Recitative Ὅτε in Oratio Recta ATR 1027-28

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Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Recitative Ὅτε in Oratio Recta ATR 1027-28

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

I was having some difficulty following Robertson's discussion of "Recitative Ὅτε in Oratio Recta":
9. INDIRECT DISCOURSE (Oratio Obliqua). pp. 1027-28
(a) Recitative Ὅτε in Oratio Recta.

{snip ...)
We find this idiom occasionally with ὅτι, more seldom with ὡς, in the
Attic writers.2 It is very rare3 in the LXX, since the Hebrew so
frequently has a special participle like ‘saying.’ But see Gen. 28:
16. In the N. T. Jannaris4 counts 120 instances of recitative ὅτι.


The idiom appears chiefly in the historical books. See Mt. 7:23,
ὁμολογήσω ὅτι οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς. This particular instance can be
looked upon as indirect discourse, since the person is the same in
both clauses and the tense and mode are unaffected.
It is prob-
able that indirect declarative clauses grew out of constructions of
this nature. But in Mt. 27:43, εἶπεν ὅτι θεοῦ εἰμὶ υἱός, there is
no doubt at all.
The highlighted sentence introduces what appears to be incoherence, why introduce an example the doesn't support your argument? After rereading it half a dozen times I mentally replaced "can be" with "might be" which would suggest that we want to read it as Oratio Recta for the sake of the argument. So perhaps this is just a side comment which reworded "Mt. 7:23 is ambiguous and might be understood as u]indirect[/u] discourse ..." in which case wouldn't we be better off not citing it in the first place? Perhaps I am overlooking the value of Mt. 7:23 as an example since this ambiguity is important to understand when dealing with the Oratio Recta / Oratio Obliqa distinction. Robertson frequently nuances his argument in a manner that makes it hard to follow.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Tony Pope
Posts: 134
Joined: July 14th, 2011, 6:20 pm

Re: Recitative Ὅτε in Oratio Recta ATR 1027-28

Post by Tony Pope »

I think Robertson's observation about Mt27.43 supports your interpretation of his thoughts on Mt7.23.
9. INDIRECT DISCOURSE (Oratio Obliqua). pp. 1027-28
(a) Recitative Ὅτε in Oratio Recta.

{snip ...)
We find this idiom occasionally with ὅτι, more seldom with ὡς, in the
Attic writers.2 It is very rare3 in the LXX, since the Hebrew so
frequently has a special participle like ‘saying.’ But see Gen. 28:
16. In the N. T. Jannaris4 counts 120 instances of recitative ὅτι.

The idiom appears chiefly in the historical books. See Mt. 7:23,
ὁμολογήσω ὅτι οὐδέποτε ἔγνων ὑμᾶς. This particular instance can be
looked upon as indirect discourse, since the person is the same in
both clauses and the tense and mode are unaffected. It is prob-
able that indirect declarative clauses grew out of constructions of
this nature. But in Mt. 27:43, εἶπεν ὅτι θεοῦ εἰμὶ υἱός, there is
no doubt at all.
Incidentally, Ὅτε in the section title is a typo in the digitized version.
See https://archive.org/stream/cu3192402160 ... 9/mode/2up
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Re: Recitative ὅτι in Oratio Recta ATR 1027-28

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Tony Pope wrote:I think Robertson's observation about Mt27.43 supports your interpretation of his thoughts on Mt7.23.
Tony,

A. T. Robertson isn't any more difficult to read the Guy Cooper. Cooper's treatment of Oratio Obliqua is complicated by his expanding the scope to include all manner of what Margaret Sim (2006)[1] refers to as [meta]representations. I decided to take another look at Sim's thesis with the hope that her approach to ἵνα might clarify, for me anyway, significant aspects of what Cooper's treatment of Oratio Obliqua obscures.

[1] Margaret Sim A Relevance Theoretic approach to the particle ἵνα in Koine Greek , 2006.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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