Allow me to offer yet another sugggestion. In response to my
suggestion that SESWSMENOI in Ephesians 2:8 be regarded as a
participle used as a noun, Carl Conrad responded on 20 May 1997:
> While I think there's a Semitist(?) usage of an anarthrous participle as a
> noun (e.g. FWNH BOWNTOS EN THi ERHMWi), I'd be somewhat leery of
> understanding SESWMENOI substantivally without its being hOI SESWSMENOI;
> <... etc. clipped>
This caused me to do a (less than thorough) search for anarthrous
participles used as nouns, and at this point, I think Carl is right
-- they do not ordinarily occur in KOINE Greek.
Since SPEIRWN is a participle, then, in order to use it as a noun,
it appears that the KOINE speakers needed to add hO as a peg to
hang the participle on.
If they had omitted hO:
EXHLQEN SPEIRWN SPEIRAI
it would then have meant something like
"he went out scattering to scatter" (but missing antecedent for "he")
rather than
one who scatters went out to scatter
SPEIRWN occurs as a the first person active present participle from
8 to 12 times in the NT (I didn't note the exact count), and in
every case it is immediately preceded by hO.
I would distinguish this usage from the usage of hO to distinguish
one group from another, as noted by Carlton Winbery on Jun 17:
> I would say that the article is used here to distinguish one group from
> another, eg., Lk.10:7 "A laborer (hO ERGATHS) is worthy of his hire." The
> article denotes a group. In this situation, it is not always necessary to
> use the indefinite article in English, eg. Mt. 18:17 "Let him be to you
> like Gentiles (hO ETHNIKOS [sg]) and tax collectors (hO TELWNHS [sg]). The
> two groups are indicated even by the singular article.
I agree that hO is used to indicate a representative of a group in
the texts that Carlton cited, but I don't think that that's what's
going on here.
Regards,
Jim V.
James H. Vellenga | jvellenga@viewlogic.com
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