Bible Dictionary: Barbarian

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Easton's Bible Dictionary

A Greek word used in the New Testament (Romans 1:14) to denote one of another nation. In Colossians 3:11, the word more definitely designates those nations of the Roman empire that did not speak Greek. In 1 Corinthians 14:11, it simply refers to one speaking a different language. The inhabitants of Malta are so called (Acts 28:1, 2, 4). They were originally a Carthaginian colony. This word nowhere in Scripture bears the meaning it does in modern times.

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary

1. (n.) A foreigner.

2. (n.) A man in a rule, savage, or uncivilized state.

3. (n.) A person destitute of culture.

4. (n.) A cruel, savage, brutal man; one destitute of pity or humanity.

5. (a.) Of, or pertaining to, or resembling, barbarians; rude; uncivilized; barbarous; as, barbarian governments or nations.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

BARBARIAN; BARBAROUS

bar-ba'-ri-an, bar'-ba-rus (barbaros): A word probably formed by imitation of the unintelligible sounds of foreign speech, and hence, in the mouth of a Greek it meant anything that was not Greek, language, people or customs. With the spread of Greek language and culture, it came to be used generally for all that was non-Greek. Philo and Josephus sometimes called their own nation "barbarians," and so did Roman writers up to the Augustan age, when they adopted Greek culture, and reckoned themselves with the Greeks as the only cultured people in the world. Therefore Greek and barbarian meant the whole human race (Romans 1:14).

In Colossians 3:11, "barbarian, Scythian" is not a classification or antithesis but a "climax" (Abbott) = "barbarians, even Scythians, the lowest type of barbarians." In Christ, all racial distinctions, even the most pronounced, disappear.

In 1 Corinthians 14:11 Paul uses the term in its more primitive sense of one speaking a foreign, and therefore, an unintelligible language: "If then I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be to him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh will be a barbarian unto me." The speaking with tongues would not be a means of communication. The excited inarticulate ejaculations of the Corinthian revivalists were worse than useless unless someone had the gift of articulating in intelligible language the force of feeling that produced them (dunamis tes phones, literally, "the power of the sound").

In Acts 28:2, 4 (in the King James Version of Acts 28:2 "barbarous people" = barbarians) the writer, perhaps from the Greek-Roman standpoint, calls the inhabitants of Melita barbarians, as being descendants of the old Phoenician settlers, or possibly in the more general sense of "strangers." For the later sense of "brutal," "cruel," "savage," see 2 Maccabees 2:21; 4:25; 15:02.

T. Rees

Greek

915. barbaros -- barbarous, barbarian
... barbarous, barbarian. Part of Speech: Adjective Transliteration: barbaros Phonetic
Spelling: (bar'-bar-os) Short Definition: a foreigner who speaks neither ...
//strongsnumbers.com/greek2/915.htm - 7k

Library

The Barbarian Desolation
... SAINT AUGUSTIN III THE BARBARIAN DESOLATION. ... As for Arianism, which had seemed
extinguished in the West, here it was given a new life by the Barbarian invasion. ...
/.../christianbookshelf.org/bertrand/saint augustin/iii the barbarian desolation.htm

Enterprise of Gainas, the Gothic Barbarian. Evils which He ...
... Book VIII. Chapter IV."Enterprise of Gaïnas, the Gothic Barbarian. Evils
which he perpetrated. A barbarian, named Gaïnas, [1588 ...
/.../the ecclesiastical history of sozomenus/chapter iv enterprise of gainas the.htm

Letter Xlvi. (AD 398. )
... Now a doubt has arisen in my mind whether the landowner who thus employs a barbarian,
of whose fidelity he is persuaded in consequence of such an oath, does ...
/.../augustine/the confessions and letters of st/letter xlvi a d 398.htm

Gainas the Goth Attempts to Usurp the Sovereign Power; after ...
... Gaïnas was a barbarian by extraction but after becoming a Roman subject, and having
engaged in military service, and risen by degrees from one rank to another ...
/.../chapter vi gainas the goth attempts.htm

