[B-Greek] Was there any word for ...

James Spinti JSpinti at Eisenbrauns.com
Tue Oct 26 09:05:56 EDT 2010


There is a delightful snippet in N.T. Wright's "Justification" that sums up the problem nicely, too:

This situation, frustrating and confusing to those without Greek and even to some who have it, is further complicated by the tendency for words, like bright three-year-olds, not to sit still where you told them to, but to wander around the room, start fiddling with things they weren't supposed to touch, form new friendships (especially when they bump into their Latin cousins, but that's another story) and generally enjoy themselves at the expense of the exegete who is trying to keep them under control.—Justification, page 89

Having several grandchildren in that age range makes this word picture all the more delightful :)

James
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James Spinti
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-----Original Message-----
From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Carl Conrad
Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 8:54 AM
To: James Ernest
Cc: B-GREEK list
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Was there any word for ...

On Oct 26, 2010, at 7:22 AM, James Ernest wrote:
> John,
> If I were pursuing the question you pose, I think I would start by rereading
> Plato's Symposium. I'm not sure whether it will answer your question, or
> lead you to revise it, or neither. But that's where I'd look. At worst,
> you'll be reading some lovely (pun intended) Greek.

Indeed, and, for what it's worth, it was through a careful reading of the
Symposium that I came to see that Anders Nygren's insistence that ERWS
is fundamentally a selfish love of the other for one's own benefit, is not
quite adequate to Plato's handling of the word. The problem here is that
one tends to think of ERWS as exploitative and sexual, although in Plato
it becomes mutually beneficent and generative of shared good. The
repercussions of Plato's notion of ERWS are to be noted in Aristotle's
notion of the unmoved mover of the universe (κινεῖ ὡς ἐρώμενον,
ΚΙΝΕΙ hWS ERWMENON) in the Metaphysics, and Dante's final-line
vision of "l'amor che muove il sole e l'altre stelle" in the Paradiso.
An endeavor to define Greek words for "love" in a carefully-nuanced
fashion may readily founder on a discovery that usage is not consistent
among all Greek authors nor necessarily consistent within a particular
Greek author.

T. S. Eliot in Quartet #1, "Burnt Norton" writes:

"Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still."

Even to Greek, that paragon of precise discourse, Eliot's
words appear readily applicable. Seems to me that the
subject-header of this thread is extraordinarily apt!

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



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