[B-Greek] Aorist Middle/Passive?

Richard Ghilardi qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
Mon Nov 17 12:59:55 EST 2008


Thank you, Dr. Conrad, for your clear and informative reply.

Yours in His grace,

Richard Ghilardi - qodeshlayhvh at juno.com
West Haven, Connecticut USA

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On Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:03:23 -0500 Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com>
writes:
> 
> On Nov 17, 2008, at 11:15 AM, Richard Ghilardi wrote:
> 
> > Hello Folks,
> >
> > The following quotation is found in Donald Mastronarde's  
> > Introduction to
> > Attic Greek, page 141, paragraph 6:
> >
> > << Note on Terminology. The aorist middle is called "middle" 
> rather  
> > than
> > "middle/passive" because there is a separate aorist passive form,  
> 
> > based
> > on a different tense stem. In fact, strong aorist middle forms 
> are
> > sometimes found with passive meaning in early poetry and early  
> > prose, but
> > in classical Attic usage this passive use of the aorist middle 
> form is
> > confined to ESXOMHN, from EXW (and compounds). The weak aorist  
> > middle is
> > sometimes used intransitively or reflexively, but it CANNOT be 
> used  
> > with
> > a passive meaning. >> (Emphasis is mine.)
> >
> > This quote puzzles me because it seems to be at variance with 
> Carl
> > Conrad's several essays on Greek voice. (I agree with Dr. Conrad.) 
>  
> > Either
> > I have misunderstood one (or both) of these teachers or one of 
> them is
> > wrong. (Perhaps there are other possibilities.)
> 
> Your cited passage is in fact essentially correct. There are two  
> aorist middle verb-forms, however, that can be used in a passive  as 
>  
> well as in a middle sense, depending on contextual framework: 
> APWLOMHN  
> and EGENOMHN; APWLOMHN is the aorist of APOLLUMAI, EGENOMHN is the  
> 
> aorist of GI(G)NOMAI. Both these verbs can take an agent 
> construction.  
> E.g. 1Cor. 10:10 µ?d? ??????ete, ?a??pe?  
> t???? a?t?? ??????sa? ?a?  
> ?p????t? ?p? t?? ?????e?t??. [MHDE  
> GOGGUZETE, KAQAPER TINES AUTWN EGOGGUSAN KAI APWLONTO hUPO TOU  
> OLOQREUTOU]; Acts 26:6 ?a? ??? ?p? ??p?d? 
> t??  
> e?? t??? pat??a? ?µ?? ?pa??e??a?  
> 
> ?e??µ???? ?p? t?? ?e?? ?st??a  
> ?????µe???, [KAI NUN EP' ELPIDI THS EIS TOUS PATERAS 
> hHMWN  
> EPAGGELIAS GENOMENHS hUPO TOU QEOU KRINOMENOS]. There are, as  
> Mastronarde notes, several more to be found in Homer and other early 
>  
> poetry, such forms as BEBLHTO (from BALLW), "was hit."
> 
> The position I have argued has more to do with the QH forms 
> ordinarily  
> termed "aorist passive" or "future passive." My view is that the QH  
> 
> aorist and QH future forms were beginning, already in Homer, to  
> supplant the aorist middle forms in MHN/SO/TO/MEQA/SQE/NTO while  
> continuing to bear middle sense/function. This observation applies 
> to  
> most so-called "deponent verbs" such as DUNAMAI, aor HDUNHQHN or  
> POREUOMAI, aor. EPOREUQHN. Over the course of several centuries the 
> QH  
> aorist forms came ever more completely into use where previously 
> MHN/ 
> SO/TO aorists had been dominant. In Classical Attic the aorist of  
> APOKRINOMAI is APEKRINAMHN, while in the GNT it is almost always  
> APEKRIQHN.
> 
> Over the centuries the functions associated with these distinct verb 
>  
> morphologies underwent a significant transformation. The fact that 
> the  
> language was always in flux makes it somewhat difficult or 
> misleading  
> to characterize precisely the prevalent forms of paradigms in the  
> different eras.
> 
> >  In paragraph 5 on the same page Mastronarde writes that ELYSA = 
> 'I
> > released' and ELYSAMHN = 'I ransomed'. If paragraph 6 is correct,
> > ELYSAMHN cannot mean 'I was released', can it?
> 
> No, and it does not.
> 
> > Is Mastronarde right in asserting that a 1st aorist middle form 
> can  
> > never
> > have a passive meaing, and, with one exception, neither can a 2nd  
> 
> > aorist
> > middle form in classical Attic Greek?
> 
> He's more right than wrong (statistically speaking!); I've indicated 
> a  
> couple second-aorist "middle" verb-forms that still can bear a 
> passive  
> sense in NT Koine, and I think instances of these same verbs could 
> be  
> found in 5th-4th-century Attic texts.
> 
> > Can someone clear up my confusion?
> 
> Hopefully to some extent.
> 
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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