None of Your Party, O Manes, Will You Make a Galatian...
... You are a vessel of Antichrist; and no vessel of honour, in sooth, but a mean and
base one, used by him as any barbarian or tyrant may do, who, in attempting ...
/.../the acts of the disputation with the heresiarch manes/36 none of your party.htm

Reasons for Veiling the Truth in Symbols.
... For the sake, then, of memory and brevity, and of attracting to the truth,
such are the Scriptures of the Barbarian philosophy. ...
/.../clement/the stromata or miscellanies/chapter ix reasons for veiling the.htm

All Sects of Philosophy Contain a Germ of Truth.
... truth is one (for falsehood has ten thousand by-paths); just as the Bacchantes tore
asunder the limbs of Pentheus, so the sects both of barbarian and Hellenic ...
/.../clement/the stromata or miscellanies/chapter xiii all sects of philosophy.htm

Introductory.
... As Scripture has called the Greeks pilferers of the Barbarian [2154] philosophy,
it will next have to be considered how this may be briefly demonstrated. ...
/.../clement/the stromata or miscellanies/chapter i introductory.htm

A Roman Lady who Manifested a Deed of Modesty.
... [1634] I shall recount a pious action performed by a barbarian, and record the
bravery of a Roman lady for the preservation of her chastity. ...
/.../sozomen/the ecclesiastical history of sozomenus/chapter x a roman lady who.htm

That the Inventors of Other Arts were Mostly Barbarians.
... he who was held in admiration by the Greeks, who said, "My covering is a cloak;
my supper, milk and cheese." You see that the barbarian philosophy professes ...
/.../clement/the stromata or miscellanies/chapter xvi that the inventors of.htm

Thesaurus

Barbarian (2 Occurrences)
... 5. (a.) Of, or pertaining to, or resembling, barbarians; rude; uncivilized; barbarous;
as, barbarian governments or nations. Int. ...BARBARIAN; BARBAROUS. ...
/b/barbarian.htm - 10k

Barbarous (1 Occurrence)
... 1. (a.) Being in the state of a barbarian; uncivilized; rude; peopled with barbarians;
as, a barbarous people; a barbarous country. ...BARBARIAN; BARBAROUS. ...
/b/barbarous.htm - 9k

Speaketh (367 Occurrences)
... 1 Corinthians 14:11 Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be
unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian...
/s/speaketh.htm - 33k

Graecia
... that even "Hellene" stood not so much for a distinction in race, as for preeminence
of culture, in contrast to the despised "Barbarian." Hence, there was much ...
/g/graecia.htm - 21k

Wormwood (10 Occurrences)
... Older expositors, applying the earlier trumpets to the downfall of the Roman empire,
saw in the star a symbol of the barbarian invasions of Attila or Genseric. ...
/w/wormwood.htm - 13k

Freeman (9 Occurrences)
... Colossians 3:11 where there can't be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all. ...
/f/freeman.htm - 10k

Renewal (6 Occurrences)
... Colossians 3:11 where there can't be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all. ...
/r/renewal.htm - 8k

Distinction (14 Occurrences)
... Colossians 3:11 where there can't be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all. ...
/d/distinction.htm - 11k

Bondservant (34 Occurrences)
... Colossians 3:11 where there can't be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision,
barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all. ...
/b/bondservant.htm - 16k

Barbarians (3 Occurrences)

/b/barbarians.htm - 7k

Bible Concordance

Barbarian (2 Occurrences)

1 Corinthians 14:11 Therefore if I know not the meaning of the voice, I shall be unto him that speaketh a barbarian, and he that speaketh shall be a barbarian unto me.
(KJV ASV DBY WBS NAS)

Colossians 3:11 where there can't be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondservant, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all.
(WEB KJV WEY ASV DBY WBS NAS RSV NIV)

Subtopics

Barbarian

Barbarian: A Foreigner

Related Terms

Barbarous (1 Occurrence)

Speaketh (367 Occurrences)

Graecia

Wormwood (10 Occurrences)

Freeman (9 Occurrences)

Renewal (6 Occurrences)

Distinction (14 Occurrences)

Bondservant (34 Occurrences)