[B-Greek] Eph. 1:12 -- DEUTERAI FRONTIDES

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed May 17 08:57:23 EDT 2006


Not much to say here: just a retraction of an ill-conceived construal  
of this text and assent to the conventional understanding of it.

hAI DEUTERAI PWS FRONTIDES SOFWTERAI -- Second thoughts are somehow  
better-conceived, as Euripides puts it. Yesterday I somewhat  
foolishly took occasion of Webb's proposed version of this text to  
vent yet once more my dissatisfaction with the catena of clauslets  
constituting Eph 1:3-14. While I haven't changed my views on the  
nature of the catena (with the clarification I've already stated,  
that I never imagined that this sequence was in any way imitative of  
Homer so much as it is suggestive), I hereby revert to the view that  
hHMAS is the subject of EINAI, that EIS EPAINON DOXHS AUTOU is the  
predicate, and that TOUS PROHLPIKOTAS EN TWi CRISTWi is a phrase  
attributive to hHMAS and equivalent to a relative clause, yielding  
the sense: "so that we, who have come to have hope in advance in  
Christ, should exist for praise to (God's) Glory."

I do think that the formulation of the predicate, EINAI EIS EPAINON  
DOXHS AUTOU, is awkward. One doesn't expect an existential EINAI in  
this sort of construction but rather a copulative EINAI with a  
predicate word. I think we might have expected something like ZHN  
instead of EINAI. Looking for other instances of an existential EINAI  
in the Pauline corpus, I have found only

	1 Cor 7:7 QELW  DE PANTAS ANQRWPOUS EINAI hWS KAI EMAUTON
	1 Cor 7:25 KALON ANQRWPWi TO hOUTWS EINAI
	Gal 4:21 hOI hUPO NOMON QELONTES EINAI
	Phil 1:23 THN EPIQUMIAN ECWN EIS TO ANALUSAI KAI SUN CRISTWi EINAI
	1 Tim 2:12 DIDASKEIN DE GUNAIKI OUK EPITREPW OUDE AUQENTEIN, ALL'  
EINAI EN hHSUCIAi

and of those, I'm not sure but that EINAI with prepositional phrases  
in each instance is more often copulative rather than existential, e.g.

	1 Cor 7:7 EINAI hWS KAI EMAUTON = EINAI AGAMON
	1 Cor 7:25 EINAI hOUTWS = EINAI AGAMON
	1 Tim 2:12 EINAI EN hHSUCIAi = EINAI hHSUCION

but perhaps it would be better to understand hUPO NOMON EINAI as  
"exist subject to Law" and SUN CRISTWi EINAI as "exist in company  
with Christ."

On May 16, 2006, at 2:33 PM, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> On May 16, 2006, at 1:51 PM, Webb wrote:
>
>> EIS TO EINAI hHMAS EIS EPAINON DOXHS AUTOU TOUS PROHLPIKOTAS EN TWi
>> CRISTWi
>>
>> That way, our being the first to trust in Christ will be for the
>> honor of
>> God's glory.
>>
>> Is this a possible way of taking the relationship between the EINAI
>> and
>> PROHLPIKOTAS?
>
> Well, it's certainly a way of putting highly-contorted Greek into a
> highly-contorted English! Of course, the entire string of clauslets
> in the sequence Eph 1:3-14 is extraordinary and (I think)
> extraordinarily difficult in its articulation (or non-articulation).
> This string has always seemed to me somewhat like the LEXIS EIROMENH
> or "strung style" of Homeric discourse, wherein units loosely
> attached to each other like beads on a string contribute to a
> totality that is somehow intelligible. Here in the opening string of
> Ephesians, it's often seemed to me that we have something like
> loosely-strung subject-and-predicate clauslets that are half
> petitions and half catechetical elements such as we have heard
> formulated in an oral prayer where the speaker hasn't really given
> much thought in advance to where the sentence is supposed to end.
>
> It is unclear whether to initial EIS TO + inf. is meant to express
> purpose or result, as either would possibly relate to the ...
> PROORISQENTES KATA PROQESIN ... of the preceding clauslet. I suppose
> "that way" is intended to preserve the ambiguity -- as well as the
> fragile linkage of this clauslet to that preceding it.
>
> But -- the phrase EIS EPAINON DOXHS AUTOU is not so easily disposed
> of, I think. Your phrasing suggests that this phrase is the climax of
> the larger clause, and I'm not sure that it is; you also seem to
> suggest that hHMAS ... TOUS PROHLPIKOTAS EN TWi CRISTWi is the
> subject of EINAI and EIS EPAINON DOXHS AUTOU is predicative with
> EINAI. I won't say that could NOT be the case (I don't know that one
> could positively rule out any of a variety of ways of construing the
> elements here), but I really think that here hHMAS is the subject of
> EINAI and TOUS PROHLPIKOTAS EN TWi CRISTWi is the predicate phrase --
> and that EIS EPAINON DOXHS AUTOU is an adverbial phrase that is
> commonly appended to catechetical or liturgical assertions about
> God's action, a sort of "Alleluia" or "Hallelujah" attendant upon
> each item in a list of God's mighty works.
>
> The upshot: if I were trying to reduce this verse to a single English
> sentence, I think I'd render it rather as "and so we have come to
> have hope in advance in Christ, praise be to His Glory!"
>
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
> 1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
> cwconrad2 at mac.com
> WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
>
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://metalab.unc.edu/bgreek
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Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad2 at mac.com
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/





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