akrasia

ἀκρασία is formed from the alpha-privative and κράτος ("power, mastery") and stands as the negative counterpart of ἐγκράτεια. Its philosophical pedigree runs from Socrates and Aristotle, for whom ἀκρασία (Nicomachean Ethics VII, 1145a15ff.) was the technical term for acting against one's own better judgment. New Testament lexica agree, however, that Matthew and Paul use it in its ordinary Koine moralist sense rather than as Aristotelian jargon: BDAG glosses "lack of self-control, self-indulgence," reading Matthew 23:25 as generic appetitive indulgence and 1 Corinthians 7:5 as specifically sexual; Louw-Nida files it at §88.91 ("lack of self-control, with the implication of lack of moderation"). At Matthew 23:25 ἀκρασίας is the lectio difficilior, read by א B C L against the Byzantine smoothings (ἀδικίας, πλεονεξίας, πονηρίας) and adopted by virtually all critical editors (Metzger). The noun is absent from the canonical Septuagint; the Jewish moral-psychological background is developed instead in Sirach, 4 Maccabees, and Philo. Scholarly disagreement concerns not the sense but the background: Will Deming reads 1 Corinthians 7 within a Stoic-Cynic marriage debate, while Thiselton and Ciampa-Rosner locate it in Old Testament and Jewish sexual ethics.