From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Jan 24 2000 - 20:24:45 EST
<x-rich>At 4:39 PM -0800 1/24/00, Brian Swedburg wrote:
<excerpt>Greetings!
I am attempting to sort out the use of KATA twice in Titus 1:1, and
the use of EPI in 1:2.
PAULOS DOULOS QEOU APOSTOLOS DE IHSOU XRISTOU <italic>KATA</italic>
PISTIN EKLEKTWN QEOU KAI EPIGNWSIN ALHQEIAS THS <italic>KAT </italic>
EUSEBEIAN <italic>EP</italic> ELPIDI ZWHS AIWNIOU...
Actually, my present paper involves articulating the meassage and
themes of Titus as a literary whole. The correct interpretation of
these first verses seems key to the task at hand!
Having consulted some lexicons and grammers, I think the following
translation is possible, and I will explain my reasoning after. Then,
I would love your feedback and gentle criticism!
<italic>Paul, servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith
of God's chosen and the knowledge of the truth which is for godliness
in hope of eternal life...
</italic>So, I have translated both occurences of KATA as functioning
to indicate purpose, and the EPI as functioning to indicate cause. I
think this is grammatically possible, and seems in keeping with the
author's desire to call the elders and the young and old to godliness
in keeping with the faith. See also 2:11-13 which I understand to say
something to the effect of ' The saving grace (Christ) has appeared,
teaching us to live godly lives, encouraged by the hope Christ will
return'
Please note, my explanation has been an attempt at contextualizing the
grammatical questions in the literature as a whole. I am not making
theological commentary, just suggesting a unifying theme.
So, what do you all think?
</excerpt>
Well, you have to admit asking what we think! And you may well find
that we don't all think the same way or with the same results.
For my part, I have always preferred, where it is possible, to
understand KATA with the accusative in the sense of "in accordance
with" or "following the course of" (like Latin SECUNDUM, which was a
preposition deriving from a participial form of SEQUOR, "follow"; I
don't mean to suggest that the meaning of Koine KATA with acc. derives
from Latin usage, but I think that in the Latin Bible KATA + acc. most
regularly is translated by Latin SECUNDUM + acc.). And I think that
would work in this passage also:
KATA PISTIN EKLEKTWN QEOU KAI (KAT) EPIGNWSIN ALHQEIAS THS KAT'
EUSEBEIAN ... = "in keeping with/in accordance with God's saints' faith
and knowledge of the truth (that is) in keeping with reverence ..."
Secondly, although EPI with the dative is capable of quite a number of
different nuances in practice, I like to start out with EPI as "upon"
and a locative type of dative (e.g. EPI THi CWRAi = "on the spot") and
then work outwards toward metaphorical extensions of the locative
dative notion; one of the more common metaphorical extensions is that
wherein the dative noun is a "basis" upon which the proposition or
action to which the EPI phrase refers is to be understood. So here: "on
the basis of hope of eternal life."
That yields:
<excerpt>PAULOS DOULOS QEOU APOSTOLOS DE IHSOU XRISTOU
<italic>KATA</italic> PISTIN EKLEKTWN QEOU KAI EPIGNWSIN ALHQEIAS THS
<italic>KAT </italic> EUSEBEIAN <italic>EP</italic> ELPIDI ZWHS
AIWNIOU...
</excerpt>
"Paul, a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ in keeping
with/following (the) faith of the chosen of God and in keeping
with/following (the) knowledge of truth--knowledge, that is, which is
in keeping with reverence based on (the) hope of eternal life ... "
At any rate, the sense of KATA I'm suggesting here might be phrased
colloquially as "going along naturally with ..." and EPI as "having (X)
as its foundation."
Anyone else?
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
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
</x-rich>
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