StrongerBible

katēgoria

κατηγορία

GreekG2724“accusation, charge”

Appears 3 times · tap a cell to see the verses

Jhn 18:291Ti 5:19Tit 1:6
Root family
Word studyResearch-gradekah-tay-go-REE-ahnoun

What katēgoria means

the charge itself: a formal accusation stated against a named person, of the kind that has to be answered before a judge or a governing body

TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintySettled

This is a courtroom word. It was built from a verb meaning to speak against someone in the public square, which was where trials and public business were held, and it names one precise thing: the complaint as actually lodged. Not the person who brings it (κατήγορος), not the act of accusing (κατηγορέω), and not the wrongdoing that supposedly happened (αἰτία), but the stated charge the accused now has to answer. Everyday legal paperwork from the same centuries uses it exactly this way, for the accusation in a real lawsuit.

All three uses in the New Testament sit in settings where a charge has to be put into words and then tested:

  • Pilate opens the hearing by demanding to know the charge, because a Roman trial could not proceed without one.
  • Paul tells Timothy not even to take up a charge against an elder unless two or three witnesses stand behind it.
  • Titus is told that an elder's children should be clear of any charge of wild living that could actually be made to stick.

The formality is part of the word. Ancient writers on Greek vocabulary drew a sharp line between this kind of open, stated, answerable charge and the quiet damaging rumor, which had a separate word of its own and gave us the title "slanderer" for the devil. That line matters for reading the passages about elders: the concern in both letters is not with hurt feelings or unkind talk but with a specific allegation that someone is prepared to press, and with whether it can be supported.

The answer to a charge had its own name, a spoken defense (ἀπολογία), and the two words were a standing pair in Greek: prosecution and defense, the two halves of a trial. That pairing runs deep in the Bible's picture of God's court, where an accuser presses charges against God's people and an advocate speaks for them.

Jhn 18:291Ti 5:19Tit 1:6

What scholars say about katēgoria

The lexical tradition is unanimous that κατηγορία in the New Testament is forensic. BDAG glosses "accusation, charge" and organizes the occurrences by construction: κατηγορίαν φέρειν κατά τινος (John 18:29), κατηγορίαν παραδέχεσθαι κατά τινος (1 Tim 5:19), and the content genitive κατηγορία ἀσωτίας (Titus 1:6); it also registers the noun as a variant reading at Luke 6:7. Louw-Nida treat κατηγορίαν φέρω as an idiom for bringing a charge. LSJ divides the entry between (I) the forensic accusation, opposed to ἀπολογία in Aristotle, Rhetoric 1358b11, and to ἔπαινος in Thucydides 1.84, and abundantly attested in the Attic orators (Antiphon, Andocides, Isocrates, Demosthenes, De Corona 240), and (II) the Aristotelian logical senses "predication" and "category," of which there is no trace in the New Testament or the Septuagint; on the Aristotelian branch see J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretatione (Clarendon, 1963). Moulton-Milligan document the ordinary documentary use in Roman-period papyri, citing P.Oxy. II 237 (A.D. 186) for the proofs of an accusation in an actual suit, and an inscription (Michel 458, c. 165 B.C.) for false accusations. The abstract noun is essentially absent from the translated books of the Septuagint, while the cognate verb κατηγορέω (Greek Daniel 6; 1 Macc 7:6, 7:25; 2 Macc 4:47) and κατήγορος (Prov 18:17, paired with ἀντίδικος) are securely attested, which is why the family, not the abstract noun, supplies the Septuagint background. Thayer preserves the older synonym note (from Schmidt) distinguishing κατηγορέω, to accuse formally before a tribunal, from αἰτιάομαι (focused on the alleged crime), ἐγκαλέω and ἐπικαλέω (public outcry), and διαβάλλω (giving currency to a damaging insinuation), the last being the root of διάβολος, the secret and calumnious accuser as against κατήγορος, the open and formal one. For the theological synthesis see the TDNT article by Friedrich Büchsel (3:637-640), noting that its exact wording should be checked against the printed volume. On Titus 1:6, Philip Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (NICNT, 2006), 683, explains ἀσωτία as covering a range of dissolute activity from sexual promiscuity to drunkenness, with excess in money and food in between, and commentators connect the phrase with the parallel qualification ἀνέγκλητος, not open to a legal charge. At Luke 6:7 the critical text (Nestle-Aland, SBLGNT) reads the infinitive κατηγορεῖν while the Byzantine tradition reads the noun κατηγορίαν; the sense, finding a chargeable offense, is unaffected either way.

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 (3rd ed., 2000), s.v. κατηγορίαlexicon
  • LSJ (9th ed., 1940), s.v. κατηγορίαlexicon
  • Louw-Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains (2nd ed., 1989), s.v. κατηγορίαν φέρωlexicon
  • Moulton-Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (1930), s.v. κατηγορίαlexicon
  • J. H. Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (1889), s.v. κατηγορία, κατηγορέωlexicon
  • G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (3rd ed., 1937), s.v. κατηγορίαlexicon
  • Friedrich Büchsel, "κατηγορέω, κατηγορία," TDNT 3:637-640dictionary
  • Philip H. Towner, The Letters to Timothy and Titus (NICNT, 2006), 683commentary
  • J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretatione (Clarendon, 1963)monograph

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

All attested forms of κατηγορία

accusative f s

κατηγορίαν

Jhn 18:29, 1Ti 5:19

dative f s

κατηγορίᾳ

Tit 1:6