James 1:5-8

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Wes Wood
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Joined: September 20th, 2013, 8:18 pm

James 1:5-8

Post by Wes Wood »

[5] Εἰ δέ τις ὑμῶν λείπεται σοφίας, αἰτείτω παρὰ τοῦ διδόντος θεοῦ πᾶσιν ἁπλῶς καὶ μὴ ὀνειδίζοντος, καὶ δοθήσεται αὐτῷ: [6] αἰτείτω δὲ ἐν πίστει, μηδὲν διακρινόμενος, ὁ γὰρ διακρινόμενος ἔοικεν κλύδωνι θαλάσσης ἀνεμιζομένῳ καὶ ῥιπιζομένῳ: [7] μὴ γὰρ οἰέσθω ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐκεῖνος ὅτι λήμψεταί τι παρὰ τοῦ κυρίου [8] ἀνὴρ δίψυχος, ἀκατάστατος ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτοῦ.
Is it reasonable to suspect word play with ἁπλῶς and δίψυχος (something like ἁπλόω vs. διπλόω) since the author makes use of contrasting pairs throughout the text? To ask this question differently, do you think it is possible or likely that the author or an early reader would have connected the two thoughts?
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
cwconrad
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Re: James 1:5-8

Post by cwconrad »

Wes Wood wrote:
[5] Εἰ δέ τις ὑμῶν λείπεται σοφίας, αἰτείτω παρὰ τοῦ διδόντος θεοῦ πᾶσιν ἁπλῶς καὶ μὴ ὀνειδίζοντος, καὶ δοθήσεται αὐτῷ: [6] αἰτείτω δὲ ἐν πίστει, μηδὲν διακρινόμενος, ὁ γὰρ διακρινόμενος ἔοικεν κλύδωνι θαλάσσης ἀνεμιζομένῳ καὶ ῥιπιζομένῳ: [7] μὴ γὰρ οἰέσθω ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἐκεῖνος ὅτι λήμψεταί τι παρὰ τοῦ κυρίου [8] ἀνὴρ δίψυχος, ἀκατάστατος ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ὁδοῖς αὐτοῦ.
Is it reasonable to suspect word play with ἁπλῶς and δίψυχος (something like ἁπλόω vs. διπλόω) since the author makes use of contrasting pairs throughout the text? To ask this question differently, do you think it is possible or likely that the author or an early reader would have connected the two thoughts?
An interesting question. After one careful re-reading of the text after reading the question, my inclination was to say: no, it's not really likely. But then another reading made me realize how διακρινόμενος is highlighted here, so that the concept being highlighted in the passage seems to be the peril of a divided mind, a mind that wavers back and forth between alternative options; ἀνὴρ δίψυχος is going to be "a man of two minds." I haven't looked back at the text of Sophocles' Ajax, but my recollection is that the adjective ἁπλοῦς is used of Ajax in a positive sense in contrast to Odysseus, who is διπλοῦς -- Homer, of course, calls Odysseus πολύτροπος in a positive sense, "versatile"; the Roman poet Horace prefers to call him duplex Ulixes, for which "duplicitous" is not commendatory. So here God is not called ἁπλοῦς but is said to give ἁπλῶς. Einstein affirmed the rationality -- or intelligibility -- of the universe in a phrase reflecting the "complex" simplicity of God: Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber boshaft ist er nicht -- something like, "God is sophisticated, but not malicious." So I guess there's also something of the Quaker "gift to be simple" suggested by this snippet from James.
οὔτοι ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς πάντα θεοὶ θνητοῖς ὑπέδειξαν,
ἀλλὰ χρόνῳ ζητέοντες ἐφευρίσκουσιν ἄμεινον. (Xenophanes, Fragment 16)

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Retired)
Wes Wood
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Joined: September 20th, 2013, 8:18 pm

Re: James 1:5-8

Post by Wes Wood »

An interesting question. After one careful re-reading of the text after reading the question, my inclination was to say: no, it's not really likely. But then another reading made me realize how διακρινόμενος is highlighted here, so that the concept being highlighted in the passage seems to be the peril of a divided mind, a mind that wavers back and forth between alternative options; ἀνὴρ δίψυχος is going to be "a man of two minds."


This quote almost exactly describes my thinking.
Ἀσπάζομαι μὲν καὶ φιλῶ, πείσομαι δὲ μᾶλλον τῷ θεῷ ἢ ὑμῖν.-Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους 29δ
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