[B-Greek] Infinitive clause - subject or object

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at ioa.com
Sat Sep 3 11:47:07 EDT 2005


On Sep 3, 2005, at 11:21 AM, Mitch Larramore wrote:

> Col 1:19,20 contains
>
> EN AUTWi EUDOKHSEN PAN TO PLHRWMA KATOIKHSAI KAI DI'
> AUTOU APOKATALLAZAI TA PANTA EIS AUTON
>
> A commentary I am reading treats the first infinitive
> clause PAN TO PLHRWMA KATOIKHSAI as TO PLHRWMA
> functioning as the "subject of the infinitive" of
> KATOIKHSAI. And the next infinitive clause,
> APOKATALLAZAI TA PANTA, he has TA PANTA as the "object
> of the infinitive." Why the switch? Both are
> identified as accusatives, but one is "subject" and
> one is "object."

Make that APOKATALLXAI: it's a Xi, not a Zeta.

(a) If one understands EUDOKEW here as having the sense "resolve,  
determine, will," then I rather think that we ought to consider PAN  
TO PLHRWMA the subject of EUDOKHSEN and KATOIKHSAI as a complementary  
infinitive, just as it would be following an equivalent HQELHSEN.  
Moreover I'd deem PAN TO PLHRWMA as a nominative rather than an  
accusative. The alternative is very awkward, I think: we'd have to  
assume that the subject of EUDOKHSEN is implicitly hO QEOS and then  
that TO PLHRWMA is accusative subject of the infinitive, yielding the  
sense "God determined that all the fullness should dwell in him ...";  
i don't see any good reason to prefer construing it that way,  
although I can see that the repetition of the pronoun might make the  
construction of the two infinitive phrases seem awkward. Note that  
PAN TO PLHRWMA by form could be either nominative OR accusative.

(2) There's not really any switch if we read PAN TO PLHRWMA is  
understood as subject of EUDOKHSEN; in any case TA PANTA has to be  
the object of APOKATALLAXAI: "to reconcile all things to him(self)."


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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