Ephesians ~ Generic Dative and Periphrastic Pefect

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Apr 25 16:56:33 EDT 1999


At 9:12 AM -0500 4/25/99, Bill Ross wrote:
>{George}
>>The core 'sentence,' then, would be "You are existing."
>
>{Carl}
>Granted, ESTE is here centered between CARITI and SESWiSMENOI; why that
>should mean that ESTE is a 'stand-alone' verb is not so easy to say.
>
>{Bill}
>Carl, you said that ESTE SESWiSMENOI was an evolution of the "normal" form
>(sans ESTE). Are there other examples? It makes sense, but I'd sure feel
>better seeing another example, particularly in Paul.

Proof you want? Yes, I do indeed think that evidence is worth more than
guesswork.

First of all, let's say this: there are plenty of regular perfect passives
in the GNT; I've found (using AcCordance) 83 in the unquestionably
authentic Pauline letters, but almost all of them are singulars,
e.g.first-person PEPEISMAI, PEPLHRWMAI, MEMUHMAI, or (by far most of them)
third-person singulars: GEGRAPTAI, KEKLHTAI, EGHGERTAI, MEMERISTAI,
EGNWSTAI, hUPOTETAKTAI, etc., etc. The morphological plural perfect
passives are far less frequent. There are only a few first-person plurals
PEFANERWMEQA (2 Cor 5:11), PARAKEKLHMEQA (2 Cor 7:13), DEDOKIMASMEQA (1 Th
2:4). I've found only two second-person plurals in the entire GNT that are
NOT periphrastic: PEPLANHSQE in Jn 7:47 and MEMNHSQE in 1 Cor 11:2). Even
in classical Attic, however, the third-plural was regularly periphrastic,
and I've found only one in the unquestionably authentic Pauline letters
PEPLATUNTAI (2 Cor 6:11).

On the other hand, in the unquestionably authentic letters of Paul I've
found several good instances of the periphrastic perfect or pluperfect;
here are a few of them:

Rom 13:1, where Paul speaks of authorities to which one must be subject. OU
GAR ESTIN EXOUSIA EI MH hUPO QEOU, and those that do exist (hAI DE OUSAI),
he says,  hUPO QEOU TETAGMENAI EISIN. This is a periphrastic third-plural
perfect passive.

1 Cor 4:8 Paul says saracastically to the Corinthians: "you have already
sated yourselves" (HDH KEKORESMENOI ESTE). In the same vein he says to them
in 1 Cor 5:2 "And you've allowed yourselves to get puffed up" (KAI hUMEIS
PEFUSIWMENOI ESTE ...)

In 1 Cor 7:29 he issues an eschatological warning: "the time has been
contracted" hO KAIROS SUNESTALMENOS ESTI (the physician might say that the
KAIROS has gone into systole like a heart in contraction).

In 2 Cor 4:3 he says "And even if our gospel has been concealed/veiled
ESTIN KEKALUMMENON, it has been concealed/veiled same form) among those who
are perishing."

In Gal 2:11 Paul speaks of his opposition to Peter in Antioch, because he
had been condemned/been convicted (KATEGNWSMENOS HN; in this instance it is
a periphrastic pluperfect).

In Gal 4:3 we have another pluperfect periphrastic: "we had been put into
slavery (HMEQA DEDOULWMENOI) under the elemental spirits of the universe."

And one last example I'll bring up is three verses later in Ephesians from
the one under discussion: THi GAR CARITI ESTE SESWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS: "by
grace you have been saved through faith."

>{Carl}
>>(some might call it a "Dative of MEANS"). At any rate, they are likely to
>assert that CARITI indicates the instrumentality whereby the salvation
>referred to in ESTE SESWiSMENOI has been gained.
>
>{Bill}
>Would you say that this is equivalent to DIA? Paul is pretty consistent
>about salvation being by means of faith,

Yes, in fact we find it, as I've noted just above in Eph 2:8 THi GAR CARITI
ESTE SESWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS. This is, of course, a verse that neatly calls
attention to the fact that believers and God are both involved in the drama
of salvation, believers "through faith" (DIA PISTEWS), yet the faith would
be of no efficacy whatsoever without the instrumentality of God's grace
(CARITI).

>so I lean, as various translators
>do in Romans 8:24, to a different sense of the dative, particularly since it
>is juxtaposed with DIA in the next phrase. I'd prefer, at least, "in grace."

No, I don't think I'd categorize the dative THi ELPIDI in Rom 8:24 as a
dative of means, although I do think it is an instrumental dative
expressing manner rather than means.

>As to George's assertion that ESTE is a stand alone verb, in the sense of
>"you exist," that is how I first read it, since the context has Paul showing
>in this passage that the Church is God's new creation:
>
>Eph 2:
>10  For we are his workmanship, **created** in Christ Jesus unto good works,
>which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

In Eph 2:10 AUTOU GAR ESMEN POIHMA. ESMEN is hardly a "stand-alone" verb,
it takes a predicate nominative, namely POIHMA AUTOU.

>If, as you have asserted, this present tense ESTE is normally/corruptly a
>helping verb to the perfect participle, then I would abandon the reading. In
>the absence of a Pauline, NT or contemporary example, George's reading seems
>more easily supported grammatically, no? I am averse to interpreting the
>reading as an example of Paul using a corrupted syntax.

I frankly haven't the least notion what you're referring to here as a
"corrupted syntax." The periphrastic perfect passive is found even in Homer
and it is quite regular in 5th and 4th century Attic prose. What I'm saying
is that the periphrastic form of a perfect passive has grown to be quite
normal in Hellenistic Greek, particularly in the plural of verbs that are
not formed from a vocalic stem: it's easy enough to add the -NTAI ending to
a vocalic perfect passive stem like PEPOIH- or MEMNH- or LELU-, but it's
very awkward to add it on to a consonantal stem like SESWiS-, and for that
very reason the periphrastic form of the third-plural caught on and became
more and more standard whenever it became necessary to use a third-plural
perfect passive.


>The reading that the believers CARITI ESTE makes the "gift of God," referred
>to in the latter part of the verse, the Church itself, not faith!
>
>Again, although this reading is plausible grammatically and makes sense in
>the context, it goes away if you can show that ESTE SESWiSMENOI is a normal
>use of the perfect participle.

I hope that I have shown that. And I remain firmly, obstinately,
insistently (yesterday I said "unregenerate" and got a note about that ;-)
) convinced that an interpretation of a Greek text is considerably sounder
when it can be shown to conform to standard Greek grammatical usage.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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