From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Fri May 04 2001 - 14:54:21 EDT
At 6:18 PM +0000 5/4/01, Mark Wilson wrote:
>DIA TAUTHS GAR ELAQON TINES XENISANTES AGGELOUS
>
>I understand that this clause contains an "idiomatic
>usage common in classical Greek" (Vine). Specifically,
>I suppose, the "entertaining of angels unawares."
>
>Can someone help me understand the possible nuances
>of this idiom. My interest was originally to better
>understanding ELAQON, but since it seems it is part of a whole,
>I guess my interest is now what does this whole idiom mean?
In classical Greek LANQANW is normally a transitive verb taking a direct
object, "escape the notice of X while doing Y" where X is the accusative of
the person(s) who don't notice and Y is always a participle of the verb
indicating what one does that isn't noticed. In the NT it seems not
infrequently, as in this instance, to be used intransitively in the sense
of "be unaware while doing something" = "be unaware that one is doing
something"--but it's still used with a supplementary participle in
agreement with the subject of LANQANW.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
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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