and theotes. Augustine (The City of God, VII, 1; compare X, 1) tells us that Deity was coined by Christian writers as a more accurate rendering of the Greek theotes than the current Divinity. But it does not follow that because Deity more accurately renders theotes, therefore Divinity is always the best rendering of theiotes. The stress laid by the Greek Fathers on the employment of theotes to express the Deity of the Persons of the Trinity was in sequence to attempts which were being made to ascribe to the Son and the Spirit a reduced Divinity; and it was the need the Latin Fathers felt in the same interests which led them to coin Deity as a more accurate rendering, as they say, of theotes. Meanwhile theiotes and Divinity had done service in the two languages, the former as practically, and the latter as absolutely, the only term in use to express the idea of Deity. Theotes is very rare in classical Greek, Deity non- existent in classical Latin. To represent theiotes uniformly by Divinity, if any reduced connotation at all clings to Divinity, would therefore be to represent it often very inadequately. And that is the case in the present passage. What Paul says is clearly made known by God’s works, is His everlasting power and all the other everlasting attributes which form His Godhead and constitute His glory.
It is theotes which occurs in Col 2:9. Here Paul declares that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily. The phrase fullness of the Godhead is an especially emphatic one. It means everything without exception which goes to make up the Godhead, the totality of all that enters into the conception of Godhood. All this, says Paul, dwells in Christ bodily, that is after such a fashion as to be manifested in connection with a bodily organism. This is the distinction of Christ: in the Father and in the Spirit the whole plenitude of the Godhead dwells also, but not bodily; in them it is not manifested in connection with a bodily life. It is the incarnation which Paul has in mind; and he tells us that in the incarnate Son, the fullness of the Godhead dwells. The term chosen to express the Godhead here is the strongest and the most unambiguously decisive which the language affords. Theiotes may mean all that theotes can mean; on monotheistic lips it does mean just what theotes means; but theotes must mean the utmost that either term can mean. The distinction is, not that theotes refers to the essence and theiotes to the attributes; we cannot separate the essence and the attributes. Where the essence is, there the attributes are; they are merely the determinants of the essence. And where the attributes are, there the essence is; it is merely the thing, of the kind of which they are the determinants. The distinction is that theotes emphasizes that it is the highest stretch of Divinity which is in question, while theiotes might possibly be taken as referring to Deity at a lower level. It it not merely such divinity as is shared by all the gods many and lords many of the heathen world, to which heroes might aspire, and demons attain, all the plenitude of which dwells in Christ as incarnate; but that Deity which is peculiar to the high gods; or, since Paul is writing out of a monotheistic consciousness, that Deity which is the Supreme God alone. All the fullness of supreme Deity dwells in Christ bodily. There is nothing in the God who is over all which is not in Christ. Probably no better rendering of this idea is afforded by our modern English than the term Godhead, in which the qualitative notion still lurks, though somewhat obscured behind the individualizing implication, and which in any event emphasizes precisely what Paul wishes here to assert – that all that enters into the conception of God, and makes God what we mean by the term God, dwells in Christ, and is manifested in Him in connection with a bodily organism.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Godhead
1. , that which is ‘divine:’ it is not like gold, silver, or stone, etc. Act 17:29. The word is translated ‘divine’ in 2Pe 1:3-4.
2. , that which is characteristic of God, namely, ‘divinity.’ Rom 1:20.
3. , Deity or Godhead; in Christ ‘dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.’ Col 2:9.
Fuente: Concise Bible Dictionary
Godhead
In general, the state of being a god, godhood, godness, divinity, deity. More strictly, the essential nature of God, especially the triune God, one in three Persons. — J.J.R.
Fuente: The Dictionary of Philosophy
Godhead
theiotes (G2305) Godhead
theotes (G2320) Divinity, Deity
Neither of these words occurs more than once in the New Testament; theiotes occurs only in Rom 1:20 (and once in the Apocrypha Wisd. of Sol. 18:9), and theotes is found in Col 2:9. We have rendered both by “Godhead”; yet the words must not be regarded as identical in meaning or even as two different forms of the same word that have over time acquired different shades of significance. On the contrary, there is a real distinction between them that is grounded in their different derivations. Theotes comes from theos (G2316), and theiotes from the adjective theios (G2304).
