2 Cor 2:4 τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε Word Order

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Stephen Carlson
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2 Cor 2:4 τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε Word Order

Post by Stephen Carlson »

2 Cor 2:4 wrote:ἐκ γὰρ πολλῆς θλίψεως καὶ συνοχῆς καρδίας ἔγραψα ὑμῖν διὰ πολλῶν δακρύων, οὐχ ἵνα λυπηθῆτε ἀλλὰ τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε ἣν ἔχω περισσοτέρως εἰς ὑμᾶς.
I'm struck by the position of τὴν ἀγάπην before the complementizer ἵνα. I know topics can be fronted before them, but τὴν ἀγάπην appears to be in focus and the topic is rather the second person plural, the addressees of the epistle. Thoughts?
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Barry Hofstetter
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Re: 2 Cor 2:4 τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε Word Order

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Well that no matter what our expectations native and fluent spaeakers of a language may confound us by doing unexpected things. What do we always say? Unusual word order calls attention to itself. Here I would see the emphasis on love as the object of what you should know.
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 Carlson
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Re: 2 Cor 2:4 τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε Word Order

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Barry Hofstetter wrote:Well that no matter what our expectations native and fluent spaeakers of a language may confound us by doing unexpected things. What do we always say? Unusual word order calls attention to itself. Here I would see the emphasis on love as the object of what you should know.
Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying, though I'd like more specificity on the kind of emphasis. I'm also wondering why you bolded you. I don't see emphasis there (as per, e.g., an explicit ὑμεῖς).
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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Tony Pope
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Re: 2 Cor 2:4 τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε Word Order

Post by Tony Pope »

For comparison, here are more NT examples of elements extraposed from a ἵνα clause. How would you say these resemble the 2 Cor 2.4 example from an information structure point of view?

John 13.29b ἀγόρασον ὧν χρείαν ἔχομεν εἰς τὴν ἑορτήν, ἢ τοῖς πτωχοῖς ἵνα τι δῷ.
Acts 19.4 εἶπεν δὲ Παῦλος· Ἰωάννης ἐβάπτισεν βάπτισμα μετανοίας, τῷ λαῷ λέγων εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον μετ’ αὐτὸν ἵνα πιστεύσωσιν, τοῦτ’ ἔστιν εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν.
1 Cor. 9.15 (MS C al) καλὸν γάρ μοι μᾶλλον ἀποθανεῖν ἢ τὸ καύχημά μου ἵνα τις κενώσει.
Gal. 2.10 μόνον τῶν πτωχῶν ἵνα μνημονεύωμεν, ὃ καὶ ἐσπούδασα αὐτὸ τοῦτο ποιῆσαι.
Col. 4.16 καὶ ὅταν ἀναγνωσθῇ παρ’ ὑμῖν ἡ ἐπιστολή, ποιήσατε ἵνα καὶ ἐν τῇ Λαοδικαίων ἐκκλησίᾳ ἀναγνωσθῇ, καὶ τὴν ἐκ Λαοδικείας ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀναγνῶτε.
Rev 13.13 (M-K text) καὶ ποιεῖ σημεῖα μεγάλα, καὶ πῦρ ἵνα ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβαίνῃ ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν ἐνώπιον τῶν ἀνθρώπων

Debatable examples:
John 11.16 ἄγωμεν καὶ ἡμεῖς ἵνα ἀποθάνωμεν μετ’ αὐτοῦ.
Zahn argued that Thomas could not be made to say "Let us go also" since it was obvious that the disciples would accompany their master. It makes more sense that he should say "Let us go that we also may die with him."

John 17.13 νῦν δὲ πρὸς σὲ ἔρχομαι, καὶ ταῦτα λαλῶ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἵνα ἔχωσιν τὴν χαρὰν τὴν ἐμὴν πεπληρωμένην ἐν ἑαυτοῖς.
Again, Zahn argued it would be inappropriate for Jesus to say in the same breath "I am now coming to you and I am saying these things in the world". (I am not so convinced of this one personally.)

