Matt. 21:17 Questioning Passive Deponency of αυλιζομαι

[PhillipLebsack]

καὶ καταλιπὼν αὐτοὺς ἐξῆλθεν ἔξω τῆς πόλεως εἰς Βηθανίαν, καὶ ηὐλίσθη ἐκεῖ.

Wouldn't it be more consistent with the passive, and the lexical background of αὐλίζομαι, to take this passage as saying something to the effect of Jesus was forced to spend the night in Bethany, rather than taking this as a so-called "deponent passive" (NET, NRSV, NASB, NIV)?

Αὐλίζομαι spend the night, lie in the αὐλή or courtyard
αὐλή, ῆς, ἡ enclosed courtyard

So ηὐλίσθη is essentially the idea of "he-was courted" or "forced to lie in the αὐλή (for the night)" by some other entity (perhaps the crowds who loved him and who wanted him to stay the night, as we find elsewhere in the Gospels).

The middle form of Αὐλίζομαι could have just as easily been used here if the passive idea was not intended.

[Barry Hofstetter]

It is what the traditional grammars call a passive deponent. There is no idea of "forced" and it is used consistently of "spend the night" throughout Greek literature.

αὐλίζομαι impf. ηὐλιζόμην. Pass.: fut. αὐλισθήσομαι LXX; JosAs 9:5; 1 aor. ηὐλίσθην (s. αὐλή; Hom.+; OGI 730, 7 [III B.C.]; pap; LXX; JosAs 9:4f; Joseph.) orig. of spending the night in the αὐλή, viz. in the open air, then also of temporary lodging, w. context indicating whether outdoors (‘bivouac’) or indoors.
① gener. to have a temporary sleeping arrangement, spend the night (Eupolis [V B.C.] 322; Nicol. Dam.: 90 Fgm. 4 p. 332, 17 Jac. [indoors]; Arrian, Anab. 6, 25, 5 [army bivouacking]; Ctesias: 688 Fgm. 24 Jac. [=Ps.-Demetr., Eloc. §216] ‘where noble men must spend the night’—in euphem. ref. to the death of Cyrus as sleep; Judg 19:6f, 10f; 20:4B; Ruth 3:13 αὐλίσθητι τὴν νύκτα al. LXX; Jos., Ant. 1, 279) ἐκεῖ (Judg 19:7; Tob 6:1BA) Mt 21:17; εἴς τι Lk 21:37 (cp. Tob 14:9BA μηκέτι αὐλισθῆτε εἰς Νινευή, but the sense here is ‘stay’, s. 2 below; spend some time is also poss. for the Lk pass., but bivouac is certainly prob. in view of the chosen locale, s. 22:39). ἕως οὗ αὐλισθῇ until he finds lodging (again) D 11:6 (indoors).

Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., p. 150). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

For its use in broader Greek literature:

αὐλίζω αὐλή impf. mid. ηὐλιζόμην ‖ fut. mid. αὐλίσομαι ‖ aor. mid. ηὐλισάμην ‖ pf. ptc. mid. pass. ηὐλισμένος ARR. An. 3.29.7 ‖ ppf. mid. pass. 3. sg. ηὔλιστο IOS. B.I. 1.334 ‖ aor. pass. ηὐλίσθην ‖ fut. pass. [αὐλισθήσομαι] ① act. causat. (only later) to dwell VT Jer. 38:9 DCHR. 35.16 ② usu. mid. pass. ⓐ to dwell in the open, esp. of livestock OD. 12.265 (oxen), 14.412 (pigs) | to spend the night in the open EUP. 347 | milit. to bivouac, during the day and more frequently at night THUC. 6.7.2, al. HLD. 9.8.4 etc. ⓑ extens. to sojourn, live HDT. 3.110 (birds), 9.93.1 (flocks) ARISTOT. H.A. 619a 30 etc.; οἵοις ἐν πέπλοις αὐλίζομαι in such robes I live EUR. El. 304 | trans. α. πόλεις ἐρήμους to dwell in desolate cities VT Job 15:28 ‖ medic. to fix, collect, of blood ARET. S.A. 2.2.9 (v.l.) ⓒ to delay, hold back VT Tob. BA 4:14 aor. inf. act. αὐλίσαι HSCH. L. Sud. etc. ‖ aor. always mid. in THUC., always pass. in XEN.

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

[PhillipLebsack]

Hi Barry. Thanks for the Brill Dictionary quote. A couple of things...

1) "force" is a red herring. Pardon by bad choice of words. My assertion is just that the passive is functioning as a passive (however you want to translate it). Maybe "he was made/caused to spend the night" is better. How would you convey the passive of this verb without supplying something like "caused" or "made"?

2) I haven't checked every reference, but from random sampling in the LXX (the word occurs only twice in the NT, the other time as a middle), it does seem like even if you render it as a passive, in effect, it ends up being what we call "deponent" in the end result of meaning. But the fact there is both a middle and passive form of the verb available in the aorist seems like there must be something more to the passive than mere deponency.

Though, to counter that, in the NT and the LXX, I could not find any individual book that used both the aorist passive and the aorist middle, they either had all of one or the other. Nor are there any aorist middles in the NT or the LXX. In Luke, it is an imperfect middle.

So I wonder if this is some inconsistency in the language as a result of individual authorial preference.

