[B-Greek] Is ECWN a solecism in Revelation 21:14?

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Fri Aug 22 07:17:00 EDT 2008


On Aug 22, 2008, at 2:29 AM, Leonard Jayawardena wrote:

>
> In chapter X, under "The Sentence," page 412, Robertson discusses  
> several examples of construction KATA SUNESIN involving participles  
> and remarks, "But in Rev. 21:14 [TO TEICOS ECWN] seems a mere slip."  
> Apparently, he would have considered ECON to be the correct  
> participle here to agree with the neuter noun TEICOS.
>
> TO TEICOS forms part of the holy city, new Jerusalem, in which, it  
> is said, God will tabernacle with his people (21:2ff).  The city is  
> said to be the lamb's wife (v. 9) with the twelve apostles being the  
> twelve foundation stones of the wall (TEICOS) of the city (v. 14).  
> From this and other details in the book and comparing with the rest  
> of the NT, we can conclude that the city represents the (NT) church.  
> Like the church the city is built by and made up of the believers,  
> with various parts of it representing the believers (cf. Rev. 3:12,  
> where Christ promises the church of Philadelphia that those who  
> overcome will be made a "pillar" in the temple of God).  If you  
> accept this much, then cannot ECWN, too, be explained in terms of  
> construction KATA SUNESIN (or constructio ad sensum)?
>
> Compare 21:14 with the following:
>
> 1. Rev. 4:7--TO TRITON ZWON ECWN.... Rev. 4:8--TO TESSARA ZWA, hEN  
> KAQ hEN AUTWN ECWN ... KAI ANAPAUSIN OUK ECOUSIN ... LEGONTES....  
> Rev. 6--LEGONTOS occurs in relation to the four living creatures in  
> vv. 1, 3, 5 and 7.  In all these cases masculine participles follow  
> neuter nouns. Here the four beasts represent the new creation (cf.  
> Galatians 6:15: KAINH KTISIS), which again is composed of the  
> believers.
>
> 2. Rev. 5:6--ARNION ... ECWN. ARNION represents Christ.
>
> 3. The first QHRION of Rev. 13 represents a man (cf. v. 18). AUTON  
> is used in v. 8 in reference to the beast. ECWN is used in relation  
> to the second beast in v. 14, which also represents a man.
>
> I am aware that some may have different interpretations for at least  
> some of the passages cited above but what I wish to know is that,  
> granting that the above interpretations are correct, would that not  
> provide a sufficient basis to clear up the alleged solecism in Rev.  
> 21:14?
>
> I'd like to know others' thoughts on this.

I don't really know. I had an off-list response yesterday from Don  
Wilkins; for one thing, he picked up on one of the items from my  
lengthy message on solecisms yesterday: I'd said that I would guess  
that the author dictated to an amanuensis who originally put down what  
he was dictated on a wax tablet or papyrus, the assumption being that  
the completed text of the Apocalypse never went through a careful  
review and correction process at the hands of the original writer. I  
don't know whether that's true or not, but the state of the text seems  
(to me, at least) to be consistent with such an assumption. I had  
suggested that what appears, at least superficially, to be an  
unrevised original text is comparable to some of our longer e-mail  
messages that we are perhaps too eager to dispatch and must shake our  
heads at when we see them cited back at us in a response.

Some of these instances cited do appear to be instances of constructio  
ad sensum or KATA SUNESIN: especially the use of a masculine form of  
the participle or pronooun for a neuter noun referring to a person. On  
the other hand, it seems to me that in a couple instances the author  
or amanuensis might have written ECWN for ECON simply because there  
was no difference in the sound of W and O in this era. The editors of  
the critical text evidently believed that the masculine participle  
ECWN stood in the original; I note that TR and MT both have ECON; that  
is to say, if the masculine form was original, subsequent scribes  
emended it to the neuter form.

It's nice to have a searchable digitized text of ATR (Robertson's big  
grammar). While checking out what ATR has to say on "solecisms," I  
came across this characterization of "Johannine" style in Revelation.  
While ATR seems inclined to accept single authorship of gospel,  
letters, and apocalypse, I find more interesting the characterization  
of the Greek usage in Revelation: the final sentence of the paragraph  
below (cited by Robertson from Ramsay's Letters to the Seven Churches)  
strikes me as very nice, “... St. John had to choose between a more  
artificial kind of Greek, as perpetuated from past teaching, and the  
common vulgar speech, often emancipated from strict grammatical rules,  
but nervous and vigorous, a true living speech.”


ATR, pp. 136-7 (from Chapter 4, "The Place of the Vernacular in the  
Koine"):	
"The accusative, as in the vernacular κοινή KOINH (cf. modern  
Greek) has encroached upon other cases as with κατηγορεῖν  
(12:10). The participle is used freely and often absolutely in the  
nominative as ὁνικῶν (2:26). Most of the variations in case are  
with the participle or in apposition, as ὁ μάρτυς hO MARTUS  
after Χριστοῦ CRISTOU (1:5). Moulton1 has called attention to  
the numerous examples of nominative apposition in the papyri,  
especially of the less educated kind. The old explanation of these  
grammatical variations was that they were Hebraisms, but Winer long  
ago showed the absurdity of that idea. It is the frequency of these  
phenomena that calls for remark, not any isolated solecism in the  
Apocalypse. Moulton denies that the Apocalypse has any Hebraisms. That  
is possibly going too far the other way, for the book is saturated  
with the apocalyptic images and phrases of Ezekiel and Daniel and is  
very much like the other Jewish apocalypses. It is not so much  
particular Hebraisms that meet us in the Apocalypse as the flavour of  
the LXX whose words are interwoven in the text at every turn. It is  
possible that in the Apocalypse we have the early style of John before  
he had lived in Ephesus, if the Apocalypse was written early. On the  
other hand the Apocalypse, as Bigg holds true [Page 137] of 2 Peter,  
may represent John’s real style, while the Gospel and Epistles may  
have been revised as to Greek idioms by a friend or friends of John in  
Ephesus (cf. Jo. 21:24). With this theory compare Josephus’ War and  
Antiquities. One is slow (despite Moffatt’s positiveness in the Exp.  
Gk. Test.), in the light of Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, to say that  
John could not have written the Apocalypse, though it be the last of  
his books. Besides what has been said one must recall that the  
Apocalypse was composed on the Isle of Patmos, in some excitement, and  
possibly without careful revision, while the Gospel and First Epistle  
probably had care and the assistance of cultured friends. At any rate  
the vernacular κοινή KOINH is far more in evidence in the  
Apocalypse than in the Gospel and Epistles. “As Dante had the choice  
between the accepted language of education, Latin, and the vulgar  
tongue, so St. John had to choose between a more artificial kind of  
Greek, as perpetuated from past teaching, and the common vulgar  
speech, often emancipated from strict grammatical rules, but nervous  
and vigorous, a true living speech.”


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






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