[B-Greek] 1 John 4:19: "AGAPWMEN"

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sat May 19 10:20:25 EDT 2007





 
On Saturday, May 19, 2007, at 07:00AM, "A. J. Birch" <a_j_birch at yahoo.es> wrote:
>Kelton G. wrote, "Hey Andy, if you look at AGAPWMEN one more time closely 
>you'll see a circumflex accent over the omega.  That lets you know that 
>there is a contraction going on.  Verbs whos stem end in epsilon, alpha, and 
>omicron, when they add the PN endings change. So when the alpha contracts 
>with the omicron, it changes to omega.  A + O = W. So basically you have 
>AGAPA + OMEN = AGAPWMEN..."
>
>But that doesn't really answer Andy's questions, because the circumflex 
>accent is there in both forms (the indicative and the subjunctive).
>
>I think Andy's suggestions (the "hHMEIS" and the context) are relevant, and 
>maybe with the subjunctive we would expect what we find elsewhere in 'John': 
>"TEKNIA", "AGAPHTOI", or something similar, to make the exhortation clearer.

Reading the text carefully, it is pretty clear that BOTH pronoun subjects in these
two clauses, hHMEIS and AUTOS, are emphatic:


hHMEIS AGAPWMEN hOTI AUTOS PRWTOS HGAPHSEN hHMAS 

I think AGAPWMEN very likely IS indicative here; the hOTI clause seems
to explain WHY we do what we do; on the other hand, the verb might
well have hortatory force if subjunctive: "Let us keep on loving ... "

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (ret)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/



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