[b-greek] Re: 1Cor 13:6

From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Sun Sep 17 2000 - 08:11:04 EDT


At 9:36 PM -0400 9/16/00, Dmitriy Reznik wrote:
>Dear friends:
>
>Will you please help me with understanding of 1Cor 13:6:
>[Love] OUK CAIREI EPI THi ADIKIAi SUGCAIREI DE THi ALHQHIAi?
>
>I would like to get meaning of SUGCAIREI DE THi ALHQHIAi. Is it "rejoices
>with the truth"? Or "rejoices in the truth"? Or something else?

Admittedly this verse is puzzling, and one hasn't gone very far toward
understanding it if one doesn't get beyond, "doesn't rejoice at injustice
but shares joy in truth." In the paraphrase that I did for my daughter's
wedding several years ago I converted the Greek text of this verse as:

        "Loving-kindness isn't pleased
                when someone gets hurt;
                what really thrills it
                        is integrity winning out."

That might seem hard to justify, but it does seem to me that ALHQEIA here
must be intended as an antithesis of ADIKIA. Moreover I've always been
inclined to think that the real sense of the phrase ALHQEUEIN EN AGAPHi in
Eph 4:15 must mean not simply "speak the truth," as it's commonly turned,
but rather, "be honest, be honorable, display integrity." For that reason I
would like to understand verse 6 of 1 Cor 13 in terms of the perspective
that AGAPH or (more properly speaking) hO AGAPWN holds regarding ADIKIA and
ALHQEIA. Once having reached that point, the antithesis involved seems
rather that between "wrongdoing" and "acting with integrity."

At any rate, that's what I think about this. But I think it's a very good
and very worthwhile question, and I'd like to see what others think about
it.

--

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/

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