[B-Greek] Revelation 14:4--PARQENOI GAR EISIN
+Fr Patrick B O'Grady
fatherpatrick at fastmail.fm
Fri Sep 5 11:47:45 EDT 2008
The use of the word, PARQENOS, in the early Christian and subsequent
Orthodox Christian tradition remains straightforward; later, frequently
in hagiography as male or female monastics. Among early virgins
mentioned in hagiographical literature: the Theotokos, of course, and
John the Evangelist, and so on...
I would add here, that the derivation (as far as I can determine,
unknown) probably is a substantive of a compound adjective, since such
compounds using -OS declensional endings for male retain the same for
female genders. E.g., H ORQODOXOS EKKLHSIA.
Fr Patrick B. O'Grady
On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 16:10:48 +0600, "Leonard Jayawardena"
<leonardj at live.com> said:
>
> Revelation 14:4: hOUTOI EISIN hOI META GUNAIKWN OUK EMOLUNQHSAN, PARQENOI
> GAR EISIN, hOUTOI hOI AKOLOUQOUNTES TW ARNIW....
>
> An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon based on the seventh edition of
> Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon has the following under
> PARQENOS: "... as masc., [PARQENOS, hO], an unmarried man, N.T. (Deriv.
> unknown.)."
>
> This part of the dictionary entry must be based on the use of this word
> in Revelation 14:4 as the word unambiguously refers to females in the
> rest of the NT. Actually, the use of PARQENOI in the above verse is
> metaphorical, being based on the NT teaching that the NT church,
> represented by the 144,000, is the "bride" and "wife" of Christ. Paul
> writes, ZHLW GAR hUMAS QEOU ZHLW hHRMOSUNHN GAR hUMAS hENI ANDRI PARQENON
> hAGNHN PARASTHSAI TWi CRISTWi. In Revelation itself the church is called
> the lamb's NUMFH and GUNH (19:7;21:9). This itself is based on the
> similar relationship between God and Israel of the OT. PARQENOS as used
> of the church in Rev. 14:4, which is the heavenly city of Jerusalem (Rev.
> 21:9ff; Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 12:22), is the antonym of the PORNH of
> Rev. 17, who represents the earthly city (of imperial Rome, as I
> understand).
>
> The use of the plural PARQENOI in Rev. 14:4 implies that each member of
> the church is also a virgin spiritually. This is analogous to the church
> being called the temple of God when her members are viewed as working as
> a team towards the goal of building a habitation for God in the spirit
> (Ephesians 2:19ff) , while each individual member is also the temple of
> God (1 Corinthians 6:19), the latter of which in fact is the ultimate
> reality.
> In view of the foregoing, the meaning of PARQENOS as an "unmarried man"
> in the above-mentioned dictionary entry is based on a wrong
> interpretation of Rev. 14:4. I'd like to know whether PARQENOS is ever
> used in ancient Greek literature in reference to unmarried males.
> Leonard JayawardenaSri Lanka
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