Page 228 - Demo

224As to the other meaning of “intercessor or advocate” which is given in the ecclesiastical word “Paraclete,” I again insist that “Paracalon” and not “Paraclytos” can convey in itself a similar sense. The proper Greek term for “advocate” in Sunegorus and for “intercessor” or “mediator” meditéa.In my next article, I shall give the true Greek formof which Paraklytos is a corruption. En passant, I wish to correct an errorinto which the French savant ErnestRenan has also fallen. If I recollect well, Monsieur Renan, in his famous The Life ofChrist, interprets the “Paraclete” of St. John (pbuh) (xiv. 16, 26; xv. 7; I John ii. 1) as an “advocate.” He cites the Syro-Chaldean form “Peraklit” as opposed to “Ktighra” “the accuser” from Kategorus. The Syrian name for mediator or intercessor is “mis’aaya,” but in law courts, the “Snighra” (from the Greek Sunegorus) is used for anadvocate. Many Syrians unfamiliar with the Greek language consider the “Paraqlita” to be really the Aramaic or the Syriac form of the “Paraclete” in the Pshittha Version and to be composed of “Paraq,” “to save from, to deliver from,” and “Iita” “the accursed.” The idea that Christ is the “Saviour from the curse of the law,” and therefore he is himself too “Paraqlita” (1 John ii. 1), may have led some to think that the Greek word is originally an Aramaic word, just as the Greek sentence “Maran atha” in Aramaic is “Mărān Āthī,” i.e. “our Lord is coming” (1 John xvi. 22), which seems to be an expression among the believers regarding the coming of the Last Great Prophet. This ‘Mārān Āthī,” as well as, especially, the baptismal formula, contains points too important to be neglected. They both deserve a special study and a valuable exposition. They both embody in themselves marks and indications otherwise than favourable to Christianity.