Mark 14:19 εἷς κατα εἷς

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Stephen Carlson
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Mark 14:19 εἷς κατα εἷς

Post by Stephen Carlson »

I'm reading through Mark 14 in preparation for tomorrow's class and came across an expression whose meaning seems clear enough but whose form is unusual, εἷς κατὰ εἷς ("one by one"). What's the deal with the second nominative? Why wouldn't it be accusative, as if εἷς καθ' ἕνα? Or is κατά an adverb, like it sometimes is in Homer (though no examples of the expression predate the NT in the TLG database)?

As for the scribes, apparently they were more bothered by the hiatus than the case. Outside the Alexandrian text, the manuscripts read εἷς καθ' εἷς as in John 8:9 (cf. Rom 12:5) instead, except for C which has εἷς ἕκαστος. No MS I'm aware of changes the case of the second εἷς.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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cwconrad
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Re: Mark 14:19 εἷς κατα εἷς

Post by cwconrad »

I don't know the answer here, but it would seem that we're dealing with a phase in the evolution of the Modern Greek pronoun καθείς. LSJ says:
one by one, one after antoher , LXX 3 Ma.5.34 ; εἷς καθεῖς Ev.Marc.14.19 , etc.: formed backwards from the neut. ἓν καθέν , noted by Luc.Sol.9 .
It's as if κατὰ is no longer thought of as a preposition but the combo makes a single word -- much as ἱνατί is a single Koine word meaning "why?"
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Stephen Carlson
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Re: Mark 14:19 εἷς κατα εἷς

Post by Stephen Carlson »

That sounds about right.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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RDecker
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Re: Mark 14:19 εἷς κατα εἷς

Post by RDecker »

An excerpt from the Baylor Handbook on the Greek NT, Mark (in preparation):

εἷς κατὰ εἷς. A colloquial distributive expression equivalent to ἕκαστος (|| Matt 26:22, εἷς ἕκαστος), “one by one” or “one after the other” (BDAG, s.v. εἷς, 293.5.e). For parallels in Koine, see Doudna, 39. On distributives generally, see 6:7. One would expect the second εἷς to be in the accusative (ἕνα) as the object of κατά (prepositions do not take nominative objects), but in this idiomatic expression εἷς is apparently used as an indeclinable form, something which is more common in “later Greek,” i.e., Koine (Robertson, 283; see also BDF §305), a usage which has been described as “barbaric” (see references in Robertson, 675.j; a prescriptive judgment such as this is not helpful). See, e.g., Rom 12:5, καθ᾿ εἷς; Rev 21:21, ἀνὰ εἷς; or 3 Mac 5:34, ὁ καθ’ εἷς δὲ τῶν φίλων σκυθρωπῶς ὑπεκρέων (“the friends, too, stole out one by one”). For the more commonly expected form with a preposition, see 1 Cor 14:31, καθ᾿ ἕνα. Moulton suggests that κατά should be viewed as functioning as an adverb in such instances (hence case agreement is not necessary), pointing to the (much) later development of the adverbs καθείς and καθένας as evidence (MHT 1:105). Robertson, 606.i.2 and Bruce, 436, follow the same approach.
Rodney J. Decker
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(See profile for my NTResources blog address.)
Jonathan Robie
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Re: Mark 14:19 εἷς κατα εἷς

Post by Jonathan Robie »

RDecker wrote:An excerpt from the Baylor Handbook on the Greek NT, Mark (in preparation):
I believe the author of that is someone I respect highly ...
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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