Punishing Fallacies: Part 2: Detecting a distinction without a difference

In my first article in this series, I discussed William Baclay’s claim that κόλασις (kolasis) originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better. It is a claim that some universalists have repeated, but I was able to show there is no evidence in the primary sources whatsoever to support it. You can find that article here.

In this article I will discuss the following claim from William Barclay.

In Greek there are two words for punishment, timōria and kolasis, and there is a quite definite distinction between them. Aristotle defines the difference; kolasis is for the sake of the one who suffers it; timōria is for the sake of the one who inflicts it (Rhetoric 1.10).¹William Barclay, The Apostles’ Creed, (Westminster John Knox Press: 1967), 189.

Aristotle is one whom universalists tend to cite frequently in support of this claim, even where they soften the claim to the contention that κόλασις could sometimes be used in the sense of correction by the NT era. This is because at first blush he does appear to be saying κόλασις referred to a punishment intended for the good of the one being punished. The following is the sentence Barclay cited from Aristotle’s Rhetoric 1.10.17, but I have added Rhetoric 1.10.16 for context.

Things are the result of calculation which are done because, of the goods already mentioned, they appear to be expedient either as an end or means to an end, provided they are done by reason of their being expedient; for even the intemperate do certain things that are expedient, for the sake, not of expediency, but of pleasure. Passion and anger are the causes of acts of revenge.

But there is a difference between revenge and punishment (κόλασις); the latter is inflicted in the interest of the sufferer, the former in the interest of him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction.

Joe Whitechurch discusses the meaning of this quote, the use of κόλασις by Aristotle throughout his literature, and how the noun is used in the Greek forensic corpus.²Joe Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice, (Bloomsbury Academic: 2024), 110-115. It is recognized in secular scholarship that κόλασις and τιμωρία are used in the Greek forensic corpus in ways where they both are ‘equally retributive and directed towards the victim of wrongdoing’.³Robert Nichols, as quoted by Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger, 112. Whitechurch goes on to discuss the use of κόλασις and κολάζω in the orators, concluding that ‘The primary emotional driver of κόλασις was anger both in Aristotle’s model and in court’. Some examples he cites include jurors being encouraged to respond angrily by punishing (κολάζω) a defendant and a statement that the lack of anger leads to the failure to punish (κολάζω). Whitechurch notes that in the speeches, calls for κόλασις are accompanied by calls for anger, and he concludes, ‘The primary emotional driver of κόλασις was anger both in Aristotle’s model and in court’. ⁴Ibid. Whitechurch then states,

Κόλασις is an act overwhelmingly inflicted by superiors on inferiors, be they hegemonic poleis on their allies (Th. 1.40.5, 43.1, 3.40.7, 46.4–6), higher-ranked officers on lower (Xen. An. 3.2.31; Cy.1.6.20; Arist. NE. 1132b), or masters on their slaves (Ar. Cl. 7; Arist. Econ. 1344a). Central to κόλασις then is the attempt to return the offender to their correct hierarchical place.

This does not reflect the common understanding of Aristotle’s statement about κόλασις, so Whitechurch is compelled to reexamine the evidence from the philosopher to determine if we have misunderstood him. He concludes that ἕνεκά ἐστιν is better translated at ‘has in mind’ than ‘in the interest of’. In the remainder of this article I will discuss the evidence that supports Whitechurch’s conclusion.

The first thing to note is the end of Rhetoric 1.10.16, ‘Passion and anger are the causes of acts of revenge’. The Greek word behind ‘acts of revenge’ is τῑμωρητικός, not τιμωρία. Τῑμωρητικός is variously glossed as ‘vindictive’,⁵The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek, s.v. “τῑμωρητικός”. ‘vengeful’,⁶The Cambridge Greek Lexicon, s.v. “τῑμωρητικός”. and ‘revengeful’. Aristotle uses τῑμωρητικός in contexts where he refers to those who are not vengeful. In Virtues and Vices 1250b he writes, ‘The great-spirited man is simple and noble in character, able to bear injustice and not revengeful (τῑμωρητικός).’

