Jordan Day wrote: Stephen Hughes wrote:I'm sure by now, you are beginning to get a first impression of the degree to which there are similarities and differences between this Greek and the Greek in the New Testament.
As difficult as it is, it still seems like the same language. It is mostly the vocabulary I am struggling with (both with usage as well as definitions). Ive noticed that the text I struggle with the most are said to be of "high literary style" and of "the well educated", But to me it still looks like the same Greek that John Chrysostom wrote and of near equal difficulty for me. So I still cant seem to point at anything and say "Ah ha! A Koine author never would have said *that*, thats how I know its Attic and not Koine!"
Impersonals v. full verbs is one feature. More uses of participles v. infinitives. More frequent use of the optative mood. Words relating to the legal system and polity in city of Athens. Seeming over-usage of ... μέν ... , ... δέ ... .
John Chrysostom studied rhetoric as part of his education, and was the best student in his school in what we would now call classical Greek language and literature. He, however, disappointed his teacher and decided to enter the Church. Lysias, whose twenty-fourth speech we are looking at together here, was one of the Canon of Ten (Aeschines, Andocides, Antiphon, Demosthenes, Dinarchus, Hypereides, Isaeus, Isocrates, Lycurgus, Lysias) - those orators from the 4th and 5th century BCE that were used as exemplars for speech writing and public speaking, along with a formal theoretical study of rhetorical style and techniques. Students would read and study their works as part of their education throughout the Greek, Hellenistic, Roman times - Roman means both during both the separation of Eastern and Western Roman learning and its reintegration around the mid-fifteenth century. The re-secularising of classical learning happened a few times during the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) period (identifiable by the re-emergence of the platonic ideas of the pre-existence of the soul and the equation of σῶμα and σῆμα), but never to the extent that happened in the renaissance in Italy. At the time of John Chrysostom, we should bear in mind, classical learning was part of what it meant to be an educated Roman, and he was a Christian Roman, so he used his classical learning in the service of the Church.
Lysias 24.3 wrote:ἤδη τοίνυν, ὦ βουλή, δῆλός ἐστι ¹φθονῶν¹, ὅτι τοιαύτῃ κεχρημένος συμφορᾷ τούτου βελτίων εἰμὶ πολίτης. καὶ γὰρ οἶμαι ³δεῖν³, ὦ βουλή, τὰ τοῦ σώματος δυστυχήματα ⁴τοῖς⁴ τῆς ψυχῆς ⁴ ⁵ἐπιτηδεύμασιν⁵ ⁴ ἰᾶσθαι, [καλῶς]. εἰ γὰρ ⁷ἐξ ἴσου⁷ ⁸τῇ συμφορᾷ⁸ καὶ τὴν ⁹διάνοιαν⁹ ἕξω καὶ τὸν ¹⁰ἄλλον¹⁰ βίον διάξω, ¹¹τί¹¹ τούτου διοίσω;
Jordan Day wrote:Now therefore, oh council, he is obvious ¹of envy¹ (clearly ¹jeleous¹?), because[²even?²] after having been subjected to such a misfortune I am [²still?²] a better citizen than this man. And I consider ³it to be necessary³, oh council, the misfortunes of the body ⁴along with⁴ the needs of the soul to be healed, [well]. For if I ⁶were⁶ ⁷evenly⁷ in the ⁸situation⁸, and had the [same as ...] ⁹mindset⁹ and will live the ¹⁰other¹⁰ life, ¹¹what¹¹ would I differ from this man?
I had to look up συμφορά in LSJ to try to find a definition that made sense, but it didnt help much. I think this is one of the things holding me back in my understanding. I cant grasp εἰ γὰρ ἐξ ἴσου τῇ συμφορᾷ καὶ τὴν διάνοιαν ἕξω, and I think its because I dont know what he is talking about. I think he is saying something like, " If I were (to an even degree) in this man's unfortunate situation and had his mindset..."
The simple answer is that he is bad-mouthing the plaintiff. He basically says, "if my thinking were as bad as my disability, then my mind would be like this guy." You don't get it, and it would take a while for the penny to drop for those listening as well, so it is probably humour. The punch line is τί τούτου διοίσω, and the tension is that διάνοιαν has two meanings - way of thinking (what you call "mindset") and capacity for thought (IQ). Something like, "I haven't been to the physiotherapist as many times as this guy needs to go to the psychotherapist."
- Masculine singular nominative present participle. δῆλος is used with a participle.
- traditionally this is translated as "despite" in the first clause, but that brings a negativity in the English which is not in the Greek.
- δεῖν - this could have been δεῖ or δέω in direct speech. Considering section 1, it is probably δέω "it is necessary for me"
- along with - by (dative = ὑπό + genitive). The dative case used with a middle passive verb.
- needs - activities, you could look at the dictionary for that group of words once the dust settles.
- were - you have introduced a word. the verbs follow this adverbial phrase, you could look at them first. Introducing a verb into this type of translation that is not in the Greek is a last resort and very rare when there are already some verbs in the sentence.
- evenly - that is LSJ's gloss for ἐξ ἴσου, but here we need to look at a larger chunk to get the meaning. First, when ever you see a prepositional phrase translated with -ly, it is inaccurate. It is a convenient approximation that sort of fudges over subtleties and allows for a passable translation into English. ἴσος as an adjective goes with a dative, and some people will say that the prepositional phrase is used instead of the preposition because he wants to add the dative after it. That is not entirely accurate, because there would be no reason why the dative τῇ συμφορᾷ couldn't be added to the adverb. You could look through the dictionary to see which meanings of ἐκ would be most suitable. For now perhaps, you could understand it as, "being on par with".
- τῇ συμφορᾷ - this could have a neutral meaning, but here it has a negative meaning, "misfortune". This particular guy's misfortune is his disability, so the sense is "my disability".
- mindset - mindset affected by (a) disability as bad as / on par with this physical disability that you can see in my body
- other life - the rest of my life. Cf. John 10:16 Καὶ ἄλλα πρόβατα ἔχω, ἃ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐκ τῆς αὐλῆς ταύτης· κἀκεῖνά με δεῖ ἀγαγεῖν, καὶ τῆς φωνῆς μου ἀκούσουσιν· καὶ γενήσεται μία ποίμνη, εἷς ποιμήν.
- what - in what way