Re: [B-Greek]  1 Tim 3:4 What does dignity go with?

Yancy Smith Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
Sat Dec 3 23:43:15 EST 2005


Carl said,

> It is, as you accurately noted in the preceding paragraph
> PROISTAMENON rather than PROISTAMENOS. My sense of the verb
> PROISTAMAI is not so much "lead" (although that's offered as one of
> the primary meanings) so much as "govern" or "rule" or even "exercise
> discipline over."


I take PROISTAMAI to mean something like  "to so influence others as  
to cause them to follow a recommended course of action — ‘to guide,  
to direct, to lead’" or as BDAG suggest, "to manage or conduct."


> What I find somewhat difficult to grasp in your interpretation is how
> META PASHS SEMNOTHTOS should construe with PROISTAMENON back on the
> other side of the prepositional phrase TEKNA ECONTA EN hUPOTAGHi.

The connection of META PASHS SEMNOTHTOS, while it is certainly  
possible to construe it with children, as you say, with the meaning "  
keeping his children in their subordinate role with fully-respected  
authority." (This is the way Chrysostom uderstands the connection.   
Theodoret takes takes "with all SEMNOTHTOS" to mean "teaching the  
children every virtue.") At the risk of looking stupid in  
contravening such weighty patristic readings, I still think META  
PASHS SEMNOTHTOS should be taken as modifying PROISTAMENON and not  
ECONTA. Why? One, the words SEMNOTHS and the related SEMNOS seem to  
represent an adult virtue in the Pastorals (not the words they  
couldn't otherwise refer to a childhood virtue; this would be the  
sole exception in the Pastoral, however. This is not a point of  
grammar, but of style.) For Chrysostom (in the Homiles on 1 Tim), for  
example, it is often paired with SWFROSUNHS opposite joking around  
and almost invariably applied to the conduct of husband and wife.  
Two, hOSAUTWS SEMNOS (hOSAUTWS perhaps refering to the similar  
serious conduct of the candidates to the elder-episcopacy in 3:1-7)  
enjoins a corresponding virtue upon prospective deacons in 3:8.  
Three, the editors of the verse in NA 27 place a comma after TECNA  
ECONTA EN hHUPOTAGH, which makes the construal of META PASHS  
SEMNOTHTOS ambiguous at best, but would seem to indicate that TECNA  
ECONTA EN hHUPOTAGH interrupts the flow of thought as a specification- 
restatement, and perhaps the more important case of TOU IDIOU OIKOU  
KALWS PROISTAMENON.

> My own sense of the tenor of this passage is that a good candidate
> for the episcopate must be a highly-respected disciplinarian over his
> own household.
I am in complete agreement that this is an implication of 3:4.  
Certainly the writer would agree that governing his household well  
and having his children in good order implies this.

> One might compare that with 1 Tim 5:9 and
> the ensuing description of hOI KALWS PROESTWTES PRESBUTEROI and the
> discipline that is to be maintained in the congregation as a  
> household.

Again, I have no quarrel with this. After having said the above,  
however, I think it is necessary to admit that the phrase is  
ambiguous, though verse v. 8 seems to tip the evidence in my favor.  
I'm interested in reading your always thoughtful response.

Yancy Smith
Y.W.Smith at tcu.edu
Brite Divinity School
Texas Christian University






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