EIS ZWHN AIWNION

clayton stirling bartholomew c.s.bartholomew at worldnet.att.net
Mon Aug 24 22:12:19 EDT 1998


Thank you Ben, Paul, and Carl.

I really didn't intend to reopen the debate between Augustine and Pelagius
with this question. That aspect of the question didn't even occur to me until
I had become embroiled in solving the syntax puzzle. 

Both Ben and Paul have raised an intriguing question about lexical semantics
which I will not address, but it  might be worth a thread of it's own if
others want to pick up on it. 

Of the several solutions to this syntax puzzle that I looked at, I think
Carl's has the most to recommend it:

Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> 
> I'd say that what we have here is an emphatic initial verb used absolutely:
> EPISTEUSAN; then follows the subject which is expressed in a relative
> clause: hOSOI HSAN TETAGMENOI EIS ZWHN AIWNION, "all who had been appointed
> to eternal life."  

The point that I was not quite able to grasp before Carl made it clear is that
the relative CLAUSE (not hOSOI alone)  is functioning here as the subject.
Having said that I am a little confused about what Carl means when he says 
EPISTEUSAN is used absolutely. I guess what he means is that  EPISTEUSAN takes
no object. Correct? 

-- 
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062



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