Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Forum rules
Please quote the Greek text you are discussing directly in your post if it is reasonably short - do not ask people to look it up. This is not a beginner's forum, competence in Greek is assumed.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Luke 22:5 wrote:Καὶ ἐχάρησαν, καὶ συνέθεντο αὐτῷ ἀργύριον δοῦναι.
The dative is used both of the person with whom an agreement is made, and the dative is used with δοῦναι of the person to whom something is given. Is there an indication in the syntax (use of two finite verbs with a καί between or proximity to δοῦναι) that suggests which verb αὐτῷ is to be taken together with?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3355
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

This is one of those "six in one hand, half-dozen in the other" cases. Both need a dative argument, and they both have to be Judas according to the context. Either it is expressed with συνέθεντο and implied with δοῦναι, or expressed with δοῦναι and implied with συνέθεντο. The entailments are the same, no matter how you analyze it. Judging from the word order, where it is expected that an non-emphatic αὐτῷ comes second in its domain, it would appear that the relevant domain is headed by συνέθεντο (i.e. the first option).
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

The entailment depends on the valance of συνθέσθαι. If middle is not only the middle meaning of the verb "agree to", but also referring to an agreement reached only within the same group that were just now described as ἐχάρησαν - middle in the extent of its reference to the subject, then αὐτῷ would only be with construed with the δοῦναι. Can αὐτῷ be the head of an infinitival phrase?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by cwconrad »

"Once in the dear, dead days beyond recall," grammarians used to speak of an "ἀπὸ κοινοῦ" construction. I think that ordinarily the shared element falls between the two with which it construes, but I would ask whether a reader would ordinarily have any doubts regarding the meaning of the clause, συνέθεντο αὐτῷ ἀργύριον δοῦναι.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3355
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stephen Hughes wrote:The entailment depends on the valance of συνθέσθαι. If middle is not only the middle meaning of the verb "agree to", but also referring to an agreement reached only within the same group that were just now described as ἐχάρησαν - middle in the extent of its reference to the subject, then αὐτῷ would only be with construed with the δοῦναι.
Well, in the context there is an agreement between Judas and the temple leaders to betray Jesus for money. It does seem overly scrupulous to say that συνθέσθαι isn't referring to that agreement but some other one. The semantics of the middle don't demand your reading: συνθέσθαι is a speech act verb and those are often, indeed usually, middle as a matter of course. I dunno... perhaps v.6 και ἐξωμολόγησεν (read in most manuscripts, except 01* C N it sin; Eus), could favor the idea of a pre-agreement among the temple leaders.

The parallel in Mark 14:11 καὶ ἐπηγγείλαντο αὐτῷ ἀργύριον δοῦναι presents similar issues.
Stephen Hughes wrote:Can αὐτῷ be the head of an infinitival phrase?
In a word, no. The infinitive is the head of an infinitival phrase. Can αὐτῷ be the first word of such a phrase? Well, if it's emphatic, sure, which it isn't here.

I suppose another possibility is some kind of prosodic prolepsis, where αύτῷ is prosodically hosted by the matrix verb συνέθεντο instead of the infinitive complement ἀργύριον δοῦναι. Standard treatments of prolepsis, however, such as A. M. Buscemi, "La prolessi nel NT," LA 35 (1985): 37-68, view prolepsis as a syntactic phenomenon and so don't notice the effect of the (admittedly speculative) separate phonological domains.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

They syntactic structure and the etymology suggest that συνθέσθαι αὐτῷ suggests "agreed to" in the sense of accepted his proposal to", rather than in the sense of "nutted out a plan with him to".

The intransitive middle where they decided to give him, probably needs a different verb.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Barry Hofstetter

Re: Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

1) I don't think the question would ever occur to a native speaker.

2) Since συντίθημι can be used absolutely in the sense of "reach an agreement," there might be slight edge toward construing the dative with δίδωμι.

However, we can simply understand αὐτός with both verbs, Carl's ἀ.κ. construction.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

cwconrad wrote:grammarians used to speak of an "ἀπὸ κοινοῦ" construction.
Sometimes there are explanations that can tell us why the observations are so.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Carl, how does your new way of dealing with middle/ pasive verbs in Koine handle a verb like συνθέσθαι, which is both transitive and intranstive in the middle?

With another meaning, the middle/passive is the middle passive of the active - same lexical meaning and a voice dependent grammatical meaning. With this special meaning in the middle/passive, however, the verb is effectively deponent in this meaning, when it is used in an infinitive construction (following the syntactic pattern of a verb of thinking, saying or the like).

Is their an explanation for cases like this?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
cwconrad
Posts: 2112
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:52 pm
Location: Burnsville, NC 28714
Contact:

Re: Luke 22:5 Ambiguous syntax αὐτῷ c. συνθέσθαι/δοῦναι ?

Post by cwconrad »

Stephen Hughes wrote:
cwconrad wrote:grammarians used to speak of an "ἀπὸ κοινοῦ" construction.
Sometimes there are explanations that can tell us why the observations are so.
Obviousy this is not an explanation, merely an observation — but we observe frequently in good Greek a considerable amount of compression and ellipsis, particularly in aphoristic expressions, such as χαλεπὰ τᾶ καλά, or πάντα ἔξεστιν ἀλλ᾿ οὐ πάντα συμφέρει· or φιλοκαλοῦμέν τε γὰρ μετ’ εὐτελείας καὶ φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας or (my own coinage, but legitimate, I think) τὰ μὲν δύνατα, τὰ δ’ οὔ. The observation: Greek stylistic expression is capable of great compression and makes frequent use of ellipsis in expression of complex notions. What we see in the phrase in question in Lk 22:5 is not particularly complex, but it is expressed concisely without grievous danger of misunderstanding owing to ambiguity.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

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

Return to “New Testament”