Philippians 4:11 · Symbol · Contentment
The Words Autarkes and Autarkeia
Paul's words for contentment were words of the Greek moral schools, and in his letters they rest on God.
Diogenes, who lived in a tub, used to say that "when a man wished for nothing he was like the Gods".
I am not saying this out of need, for I have learned to be content regardless of my circumstances.
- The word
- αὐτάρκης (autarkes), G842
- First appears
- Philippians 4:11 “I am not saying this out of need,…”
Summary
Autarkes and autarkeia are the Greek words for having enough in oneself, and arkeo is the plain verb of being enough. The adjective is the word Paul chose for his contentment in his letter to the Philippians, and the noun stands in his letters to the Corinthians and to Timothy. The verb also names the grace the Lord said was enough for Paul.
- Autarkes stands once in the New Testament, autarkeia twice and arkeo eight times.
- The STEP Bible lexicon gives the meaning of autarkes as self-sufficient and its gloss as self-complacent, that is, contented.
- Strong's Concordance derives autarkes from autos and arkeo.
The Word Paul Learned
Paul's thanks to the church at Philippi for its gift is where the adjective stands.
This study belongs to the value of contentment, because autarkes is the word Paul chose when he said he had learned to be content.
The question it answers is what the words autarkes and autarkeia meant before Paul and what they mean in his letters. It sets out every use of the two words and of the verb arkeo in the New Testament. It then gives the word as the philosophers used it, from Lightfoot's commentary and from Aristotle, and the sense Paul gives it, with a caution on reading a word from its parts.
Paul's verbs in Philippians 4:11 to 13, of learning, of being let into a secret and of being given strength, are taught in their own study.
Every Use of the Three Words
The adjective and the noun stand only in Paul's letters, and the verb runs from the Gospels to the third letter of John.
Most uses of the three words speak of having enough, and the passive verb speaks of being content with it.
| Word | Verse | The Berean words | Gloss of the Greek form |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arkeo (G714) | Matthew 25:9 | "there may not be enough for both us and you" | it may suffice |
| Arkeo (G714) | Luke 3:14 | "Be content with your wages." | do be content |
| Arkeo (G714) | John 6:7 | "would not buy enough bread for each of them" | are sufficient |
| Arkeo (G714) | John 14:8 | "that will be enough for us" | it is enough |
| Autarkeia (G841) | 2 Corinthians 9:8 | "having all that you need" | sufficiency |
| Arkeo (G714) | 2 Corinthians 12:9 | "My grace is sufficient for you" | Suffices |
| Autarkes (G842) | Philippians 4:11 | "to be content" | content |
| Autarkeia (G841) | 1 Timothy 6:6 | "godliness with contentment is great gain" | contentment |
| Arkeo (G714) | 1 Timothy 6:8 | "we will be content with these" | we will be content |
| Arkeo (G714) | Hebrews 13:5 | "be content with what you have" | being satisfied |
| Arkeo (G714) | 3 John 1:10 | "unsatisfied with that" | being satisfied |
Autarkes (G842), Autarkeia (G841), Arkeo (G714), Arkeo (G714), Arkeo (G714)
The Word Before Paul
Greek moral writers used the word for a life that needs nothing from outside.
J. B. Lightfoot, in his commentary on Philippians (1888), gave the idea of the noun as "independence of external circumstances". He cited the answer of Socrates to the question who was wealthiest, "He that is content with least".
Lightfoot added that "The Stoics especially laid great stress on this virtue", and he pointed to Seneca's ninth moral letter and to Marcus Aurelius.
Aristotle, in the first book of his Ethics, defined the self-sufficient as that "which taken alone makes life choice-worthy, and to be in want of nothing". He meant a life sufficient for a man together with his parents, children, wife, friends and countrymen, and not for a man living alone.
Arkeo, to Be Enough
The verb is used of oil, bread and wages.
Arkeo means to be sufficient, as its STEP Bible entry gives it. In the Gospels it speaks of oil and bread that would not stretch far enough (Matthew 25:9 and John 6:7).
In the passive it means to be content, with wages in John the Baptist's word to the soldiers, with food and clothing in Paul's charge to Timothy, and with what one has in Hebrews.
The Parts and the Sense
The parts of a word guide a reader, and its sentence decides its meaning.
Put together, autos and arkeo would give a self that is enough for itself, which is the sense the philosophers gave the word. In Philippians the sense comes from Paul's own sentence and the verses around it.
Sufficiency from God
Two of Paul's sentences name God as the source of sufficiency and competence.
In 2 Corinthians 9:8 the sufficiency follows from the grace God makes abound, and its purpose is every good work.
Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim that anything comes from us, but our competence comes from God.The verse stands here because Paul denies a competence that comes from the self, the sense the philosophers gave to the word for enough.
Enough in the Shepherd
The shepherd psalm gives the same rest in the language of a flock.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.The psalm stands as the close because its first line speaks of lacking nothing under the LORD's care.
The psalmist's want is answered by the LORD who shepherds him, and Paul's by the Christ who strengthens him.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- STEP Bible, Translators Amalgamated Greek New Testament, the tagged text (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0.
- STEP Bible TBESG lexicon of Extended Strongs for Greek (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0, based on Abbott-Smith, Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922)
- James Strong, Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, Greek dictionary, entry 842: From autos and arkeo; self-complacent, i.e. contented.
- J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul's Epistle to the Philippians (1888 edition), page 163, on Philippians 4:11.
- Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, in the Everyman edition with an introduction by J. A. Smith.
- Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book 6, the doctrines of the Cynics, translated by C. D. Yonge (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1915)
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