[B-Greek] Eusebius of Caesarea on Psalm 23
Alex Poulos
apviper at gmail.com
Tue Jun 22 16:13:03 EDT 2010
Thanks for the note. I see now that επιγραφομενος applies to both sides of
the αλλα. That's what was causing a huge block there. I'm still not sure
what he's getting at with ποιμενα versus βασιλεα, but grammatically it makes
more sense. Thanks as well for explaining κεχαρακτηρισμένοις. It's always
a scary feeling when Perseus doesn't find the word I pass it ;-).
On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 3:52 PM, Carl Conrad <cwconrad2 at mac.com> wrote:
>
> 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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