The Web of Language: Meekness

The Web of Language: Meekness

Essay by Charlie Obert. All Hallows Eve, 2020.

This post a sequel to my previous post on caring for language. When I posted that essay out on Facebook I got this comment on the post from Robert G Walker.

I think “meek” is another word whose meaning has been diluted.

That got me interested in researching the meaning of that word. Like many people who were raised Christian, I’ve bumped my head on the meaning of this Beatitude.

Matt: 5:5 Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth.

I did not know how to make sense of that, given the modern meaning and connotations of the word. To be meek seemed to mean something close to being a doormat – shy, unassertive, yielding, weak. That sounds more like someone who would have their inheritance stolen from them without protesting.

Thanks to the comment by Robert Walker, I took the time to look it up in Webster 1828. This essay is all about what I found. I had to re-think the meaning of the word from the ground up.

We’ll start with the older meaning of the term, from the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary.

Meek – 1828 Webster Definition

MEEK, a. [L. mucus; Eng. mucilage; Heb. to melt.] The primary sense is flowing, liquid, or thin, attenuated.

1. Mild of temper; soft; gentle; not easily provoked or irritated; yielding; given to forbearance under injuries. Now the man Moses was very meek, above all men. Num 12.

2. Appropriately,humble, in an evangelical sense; submissive to the divine will; not proud, self-sufficient or refractory; not peevish and apt to complain of divine dispensations. Christ says, “”Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.”” Mat 11. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Mat 5.

MEEKNESS, n.

1. Softness of temper; mildness; gentleness; forbearance under injuries and provocations.

2. In an evangelical sense, humility; resignation; submission to the divine will, without murmuring or peevishness; opposed to pride, arrogance and refractoriness. Gal 5. I beseech you by the meekness of Christ. 1 Cor 10. Meekness is a grace which Jesus alone inculcated, and which no ancient philosopher seems to have understood or recommended.

Comments

If you carefully read the definition, it has nothing to do with the current connotations of the word.

To be meek means to be mild of temper, someone who doesn’t get angry or irritated easily, soft and yielding on the outside but stronng on the inside. It is yielding the way a liquid is yielding – it flows around things, taking a path of least resistance. In that sense there is a daoist quality to it.

Note that Moses is described as “very meek, above all men”. This is the Moses who saw an Israelite being beaten by an Egyptian and killed the Egyptian – the Moses who went to Pharoah and said, Let my people go – the Moses who led them out of Egypt and into the Wilderness – the Moses who brought the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai. That does not sound like what we normally think of as meek.

I think the primary meaning of meek regarding Moses here is a submission to divine will without complaining. God gave Moses a job to do, and Moses did it, period.

If you read the definition carefully it says mildness of temper, staying calm, not being provoked. It says nothing about being weak. It speaks of being given to forbearance under injuries, and being gracious when injured, which here I think means attacked. Forbearance is forgiveness.

I checked the word Forbearance, and it means, command of temper, restraint of passions, patient, long-suffering, indulgence towards those who injure us

Meek does not mean being passive, or quiet, or yielding under pressure, or being weak, or shy, or unable to stand up for yourself – and all of those are connotations of the word I currently have in our modern world.

To be meek is being strong enough to NOT get irritated or provoked or angry when attacked, to be able to stay calm. None of that is easy! Even in our digital world when someone attacks you think how hard it is to avoid the impulse to attack back.

The submissiveness mentioned is submissiveness to divine will without complaining. It is not letting yourself being pushed around by others, but it is, not pushing back against God.

If you picture a parent-child relationship, a meek child is one where a parent says, go clean your room, and the child does it without complaining. A child who wasn’t meek would be a complainer, or a whiner, or refuse to do it, or do it sloppily.

In a business setting, a meek employee would be one who did their job with a good temper, with no bitching about any difficulties.

Another point here is that, in the original meaning of the word, the inner strength does not come from you alone. it comes from God. One who is humble before god can be strong without a harsh or brash exterior.

Very important – note here that the quality of meekness is tied in with an entire world view.

Meekness is closely linked to forgiveness; to forgive an injury is meekness, and that is very difficult. It takes an inner strength, and that is hard to draw from your own personal resources. In the traditional world the inner strength to forgive others comes from humility before god and being forgiven by god. The forgiveness from god is what gives the strength to forgive others

Meekness and forgiveness are qualities that are in very short supply today. I think that part of the reason for that is that we have lost the divine dimension that provides the inner support making those qualities possible.

I find it interesting that there is a note that meekness seems to be a particularly Christian sort of virtue, along with humility. From what I have read of Greek and Roman philosophers that makes sense, but those traditions do value some of the strengths attached to meekness – to be patient, calm, slow to anger, forgiving, accepting one’s limitations without complaining. A Greek or Roman would not describe that as meekness.

