πορφύρα

From the study of Luke 16:19

Range of meaning

The purple dye taken from murex sea snails, and cloth dyed with it. By extension, a purple robe as a sign of rank: royalty, high officials, those honoured by kings. The colour ranged from deep red-violet to crimson-purple.

Against the English

English 'purple' names a colour that anyone can buy cheaply today. In the first century the word named one of the most expensive materials in the Mediterranean world. Every major English version says 'purple', which is correct but tells modern readers nothing about price or status.

How it drifted

Synthetic dyes (from the 1850s on) made purple ordinary, so the social signal the word carried disappeared from English.

Used elsewhere in the period

Pliny the Elder (Natural History 9.124–141) describes the dye industry and says double-dyed Tyrian purple cost over 1,000 denarii a pound in his day, when a labourer earned about one denarius a day. In the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament), purple is worn by Midianite kings (Judg 8:26), given by Ahasuerus to Mordecai (Esth 8:15), and sent by the Seleucid king Alexander Balas to Jonathan as a mark of high office (1 Macc 10:20, 62). It also appears among the tabernacle and priestly fabrics (Exod 26–28). The capable wife of Proverbs 31:22 wears 'fine linen and purple'. Revelation 18:12 lists 'fine linen, purple' among the luxury cargo of Babylon/Rome. Soldiers mock Jesus by dressing him in purple (Mark 15:17; John 19:2).

From the study of Revelation 18:12

Range of meaning

The purple-fish (murex) itself; the dye taken from it; cloth or garments dyed with it. Ancient 'purple' covered shades from deep crimson to violet.

Against the English

English 'purple' names a colour. The Greek names an extremely expensive product, so to the first hearers it meant status, royalty and huge wealth.

How it drifted

Synthetic dyes since the 19th century have made purple an ordinary colour, so the word lost its link to price and rank.

Used elsewhere in the period

Pliny, Natural History 9.124–141, describes making the dye and says double-dyed Tyrian purple wool could not be bought for 1,000 denarii a pound (about three years' wages for a labourer). Nero restricted who could wear the finest purple (Suetonius, Nero 32.3). Lydia of Thyatira, a city addressed in Revelation 2, was a 'dealer in purple' (Acts 16:14). In Ezekiel 27:7 and 27:16 Tyre trades purple.