Re: 1 John and epistolary aorists

Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Sun, 27 Apr 1997 19:10:28 -0400

Carl,

I like most of your analysis here, and I clearly made at least one mistake
here: there isn't any real change in aspect between the presents and
perfects in 2.14, since they are all clearly stative. There *is* an increase
in emphasis in verse 2.14, IMHO, but it comes from the change in structure,
inserting three strong clauses instead of one:

EGRAYA hUMIN, NEANISKOI,
hOTI ISCUROI ESTE
KAI O LOGOS TOU QEOU EN hUMIN MENEI
KAI NENIKHKATE TON PONHRON.

Thanks for pointing out my mistake here! This leaves the epistolary aorist.
You said:

>Nevertheless, I'm inclined to say that I really don't think
>think there's a dollar's or a penny's worth of difference in meaning
>between GRAFW (present) and EGRAYA (aorist) in these statements unless it
>is about as great as that between (a) "I'm writing to you because ...," and
>(b) my writing you has as its reason the fact that ..." Which is to say
>(don't give me that Apollonian hEKHBOLOS whammy, Don Wilkins!) that I don't
>think these aorist forms EGRAYA have any past time reference at all; if
>they have distinctive aspectual significance at all, my guess is that they
>envision the writing as a whole act. I suppose that they COULD BE
>epistolary, but the inconsistent usage makes this at least questionable.

First off, we seem to be using the word epistolary differently. To me, if a
letter refers to it's own writing or sending using an aorist, that is an
epistolary aorist (see Smyth 1942).

Some translations don't convey any distinction at all, e.g. NIV:

GRAFW: I write to you
EGRAPSA: I write to you

Others do convey a distinction, e.g. NASB:

GRAFW: I write to you
EGRAPSA: I have written to you

I don't think this is a very strong distinction, in Greek or in English, but
I think that it is there. It is probably misleading to say that the author
"puts himself in the place of the recipient at the time the letter is
received", and therefore uses the aorist, as some grammars imply. If I say,
in English, "I have written you because...", then you would not assume that
I am consciously putting myself in your place and imagining it from that
perspective, but I *have* used a different tense, and there is a shift in
aspect.

And I still think that there is a shift of emphasis from the writer to the
recipients in 2.12-.14. At the beginning, the present GRAFW is imperfective,
with the focus on the time of the writer:

GRAFW hUMIN...hOTI AFEWNTAI

Of course, the perfect is also very strong here, so the emphasis might be
50/50. In 2.14, two things shift the emphasis to the reader - the EGRAPSA
views the writing from outside, whether or not you believe in a past time
referent for aorist, and the three strong statements at the end clearly tilt
the emphasis toward the recipients:

EGRAYA hUMIN, NEANISKOI,
hOTI ISCUROI ESTE
KAI O LOGOS TOU QEOU EN hUMIN MENEI
KAI NENIKHKATE TON PONHRON.

Of course, I could well be wrong here. But it still feels that way...

Jonathan

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