σαυτοῦ

Stephen Hughes
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Andrew Chapman wrote:The example of σαυτοῦ in the neuter I was thinking of turned out to be the entry in Liddell and Scott which gives:

φίλον ξύλον, ἔγειρέ μοι σεαυτὸ καὶ γίγνου θρασύ [E.Fr. 693]

Being in the accusative case, it's gender is unambiguous here.
Well, unambiguous yes, but what end? I guess that this example might be meant as humourous or something, the actor says, "Dear TREE" (looking at the audience with big eyes) listen to me and get your-IT-self (again looking at the audience with a surprised face) up". Someone with access to the TLG might like to check out whether the surprise is something that others would feel, or whether it is my own ignorance that leads to my surprise.

Another point of language that your question raises is the sequence of intensity of pronouns.

While the second person σαυτοῦ is not used as an intensified personal pronoun in the NT – , as the third step in a (supposed) σοῦ / σός - ἴδιον - σαυτοῦ sequence – the first person ἐμαυτοῦ is. It seems that the only NT usage close to Chrysostom's "τὸ σαυτοῦ ποίει". would be the μὴ ζητῶν τὸ ἐμαυτοῦ συμφέρον 1Corinthians 10:33 in contradistinction to ἀλλὰ τὸ τῶν πολλῶν, ἵνα σωθῶσιν. That is to say that it is emphatic and contextualised by an opposite.

Is such a sequence readily recognised in the language of the Patristic Fathers?

If it is not, then that puts a question mark over the passage, but an emmendation to some form like τοσαυτοῦ, poses more questions than it settles.
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(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Andrew Chapman
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Andrew Chapman »

Hi Stephen,

I looked up σαυτο and σεαυτο in the TLG, and basically it occurs twice in classical authors (apart from some fragments) - in Euripides and in Aesop's fables - and twice in grammarians discussing the Euripides case:

Euripides, fragment 693 (Nauck) εἶα δή, [φίλον] ξύλον, ἔγειρέ μοι σεαυτὸ καὶ γίγνου θρασύ.

Apollonius Dyscolus, On pronouns: ἀλλ’ εἰ ἅπαξ Εὐριπίδης ἐχρήσατο ἐπὶ δευτέρου προσώπου ἐν τῷ (15) ἔγειρέ μοι σεαυτὸ καὶ γίγνου θρασύ (fr. 694 Nauck Dindorf), τοῦτο οὐ κανὼν γενήσεται τοῦ εὐλόγως σιγηθέντος σχήματος.

Aelius Herodianus, General prosody: εἰ δὲ ἅπαξ που παρ’ Εὐριπίδῃ (5) εὕρηται τὸ σεαυτό (fr. 694 Nauck) εἶα δή, φίλον ξύλον ἔγειρέ μοι σεαυτό καὶ παρὰ Φιλήμονι τὸ αὐτό, ἀλλ’ οὐ τὸ σπάνιον τοῦ ὅλου κατέστησε κανόνας.

Aesop, The Smith and the Dog: τῷ γὰρ ἄκμονι ἐμοῦ προσκεκρουκότος, ἐπανακλίνεις σαυτὸ ἐπὶ κραββάτου, μὴ θέλοντός σου ἀναστῆναι καθόλου· ὅταν δὲ πάλιν τοὺς ὀδόντας κινήσω, (10) εὐθὺς ἐγείρῃ καὶ τὴν κέρκον μοι σείεις.

Sorry, I take back what I said about addressing a τεκνον: I see now that it could only occur when addressing something without known gender.

Andrew
Stephen Hughes
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Andrew Chapman wrote:Aesop, The Smith and the Dog: τῷ γὰρ ἄκμονι ἐμοῦ προσκεκρουκότος, ἐπανακλίνεις σαυτὸ ἐπὶ κραββάτου, μὴ θέλοντός σου ἀναστῆναι καθόλου· ὅταν δὲ πάλιν τοὺς ὀδόντας κινήσω, (10) εὐθὺς ἐγείρῃ καὶ τὴν κέρκον μοι σείεις.
...
I see now that it could only occur when addressing something without known gender.
ἐπανακλίνεις σαυτὸ is not good Greek in my book - perhaps it is a modern editor's logical assumption or some sort of data transmission error. At http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/graec ... _m413.html it is given as σεαυτὸν.

My thinking is that because the grammarians you mentioned were active in the 2nd century CE and they were referring to Euripides, who was active in the 5th century BCE. Aesop pre-dated Euripides by a century and his tales were popular. It is reasonable to assume that if Euripides was know to the grammarians, then Aesop would have been too, and his form would have been known, but it wasn't, so he didn't write it and the the textual variant σεαυτὸν is right or something like that.

