[B-Greek] 2 Cor 1:12, EN hAPLOTHTI KAI EILIKRINEIAi TOU QEOU

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Aug 11 18:37:58 EDT 2007


On Aug 11, 2007, at 2:57 PM, Paul Toseland wrote:

> Carl,
>
> Thank you, your argument from Paul's piety does make very good sense.
> Indeed, twice in the Corinthian correspondence he quotes Jer 9:23, hO
> KAUCWMENOS EN KURIWi KAUCASQW (1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17). If I have
> understood you rightly, you are saying also that if Paul had wished to
> accent the semantic distinction between hAPLOTHS and EILIKRINEIA,  
> and to
> qualify only the latter with TOU QEOU, he would have written EN
> hAPLOTHTI KAI THi EILIKRINEIAi TOU QEOU. But I wonder why he did not
> eliminate any possible ambiguity by writing EN THi hAPLOTHTI KAI
> EILIKRINEIAi TOU QEOU? Is there some compelling grammatical or  
> discourse
> reason for not including the article?

My sense of Koine usage is that adnominal genitives commonly enough  
follow upon the noun or nouns which they qualify -- and there's  
usually little endeavor to indicate with any clarity that they are  
intended to be attributive. I would look rather for a "compelling  
reason" for including the article; avoidance of ambiguity might be a  
worthy objective, but I don't think pains are taken very often to  
achieve that objective.

Carl

>
> Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>>
>> On Aug 10, 2007, at 2:18 PM, Paul Toseland wrote:
>>
>>> hH GAR KAUCHSIS hHMWN hAUTH ESTIN, TO MARTURION TOU SUNEIDHSEWS  
>>> hHMWN,
>>> hOTI EN hAPLOTHTI KAI EILIKRINEIAi TOU QEOU, KAI OUK EN SOFIAi  
>>> SARKIKHi
>>> ALL' EN CARITI QEOU, ANESTRAFHMEN EN KOSMWi, PERISSOTERWS DE PROS  
>>> hUMAS.
>>>
>>> In the phrase EN hAPLOTHTI KAI EILIKRINEIAi TOU QEOU, does TOU QEOU
>>> qualify EILIKRINEIAi alone, or hAPLOTHTI KAI EILIKRINEIAi?
>>
>> I would say that it construes with both, since there is no article;
>> but as the text stands, the more significant question is how the
>> genitive TOU QEOU is related to either or -- more likely -- both
>> nouns. I am inclined to think that NET has it right, "with pure
>> motives and sincerity which are from God"; hAPLOTHS is want of
>> duplicity rather than "simplicity" in the more common sense of the
>> English word. These must be God-given qualities of character as
>> opposed to being self-derived. I would even surmise that EN CARITI
>> QEOU clarifies the phrase EN hAPLOTHTI KAI EILIKRINEIAi TOU QEOU.
>>
>> 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/
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> -- 
> Dr Paul Toseland
> Bristol, England
> Weakamongtheweak.org/
>
> ---
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