Vocative Article

[mmorris]

In Ephesians 5:22 it has Αἱ γυναῖκες, in which I have now seen multiple interlinearies say the article Αἱ is vocative. Every grammar book I have read all say there is no such thing as a vocative article.

Are these interlinearies wrong, or am I misunderstanding what the Grammar books are saying?

Thanks for any help!

[Shirley Rollinson]

In Ephesians 5:22 it has Αἱ γυναῖκες, in which I have now seen multiple interlinearies say the article Αἱ is vocative. Every grammar book I have read all say there is no such thing as a vocative article.

Are these interlinearies wrong, or am I misunderstanding what the Grammar books are saying?

Thanks for any help!

Interlinears are a broken crutch. Don't use them. Not unless you want to go around saying "Me Tarzan You Jane" and never get beyond that level of comprehension.
Remember how the Vocative case is used - for addressing or calling out to someone. English does not use an article in such cases - we do not say "Hey, the Fred, look at that!" or "The Mary, why did you do that?". Greek (and some other languages) can use a definite article with a vocative noun - but one can think of it either as "there is no distinct form for a vocative definite article, so Greek uses a nominative instead" or else "the vocative and the nominative of the definite article have the same form" We need to be thinking about the grammatical function of a word within a sentence, rather than just giving it a label. Actually, as I read the Greek of Ephesians 10:22, Αἱ γυναῖκες could be nominative - "The women to (their) own husbands just like to the Lord." The Greek here does not have a verb - we have to understand "deferring" (or something similar) from the υποτασσομενοι of v.21, or just put in "being/behaving"
Just to check what your interlinears are doing, you might check to see how they deal with some of the passages in Revelation, where God is addressed (vocative) but a nominative form is used for the article and the associated noun, eg. Rev.11:17 "κυριε ο θεος ο παντορκράτωρ", similarly Rev.4:11, Rev.6:19, Rev.15:3, Rev.16:4, or Mark 14:36 "Aββα ὁ πατήρ" where πατήρ is also in the nominative.

[Jonathan Robie]

Interlinears are a broken crutch. Don't use them. Not unless you want to go around saying "Me Tarzan You Jane" and never get beyond that level of comprehension.

Since Barry is no longer here to weigh in, I have to quote him on this subject:

There is not too much concerning which I am dogmatic. A few theological issues and the fact that interlinears are the spawn of the devil. They are the linguistic equivalent of brain eating zombies. They are the dark side, the power of which you don't want to experience...

Back to Shirley ...

Greek (and some other languages) can use a definite article with a vocative noun - but one can think of it either as "there is no distinct form for a vocative definite article, so Greek uses a nominative instead" or else "the vocative and the nominative of the definite article have the same form" We need to be thinking about the grammatical function of a word within a sentence, rather than just giving it a label. Actually, as I read the Greek of Ephesians 10:22, Αἱ γυναῖκες could be nominative - "The women to (their) own husbands just like to the Lord." The Greek here does not have a verb - we have to understand "deferring" (or something similar) from the υποτασσομενοι of v.21, or just put in "being/behaving"

Very well put.

Textual differences are also worth mentioning here. The text looks quite different depending on whether you are using a Byzantine text. In Nestle/Aland, this is not a complete sentence in Greek:

αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ,

So you have to combine verse 22 with verse 21 to start making sense of it (and hopefully, keep reading from there):

Ὑποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ, αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ,

That reading does not have vocative meaning. Byzantine texts generally look more like what we are used to a King James Bible:

Αἱ γυναῖκες, τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν ὑποτάσσεσθε, ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ.

And in this text, women are addressed directly, just as they are in some English translations.

Here's how the Center for New Testament Restoration depicts the early variants and the decisions made by some critical texts:

Screenshot 2022-07-10 175123.png (253.5 KiB) Viewed 16328 times

[Stephen Carlson]

In Ephesians 5:22 it has Αἱ γυναῖκες, in which I have now seen multiple interlinearies say the article Αἱ is vocative. Every grammar book I have read all say there is no such thing as a vocative article.

Are these interlinearies wrong, or am I misunderstanding what the Grammar books are saying?

Thanks for any help!

A lot of these resources confuse or are inconsistent about the difference between form and function. There is no vocative form for the article, but the nominative may be used for the function of direct address, which the main function of the vocative. What you're reading are different analysis of the same thing.

Also, most manuscripts read a verb and I'm inclined to go along with it, so it may not even be direct address in the first place but simply the subject.

[Jason Hare]

In Ephesians 5:22 it has Αἱ γυναῖκες, in which I have now seen multiple interlinearies say the article Αἱ is vocative. Every grammar book I have read all say there is no such thing as a vocative article.

