[B-Greek] Philippians 1:3-4 - MNEIA - DEHSIS

Kimmo Huovila kimmo.huovila at kolumbus.fi
Thu Aug 20 14:38:56 EDT 2009


On torstai, 20. elokuuta 2009, Beata Urbanek wrote:
> Thanks for all your answers.
> 
> So as far as it goes I understand that the questuon is whether EPI means 
> "for" (thank for) or "at" (temporal) which is connetcet to the meaning of 
> MNEIA (action or content). Did I get it right?

Yes.

> 
> What about taking hUMWN as genetivus subiectivus and translating: "I thank 
> God because of all your remebrance of me"? [as e.g. Peter T.
> O'Brien in his commentary on the epistle suggests]

I consider that less likely than the objective genitive. Memory of something 
is usually expressed MNEIA TINOS or MNEIA PERI TINOS. I do not remember MNEIA 
TINOS for someone's memory (of something). I do not claim that it does not 
exist, but that it is at least rare. Someone's memory (of something) is MNEIA 
(TINOS) PARA TINI. An example of this is in Speusippus' epistle 32:

PLATWN, KAQAPER KAI SU OISQA, OUK EN THi TUCOUSHi TIMHi THN EN THi AKADHMEIAi 
DIATRIBHN HGE, NOMIZWN EINAI TI KAI PROS DOXAN ORQHN KAI PROS TON AUTON BION 
KAI THN hUSTERON PAR' ANQRWPOIS MEIAN ESOMENHN:

Since the objective genitive makes sense and is way more common than the 
subjective genitive with MNEIA, I think that the subjective genitive would 
have been unlikely to come to a native mind reading Paul's epistle.

I looked briefly a small corpus of MNEIA that someone kindly provided me offlist 
and found one example of MNEIA without POIEOMAI in the sense of mention:

Timaeus Hist., Fragmenta
KAQ' hON DE CRONON EPEDHMEI OLUMPIASIN, EPISTROFHS HXIOUTO PLEIONOS, hWSTE 
MHDENOS hETEROU MNEIAN GIGNESQAI EN TAIS hOMILIAIS TOSAUTHN hOSHN EMPEDOKEOUS.

I also found the expression KATA THN EMHN MNEIAN, which is not objective but 
subjective (though not genitive).

Kimmo Huovila



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