Simple lesson based on P.Oxy. 299

Resources and methods for teaching and learning New Testament Greek.
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Is διὰ σοῦ a prefiguring of Modern Greek or its birth

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stephen Hughes wrote:The real point if interest here is the διὰ σοῦ. Is it a spark that glowed for a moment then grew cold, or is this the earliest witness to what would become για σου in the Modern idiom.

BAGS has a special note about this papyrus down the bottom on the second page. I guess it "should" be υπέρ σου down the bottom of the second column.
Well, BDAG has:

⑤ At times διά w. gen. seems to have causal mng. (Rdm. 142; POxy 299, 2 [I A.D.] ἔδωκα αὐτῷ διὰ σοῦ=because of you; Achilles Tat. 3, 4, 5 διὰ τούτων=for this reason; in Eng. cp. Coleridge, Anc. Mariner 135–36: Every tongue thro’ utter drouth Was wither’d at the root, s. OED s.v. ‘through’ I B 8) διὰ τῆς σαρκός because of the resistance of the flesh Ro 8:3.—2 Cor 9:13.—On the use of διά w. gen. in Ro s. Schlaeger, La critique radicale de l’épître aux Rom.: Congr. d’ Hist. du Christ. II 111f.

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

I took it instrumentally, "through you" meaning that the writer had used the individual to whom he was writing to make the payment, but since he expects the money back it makes more sense to see it as BDAG does, or perhaps "for you.." as you seem to suggest above. But I doubt that it's the ancestor her of για σου!
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Stephen Hughes
Posts: 3323
Joined: February 26th, 2013, 7:12 am

Re: Simple lesson based on P.Oxy. 299

Post by Stephen Hughes »

The thought seems to be, I did it for you, because you were not here, but I'm not paying for it, and I expect to be repayed.

My thought is to "amend" it to υπέρ σου for the sake of grammatical correctness, since it is not identifiably related to any New Testament usage.

Looking in the Loeb Select Papyri: Private Affairs volume, both of these I've looked at are there. There is another there, dating from 300 years earlier, which may be of interest, which contains the following:
P. Cairo Zen. 59251 line 4b-5a wrote:καλῶς δʼ ἂμ ποιήσαις ἀγοράσας ἡμῖν (honey and barley)
My thinking is that ἀποδόναι "give back" couldn't really work in this situation, so the simple description of the action πέμψαι has time suffice. It is not really a loan anyway.

This is not an agreed upon loan, but does repaying a loan have a more technical word?
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
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