Epistle to Diogenetus

Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Diog. 2:1 Ἄγε δή, καθάρας σεαυτὸν ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν προκατεχόντων σου τὴν διάνοιαν λογισμῶν, καὶ τὴν ἀπατώσάν σε συνήθειαν ἀποσκευασάμενος, καὶ γενόμενος ὥσπερ ἐξ ἀρχῆς καινὸς ἄνθρωπος, ὡς ἂν καὶ λόγου καινοῦ, καθάπερ καὶ αὐτὸς ὡμολόγησας, ἀκροατὴς ἐσόμενος· ἴδε μὴ μόνον τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἀλλὰ καὶ τῇ φρονήσει τίνος ὑποστάσεως ἢ τίνος εἴδους τυγχάνουσιν οὓς ἐρεῖτε καὶ νομίζετε θεούς

Diog. 2:1   Come, then, clear your mind of all its prejudices and cast aside the custom that deceives you, and become a new man, as it were, from the beginning, as if you were about to hear a new message, even as you yourself admit. See not only with your eyes but also with your intellect what substance or what form those whom you call and regard as gods happen to have.

Copyright ©1992, 1999 by Michael W. Holmes

Epistle to Diogenetus employs some intermediate level syntax. This sample is good exercise for study of the participle. You might wonder if you are ever going to find a finite verb. I had some fun with it, comparing it to the habits of Athanasius.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Re: Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Diog. 4:1 Ἀλλὰ μὴν τό γε περὶ τὰς βρώσεις αὐτῶν ψοφοδεές, καὶ τὴν περὶ τὰ σάββατα δεισιδαιμονίαν, καὶ τὴν τῆς περιτομῆς ἀλαζονείαν, καὶ τὴν τῆς νηστείας καὶ νουμηνίας εἰρωνείαν, καταγέλαστα καὶ οὐδενὸς ἄξια λόγου «οὐ» νομίζω σε χρῄζειν παρ᾿ ἐμοῦ μαθεῖν.

But with regard to their qualms about meats, and superstition concerning the Sabbath, and pride in circumcision, and hypocrisy about fasting and new moons, I doubt that you need to learn from me that they are ridiculous and not worth discussing.

— M. W. Holmes 1992
Twice in immediate proximity the author places a prepositional phrase in attributive position between the article and its substantive. Nothing remarkable about the syntax other than immediate repetition. The second sample being simplified. I looked at lots of similar samples and didn't manage to stumble upon any more examples like this.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Re: Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Diog. 7:1 Οὐ γὰρ ἐπίγειον, ὡς ἔφην, εὕρημα τοῦτ᾿ αὐτοῖς παρεδόθη, οὐδὲ θνητὴν ἐπίνοιαν φυλάσσειν οὕτως ἀξιοῦσιν ἐπιμελῶς, οὐδὲ ἀνθρωπίνων οἰκονομίαν μυστηρίων πεπίστευνται

Diog. 7:1   For this is, as I said, no earthly discovery that was committed to them, nor some mortal idea that they consider to be worth guarding so carefully, nor have they been entrusted with the administration of merely human mysteries.

— Michael W. Holmes 1992
In regard to the position of adverbs, a question asked recently [1], here we have ἐπιμελῶς showing up later rather than sooner and οὕτως may also be best construed with φυλάσσειν, but I am not perfectly certain.


[1] adverbs viewtopic.php?f=50&t=5204
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3351
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote: July 15th, 2020, 10:22 pm In regard to the position of adverbs, a question asked recently [1], here we have ἐπιμελῶς showing up later rather than sooner and οὕτως may also be best construed with φυλάσσειν, but I am not perfectly certain.
I've noticed that some higher literary texts really like to interleave (for want of a better word) their constituents, as I marked up with the colors below. I don't quite know what to make of it. It's not common in the NT, however.
Diog. 7:1 Οὐ γὰρ ἐπίγειον, ὡς ἔφην, εὕρημα τοῦτ᾿ αὐτοῖς παρεδόθη, οὐδὲ θνητὴν ἐπίνοιαν φυλάσσειν οὕτως ἀξιοῦσιν ἐπιμελῶς, οὐδὲ ἀνθρωπίνων οἰκονομίαν μυστηρίων πεπίστευνται

Diog. 7:1   For this is, as I said, no earthly discovery that was committed to them, nor some mortal idea that they consider to be worth guarding so carefully, nor have they been entrusted with the administration of merely human mysteries.

