From: Mary L B Pendergraft (pender@f1n7.sp2net.wfu.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 17 1999 - 11:35:31 EST
At 10:11 AM 2/17/99 -0600, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>At 10:56 AM -0500 2/17/99, Mary L B Pendergraft wrote:
>>At 10:48 AM 2/17/99 -0500, Randy LEEDY wrote:
>>>Bart Ehrman inquired:
>>>
>>>>Does anyone want to explain to me how s/he understands the grammar of
>>>2
>>>>Clement 2:6: ti oun estin poiesantas epituchein auton, ei me to
>>>hosios
>>>>kai dikaios anastrephesthai?
>>>
>>>I finally found the passage at V.6 (Lightfoot's edition), and using W
>>>for omega and H for eta, the passage reads TI OUN ESTIN POIHSANTAS
>>>EPITUCEIN AUTWN, EI MH TO HOSIWS KAI DIKAIWS ANASTREFESQAI.
>>>
>>>I understand the grammar as follows:
>>>
>>>TI - object of POIHSANTAS
>>>ESTIN - existential use (no complement: "it exists")
>>
>>What about ESTIN = "it is possible"?
>
>I think ESTIN certainly could be read that way, but what makes me question
>it is that structure of the whole clause seems to involve the disjunction
>of TI ... EI MH, which is what makes me think of it as "What is X
>other-than/but Y?" IF that's what we have here, I would think the ESTIN
>must be a copula.
Hmm....I tend to think that TI is the object of POIHSANTAS, and the
participial phrase is then the accusative subject of the infinitive:
"It is possible for those who have done what to obtain them..." The Greek
is, of course, much less awkward than this English attempt.
The infinitive with EI MH then answers TI POIHSANTAS: "having done what,
if not having lived in a holy and righteous way..." I believe (or
certainly hope) that it is possible (admittedly not common) for the tense
of an articular infinitive to represent time.
Mary
Mary Pendergraft
Associate Professor of Classical Languages
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem NC 27109-7343
336-758-5331 (NOTE: this is a new number) pender@wfu.edu
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