From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 02 2000 - 20:19:57 EST
At 1:50 PM -0600 12/2/00, Steven Craig Miller wrote:
>To: Steven R. Lo Vullo,
>
><< According to Wallace the "epexegetical infinitive clarifies, explains,
>or qualifies a noun or adjective." I don't really see a noun or adjective
>here which is a good candidate for clarification ... >>
>
>Wallace also notes that some grammarians also say that it can qualify a
>verb, and that is the way I understood it, so we're not that far apart in
>our understanding of this passage.
>
><< Since purpose and result are the most common uses of the genitive
>articular infinitive, and since it
>seems more natural to take TOU POIHSAI with the verb EMMENEI than with any
>of the nouns in the sentence, I would suggest taking it as a genitive
>articular infinitive of result. >>
>
>There is not that much difference between calling it a "result" or calling
>it "epexegetical." But the question was whether or not the translation "by
>doing them" was acceptable. IMO it is, it defines what it means to "abide."
While I don't really altogether disagree with this, my quibble is more a
matter of how "by doing them" is understood; I stated earlier that I
thought if that had been the meaning it would more likely have been
expressed by a dative articular infinitive, TWi POIHSAI AUTA; on the other
hand, another grammatical expedient might have been to use an adverbial
participle in agreement with the subject and understood predicatively with
the verb EMMENEI: POIHSAS or perhaps more likely with the present-tense
verb EMMENEI POIWN. But that brings back the other matter, that the
articular infinitive is in the aorist, which does suggest to me "so as to
get them performed" rather than "so as to perform them
continually/repeatedly."
Curious too is the way that Koine Greek seems to be weakening some of these
distinctions that were sharper in classical Attic: hWSTE + inf. in earlier
Greek was basically a result construction, while EIS TO + inf., and TOU +
inf. were purpose constructions, more or less equivalent to hINA or OFRA +
subjunctive. But in Koine these constructions appear to have become
indistinguishable in semantic force.
Also, like Wallace, I am inclined to think of the "epexegetical infinitive"
as one used to clarify an adjective or noun--and that DOES seem to involve
an instrumental sense. While I wouldn't claim that Latin provides a
universally appropriate parallel to Koine Greek usage, I do think it
interesting that Latin uses an instrumental (ablative) form of the supine
as an epexegetical infinitive (mirabile dictu "wonderful to tell", mirum
visu "strange to see"). So I stil think that TOU POIHSAI AUTA is better
understood as purpose or result, more likely result, and that the sense in
the Pauline phrasing should be: "whoever does not abide by all the things
written in the book of the Law SO AS TO GET THEM PERFORMED, ..." And yet,
and yet: it might perhaps as well be phrased: "Whoever does not abide
by--i.e. get performed--all the things written in the book of the Law ..."
That's not really purpose or result, nor is it an instrumental usage; one
might call it, I suppose, appositional, but the one sort of clause that
seems to have become a standard noun clause to function as subject or
appositional phrase is the hINA + subjunctive construction. My guess is
that the Hebrew translated here as TOU POIHSAI AUTA is simply a form of the
preposition LE and the infinitive with its pronominal object ending--and
that would, I think, again go back to purpose or result usage.
--
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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