In Nicomachean Ethics 1126a, he discusses the positive qualities of a mild person. In this instance I have chosen to quote from a newer translation by Christopher Rowe as it more clearly shows how Aristotle used τῑμωρητικός: ‘the mild person tends not to look for revenge (τῑμωρητικός) but to be sympathetic’.⁷Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated by Christopher Rowe with a philosophical introduction and commentary by Sarah Broadie, (Oxford University Press: 2002). 152. In the context of this statement, Aristotle had been discussing the appropriate occasions when one can legitimately become angry. His point here is a person who is mild is not prone to inappropriately becoming angry and seeking vengeance on another person. In Rhetoric 1.10.16, τῑμωρητικός is used in the plural neuter form, thus denoting vengeful acts are in view. He says that people commit these acts of vengeance – κόλασις and τιμωρία – because of their passion and anger. In Rhetoric 1378a Aristotle says anger is ‘a longing … for a real or apparent revenge for a real or apparent slight’. Κόλασις arises because a person desire revenge and is itself an act of vengeance.

Even at this juncture we can see as Aristotle discusses κόλασις in Rhetoric 1.10.17 he sees it as a kind of vengeful act. This runs squarely against universalists that κόλασις was not inflicted as a punitive action on the one punished. This is even more evidence when it is noted that in Rhetoric 1.10.17 κόλασις and τιμωρία are dual subjects of the statement.⁸In Greek, the word form – not syntax as is the case in English – indicates the function nouns take in a clause or sentence. In Rhetoric 1.10.17, both κόλασις and τιμωρία have the form indicating they are the subject of the clause. This is a typical way that Aristotle used these two nouns. As Allen has observed,

One of the idiosyncrasies of Aristotle’s discussions of punishment is the frequency with which he places the words timoria and kolasis together as if they form a single compound noun (like “peanut butter and jelly”); he treats the associated verbs in the same fashion.⁹Danielle S. Allen, The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishment in Democratic Athens, (Princeton University Press: 2009, 86, 298) Allen gives a list of example texts in n.114, page 357.

An example of this is seen in Nicomachean Ethics 1113b, where he discusses how voluntary acts were responded to in Greek society.

But if it is manifest that a man is the author of his own actions, and if we are unable to trace our conduct back to many other origins than those within ourselves, then actions of which the origins are within us, themselves depend upon us, and are voluntary.

This conclusion seems to be attested both by men’s behavior in private life and by the practice of lawgivers; for they punish (κολάζω) and exact redress (τιμωρέω) from those who do evil … and honor those who do noble deeds, in order to encourage the one sort and to repress the other…

Both κολάζω and τιμωρέω are said to have been employed to stop wrongdoers from continuing to do wrong. The two categories of punishment are used together to repress those who do evil. It is already becoming evident that even in Aristotle, κολάζω was not used with reference to a punishment inflicted for the benefit of the one being punished.

Another example of this is found in Nicomachean Ethics 1126a.

Those who lose their temper at the wrong things, and more and longer than they ought, and who refuse to be reconciled without obtaining redress (τιμωρία) or retaliating (κόλασις), we call Harsh-tempered.

This example is particularly relevant due to the phraseology of τιμωρίας ἢ κολάσεως (timôrias ê kolaseôs). The disjunctive particle ἢ (ê) indicates either τιμωρία or κόλασις ‘suffice to assuage anger’.¹⁰Niels Aslak Christensen, “Aristotle on Anger, Justice, and Punishment”, Ph.D. diss. University College London, (2016), 76. This means that a person need not do more than seek κόλασις to appease one’s anger when wronged by another. We have more evidence showing the universalist view that κόλασις did not have to do with vengeance is misguided.

Aristotle’s penchant for using κόλασις and τιμωρία as a compound-noun phrase shows that he regarded both categories of punishment as τῑμωρητικός (‘acts of revenge’). Whitechurch is therefore correct in his assessment that Aristotle regards κόλασις and τιμωρία as τῑμωρητικός and so both are ‘products of passion and anger’.¹¹Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger, 112. For Aristotle, anger is “a painful and pleasant desire for what one takes to be revenge, caused by what one takes to be an undeserved slight against oneself or one (sic.) own”.¹²Christensen, “Aristotle on Anger, Justice, and Punishment”, 9. Like τιμωρία, κόλασις is viewed as an act of vengeance inflicted because the slighted party has become angry and longs for revenge.

This is reflected elsewhere in Aristotle’s writings. For instance, in Eudemian Ethics 1221b, Aristotle says that the anger of violent and abusive men causes them to commit κόλασις.

I mean for instance that a man is called quick-tempered from feeling the emotion of anger sooner than he ought, harsh and passionate from feeling it more than he ought, bitter from having a tendency to cherish his anger, violent and abusive owing to the acts of retaliation (κόλασις) to which his anger gives rise.¹³Another translation of Eudemian Ethics 1221b translates this as ‘through the punishments one inflicts from anger’.

