--Edward
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EI TIS QELEI OPISW MOU AKOLOUQEIN, APARNHSASQW hEAUTON KAI ARATW TON
STAURON AUTOU KAI AKOULOUQEITW MOI.
I've always felt that the tense differences in these 3 imperatives are by
no means arbitrary: "If any one is willing to follow (after) me, let him
deny himself--once for all time--, take up his cross--once for all time--,
and begin to follow me continuously." I suppose Will Wagers would call that
a "hypertranslation," but I don't think that the Greek says any less than
that.
I recall Billy McMinn (wherever he may be), who taught me my first year of
Greek, told an apocryphal story of a tourist at Delphi who went out to see
the ruins one morning and left a good pair of shoes with an attendant at
the hotel with a present imperative, "Polish these shoes," only to return
several hours later and find the attendant still polishing them--he ought
to have used an aorist imperative. Of course, one can't imagine that this
ever happened, but I thought it was a useful illustration. But I'm grateful
to him also for pointing out these eloquent tense differences in Mark 8:34.