From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 26 1999 - 12:34:53 EDT
At 11:13 AM -0500 8/26/99, Joseph Brian Tucker wrote:
>Greetings
>
>Philippians 1:30: TON AUTON AGWNA ECONTES, hOION EIDETE EN EMOI KAI NUN
>AKOUETE EN EMOI
In order to make your questions clearer, let me expand your citation to
include the preceding verse also:
Phil 1:29 hOTI hUMIN ECARISQH TO hUPER CRISTOU, OU MONON TO EIS AUTON
PISTEUEIN ALLA KAI TO hUPER AUTOU PASCEIN, (30) TON AUTON AGWNA ECONTES,
hOION EIDETE EN EMOI KAI NUN AKOUETE EN EMOI
>ECONTES - Present Active Participle Nominative Masculine 2nd Plural.
>Shouldn't EXONTES be EXOUSIN (dative) which would make it in agreement with
>hUMIN (from the first part of the sentence in verse 29) to which the
>participle refers?
It could be; it could also just as well be in the accusative as subject of
PISTEUEIN, but I think what's going on here is that the substantival
infinitive phrase is understood as a whole that functions as the subject of
ECARISQH; but Ithink what's actually going on here is that Paul continues
on in verse 30 AS IF verse 29 had been phrased in the active with a
nominative hUMEIS, i.e.:
hUMIN ECARISQH TO ... PASCEIN
has been conceived as being identical with
CARIN ESCETE TOU ... PASCEIN
and therefore continued with a construction in which the addressees of
verse 29 are the subject of the sentence.
Grammatically this is really very interesting and I'm glad you've brought
it up. I honestly think the only way of understanding the construction is
in terms of a passive that Paul has been forced to use because there is no
form of CARIZOMAI that he could have used for "receive a CARISMA"--and so
he has used a passive form of CARIZOMAI with a dative plural in the sense
of the construction which is a little off the beaten track even in English
of the so-called "received object": "you have been given the gracious gift,
not only to believe in Christ, but also to suffer on his behalf ..." and
that continues, "inasmuch as you sustain the same contention such as you
saw in my case and as you now hear of in my case."
>1. What should be done when one comes across examples of syntactical
>looseness?
Think it through thoroughly, I'd say. At least that's the way I've tried to
approach it here: ask what he really means to say and whether he might have
said it in a way that is syntactically more transparent. In this instance,
he might conceivably have done so, but I don't think it would have been
very "natural" to have written, as you are suggesting, a dative plural
participle to agree with the hUMIN that was required with the passive
ECARISQH; that would have been more common in earlier Attic Greek and even
in a contemporary like Philo. But it seems to me that Paul really was
conceiving of that passive + hUMIN as IF it had been a nominative and
active-verb construction, and then made his participle agree with the
understood nominative. At any rate, this is how, in my opinion, you have to
think through a problem like this. You'll have some other suggestions, I'm
sure, from others; I'd particularly like to see what Carlton Winbery and
Micheal Palmer have to say on this question.
>2. Is this an example of it?
I'd say it is an example PAR EXCELLENCE!
>3. Are there any other possibilities to which ECONTES could refer?
Surely not in the Greek as it stands before us. There might be some who'd
like to describe ECONTES as a "nominative absolute"--but I'd really rather
use a term more like the not-uncommon Latin term for it: CONSTRUCTIO AD
SENSUM, i.e. syntax in terms of what the phrasing means rather than in
terms of normal syntactical relations.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
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