In Nicomachean Ethics 1126a he talks about ill-tempered people who become so angry they cannot be appeased until they have inflicted τιμωρία or κόλασις.

We call had-tempered those who are angry at the wrong things, more than is right, and longer, and cannot be appeased until they inflict vengeance (τιμωρία) or punishment (κόλασις).

Κόλασις is one of the ways an angry person could be appeased!

In Rhetoric 2.3.5, Aristotle connects the severity of κόλασις to the sense of anger felt by the one who metes out the punishment.

And towards those who admit and are sorry for a slight; for finding as it were satisfaction in the pain the offenders feel at what they have done, men cease to be angry. Evidence of this may be seen in the punishment (κόλασις) of slaves; for we punish (κολάζω) more severely those who contradict us and deny their offence, but cease to be angry with those who admit that they are justly punished (κολάζω). The reason is that to deny what is evident is disrespect, and disrespect is slight and contempt…

As noted above, κόλασις and κολάζω were used in the forensic corpus with reference to punitive actions that put the offender in his place. The quotes from Aristotle supplied above fit more with this view of κόλασις than the idea it has to do with a punishment inflicted for the sake of the offender. This holds even where Aristotle refers to parental κόλασις of children. One might assume that a parent’s love drives the act of κόλασις so that the goal is to act for the sake of the child. However, in ancient Greek society regarded children differently to how we view children now. To the Greeks, Lovano states, children were family assets.¹⁴Michael Lovano, The World of Ancient Greece, (Bloomsbury Publishing: 2019), 235. Children from any socioeconomic demographic could be utilized in a variety of ways to benefit the family’s position in society. Corporal punishment of children was an expectation, and even strangers were permitted to do so. The discipline of children, even where the idea was to instill good moral character, was intended to help a child fit into his or her correct place in society. Allen notes the way κόλασις had been used in this context.

The word kolasis seems to refer to the effort to teach people their proper places in the city’s social structure—most usually children and hubristic wrong-doers. The word kolazein thus directs the audience’s attention to what must be done to the punished.¹⁵Allen, The World of Prometheus, 85.

One reason a child would have been punished is the perception that dishonor had been brought on the parents and family, prompting an angry response. The κόλασις of a disobedient child was therefore not inflicted simply for the sake of the child, but rather was ‘an attempt to restore the appropriate sense of hierarchy and deference’.¹⁶Whitechurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger, 114.

There is an idiosyncratic use of κόλασις by Aristotle in Eudemian Ethics 1.1214b.

For children and the sick and insane have many opinions which no sensible man would discuss, for these persons need not argument but the former time in which to grow up and alter and the latter medical or official chastisement (κόλασις) – treatment with drugs (φαρμακεία) being chastisement (κόλασις) just as much as flogging (πληγή) is.¹⁷I have removed the parentheses in the translation as a very slight adjustment made for the sake of clarity.

I have no doubt universalists will assume that Aristotle’s point here is that κόλασις is like medicine in the sense that it is administered for the good of the one who is sick. That would be a mistake. The specific ailment is the inability to think and talk sensibly. In ancient Greek society, insanity was treated with φαρμακεία (pharmakeia, roughly glossed as ‘drugs’ or ‘potion’), which here probably refers to the traditional cure for madness like the plant hellebore.¹⁸Mark Ahonen, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, (Springer International Publishing: 2014), 71. Hellebore itself is ambiguous since it may have referred to two different plants, black hellebore (Helleborus niger) and white hellebore (Veratrum album). Though both pants are regarded as purgative (i.e. they act as aperients causing the bowels to open), they both were known to be extremely poisonous, with even small doses causing vomiting or death.¹⁹Ahonen, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, n.59.28. In fact, the hellebore varieties are so toxic that they were used by the Greeks as a chemical weapon. A modern example might be saying that chemotherapy and radiology for cancer punish the cancer sufferer. The point is not that chemotherapy and radiology are cures for cancer, but to say that these treatments are extremely harsh on the body of the one being treated. This helps shed light on Aristotle’s qualification that the φαρμακεία are κόλασις in the way flogging (πληγή, plégé) is and narrows down the possibilities of interpretation.

Plato had already used the cognate verb κολάζω with connection to flogging as corporal punishment in his Laws 762c.

