Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

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Stephen Carlson
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Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

OK, you aspect geeks out there, I've got a question for y'all:
Gal 5:3 wrote:BGT Galatians 5:3 μαρτύρομαι δὲ πάλιν παντὶ ἀνθρώπῳ περιτεμνομένῳ ὅτι ὀφειλέτης ἐστὶν ὅλον τὸν νόμον ποιῆσαι.

VUL Galatians 5:3 testificor autem rursum omni homini circumcidenti se quoniam debitor est universae legis faciendae

NRS Galatians 5:3 Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law.
Why did Paul use ποιῆσαι here? What (aspectual) nuance is implied by the aorist infinitive?
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Scott Lawson
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Re: Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Scott Lawson »

Stephen Carlson wrote:Why did Paul use ποιῆσαι here? What (aspectual) nuance is implied by the aorist infinitive?
Funny you should ask. Baugh comments on this very verse on pages 23 and 24 of his paper:
“This means that by choosing the aorist infinitive here, Paul communicates to his readers that the man who receives circumcision must fulfill all the terms of the law—not just be engaged in doing portions of it as a process. This idea of engaged in law-deeds as a process would have been communicated by the present form
ποιεῖν.”

So it would seem to bring out a resultative nuance.

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Eeli Kaikkonen
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Re: Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Eeli Kaikkonen »

I see it simply as keeping the law as a whole, "fullfilling" the law. With ὅλον τὸν νόμον aorist just feels very natural to me. In my opinion aorist is neutral, unmarked, here. Present would imply "continually, every moment" but that's not what Paul wants to communicate. This means that there's no special aspectual nuance worth mentioning. However, in English "obey the entire law" is a bit ambiguous - it could refer to continual obeying.
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Re: Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Scott Lawson »

Eeli,
It's a little confounding to me that your comments are in accord with Baugh's even though he views the use of the aorist infinitive as evidently marked rather than default. He does admit that his corroborative evidence is flimsy and seems to depend heavily on the variant πληρωσαι in drawing his conclusions:

"This provisional conclusion about the aspectual nuance of ποιῆσαι in Gal 5:3 could be challenged if it could be shown that an epexegetical infinitive with the noun ὀφειλέτης (“a debtor to do”) requires the aorist infinitive. This would be the factor of construction demands explained earlier. The New Testament data is admittedly small, but in the only other place where an infinitive is used with this noun, the atelic present infinitive ζῆν is used:Ἄρα οὖν, ἀδελφοί, ὀφειλέται ἐσμὲν οὐ τῆ σαρκὶ τοῦ κατὰ σάρκα ζῆν , “So then, brethren, we are debtors to live not by the flesh according to the flesh” (Rom 8:12).19 Hence, we may tentatively conclude that ὀφελέται in Gal 5:3 did not force Paul to choose the aorist infinitive ποιῆσαι."
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Re: Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Scott Lawson »

Eeli Kaikkonen wrote:... In my opinion aorist is neutral, unmarked, here. Present would imply "continually, every moment" but that's not what Paul wants to communicate. This means that there's no special aspectual nuance worth mentioning....
It just occurred to me, that it could be, that since you see no special aspectual nuance you are possibly defaulting to Aktionsart and evidently drawing the same conclusion as Baugh.

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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Here's my take on it, according to my recently home-spun theory of Greek aspect.

The aspectual nuance of a predicate depends on the actionality (i.e., Aktionsart) of the verb, the grammatical aspect, and certain contextual considerations.

As for the actionality of ποιέω, I think it is telic (terminative), basically to do or make something to completion. The perfective aspect of the aorist is the natural home for telic verbs, and it indicates that the natural goal of the telic verb is attained. Thus, altogether it would mean to complete every action the law requires.
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Scott Lawson
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Re: Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Scott Lawson »

Stephen Carlson wrote:perfective aspect of the aorist is the natural home for telic verbs, and it indicates that the natural goal of the telic verb is attained.
It seems though that in this instance ποιέω is stative. That is, by Campbell's definition, transitivity is determined by whether or not the argument (I'll use the term argument since it seems you used the term predicate to mean the verb) is affected by the action of the verb. In this case doing/fulfilling doesn't seem to affect the object so, just as Campbell points out that "to hear music" is transitive but since the music is not acted upon by the hearer it would be considered intransitive, so too, it would seem is ποιέω in this context. If that is so then it could be viewed as stative and without a natural tendency toward telicity. Right?
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Scott Lawson wrote:
Stephen Carlson wrote:perfective aspect of the aorist is the natural home for telic verbs, and it indicates that the natural goal of the telic verb is attained.
It seems though that in this instance ποιέω is stative. That is, by Campbell's definition, transitivity is determined by whether or not the argument (I'll use the term argument since it seems you used the term predicate to mean the verb) is affected by the action of the verb. In this case doing/fulfilling doesn't seem to affect the object so, just as Campbell points out that "to hear music" is transitive but since the music is not acted upon by the hearer it would be considered intransitive, so too, it would seem is ποιέω in this context. If that is so then it could be viewed as stative and without a natural tendency toward telicity. Right?
No way ποιέω is stative. It is clearly dynamic, requiring input of energy to maintain. Perhaps you mean that it is an atelic activity.

Although for English and Finnic it may make sense to be changing the Aktionsart of a verb based on its arguments, I'm not sure it's necessary to posit this for Greek, where the different aspects are grammaticalized in the verbal stem.

The complicating fact about ποιέω however may be polysemy. The verb may have many senses, some of which are telic and others are atelic. If ποιέω τὸν νόμον invokes some atelic prototype, then the aorist would generally be either ingressive ("start doing") or complexive/constative. I'm not sure the former makes sense, as this obligation seems to start only after getting circumcised. As for the latter, when is the activity supposed to stop? Death?
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Scott Lawson
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Re: Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Scott Lawson »

Stephen Carlson wrote:when is the activity supposed to stop? Death?
Funny you should put it that way...one certainly no longer transgresses the law after death. I do see your point on ποιέω as being dynamic. But doesn't that in fact make a case for sustained activity in this context and imply that it is as you say atelic? I don't think Campbell uses telic and atelic and perhaps that's what he is driving at in his definition of transitivity in chapter 6.
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Stephen Carlson
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Re: Gal 5:3 ποιῆσαι -- Why aorist?

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Scott Lawson wrote:Funny you should ask. Baugh comments on this very verse on pages 23 and 24 of his paper:
Thanks for the pointer to Baugh. I have his paper, but didn't look. Naturally, I agree with his analysis.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
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