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I taught at Gethsemani last week. We were sharing about the ancient early practice of spiritual direction: Exagoreusis.

I asked Brother Lawrence to do exegesis on the Greek. This is his reply:

You asked about a couple of things Greek.

I mentioned in class that I recognized the root of exagoreusis. When I took some time to track it down, I found that my instincts were right.

The “agora” was the marketplace in a Greek town or city. People would go there to do their shopping and to sell goods if they had them.

There are tons of words derived from “agora,” “a-gorAZ-oh,” to buy, “a-gor-a-SI-a,” a purchase, and so on.

But as the central square in the town, it was also the place of assembly. Meetings were held there, votes were taken in democratic towns, and court was held, with citizens acting as the jury.

As a result, there are another set of words derived from “agora.” Among these is “agoreuo” (a-gor-YEW-oh), to speak in the assembly, or more generally to speak or proclaim whether actually in the agora or not.

From this comes “exagoreuo” (ex-a-gor-YEW-oh), which in addition to the expected meaning, “to speak out, to make known, to declare,” also came to have the connotation of saying something which should not be public, so “to betray a secret.” This extended then to the idea of “to confess.”

In the Septuagint, the verb is used this way almost exclusively. For example, verse 5 of Psalm 31 (32) in the Grail translation reads:

But now I have acknowledged my sins;
my guilt I did not hide.
I said, “I will confess
my offence to the Lord.”
And you, Lord, have forgiven
the guilt of my sin.

The word translated as “confess” reads “exagoreuso” (the extra “s” before the ending indicates the future – “I will confess”) in the Septuagint. This confession could be a public affair, Neh 9:3, for example, or a private matter, as in this psalm.

The verb was then used as the basis for the noun, “exagoreusis” (ex-a-GOR-yew-sis), which in classical Greek has the connotation of betrayal, but in the Christian literature it came to mean “confession.”

In the desert tradition, as you know, it became a more technical term to mean “manifestation of thoughts.” But I thought you might find it interesting that the basic meaning is to make public that which is secret. The Greeks found this threatening, the desert fathers found it necessary.