Etymologically
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πίστις

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Pronunciation

  • 5th-century BC Attic: /pís.tis/[1]
  • 4th-century AD Koine: /ˈpis.tis/[1]
  • 10th-century Byzantine: /ˈpis.tis/[1]

Forms

πῐ́στῐς (pístis) f (genitive πῐ́στεως or πῐ́στῐος); third declension[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European *bʰéydʰtis,[1] more exactly *bʰidʰ-ti-, an abstract noun in -τις (-tis) from the zero grade of the root *bʰeydʰ- (“to entrust oneself, trust”).[2][1] Within Greek it is formed from the root aorist of πείθομαι (peíthomai, “to trust, obey, be persuaded”), like πιστός (pistós, “faithful”).[3] The later πεῖσις (peîsis) is a new formation of the same verb.[1]

Latin fīdus (“faithful”) and fīdō (“to trust”) are from the same root.[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Hesiod's Works and Days has the first record: “trust and mistrust alike have ruined men”, of trust in others.[5][6][7]

Semantic evolution

In the 6th and 5th centuries BC it meant both trust in others and trustworthiness, good faith, honesty;[5][6] Theognis even names Trust as a goddess.[5][6] It also came to mean what gives trust: a pledge or guarantee, as in the oaths and handshakes that bound agreements, and in rhetoric a proof or argument, the orator's means of persuasion.[5] The orators use it in a commercial sense, “credit”, and later Greek translated Latin legal terms with it, such as bona fide.[5]

In the New Testament it took on a religious sense: faith in God and in Christ, set against sight and knowledge, and faithfulness.[5][6][8] Spicq points out that no secular text has a parallel to this faith, but that the word's older senses of persuasion, commitment and fidelity explain its New Testament use.[9]

Medieval vernacular Greek kept it, and Modern Greek has πίστη (písti), “belief, faith, loyalty”, whose banking sense of credit follows French crédit and English credit.[10][11]

Timeline

  • Before the 6th century BC – Hesiod uses it of trust in others.[5][7][12]
  • 6th century BC – Theognis uses it for good faith and names Trust as a deity.[5][6][12]
  • 4th century BC – Demosthenes uses it in the commercial sense of credit.[5][12]
  • 1st century AD – Paul's letters use it for religious faith, set against sight and knowledge.[5][8]
  • Modern Greek – πίστη takes on the banking sense of credit from French and English.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Trust or confidence in others or in a thing.[5][6]
  2. Good faith, trustworthiness, honesty, loyalty.[5][6]
  3. Credence, credibility of things said.[5][6]
  4. (commerce) credit.[5]
  5. A position of trust; something entrusted, a trust.[5]
  6. A pledge or guarantee of good faith, such as an oath.[5]
  7. A means of persuasion, an argument or proof, especially in oratory.[5]
  8. (Koine, New Testament) Religious faith, belief in God or Christ; faithfulness.[8][6]
  • πείθω (peíthō)
  • πιστός (pistós)
  • πιστεύω (pisteúō)
  • Latin fīdus

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Wodtko, Dagmar S.; Irslinger, Britta; Schneider, Carolin (2008), Nomina im indogermanischen Lexikon, Heidelberg: Winter
  3. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  4. ^ Pokorny, Julius (1959), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Bern; Munich: Francke
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Diggle, James, et al., eds. (2021), The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  7. ^ a b Keersmaekers, Alek (2021–2025), GLAUx: The Greek Language Automated corpus, https://github.com/alekkeersmaekers/glaux
  8. ^ a b c Bauer, Walter; Danker, Frederick W., et al. (2000), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  9. ^ Spicq, Ceslas (1994), Theological Lexicon of the New Testament, tr. James D. Ernest, 3 vols, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson
  10. ^ Kriaras, Emmanuel, Επιτομή του Λεξικού της μεσαιωνικής ελληνικής δημώδους γραμματείας 1100–1669, Κέντρο Ελληνικής Γλώσσας, https://www.greek-language.gr
  11. ^ a b Ινστιτούτο Νεοελληνικών Σπουδών (Ίδρυμα Μανόλη Τριανταφυλλίδη) (1998), Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής, Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
  12. ^ a b c Rodríguez Adrados, Francisco, et al., eds. (1980–), Diccionario Griego-Español, Madrid: CSIC, http://dge.cchs.csic.es/xdge