[B-Greek] Proleptic Aorist question

R Yochanan Bitan Buth ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
Sun Sep 11 05:23:54 EDT 2005


Albert EGRAPSEN
>new to this email list but my attention was
drawn to it during a recent online discussion related
to the Proleptic Aorist. Someone linked to a previous
discussion on that topic in the email archives for
this list.
>Anyway, when I look up the Proleptic Aorist (or R.A.
Young "Intermediate Greek" includes it in the category
"Futuristic Aorist") I generally find at most half a
dozen (usually less) purported examples, all of which
seem to me to be fairly subjective. I want to discuss
one verse which was discussed previously on this list
and is given by Wallace, amongst others, as an example
of the Proleptic Aorist - Romans 8:30.
>hOUS DE EDIKAIWSEN TOUTOUS KAI EDOXASEN
>So here's what I did. I went and checked, first, the
church fathers, and secondly, the Peshitta. The
earliest discussion of this verse that explictly
raises the issue of the timing of the glorification
that I could find (although I only did a quick search)
was Chrysostom in his "Homilies on Romans". He
comments on this verse (I only have this work in
English translation):
>Now He justified them by the regeneration of the
layer. “And whom He justified, them He also glorified”
by the gift, by the adoption.
>This seems to me to clearly be taking EDOXASEN as past
tense, referring to a glorification that occurs when a
person believes and is adopted as a child of God.
>Then I had a look at the Peshitta. The tenses were as
follows:
>And those whom he predestined [Aramaic Perfect] he
also called [Aramaic Perfect]; and those whom he
called [Aramaic Perfect] he also justified [Aramaic
Perfect]; and those whom he justified [Aramaic
Perfect] he also glorified [Aramaic Perfect].
>Again, EDOXASEN seems to have been taken as past (i.e.
Perfect).
>So I have two questions:
>(a) Since both Chrysostom and the translators of the
Peshitta lived in the Eastern Roman Empire only, say,
300 years after the NT was written, a region in which
Greek was still widely spoken (and I assume had not
changed too much from Koine), why doesn't the fact
that they seemed to read the Aorist Indicative here
just as past count against the Proleptic
interpretation? Shouldn't their opinion (at least as
far as grammar is concerned) outweigh that of modern
Greek scholars?
>(b) Are there any convincing, non-subjective examples
of a Proleptic Aorist, such as an explicit discussion
by an early Greek writer of this usage, an unambiguous
example from classical writers, or an instance where
an Aorist has been translated into another language as
a Proleptic future, or another language's future has
been translated into Greek as an Aorist? For example,
are there any examples of a Proleptic Aorist in the
LXX? If not, then I become even more sceptical!
>At the moment, it seems to me that the Proleptic is
the product of subjective modern interpretation. Is
there a better basis than this?
Albert Haig.>


Shelam lax, Albert
Your post raised a good question and provide a nice example of how and why to use the Peshitta. It does provide an ancient commentary on the KAINH DIAQHKH from a bilingual Greek-Aramaic perspective. YISGUN KEVATAX ‘may there be many like you’ (or in central/eastern dialect: TSAVE-NA DE-NESGUN AXWATAX).

A couple of points.
1.(an aside) The Syriac is interesting in how it deals with the complex, compound Greek verbs. QADDEM RESHAM ‘proceded registered, =preregistered’. 
(to the point) More importantly, when using the past tense for EDOKSASEN the Syriac chose the verb shabbaH ‘he praised’. This word choice also negates the possible implication of ‘world-to-come’ in ‘glorify’/’glory’. It is in line with your comments on Chrysostom. You are correct the syriac did not read the Greek as a future.

2. Here is an unambiguous classical example of the aorist used for the future:

Evripides, Alkestis 386
APWLOMHN AR', EI ME DH LEIPSEIS, GUNAI
(Gk unicode and Eng follow, 385-387)

Ἄλκηστις
καὶ μὴν σκοτεινὸν ὄμμα μου βαρύνεται.
Ἄδμητος
ἀπωλόμην ἄρ', εἴ με δὴ λείψεις, γύναι.
Ἄλκηστις
ὡς οὐκέτ' οὖσαν οὐδὲν ἂν λέγοις ἐμέ.

Alkestis:
Already now my sight is dimmed with darkness.
Admetos:
I am lost, then, if you are going to leave me.
Alkestis:
No more existing: such you may call me now.

HOWEVER, note well:
While this Euripides example is certainly not subjective, at the same time it is just as certainly 'special'. 
I am not sure what the best label for such a construction is, but it occurs in most languages that I know, even English = "oh no, we've had it!", the heros say, as they are surrounded by bad guys.

Anyone have a good name for these special cases?

YISGE SHLAMAX
Randall Buth 


Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.biblicalulpan.org
and Director, Biblical Studies in Israel
Hebrew University, Rothberg International School
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il






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