StrongerBible

apaugasma

ἀπαύγασμα

GreekG0541“radiance, brightness, ...”

Appears 1 time · tap a cell to see the verses

Heb 1:3
Compound of
apoἀπόaway from684G575
augazōαὐγάζωto see1G826
Word studyResearch-gradeap-OW-gas-mahnoun

What apaugasma means

the shining of a glory: the brightness that belongs to and comes from a source of light

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyContested

This word appears only once in the New Testament, in the opening of Hebrews, where the Son is called the brightness of God's glory. It pictures light and its shining: just as a source of light cannot be without its brightness, the Son is the very shining-out of who God is. The image is deliberately tight. There is no moment when the sun exists without its light, and the word is chosen to say the same of the Son and the Father.

The word is rare and learned. It does not turn up in everyday Greek; it belongs to a thoughtful, religious vocabulary, and its most famous earlier use is in the Jewish book the Wisdom of Solomon, where Wisdom is called the brightness of eternal light. The writer of Hebrews almost certainly has that line in mind and applies to the Son what that tradition had said of God's Wisdom.

There is a long-running question about the exact angle of the picture, captured in how translations differ. Some read it as light streaming out from its source (radiance, effulgence); others read it as light thrown back from a surface (reflection). The first reading has the stronger case and is now the usual one, but a number of careful readers think the word does not force the choice and that both ideas are in view: the Son both shines out from the Father and perfectly shows him. That debate is laid out below.

Heb 1:3

What scholars say about apaugasma

A late Hellenistic coinage unattested in classical Greek; its earliest secure occurrence is Wisdom of Solomon 7:26 (ἀπαύγασμα φωτὸς ἀϊδίου), with several uses in Philo (of the human νοῦς and rational soul) and occasional uses in Plutarch's Moralia. The NT hapax in Heb 1:3 is widely judged a deliberate echo of Wis 7:26, transferring Sapiential predication to the incarnate Son (Williamson, Attridge, Lane, Hurtado, Schenck). Morphology favors the active sense: the -μα result-nominal of ἀπαυγάζω ("flash forth, irradiate"), with the source-separative prefix ἀπό rather than the antonymic ἀντ- that yields ἀνταύγασμα, the standard word for reflected light (LSJ; Spicq). The post-war lexicographical record migrated decisively to the active gloss: BDAG leads with "radiance, effulgence" (reversing Bauer's Abglanz), LSJ gives only "radiance, effulgence," Louw-Nida domain 14, Spicq at length; Thayer (1886) is the chief outlier with "reflected brightness," following Grimm and the Calvin-Beza reading. The Greek Fathers are univocal for the active sense (Origen, De Principiis I.2; Athanasius, De Decretis 12; Chrysostom, Hom. in Heb. II identifying it as the ground of φῶς ἐκ φωτός; Cyril, Basil, the Cappadocians), for whom radiance, unlike reflection, is intrinsic, inseparable, and co-existent with its source, and thus the lexical hinge of homoousios against Arius. A minority line (Kittel in TDNT, Dods, A. T. Robertson, Barclay, with Ellingworth declining to arbitrate) holds that Hellenistic Jewish usage did not sharply enforce the active/passive distinction and that for Hebrews the Son is both the outshining and the manifestation of God's glory.

Where scholars disagree about apaugasma

Whether ἀπαύγασμα in Hebrews 1:3 is active (radiance, light streaming forth from its source) or passive (reflection, light thrown back from a derivative surface), with a third view that the word holds both senses together.

  • majorityActive: radiance or effulgence, the light that issues from its source and is of one substance with it. Favored by the morphology (the source-separative prefix ἀπό, the verb ἀπαυγάζω, and ἀνταύγασμα as the proper word for reflection), the post-war lexicons, the patristic consensus, and the Christological logic of Hebrews 1:2-3. This is the lexical basis of the Nicene confession of light from light.; BDAG, s.v. ἀπαύγασμα; B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 3rd ed. (1903), Additional Note; Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia (1989), pp. 42-43; Athanasius, De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi 12 (PG 25.448-453)
  • minorityPassive: reflection, light mirrored back from a derivative surface. Carried into modern English scholarship by the Calvin-Beza reading and the nineteenth-century lexicons, and reflected in the RSV and NRSV.; J. H. Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (1886), s.v. ἀπαύγασμα; James Moffatt, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, ICC (1924), pp. 6-7
  • minorityBoth at once: Hellenistic Jewish usage did not sharply enforce the active/passive distinction, so for Hebrews the Son is both the outshining of God's glory and its perfect manifestation. These interpreters decline to force the choice.; G. Kittel, TDNT 1:508-509; Marcus Dods, The Expositor's Greek Testament (1910), on Heb 1:3; Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NIGTC (1993), pp. 98-100
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed. (2000), s.v. ἀπαύγασμαlexicon
  • LSJ, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., s.v. ἀπαύγασμαlexicon
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, ET 1994, vol. 1, pp. 152-154lexicon
  • G. Kittel, "αὐγάζω, ἀπαύγασμα," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT) 1:508-509theological-dictionary
  • Harold W. Attridge, The Epistle to the Hebrews, Hermeneia (1989), pp. 41-43commentary
  • William L. Lane, Hebrews 1-8, WBC 47A (1991), pp. 12-13commentary
  • Paul Ellingworth, The Epistle to the Hebrews, NIGTC (1993), pp. 98-100commentary
  • B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, 3rd ed. (1903), Additional Note on ἀπαύγασμα, pp. 10-11commentary
  • Ronald Williamson, Philo and the Epistle to the Hebrews, ALGHJ 4 (Leiden: Brill, 1970)monograph
  • David Winston, The Wisdom of Solomon, Anchor Bible 43 (1979), pp. 184-186commentary

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of ἀπαύγασμα

nominative n s

ἀπαύγασμα

Heb 1:3