There have been other responses to this, including Jonathan's harvest from
lexicological resources. I'm not sure that this question was formulated
strictly in terms of NT Greek usage, but there are some things that need to
be said about both the English word "happy" and about Greek words for and
conceptions of "happiness."
Ithink that the words expressive of English "joy" and "happiness" may be
among the most difficult to cope with in any language. How "happy" came to
have its present connotations and denotations is something perhaps best
studied in the Oxford English Dictionary, but it's always struck me as
strange that the root is the same as the verb "happen," which suggests that
"happy" probably at one time meant much the same thing as "lucky." German
"GlŸck" can mean both "luck," "lucky chance," and "joy," while "Freude"
seems to point to something more intense.
One major Greek word for "happiness" is EUDAIMONIA. Originally this appears
to have meant "enjoying a guardian angel (DAIMWN) that watches over one's
destiny and assures its successful outcome"--which is, of course, an
overtranslation of what is surely a complex and at bottom religious notion.
In 5th century Athens the word was often used as a synonym of PLOUTOS,
"wealth," or OLBOS, "prosperity." One of the most satisfactory treatments
of the word is Aristotle's in Book 1 of Nicomachean Ethics, where he
defines EUDAIMONIA as activity in full accordance with the highest
capacities within a human being--something like "peak performance" over a
whole lifetime (because, as Aristotle says, "one swallow doesn't make a
summer."). He then goes on to draw a sharp distinction between EUDAIMONIA
(which is a matter, largely, of personal achievement, although I think
Aristotle is not unaware of elements of what we call "grace"--inasmuch as
EUDAIMONIA does not come to all who are virtuous and appears to involve a
number of circumstances that lie outside the performer's control) and
EUTUCIA (which is strictly a matter of "good fortune" undeserved accruing
to one who has done nothing to merit it). I do think that EUDAIMWN comes as
close as any classical Greek word to what the NT means by MAKARIOS,
although it seems to me that MAKARIOS in the NT has powerful overtones of
eschatological destiny and pronounces a judgment on a person not in terms
of earthly achievements but rather in terms of an eschatological status of
fulfilment that such a person can look forward to--as in the Beatitudes.
Important classical Greek words in this sphere are the verbs TERPOMAI and
hHDOMAI (both = "take pleasure") CAIRW ("rejoice"), EUFROSUNH (something
like "good cheer," not terribly far-removed from "GemŸtlichkeit"--at any
rate, it seems to involve social sharing of enjoyment), AGLAIA (something
like "radiant gladness"--the smile that greets deeply-moving beauty), QALIA
or QALEIA ("blossoming" or "fulness of bloom"). These last three are names
of the CARITES or "Graces"--they are daughters of Zeus and Demeter, if I
remember aright Hesiod's genealogical accounting of the
kinship-relationships of the heavenly beings--and that means that they are
permanent features of human response to the beauty and goodness of nature's
changing seasonal faces (I take it that is what is meant by saying that
they are deities, in the classical Greek sense).
Another well wherein to explore Greek conceptions of pleasure and pain
might well be Plato's Philebus.
I don't mean to suggest that there is a definitive answer to the question,
only that it would be impossible to deal with it in any really satisfactory
way without recognition of the veritable cornucopia of literature and art
that has a bearing on the question.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(704) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/