ENESTERNISMENOI HTE in 1 Clem 2.1

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Dec 31 08:56:56 EST 2001


At 5:22 PM -0600 12/29/01, Steven Lo Vullo wrote:
>Hi all:
>
>1 Clem 2.1: KAI PROSECONTES TOUS LOGOUS AUTOU EPIMELWS ENESTERNISMENOI
>HTE TOIS SPLAGCNOIS.
>
>My question concerns ENESTERNISMENOI HTE. My sense is that it is a
>periphrastic construction. If so, it would be equivalent to a finite
>pluperfect. My only hesitation is based on the word order. It seems to
>me that the common construction is verb followed by participle, though I
>found some exceptions in the NT (Matt. 22.8; John 1.24; Acts 1.17;
>20.13). BAGD also seems to take this as a periphrastic construction. Can
>anyone think of any other options? When taken this way, the sentence
>seems somewhat awkward, though not by any means unintelligible.

I see that nobody has tackled this question as yet, and perhaps a comment
at this point is pointless, but I was intrigued when I first saw it. My
reference works are all back in NC and unavailable to me at the moment;
I've only been able to find the verb (ENSTERNIZW/OMAI?) in the Perseus LSJ
as a gloss in Hesychius for PERIPTUSSW/OMAI), something, I assume, like
"take to heart." I don't think that the position of the auxiliary verb
relative to the participle is really fixed, but if anything, I think it's
more common for the auxiliary to FOLLOW the participle as it does here.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University (Emeritus)
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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