αὐτόματος

From the study of Acts 12:10

Range of meaning

'Self-moving' or 'acting of itself': something happening with no visible agent or outside push. It is used of crops growing without cultivation, of things happening spontaneously, and very often of doors, gates and chains that open or fall off by themselves.

Against the English

BSB, WEB and NASB have 'by itself'. ESV has 'of its own accord'. KJV has 'of his own accord', where 'his' is the old neuter possessive, meaning 'its'. NLT has 'all by itself'. All are accurate. The risk is that modern 'automatic' suggests a mechanism, which is the opposite of what the ancient word implied.

How it drifted

English 'automatic' comes from this Greek word but now suggests machinery. In antiquity a door opening 'of itself' meant a door opened by an unseen power.

Used elsewhere in the period

Homer, Iliad 5.749: the gates of heaven groan open 'of themselves' (automatai) for the gods. Euripides, Bacchae 447–448: the god's imprisoned followers find their chains loosed 'of themselves' and the doors unbarred 'without mortal hand'. The Jewish writer Artapanus (preserved in Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel 9.27.23): when Moses is jailed by Pharaoh, the prison doors open by themselves at night. Josephus, Jewish War 6.293: the huge bronze eastern gate of the temple's inner court was seen opening 'of its own accord' at midnight, an omen before 70 CE. The only other New Testament use is Mark 4:28, where the earth bears fruit 'by itself'.

From the study of Mark 4:28

Range of meaning

Self-moving or self-acting. Something happening 'of its own accord', without an outside human agent, spontaneously. It is used for things that happen without anyone visibly causing them: plants that come up without being sown or tended, doors that open by themselves, events that 'just happen'.

Against the English

KJV 'of herself', BSB/NIV 'all by itself', ESV/NASB/WEB 'by itself', YLT 'of itself'. All are accurate. The English 'automatic' comes from this word but now suggests a machine, or a closed natural system that runs without God. The Greek word carries neither idea.

How it drifted

Since the scientific revolution, 'by itself' tends to suggest natural processes explained without God. In the first century the contrast was between the farmer's work and what he does not do. It was never between nature and God.

Used elsewhere in the period

In the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint), Lev 25:5, 11 uses τὰ αὐτόματα for 'what grows of itself' in the sabbatical and jubilee years, when the land was not sown. In the NT it appears only here and at Acts 12:10, where the iron gate opens for Peter 'of its own accord'. That opening is plainly God's doing, though no human opened it. In Greek literature, Hesiod's golden-age picture (Works and Days 117–118) says the grain-giving earth bore fruit automatē, plentiful and without labour: the same word, in the same form, again describing the earth.