Re: Tit 1:1-2

From: Mike Sangrey (mike@sojurn.lns.pa.us)
Date: Tue Jan 25 2000 - 22:54:58 EST


cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu said:
> Let me try again with the image that always looms in my mind for KATA
> + acc.: it is movement alongside the course of a river flowing
> downstream

>> PAULOS DOULOS QEOU APOSTOLOS DE IHSOU XRISTOU KATA PISTIN EKLEKTWN QEOU
>> KAI EPIGNWSIN ALHQEIAS THS KAT EUSEBEIAN EP ELPIDI ZWHS AIWNIOU...,

When I see KATA + acc. I think of a railroad track--the one rail running true
to the other. The subject of the preposition being the one rail the
object being the other.

> I think the first KATA is a bit easier, and I would
> suggest that the difficulties here arise, to some extent, from the
> conglomeration of abstract nouns in such tight proximity that, instead of
> being on the ground where the concrete relationships of concrete
> perceptibles is not confusing, we are way up in the blue and dealing with
> relationships of abstractions to each other, the relationships themselves
> being anything but concrete, being surely metaphorical. What does it mean
> to say that "truth" is "in accordance with" "reverence"? The only thing I'd
> say here for sure is that the sort of truth being talked about could NEVER
> be INCONSISTENT with reverence.

I agree with Carl, but I don't think the difficulties arise from the
text, but from our own perceptions that these nouns are abstract. If
we think in more practical terms, the text automatically becomes more
concrete. Perhaps I'm forcing things, but let me state my case, for
what it may be worth.

I think of EUSEBEIA as 'practical godward devotion'. I think, and perhaps
this is just me, 'reverence' has too much a religious tone. True, it had
a religious tone in the first century, too; but religion was different
back then. Then, it was part of life (please correct me if I'm wrong);
today we have separated the secular and the religious. Western society
thinks in terms of "reverence is something those religious people do."

Moulton & Milligan cite a letter "The word = 'loyalty' occurs in the
copy of a letter of date A.D. 46 in which the Emperor Claudius thanks
an athletic club for a golden crown sent to him on the occasion of his
victorious campaign in Britain--EPI THi KATA BRETANNWN NEIKNi XRUSOUN
S[TE]FANON hHDEWS ELABON SUMBOLON PERIEXONTA THS hUMETERAS PROS ME
EUSEBEIAS." I would note the practical expression and the gloss of
'loyalty'.

Also, in 2 Peter 1:5f we have a list of abstract words, but they have
no real meaning unless they are lived practically. There, EUSEBIA fits
in a nice triplet with FILADELFIA and AGAPH. I take these in a rather
practical sense. That is, add to your expressions of devotion to God,
love for your friends, and add to that love for whomever. Why would
one have to UPOMONH if it wasn't rather down to earth?

So then, the thought in Titus 1 is this: Paul's whole purpose in being
an Apostle was to evince faith and an intimate knowledge of truth which
runs true with the practical expressions of devotion to God." There was
to be faith, but also a consistency between truth and practice.

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