Re: Acts 17:28

From: Carl William Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Mon Feb 09 1998 - 15:21:01 EST


On Mon, 9 Feb 1998, Jim West wrote:

> At 02:04 PM 2/9/98 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >As for KINOUMEQA, it's middle: the intransitive use, whereas the active
> >would be transitive.
>
> Middle? Though that is grammatically possible it would simply make no sense
> in context to translate the verb as a middle.
>
> "In whom we live, and move ourselves, and have being"? Nonsensical. It
> must be "in whom we live, are moved, and have our existence".

Well, for my part, I'll have to agree with Mary here. I think it is really
middle and that middle fits the context quite well, in that the three
actions/states are coordinated here. Moreover, in terms of the Stoic
philosophy that underlies Aratus (even if it is a poetic version of a work
of Theophrastus), Zeus is less a personal deity than a rational principle
permeating the universe. Consider the opening lines of Aratus that precede
the half-line actually cited by the Lucan Paul here (and I think that the
citation probably IS meant to call to mind the remainder of the proem of
this poem of Aratus that was so popular in the first century that it was
translated four times into Latin):

        EK DIOS ARCWMESQA, TON OUDEPOT' ANDRES EWMEN
        ARRHTON: MESTAI DE DIOS PASAI MEN AGUIAI,
        PASAI D' ANQRWPWN AGORAI, MESTH DE QALASSA
        KAI LIMENES: PANTH DE DIOS KECRHMEQA PANTES.
        EK GAR TOU GENOS ESMEN ...

The tone and tenor of this is more or less pantheistic, unless one would
prefer to call it panentheistic. And I think that the author of Acts knows
the poem.

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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