— Michael W. Holmes 1992
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
nathaniel j. erickson
Posts: 71
Joined: May 16th, 2016, 9:27 am
Contact:

Re: Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by nathaniel j. erickson »

I've noticed that some higher literary texts really like to interleave (for want of a better word) their constituents, as I marked up with the colors below. I don't quite know what to make of it. It's not common in the NT, however.
Markovic has a nice article on hyperbaton (Markovic, Daniel. “Hyperbaton in the Greek Literary Sentence.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 46 (2006): 127–46) which addresses this phenomenon. He argues that occurrences like this are part of the rhetorical structuring of the text. They have a couple of noticeable tendencies that produce rhetorical effect. They strongly tend to mark the final boundary of a "period" or "colon" in the Greek (terms from Greek rhetoric denoting a stretch of words roughly equivalent to a clause/sentence and a phrase, respectively, though distinct in ways still mysterious to me). Also, commonly they produce the effect that a particular stretch of the text is not understandable until "the shoe drops" at the end of that stretch where the hyperbaton either completes an expected meaning from earlier in the sentence or adds something unexpected. I suspect that these sorts of sentences, which are frequent in more literary Greek, are an entertaining flourish which highlight the author's education and command of the language and produced for Greek readers and hearer's a similar sort of giddy feeling that comes after reading a complex, well-structured English sentence and thinking "I understood that."

On Markovic's threefold typology of hyperbaton, this example would be "intertwining hyperbaton".
Nathaniel J. Erickson
NT PhD candidate, ABD
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
ntgreeketal.com
ὅπου πλείων κόπος, πολὺ κέρδος
ΠΡΟΣ ΠΟΛΥΚΑΡΠΟΝ ΙΓΝΑΤΙΟΣ
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Re: Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

nathaniel j. erickson wrote: July 16th, 2020, 12:37 pm ... they produce the effect that a particular stretch of the text is not understandable until "the shoe drops" at the end of that stretch where the hyperbaton either completes an expected meaning from earlier in the sentence or adds something unexpected.
Markovic also mentions withholding the verb until late in the "period" (a term used by philologists). I found many examples of this in Athanasius and now I am discovering them in the Epistle to Diogenetus. Markovic states:
The effect of the postponement of the verb in the periodic style is that the main verb, being extracted to the final position in the period, emphatically completes its sense and rounds it off.[1]
Here we go, salience marking, the once-size-fits-all explanation for virtually everything having to do with constituent order. I don't discount it, but there are other things going on here. Someone needs to explore the other things. Markovic actually does explore other things, marking the end of a "period" and interlacing are different from salience.

[1]Markovic, Daniel. “Hyperbaton in the Greek Literary Sentence.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 46 (2006) journal page 130, pdf page 4. (Apparently I used Markovic when looking at interlacing in Ajax in 2011. I posted something about it on another forum where it was ignored.) https://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-for ... hp?t=15513
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Re: Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Stephen Carlson wrote: July 16th, 2020, 1:40 am I've noticed that some higher literary texts really like to interleave (for want of a better word) their constituents, as I marked up with the colors below. I don't quite know what to make of it. It's not common in the NT, however.

I hadn't noticed it, I am just in the early stages of exegesis with Diogenetus.

I don't claim to have a capability to judge between levels of literary sophistication in Ancient texts. Some texts are difficult, that I understand. The questions about "register" which came up in SFL discussions made me aware of that there was something going on beyond my abilities to evaluate, like wine tasting. When you reach a certain level of familiarity with a genre, like Apocalyptic, then you begin to respond to it aesthetically. But this isn't the same thing as register. Simple syntax can be beautiful. Interlacing doesn't strike me as an aesthetic enhancement. Which says noting about register. A different topic.
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3351
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
Contact:

Re: Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Well, Eusebius complains/apologizes for the lack of literary sophistication of the gospels. I don't think I said "register" but there is a noticeable difference in style among some texts, and it generally follows cross-linguistic tendencies in more sophisticated texts having longer intonation units (cola), etc.
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
Stirling Bartholomew
Posts: 1141
Joined: August 9th, 2012, 4:19 pm

Re: Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by Stirling Bartholomew »

Diog. 8:2 ἢ τοὺς κενοὺς καὶ ληρώδεις ἐκείνων λόγους ἀποδέχῃ τῶν ἀξιοπίστων φιλοσόφων; ὧν οἱ μέν τινες πῦρ ἔφασαν εἶναι τὸν θεόν (οὗ μέλλουσι χωρήσειν αὐτοί, τοῦτο καλοῦσι θεόν) οἱ δὲ ὕδωρ, οἱ δ᾿ ἄλλο τι τῶν στοιχείων τῶν ἐκτισμένων ὑπὸ θεοῦ

Diog. 8:2 Or do you accept the empty and nonsensical statements of those pretentious philosophers, some of whom said that God was fire (the very thing they are headed for, they call God!), and others, water, and still others some other one of the elements created by God.

