Re: Mt 28:19a POREUQENTES

Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Mon, 27 Oct 1997 15:03:40 -0600

At 1:02 PM -0600 10/27/97, Thomas Bond wrote:
>I am a new subscriber to this list, and am sure that my question is as old
>as my subscription is new. But, I am curious about the use of the
>participle in Mt. 28:19a: POREUQENTES OUN MAQHTEUSATE PANTA TA EQNH. Is
>this an imperative use of the participle? Or, is it a temporal use of the
>participle? It seems clear to me that the participles following, in vs.
>19b, 20 -- BAPTIZONTES and DIDASKONTES -- are modal participles.

Here POREUQENTES is clearly subordinated to the imperative MAQHTEUSATE;
from a very early period Greek tended to subordinate verbs which in English
were part of a string of parallels and formulate those earlier in sequence
as participles (usually aorist, as here) and then leave the last in the
appropriate format. It's safe to say here that POREUQENTES represents what
an English-thinker writing Greek would have written as POREUQHTE OUN KAI
MAQHTEUQHTE PANTA TA EQNH. So call it imperatival insofar as it is
functioning as the first element in a sequence with the imperative.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
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