Jean-Michel Colin wrote:"what do the writer/reader of the first century means/understands in these words ?"
I think that what you consider to be your fundamental question is what many members on this forum think that they are coming here to find in simply expressed terms.
Of course, as in other languages which are spoken by speakers from a variety of cultural backgrounds and educational levels, in the Greek of the first century, words will mean different things to people from different groups. By reading widely in Greek, one can see how different people and groups express their thoughts in Greek.
It might be useful to discuss for a moment how the learning process influences the way we approach the text:
1) At the beginning stages of learning,
Greek does seem to many students to be a language of absolutes that
expresses things more clearly than other languages are able to. This is a natural outcome of only knowing a little of the language; if you only know a little, then you can only understand or find a little. Then you go on and find...
2) After that at a later point, when there is just so much information and each form seems to be able to be taken in so many ways, there is a natural desire to find
THE one true right answer or interpretation to a verse or passage - something expressible again in absolute terms. Greek becomes a sort of quest for the holy grail - the one true reading that will bring order to the chaos and uncertainty that learning Greek has brought to our reading of the Bible. This is a natural human reaction seen time and again throughout various periods of history in numerous places to control the uncertainty around us and to bring order. But that is not the end of the matter...
3) Later still,
you will develop skills and gain experience to handle the natural uncertainty and unknown-ness that goes together with any human language.
My answer to your question was to encourage you to look forward to the third level of the three I have described just here, and to encourage you to begin working with the uncertainties and limitations that we find in reading Greek.
Jean-Michel Colin wrote:I'm very sensible to your statement, very well expressed. It's so often that we miss this simple fact that language doesn't describe reality as often or as well as it seems.
In the examples I gave, language expresses an earlier (obsolete) scientific understanding. I paralleled that to the way that perfection as a goal or a state is being expressed in a lanaguage. The theological understanding of God's relationship to people is not the same as what it used to have to express the relationship that people had to the "gods". You can ask yourself, what is it about the message of the Christian gospel inviting the human beings to fellowship with with Him, the Triune God, who in Himself shows us what true fellowship is, as opposed to the relationships of jealousy, spite and the fear of the reprocusions of hubris if anyone wanted to aspire to get to close to the so called "gods".
Jean-Michel Colin wrote:And obviously God is beyond the humans, and his τελειότης beyond ours. So how can it be that the greek sentence wants us to be τέλειοι as God himself is τέλειός ?
Your question is a Christological one (dealing with the incarnation and the gift of God), rather than a linguistic one. This is not really the place to discuss that in depth, but let me say somethings. It is the message that is expressed in the Greek,
not the Greek as a lanuage that tells us that. Greek has been used by many different thinkers and theologians to express various cosmogonies, cosmologies and beliefs. We read Greek because is one of the languages of the Scripture and of the early Christian centuries. Due to natural revelation, all human languages contain some awareness of God, of hope, or rebirth, of the struggle with death, and Greek is no exception. When we think so highly as you have expressed about Greek, it is because the Christian usage that the language is used for the languages highest usage. Becareful, however not to take an admiration of Greek too far. The message is bigger than the medium.
Stephen Hughes wrote:this adjective τέλειος we find that human language is able to express a measure of truth concerning the process of our becoming more Christian in character and actions, but at the end of the sequence we do not find the final part of the sequence, but rather that the sequence itself is no longer relevent, and the end is not defined by the sequence, but by the state that it then expresses - perfection.
The τέλος is the end, and the beginning is the ἀρχή and in between them are many steps. If you try to imagine how to get from ἀρχή to τέλος in one jump, it will seem like too much - actually thing just sort of happen as they come and one things leads to another if you let it.
Yes, if you would like to think of it simply, putting an ὡς makes what follows it into an adverb of manner (as a rough equivalent), ie ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ οὐράνιος τέλειός ἐστιν. The unchanging model for τελειότης is your heavenly father ("father" also with the meaning model for behaviour). The ὡς makes "your" father in heaven the measure of all τελειότης. The father is knowable, having for us the intimate name of a family member.
The Greek doesn't tell you to pursue " not from any other τελειότης". It seems from the historical Church that other forms of τελειότης and striving for virtue were adopted by the Church at various times and to varying degrees, because those things were not against the Faith and were helpful for some people to understand or better practice their faith. While that is an interesting question in itself, that question needs to be answered in the terms that are outside the scope of this forum.
You are right about my misspelling of ineffable.