Romans 6:10

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sun Jun 23 23:37:38 EDT 2002


At 10:03 PM -0400 6/23/02, richard smith wrote:
>hO GAR APEQANEN, THi hAMARTIAi APEQANEN EFAPAX.  hO DE ZHi, ZHi TWi qEWi.
>
>The explanation in Robertson's Word Pictures, which has been recommended
>to me and the list by Carl, is that the relative pronoun is a cognative
>accusative with APEQANEN.
>
>"The death that he died (o apeqanen). Neuter relative, cognative
>accusative with apeqanen. Once (epapax). Once and once only (Hebrews
>9:26), not pote (once upon a time). The life that he liveth (o zh).
>Cognate accusative of the relative." Robersonís Word Pictures

I don't believe that I've ever used the term "cognative" accusative--I've
used "cognate" as Robertson does in the second instance in the passage
Richard cites.
In the big grammar Robertson speaks only of a "cognate" accusative (pp.
477-479).

>I am struggling with this description as a cognate accusative.  First,
>because there does not seem to be a word with a derivative root.  Wallace
>describes a conceptual cognate accusative that can have the root thought,
>without an actual root derivative word.  Second, but even in this category
>of a conceptual cognate, Wallace indicates that the cognate accusative is
>a direct object.
>
>The verbs in question APOQNHSKW and ZAW seem to be generally intransitive.
>There can be an almost adverbial direct object thought with these verbs,
>descriptive of a style of death or life (died a noble death, lived a
>humble life), but such an adverbial thought seems to be unintroduced
>within the context. Therefore the intent is undefined. Paul does not
>describe what is the death he died or the life he lives, such that a
>pronoun could be used to refer back to that death or life.
>
>Both the NIV and the NRSV follow this translation.
>
>I have an interlinear translation by Nestle-Marshall that renders the
>phrases as ìFor in that He diedî and ìfor in that He lives.î I am not sure
>what is meant by these words.
>
>And I am not sure what is meant by the Robertson, NIV and NRSV
>translations either.  What is the death that He died and what is the life
>that he lives? How did His death especially cause Him to die to sin, as
>opposed to another death that one might die?

I think it might make more sense--terminologically, at least--to speak of
this sort of accusative as an internal object; properly speaking we only
have a "cognate" accusative when the object noun is indeed from the same
root as the verb: "see the sights" or "do the deeds." What we have here is
in fact a neuter relative pronoun used IN PLACE of an object-noun cognate
with the verbs in question. Literally (although hardly in decent English)
we might convert the phrase here as "For what he died, THAT he died once to
sin, and what he lives, THAT he lives to God." Nevertheless I think that
the neuter acc. pronouns are functioning as internal accusative objects of
APEQANEN and ZHi respectively and that they are implicitly present as
demonstrative accusative sg. objects of the second APEQANEN and the second
ZHi.

>Might it be possible and acceptable, maybe simpler, to read the neuter
>relative pronoun as a nominative.

I fail to understand how this could convey any sense: "That which died,
died once to sin, and that which lives, lives for God."

IF the text we are offered were: hOTI APEQANEN and hOTI ZHi, then I think
what Richard suggests might be somewhat more plausible, in which case we
could understand hOTI as introducing a noun clause (or two noun clauses):
in the sense: "As for the fact that he died, he died once to sin, and as
for the fact that he lives, he lives for God." But I really don't see how
such a sense could be gotten from a neuter NOMINATIVE relative pronoun:
"The thing which died ..." and "the thing which lives ..." I just don't
understand how that grammatical construction would work. I can understand a
person's dying and living in this context; what I can NOT understand is why
the neuter would be employed for what a person does or did.

>The phrase would be something of an epexegetical aside. And it seems to me
>that this comment would fit logically with the context.
>
>"For what has died, has died once for all for/to/by sin, And what lives,
>continues living for/to/by God."

I think I do see what you're trying to say, Richard, but I confess that I
have at least as much trouble understanding it as you are having with
understanding the form hO as a neuter accusative relative pronoun. I might
add also that it's not really that uncommon for a verb that's normally
intransitive to be used transitively with an internal, often a "cognate"
accusative. Consider, for example, "run a race" ("run" is normally
intransitive, but here it takes "race" as a direct object; or consider
"sleep the big sleep" ("sleep" is normally intransitive, but in this
perfectly intellgible phrase "the big sleep" is a direct object. And both
of these exemplify the "cognate accusative."
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
Most months:: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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