Imperative in Rom 6:12
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Wed Jun 21 18:05:10 EDT 2000
At 11:25 AM -0600 6/21/00, Stevens, Charles C wrote:
>One of the aspects of first- and third-person imperatives that ISTM can't
>adequately be expressed is the issue of "degree of involvement", for want of
>a better phrase.
>
>"Let him <infinitive>" implies, in English, the involvement of the target
>audience; this is a "three-entity" construction (the speaker; the audience,
>who is being involved by the use of "let"; and the target person who is
>supposed to be carrying out <infinitive>).
>
>Likewise, "Let me <infinitive>" invites the audience into the process of
>ensuring that the action takes place.
>
>"I must <infinitive>" is an observation, not a command; it also involves the
>speaker in two roles, as speaker and as performer of the desired action; it
>is inherently reflexive.
Charles, I understand what you're saying, but I don't believe it is true; I
think your reasoning is somewhat akin to the fallacy of deriving the
meaning of a word from its etymology rather than from its usage. I don't
think an ordinary English-speaker has any conception of offering an
addressee the option to participate in the decision making about the action
involved: "Let's go home right now!" is not the same as "Shall we go home
at once?" or "Will you consent that we should go home at once?" I think it
has authority. Similarly the third-person usage, "let him/her ... " or "let
them ... " is authoritative. And the same idiomatic phrase is used in
German. I recently had occasion to review John Kennedy's Berlin Wall speech
of June 26, 1963 as a text for Latin prose composition; while on the whole
it is not an impressive speech, no one who heard it by TV or newsreel (or
in person?) can forget the power of the third-person imperative in the
opening paragraph which became a response repeated in German by the
Berliners, so loudly that Kennedy, who did not speak German, was himself
using it in the final line:
"Two thousand years ago, the proudest boast was "civis Romanus sum!" Today
in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner!"
There are many people in the world who really don't understand--or say they
don't--what is the greatest issue between the free world and Communist
world. Let them come to Berlin!There are some who say that "communism is
the wave of the future." Let them come to Berlin! And there are some who
say in Europe and elsewhere, "we can work with the Communists." Let them
come to Berlin!
And there are even a few who say "yes, that it's true, that communism is an
evil system, but it permits us to make economic progress." Lass' sie nach
Berlin en kommen! Let them come to Berlin!"
The German "lass(e) is no more an invitation to participate than is English
"let." I really think this is a matter of standard usage, just as surely as
'se habla español' doesn't really MEAN "Spanish speaks itself" but rather
"Spanish gets spoken." It is a matter of a phrase of a certain form having
taken on a function and conveying a sense.
>ISTM that the "pure" first- and third-person imperative forms would not
>contain any implication of that sort of multiple-party or reflexive
>involvement. Moreover, would not that be the essence of the semantic
>distinction between e.g. AFES + subjunctive and the pure imperative forms in
>first and third person, at least when both were in common use?
Again, in this instance I don't really think there is a semantic
distinction between Koine AFES + subj. (or + subj. w/ infin.) and a
hortatory subjunctive or third person imperative. Consider:
Mt 7:4 H PWS EREIS TWi ADELFWi SOU: AFES EKBALW TO KARFOS EK TOU OFQALMOU
SOU ...: Are we to suppose that Jesus means a person asks his brother's
permission to rid the eye of the speck?
or Mt 27:49 hOI DE LOIPOI ELEGON: AFES IDWMEN EI ERCETAI HLIAS SWSWN AUTON;
Are we to suppose that consent is here being sought for waiting to see if
Elijah will come to save Jesus?
or Mt 8:22 hO DE IHSOUS LEGEI AUTWi: AKOLOUQEI MOI KAI AFES TOUS NEKROUS
QAYAI TOUS hEAUTWN NEKROUS: surely "the dead" are not being offered
participation in the decision "to bury their own dead." This is what the 3d
person imperative has become in the language of the street, even if an
orator had expressed the sense with QAYATWSAN (or QAYANTWN) hOI NEKROI TOUS
hEAUTWN NEKROUS--and I suspect that the orator might be embarrassed at
using AFES but I don't think there's an ounce of semantic difference.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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