συγκομίζειν bring together, together bring, took home, help

Semantic Range, Lexicography, and other approaches to word meaning - in general, or for particular words.
Post Reply
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

συγκομίζειν bring together, together bring, took home, help

Post by Stephen Hughes »

This thread is taken from another discussion on burial centred on ἐνταφιάζειν and θάπτειν As often happens when we look at less frequently used words, there is more speculation than answers. And even if it seems we have found the answer it would be the most probable speculation.
cwconrad in the Burial/burying ἐνταφιάζειν, θάπτειν thread wrote:Acts 8:2
συνεκόμισαν δὲ τὸν Στέφανον ἄνδρες εὐλαβεῖς καὶ ἐποίησαν κοπετὸν μέγαν ἐπ᾿ αὐτῷ.
I'd think the place to start on something like this is Louw & Nida, specifically §52 "Funerals and Burial".
The sole LXX usage of this word is:
Job 5:26 wrote:ἐλεύσῃ δὲ ἐν τάφῳ ὥσπερ σῖτος ὥριμος κατὰ καιρὸν θεριζόμενος ἢ ὥσπερ θιμωνιὰ ἅλωνος καθ’ ὥραν συγκομισθεῖσα
You will come to your grave like ripe grain being harvested at the right time or like a pile of grain which is gathered on the threshing floor at the proper time each year.
(I have "guessed" the translation of θιμωνιὰ ἅλωνος to fit the positive sentiment of the passage).
If we imagine that the choice of συγκομίζειν to describe the action of the young men was an allusion to the metaphore in Job, then that suggests that Stephen's death was a good death. I think that unless that verse in Job was a commonly quoted one at funerals this line of enquiry about the meaning of the word is obscure at best.

Another way to take it is
[url=http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dsugkomi%2Fzw]LSJ συγκομίζω[/url] ΙΙ wrote:help in burying or cremating, “τόνδε τὸν νεκρὸν . . μὴ συγκομίζειν” S.Aj.1048; ἔφθη τὸ σῶμα συγκομισθέν the body was already cremated, Plu.Sull.38, cf. Ages.19.
Finding an answer in an authoritative book is always a good thin, but that solution in itself is not as simple as it looks. The word we really want to be considering the denotive sense of is κομίζειν. But for now let's ask, what the meaning of the συν- prefixed to the κομίζω is.

Does the συν- of συγκομίζω "bring together" mean συν- like as in συλλέγω "gather together" (one person getting a whole lot of little things together) or συν- like as in συνθάπτω "bury together" (when many people are put into the same grave). That is the reason for my inital question about whether the body of Stephen was dismembered and needed to be gathered together - "They brought together (the pieces of) the body of Stephen", or "They worked together to fetch the body of Stephen."

Another point is the meaning of κομίζω, which has the basic meaning of "take care of", "attend to". For a dead person, the logical thing to do is to burry or cremate their body. And in that case the συν- means "work together to do", "play a part in ... -ing" or put simply "help to".

Because the word κομίζειν "attend to (the body)" is used not θάπτειν "bury (the body)", it is possible that burial was not what was done - the other possible way of dealing with it is cremation.

There is also the suggestion in LSJ's entry that συγκομίζειν "take the body home" is what one does when one does not θάπτειν "bury the body". That then would imply an earlier-than-is-usually-accepted-in-scholarly-literature beginning for the cult of the martyrs. The account of the finding of the body of St. Stephen says that a coffin or chest which had been buried under a pile of stones was opened in the 5th century.

For a word used only once in New Testament there are more plausible ways of reading it than for other similar words:bring together (collect), together bring (helped to collect), took home (didn't bury, perhaps to venerate), bring in the harvest of a life given for Christ, OR cremate.

As for κομίζειν's relationship to θάπτειν, it could be either a mutually exclusive opposite, or θάπτειν could be part of the meaning of κομίζειν. κομίζειν could be the general sense of do what should be done to the body, while ἐνταφιάζειν could be more looking at the specific steps, one of which is θάπτειν.

My suspicion about the inter-relationship between them is; I'm going to κομίζειν for the dead, so I will have to go through all the things needed to ἐνταφιάζειν, which includes θάπτειν the body.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: συγκομίζειν bring together, together bring, took home, h

Post by RandallButh »

Your discussion of συνκομίζειν reminds me of
κηδεύειν
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

κηδεύειν synonymous with κομίζειν

Post by Stephen Hughes »

It seems that κηδεύειν is used synonymously with κομίζειν, especially when there is connotation of more pomp and circumstance involved than a simple κομίζειν.
Polybius, Histories 5.10.4a wrote: τοιγαροῦν χωρὶς λύτρων ἀποστείλας τοὺς αἰχμαλώτους καὶ κηδεύσας Ἀθηναίων τοὺς τετελευτηκότας
Therefore, he dispatched the prisioners without a ransom, and gave those from among the Athenians who had breathed their last an honourable / elaborate funeral.
In one place there, there is a seeming unexpected usage of κηδεύειν with πτῶμα. My overall impression is that πτῶμα is used of a "unhumanised" (faceless and without hands - the things that make us human) corpse, whereas νεκρός is used of the body of one that we recognise. Just looking at the reference in LSJ, we can see that
CIG3028.3 (Ephesus) wrote:εἰς ἣν [σορὸν] οὐδενὶ ἔξεσται ἕτερον πτῶμα κηδεῦσαι
Implying that a πτῶμα can be can be the one who is κηδεῦσαι-ed.

Do you have a way to explain that? Have I misunderstood the connotation of πτῶμα in the lexical set νεκρός, νεκρὸν σῶμα, and πτῶμα?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
RandallButh
Posts: 1105
Joined: May 13th, 2011, 4:01 am

Re: συγκομίζειν bring together, together bring, took home, h

Post by RandallButh »

It's simpler than you may be thinking.
νεκρός is referring to a state, describing it, though it would also imply a further reference to whatever was in that state..
πτῶμα is referring to a thing, a dead body.

Adding a 'face' or 'humanity' into the discussion skews things for me.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: συγκομίζειν bring together, together bring, took home, h

Post by Stephen Hughes »

Don't worry about the face and hands reference, I say inappropriate things all the time. I meant it figuratively not literally. Anyway, it is not as a centrepiece of the argument.

I'm sorry to remember and add it later, but σῶμα νεκροῦ belongs in that list too.

I think that σῶμα νεκρου is the common neutral term. I think that usage in
Acts 8:2 wrote:... ἐκόμισαν ... τὸν Στέφανον (= τὸν νεκρόν)
is the most respectful. Next would be σῶμα Στεφάνου, τὸ σῶμα, then the most direct reference seems to be πτῶμα.

Working from that assumption, I think that the variant readings in
Matthew 14:12 wrote:Καὶ προσελθόντες οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ ἦραν τὸ σῶμα (RP2005) / πτῶμα (NAUBS), καὶ ἔθαψαν αὐτό (RP2005) αὐτό[ν] (NAUBS)·
are possibly an interplay of polite avoidances of speaking about death. I would take get the πτῶμα and bury αὐτό as the most direct, saying αὐτόν would soften things. Get the σῶμα wouldn't need to be softened.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Post Reply

Return to “Word Meanings”