From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 18 1996 - 15:30:52 EDT
At 12:52 PM -0600 4/18/96, Kenneth Litwak wrote:
> According to Philip Esler, PTWXOS is not the word for poor, but the word
> for beggar, as Koine Greek has perfectly proper words for poor people who
> nevertheless can get by. I would like to know what others tink of this
> suggestion? Thanks.
This is actually a very interesting word; originally it is related to the
noun PTWX (KS), "hare," "cowering creature" and the old verb PTWSSW,
meaning something like "go around looking downcast," "slink," "skulk." It
is the guise that Odysseus first assumes in his own house when he returns
there after his 20-year absence.
It might well be that the Jerusalem community adopted this title in the
sense of "mendicants," and it would well suit the description in the
so-called "Missionary Instructions" in the Synoptics: the itinerant
evangelists are to beg for their own subsistence in the villages where they
go to preach.
The normal classical Greek word for "poor man" is PENHS; BAGD cites a
passage from Aristophanes' Plutus thus: PTWXOU BIOS ZHN ESTI MHDEN EXONTA,
TOU DE PENHTOS ZHN FEIDOMENON KAI TOIS ERGOIS PROSEXONTA. I think I'd
translate this last phrase as "to live stingily and eking out with
part-time work."
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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