[B-Greek] Back to Eph. 2:8

Carl Conrad cwconrad2 at mac.com
Sun May 15 11:05:11 EDT 2011


On May 15, 2011, at 9:33 AM, Blue Meeksbay wrote:

> Lenski has this to say on this text. He states: 
>  
> *the past act of rescue plus the resultant condition of safety (periphrastic 
> perfect) is entirely due to God (the agent in the passive) and to the grace he 
> used as his means. The emphasis is again on the dative. Gratiam esse docet 
> proram et puppim – Bengel.*
>  
> The emphasis he talks about is his statement concerning CARITI ESTE SESWiSMENOI 
> in verse 5 which he translates as *by means of grace you have been saved.*
>  
> And Wallace has this to say on the text.
>  
> *This use of the dative is similar to but not the same as the dative of means. 
> (At times, however, it is impossible to distinguish the two.) The dative of 
> means indicates the how; the dative of cause indicates the why; the dative of 
> means indicates the method; the dative of cause indicates the basis. Also, it is 
> not always best to translate the dative of cause as “because of.” This is due to 
> the fact that in English, “because” may express cause or motive. The two ideas 
> are similar, but not identical. Thus, occasionally it is best to translate the 
> dative of cause with “by “ or “on the basis of.” In Eph 2:8, for example (THi 
> GAR CARITI ESTE SESWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS  ), THi CARITI is the cause of our 
> salvation (and DIA PISTEWS  expresses the means). However, it would be better to 
> translate it as “by grace” or “on the basis of grace” instead of “because of 
> grace,” since this last phrase might be construed as indicating only God’s 
> motive, but not the basis of our salvation.*
>  
> And Carl Conrad said this:
>  
> <These terms, like so many of our grammatical terms, have been coined more as 
> aids to translators than as significant indications of the way the Greek works. 
> I don't think that the mind thinking in Greek gives a second thought to the 
> difference between a "direct object" and an "adverbial accusative.">
>  
> I wonder if what Carl Conrad said is also true of our dative of cause or dative 
> of means, at least in this verse. I know that in some contexts only one aspect 
> might work, but in this context it seems both would work, (unless I am missing 
> something).  Would a Greek reader not give a second thought between a dative of 
> cause or means in this particular context?   Could Paul have had both nuances 
> concerning grace in his mind and the dative was a perfect way to express this. 
> Like Bengal said,( if I understood him aright), grace is the bow and the stern.  
> It seems in this verse it is the beginning and the end. It is both the basis and 
> the means of God’s saving activity. The dative, in this case, expresses both 
> aspects of grace.

In the first place I would NEVER use the term "dative of cause" although I might
not be at all averse to understanding a usage of the instrumental dative as 
expressing cause. I will acknowledge that dative usage in Biblical Koine Greek
is "flexible," but I still prefer, insofar as possible, the lump dative usage into
the more basic categories of Instrumental-comitative, Locative, and "True" Dative,
this last being ordinarily of the person involved in an action or process, less
commonly of a thing toward which an action or process is directed.

I would be inclined to understand CARITI as an instrumental dative and
to leave it at that. You seem to want to get into what I might call the "theology
of the grammatical construction" -- I don't know whether that's what you
had in mind, but I'll steer clear altogether of any such notion (it calls to
my mind a now far past discussion of what might be called the "metaphysics
of the genitive case").

You wrote yesterday:

> I have heard many times that Greek is a very precise language, but is that true, 
> or is that just something we have put upon the language? Is it not possible that 
> Greek should be seen as more fluid and that a Greek writer purposely intends a 
> thought to be taken in more than one way, so that, as is seen in this case, the 
> writer wants the reader to understand CARITI with different levels of 
> understanding. Perhaps, he desires that grace should be understood not only as 
> the basis of God’s activity but also as the means of God’s activity.  Why does 
> it always have to be one aspect or the other? 

To which I had a mind to reply: Greek is a language in which it is possible for
a writer to be very precise. But that doesn't mean it is used very precisely by
all who speak or write Greek, and I have long felt that the author of Ephesians
was not, I think, a very careful writer of Greek (I've made that comment, I
know, ad nauseam!). As pure speculation -- no more than that -- I suggest
that CARITI here might conceivably be a very loose equivalent of CARITI
TOU QEOU where CARITI is employed as a dative with a passive verb
(common to express agent of a passive verb with a perfect tense) as if it 
were QEWi ESTE SEWiSMENOI DIA PISTEWS. Ordinarily such a dative
indicating the agent of a passive verb would be of a noun indicating a 
person, not a thing and certainly not an abstraction. But that's nothing more
than a guess. But, the old classic hymn says, "Amazing grace ... that saved
a wretch like me." Of course it wasn't "grace" that did the saving, although
we tend to talk about "grace" as if it were "Grace" -- metonymously for 
"God in his grace."


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





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