If a man absents himself by day, or by sleeping away at night, without orders from the officers or some urgent cause, and if the Five inform against him and post his name up in the market-place as guilty of deserting his watch, then he shall suffer degradation for being a traitor to his public duty, and whoever meets him and desires to punish (κολάζω) him may give him a beating (πληγή).

Plato does the same in Laws 890c

Whosoever fails to show himself obedient to the laws must either be put to death or else be punished (κολάζω), in one case by stripes (πληγή) and imprisonment, in another by degradation, in others by poverty and exile? But as to persuasion, should the lawgiver, while enacting the people’s laws, refuse to blend any persuasion with his statements, and thus tame them so far as possible?

Mark Ahonen is probably correct that Aristotle’s equation of φαρμακεία with κόλασις in terms of πληγή was focused on punishment in general.²⁰Ahonen, Mental Disorders in Ancient Philosophy, 71-72. However, there is also a component of the analogy that turns on the pain and suffering experienced by the one being treated with φαρμακεία. Just as κόλασις in the form of πληγή would be painful to the one being punished, so also the φαρμακεία is κόλασις in the way it causes pain and suffering for the one undergoing their medical treatment. Aristotle was not saying the drugs used to treat insanity were κόλασις because of their curative or ‘corrective’ properties. He was emphasizing the treatment was as punishing to the patient as flogging is to the one being beaten.

Another text is helpful for illuminating Aristotle’s point of view on κόλασις as medicine. Though Aristotle does not use φαρμακεία in Nicomachean Ethics 1104b, he does connect κόλασις with pain.²¹Ἰατρεία (iatreia, ‘medical treatment, cure, healing’) is used instead.

Another indication is the fact that pain is the medium of punishment (κόλασις); for punishment is a sort of medicine, and the nature of medicine to work by means of opposites.

This is notable since Aristotle has already in the same passage stated the act of facing danger because of pain is not virtuous.

A man … is brave if he faces danger with pleasure or at all events without pain, cowardly if he does so with pain.

That is, the use of pain to force a person to act a certain way means the person has not been reformed into a virtuous person. In this context, Aristotle’s comparison of κόλασις with medicine turns on the idea of opposites. This is similar to an underlying principle in homeopathy where the treatment for an illness is the opposite of that which is thought to have caused the illness (e.g. if a fever is caused by heat then it is thought to be cured by cold). Pain is applied when punishing a person where it is thought that pleasure caused the person to do wrong. But the fact that pain is a medium of κόλασις means the correction of the person has not in and of itself made him virtuous.

The connection of pain with punishment is also made in Nicomachean Ethics 1180a.

But doubtless it is not enough for people to receive the right nurture and discipline in youth; they must also practice the lessons they have learnt, and confirm them by habit, when they are grown up. Accordingly we shall need laws to regulate the discipline of adults as well, and in fact the whole life of the people generally; for the many are more amenable to compulsion and punishment than to reason and to moral ideals. Hence some persons hold, that while it is proper for the lawgiver to encourage and exhort men to virtue on moral grounds, in the expectation that those who have had a virtuous moral upbringing will respond, yet he is bound to impose chastisement (κόλασις) and penalties (τιμωρία) on the disobedient and ill-conditioned, and to banish the incorrigible out of the state altogether. For (they argue) although the virtuous man, who guides his life by moral ideals, will be obedient to reason, the base, whose desires are fixed on pleasure, must be chastised (κολάζω) by pain, like a beast of burden. This indeed is the ground for the view that the pains and penalties for transgressors should be such as are most opposed to their favorite pleasures.

There are several issues to note. Aristotle does not use κόλασις when discussing the discipling and nurture of children. Neither κόλασις nor τιμωρία (or their cognate verbs) is used for “compulsion and punishment”. Aristotle writes of how lawgivers can successfully influence those who already have a well developed sense of morality. However, lawgivers must impose both κόλασις and τιμωρία on those who are incorrigibly recalcitrant due to a lack of a well developed sense of morality. The picture here is that those who break the law because they were not properly nurtured in childhood and do not act virtuously must be forced to behave properly. Both κόλασις and τιμωρία are used to correct the wrongdoer!

