[B-Greek] Auton in Jn. 6:44
Carl Conrad
cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Sep 22 05:58:19 EDT 2009
On Sep 22, 2009, at 12:43 AM, David Koot wrote:
> This question has come up a number of times, and in researching I
> still am not clear. Oudeis appears to be the subject, the verse is
> a Greek conditional sentence. What is the antecedent of auton?
> What is the referent noun? I had posted this question a few days,
> but realized that I had originally signed up to the mailing list
> under a different email addy, so wasn't sure if my post made it the
> first time!
I don't recall seeing this question before, and a quick search of the
archives didn't bring up anything either.
We ordinarily like to have the text in question before our eyes to
help us think about an issue:
John 6:44 οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρός με
ἐὰν μὴ ὁ πατὴρ ὁ πέμψας με ἑλκύσῃ
αὐτόν, κἀγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ
ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ.
[OUDEIS DUNATAI ELQEIN PROS ME EAN MH hO PATHR hO PEMYAS ME hELKUSHi
AUTON, KA)GW ANASTHSW AUTON EN THi ESCATHi hHMERAi.]
Yes, this is a general condition; in this instance the apodosis
setting forth the universal result comes before the protasis, the
generalizing proposition which must be true if the result is to obtain.
Logically OUDEIS DUNATAI "not a person can ... " = OU DUNATAI TIS: "a
person cannot ... "
Logically the condition "If the Father who sent me does not draw/
attract/incite a person, the person does not come ... "
So: yes, OUDEIS is the implicit antecedent of AUTON; the negation in
OUDEIS really applies to the verb of the clause.
Academic linguists will likely offer a different kind of gobbledygook
to explain this; in fact, they may do so in more than one framework.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
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