Biblical conditioning, ἅπαξ

[Peng Huiguo]

Deissmann mentioned an interesting letter:

γινώσκειν σε θέλω, κύριε, περὶ Παύλου τοῦ στρατιώτου
περὶ τῆς φυγῆς, συνχωρῆσαι αὐτῷ τοῦτο τὸ ἅπαξ...
καὶ πάλιν ἐὰν μὴ παύσεται, ἔρχεται εἰς τὰς χεῖράς σου ἄλλο ἅπαξ.

That substantival ἅπαξ. So wrong and yet so expressive.
And that ἔρχεται εἰς τὰς χεῖράς σου; at first blush biblical sense kicks in and it reads like "he'll be at your mercy", but it actually means something else (check Deissmann's footnote no. 9 on pg. 206).

[Barry Hofstetter]

Not sure why it's "so wrong."

ἅπαξ ᾰ̔ (< IE *sm̥) πάξ adv. once OD. 12.22, 350 AESCHL. Pr. 209 ARISTOT. Pol. 1299a 10 etc.; πολλάκις καὶ οὐχὶ ἅ. many times and not just once HDT. 7.46.3; ἅ. ἔτι and once more AESCHL. Ag. 1322; πάνθ’ ἅ. all at once EUR. I.T. 528; ἅ. ἢ δὶς once or twice DIOG. 7.13 ἅπαξ καὶ δίς repeatedly VT Deut. 9:13, al.; τὸ ἅπαξ for this time VT Judg. 15:3; τὸ ἅπαξ τοῦτο for this instance VT 2Sam. 17:7...

Montanari, F. (2015). M. Goh & C. Schroeder (Eds.), The Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

[Peng Huiguo]

I'm aware of those LXX specimens. Deissmann mentioned some scholars thought it's probably a Coptic thing, but he differed. I mean how many times have you seen a substantival adverb? In English it's normal to say "I've not seen anyone walk this slowly", but "that other slowly" or "one more slowly"? It's nice to come across little anomalies like this though; I think it shows a vibrant snapshot of a living language.

[Barry Hofstetter]

I'm aware of those LXX specimens. Deissmann mentioned some scholars thought it's probably a Coptic thing, but he differed. I mean how many times have you seen a substantival adverb? In English it's normal to say "I've not seen anyone walk this slowly", but "that other slowly" or "one more slowly"? It's nice to come across little anomalies like this though; I think it shows a vibrant snapshot of a living language.

Ah, yes, I like that "a vibrant snapshot of a living language." But as for how many times I"ve seen a substantival adverb, more than once, such as τὸ νῦν...

ב . subst. τὸ νῦν the present time (Aristot.) w. prep. (X. et al.; ins, pap LXX) ἀπὸ τοῦ ν. from now on, in the future (SIG 982, 22; BGU 153, 14; 193 II, 11; POxy 479, 6; cp. IXanthos 86 D, ln. 8; s. LRobert, Nouvelles Inscriptions di Sardes ’64, 28f [other exx. in Dssm., NB 81=BS 253]; Sir 11:23f; Tob 7:12; 1 Macc 10:41; 11:35; 15:8; ApcMos 28; Jos., Ant. 13, 50) Lk 1:48; 5:10; 12:52; 22:69; Ac 18:6; 2 Cor 5:16a; ἄχρι τοῦ ν. until now (s. ἄχρι 1aα.—μέχρι τοῦ ν.: Just., D. 78, 8; Diod S 1, 22, 2; SIG 742, 35; BGU 256, 9; 667, 8; 3 Macc 6:28; Jos., Ant. 3, 322) Ro 8:22; Phil 1:5. ἕως τοῦ ν. until now (SIG 705, 44f [112 B.C.]; PMich 173, 14 [III B.C.]; Gen 32:5; 46:34; 1 Macc 2:33) Mt 24:21; Mk 13:19.

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 681). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

I read it as as an accusative substantive itself used adverbially, like Acts 4:29,  καὶ τὰ νῦν, κύριε, ἔπιδε ἐπὶ τὰς ἀπειλὰς αὐτῶν...

[Peng Huiguo]

accusative substantive itself used adverbially

Now go easy on jargon-stringing That BDAG portion made me think though: I know νῦν is classified only as an adverb, but could it be (I don't know the grammar term for this) one form for different words? Just as the word "now" is? So you can say "I'm writing now" (adverb) or "now is the time" (noun). Those prepositional νῦνs do seem like this latter type of "now", taking on the genitive case to satisfy ἀπό/ἄχρι/ἕως. For νῦν, maybe this is overthinking, but for ἅπαξ in the above text, something weird is going on:

συνχωρῆσαι αὐτῷ τοῦτο τὸ ἅπαξ is no problem; even an almost straight English translation makes easy sense: "Let him go this once". But that ἄλλο ἅπαξ at the end must surely give you a little pause, right? Think about a hypothetical ἄλλο νῦν — wth would that mean? I now think ἅπαξ isn't an adverb here, but a noun standing in for the event it's associated with (here, the carrying-out of the soldier's duty). Imho Acts 4:29 can be read this way too (Lord see what's happening this time), like how would removing that article before νῦν affect the sense of this verse?

Btw there's a lil mistake in my last comment: It wasn't Deissmann who differed; it was Ulrich Wilcken.

