[B-Greek] Eusebius of Caesarea on Psalm 23

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Tue Jun 22 15:52:27 EDT 2010


On Jun 22, 2010, at 3:06 PM, Alex Poulos wrote:

> Always wanting to practice my Greek, I recently cracked open Eusebius's
> commentary on the Psalms.  It's a massive work, and never been translated
> into English (as far as I know).  His Greek is quite difficult, especially
> for a newbie like myself, and I can't for the life of me figure out what's
> going on here:
> 
> Ὁ μὲν γὰρ τέλειος γένοιτ' ἂν ὁ κατὰ τὴν εἰκόνα τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ τὴν ὁμοίωσιν
> αὐτοῦ τὴν ψυχὴν τοῖς κατ' ἀρετὴν τρόποις κεχαρακτηρισμένοις·* ὁ καὶ βασιλέα
> τὸν Κύριον*, *ἀλλ' οὐ ποιμένα ἐπιγραφόμενος*· ὁ δὲ ἐκπεσὼν ταύτης...
> 
> hO MEN GAR TELEIOS GENOIT' AN hO KATA THN EIKONA TOU QEOU KAI THN hOMOIWSIN
> AUTOU THN YUXHN TOIS KAT ARETHN TROPOIS KEXARAKTHRISMENOIS.  hO KAI BASILEA
> TON KURION, ALL OU POIMENA EPIGRAFOMENOS.  hO DE EKPESWN TAUTHS
> 
> The general gist is a contrast between the potential (spiritually) mature
> one, and the sinner (he goes on to give a rather vivid description of
> sinners, with metaphors of horses and wolves).  I get the part about being
> "in accordance with the image of God, and his likeness."  I don't know what
> κεχαρακτηρισμένοις, though I think it comes from χαρα and has something to
> do with the customs of the church.  But I can't figure out what's going on
> with the ὁ και βασιλεα ... αλλ ου ποιμενα...  bit.  What is being elided
> here?  Why on earth are βασιλεα and κυριον in the accusative.  What is
> contrasting with αλλα?
> 
> I guess this isn't technically Biblical Greek, but it is Greek about
> Biblical Greek so I hope it's fair game.
> 
> Any ideas, ω φιλοι ?


κεχαρακτηρισμένοις [KECARAKTHRISMENOIS] must derive from 
χαρακτηρίζω [CARAKTHRIZW]. I haven't looked this up, but I'm pretty
sure from context that it's a word from die-typing meaning something like
"stamp with an imprint." Here it is the TROPOI, a person's "ways," or 
"attitude," or "traits of character" in the sense of ones "Mores" or characteristic
behavior. So we're talking about a person' with character traits KAT' ARETHN 
imprinted on his YUCH.

hO KAI BASILEA TON KURION, ALL' OU POIMENA EPIGRAFOMENOS.
I take this to be "the one who registers the Lord as his king, not as his
shepherd."

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






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