From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Tue Dec 07 1999 - 20:38:07 EST
At 6:26 PM -0600 12/7/99, David A Bielby wrote:
>The term hUMEIS from hUMEIS ESTE TO FWS TOU KOSMOU should be understood
>to mean you all together are the light of the world....can the concept
>you, each one individually, are the light of the world. The broader
>question is this: When the second plural is used in Greek how does one
>know when to apply it also as a second singular?
>
>The reason for my question is that from time to time I hear someone make
>a point that second plural pronouns cannot automatically apply to
>individuals, but are corporate commands to congregations or groups of
>people that only a community can obey as a community, but have never
>heard anything from Greek Grammar that could validate or invalidate this.
The normal way to indicate that an imperative or an indicative in the
second person plural is to be understood not collectively but individually
is to use a form of hEKASTOS in agreement with the subject--i.e.
nominative. Here are a couple good examples from Ephesians:
Eph 4:25 DIO APOQEMENOI TO YEUDOS LALEITE ALHQEIAN hEKASTAOS META TOU
PLHSION AUTOU, hOTI ESMEN ALLHLWN MELH.
Eph 5:33 PLHN KAI hUMEIS hOI KAQ' hENA, hEKASTOS THN hEAUTOU GUNAIKA hOUTWS
AGAPAATW hWS hEAUTON, hH DE GUNH hINA FOBHTAI TON ANDRA.
I think what this means is that we should probably understand these second
person plurals in the context; there may be instances where we can't be
sure whether the assertion or admonition is collective or addressed to all
individuals, but what we can say for sure is that there were ways of making
clear in Greek that an admonition referred to each individual member of the
group.
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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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