Which kind of Accusative ὑπηκόους γινομένους

[Girgis Boshra]

IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT TO THE CORINTHIANS, I do not Know why he uses the accusative case here, (ὑπηκόους γινομένους)

APF 1 Clement 60:4 δὸς ὁμόνοιαν καὶ εἰρήνην ἡμῖν τε καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν τὴν γῆν καθὼς ἔδωκας τοῖς πατράσιν ἡμῶν ἐπικαλουμένων σε αὐτῶν ὁσίως ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀληθείᾳ ὑπηκόους γινομένους τῷ παντοκράτορι καὶ ἐνδόξῳ ὀνόματί σου τοῖς τε ἄρχουσιν καὶ ἡγουμένοις ἡμῶν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς

APE 1 Clement 60:4 Give concord and peace to us and all who dwell upon the earth, even as Thou gavest to our fathers, when they called upon Thee in faith and truth, submissive as we are to Thine almighty and all-excellent Name.

[Robert Emil Berge]

It's a bit strange. I'm uncertain about this, but I'll give it a try anyway, and maybe someone who sees more clearly how the grammar works here can comment: I see other editions put a comma before ὑπηκόους, which I think makes more sense. Then it's either an accusative of respect (seeing that we are submissive to...), which seems to be the way the translation you cite takes it, or it's another object of δός (give us concord and peace ..., and that we become submissive to...). The first feels like the most obvious way to read it, so I would go for that. In either case ὑμᾶς has to be understood.

[Jonathan Robie]

Hmmmm, I'm not sure.

Could it be nominalizing the adjective, making it the subject, like this?

s ὑπηκόους
v.part γινομένους
io τῷ παντοκράτορι καὶ ἐνδόξῳ ὀνόματί σου

LSJ indicates that this happens with this word:

abs. as Subst., ὑπήκοοι, οἱ, subjects, X.HG4.1.36, etc.; ἡ ὑ. (sc. χώρα) D.C.36.53; τὸ ὑ. = οἱ ὑ., τὸ ὑ. τῶν ξυμμάχων Th.6.69, cf. D.C.37.25, etc.; the subject allies of Athens were called ὑπήκοοι, opp. αὐτόνομοι, Th.7.57, cf. 6.22, 8.2.

If so, it would be clearer with an article.

[Barry Hofstetter]

IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF CLEMENT TO THE CORINTHIANS, I do not Know why he uses the accusative case here, (ὑπηκόους γινομένους)

APF 1 Clement 60:4 δὸς ὁμόνοιαν καὶ εἰρήνην ἡμῖν τε καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν τὴν γῆν καθὼς ἔδωκας τοῖς πατράσιν ἡμῶν ἐπικαλουμένων σε αὐτῶν ὁσίως ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀληθείᾳ ὑπηκόους γινομένους τῷ παντοκράτορι καὶ ἐνδόξῳ ὀνόματί σου τοῖς τε ἄρχουσιν καὶ ἡγουμένοις ἡμῶν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς

APE 1 Clement 60:4 Give concord and peace to us and all who dwell upon the earth, even as Thou gavest to our fathers, when they called upon Thee in faith and truth, submissive as we are to Thine almighty and all-excellent Name.

Well, it's a problem, and it's recognized to be a problem. In Lightfoot's Apostolic Fathers:

δὸς ὁμόνοιαν καὶ εἰρήνην ἡμῖν τε καὶ πᾶσιν τοῖς κατοικοῦσιν τὴν γῆν, καθὼς ἔδωκας τοῖς πατράσιν ἡμῶν, ἐπικαλουμένων σε αὐτῶν ὁσίως ἐν πίστει καὶ ἀληθείᾳ, [ὥστε σώζεσθαι ἡμᾶς]* ὑπηκόους γινομένους τῷ παντοκράτορι καὶ παναρέτῳ ὀνόματί σου, τοῖς τε ἄρχουσιν καὶ ἡγουμένοις ἡμῶν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.

He adds ὥστε σώζεσθαι ἡμᾶς, a pure interpretive addition with no manuscript support, in order to make sense of the accusative ὑπηκόους γινομένους. I agree with the Robert's explanation that it's either an accusative of respect or an indirect statement with δός, but I would favor the latter, since the section is largely a prayer (with some nice allusions throughout to various OT texts). That he is praying for them to be obedient seems more likely to me than that he is describing them as obedient. But hey, I'd be happy with the other explanation as well. It does remind us that authors who actually knew the language can be creative with it in ways which we, who learn the rules, don't expect...

[cwconrad]

This is what's called an "anacoluthon," that is, a construction that is often somewhat lengthy, the sequential segments of which do not cohere properly. When I learned my English grammar, we were taught to call them "run-on sentences." They result from giving voice -- or continuing to write --strings of thought that haven't been structured adequately in our minds before we have given them oral or written form. I believe we do this more often than we like to admit, sometimes when we"re trying to express something that is rather complicated. Sometimes when we have written such a sentence in draft, we don't take the trouble to read back over it and correct that flawed structure. There are some texts like this in the GNT, one of the most notorious being Eph 1:3-13. I think anacolutha such as these occur not infrequently in prayer sequences, where the forward direction of the thought may often be extemporaneous and may deliberately include snippets of remembered/cited texts that seem appropriate to the context. That may or may not adequately explain the origin of these flawed compositions, but I think it's one explanation. If it is the case, then I suspect it is wrong to attempt to edit or "correct" such constructions on an assumption the "original" of the text was clearly thought-out and elaborated and that the difficulty we find is the result of a copyist's error. We may well be imposing a rational order upon a text that the author never articulated properly and might not have articulated as we do, even if given a chance.

[Girgis Boshra]

Many thanks for all your precious Comments, Robert Emil Berge, Barry Hofstetter, Jonathan Robie and cwconrad, I appreciate all what you wrote, an learned a lot from it.