[B-Greek] Future infinitive

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu May 1 10:01:59 EDT 2003


At 12:02 PM +0100 5/1/03, D Jongkind wrote:
>The older Nestle-Aland editions give the following version of John 21:25
>
>OUD AUTON OIMAI TON KOSMON  CWRHSEIN  TA ... BIBLIA
>
>Strictly speaking the infinitive CWRHSEIN is a future infinitive in form.
>However, Moulton-Howard, 219 says 'CWRHSEIN was probably an aor., as far as
>the writer's consciousness went; and the substitution of -ASQAI in many
>places where so clear a future as EPELEUSESQAI appeared in a formula shows
>that even this was felt as an aorist.'
>
>Do I understand M-H correctly as saying that it could happen that a future
>stem was used for the aorist because the principal parts of the two were
>mixed up?

I frankly don't understand the M&H comment. I see that NA27 does indeed
show (I'll cite the whole verse for the sake of my comment):

	ESTIN DE KAI ALLA POLLA hA EPOIHSEN hO IHSOUS, hATINA EAN GRAFHTAI
	KAQ' hEN, OUD AUTON OIMAI TON KOSMON CWRHSAI TA GRAFOMENA BIBLIA.

Certainly in older Greek the protasis EAN GRAFHTAI should be completed with
an apodosis having a future indicative, and I would here understand OUD'
OIMAI CWRHSEIN as equivalent to OUDE CWRHSEI AUTON TON KOSMON, OIMAI "If
every single one of the many others things that Jesus did ever get put in
writing, I think not even the world itself will suffice for the books that
will be written. On the other hand, in older Greek at least, a purely
hypothetical condition would be expressed something like ... hATINA EI
GRAFOITO KAQ' hEN, OUDE CWRHSEIEN AN AUTOS hO KOSMOS, OIMAI ... "if every
single one of the many other things that Jesus did ever did get put into
writing, then I don't suppose the world itself would suffice for the books
that would be written."

It looks to me like CWRHSEIN represents the apodosis in the older
"future-more-vivid" type of condition and CWRHSAI represents the apodosis
in the older "future-less-vivid" type of condition. But with loss of the
optative (for the most part) except in idiomatic phrases, the subjunctive +
AN serves as the protasis for both types of conditional construction, and
AN ceases to be used with an infinitive or optative in the apodosis of the
futue-less-vivid construction.

Ultimately it seems to me we must decide whether this final verse of John's
gospel (or the supplementary chapter to John's gospel) should be understood
as stating a FACT ("the world will not, I think, contain all the books that
will be written") or a PROBABILITY ("the world would not, I think, contain
all the books that would be written." And I rather think that the decision
to accept the aorist infinitive CWRHSAI rather than the future infinitive
CWRHSEIN here rests primarily upon that preference: that the author
intended a statement of probability rather than a statement of certain
future consequence. But I'm rather dubious that a future infinitive was
thought by the writer to be an aorist infinitive.
-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/


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