Are these interlinearies wrong, or am I misunderstanding what the Grammar books are saying?

Thanks for any help!

It’s clear that quoting the verses is always the best way to start a new thread. We say it a lot, but it really is important. Quote the verse that you’re asking about so that we can directly read it and make a judgment rather than having to go to software to pull it and quote it for you. We cannot tell you how a word is used syntactically without seeing it in context, and I’m sure that no one here has the entire Greek New Testament memorized to the point that you can say “Ephesians 5:22” and they just know exactly what the verse says!

ὑποτασσόμενοι ἀλλήλοις ἐν φόβῳ Χριστοῦ, αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἰδίοις ἀνδράσιν ὡς τῷ κυρίῳ, ὅτι ἀνήρ ἐστιν κεφαλὴ τῆς γυναικὸς ὡς καὶ ὁ Χριστὸς κεφαλὴ τῆς ἐκκλησίας, αὐτὸς σωτὴρ τοῦ σώματος· ἀλλʼ ὡς ἡ ἐκκλησία ὑποτάσσεται τῷ Χριστῷ, οὕτως καὶ αἱ γυναῖκες τοῖς ἀνδράσιν ἐν παντί. (Ephesians 5:21–24, NA28)

What most annoys me is that we have a participle in the beginning that doesn’t appear to have a verb to depend on. Most translations begin a new sentence here, rendering the participle as an imperative. It probably depends on the main verb from verse 18. “Be filled with the spirit, while doing x and doing y and doing z.” In this case, “be filled with the spirit... while submitting to one another in the fear of Christ.” He then gives the specific case of women. It should not be rendered as a vocative, but giving a specific case of the submitting (ὑπόταξις), that women should submit to their own husbands as to the Lord. There’s no reason to use a vocative here (unless one goes with the Byzantine text, as Jonathan mentiond above, since it exhibits a second-person plural interpolated verb).

[Jean Putmans]

This probably indeed should not be tagged as Vokative, but as an Address:

Siebenthal, Ancient Greek Grammar:

[Par. 148b:]
2. Nominative noun phrases used as vocatives: a) Vocative forms that are recognizable as such due to a characteristic ending are not uncommon in the NT, especially in the Gospels, e.g. κύριε lord, διδάσκαλε teacher, δοῦλε servant, υἱέ son, δέσποτα master, γύναι woman, βασιλεῦ king. b) Frequently, however, noun phrases with a nominative head are used as vocatives, even in the case of nouns with a clearly marked vocative form, e.g.: Note that the vocative form θεέ occurs very rarely (so in Mt 27:46; 2Sm 7:25 LXX; Josephus, Antiquities 14.24); ὁ θεός is generally used instead (BDF §147.3). c) When nominative noun phrases are used as vocatives (especially in cases where vocative forms exist), KG typically adds the article (↑130b), e.g.: 148c3. An adjective as an attributive (↑137a) modifier of a vocative noun will, according to concord rules (↑263a), be in the vocative as well (if such a form exists), e.g.: ↑also Mt 25:21. Interestingly, in the vocative exclamation of Mt 23:37 and Lk 13:34 πρὸς αὐτήν to her is used to refer (anaphorically) to the vocative rather than the expected πρὸς σέ to you: (ii) Accusative 149Accusative: preliminaries (↑BR §163; BDF §148ff; Z §66ff) 149a1. The Ancient Greek accusative has mainly three syntactic roles: a) An accusative noun phrase (its head being in the accusative, as also any expansions showing concord) first of all functions as a direct object (Od; answering the question “Whom/What …?”): the “object accusative” (↑150–154). The Od noun Σὺ δέ, ὦ ἄνθρωπε θεοῦ …·But you, O man of God …!
(1Tm 6:11) ναὶ ὁ πατήρ … Yes, Father …
(Lk 10:21) ἐξέλθατε ὁ λαός μου.Come out of her, my people! (Re 18:4)

Kühner-Gerth 1897, Vol I, Par. 356, 5 (p. 46) „Regelmässig ist der Nominativ mit vorgesetztem Artikel in der Anrede, wenn dem Substantive eine attributive Bestimmung in der Form einer Apposition beigefügt ist, wo man nach der deutschen Ausdrucksweise den Vokativ erwarten sollte.“

(Short : in Addresses : Art + Nominative + Apposition, so Kühner-Gerth don‘t call this a Vokativ but an Address).

[mmorris]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Interlinears with parsing can be a crutch, but they are also helpful to see how someone was translating something. Obviously this could be nominative for vocative, but I thought it strange that they tagged the article as vocative.