From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Jan 13 2000 - 11:08:05 EST
At 10:16 AM -0500 1/13/00, Mike Sangrey wrote:
> hWS PANTA hMIN THS QEIAS DUNAMEWS AUTOU
> TA PROS ZWHN KAI EUSEBEIAN DEDWRHMENHS
>
>My question is:
> Is hWS...AUTOU an adverbial clause modifying TA...DEDWRHMENHS?
No, I think it's the "subject" part of a genitive absolute.
>My thought is the author uses TA followed by a prepositional phrase
>starting with PROS to trigger the reader into 'facing' the subject of
>his thought, that is ZWHN KAI EUSEBEIAN. He starts with a bigger
>picture and quickly places the topic at hand in front of his reader.
>
>Is that way of looking at it natural to the Greek mind?
>
>I would probably translate it something like:
>
> Just as His divine power gave us all, so (also) he gave us life
> and godliness [though I prefer 'godward devotion' instead of
> godliness, but that's a separate discussion.]
My own take on this is rather that the phrasing here is essentially a
genitive absolute (THS QEIAS DUNAMEWS AUTOU ... DEDWRHMENHS wherein the
quantitative adjective belonging to the direct object and the indirect
object (PANTA hHMIN) are stated prior to the genitive subject, and then,
after the subject, the direct object is completed by means of a substantive
phrase that is to be construed with PANTA so that the whole direct object
of DEDWRHMENHS is PANTA TA PROS ZWHN KAI EUSEBEIAN.
I would therefore see the whole thus: "Just as his divine power has
bestowed upon us all the things pertaining to life and piety ..."
The rhetorical aspect that may seem a little strange here is that the
subject of DWREOMAI ought theoretically to be hO QEOS, in place of which we
have (a not-uncommon Jewish circumlocution to avoid the divine name?) a
noun phrase, "His divine power"--but nonetheless the participle DEDWRHMENHS
has to be construed with DUNAMEWS as the predicate part of the genitive
absolute construction. Rhetorical also is the projection to the front of
PANTA, despite the fact that TA PROS ZWHN KAI EUSEBEIAN really belong with
it. If one wants to reproduce the rhetorical effect in a version, one might
try something like:
"Inasmuch as God's divine power has bestowed everything upon us--everything
that has to do with life and piety, ..."
--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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