Rom. 11.31 οὕτως καὶ οὗτοι νῦν ἠπείθησαν τῷ ὑμετέρῳ ἐλέει, ἵνα καὶ αὐτοὶ [νῦν] ἐλεηθῶσιν.
Commentators divide on this one, some arguing that it should be punctuated with the comma after ἠπείθησαν.
Stephen Hughes
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Re: 2 Cor 2:4 τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε Word Order

Post by Stephen Hughes »

For what it's worth, I had a look through some Greek newspapers and couldn't find this word order, and looked through the Cretan/Venetian work I introduced before and found a couple of examples (compared to more than a hundrend with object folliwing). However since it is verse, it could well be metris gratia.
Γελᾷ δ' ὁ μωρός, κἄν τι μὴ γέλοιον ᾖ
(Menander, Γνῶμαι μονόστιχοι 108)
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: 2 Cor 2:4 τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε Word Order

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

I asked this question about Attic in textkit and but we didn't find much in the way of examples. Cooper gives only two examples with ὅπως but none with ἵνα. (Guy Cooper V2 p595ff §61.6.0 §61.6.5 ).

Thucydides 3,51,2,4

Νικίου τοῦ Νικηράτου στρατηγοῦντος ἐστράτευσαν ἐπὶ Μι-
νῴαν τὴν νῆσον, ἣ κεῖται πρὸ Μεγάρων· ἐχρῶντο δὲ αὐτῇ
πύργον ἐνοικοδομήσαντες οἱ Μεγαρῆς φρουρίῳ. ἐβούλετο
δὲ Νικίας τὴν φυλακὴν αὐτόθεν δι' ἐλάσσονος τοῖς Ἀθη-
ναίοις καὶ μὴ ἀπὸ τοῦ Βουδόρου καὶ τῆς Σαλαμῖνος εἶναι,
τούς τε Πελοποννησίους, ὅπως μὴ ποιῶνται ἔκπλους αὐτόθεν
λανθάνοντες τριήρων τε, οἷον καὶ τὸ πρὶν γενόμενον, καὶ
λῃστῶν ἐκπομπαῖς, τοῖς τε Μεγαρεῦσιν ἅμα μηδὲν ἐσπλεῖν.

Isocrates orat. 4 §78, line 2

Τούτων δ' ἦν
αἴτιον, ὅτι τοὺς νόμους ἐσκόπουν ὅπως ἀκριβῶς καὶ καλῶς
ἕξουσιν, οὐχ οὕτω τοὺς περὶ τῶν ἰδίων συμβολαίων ὡς τοὺς
περὶ τῶν καθ' ἑκάστην τὴν ἡμέραν ἐπιτηδευμάτων· ἠπίς-
ταντο γὰρ ὅτι τοῖς καλοῖς κἀγαθοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων οὐδὲν
δεήσει πολλῶν γραμμάτων, ἀλλ' ἀπ' ὀλίγων συνθημάτων
ῥᾳδίως καὶ περὶ τῶν ἰδίων καὶ περὶ τῶν κοινῶν ὁμονοήσου-
σιν.

Michael (MWH) found one questionable example in LSJ,

Plato Char. page 169, section d,

ἅτε οὖν εὐδοκιμῶν ἑκάστοτε, ᾐσχύνετο τοὺς παρόντας, καὶ οὔτε συγχω-
ρῆσαί μοι ἤθελεν ἀδύνατος εἶναι διελέσθαι ἃ προυκαλούμην
αὐτόν, ἔλεγέν τε οὐδὲν σαφές, ἐπικαλύπτων τὴν ἀπορίαν.
κἀγὼ ἡμῖν ἵνα ὁ λόγος προΐοι, εἶπον· Ἀλλ' εἰ δοκεῖ, ὦ
Κριτία, νῦν μὲν τοῦτο συγχωρήσωμεν, δυνατὸν εἶναι γενέ-
σθαι ἐπιστήμην ἐπιστήμης· αὖθις δὲ ἐπισκεψόμεθα εἴτε
οὕτως ἔχει εἴτε μή. ἴθι δὴ οὖν, εἰ ὅτι μάλιστα δυνατὸν
τοῦτο, τί μᾶλλον οἷόν τέ ἐστιν εἰδέναι ἅ τέ τις οἶδε καὶ ἃ
μή;

His comments about it can be seen here:
http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-foru ... 32#p167993
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stirling Bartholomew
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Re: 2 Cor 2:4 τὴν ἀγάπην ἵνα γνῶτε Word Order

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

It turns out on closer inspection that Cooper's examples show a constituent of the ὅπως clause anticipated (prolepsis) in the preceding clause.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
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