[B-Greek] question about 2Cor 4:4

Octavio Rodriguez octaviors at gmail.com
Fri May 5 19:18:51 EDT 2006


2 Corinthians 4:4

EN hOIS hO QEOS TOU  AIWNOS TOUTOU ETUFLWSEN TA NOHMATA TWN APISTWN

The natural reading is "in whom the god of this world...".
However Irenaeus in the Book III of "Against haereses" said :

"For if any one read the passage thus-according to Paul's custom, as I show
elsewhere, and by many examples, that he uses transposition of words-"In
whom God," then pointing it off, and making a slight interval, and at the
same time read also the rest [of the sentence] in one [clause], "hath
blinded the minds of them of this world that believe not," he shall find out
the true [sense]; that it is contained in the expression, "God hath blinded
the minds of the unbelievers of this world." ....So therefore, in such
passages(Galatians 3:19; 2Thessalonians 2:8,9), the *hyperbaton* must be
exhibited by the reading, and the apostle's meaning following on, preserved;
and thus we do not read in that passage, "the god of this world," but,
"God," whom we do truly call God; and we hear [it declared of] the
unbelieving and the blinded of this world, that they shall not inherit the
world of life which is to come."

I do not know if Irenaeus is right about greek grammar in this respect,
because "such passages" that he quoted, did not have a genitive such as "tou
X" after a nominative noun. I am not aware of an example in the Paul's
writtings which fit with the Irenaeus statement.

do you agree with me?, i would like read  commentaries about it.

Best Regards
Octavio Rodriguez



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