From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon May 24 1999 - 05:28:23 EDT
<x-rich>At 1:06 AM -0700 5/24/99, George Goolde wrote:
<excerpt>What, if anything, is the significance of the present tense of
the infinitive in 1 Cor 15:25: "dei gar auton basileuin"?
Does the present infinitive after dei say anything about the time of
the reign relative to the time of writing?
</excerpt>
Text: DEI GAR AUTON BASILEUEIN ACRI hOU QHi PANTAS TOUS ECQROUS hUPO
TOUS PODAS AUTOU.
I think rather that the tense of the infinitive is a matter of aspect:
continuous, and that the governing verb here is DEI, and since that is
present (I don't recall ever seeing the impersonal DEI other than in
present, future,or imperfect), I don't really see how there is any
indication whatsoever of the time of reigning relative to the time of
writing. If one should attempt what Will Wagers called a
"hypertranslation" of this, I'd do it thus: "the obligation remains for
him to keep reigning until he has put all his foes beneath his feet."
But the contextual temporal setting for this, it seems to me, has to be
derived from the future of 1 Cor 15:22 ZWiOPOIHQHSONTAI. The present
tense of DEI thus must refer to a sequence within the future, but it is
not specified precisely WHEN in the future.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
</x-rich>
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