[B-Greek] Solecisms in the book of Revelation: Demotic?

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Wed Aug 20 09:19:37 EDT 2008


I had thought we'd finished with this topic, leaving it as a matter of  
disagreement between Don Wilkins and myself, but apparently there's  
more interest in this matter that at first seemed evident -- quite  
apart from the ongoing endeavors to unsnarl issues of "Who's who" and  
"Who did what" in Revelation, most of which questions don't really  
seem concerned with the Greek text as Greek text so much as with the  
effort to find or demonstrate some inner consistency in what has  
always seemed to me a more-or-less kaleidoscopic perspective on TA  
ESCATA.

Randall's question about εἷς καθ' εἷς hEIS KAQ' hEIS (John  
8:9) and Don Wilkins' repeated claim that the author of Revelation  
employs "intentional solecism" have sent me scurrying back to BDF and  
some interesting issues of linguistic history. I am wondering whether  
what we are seeing in the author of Revelation and occasionally  
elsewhere in the GNT is not so much deliberate usage of what the  
writer knows to be "improper" Greek but rather Demotic intrusions into  
a text that the writer intends to compose in "standard" Greek. Some of  
the non-standard or "solecistic" items we note in the GNT and other  
Koine texts exemplify usage that will become much more common and  
ultimately even standard in the later language. One of these  
interesting developments in Greek linguistic history is the gradual  
fixation of nominative forms that may derive from what were originally  
accusative forms, some of the nominative forms then ultimately  
becoming indeclinable. An example is the modern Greek active  
participle: let's take a verb that survives in MG from AG: βλέπω  
(BLEPW). The present active participle in MG is βλέποντας  
(BLEPONTAS). Superficially this looks like an accusative plural of the  
ancient participle, but in fact it is the accusative singular form  
with a nominative -S ending appended to it; the form is in fact  
indeclinable, as is evident in a sentence that might confound an  
unwary ancient Greek reader: βλέποντας, δέ βλέπει  
(BLEPONTAS, DE BLEPEI) "Seeing, he does not see," i.e. "Although  
endowed with eyesight, he doesn't see."

A comparable "solecism" that I had long failed to understand is the  
"nominative" πλήρης [PLHRHS] in John 1:14 	Καὶ ὁ  
λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν  
ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν  
αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ  
πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ  
ἀληθείας. [KAI hO LOGOS SARX EGENETO KAI ESKHNWSEN EN hHMIN,  
KAI EQEASAMEQA THN DOXAN AUTOU, DOXAN hWS MONOGENOUS PARA PATROS,  
PLHRHS CARITOS KAI ALHQEIAS]. It seems we ought to have an accusative  
form πλήρη [PLHRH] to agree with δόξαν [DOXAN], the object  
of ἐθεασάμεθα [EQEASAMEQA]. But apparently the originally  
nominative form πλήρης [PLHRHS] of this adjective has come to be  
-- or is on the way in Koine to becoming  indeclinable. BDAG has a  
very good account of this s.v. PLHRHS §2: "In some of the passages  
already mentioned πλήρης is indecl., though never without v.l.,  
and almost only when it is used w. a gen., corresponding to an Engl.  
expression such as ‘a work full of errors’" One might note Acts  
6:5 ... Στέφανον, ἄνδρα πλήρης πίστεως  
καὶ πνεύματος ἁγίου [STEFANON, ANDRA PLHRHS  
PISTEWS KAI PNEUMATOS hAGIOU]. What we're dealing with here is not, I  
think, an "intentional solecism" but rather an intrusion of a Demotic  
usage into writing that the author really intends to keep more formal  
and conformant to "school" usage. I will get to the bearing of these  
observations on εἷς καθ' εἷς [hEIS KAQ' hEIS] down below.

On Aug 15, 2008, at 2:28 PM, Don Wilkins (drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net)   
wrote:

> Just a quick response to Carl's comment on the solecisms.  ...  it  
> seems to me that John's solecisms are sufficiently violent that we  
> would expect to find Revelation riddled with many others, if the  
> comparatively few that we do find were not deliberate. It's the old  
> story: you have to know the rules to (deliberately) break the rules.  
> If John really didn't know better, then it's a minor miracle that he  
> could write coherent Greek overall.


Don and I have agreed to disagree about this "deliberate use of  
solecisms" -- but it remains inexplicable to me why a writer who seems  
to know better would deliberately employ unacceptable grammar. I think  
there must be some explanation for each instance of "intentional  
solecism" if the usage really is intentional: WHY does a writer employ  
a solecism in any particular instance? We've explored some  
explanations for some of these (e.g. Iver re Rev. 7:9 where an  
implicit EIDON may explain the questionable accusative  
PERIBEBLHMENOUS, or a perhaps implicit infinitive POREUESQAI might  
explain a use of an accusative hUPODEDEMENOUS in Mark 6:9. But such  
usages as these could not be called "intentional" solecism; they fall  
rather under the classification of constructions where something  
unexpressed seems to have been understood in the writer's mind and  
intention, something that a reader might be expected to infer from the  
context. On the other hand, I think I could be accused of "intentional  
solecism" if, upon being told repeatedly that I MUST perform a certain  
action without further ado, I responded with, "Well, I AIN'T gonna do  
that, and that's all there is to it!" Here "ain't" is unacceptable  
English, but I would be using it to underscore a stubborn resolution  
to follow my own counsel despite the advice of others.

Upon further reflection, therefore, I've come to think that these  
"solecisms" in Revelation are to be explained --  NOT in terms of a  
deliberate indulgence in non-standard grammar by an author who clearly  
knows how to write "school" Greek -- but RATHER in terms of a  
slackening in the effort to compose the text in conformity to what one  
knows to be good "written" Greek and a slip-up that allows a usage  
that is not uncommon in the "spoken" Greek of everyday conversation.
At any rate, that seems to me a much more reasonable explanation for  
the "solecisms" in Revelation than that we are dealing in each  
instance with a deliberate violation of the norms of written Greek.

