With the Latin it was
otherwise. The language seemed to lack a word, which on one account or
another Christians needed continually to utter: indeed Cicero, than
whom none could know better the resources of his own tongue, remarkably
enough had noted its want of any single equivalent to the Greek
'saviour.' [Footnote: Hoc [Greek: soter] quantum est? ita magnum ut
Latine uno verbo exprimi non possit.] 'Salvator' would have been the
natural word; but the classical Latin of the best times, though it had
'salus' and 'salvus,' had neither this, nor the verb 'salvare'; some,
indeed, have thought that 'salvare' had always existed in the common
speech. 'Servator' was instinctively felt to be insufficient, even as
'Preserver' would for us fall very short of uttering all which
'Saviour' does now. The seeking of the strayed, the recovery of the
lost, the healing of the sick, would all be but feebly and faintly
suggested by it, if suggested at all. God '_preserveth_ man and beast,'
but He is the 'Saviour' of his own in a more inward and far more
endearing sense. It was long before the Latin Christian writers
extricated themselves from this embarrassment, for the 'Salutificator'
of Tertullian, the 'Sospitator' of another, assuredly did not satisfy
the need. The strong good sense of Augustine finally disposed of the
difficulty. He made no scruple about using 'Salvator'; observing with a
true insight into the conditions under which new words should be
admitted, that however 'Salvator' might not have been good Latin before
the Saviour came, He by his coming and by the work had made it such;
for, as shadows wait upon substances, so words wait upon things.
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