BTW Grammatical gender and sexual gender are different. They are severally defined and often they overlap. I suggest you read a bit more widely about these two concepts. Making the statement, "it could only occur when addressing something without known gender" is heavy boulder to balance on a match stick. Do a search of σεαυτὸν in TLG - which is the logical consequence of doing the first search you did - and see if you find any time when σεαυτὸν is used "without known gender" - you only need to find one example to prove your rule "only" wrong. If there are too many results search for σεαυτὸν with τις or with ἄνθρωπος.

BBTW It is reasonable to assume that what we have found also relates to the genitive and dative cases, but not conclusively.

For the one attested σεαυτὸ, I still prefer my inkling that Euripides was directly trying to be humourous.
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Andrew Chapman
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Andrew Chapman »

Thanks, Ken. If the Aesop example is not genuine then that gets us down to one example, in which case Liddell and Scott's 'rarely' is understated. You seem to understand me as saying that a neuter form would be used if the thing or being addressed were of unknown gender, whereas I think I said only that it could occur in such a case. In other words, I was suggesting it as a necessary condition, not as a sufficient one. I was just trying to express what a dog and a mountain had in common that could cause the neuter to be used. If there is in fact only one genuine case, then your explanation seems a good one. On the other hand, if we employ the principle that the harder reading is to be preferred, then I guess we would keep σαυτὸ in Aesop.

By the way, my immediate purpose in this is to demonstrate to my correspondent that the σαυτοῦ in "τὸ σαυτοῦ ποίει" can't be neuter. If I can say that the neuter form basically doesn't exist then that might be helpful..

Andrew
Stephen Hughes
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Andrew Chapman wrote:By the way, my immediate purpose in this is to demonstrate to my correspondent that the σαυτοῦ in "τὸ σαυτοῦ ποίει" can't be neuter. If I can say that the neuter form basically doesn't exist then that might be helpful..
I think that if you wanted to say that to a novice, you might want to caveat it with an "in the 1st and 2nd person ... " - or they might think that your statement extends to the 3rd person Greek reflexive pronouns too.

To explain that - to you as B- Ἑλληνιστῃ - according to my thinking; the reflexive in the 1st and 2nd person requires a level of self awareness/ consciousness to be able to separate the action from the way it influences the actor itself, like seeing one's self in a mirror (or expecting that another might be able to see themselves in a mirror) or in bird's eye view, but with the second person - that is distant from the two people speaking then there is no need to separate the action from the actor acting upon themself or to conceptualise reflexivity in itself. Once of course the mass of society was able to think of themselves in a way that was somehow removed from themselves there was no real difference between the way that the speakers themselves saw each other or that they could reasonably imagine that the other could see themself and the way that we saw things acting upon 3rd persons at a distance. I've read it discussed by others (but don't recall seeing it) in our litterature the 3rd person is some times used for all three persons of the reflexives, and in the Modern Greek it is the only surviving form.

Again unrelated to your initial motivation for the question, there is another fine point and that is that it is possible that the way that the limiting context of action (or purpose or whatever was relationship that we may one day arrive at a definition of) on the action by the accusative is - as you have found to be - no acceptable to neuter reflexives in the 2nd (and 1st by my theorising and analogy) persons. But the type of non-direct interaction between the verb and the genitive and dative cases may be distant enough to expect self-consciousness to be possible to some degree, so I don't agree that we can categorically state that all σαυτοῦ and σεαυτῷ would not be neuter without further consideration. While I stick to my earlier statements about the evolution of the gender system and the nominative of neuters being formed analogously, there is still extra room for the σαυτοῦ and σεαυτῷ because there may not neccessarily be the expectation of self-change or self-awareness in those two cases. If that is a bit hard to think through don't worry about it. It don't think that that applies to the text you are considering, but just a suggestion not to extend your definition of non-existence too quickly to all σαυτοῦ. Though for reasons of the nature of consciousness and self-awareness I don't think that there are any.
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(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Andrew Chapman
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Andrew Chapman »

Thanks, Stephen, that is very helpful and interesting.

I am currently reading Mounce's BBG and today came across αὐτὴ λέγεις ἀνθρώοις which he translates 'you (yourself) speak to men.' I had wondered why the 2nd person reflexive person doesn't exist in the nominative, and I guess this is it in effect: ie [Σὐ] αύτὴ.

I take your point about the genitive and dative cases. Obviously I can't do a quick search for the neuter of these, and so I was using the accusative to give an indication as to how rarely was Liddell and Scott's 'rarely'. The genitive seems to be the lexical form, and perhaps it is the basic form, being used mainly for possession?

