... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

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Stirling Bartholomew
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... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

1John 2:6 ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν ὀφείλει καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν καὶ αὐτὸς [οὕτως] περιπατεῖν.

We are reading 1John over on textkit. I assume that M. Culy cannot be wrong. Never the less I had a nagging doubt about his comment concerning αὐτὸς that it cannot be the subject of the infinitive because it is in the nominative case. So following up on my nagging doubt I tracked it down in ATR p1037, Moulton Proleg, p. 212, Guy Cooper, §55.2.1, §55.5.1.E.

Moulton states:
In classical Greek, as any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril, the nominative is used regularly instead of the accusative as subject to the infinitive when the subject of the main verb is the same.
My question: αὐτὸς in 1Jn 2:6 is coreferential with the subject ὀφείλει and "resumptive" after an adverbial καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν (Cooper §55.5.1.E) but what about the "subject" of the infinitive? I am wondering if Culy is half-right but the case of αὐτὸς is not the issue.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stephen Hughes
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Re: ... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:1John 2:6 ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν ὀφείλει καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν καὶ αὐτὸς [οὕτως] περιπατεῖν.

Never the less I had a nagging doubt about his comment concerning αὐτὸς that it cannot be the subject of the infinitive because it is in the nominative case.

My question: αὐτὸς in 1Jn 2:6 is coreferential with the subject ὀφείλει and "resumptive" after an adverbial καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν (Cooper §55.5.1.E) but what about the "subject" of the infinitive? I am wondering if Culy is half-right but the case of αὐτὸς is not the issue.
I think the phrase καὶ αὐτὸς [οὕτως] is adverbial.

Rendering: Person A who says in himself that he (implied from the nominative case) endures is under compulsion in the like manner that Person B lived likewise also himself to live.

Paraphrase: ὁ καυχώμενος τὴν αἰώνιον ζωὴν ἔχειν περιπατήτω καθὼς ὁ Ἰησοῦς περιεπάτησεν
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Carlson
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Re: ... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:My question: αὐτὸς in 1Jn 2:6 is coreferential with the subject ὀφείλει and "resumptive" after an adverbial καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν (Cooper §55.5.1.E)
FWIW, I would analyze this way too.
Stirling Bartholomew wrote:but what about the "subject" of the infinitive? I am wondering if Culy is half-right but the case of αὐτὸς is not the issue.
The subject of the infinitive is not expressed but its agent is the subject of ὀφείλει.There is no need to express a subject of an infinitive with ὀφείλει when they are coreferential.

IIRC, Moulton's rule has to do with the case of predicate nominals of infinitives without an express subject. The rule in Greek differs from the rule in Latin, hence the reference to the "fifth-form boy" (equivalent to a high-school junior in the days they still studied Latin and Greek).
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: ... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen Carlson wrote: The subject of the infinitive is not expressed but its agent is the subject of ὀφείλει.There is no need to express a subject of an infinitive with ὀφείλει when they are coreferential.

IIRC, Moulton's rule has to do with the case of predicate nominals of infinitives without an express subject. The rule in Greek differs from the rule in Latin, hence the reference to the "fifth-form boy" (equivalent to a high-school junior in the days they still studied Latin and Greek).
Yes, this tends only to be a problem if one has studied Latin as well as Greek. I read αὐτός as the intensive use modifying ὁ λέγων, as the NAS:
the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.
But I think this is what you are saying, just in slightly more sophisticated grammar-speak.
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
cwconrad
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Re: ... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by cwconrad »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:But I think this is what you are saying, just in slightly more sophisticated grammar-speak.
I had read Stirling's query in the digest and was about to respond, but upon accessing the site and seeing that what i was going to say has been anticipated by first-responders, I'll comment on Barry's comment. I've said this in different ways before, but I am repeatedly surprised to note that we understand exactly what a (Greek) text is telling us but strain our figurative eyes and twist our figurative necks and ponder long before opening our figurative mouths or composing our figurative answer about how that meaning derives from the text we're looking at.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: ... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

cwconrad wrote:… we understand exactly what a (Greek) text is telling us but strain our figurative eyes and twist our figurative necks and ponder long before opening our figurative mouths or composing our figurative answer about how that meaning derives from the text we're looking at.
Yes, this is more or less my experience. I understood somehow that the syntax didn't require a "subject" for the infinitive so stating it they way Culy did was misleading. On the other hand I couldn't find a way of verbalizing this.

Thanks to everyone.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stephen Carlson
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Re: ... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by Stephen Carlson »

I can't really comment on Culy here because (as far as I can) he has not been quoted and I don't have access to his commentary.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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cwconrad
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Re: ... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Carlson wrote:I can't really comment on Culy here because (as far as I can) he has not been quoted and I don't have access to his commentary.
Although I once had the book on my shelf, I currently have access only to the pre-publicaion MS, which reads:
αὐτὸς The use of the nominative pronoun, rather than the accusative, makes it clear that the pronoun is not the subject of the infinitive. Instead, it is resumptive and picks up the subject of ὀφέιλει ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν) after the interventing parenthetical element (καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν).
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: ... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

cwconrad wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:I can't really comment on Culy here because (as far as I can) he has not been quoted and I don't have access to his commentary.
Although I once had the book on my shelf, I currently have access only to the pre-publicaion MS, which reads:
αὐτὸς The use of the nominative pronoun, rather than the accusative, makes it clear that the pronoun is not the subject of the infinitive. Instead, it is resumptive and picks up the subject of ὀφέιλει ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν) after the interventing parenthetical element (καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν).
Thanks Carl,

There are perhaps different ways to read the first statement. It seems to imply that we might expect to find a subject of the infinitive and that nominative case settles the issue. The nominative case certainly disambiguates the syntax but given the structure of the sentence we aren't expecting to find a subject for the infinitive. In other words a subject for the infinitive would disrupt the syntax since the infinitive is an "argument" with the verb ὀφείλει.

1John 2:6 ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν ὀφείλει καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν καὶ αὐτὸς [οὕτως] περιπατεῖν.
Last edited by Stirling Bartholomew on August 16th, 2014, 1:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stephen Carlson
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Re: ... what any fifth-form boy forgets at his peril

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote:
cwconrad wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:I can't really comment on Culy here because (as far as I can) he has not been quoted and I don't have access to his commentary.
Although I once had the book on my shelf, I currently have access only to the pre-publicaion MS, which reads:
αὐτὸς The use of the nominative pronoun, rather than the accusative, makes it clear that the pronoun is not the subject of the infinitive. Instead, it is resumptive and picks up the subject of ὀφέιλει ὁ λέγων ἐν αὐτῷ μένειν) after the interventing parenthetical element (καθὼς ἐκεῖνος περιεπάτησεν).
Thanks Carl,

There are different ways to read the first statement. It seems to imply that we might expect to find a subject of the infinitive and that nominative case settles the issue. The case certainly disambiguates the syntax but given the structure of the sentence we aren't expecting to find a subject for the infinitive.
Thanks to Carl for quoting Culy. I wouldn't have thought the statement was misleading but now that it's pointed out, I can understand why one could think so.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
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