The word meek only makes sense in a world under God.

The meekness of Christ referred to is the meekness in the Garden of Gethsemane, saying, Thy will be done. If you have ever wrestled with that sort of prayer you know how much work it takes.

Now, by contrast, here is the current dictionary definition of meek from the online Merriam Webster Dictionary.

Meek – current definition

1 : enduring injury with patience and without resentment : mild – a meek child dominated by his brothers

2 : deficient in spirit and courage : submissive – “I don’t care,” came the meek reply— Annetta Miller

3 : not violent or strong : moderate his delivery varied from a meek, melodic patter to rapid-fire scriptural allusions— Bob Trebilcock

Comments

Notice that meaning #1 keeps some but not all of the original meaning, but the example #1 is not positive at all, it has no strength. Without the fuller and more nuanced definition from the earlier dictionary the word has lost all its strength and subtlety. The overall context of the meaning of the word in the older, namely the meekness before God, is completely lost here. Without that context the word can’t have any strength. In the old definition it is a yielding, pliable exterior coming from an inner strength, here it is just the exterior yielding.

As we saw in the words in the previous post, the modern meaning is much thinner, flatter, more one-dimensional. That is because our concept of what it means to be human in the world has gotten thinner, flatter, and more one-dimensional.

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Since meekness is contrasted with pride, I thought it would be illuminating to examine the change of meaning in that word. The contrast here is very interesting.

Pride – 1828 Webster Definition

1. Inordinate self-esteem; an unreasonable conceit of one’s own superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, accomplishments, rank or elevation in office, which manifests itself in lofty airs, distance, reserve, and often in contempt of others. Martial pride looks down on industry. Pride goeth before destruction. Prov 16. Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. All pride is abject and mean. Those that walk in pride he is able to abase. Dan 4.

2. Insolence; rude treatment of others; insolent exultation. That hardly we escap’d the pride of France.

3. Generous elation of heart; a noble self-esteem springing from a consciousness of worth. The honest pride of conscious virtue.

4. Elevation; loftiness. A falcon tow’ring in her pride of place.

5. Decoration; ornament; beauty displayed. Whose lofty trees, clad with summer’s pride. Be his this sword Whose ivory sheath, inwrought with curious pride, Adds graceful terror to the wearer’s side.

6. Splendid show; ostentation. Is this array, the war of either side Through Athens pass’d with military pride.

7. That of which men are proud; that which excites boasting. I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. Zec 9. Zep 3.

PRIDE, v.t. With the reciprocal pronoun, to pride one’s self, to indulge pride; to take pride; to value one’s self; to gratify self-esteem. They pride themselves in their wealth, dress or equipage. He prides himself in his achievements.

Comments

This is a complex mix of meanings. The first two listed are negative and talk of inordinate or excessive self-esteem. It is a virtue out of balance. Again the divine context is useful, since pride is putting oneself in the place of God, worshipping oneself.

However, the majority of the meanings, numbers 3 through 7, are all positive, and mean something like appropriate self-esteem. There is a place for pride in the good sense of the term.

The quality of humility or meekness is something to balance over against pride to keep it temperate.

Pride – current definition

1 : the quality or state of being proud: such as
a : inordinate self-esteem : conceit
b : a reasonable or justifiable self-respect
c : delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship parental pride

2 : proud or disdainful behavior or treatment : disdain

3a : ostentatious display

b : highest pitch : prime

4 : a source of pride : the best in a group or class

Comments

Notice here that the dictionary definition is much briefer and less nuanced, but it does keep some of both the positive and negative qualities of the word.

I found something else that is very interesting. The online Merriam Webster dictionary has two tabs, Dictionary and Thesaurus. I have the Dictionary entry printed here. However, if you go over to the Thesaurus tab, the positive meanings of the word pride overwhelmingly dominate in the first two lengthy entries. The negative connotation is there but as a third less extensive entry. The balance of meanings of the words has shifted greatly towards the positive.

Here are the links to the modern Dictionary and Thesaurus entries for pride so you can check them for yourself.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pride

https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/pride

The word pride has become much stronger, the word meek has become much weaker, and both have become less subtle and nuanced.

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It is a very interesting experience, spending an hour or so with the dictionary and looking up meek and meekness, then pride, then forbearance, and thinking about them. The detail and nuance and depth of the 1828 dictionary meaning opened up a whole rich world. I learned a lot from that, and from contrasting it with the current definitions.

To make sense of the word meek I needed to think myself into the world in which meekness is a virtue. I needed to think of the word in context. Compared to today’s world it is a whole different standard of values. And to me, today’s world does not look good in the comparison.