[Eeli Kaikkonen]

The current consensus is that "deponent" isn't very good word to describe the semantics of the voice forms. The meaning is naturally "subject affected", so both passive and middle are natural forms to express "to dwell". That's how it's used according to the dictionaries. Therefore there's no reason to interpret as a semantic passive unless there's something explicit in the context (an agent with υπο).

I don't know enough to say if it could be used that way, I think it would be a matter of telling if any similarly behaving word can be used that way. So, we should find words with
* active causative
* passive subject-affected ("deponent")
* is there passive + υπο which would make it semantically passive?

(But note also the history of this word: even active causative is "only later", so taking passive as causative wouldn't probably be very natural.)

Maybe someone can already answer that.

[David Fish]

I might point to Rachel Aubrey's chapter in The Greek Verb Revisited, who echoes Carl Conrad's work on the move of the aorist passive towards the aorist middle. In less than four hours now, I will get to listen to one of my students reflections on that chapter, and presentation to the other members of my class who have NOT read that chapter.

I was just reminded of a section from the Didache that my students encountered in the past week: ἐξερχόμενος δὲ ὁ ἀπόστολος μηδὲν λαμβανέτω εἰ μὴ ἄρτον, ἕως οὗ αὐλισθῇ· ἐὰν δὲ ἀργύριον αἰτῇ, ψευδοπροφήτης ἐστίν. (Didache 11.6).

Certainly in that passage, the finding lodging is something that the hypothetical ἀπόστολος would do for himself (subject-affectedness) instead of having it done to or for him.

Bibliographical note: chapter 18 of the book cited above is titled "Motivated Categories, Middle Voice, and Passive Morphology."

[MAubrey]

I might point to Rachel Aubrey's chapter in The Greek Verb Revisited, who echoes Carl Conrad's work on the move of the aorist passive towards the aorist middle. In less than four hours now, I will get to listen to one of my students reflections on that chapter, and presentation to the other members of my class who have NOT read that chapter.

It might be a larger challenge for your students, but her full discussion of middle voice is now available here: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/296246183.pdf

She's working on the process of getting it published now, too.

[MAubrey]

Hi Barry. Thanks for the Brill Dictionary quote. A couple of things...

1) "force" is a red herring. Pardon by bad choice of words. My assertion is just that the passive is functioning as a passive (however you want to translate it). Maybe "he was made/caused to spend the night" is better. How would you convey the passive of this verb without supplying something like "caused" or "made"?

2) I haven't checked every reference, but from random sampling in the LXX (the word occurs only twice in the NT, the other time as a middle), it does seem like even if you render it as a passive, in effect, it ends up being what we call "deponent" in the end result of meaning. But the fact there is both a middle and passive form of the verb available in the aorist seems like there must be something more to the passive than mere deponency.

Though, to counter that, in the NT and the LXX, I could not find any individual book that used both the aorist passive and the aorist middle, they either had all of one or the other. Nor are there any aorist middles in the NT or the LXX. In Luke, it is an imperfect middle.

So I wonder if this is some inconsistency in the language as a result of individual authorial preference.

No inconsistency, θη just doesn't mean 'passive'. I would second the recommendation of giving Rachel Aubrey's chapter on middle voice in the Greek Verb Revisited a read. Intransitive verbs that involve posture (here spent the night = lying down sleeping) tend to default to being middle-only.

The aorist middle would be inappropriate here because it stopped being used body motion/posture verbs several hundred years before the New Testament.

[Barry Hofstetter]

Some really good responses above regarding the actual linguistic reality behind what we old dogs still call deponents. To explain the traditional terminology a bit better, a "middle deponent" is one which uses only middle forms throughout, even when as for the future and aorist there is a separate set of forms for both middle and passive. A "passive deponent" uses only passive forms for the future and aorist. Remember that for the present, the imperfect and the perfect there is only one set of morphemes for the both the middle and passive, and only context informs you when there is a difference in usage (for those verbs, the vast majority, which also have active forms).

[David Fish]

Some really good responses above regarding the actual linguistic reality behind what we old dogs still call deponents. To explain the traditional terminology a bit better, a "middle deponent" is one which uses only middle forms throughout, even when as for the future and aorist there is a separate set of forms for both middle and passive. A "passive deponent" uses only passive forms for the future and aorist. Remember that for the present, the imperfect and the perfect there is only one set of morphemes for the both the middle and passive, and only context informs you when there is a difference in usage (for those verbs, the vast majority, which also have active forms).

Barry, I also am one of those old dogs, but am trying to learn some new tricks, so I don't actively use the "D" word. The report by my student on Rachel Aubrey's article was very well done, deserving of an A, I believe. These are undergraduates, but destined for further study, so I am pleased to have them do such reading.

[Barry Hofstetter]

Barry, I also am one of those old dogs, but am trying to learn some new tricks, so I don't actively use the "D" word. The report by my student on Rachel Aubrey's article was very well done, deserving of an A, I believe. These are undergraduates, but destined for further study, so I am pleased to have them do such reading.

To which I can only say "Woof..." But seriously, I haven't given up on the D word yet, because I think it still covers a multitude of sins. We can understand the underlying linguistic reality while still preserving the term, just investing it with new meaning. Happens all the time in synchronic development. I try to keep up with the metalanguage just so I can talk to people using it...