From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 07 2000 - 07:56:11 EDT
At 8:45 PM -0400 4/6/00, Dmitriy Reznik wrote:
>On Thu, 6 Apr 2000 18:59:16 -0500 "Carl W. Conrad"
><cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu> writes:
>>
>> I will put in my usual assertion here: unless a middle/passive form
>> can be
>> shown to be passive by some clear indication of passive sense (such
>> as a
>> hUPO + genitive or instrumental dative indicator of external
>> efficient
>> cause), it ought normally to be understood as a middle voice form.
>>
>*******
>Can't using this word KATARGHSHi in 1Cor 1:28 be such an indication? KAI
>TA AGENH TO KOSMOU KAI TA EXOUQENHMENA EXELHXATO hO QEOS, TA MH ONTA,
>hINA TA ONTA KATARGHSHi. Doesn't subject's presince indicate this word to
>be passive in 1Cor 2:6?
1 Cor 1:28 KAI TA AGENH TOU KOSMOU KAI TA EXOUQENHMENA EXELEXATO hO QEOS,
TA MH ONTA, hINA TA ONTA KATARGHSHi
In this passage the verb KATARGHSHi is active, of course. But if you mean
that since "God" is the subject of the verb KATARGEW in 1:28, the verb in
2:6
1 Cor 2:6 SOFIAN DE LALOUMEN EN TOIS TELEIOIS, SOFIAN DE OU TOU AIWNOS
TOUTOU OUDE TWN ARCONTWN TOU AIWNOS TWN KATARGOUMENWN ...,
I would still not say so (although I note that AcCordance tags
KATARGOUMENWN in this verse as passive). I don't think this passage means
so much that "the rulers of this world" are currently in process of "being
destroyed" so much as that they are currently becoming ever more
ineffectual and will ultimately have no power at all. I would say the same
of the usage of this verb in what is usually termed "future passive" in 1
Cor 13:8 and 10: hH AGAPH OUDEPOTE PIPTEI; EITE DE PROFHTEIAI,
KATARGHQHSONTAI; EITE GLWSSAI, PAUSONTAI; EITE GNWSIS, KATARGHQHSETAI ...
hOTAN ELQHi TO TELEION, TO EK MEROUS KATARGHQHSETAI. I would say in these
cases that although we could say that these singular and plural forms
KATARGHQHSETAI and KATARGHQHSONTAI mean "will be abolished," I honestly
don't think the verbs mean anything different from the middle term,
PAUSONTAI ("will cease"); i.e., I think they are more intransitive in
sense: "they will cease to be effectual" or "they will lose their efficacy"
or even "they will atrophy."
You need to realize that I am riding a hobby horse here, partly because I
have grown increasingly upset with traditional description of voice-forms
insofar as they seem to imply an external agent as the efficient cause of
whatever the verb describes. My viewpoint is rather that the middle-voice
form seems more concerned where the locus of the verbal process as being in
the subject rather than where the initiative for the verbal process was
initiated. I become a "grumpy old man" when I see questionable references
to passive verb forms or usage in Greek.
>By the way, have you ever met anywhere TA ONTA or TA MH ONTA having
>meaning like this?
Well, there's Romans 4:17: ... KATENANTI hOU EPISTEUSEN QEOU TOU
ZWiOPOIOUNTOS TOUS NEKROUS KAI KALOUNTOS TA MH ONTA hWS ONTA. I don't know
that we'd want to say KALOUNTOS TA MH ONTA hWS ONTA means "summoning into
being things that are not"--but it seems very close to having that sense;
at the very least it's "naming those things that have no existence (at
present) as (if) they do have existence (because he intends to bring them
about).
Such uses of the verb to be is indeed fascinating. I can think of
instances in Sophocles, as this, for instance, from the Oedipus at Colonus:
hOT' OUKET' EIMI, THNIKAUT' AR' EIM' ANHR?
"When I exist no longer, then I am a man?"
Here Oedipus has just learned that the Thebans, who never wanted him to
live again in Thebes after he slept with his mother the queen and killed
his father the king, but now want to be sure that he's buried in Thebes so
that they can access his "hero" power, and so he refers to himself as "no
longer existing" but suddenly having become a "somebody." I think there's
something similar in the Ajax of Sophocles where Ajax refers to himself as
a "non-entity" using something like a form of MH WN, but I can't recall
exactly where that was.
--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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