StrongerBible

kataphileō

καταφιλέω

GreekG2705“kiss”

Appears 6 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Mat 26:49Mrk 14:45Luk 7:38Luk 7:45Luk 15:20Act 20:37
Word studykah-tah-fee-LEH-ohverb

What kataphileō means

to kiss someone warmly: to greet, welcome, or honor a person with a kiss, sometimes given again and again

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong

This is the everyday Greek verb for loving and liking (φιλέω) with a prefix attached that turns it toward the physical act and adds warmth to it: to kiss, and usually to kiss with feeling. Unlike the simple verb, it never means love in the abstract. In all six of its New Testament uses, someone's lips actually touch another person.

A kiss in that world was a public gesture with a public meaning, closer to a handshake or a hug than to romance. It greeted a friend or a teacher, welcomed a traveler home, sealed a farewell, and honored someone worth honoring. The scenes where this word appears all sit inside that range:

  • Judas turns the customary greeting kiss into the signal that marks Jesus out
  • a father runs to his returning son, throws his arms around him, and kisses him
  • the elders at Miletus weep and kiss Paul as he leaves them for the last time
  • a woman kisses Jesus' feet over and over while she washes them with her tears

The two scenes at Simon's table show what the one word can hold. Simon had not given Jesus even the ordinary kiss (φίλημα) that any host owed a guest, while the woman, from the moment Jesus came in, had not stopped kissing his feet. Kissing the feet rather than the cheek is the difference between greeting an equal and lowering yourself before someone greater, and this single verb does both jobs. That is why English can only say "kissed" and leave the scene to supply the rest.

Nuances

1ato kiss someone in greeting or farewell, as people do who belong to each other
Mat 26:49Mrk 14:45Luk 15:20Act 20:37
1bto kiss a person's feet: an act of devotion that lowers the one kissing before the one kissed
Luk 7:38Luk 7:45

Disputed

Whether the prefixed form retains intensive force in New Testament Greek (to kiss fervently or repeatedly) or had become an ordinary equivalent of the simple verb φιλέω.

  • contestedThe compound is intensive: it denotes an earnest, tender, or repeated kiss, and the evangelists select it deliberately over the simplex.; H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with revised supplement (LSJ; Oxford, 1996), s.v. καταφιλέω; Gustav Stählin, φιλέω κτλ., in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Friedrich, trans. G. W. Bromiley, vol. 9 (Eerdmans, 1974), 113-171; R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Eerdmans, 2002), on Mark 14:45
  • contestedBy the Hellenistic period the prepositional prefix had largely lost its perfectivizing force, so the compound functions as a stylistic variant of the simplex and is properly glossed simply as to kiss.; Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed., rev. F. W. Danker (BDAG; University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v. καταφιλέω; J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (United Bible Societies, 1988), s.v. καταφιλέω; James Hope Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. 1: Prolegomena, 3rd ed. (T. and T. Clark, 1908), 111-118

What scholars say about kataphileō

The lexica agree on the sense and differ only over the force of the prefix. LSJ glosses the classical verb as to kiss tenderly or caress, attested from Aeschylus and Xenophon onward; BDAG treats the six New Testament occurrences as simply to kiss, listing them together without a sense division, and Louw and Nida likewise place the verb in the domain of greeting and affection alongside the simplex φιλέω and the noun φίλημα. Stählin's article in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament surveys the kiss in the Greek world, in Judaism, and in early Christianity, and treats the compound as the stronger and more emotional term, noting its concentration in scenes of reunion and homage. Whether that strength survived into Koine is the open question: Moulton's account of perfectivizing prepositional compounds in the Prolegomena, together with the documentary evidence collected by Moulton and Milligan, shows many such compounds losing their original force in ordinary Hellenistic usage, which is why the modern lexica gloss the word plainly. Commentators on Mark 14:45 and Luke 15:20 frequently press the intensive reading (France, Marshall), while others note that Matthew and Mark use the simplex for the prearranged signal and the compound for the act itself with no evident semantic shift. Two observations are not in dispute: the Lukan and Acts scenes reproduce a Septuagintal idiom of falling on the neck and kissing, used of Esau, Joseph, and Jacob, where καταφιλέω renders Hebrew נשק; and the kissing of feet in Luke 7 belongs to the well-documented repertoire of suppliant and honorific gestures rather than to greeting between equals, as Klassen and Penn set out for the early Christian kiss more broadly.

Sources

  • Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, 3rd ed., rev. F. W. Danker (BDAG; University of Chicago Press, 2000), s.v. καταφιλέωlexicon
  • H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed. with revised supplement (LSJ; Oxford, 1996), s.v. καταφιλέωlexicon
  • J. P. Louw and E. A. Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (United Bible Societies, 1988), s.v. καταφιλέωlexicon
  • Gustav Stählin, φιλέω κτλ., in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. G. Friedrich, trans. G. W. Bromiley, vol. 9 (Eerdmans, 1974), 113-171theological-dictionary
  • James H. Moulton and George Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (Hodder and Stoughton, 1914-1929), s.v. καταφιλέωlexicon
  • James Hope Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. 1: Prolegomena, 3rd ed. (T. and T. Clark, 1908), 111-118grammar
  • R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Eerdmans, 2002), on Mark 14:45commentary
  • I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Eerdmans, 1978), on Luke 7:36-50 and 15:20commentary
  • Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX (Anchor Bible 28; Doubleday, 1981), on Luke 7:36-50commentary
  • C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, vol. 2 (International Critical Commentary; T. and T. Clark, 1998), on Acts 20:37commentary
  • William Klassen, The Sacred Kiss in the New Testament, New Testament Studies 39 (1993): 122-135article
  • Michael Philip Penn, Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005)monograph

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

All attested forms of καταφιλέω

aorist active indicative 3s

κατεφίλησεν

Mat 26:49, Mrk 14:45, Luk 15:20

imperfect active indicative 3p

κατεφίλουν

Act 20:37

imperfect active indicative 3s

κατεφίλει

Luk 7:38

present active participle nominative f s

καταφιλοῦσά

Luk 7:45