Hypocrisy (ὑ πόκρισις)
The noun ὑ ποκριτής does not occur after the Synoptic Gospels, but ὑ πόκρισις is found in Galatians 2:13, 1 Timothy 4:2, 1 Timothy 4:1 P 2: 1, and the compound verb συνυ π οκρίνεσθαι, ‘to dissemble along with another,’ is used in Galatians 2:13 .
The development of the meaning of ὑ ποκρίνεσθαι can be clearly traced. In Homer and Herodotus it meant ‘to reply,’ e.g. ‘to give an oracular answer’ (Herod. i. 78, 91); then ‘to answer on the stage,’ ‘to speak in dialogue,’ ‘to play a part’ (Arist. Pol . v. xi. 19); then ‘to be an actor in real life,’ ‘to dissemble,’ ‘to feign,’ ‘to pretend.’ The last is probably the only meaning of the word in the NT, though E. Hatch (Essays in Biblical Greek, 1889, p. 92) thinks that among Greek-speaking Jews ὑ πόκρισις had come to mean ‘irreligion,’ ‘impiety.’
‘Sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic’ (Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, 1872, p. 42). The hypocrite does not dare to show himself as he is. His fear of criticism compels him to wear a mask. ὑ πόκρισις includes both simulation and dissimulation. Bacon’s definitions (Essays, vi.) are clear and sharp as usual:
‘There be three degrees of this, hiding and veiling of a man’s self. The first, Closeness, Reservation, and Secrecy; when a man leaveth himself without observation, or without hold to be taken, what he is. The second, Dissimulation, in the negative; when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he in not that he is. And the third, Simulation, in the affirmative; when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he is not.’
Galatians 2:11-14 alludes to a crisis in which even th e Apostle Peter dissembled, the other Jewish Christians of Antioch dissembling with him (συνυ π εκρίθησαν), and even Barnabas, against his better judgment, was carried away by their ὑ πόκρισις. The fear of offending the narrow guardians of Judaistic orthodoxy was the cause of all this inconsistency on the side of the party of Christian liberty and progress. St. Peter did not really believe that he would be defiled by eating Gentile food. At Joppa he had learned to cast his ceremonial scruples to the winds (Acts 10:9-16); at CAEsarea he had preached in the house of the Italian Cornelius, keeping company with ‘one of another nation’ (ἀ λλοφύλ ῳ, v. 28), and witnessing a Gentile Pentecost (vv. 44-47); and with the Greek Christians of Antioch he at first saw no more harm in eating and drinking than in singing and praying. but circumstances arose in which he had not the courage to continue putting his principles into practice. When he had to choose between giving the cold shoulder to his Gentile brethren and displeasing the circumcised, the vacillating weakness of his character was illustrated once more. He was not even yet quite worthy of his great name-Peter, the man of rock. Concealing his liberal convictions, he behaved as if he were a strictly conservative Jew. And his example proved infectious, for he could not act as a mere private individual. The influential leader of the Twelve Apostles drew after him many Jewish Christians, including even St. Paul’s fellow-apostle, who had been living for years in intimate fellowship with the ceremonially unclean. Whatever excuses may be made for St. Peter’s conduct-which some modern scholars (like most of the Fathers of the early Church) are disposed to regard in a much more favourable light than St. Paul did (A. C. McGiffert, Apostolic Age, 1897, p. 206f.)-it was a betrayal of the cause of spiritual freedom. His silent withdrawal from his Gentile brethren was as eloquent as any words could have been. It did as much harm as if he had issued a proclamation, ‘Before we Jews can eat with you Gentiles, ye must bend your necks to the yoke of the law.’ It was because in his heart he no longer believed anything of the kind that his action was rightly called ὑ πόκρισις. but the terms in which he is elsewhere spoken of in the same letter (1:18, 2:7f.) make it evident that his aberration was only temporary, and that there remained no essential difference between ‘the gospel of the uncircumcision’ and ‘the circumcision’ (2:7).
In 1 Peter, which many critics still accept as genuine, this same Apostle enjoins his readers to put away all hypocrisies, and to make a fresh start as if they were new-born babes (2:1f.). The injunction implies the possibility. It is sometimes pessimistically said that there is no remedy for hypocrisy. J. R. Seeley (Ecce Homo, 1873, p. 116) calls it ‘the one incurable vice.’ The Divine Comedy represents the hypocrite as clothed for ever in a robe of lead-‘O in eterno faticoso manto!’ (Inferno, xxiii. 67). J. B. Mozley (University Sermons 2, 1876, p. 34) says: ‘The victim of passion then may be converted, the gay, the thoughtless, or the ambitious … they may be converted, any one of these-but who is to convert the hypocrite? He does not know he is a hypocrite.… the greater hypocrite he is, the more sincere he must think himself.’ It is perhaps faithless, however, to despair of any man, and one may doubt whether our Lord would have expended such a passionate energy of scorn-which, in a heart like His, is a form of love-upon incurables (Matthew 23). ‘Every son of Adam can become a sincere man, … no mortal is doomed to be an insincere man’ (Carlyle, op. cit. p. 116).
James Strahan.