Jason Yuh wrote:Stephen Hughes wrote:What 98 instances are you referring to?
Jonathan Robie wrote:Do you have a specific question you are trying to answer or a thesis you are trying to prove?
Stephen and Jonathan, thank you for your interactions. The specific question that I'm addressing is the usage of the demonstrative pronoun (neuter, singular, nominative) in Eph 2:8. Hence, I'm only looking at the neuter, singular, nominative/accusative demonstrative pronoun. I thought the count was 98, but it's more like 300, which is a count that I still think is manageable.
Ephesians 2:8 wrote:τῇ γὰρ χάριτί ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι διὰ τῆς πίστεως, καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν· θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον·
Taking τοῦτο as referring to χάρις "grace" or πίστις "faith" (the two possible feminine nouns) would be just one of a number of possibilities...
This may be a pregnant construction, where the τοῦτο is made clear later. It agrees in number and gender with δῶρον "gift", ie. when we get to hearing the δῶρον "gift", we realise what the τοῦτο was talking about. Alternatively, there is not much difference between in meaning between χάρις "grace, free gift" and δῶρον "gift", so it could be referring to the overall gifting process.
In simple terms, the καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν· "and this not from you" implies a copula, but doesn't have a time or aspect reference spelt out in it, so we might take one from the context of the passage, or as seems best to us. There are a number of choices:
- If it was γέγονεν agreeing with the aspect of σεσῳσμένοι then the τοῦτο could be taken as referring to the whole phrase τῇ ... χάριτί ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι διὰ τῆς πίστεως, (or to the larger idea of the 7 verses of the chapter so far).
- Alternatively, it could agree with ἐστέ "you are", ie. ἐστίν "is", in which case it could agree with either the action ἐστε σεσῳσμένοι "you are those who have been saved".
- Taking it again as the present tense (in its own right - and equally possibly), it could be a scholia on the word πίστις "faith".
[NB. It would be a logical flaw to take the implied copula as ἐστίν "(it) is" on the basis of the ἐστέ "you are" and then say it was a scholia; they are the same tense, yes, but are different time referents (authorial present and a kind of timeless present).]
- In terms of broader context, it could be thought of as agreeing in (past) time reference with συνεζῳοποίησεν "he made <accusative> alive together with <dative> , συνήγειρεν "he made ... raised up together with ...", and συνεκάθισεν "he caused ... to sit together with ...", in which case the implied copula might be ἐγένετο "happened" or ἦν "was", and that is to say that the τοῦτο "this" would be a sort of recapitulation of the things that had been achieved by God for both the writer and his audience (taking the extent of action from ἡμᾶς) or just for his audience (taking the extent of reference from ἐστέ). That is to say, the τοῦτο may be referring to all or some of the things mentioned in the preceeding verses in the chapter.
To arrive at an interpretation, there is also a degree of interpretation involved with taking the δῶρον and οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων as a
complementary pair ("it was given, you didn't need to labour for it"), or διὰ τῆς πίστεως and οὐκ ἐξ ἔργων as a
contrasting pair (there are a number of ways of taking this).
These are all just boring and obvious interpretations that the text lends itself, and all are to a lesser or greater degree possible.
By simply following the search that you are looking to do, seems to be assuming that τοῦτο "this"
is a scholia on χάρις "grace" or πίστις "faith", whereas either of those references for τοῦτο "this" is just one of a larger number of possibilities. I suggest you work with the text more interactively and reflectively, not
relying on a computer search engine to give a "yes" / "no" answer. Even if there is a tagged text which says τοῦτο "this" refers to χάρις "grace" or πίστις "faith" that says as much about the tagger's reading of the Greek as it does about the Greek itself.