From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Mar 08 1996 - 10:22:00 EST
On 3/8/96, Cal Redmond wrote:
> Brent Arias wrote,
>
> >I was wondering if I could solicit submittals of everyone's favorite
> >Greek words which meet the criteria of having a notoriously context
> >sensitive definition.
>
> One of my favorite "dynamic" words is DOKEW. In Gal. 2:6, we have the
> participle phrase APO DE TWN DOKOUNTWN EINAI TI. Does this phrase refer
> to those who were highly esteemed (as in most commentators I've read), or
> does it mean those who have the reputation but not the substance, as in
> Plato's _Apology of Socrates_, in 21B and C (in Loeb's numbering), where
> Socrates says HLTHON EPI TINA TWN DOKOUNTWN SOFWN EINAI, and then goes on
> to say that the man had the reputation of being wise but was not.
>
> What then does that do for us in Gal. 2? Is Paul here granting honor to
> those in Jerusalem, or is he indicating that they have an undeserved
> reputation for importance, as I think might be more likely?
This is a good one, and this root DOK- underlies some of the greatest
ambiguities in the language. The problem is that DOKEW can have both a
subjective sense ("I seem to myself to be ..." = "I think I am ...") and an
objective sense (objective, that is, in terms of whose opinion is involved:
"I seem/appear {to others} to be ..." = "I am reputed to be ..." There is
at least one point where Socrates in the Apology emphasizes that duality by
saying that such-and-such EDOKEI hOUTOS hEAUTWi TE KAI POLLOIS ALLOIS SOFOS
EINAI ... It can also have the sense "seem good" and therefore take on a
technical sense of "be decided by ..." as in the official formula of
Athenian legislation: EDOXE THi TE BOULHi KAI TWi DHMWi TWN AQHNAIWN NAUS
APOSTELLEIN ...
The cognate DOXA and its ambiguities have already been mentioned; it is
subject to the same ambiguity noted above for DOKEW in classical Attic--it
can mean public esteem/estimation = reputation/appearance as well as
personal/private opinion; it can mean "appearance" as opposed to "reality"
(ALHQEIA).
Then there's DOGMA, also from that technical sense of DOKEW: it can mean
"decree" as in the modern derivative usage, or it can mean "opinion" as
held by a thinker (one also sees TA DOKOUNTA in this sense = "what X
thought").
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/
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