I discovered yesterday that the reflexive pronoun is used for possession when the possessor is the subject of the sentence, and the pronominal adjective when the possessor is not the subject of the sentence. I am not sure if that is obvious - it certainly brought a clarification to me.

Andrew
Stephen Hughes
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Andrew Chapman wrote:I discovered yesterday that the reflexive pronoun is used for possession when the possessor is the subject of the sentence, and the pronominal adjective when the possessor is not the subject of the sentence. I am not sure if that is obvious - it certainly brought a clarification to me.
Could you explain your discovery, the basis for this statement? And if you have time, another related question, Who do you see as the "subject" of an imperative - the person given the comman or the person expected to carry it out? (I believe that this perception changes over time and across speakers and has to do with the nominative for vocative uses).

I understand possession with the reflexive pronoun to be a development of the verbal relationship between elements of the sentence rather than directly with the thing possessed. In that way, talking about the "subject" (and by implication a verb) sort of means the same thing. The genitive case in a verbal relationship usually indicates that the thing is not directly affected by the verb's action and in the situation where it seems the reflexive pronoun is used as a possessive I think it is still primary relating to the verb (unchanged by the verb) while be verb acts on the thing "possessed". That is to say that in your original question I read the σαυτοῦ as closer to verb than to the article.
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Andrew Chapman
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Andrew Chapman »

Hi Stephen,

My 'discovery', if such it was, was from Smythe:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dimlpmue7chyi ... onouns.pdf

At para 1198, 1199. But see paras 1218-1237 where there seem to be exceptions (eg 1218 'less commonly the reference is to the object' with example).

I had asked myself who the subject of an imperative was. Because of the alleged rule at 1198, I had worked out, rightly or wrongly, that it must be the person who is addressed, who is the one who is to carry out the action: τὸ σαυτοῦ ποίει [You] do your own thing.

I had seen this as possessive: do the thing of yourself - ie that which pertains to yourself. It sounds like you may be reading may more like 'You yourself do the thing', although I may well not have grasped fully what you are saying.

Andrew
Stephen Hughes
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Andrew Chapman wrote:My 'discovery', if such it was, was from Smythe:
A corollary to "The more I practice, the luckier I become." might be "The better I index, the more I discover".
Andrew Chapman wrote:I had seen this as possessive: do the thing of yourself - ie that which pertains to yourself. It sounds like you may be reading may more like 'You yourself do the thing', although I may well not have grasped fully what you are saying.
I'm just saying that there is an implied relationship in every genitive that it would be better to no gloss over too quickly by translating as a possessive. Possessive is, quite rightly, one of the uses of a genitive yes, and may people take it as the primary (and "fallback") meaning, but you don't need to go to "possessive" as a matter of course. I think that your translation, "You yourself do (the thing)" would just be σὺ ποίει... with the pronoun, how about you?

Of all the cases, genitives require the most imagination to get to a meaning. There is often an unstated but understood verbal relationship between the part of the sentence in the genitive and the rest of the sentence. Let me give a few random examples by looking at how something might be expressed if there was no genitive case. [In each case a verb will have to be introduced to explain the meaning]
Acts 3:2 (partial) wrote:πρὸς τὴν θύραν τοῦ ἱεροῦ τὴν λεγομένην Ὡραίαν
"The gate of the temple called "Beautiful".
The "τοῦ ἱεροῦ" here could be expressed with participles as:
τὴν ἀπάγουσαν εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν "which leads to the temple" (if we wanted to talk about that the way which people used to get to the temple - like in this case where the worshipers passed the beggar) or
τὴν ᾠκοδομημένην ἐν τῷ τοίχῳ (τείχει??) τῷ περιέχοντι τὸ ἱερὸν. "which was buit in the wall which surounds the temple" (if we imagine that Luke is talking about the structure or construction of the temple)
[I've used ᾠκοδομημένην because I imagine that Luke is talking about the doorway - the hole in the wall, but if I were to imagine the (swinging) door then I would paraphrase as ἑσταμένην "set", "which had been set"]
Matthew 13:14 (partial) wrote:ἡ προφητεία Ἠσαΐου
"the prophesy of Isaiah"
Here we have to imagine what the relationship between Isaiah and the prophesy is (let's use relatives):
ἣν ἐπροφήτευσεν ὁ Ἠσαΐας (if we want to look at that he spoke the word of God in plain sight of the people) or
ἣν ἐγένετο πρὸς Ἠσαΐαν (if we were imagining the moment of revelation)
ἣν εἶπεν {ἐλάλησεν} πρὸς Ἠσαΐαν {τῷ Ἠσαΐᾳ} ὁ Κύριος (if we want to see God as the giver)

(writing out thoughts that usually occur in an instant is tedious, so lets just say) and so on for any other genitives like this... In each case still, there is a need to supply a verb. That implied verb varies according to each situation that we imagine for this type of direct genitive.

