KATA PANTA, DIA PANTA

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Oct 6 10:06:37 EDT 1999


Two days ago, Felipe Flores-Morelos brought to the list an interesting
question about what he very rightly called in his subject-header, a
"difficult text." If anyone has forgotten, it is a sentence in the "Divine
Liturgy" of St. John Chrysostom that is used in the services of the Eastern
Orthodox Churches:

TA SA EK TWN SWN SOI  PROSFEROMEN KATA PANTA KAI DIA PANTA

Thus far only Steve Puluka, himself of the Eastern Orthodox "persuasion"
and Senor Flores-Morelos have had input into this question. I think,
however, that the meaning of KATA PANTA and DIA PANTA in that liturgical
text is worth serious discussion. The concerns of our Mexican correspondent
yesterday are very real; I'm not altogether sure that we can pinpoint
EXACTLY what St. John Chrysostom meant by the phrase, but some of the
Spanish-language versions he cited are clearly wrong. I'd like to invite
some further discussion on the question of what COULD be meant by KATA
PANTA and DIA PANTA, particularly INSOFAR AS THESE PHRASES ACTUALLY DERIVE
FROM NT BIBLICAL LANGUAGE, and ask whether or not we can more clearly
determine what they possibly CAN mean and eliminate altogether proposed
meanings that are clearly wrong.

I offered on Monday my own view of how the text should be understood and
conveyed in English:

>I think this is "What is yours (TA SA) from what is yours (EK TWN SWN) we
>offer to you (SOI PROSFEROMEN) on every occasion (KATA PANTA)  and for
>every reason (DIA PANTA)."
>
>There may be other accounts of the phrases KATA PANTA and DIA PANTA.
>Another way to express the idea, as I understand it, and in English that
>better fits normal English usage is: "Whatever we offer you, whatever the
>occasion and whatever the reason that we offer it, it belongs to you and
>comes from you."

Steve Puluka then added the

>...  official English translation for the Byzantine Ruthenian jurisdiction
>reads "We off to You Yours of Your own, in behalf of all and for all."
>However, this comes to English through the Old Slavonic, which reads "Tvoja
>ot Tvojich Teb'i prinosim, o vs'ich i za vsja."

and added:

>I'm curious as to how close the English matches the Greek after the pass
>through the Old Slavonic.  This English is a very good  rendering of the Old
>Slavonic.  My Greek is not this good yet.

I then added another from a little volume of the Greek Orthodox liturgy
used here in St. Louis that I have in my office:

>"Thine own of thine own we offer to Thee, in all and for all."
>(translation of the Most Reverend Archbishop Germanos, Archbishop of
>Thyateira,in _The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom_ ed. & arr. by
>Rev. George Mastrantonis, St. Louis, 1966.

Yesterday afternoon Senor Flores-Morelos brought back to us several other
suggested Spanish versions and expressed a deep concern about understanding
these phrases rightly.

>We are trying to do a translation into spanish. The translations to this
>text that exist now in spanish do not convince us:

He adds:

>We are translating here KATA (= según, en cuanto a, a lo largo de, cada)
>with a distributive meaning: for each thing we offer...it is:  whatever we
>offer.
>
>And DIA (=debido a, a causa de, por, a través de, por medio de) : por medio
>de, through: por medio de todo.
>
>So, one of the problems is: What does PANTA means, to what does it refer?
>"All", I now, in Spanish "todo", in plural (if neutral), but in Spanish
>"all" means also "all" (the people): "todos", because we do not have a
>neuter plural for PANTA: if we translate "todo" it is singular and can be
>referred to neuter, but if we translate in plural, then "todos" refers to
>all people, not to all things.

Let me now summarize what I see to be the alternative understandings of
these phrases:

KATA PANTA:
Conrad: "on every occasion"
Byzantine Ruthenian: "in behalf of all"
Germanos: "in all"
Rusnak: "por todos"
Sapelak: "por todos"
Roma: "en todo"
Royster: "por todo" (perhaps the two phrases have been reversed in order?)
Mureddu: "a todo" ("in all things")
Mureddu/Flores: "sobre todas las cosas" ("above, over all things")
Flores/Koliussi: "por cada una de las cosas" ("for each thing")

Remember that KATA PANTA must construe with SOI PROSFEROMEN. My own sense
here is that KATA PANTA ought to mean "with respect to all things" = "with
unlimited application throughout the universe," and that the phrase is
neuter plural and refers to THINGS, not PEOPLE

DIA PANTA:
Conrad: for every reason"
Byzantine Ruthenian: "for all"
Germanos: "for all"
Rusnak: "por todo"
Sapelak: "por todo"
Roma: "por todo"
Royster: "por todos" (perhaps the two phrases have been reversed in order?)
Mureddu: a través de todo ("through all things")
Mureddu/Flores/Koliussi: "por medio de todo ("through all things")

Here too remember that DIA PANTA must construe with SOI PROSFEROMEN. My own
sense here is that the phrase really ought to mean "for the sake of/on
account of all things" in the intended sense, "as an expression of our
gratitude for all things that we receive from God's grace," and that the
phrase is again neuter plural and refers to THINGS, not PEOPLE (although
people are logically included among all that we are thankful for).

The question is: what in fact did St. John Chrysostom actually mean to
convey with these two prepositional phrases. It seems to me that part of
the answer must be an answer to another question: was he observing Greek
usage of his own time and place or was he reflecting phrasing derived
directly from the Greek New Testament.

And insofar as the question MAY reflect Greek New Testament usage, I think
the question deserves discussion in our forum. CAN 	we, by responding
to a question about the sense of a fourth-century liturgical Greek text
that may derive from a NT Greek usage, be of assistance to our Mexican
inquirer? I've offered again my own input? Do others have any suggestions
that may be helpful?





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 
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