Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Many readers will have access to J. Armitage Robinson's valuable note on the meaning of pleroma in his Ephesians (Macmillan, 1903), containing not only some important illustrative quotations from secular writers and from the Old Testament, but also a famous critique of the findings of previous scholars, in particular of J. B. Lightfoot.1 The present article is an attempt to consider once more, but only in outline, the meaning of the root pler-(“fill”, “fulness”, etc.), and to show, in rather more detail, its bearing on the theology of the New Testament.
page 79 note 1 See St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, J. B. Lightfoot (2nd edition, 1876), note on the meaning of irπληρωμα; St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians, J. A. Robinson (1903), note on the same; The Epistle to the Colossians and the Epistle to Philemon, L. B. Radford (1931), additional note The Pleroma; Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible, article Pleroma by W. Lock.
page 80 note 1 See Dodd, C. H. on Colossians in The Abingdon Bible Commentary (ed. Eiselen, Lewis and Downey, , Epworth Press).Google Scholar
page 81 note 1 See Hitchcock, A. E. N. in The Expository Times, xxii (1910–1911), 91Google Scholar; C. F. D. Moule, ibid., lx (1948–49), 53, 224; C. L. Mitton, ibid. 320.
page 82 note 1 For this and other examples, see Lightfoot, op. cit.
page 84 note 1 See (e.g.) Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, in loc.
page 86 note 1 The Hebrew root meaning “perfect” is sometimes rendered in the LXX by pleroun.