M.Pol. 2:1: Got it!

Bart Ehrman behrman at email.unc.edu
Wed Feb 2 12:28:48 EST 2000


   Yup, that's it.  Silly me!  (I also just spend five minutes rummaging
my fridge for the butter...)  Many thanks,

-- Bart Ehrman



On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Carl W. Conrad wrote:

> At 7:47 AM -0600 2/2/00, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
> >At 8:28 AM -0500 2/2/00, Bart Ehrman wrote:
> >>   In the Martyrdom of Polycarp 2:1 we read DEI GAR EULABESTEROUS hHMAS
> >>hPARXONTAS TW QEW THN KATA PANTWN ECOUSIAN ANATIQENAI, which translates as
> >>something like "And we who are sufficiently reverent must attribute the
> >>ultimate authority to God."  But most translations appear to take the
> >>EULABESTEROUS hHMAS hRARXONTAS adverbially "We must reverently/devoutly
> >>attibute..."
> >>
> >>   Any comments/reflections/advice?
> >
> >Offhand, I  would think that taking EULABESTEROUS adverbially is probably
> >right; I would expect to see hHMAS TOUS EULABESTEROUS hUPARCONTAS if the
> >phrase were in fact attributive: "we who are more reverent"; as it stands,
> >particularly with EULABESTEROUS in an emphatic position in front of hHMAS
> >and close to the beginning of the sentence, I'd think that the phrase
> >EULABESTEROUS hHMAS hUPARACONTAS ought to mean either "if we are more
> >reverent" or "because we are more reverent."  At any rate, that's what I
> >think.
> 
> I realize that I didn't quite finish what I think should be said about
> this; although I'm for understanding EULABESTEROUS hUPARCONTAS
> predicatively (adverbially) with ANATIQENAI, I think it would be wrong to
> ignore the force of the participle hUPARCONTAS, to which, after all,
> EULABESTEROUS is indeed a predicate adjective--so it is in fact the whole
> phrase EULABESTEROUS hUPARCONTAS that I would understand as qualifying
> ANATIQENAI adverbially: "we, being more reverent, ought to attribute ..." =
> "we, because/since/if we are more reverent, ought to attribute ..."
> 
> -- 
> 
> Carl W. Conrad
> Department of Classics/Washington University
> One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
> Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
> cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu 
> 




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