From: Edgar M. Krentz (emkrentz@mcs.com)
Date: Fri Jan 19 1996 - 17:48:30 EST
Ken wrote,inter alia:
>I do think the Greek of the Didache is interesting. In working
>throught he first five chapters, I've noticed a huge number of words
>which either do not occur in the NT or do not occur in secular Greek or
>both. There are somepalces where the only other known occurence is in
>the Apostolic Constitutions, quoting the Didache! Furthermore, while
>I generlaly think the Didache in this portion at least says lots of
>right-on stuff (except for the bit about bringing a gift for the ransom
>of your sins), for the most part it does not seem in these chapters to
>be distinctly Christian particularly. It talks about virtues and vices,
>but does not root them, as Paul or Peter or James do in their writings,
>with who believers are in Christ very much. Paul seems unable to write
>very many lines without mentioning Christ or Christ Jesus, etc. The
>Didache shows no such tendency. ALso, I've noticed what seems to me to
>be a trend of omitting the definite article with a clearly substantive
>participle. I don't think, though I don't have statistics for it, that
>this is a common NT Greek practice. So it seems to me that even though
>the Didache in this section at least quotes the Sermon on the MOunt
>(wihtout saying so), **overall it does not seem that the author was
>interested in imitating NT style, vocabulary or syntax.** (my asterisks)
Why should he be? Do you restrict yourself to the vocabulary of the NT when
you address a topic?
>
> Then again, I found the small amount of translation I've done this
>last weekend in the Martyrdom of Polycarp to not seem much like NT Greek
>either. In fact, MP is some of the hardest Greek I've ever worked on,
>Hebrews included.
>
Ken, I want to add just one or two comments to what Carl Conrad wrote on this.
It seems from what you wrote above that you assume (1) that "New Testament
Greek" is of a piece, that is, does not vary from author to author, and (2)
that it should become the standard for Greek prose subsequent to it. [That
view of NT Greek is one of the problems I find in Porter's work.]
Both assumptions are, IMHO, wrong, if you in fact hold them. The Greek of
Hebrews, Acts, and 1 Peter is much more literary than that of Mark or John.
One would not suspect they had any secondary education in Greek--as you
might of Paul, _auctor ad Hebraeos- and 1 Peter's writer. 2 Peter "smells
of the lamp," to cite someone or other I read years ago. The NT itself,
therefore, does not set a single Greek standard. And, as Carl pointed out,
early Christian writers after the NT did not try to replicate the Greek of
the NT; they rather wrote as they had been educated to write. If you move
from the Apostolic Fathers to the early apologists, you will find that
Justin Martyr, Tatian, and the like write a much more elevated style, use a
more recondite vocabulary, and come closer to the literary standards set by
the rhetoric of the Second Sophistic.
I was surprised by your evaluation of the difficulty of MPol. It uses some
vocabulary that does not occur in the NT, but its sentence structure is
really relatively simple.
The "two ways" teaching of ethics did not originate with the Didache. By
the time the Didache was written it was a topos in ethics (both Jewish and
Greco-Roman). In general, there is little originality in the virtue and
vice lists in NT writers, or in the topics they take up in their
_Haustafeln_. See the works of Wayne Meeks and Abraham Malherbe and their
students.
I was surprised by your comment that James roots virtues and vices in
Christ, since there are only two direct references to him in James (1:1 and
2:1). Luther was so struck by this that he felt James was written by a
non-Christian Jewish author, into whose text some Christian rather
awkwardly inserted the two references to Christ.
Maybe your posting and the respsonses could lead us to discuss in more
detail what we regard as the stylistic and grammatical characteristics of
different NT and patristic writers. It would be interesting to compare them
with Epictetus or Musonius Rufus, or some of Plutarch's treatises ("On
Inoffensive Self-Priase" or his "Advice to a Young Married Couple"). James
never mentions the death and resurrection of Jesus. He operates with some
very hellenistic motifs ("wheel of generation"), while citing the Sermon on
the Mount in much the same fashion as the Didache does.
And if you really want to read more difficult Greek from the fathers, try
St. Basil "On Greek Literature" or Eusebius "Church History." I remember
when Fred Danker and I read that together; LSJM was at our elbows a lot!
John Chrysostom's sermons are a bit easier, but will make the Apostolic
Fathers seem simple.
Have you thought of getting a group of NT graduate students together to
read such texts together? Or get Robert H. Smith of Pacific Lutheran to
read them with you? That could be a lot of fun.
You do introduce some interesting and provocative items. :-) Thanks for that.
Peace,Ed Krentz
Edgar Krentz, New Testament
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
1100 E. 55th Street
Chicago, IL 60615
Tel: 312-256-0752; FAX: 312-256.0782
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