Granted that in 1828 not everyone practiced meekness, and it may have been a rare virtue, but it was at least a virtue that was admired and looked up to. We look up to a different sent of values we find admirable now. Connotations of pride today are largely positive, and of meekness are almost all negative.

There were a few other related words I looked into. The word longanimity has similar connotations to meek. Longanimity is very similar in meaning to longsuffering, which is still in our language but hardly ever used anymore.

Words fall out of use when the states or qualities they describe are no longer emphasized, or recognized, or sometimes no longer valued. Longanimity is an obsolete word, longsuffering is old fashioned and rarely used, meek has become weaker, pride has become stronger. Put those together and they reflect something about the changes in what it now means to be human.

Consider the words meek and proud. If you’re a parent, do you want your children to be meek? Do you want your children to be proud? How do you picture those?

It takes a great deal of inner strength to be meek in the old sense when attacked. It is not a sign of weakness at all; quite the contrary. Today we are more likely to train people that the virtue is in fighting back rather than being meek in the old sense, and part of the reason for that may be that we do not have a clear idea of what being meek in the old sense means. We’ve lost the concept, so it is harder to point to the quality it represents.

Consider the quality of much of our social and political discourse. Consider what qualities are admired and which are denigrated. What happens to discourse when meekness in the old sense goes out of style, and pride is more heavily emphasized and valued? Look around you.

What follows here is a further comment by Robert Walker. I’d like to quote it and comment on it since it adds a bit more flavor to our discussion.

Comment by Robert Walker

O.E.D. wasn’t much help. And my magnifying glass didn’t show as much as it has in the past.

An ex-Catholic priest told me that the word translated as “meek” in the original aramaic meant “a well-ploughed ground”, that is, someone who had tamed their extreme emotionality and had some measure of peace. So “the meek shall inherit the earth” could mean “those who have ploughed themselves, who are well-tamed, will inherit the riches of the earth.” It’s an agricultural metaphor. It may well imply some kind of humbleness, but there’s also a link to some kind of strength and fruitfulness that is not obvious in the English language word.

This is from a random article I just googled, link below the quote. It doesn’t go quite as far as my friend’s comment. “According to native Middle Eastern mysticism, however, each Aramaic word presents several possible “literal” translations. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” could as easily be translated “Blessed are the gentle” or “Blessed are those who have softened the rigidity within.”The word for “earth” in Aramaic also carries the meanings of “earthiness”, “the natural abundance of nature,” and “everything that appears in particular forms.” To understand how all these relate to one another, we must go further.”

http://smmccindy.org/homilies–resources/understanding-the-beatitudes-from-the-aramaic

My Comment

What struck me here was the connection of meekness of the strength of earth, primarily an agricultural metaphor. We didn’t see that connotation while considering the word meekness. However, note this entry on the etymology of a related word, humble. The emphasis here is mine.

Humility – Online Etymological Dictionary

early 14c., “quality of being humble,” from Old French umelite “humility, modesty, sweetness” (Modern French humilité),

from Latin humilitatem (nominative humilitas) “lowness, small stature; insignificance;

baseness, littleness of mind,”

in Church Latin “meekness,” from humilis “lowly, humble,” literally “on the ground,” from humus “earth”

The word meek in our language does not have an etymology related to earth, but the word humble does. To be humble and to be meek are very closely related. Again, we get a cluster of concepts. Meekness picked up some of the connotations of humble, or the two words may be more closely related in Aramaic.

Both concepts, meek and humble, have gone out of style.

Concluding Points

The change in word meaning reflects a change of values, which reflects a change of the way we think of the world and what it means to be human. There is a very rich network in the meanings of related words, and you can find out a lot by doing this sort of research.

A word and its meaning does not stand by itself. It is part of an entire world, a way of relating to others, to yourself and to the universe. In our modern world we have lost the divine dimension, and exploring the meaning of all these words helps to bring that into focus.

Here are some qualities of the world we live in today.

• Our world has lost a sense of God, of divine presence, and of humanity being under god or the gods.
• In the context the individual human has to look within themself alone for strength. Without the vertical dimension, the divine dimension, the inner sustenance is gone.
• The word meek has lost its positive connotations. The word pride is more heavily emphasized. The words longsuffering and longanimity are no longer used.

This touches on a theme that I will be exploring in a series of posts. Part of our recovering the fullness of meaning of traditional astrology involves recovering the divine dimension of life, what I think of as the vertical dimension where we live our lives under God and the Gods.

We need the divine dimension to understand traditional astrology. And, I maintain we need the divine dimension to be fully human.