— Michael W. Holmes 1992
Rex Koivisto (rev 1.1, 2000) tagged οὗ as a relative pronoun. I am tossing the idea around that this could be an adverb. I didn't find χωρήσειν elsewhere following adverbial οὗ. I did find it following other adverbs.
Pap. 31:1 (5.1) Καὶ ὡς οἱ πρεσβύτεροι λέγουσι, τότε καὶ οἱ μὲν καταξιωθέντες τῆς ἐν οὐρανῷ διατριβῆς, ἐκεῖσε χωρήσουσιν, οἱ δὲ τῆς τοῦ παραδείσου τρυφῆς ἀπολαύσουσιν, οἱ δὲ τὴν λαμπρότητα τῆς πόλεως καθέξουσιν· πανταχοῦ δὲ ὁ σωτὴρ ὁραθήσεται, καθὼς «καὶ» ἄξιοι ἔσονται οἱ ὁρῶντες αὐτόν.

Pap. 31:1   {5:1} As the elders say, then[44] will those who have been deemed worthy of an abode in heaven go there, while others will enjoy the delight of paradise, and still others will possess the brightness of the city; for in every place the Saviour will be seen, to the degree that those who see him are worthy.
— Michael W. Holmes 1992

Ezek. 46:19 ¶ Καὶ εἰσήγαγέν με εἰς τὴν εἴσοδον τῆς κατὰ νώτου τῆς πύλης εἰς τὴν ἐξέδραν τῶν ἁγίων τῶν ἱερέων τὴν βλέπουσαν πρὸς βορρᾶν, καὶ ἰδοὺ τόπος ἐκεῖ κεχωρισμένος.

Ezek. 46:19   Then he brought me through the entrance, which was at the side of the gate, to the north row of the holy chambers for the priests; and there I saw a place at the extreme western end of them.


Scenario analysis:
In Diog. 8:2 πῦρ is an object that is equated in some manner with divinity. But in parenthetical statement fire appears to be a place, not an object of thought. The question introducing to topic reads:

Diog. 8:1 Τίς γὰρ ὅλως ἀνθρώπων ἠπίστατο τί ποτ᾿ ἐστὶ θεός, πρὶν αὐτὸν ἐλθεῖν;

Which raises a WHAT question, but then there seems to be a shift away from this perspective in the parenthetical remark. Then τοῦτο καλοῦσι θεόν brings us back to a consideration of πῦρ as an object that is equated in some manner with divinity. However, it looks like we find some sort of semantic skewing in the scenario with the verb χωρέω. Still working on this.
χωρέω fut. χωρήσω; 1 aor. ἐχώρησα; pf. κεχώρηκα (Just., Tat., Ath.) (Hom.+)
① to make movement from one place or position to another, go, go out/away, reach (Trag. et al.; pap)
ⓐ lit. (Just., A I, 19, 5 εἰς ἐκεῖνο χωρεῖν ἕκαστον ἐξ οὗπερ ἐγένετο) of food εἰς τὴν κοιλίαν χωρεῖ Mt 15:17 (=εἰσπορεύεται Mk 7:19.—Aristot., Probl. 1, 55 the drink εἰς τὰς σάρκας χωρεῖ). τοιαύτη διὰ τῆς σαρκὸς αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἔκρυσις ἐχώρησεν so strong was the discharge from his (Judas’s) body that it affected an entire region Papias (3:3). Of pers. εἰς τὸν ἴδιον τόπον μέλλει χωρεῖν IMg 5:1; cp. IEph 16:2. οὗ μέλλουσι χωρήσειν, τοῦτο that, to which they are destined to go Dg 8:2. εἴς τινα to someone (Appian, Bell. Civ. 3, 95 §395 χ. ἐς τὸν ἀδελφόν; 5, 29 §114) of Christ, who has gone to the Father IMg 7:2. ἔτι κάτω χώρει go down still farther Mt 20:28 D. Of the head of a tall figure χωροῦσα μέχρι τοῦ οὐρανοῦ it reached up to the sky GPt 10:40 (like Eris: Il. 4, 443).
ⓑ fig., of a report (Pla., Ep. 7, 333a; 338b λόγος ἐχώρει) εἰς ἡμᾶς ἐχώρησεν it has reached us 1 Cl 47:7. εἰς μετάνοιαν χωρεῖν come to repentance 2 Pt 3:9 (cp. Appian, Bell. Civ. 5, 30 §115 ἐς ἀπόστασιν χ.=turned to revolt). εἴς τι ἀγαθὸν χωρεῖν lead to some good B 21:7 (Soph., El. 615 εἰς ἔργον; Aristoph., Ran. 641 ἐς τὸ δίκαιον).
② to make an advance in movement, be in motion, go forward, make progress (Pla., Cratyl. 19, 402a the saying of Heraclitus πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει; Hdt. 3, 42; 5, 89; 7, 10; 8, 68; Aristoph., Pax 472; 509, Nub. 907; Polyb. 10, 35, 4; 28, 15, 12; Dionys.

