Kata Markon

[Mike Parsons <Mike_Parsons AT baylor.edu>]

         Reply to:   RE: [gmark] Re: Temptations
sorry to be getting into this thread late, but i wanted to make partial 
response to the questions about the occurrence of peirasmos and its cognates 
in the greek novels

J. Gibson wrote

>> > Also, I'm curious about your assertion that there is a tradition
>regarding
>> > "testing" and/or a use of the "testing motif" in the Greek Novel. Can
>you
>> > tell
>> > me when and where this appears? And can you tell me whether or not, when
>it
>> > appears, what the technical language of "testing" is? That is to say, is
>it
>> > the
>> > noun PEIRASMOS and its verbal cognates PEIRAZW, EKPEIRAZW, etc.,  or
>some
>> > other
>> > terminology?
>******************
 So far as I know (after
>searching
>> all forms of PEIRASMOS and cognates in the TLG -- which in terms of the
>number
>> of instances of the terminology is far more extensive than those noted in
>LSJ),
>> the terminology does not appear in any of the Hellenistic Greek Novels
>such as
>> Chariton, etc.
>**********************

1) first, i'd like to know how many occurrences of peirasmos you found in the 
TLG.  the author of the article in TDNT (if i recall correctly) says there 
are only 3 occurrences in greek literature.  have you found more?
2) we just finished reading xenophon's the ephesian tale.  as you may know, 
the greek text is in something of a mess, but the teubner edition does list a 
number of occurrences of peiraomai in its index. i have not had a chance to 
check them all, but a couple might be of interest in terms of a "testing" 
motif.  the first occurrence of the word, an articular infinitive (tou 
peirathanai) is when some of the servants (themselves about to die on a 
burning ship) rejoice that their masters, Anthia and Habrocomes, "will be 
lucky enought to die without suffering the pirates' chains!"  Here the 
translator graham anderson has rendered (perhaps reasonably enough) tou 
peirathanai as "suffering."  later when habracomes and anthia learn that they 
are both the objects of lustful pirates, Anthia bemoans, taxeus ths douleias 
peirometha, which anderson translates, "how soon we are experiencing 
slavery!"  of course, peiraomai in the middle sense may simply mean 
"experience" (as BAGD points out), but in light of this discussion, it might 
be fruitful to explore the other occurrences of this term in Xenophon, since 
one could reasonably translate these two occurrences as part of a testing, 
i.e., the oath of fidelity habrocomes and anthia have made to each other is 
tested by chains, by lustful pirates, an angry woman (2.3.5), etc.  this is 
far more than sexual temptation, in fact, i haven't found that use in 
xenophon so far (several instances do seem to mean simply "try," "attempt"). 
i'm surprised none of these came up in your TLG search. are we sure the 
Ephesian Tale is in the databank?  (again, as you know, many texts are yet to 
be added, including many from the jewish pseudepigrapha--i find denis 
concordance still the best way to access these texts).
for what it's worth,
mikeal