On Aug 19, 2008, at 3:12 PM, Bil buss (Paladin343 at aol.com) wrote:

> Hi everyone,
>  Can anyone point me in the direction of scholarly works that list  
> and/or discuss solecisms in the Gospels, Acts and Revelation?

I would think there must be some bibliography on this subject, but I  
only know of good material in BDF and some really fine information  
buried in the sub-headings of BDAG.
As for bibliographies, I find that Micheal Palmer's excellent site is  
still accessible at http://www.greek-language.com/ , and more  
specifically his page, http://greek-language.com/bibliographies/#Greek%20Linguistics 
  (= http://tinyurl.com/5dnmsr); the reference to Rod Decker's page is  
there, but note it directly anyway: http://faculty.bbc.edu/RDecker/bibliog.htm

In BDF  I already called attention in an earlier post to §§136-7  
("More Serious Incongruencies (Solecisms)" (pp. 75-76). But there's  
good stuff that's relevant at other points in this book that is a much  
more useful reference than is commonly recognized. I'll note one such  
item below with regard to εἷς καθ' εἷς hEIS KAQ' hEIS.

On Aug 19, 2008, at 6:03 AM, Randall Buth (randallbuth at gmail.com) wrote:

> While on the subject of solecisms, how do you all like εἷς  
> καθ' εἷς EIS KAQ' EIS ?
> It seems intentional enough with the correct dropping of e vowel in  
> KATA, plus the correct Q θ before the word EIS 'one'.
> Proper Greek would say KAQ' ENA καθ΄ ενα, though I can readily  
> understand KAQ EIS as a sub-standard dialect nominalization that  
> even rhymes with a Hebrew "ish ish".

On Aug 19, 2008, at 3:33 PM, Don Wilkins (drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net)   
wrote:

> Another good example of "intentional solecism" IMO, probably  
> resulting from the influence of a foreign idiom as you point out. If  
> the writer used KATA correctly in other constructions, we wouldn't  
> infer from this anomaly that he was ignorant of the proper use of  
> KATA.

Again, I think that "intentional solecism" is a curious and  
infelicitous term suggestive (perhaps even intended by Don to mean) of  
deliberate injection of substandard usage into a text that is  
generally marked by good standard usage, an injection, moreover, that  
serves some intelligible rhetorical strategy. If that term is to be  
used, I would expect an explanation of what rhetorical strategy each  
such usage in Revelation is supposed to serve.

I don't think either that Randall really intended to suggest that hEIS  
KAQ' hEIS derives from foreign idiom. What we have here seems better  
explained in BDF § 305 with respect to "Each" under the heading of  
Pronominal Adjectives":

"305. 'Each'. ῞Εκαστος hEKASTOS, intensified εἷς  
ἕκαστος hEIS hEKASTOS. Fropm the distributive use of κατὰ  
KATA (ἀνὰ ANA, §248(1)), καθ’ KAQ' (ἀνὰ ANA) εἷς  
hEIS developed, since καθ’ ἕνα ἕκααστον KAQ' hENA  
hEKASTON became fixed as καθένα ἕκαστον KAQENA hEKASTON  
and a corresponding nom. was created: thus MGr καθείς KAQEIS  
καθένας KAQENAS 'each'; cf. Jannaris §664; W.-S. p. 247 n.;  
Psaltes 192. Yet not many examples of this vulgarism are found in the  
NT."

So John 8:9 οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες ἐξήρχοντο  
εἷς καθ᾿ εἷς ἀρξάμενοι ἀπὸ τῶν  
πρεσβυτέρων καὶ κατελείφθη μόνος  
καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἐν μέσῳ οὖσα. [hOI DE AKOUSANTES  
EXHRCONTO hEIS KAQ' hEIS ARXAMENOI APO TWN PRESBYTERWN KAI KATELEIFQH  
MONOS KAI hH GUNH EN MESWi OUSA]. Although it's possible to read  
εἷς καθ᾿ εἷς hEIS KAQ' hEIS as a pronoun subject of  
EXHRCONTO, even Englishing it as "one by one," the phrase as  
pronominal seems rather to be "each individual" ( = hEKASTOS)  
functions more or less adverbially as "individually" and the second  
hEIS with its preceding KAQ' is not conceived grammatically as a  
nominative at all.

In Modern Greek "each one, every one" is καθένας KAQENAS   
(Demotic), καθείς KAQEIS (Katharevousa). καθένας KAQENAS  
is derivative -- like the MGr participle noted above -- from the  
accusative καθένα KAQENA with addition of the nominative ending - 
ς -S.
κάθε KAQE, we might note, seems to be in indeclinable adjective/ 
pronoun meaning "each" or "every."

Another quite comparable and interesting (from the perspective of  
Koine and a diachronic perspective on Greek) is κανένας KANENAS  
(Demotic), κανείς KANEIS (Katharevousa, with fem. KANEMIA, n.  
KANENA), meaning "none," "no one," or "not any." This derives  
ultimately from AGr κἀν KAN, earlier καὶ ἂν KAI AN, still  
earlier καὶ ἐὰν KAI EAN "even if" -- and ἕνα/εἷς hENA/ 
hEIS.
κάνε KANE, as might be expected, is an indeclinable adjective/ 
pronoun meaning "none," not any."

In sum then, I think that these "solecisms" in Revelation and  
elsewhere in the GNT are best explained as intrusions into a written  
composition of expressions that are already used in "demotic" speech  
but usually do not get used in writing.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)






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