[B-Greek] Mt. 7:14 Perfect participle

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed May 31 17:22:40 EDT 2006


On May 31, 2006, at 12:46 PM, Brinkley, Thomas David wrote:

> I am studying Jesus' conclusion to the Sermon on the Mount and the  
> beginning of verse 14 reads
>
> TI (hOTI) STENH hH PULH KAI TEQLIMMENH hH hODOS
>
> Why does Matthew use a perfect participle here?
>
> In other words, how does the participle function and why is it in  
> the prefect tense?

It might be argued that it's pretty much equivalent of an adjective;  
if one wants to interpret it as a real passive, I suppose one might  
argue that it has deliberately been made (by God) narrow; on the  
other hand, one might also see it as middle, "having grown narrow" or  
"having become narrow" -- like a path through the woods that isn't  
trodden much.


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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