[B-Greek] Passive Construction

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Feb 16 09:51:51 EST 2007


On Feb 16, 2007, at 8:17 AM, CTCE wrote:

> I have a question concerning the passive construction in Greek.   
> This pertains to transitive verbs only.  I do not have an example  
> at my fingertips, but there are examples where the transitive verb  
> in the middle voice is passive in construction, that is, the  
> direction of the verb refers back to the subject and the agent  
> directing the verb is in an oblique case.  (I saw examples in Funk,  
> but I do not recall the place to cite the reference).
>
> Is this true of all transitive verbs in the middle voice?  Or, to  
> put it in another way, are there examples where a transitive verb  
> in the middle voice has a direct object (and consequently, the flow  
> is from the subject to the object, with the "middleness" of the  
> verb emphasized?

Yes; although some would dispute this, I think that Mt 15:2 well  
exemplifies this: DIA TI hOI MAQHTAI SOU PARABAINOUSIN THN PARODOSIN  
TWN PRESBUTERWN? OU GAR NIPTONTAI TAS CEIRAS hOTAN ARTON ESQIWSIN.

"They don't wash their hands when they eat bread (i.e. when they  
dine)." NIPTW is a transitive verb. It can be used in an intransitive  
"ergative" middle sense, as in John 9:11 ... hUPAGE EIS TON SILWAM  
KAI NIYAI; APELQWN OUN KAI NIYAMENOS ANEBLEYA. "'Go into (the pool  
of) Siloam and bathe.' So I went and bathed and recovered my sight."  
Here the middle NIYASQAI means "bathe." But it can be active  
transitive: Jn 13:5 ...HRXATO NIPTEIN TOUS PODAS TWN MAQHTWN ...  
Although there's no passive of this verb in the GNT there is one  
instance in the LXX: NIFHSETAI in Lev 15:12.

There have been different analyses of thed accusative "object"  with  
a passive verb. An interesting case of it is: Heb. 10:22 PROSERCWMEQA  
META ALHQINHS KARDIAS EN PLHROFORIAi PISTEWS hRERANTISMENOI TAS  
KARDIAS APO SUNEIDHSEWS PONHRAS KAI LELOUSMENOI TO SWMA hUDATI  
KAQARWi. That's usually Englished along the lines of " ... (our)  
hearts purified from a bad conscience and our body cleansed by clean  
water." The conventional grammars understand the participles  
hRERANTISMENOI and LELOUSMENOI as semantically passive and understand  
the accusative objects TAS KARDIAS and TO SWMA as "accusative of  
specification." I've come to think that these are really middles and  
that the accusatives are direct objects of those participial forms.  
I've no objection to the English version I've cited, but I think the  
structure of the Greek would be more accurately represented as  
"having purified our hearts from a bad conscience" and "having washed  
our bodies (body) in clean water." The fact is that the Greek form  
indicates simply that the subject has undergone the process of  
purification/washing; whether you view the process as something the  
subject submits to or performs upon him/herself (middle) or as an  
action performed upon him by some other is a matter of perspective --  
there's certainly no agent indicated.


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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