Re: hH OUSA hAIRESIS in Acts 5:17

From: Mary L B Pendergraft (pender@wfu.edu)
Date: Fri Jan 09 1998 - 11:42:39 EST


At 10:18 AM 1/9/98 EST, DMills0418 wrote:
>I am a little puzzled by the phrase in Acts 5:17 that includes the participle
>of EIMI: ANASTAS DE hO ARCIEREUS KAI PANTES hOI SUN AUTWi, hH OUSA hAIRESIS
>TWN SADDOUKAIWN, EPLHSQHSAN ZHLOU. At first, I thought hH ought to be a
>relative pronoun, but it has no accent and it is not plural.

No, it's just the feminine sing. article, with hAIRESIS.

So my question
>is, how is this phrase connected to the main clause?

It's in apposition to the preceding nominatives, explaining a little more
about "the chief priest and those with him." To tell the truth, it's not
immediately clear to me whether the hAIRESIS includings the chief priest or
refers just to his associates. That's the kind of question the words alone
don't answer; it must be decided from other information. Some one will
surely know: _would_ the chief priest be a Sadducee?

If the phrase is like a
>parenthetical statement, why isn't there a finite verb instead of a
>participle?
You're right that it's parenthetical, but it's not a statement, just a noun
phrase. In English, for instance, we may say, "the university president
and those with him (the board of trustees)...." Come to think of it, this
example, if English usage is relevant, suggests that the phrase may refer
just to the associates.

>David R. Mills
>ESL instructor
>Creighton University
>
>

Mary

Mary Pendergraft
Associate Professor of Classical Languages
Wake Forest University
Winston-Salem NC 27109-7343
336-758-5331 (NOTE: this is a new number) pender@wfu.edu



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