Furthermore, the example of a working animal being forced to labor for humans through pain has the verb κολάζω. This is similar to Aristotle’s medicinal analogy in Nicomachean Ethics 1104b. Pain is used to κόλασις the beast, which is forced to do what its human owners want and need. The mere fact the beast does what it is forced to do through painful punishment means its correction is not one of a reorientation to that which is virtuous or that the κόλασις being inflicted on it is for its benefit. The κόλασις of the beast is simply to force it to its properly place as a means of easing the workload of its owner. The beast is forced to its proper place in the hierarchy. This is a far cry from the typical universalist understanding of Aristotle’s use of κόλασις.

A relevant example that does not have to do with κόλασις being inflicted with pain but does have to do with hierarchy is found in Nicomachean Ethics 1132b.

For in many cases Reciprocity is at variance with Justice: for example, if an officer strikes a man, it is wrong for the man to strike him back; and if a man strikes an officer, it is not enough for the officer to strike him, but he ought to be punished (κολάζω) as well. Again, it makes a great difference whether an act was done with or without the consent of the other party.

The very striking thing here is that κολάζω is not inflicted when an officer strikes a man but is inflicted when a man strikes an officer. If the idea here is correcting the offending person for his sake, then why is κολάζω not applied in each case? The answer lies in what we have already observed: that the focus is on correcting the offender by putting him back in his place in the hierarchy.²²Whitchurch, 2024, 114. The officer is able to obtain reciprocity by striking the man, but this alone does not bring justice. Putting the man back in his place in society serves that purpose.

One final example showing the broad way that Aristotle could use κόλασις is seen in Politics 5.1315a.

And again he [the ruler] should carefully avoid all forms of outrage, and two beyond all, violent bodily punishments (κόλασις) and outrage of the young … the tyrant should either not consort with men of this kind, or appear to inflict his punishments (κόλασις) paternally and not because of contempt

This shows κόλασις could be used when talking about how a parent would discipline a child and put him in his place in the family. However, since Aristotle thinks that κόλασις could be inflicted with contempt he states the tyrant should not act that way. Κόλασις could just as easily refer to paternal punishment as the contemptuous treatment a tyrant inflicted on his subject. Examples like this and those discussed above explain why there are those like Christensen, who detects some kind of distinction between κόλασις and τιμωρία in Aristotle, but maintain that in the end it matters little.

So while Aristotle upholds a distinction between corrective punishment and revenge, it is not at all clear they should differ in praxis … in practice they amount to the same actions. Moreover … the two aims, rectifying injustice and “correcting” the offender, each relies on the other: for while on the one hand corrective punishment is justified as an act of revenge; on the other hand, successful revenge depends on the corrective punishment”.²³Christensen, “Aristotle on Anger, Justice, and Punishment” 76-77.

Whitechurch takes the next step.

Let us look at Aristotle another way. He feels the need to clarify the difference between τιμωρία and κόλασις not because they are so different, but because they are so similar. Both are products of anger and, therefore, of perceived slights to oneself or one’s own. But more particularly, both are τιμωρητικά, a choice of term that indicates strongly where Aristotle considers the common ground to lie. … Both τιμωρία and κόλασις are born of anger and both seek to redress the honour imbalance, but while the former focuses purely on reclaiming what was lost, the latter aims to put the offender back in their place.²⁴Whitchurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice, 114.

The body of evidence I have discussed has led me to the conclusion that Whitechurch is correct that Aristotle’s distinction in Rhetoric 1.10.17 has been misunderstood. His translation of the passage is warranted.

Passion and anger are the causes of acts of revenge. But there is a difference between τιμωρία and κόλασις; the latter has in mind him who suffers it, the former him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction.²⁵Whitchurch, Revenge, Punishment and Anger in Ancient Greek Justice, 110.

The rendering of ἕνεκά ἐστιν as ‘has in mind’ as opposed to ‘in the interest of’ better reflects Aristotle’s perspective on κόλασις. It does not carry with it unwarranted connotations that lead people to misunderstand his distinction.

In the final analysis, the distinction itself affords no meaningful difference that universalists can use to argue κόλασις is used in Matthew 25:46 to express the idea of correction. The kind of distinction that Aristotle makes in Rhetoric 1.10.17 just does not fit with the universalists’ exegetical and theological goals. What is more, Aristotle himself did not continue to maintain that distinction in his own literature and it is not reflected in general usage.²⁶A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., s.v. ‘κολάζω’. This leaves modern universalists without one of their go to arguments for their understanding of κόλασις while removing one plank supporting their argument that Matthew 25:46 supports universalism.

Liked it? Take a second to support Rethinking Hell on Patreon!