People tend to like to equate possessive and genitives unless there is a reason to do otherwise, but what is a possessive anyway? It is an implied verb "to have" ἔχειν or "to possess" κτᾶσθαι or (in the classical idiom which the later Fathers tried to follow it is more properly) κεκτῆσθαι or any other verb that means you become the owner of by your own work or in another way. In Modern Greek the basic rule for understanding the genitive is η γενική είναι η κτητική (the genitive is the possessive). But to look again at your original question...

If the genitive implies a verb and in our example the genitive is a reflexive pronoun, then what could the relationship between the implied verb and the reflexive? And what verb could fit here and have a reflexive pronoun? Let's begin by exclusion of the immediate context; the ἀνάγκην ἔχεις is not a good candidate as the implied verb because the compulsion comes from perhaps social order and expectations, perhaps the need to fit a cosmology, the need to be the strong crutch (primary support person) that someone might need to get out of trouble, a bad habit (or a sin).

Taking a number of examples from the New Testament, I want to show that the reflexive pronoun is usually for something that you would want to happen to yourself - that is something good or beneficial. Some examples are Ἀγαπήσεις ... σεαυτόν (Matthew 19:19, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8) σῶσον σεαυτόν "Save yourself"(Matthew 27:40) Ἰατρέ, θεράπευσον σεαυτόν "Doctor cure yourself" (Luke 4:23), σκοπῶν σεαυτὸν "looking out for yourself" (Galatians 6:1), γύμναζε δὲ σεαυτὸν "put yourself on an exercise routine" (1 Timothy 4:7), Ἔπεχε σεαυτῷ "devote yourself to.." (1 Timothy 4:16), σεαυτὸν ἁγνὸν τήρει "keep yourslef pure" (1 Timothy 5:22), σεαυτὸν δόκιμον παραστῆσαι τῷ θεῷ "to present yourself approved to God" (2 Timothy 2:15) These are all things that a reasonable person would consider desirable to happen. There are also a few warnings about detrimental things that play on this theme of self-benefit that runs through the useage of the reflexive pronoun like this.

I don't feel comfortable with the "do thy own part" translation that you cite as from "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers" (it is not obvious to me who you are quoting), because it implies compulsion not self-benefit. I take it as "do yourself a favour", "do this (it) and help yourself". Or to put that together with a summary of the whole passage, "Help your wife to deal with her "issues" and you will have a better life yourself" (love each other, don't judge or stand aloof).
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Andrew Chapman
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Re: σαυτοῦ

Post by Andrew Chapman »

Thanks, Stephen, I am happy to get on to genitives, as I am trying to improve my understanding of them (http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/forum/vie ... f=6&t=2089)..

I suppose I tend to start with the possessive idea to see if that makes sense, before trying other ones. In both the cases you discuss, I would have thought that the possessive idea is possible. A temple has gates, surely. Or if it is not the actual door into the temple, then the temple (and precinct) has gates. Likewise, if we say 'the works of Shakespeare', you might say that the implied verb is 'written by', but one could also reasonably say that they belong, or belonged, to him. He has ownership of them, defined in a fairly broad way, I would have thought. Likewise the prophecy that Isaiah prophesied belongs to him, I would say. He has to take responsibility for it, for example. I suppose that one might say that it belongs to his corpus, to speak anachronistically.

There are a couple of comparable uses of τὸ σαυτοῦ in Chrysostom's homilies to the Ephesians (the NPNF I am quoting from is the Schaff edition, which I think is based on the Oxford translation of Newman et al http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf113.html)

εἰς τὴν κάμινον κειμένους αὐτοὺς ὁρῶντες τῆς κακίας, ἀναστήσωμεν. Ἀλλ' οὐ διορθοῦται, φησίν. Ἀλλὰ σὺ τὸ σαυτοῦ πρᾶξον, καὶ ἀπελογήσω τῷ Θεῷ.

When we see them lying prostrate in the furnace of wickedness, let us raise them up. “But,” they say, “it is of no use, he is incorrigible.” However, do thou thy duty, and then thou hast excused thyself to God. (NPNF Homily 18)

Τί οὖν, ἂν μὴ φοβῆται, φησὶν, ἡ γυνή; Σὺ ἀγάπα, τὸ σαυτοῦ πλήρου.

“But what,” one may say, “if a wife reverence me not?” Never mind, thou art to love, fulfill thine own duty. (NPNF, Homily 20, on Ephesians 5:22 ff)

In both cases, I think the idea may be to do what is within one's own power to do, whatever any one else may do.

Andrew
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