In comparing the two passages, the appropriateness of using one word in one text and one in the other is apparent. In the first (Rom 1:20), Paul is declaring how much of God may be known from his revelation in nature, from those vestiges of himself that men may everywhere trace in the world around them. Yet it is not the personal God whom any man may learn to know by these aids (God can be known only by the revelation of himself in his Son) but only his divine attributes, his majesty and glory. Paul uses this more abstract and less personal word precisely because he wishes to affirm that men may know God’s power and majesty, his theia dynamis (G1411, divine power; 2Pe 1:3), from his works. But Paul would not imply that they may know God personally from anything short of the revelation of his eternal Word, Jesus Christ. Similar motives induce Paul to use to theion, rather than ho theos, in addressing the Athenians on Mars’ Hill (Act 17:29).
In the second passage (Col 2:9), Paul is declaring that all the fullness of absolute Godhead dwells in the Son. No mere rays of divine glory gilded him, lighting up his person for a season and with a splendor not his own; but he was and is absolute and perfect God. The apostle uses theotes to express this essential and personal Godhead of the Son. Thus according to Augustine, in this verse theotes refers to “the being of him who is God.” And Beza rightly states: “He does not say ‘ten theioteta, ‘that is, ‘divinity,’ but ‘ten theoteta, ‘that is, ‘deity,’ in order to speak even more distinctly…. He theiotes seems to signify attributes more than his very nature.” And Bengel says that theotes refers “not only [to] divine virtues but [to] divine nature itself.” De Wette has sought to express this distinction in his German translation, rendering theiotes by divinity (Gttlichkeit) and theotes by deity (Gottheit).
There have been those who have denied that any such distinction was intended by Paul. Such persons base their denial on the assumption that it is not possible to satisfactorily prove that there is an important difference of meaning between the two words. But even supposing that such a difference could not be shown in classical Greek, this of itself would not be decisive. The gospel of Christ might give words new shades of meaning and evolve latent distinctions, which those who previously employed the words may not have required but that had now become necessary. The distinction between deity (theotes) and divinity (theiotes) is one that would be strongly felt and expressed in Christian theology. Hence Latin Christian writers were not satisfied with divinitas which they found in the writings of Cicero and others and which they sometimes used. Instead, they coined deitas as the only adequate Latin representative of the Greek theotes. We have Augustine’s express testimony to this fact: “This divinity or, as I might say, deityfor we are no longer reluctant to use this word to translate from Greek more clearly what they call theoteta [deity].” In addition to this statement and the different etymologies of the words, various examples support this distinction. Both theotes and theiotes, as is generally true of abstract words in every language, are of late introduction; and one of them, theotes, is extremely rare. Indeed, only two examples of it from classical Greek are knownone from Lucian (Icaromenippus 9), the other from Plutarch.
Thus from human beings to heroes and from heroes to demons the superior souls assume change. Of demons few, having been wholly purified through virtue over a long period of time, have partaken of deity.
To these a third example, also from Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride 22), may be added. In all of these examples, theotes expresses (in agreement with my view) Godhead in the absolute sense, or at all events in as absolute a sense as the pagan could conceive it. Theiotes is a much more frequent word, and its usage everywhere supports this distinction. It always shows a manifestation of the divine or of some divine attributes but never absolute, essential deity. Thus Lucian attributes theiotes to Hephaestion, when after his death Alexander would have raised him to the rank of a god. Plutarch speaks of the “divinity [theiotes] of the soul.”
In conclusion, whether this distinction was intended (as I am fully convinced that it was) by Paul or not, it established itself firmly in the later theological language of the church. The Greek fathers never used theiotes but always theotes as the only word to adequately express the essential Godhead of the three separate persons in the Holy Trinity.
Fuente: Synonyms of the New Testament
Godhead
* For GODHEAD see DIVINE, DIVINITY