The Gothic Vocabulary of Fear

Abstract

The Gothic lexical field of fear differs sharply from that of the New Testa ment Greek it translates, as well as from those of the modern languages that gloss Gothic in dictionaries and grammars and the analogous fields in the other old Germanic languages. For example, the frequently attested West-Germanic cognates of dread (OE ondraedan, OHG intratan, and OS antdredan) are semantically distant from the morphologically analogous, but independently formed Gothic hapax undredan ‘to take care for.’ 1 What follows is intended to demonstrate that the Gothic lexicon distinguishes between different kinds of fear according to their cause, operation, and moral value determined by the disposition of the sufferer. Moreover, the Gothic language uses its capacity to distinguish between prudent and ignominious fear through vocabulary to underscore the distinction between faithful and faithless fear that is established largely through narration and dialogue in the Greek New Testament. T he fundamental divide in the Gothic semantic field of fear lies between expectant fear and shocked fear. Expectant fear, indicated primarily by agis, may be associated with trembling and may lead to action. Shocked fear, most often indicated by faurhtei, is associated with surprise and paraly sis. The semantic field thus divided is crossed again by an ethical distinction between reverent fear of high moral value and mundane fear that reveals a deficiency of faith and consequently has low moral value. Reverent fear is most commonly indicated with a member of the agis family, and mundane fear with a relative of faurhtei. The ethical distinction between reverent and mundane fear is suggested in the Greek source text by the opposition of δeιλία to φόβος, but the distinction is more thoroughly lexicalized in the Gothic translation, so that it organizes the whole semantic field and restricts the translation of Greek words that imply no moral judgment, such as ἔκστασις.