But yet, if, setting aside, for the present, all authorities on this head, we begin with examining attentively into the real meaning of the Greek word which is the subject of the present controversy, we shall see that it cannot have that signification which Father Gretzer pretends. In fact, let us examine if that word occurs in any other place of the New Testament, and in what sense it is employed. We meet with it in the eighteenth Chapter of St. Luke, wherein Jesus Christ says, in the manner of a Parable, that a Widow used to teaze a Judge with her frequent complaints, who was thereby compelled at last to do her justice; and he makes him speak in the following words: “Because this Widow troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming, she _weary_ me (ὑπωπιάζη μὲ.)” Now, who can imagine that this Judge entertained any fear that the Woman should flagellate him? Yet, we must think so, if the Greek word used in the Text (which is the very same as that employed by St. Paul, and on which Father Gretzer builds his system) should always signify, as that Father pretends, to beat, or lash. If a literal explanation of that word, therefore, is in many cases improper and ridiculous, it follows that it is frequently to be understood in a figurative sense, and that it is then only employed to express that kind of hard usage either of one’s self, or of others, which is exercised without any mixture of real violence, or bodily sufferings. To this add, that St. Paul himself, when, on other occasions he really means to speak of blows and actual stripes, never once makes use of the word in question.