From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 24 2000 - 19:45:07 EDT
At 1:22 PM -0400 4/24/00, Bart Ehrman wrote:
> In the Shepherd of Hermas 7, 1 we read "SU DE hERMA, MHKETI
>MNHSIKAKHSHiS TOIS TEKNOIS SOU, MHDE THN ADELFHN SOU EASHiS, hINA
>KAQARISQWSIN APO TWN PROTERWN hAMARTIWN AUTWN.
>
> This translates, roughly, as "And you Hermas, no longer bear a grudge
>against your children nor XXX your sister, that they might be cleansed
>from their former sins."
>
> My question: how to understand the EASHiS in reference to his "sister"
>(probably wife; as earlier)? Does it mean that he should not "leave her
>alone"? "neglect her"? "avoid her"? "allow her to do something"?
>
> Any ideas are welcome.
If MHDE were not pretty clearly right in the text following upon the MHKETE
MNHSIKAKHSHiS, I might have thought that EASHiS is equivalent to
AFIHMI/AFIW used in the sense "forgive." But it can't mean that. "Neglect"
is possible, but I think it might be best to understand this "neglect" as
an exercise of "laissez-faire, laissez-passer"--allowing her to do as she
pleases when she ought to be urged to "toe the line." EAW is used in the
sense of "permit" (or when negated by OU "forbid") commonly enough in
antithesis to KELEUW. So here the sense might be "Do not grudge your
children any more and don't leave your sister to her own devices ..."
I won't claim anything more than speculation here.
--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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