[B-Greek] Rev. 1:10

Polycarp66 at aol.com Polycarp66 at aol.com
Wed Dec 3 13:47:40 EST 2003


In a message dated 12/3/2003 12:26:35 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
rosangelalira at terra.com.br writes:
In his initial post, Tony asked if Rev. 1:10 referred to Sunday which the 
Early Church Fathers including the Didache came to designate as the "Lord's day". 

Gfsomsel replied that the term is used even before the Didache, in Ignatius' 
Epistle to the Magnesians, referring to Sunday.

Having studied the historical aspect of the expression "Lord's day", I 
replied that both the Didache and the Espistle to the Magnesians are without value 
as evidences, since the texts are defective and nobody knows what the original 
authors meant. The Didache says KATA KURIAKHN DE KURIOU, "according to the 
Lord's (?) of the Lord", which does not make any sense at all; and the only Greek 
extant text of the Epistle to the Magnesians says KATA KURIAKHN ZOHN ZWNTES, 
"living according to the Lord's life"; it is the Latin text which omits the 
word for "life", and on this basis scholars opted for the reading KATA KURIAKHN 
ZWNTES. But this is debatable.  

Gfsomsel must have failed to notice that the Greek text included the word 
ZOHN, and said that it couldn't be "living according to the Lord's life". What I 
said was that I saw no difference, grammatically, between "living according to 
the Lord's life", and "living according to the Lord's day"; I mean, why was 
the reading "living according to the Lord's life" impossible? I accidentally 
ommited the preposition KATA in the phrases; it was a mistake. 
_______________

I'm doing my utmost to keep this on a linguistic basis (such as the 
parallelism between KATA KURIAKH and SABBATIZONTES).  I will continue my attempt.  

I know of no word ZOHN appearing in Ignatius' Ep. Mag.  I refer you to 

http://www.ccel.org/l/lake/fathers/ignatius-magnesians.htm#IX

which I entered from the Loeb Classical Library edition by Kirsopp Lake.  It 
is possible that it is mentioned in the notes, but I left some of my books 
(including my LCL) with a friend while I'm moving so I don't have immediate 
access to it.  This is, however, a textual-critical question which I would presume 
would not be a proper subject for discussion any more than one regarding the 
text of the NT would be in this forum.  Let us look at a larger section of the 
passage.

MHKETI SABBATIZONTES, ALLA KATA KURIAKHN [ZOHN ??] ZWNTES, EN hHi KAI hH ZWH 
hHMWN ANETEILEN DI' AUTOU KAI TOU QANATOU AUTOU . . .

MHKETI SABBATIZONTES -- SABBATIZW does not appear in the NT, but it does 
appear in the LXX with the meaning "keep the Sabbath."  

It is in contrast (ALLA) to this that "we" are said by Ignatius to live KATA 
KURIAKHN [ZOHN ??] ZWNTES.  If SABBATIZONTES is "observing the Sabbath" then 
the latter would seem to stand in contrast thereto.  Perhaps, however, it 
doesn't stand in contrast to it as being a different day but is a manner of 
observance.  Let us continue.

EN hHi KAI hH ZWN hHMWN ANETEILEN DI' AUTOU KAI TOU QANATOU AUTOU.  EN with 
the dat. has basically 3 uses:  Locative, temporal and instrumental.  The 
question then is "what do we have here?"  Let us first look at the dative pronoun 
hHi.  What is its referent?  It must be a feminine noun.  When you wrote "ZOHN" 
I think you intended "ZWHN" since there is no "ZOHN."  It would qualify as 
would an understood HMERAN.  What would be the difference in understanding for 
each of these?  

ALLA KATA KURIAKHN [ZWHN] ZWNTES, EN hHi KAI hH ZWH hHMWN ANETEILEN . . .  
"But living according to the life belonging to the Lord in [locative] which also 
our life rose up . . ."  This is not quite comprehensible.  It might be 
better to translate "through which [instrumental] also our life rose up . . ."  
Then, however, one would expect this to be a passive unless it is speaking of 
Christ as "our life" and his raising himself. We have an aorist active of 
ANATELLW.  But what then do we do with DI' AUTOU KAI QANATOU AUTOU?  To whom does it 
refer if not to Christ and his death?  This begins to remind me of 
Kierkegaard's "Sickness unto Death"  

"The self is a relation which relates the self to itself.  The self is not 
the relation but consists in the fact that the self relates itself to itself."  

I'm gettng rather confused by this.

What about the understanding of this as 

MHKETI SABBATIZONTES, ALLA KATA KURIAKHN ZWNTES, EN hHi KAI hH ZWH hHMWN 
ANETEILEN DI' AUTOU KAI TOU QANATOU AUTOU . . .

It becomes relatively simple.  "No longer observing the Sabbath, but living 
according to the Lord's Day on which also our life arose through him and his 
death."  EN with the dat. becomes temporal and DI' AUTOU KAI TOU QANTOU AUTOU is 
accounted for in a starghtforward manner as instrumental.  The simplest 
solution is the best (remember Occam's Razor).

gfsomsel



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