[Barry Hofstetter]

accusative substantive itself used adverbially

Now go easy on jargon-stringing That BDAG portion made me think though: I know νῦν is classified only as an adverb, but could it be (I don't know the grammar term for this) one form for different words? Just as the word "now" is? So you can say "I'm writing now" (adverb) or "now is the time" (noun). Those prepositional νῦνs do seem like this latter type of "now", taking on the genitive case to satisfy ἀπό/ἄχρι/ἕως. For νῦν, maybe this is overthinking, but for ἅπαξ in the above text, something weird is going on:

συνχωρῆσαι αὐτῷ τοῦτο τὸ ἅπαξ is no problem; even an almost straight English translation makes easy sense: "Let him go this once". But that ἄλλο ἅπαξ at the end must surely give you a little pause, right? Think about a hypothetical ἄλλο νῦν — wth would that mean? I now think ἅπαξ isn't an adverb here, but a noun standing in for the event it's associated with (here, the carrying-out of the soldier's duty). Imho Acts 4:29 can be read this way too (Lord see what's happening this time), like how would removing that article before νῦν affect the sense of this verse?

Btw there's a lil mistake in my last comment: It wasn't Deissmann who differed; it was Ulrich Wilcken.

Well, Greek has the trick of making anything substantive simply by planting an article in front. Prepositional phrases may be done this way, such as τοῖς ἐν οἰκίᾳ λέγω, "I am speaking to the people in the house," so it's no surprise that it may be done with an adverb. Sorry for the jargon linking (maybe it's my distant German background ) but the fact that τὰ νῦν in Acts is accusative is significant to its usage. How would that differ from just νῦν used as an adverb? I'm not sure there really is a difference in that context, although I suspect it might have sounded a bit more emphatic. But I seen no reason why ἄλλο ἅπαξ (the manuscript has the delightful variant ἅβαξ) can't be used similarly in an adverbial fashion even if substantive, "he will come into your hands at yet another time (once)."

But this brings back memories. My senior thesis as an undergraduate was a research paper on the non-literary papyri.

[Barry Hofstetter]

τὰ νῦν the phrase in the NT is used 5 times, and only in Acts:

Chapter 4 UBS5 (Ac 4:29)
καὶ λαοῖς Ἰσραήλ, 28 ποιῆσαι ὅσα ἡ χείρ σου καὶ ἡ βουλή [σου] προώρισεν γενέσθαι. 29 καὶ τὰ νῦν, κύριε, ἔπιδε ἐπὶ τὰς ἀπειλὰς αὐτῶν καὶ δὸς τοῖς δούλοις σου μετὰ παρρησίας πάσης λαλεῖν τὸν…

Chapter 5 UBS5 (Ac 5:38)
λαὸν8 ὀπίσω αὐτοῦ· κἀκεῖνος ἀπώλετο καὶ πάντες ὅσοι ἐπείθοντο αὐτῷ διεσκορπίσθησαν. 38 καὶ τὰ νῦν λέγω ὑμῖν, ἀπόστητε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώπων τούτων καὶ ἄφετε αὐτούς· ὅτι ἐὰν ᾖ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων ἡ βουλὴ…

Chapter 17 UBS5 (Ac 17:30)
ἀνθρώπου, τὸ θεῖον εἶναι ὅμοιον. 30 τοὺς μὲν οὖν χρόνους τῆς ἀγνοίας ὑπεριδὼν ὁ θεός, τὰ νῦν παραγγέλλει τοῖς ἀνθρώποις πάντας πανταχοῦ μετανοεῖν, 31 καθότι ἔστησεν ἡμέραν ἐν ᾗ μέλλει…

Chapter 20 UBS5 (Ac 20:32)
ὅτι τριετίαν νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν οὐκ ἐπαυσάμην μετὰ δακρύων νουθετῶν ἕνα ἕκαστον. 32 καὶ τὰ νῦν παρατίθεμαι ὑμᾶς τῷ θεῷ8 καὶ τῷ λόγῳ τῆς χάριτος αὐτοῦ, τῷ δυναμένῳ οἰκοδομῆσαι καὶ δοῦναι…

Chapter 27 UBS5 (Ac 27:22)
μοι μὴ ἀνάγεσθαι ἀπὸ τῆς Κρήτης κερδῆσαί τε τὴν ὕβριν ταύτην καὶ τὴν ζημίαν. 22 καὶ τὰ νῦν παραινῶ ὑμᾶς εὐθυμεῖν· ἀποβολὴ γὰρ ψυχῆς οὐδεμία ἔσται ἐξ ὑμῶν πλὴν τοῦ πλοίου. 23 παρέστη γάρ…

To me it looks like Luke is using it as a simple stylistic variant, but I actually like the idea that it might be more emphatic. BrillDAG:

also adv. τὸ νῦν and τὰ νῦν now, at this moment PIND. N. 7.101 HDT. 7.104.2 etc.

[Peng Huiguo]

My senior thesis as an undergraduate was a research paper on the non-literary papyri.

Have you read Deissmann? Thrilling read, as fresh now as ever, tho he extrapolates a bit too far sometimes. These old classics are just great. I had a similar thrill with Burgon's defence of Mark's long ending.

[Barry Hofstetter]

My senior thesis as an undergraduate was a research paper on the non-literary papyri.

Have you read Deissmann? Thrilling read, as fresh now as ever, tho he extrapolates a bit too far sometimes. These old classics are just great. I had a similar thrill with Burgon's defence of Mark's long ending.

Of course, he was my "primary secondary source" for that paper.