αὐθεντοῦντος

Summary

αὐθεντοῦντος is a 4th-century patristic participle of authenteō, used by Eusebius (~325 AD) for divine sovereignty and by Basil (~370 AD) for exercising authority. These uses are important for the complementarian case but problematic: they postdate Paul by 300 years, the intervening period shows a far more complex semantic picture, and even Chrysostom in the same era required the modifier kakōs ("wrongly") to specify the word's negative valence — showing it was not self-evidently positive.

Article 340 cites Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 325 AD) who applies authentountos to God the Father in On Ecclesiastical Theology 3.5.21.1, meaning "ruling" in a positive, neutral sense of divine sovereignty. This is one of the earliest patristic uses of authenteō with clearly positive/neutral meaning. Approximately 370 AD, Basil uses a related form in his Letters (69, line 45) to mean "exercise authority." These patristic uses are important in the authenteō debate: the complementarian argument is that by the time of the early church fathers, authenteō had solidified into a positive word for authority, supporting its use in 1 Tim. 2:12 as "to have/exercise authority." The egalitarian counter (Bartlett/Williams, art. 340) is that (a) these 4th-century uses postdate Paul by 300 years, (b) the intervening period (1st–3rd c.) shows a far more complex semantic picture, and (c) Chrysostom's use of "hapax kakōs" shows that even in the 4th century the word's valence required specification. Thus, patristic uses of authentountos inform but do not settle the semantic debate about 1 Tim. 2:12.

Related: authenteō, authentikos, autodikein.