[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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