a greeting: the words or act of hailing someone, whether spoken face to face or written at the end of a letter
This is the everyday Greek word for a greeting, and it hides nothing religious or technical. It is the noun made from the common verb "to greet" (ἀσπάζομαι). Where that verb ranges widely (to welcome, to embrace, to say goodbye, even to gladly accept an idea), the noun stays with the plain thing itself: the greeting that was given.
What changes from passage to passage is not the meaning of the word but what a greeting accomplished in that setting. Three settings account for all ten uses:
- In the marketplace warnings, it is the deferential public greeting that certain religious leaders love to receive, a visible sign to everyone watching of who counts as important.
- In Luke's account of Mary and Elizabeth, it is a personal spoken greeting whose sound alone makes the unborn John leap and fills Elizabeth with the Spirit.
- At the close of three of Paul's letters, it is the sign-off he writes out in his own handwriting, which both authenticates the letter and warms it.
In the first century a greeting could be social currency. A wealthy Roman's standing was measured partly by how many people came each morning to pay their respects at his door, and a show of deference in a crowded square worked the same way. That is the background to Jesus' complaint: the problem is not greeting people, it is loving to be greeted.
The word does not translate a standing Hebrew term. Hebrew speakers greeted one another by asking after a person's welfare or peace (שָׁלוֹם), and the older Greek translation of the Old Testament usually rendered that phrase literally rather than reaching for this Greek word family. Its busy life in letters and in public honor belongs to the Greek-speaking world of the first century.