Hey, hey, what's this, Jonathan? Have you been doing a search for the
article and selecting the half-dozen out of thousands that are most
troubling? I think that the very first one is probably the most
initimidating at first sight, but even it will yield, I think, to a little
imagination.
>Romans 13:7 APODOTE PASIN TAS OFEILAS, TWi TON FORON TON FORON, TWi TO TELO=
S
>TO TELOS, TWi TON FOBON TON FOBON, TWi THN TIMHN THN TIMHN.
I think that TWi in each of the phrases above must be understood with the
dative of a participle that is understood; given the initial imperative
APODOTE, "render" or "pay" and the PASIN that indicates each of those
individual datives must refer to the one to whom the second accusative noun
in each phrase is "to be rendered/paid," then we should, I believe, supply
a dative participle to each TWi that corresponds reciprocally to the verb
APODOUNAI. One such verb that would work very well, I think, is APAITEW. If
therefore we rewrite the sentence thus: APODOTE PASIN TAS OFEILAS, TWi TON
=46ORON APAITOUNTI TON FORON, TWi TO TELOS APAITOUNTI TO TELOS, TWi TON FOBO=
N
APAITOUTI TON FOBON, TWi THN TIMHN APAITOUNTI THN TIMHN.
This passage illusrates something one normally learns fairly early in
Greek: while the Greek-thinking mind is agile, the Greek-speaking tongue
and the Greek-writing hand is lazy: if anything can be left to the
imaginative mind of the listener or reader, it will be and the Greek
sentence will be elliptical. One gets used to seeing the verb or object
omitted in a second clause that's parallel to the first, but one may well
be shocked at just how lazy the Greek-speaking tongue and the Greek-writing
hand may be. BUT--on the other hand, doesnt' the English into which you try
to translate the above, "Pay everyone what you owe him: if he asks you for
taxes, pay him taxes, if he asks you for your indebtedness, pay him your
debt, if he asks you for ... " seem terribly cumbersome in comparison to
the Greek?
>Or how is TOUS used in the following?
>
>Romans 16:17 ... SKOPEIN TOUS TAS DIXOSTASIAS KAI TA SKANDALA PARA THN
>DIDAXHN hHN hUMEIS EMAQETE POIOUNTAS
When you see a TOUS like that you may not rest your attention until you get
to something that agrees with it in number, gender, and case. I'd be
looking for a participle, and I wouldn't be surprised to find POIOUNTAS
fills the bill: we have an articular participle, i.e. a substantive usage
of the participle, and one with all its objects allowed to take their not
unnatural position in advance of the verb. Perhaps the most surprising
thing here is the curious little relative clause that is sandwiched in
between TA SKANDALA and POIOUNTAS. I think, however, that you're given a
pretty evident clue to expect a participial element to correspond to that
TOUS immediately as you come to an accusative object in a different case
immediately following the TOUS.
One of the common Greek uses of the article is to generalize--that's what
we have with DICOSTASIAS and SKANDALA. We wouldn't use an article like that
in English.
>This may well be similar to another example that stumped me recently. How i=
s
>TOU used in this?
>
>Eph 1:11 EN hWi KAI EKLHRWQHMEN PROORISQENTES KATA PROQESIN TOU TA PANTA
>ENERGOUNTOS KATA THN BOULHN TOU QELHMATOS AUTOU
Aha, so you have stumbled into the minefield of the opening of Ephesians. I
would be less concerned about the article itself in this passage than about
the seemingly endless string of genitives. I also like to use the opening
of Ephesians to show just how versatile the participle can be in some kinds
of Greek discourse. Here once again we have an article--TOU--followed
immediately by an accusative; once again I'd be on the lookout for a
participle that will construe with that TOU and I find it very quickly in
ENERGOUNTOS. What a participle rather than an infinitive (for it could,
theoretically be a genitive articular infinitive)? Because PROQESIN means
"purpose" and that calls logically for an agent rather than an act.
>There seems to be a lot more to the article than I used to think!
There's a marvelous chapter in a not-very-recent book by Bruno Snell; its
English version is entitled _The Discovery of the Mind_. The chapter was
entitled, as I recall, "The Invention of the Article." It's all about what
sixth-century Ionian writers made of this little weak demonstrative
pronoun--hO/hH/TO--that they inherited from the older language.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/