Tit 1:1-2
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Jan 24 20:24:45 EST 2000
At 4:39 PM -0800 1/24/00, Brian Swedburg wrote:
>Greetings!
> I am attempting to sort out the use of KATA twice in Titus 1:1, and
>the use of EPI in 1:2.
>
>PAULOS DOULOS QEOU APOSTOLOS DE IHSOU XRISTOU KATA PISTIN EKLEKTWN QEOU
>KAI EPIGNWSIN ALHQEIAS THS KAT EUSEBEIAN EP ELPIDI ZWHS AIWNIOU...
>
>Actually, my present paper involves articulating the meassage and themes
>of Titus as a literary whole. The correct interpretation of these first
>verses seems key to the task at hand!
>
> Having consulted some lexicons and grammers, I think the following
>translation is possible, and I will explain my reasoning after. Then, I
>would love your feedback and gentle criticism!
>
>Paul, servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ for the faith of God's
>chosen and the knowledge of the truth which is for godliness in hope of
>eternal life...
>
>So, I have translated both occurences of KATA as functioning to indicate
>purpose, and the EPI as functioning to indicate cause. I think this is
>grammatically possible, and seems in keeping with the author's desire to
>call the elders and the young and old to godliness in keeping with the
>faith. See also 2:11-13 which I understand to say something to the effect
>of ' The saving grace (Christ) has appeared, teaching us to live godly
>lives, encouraged by the hope Christ will return'
>
>Please note, my explanation has been an attempt at contextualizing the
>grammatical questions in the literature as a whole. I am not making
>theological commentary, just suggesting a unifying theme.
>
>So, what do you all think?
Well, you have to admit asking what we think! And you may well find that we
don't all think the same way or with the same results.
For my part, I have always preferred, where it is possible, to understand
KATA with the accusative in the sense of "in accordance with" or "following
the course of" (like Latin SECUNDUM, which was a preposition deriving from
a participial form of SEQUOR, "follow"; I don't mean to suggest that the
meaning of Koine KATA with acc. derives from Latin usage, but I think that
in the Latin Bible KATA + acc. most regularly is translated by Latin
SECUNDUM + acc.). And I think that would work in this passage also:
KATA PISTIN EKLEKTWN QEOU KAI (KAT) EPIGNWSIN ALHQEIAS THS KAT'
EUSEBEIAN ... = "in keeping with/in accordance with God's saints' faith and
knowledge of the truth (that is) in keeping with reverence ..."
Secondly, although EPI with the dative is capable of quite a number of
different nuances in practice, I like to start out with EPI as "upon" and a
locative type of dative (e.g. EPI THi CWRAi = "on the spot") and then work
outwards toward metaphorical extensions of the locative dative notion; one
of the more common metaphorical extensions is that wherein the dative noun
is a "basis" upon which the proposition or action to which the EPI phrase
refers is to be understood. So here: "on the basis of hope of eternal life."
That yields:
>PAULOS DOULOS QEOU APOSTOLOS DE IHSOU XRISTOU KATA PISTIN EKLEKTWN QEOU
>KAI EPIGNWSIN ALHQEIAS THS KAT EUSEBEIAN EP ELPIDI ZWHS AIWNIOU...
"Paul, a servant of God and apostle of Jesus Christ in keeping
with/following (the) faith of the chosen of God and in keeping
with/following (the) knowledge of truth--knowledge, that is, which is in
keeping with reverence based on (the) hope of eternal life ... "
At any rate, the sense of KATA I'm suggesting here might be phrased
colloquially as "going along naturally with ..." and EPI as "having (X) as
its foundation."
Anyone else?
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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