Hal. 1, 64, 4; Plut., Galba 1057 [10, 1]; TestIss 1:11 v.l.; Jos., Ant. 12, 242; PTebt 27, 81 ἕκαστα χωρῆσαι κατὰ τὴν ἡμετέραν πρόθεσιν) ὁ λόγος ὁ ἐμὸς οὐ χωρεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν my word makes no headway among you J 8:37 (Moffatt; cp. Weymouth. Eunap., Vi. Soph. p. 103 χωρεῖ λόγος). Or perh. (as in 1b above) there is no place in you for my word (NRSV; cp. Goodsp. and 20th Cent.; Field, Notes 94f, w. ref. to Alciphron, Ep. 3, 7; Bultmann; DTabachovitz, Till betydelsen av χωρεῖν Joh. 8:37: Eranos 31, ’33, 71f.—Perh. also=χώραν ἔχειν Appian, Bell. Civ. 2, 70 §289 ὀλίγην ἐν αὐτοῖς χώραν ἔχειν; Alex. Aphr., Fat. 6 p. 169, 31 Br. χώραν ἐν αὐτοῖς ἔχει τὸ παρὰ φύσιν ‘even that which is contrary to nature has room [to be practiced] among them’; Ath., R. 20 p. 73, 18 οὐδʼ οὕτως ἕξει χώραν ἡ κατʼ αὐτῆς κρίσις not even so would any judgment of [the soul] take place).
source:
https://enacademic.com/searchall.php?SW ... 89&stype=0
C. Stirling Bartholomew
Barry Hofstetter
Posts: 2159
Joined: May 6th, 2011, 1:48 pm

Re: Epistle to Diogenetus

Post by Barry Hofstetter »

Stirling Bartholomew wrote: July 29th, 2020, 4:59 pm
Diog. 8:2 ἢ τοὺς κενοὺς καὶ ληρώδεις ἐκείνων λόγους ἀποδέχῃ τῶν ἀξιοπίστων φιλοσόφων; ὧν οἱ μέν τινες πῦρ ἔφασαν εἶναι τὸν θεόν (οὗ μέλλουσι χωρήσειν αὐτοί, τοῦτο καλοῦσι θεόν) οἱ δὲ ὕδωρ, οἱ δ᾿ ἄλλο τι τῶν στοιχείων τῶν ἐκτισμένων ὑπὸ θεοῦ

Diog. 8:2 Or do you accept the empty and nonsensical statements of those pretentious philosophers, some of whom said that God was fire (the very thing they are headed for, they call God!), and others, water, and still others some other one of the elements created by God.

— Michael W. Holmes 1992
Rex Koivisto (rev 1.1, 2000) tagged οὗ as a relative pronoun. I am tossing the idea around that this could be an adverb. I didn't find χωρήσειν elsewhere following adverbial οὗ. I did find it following other adverbs.
Interesting, but if it's not a relative pronoun, how do we make sense of τοῦτο? οὗ is often used adverbially = "where," but remember that it was originally understood with τόπου, "place" and that's how I read it here, "the place where they are going to go, this they call god."

Brilliant little riposte, though. They've mistaken hellfire for divinity!
N.E. Barry Hofstetter, M.A., Th.M.
Ph.D. Student U of FL
Instructor of Latin
Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy
καὶ σὺ τὸ σὸν ποιήσεις κἀγὼ τὸ ἐμόν. ἆρον τὸ σὸν καὶ ὕπαγε.
Post Reply

Return to “Church Fathers and Patristic Greek Texts”