By Water & Blood

Lemma

θεῖος

theios

Divine. The Greek adjective for what belongs to God, not the noun θεός.

Forms

  • θεῖος theios G2304. Adjective, divine.
  • θεῖον theion Neuter, as in “the divine nature” / “Divine Nature.”
  • θεός theos God. The usual Greek noun for God, and for a god when the setting is pagan or plural.

θεῖος is an adjective. It marks what is divine, not the noun θεός. The New Testament has it three times.

Acts 17:29 says we ought not to think “the Divine Nature” is like gold or silver. 2 Peter 1:3 speaks of “his divine power.” 2 Peter 1:4 says believers become partakers of “the divine nature.”

English “divine” is also a verb in the prophets, and the deuterocanon uses the adjective freely. Those lines are not this entry. Only the three New Testament verses where the Greek is θεῖος link here.

Strong’s

Strong’s dictionaries compiled by Open Scriptures, used under CC-BY-SA 4.0.

θεῖος G2304

theîos

godlike (neuter as noun, divinity)

from G2316 (θεός);

KJV glosses: divine, godhead

Thayer’s

Joseph Henry Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (1889). Public-domain digital text.

θεῖος G2304

theîos

θεῖος, θεία, θεῖον (Θεός) (from Homer down), divine: ἡ θεία δύναμις, 2Pe 1:3; φύσις (Diodorus 5, 31), 2Pe 1:4; neuter τό θεῖον, divinity, deity (Latinnumendivinum), not only used by the Greeks to denote the divine nature, power, providence, in the general, without reference to any individual deity (as Herodotus 3, 108; Thucydides 5, 70; Xenophon, Cyril 4, 2, 15; Hell. 7, 5, 13; mem. 1,4, 18; Plato, Phaedr., p. 242c.; Polybius 32, 25, 7; Diodorus 1, 6; 13, 3; 12; 16, 60; Lucian, de sacrif. 1; pro imagg. 13, 17. 28), but also by Philo (as in mundi opff. § 61; de agric. 17; leg. ad Gal 1:1-24), and by Josephus (Antiquities, 1, 3, 4; 11, 1; 2, 12, 4; 5, 2, 7; 11, 5, 1; 12, 6, 3; 7, 3; 13, 8, 2; 10, 7; 14, 9, 5; 17, 2, 4; 20, 11, 2; b. j. 3, 8, 3; 4, 3, 10), of the one, true God; hence, most appositely employed by Paul, out of regard for Gentile usage, in Act 17:29.