[B-Greek] Passive Imperative
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at ioa.com
Sun Aug 14 12:01:52 EDT 2005
On Aug 14, 2005, at 10:59 AM, Mitch Larramore wrote:
> The Passive Imperative sounds like an oxymoron to me.
> How does one "command" a passive action/event?
>
> Looking at GGBB (p 492, 493), the examples seem to
> imply that the command is aimed at another
> action/event, not that of the Passive Imperative.
>
> When Jesus said, QELW, KAQARISQHTI, the "Be cleansed"
> was not a command to the man to perform some action
> that in itself was a cleansing act. Rather, he was
> commanded, perhaps, to have faith, and as a result
> (hence, the Passive), he would be cleansed.
>
>
> The next example in GGBB is..
> KAI TWi OREI, TOUTWi EIPHTE, ARQHTI KAI BLHQHTI...
>
> The direct act (the action commanded) is to SPEAK to
> the mountain. If this command is complied with, then
> the mountains will "be uprooted." Again, it seems like
> the event that takes place takes place INDIRECTLY.
>
> Am I on the right track by seeing some antecedent act
> that is commanded, and the Passive Imperative is only
> the INDIRECT result of someone obeying the command?
I do think that the "passive imperative" is something of a misnomer:
only if conceived as having middle voice can these imperatives have
any sense whatsoever as addressed to a second person that is to
undergo the action. One cannot really say that KAQARISQHTI, ARQHTI,
and BLHQHTI are commands addressed to God or some external agent to
bring about the healing, lifting up, or hurling as directed in these
verb-forms: the commands are addressed to the person who has appealed
to Jesus and to the mountain: "get healed" -- i.e. "enter into a
state of health" or "rise up and plummet into the sea." And I think
you're right, Mitch, that these verbal forms make no sense whatsoever
if conceived as orders to the persons involved to suffer a fate
inflicted upon them by some external source. Even the English phrases
used to translate them make no sense: "be raised up and be hurled."
As second-person imperatives these forms require an implicit logic of
the addressee being somehow empowered to fulfill these commands.
Our problems with such forms as these arise, I believe, from
application of thinking in terms of the English opposition of active
and passive to what one observes of the Greek opposition of active
and middle-passive, and from failure to appreciate the ambivalence of
the Greek middle-passive forms. We are helped, I think, to get closer
to understanding Greek usage if we appreciate the meaning of verbal
phrases using "get" as an auxiliary verb with a "passive"
participle: "Get lost!" -- meaning "I don't want to see you any more"
-- "I want you to go somewhere out of my sight and sphere of action."
or "I got soused last night" -- meaning "I drank so much last night
that I became intoxicated." Neither of these expressions really
implies that some agent other than the person addressed or
grammatical subject of the verb plays any role in bringing about the
indicated result.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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