Passion
The most important and far-reaching occurrence of the term is the phrase in the prologue to Acts, ζω̂ντα μετὰ τὸ παθει̂ν αὐτὸν, “alive after his passion.” This phrase was tr. by St. Jerome (c. a.d. 400) as Lat. “vivum post passionem suam,” which follows the koine syntax exactly, even the term rendering Gr. pathein is cognate, namely Lat. patior. This same style was followed by John Wycliffe (1320-1384) and by subsequent Eng. VSS that retained the term “passion” in this special sense of the death and burial of Christ. It is evident from the Lucan use in
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915)
pash’-un, pash’-unz: "Passion" is derived from Latin passio, which in turn is derived from the verb patior, with the root, pat-. The Latin words are connected with the Greek root, path-, which appears in a large number of derivatives. And in Greek, Latin, and English (with other languages in addition) words connected with this root, pat-, path-, are often susceptible of a great variety of meanings, for which the dictionaries must be consulted. For "passion," however, as it appears in English Versions of the Bible, only three of these meanings need be considered.
(1) Close to what seems to be the primary force of the root is the meaning "suffer," and in this sense "passion" is used in
(2) "Suffering," when applied to the mind, came to denote the state that is controlled by some emotion, and so "passion" was applied to the emotion itself. This is the meaning of the word in
(3) From "emotion" a transition took place to "strong emotion," and this is the normal force of "passion" in modern English the King James Version does not use this meaning, but in the Revised Version (British and American) "passion" in this sense is the translation of pathos, in its three occurrences:
It is used also for two occurrences of pathema (closely allied to pathos) in