[ Kurios, Kurios ]

 THE meaning of [ kurios ], when applied to language, on the whole presents no difficulty. It answers to the Latin propriè, and is the contrary to impropriè . Thus Athan. says, "When the thing is a work or creature, the words 'He made' etc. are used of it properly, [ kurios ]; when an offspring, then they are no longer used [ kurios ]." Orat. ii. § 3.

 But the word has an inconvenient latitude (vid. art. Father Almighty, fin.) Sometimes it is used in the sense of archetypal or transcendent, as when Athan. says, "The Father is [ kurios ] Father, and the Son [ kurios ] Son," Orat. i. § 21; and in consequence in Their instance alone is the Father always Father and the Son always Son, ibid. Sometimes the word is used of us as sons, and opposed to figuratively, [ ek metaphoras ], as in Basil c. Eunom. ii. 23; while Hilary seems to deny that we are sons propriè . Justin says, [ ho monos legomenos kurios huios ], Apol. ii. 6, but here [ kurios ] seems to be used in reference to the word [ kurios ], Lord, which he has just been using, [ kuriologein ] being sometimes used by him as by others in the sense of "naming as Lord," like [ theologein ]. vid. Tryph. 56. There is a passage in Justin's ad Græc. 21, where he (or the anon. writer), when speaking of [ ego eimi ho on ], uses the word in the same ambiguous sense; [ ouden gar onoma epi theou kuriologeisthai dunaton ]; as if [ kurios ], the Lord, by which "I am" is translated, were a sort of symbol of that proper name of God which cannot be given.

 On [ kuriologia ], vid. Lumper, Hist. Theol. t. 2, p. 478.