2Clement 2:6 / 5:6

From: Randy LEEDY (Rleedy@bju.edu)
Date: Thu Feb 18 1999 - 10:53:56 EST


Getting only the digests has left me rather out of the loop in the
development of this thread. I see three comments from Carl, Mary, and
Michael to which I'd like to respond.

Responding to Carl, I don't see that the TI . . . EI MH implies that
ESTIN must be a copula. The referents (if that's the right word) of TI
and EI MH, it seems to me, may be embedded anywhere in any sort of
clause. To witness I call upon Hebrews 3:18: TISIN DE WMOSEN MH
EISELEUSESQAI EIS THN KATAPAUSIN AUTOU EI MH TOIS APEIQHSASIN?

Responding to Michael Holmes, I would observe that the time of the
aorist participle POIHSANTES ought not to be construed as relative to
the time of writing but rather to the time of its governing verb, the
infinitive EPITUCEIN. As I read it, the whole scenario is set in the
(near) future, with the doing preceding the obtaining. As I said in my
first post, it seems to me that the means relationship is most
natural: doing is the means of obtaining.

Responding to Mary, I would observe that it is unnatural to take the
anarthrous POIHSANTES as substantival, referring to persons, since
those persons would be known in the context and would therefore be
definite. The participle seems clearly circumstantial to me.

Other than Mary's emendation of ESTIN from my "it exists" to her "it
is possible," I'm still standing by my original construction. Though
tempted to repost it here, I'll refrain in order to conserve
bandwidth.

Carl's list of examples with TI plus a participle along with a finite
verb was very instructive, and I believe my suggestion is right in
line with at least one of them: TO POIWN DIAFQEIRW TOUS NEOUS?: "[By
means of] doing what am I corrupting the youth?"

For those who don't have access to it, here is Lightfoot's
translation: "What then can we do to obtain them, but walk in holiness
and righteousness...?" This reflects Mary's reading of ESTIN as "it is
possible," and Carl's turning around of the participle and verb so
that the ptcp. expresses the leading thought, and my insistence that
the doing is the means of the obtaining, which, when turned around "a
la Conrad," is that the obtaining is the purpose of the doing.

This is fun, but duty calls elsewhere.

****************************
In love to God and neighbor,
Randy Leedy
Bob Jones University
Greenville, SC
RLeedy@bju.edu
****************************

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