σαυτοῦ

[Stephen Hughes]

I am happy to get on to genitives, as I am trying to improve my understanding of them

It is a very broad subject. I don' think one can every "master" a case, just get better at / more skilful at using it - and that basically means being able to test each instance against as many possible "genitives" as possible and be able to make a good choice about which one is used in which place.

The earlier stages had a different way of using the cases, and if you look into Smythe for direction, you are probably going to get an explanation of that, but since you are reading patristic texts that will be useful to a greater or lesser degree. Generally speaking, the later you go in the language, the more the genitive is confined to the possessive. If one of the Greek speaking Fathers uses the genitive according to the classical idiom it is probably because of his educational background or the extent of his reading (and copying).

BTW Extra to my two examples in my former post that you criticised... In addition to being able to reaplace (paraphrase) the genitive by a participle or a relative clause, the genitive (as everything but possesive) was also "paraphrased out" of the language by an increase in the use of adjectives. I see that that has been considered in the thead about κατὰ τὸ κράτος τῆς δόξης αὐτοῦ (Col. 1:11) that you linked to.

'the works of Shakespeare', you might say that the implied verb is 'written by', but one could also reasonably say that they belong, or belonged, to him. He has ownership of them, defined in a fairly broad way, I would have thought.

That will work to some degree for an modern-thinking English speaker, yes.

εἰς τὴν κάμινον κειμένους αὐτοὺς ὁρῶντες τῆς κακίας, ἀναστήσωμεν. Ἀλλ' οὐ διορθοῦται, φησίν. Ἀλλὰ σὺ τὸ σαυτοῦ πρᾶξον, καὶ ἀπελογήσω τῷ Θεῷ.

When we see them lying prostrate in the furnace of wickedness, let us raise them up. “But,” they say, “it is of no use, he is incorrigible.” However, do thou thy duty, and then thou hast excused thyself to God. (NPNF Homily 18)

That translation came out of the ethos of Victorian England, I think. Taking σὺ τὸ σαυτοῦ πρᾶξον as something like "love your "fallen" brother (fellow humanbeing) as yourself" seems to work too, and leaves open the possibility that the ἀπελογήσω τῷ Θεῷ is to say that your "excuse" is not to "get yourself off the hook", but is an appeal to God to save your brother - your attempts to "save" them is (how do you call it) a living prayer - we try our best and trust God to do the rest. The translation expresses the "I've done what was required of me, so I'm clear of your guilt" thinking that seems to have been in the translator's thinking rather than necessarily in the sermon.

Τί οὖν, ἂν μὴ φοβῆται, φησὶν, ἡ γυνή; Σὺ ἀγάπα, τὸ σαυτοῦ πλήρου.

“But what,” one may say, “if a wife reverence me not?” Never mind, thou art to love, fulfill thine own duty. (NPNF, Homily 20, on Ephesians 5:22 ff)

Likewise here, taking the τὸ σαυτοῦ πλήρου as "carry out the command to love that make you a good husband" is a viable rendering. (Despite the fact that (you feel that) she doesn't respect you... you sould still carry out what God has instructed and in doing that you will fulfill the Lord's command to love), that is to say that the spirit of the passage is something like , "Don't think that your wife buys love by her respect.", "love and respect are not tit for tat", or something like that. In his case, it seems like it could conviniently be rendered as "your duty is to love", but I don't see the reflexive as coming from outside (an imposed "duty"), but rather from inside. Duty is imposed from outside - but love (Σὺ ἀγάπα) is from inside (and don't despair or get the sulks when you don't seem to get some benefit from it - Taking Luke 6:35 to be read as that the μηδὲν ἀπελπίζοντες answers all three things ἀγαπᾶτε τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑμῶν καὶ ἀγαθοποιεῖτε καὶ δανείζετε severally). I read it as an invitation to share in the work of God - love without cause.

Perhaps it is possible that the reflexive pronoun could be a pronoun without a sense that is more possessive than reflexive. There are many more examples here; http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/1 ... _8166.html which we could work through if you would like...

[Andrew Chapman]

my two examples in my former post that you criticised

I didn't mean it as criticism, more as trying to take the other side of a debate, by proposing an alternative. I am not at all assuming that my tendency to look for a possessive meaning first is the best way - I quite expect to move on to something more sophisticated when my understanding of the language improves. It's like a working hypothesis for me, which may well get thrown out..

A woman as head of her maidservant. This is the only passage I found in Chrysostom—in fact, the only passage I have ever seen—where a woman is called the “head.” This instance gives strong confirmation to the meaning “authority over, ruler,” for here Chrysostom says that a woman is “head” of her maidservant, over whom she has authority. .. It is for this thou art the head. Regulate her therefore, do thy own part (διὰ τοῦτο κεφαλὴ εἶ σύ. Οὐκοῦν ῥύθμιζε, τὸ σαυτοῦ ποίει.)

I probably need to get back to my original point of concern, which is the above quotation from Wayne Grudem in his 2002 book 'Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth' (p.559), where he seems to have missed the fact that Chrysostom has turned to address the men for a few moments.

Andrew

[Stephen Hughes]

my two examples in my former post that you criticised

I didn't mean it as criticism, more as trying to take the other side of a debate, by proposing an alternative.

Has "criticism" become wholly restricted to a negative sense? In my thinking criticism generally positive thing. I had expected you to understand "criticise" here it in the sense of "applied your scholarly / critical thinking to". The core individuality and self-sufficiency of the homoliteratus that amplifies the negativity of criticism coming from outside the individual is so not present in this culture I live in that it had slipped my mind. Sorry about that, it was a communication breakdown, not more.

If had taken your criticism in bad terms, I would not have further shared my thinking about the third line in aposition to, parallel to and inversely proportional to which the genitive case is progressively confined (from the Koine to Modern period) to its possessive sense - all three of which (participle, relative phrase and more extensive use of adjectives), when compared with "imagined" genitives - that might have occured in the Koine period - can give some idea of the literary level or period of development of the texts and/or the mastery with which the Byzantine writer has mastered the various uses of the genitive from the Koine or earlier periods.

It was my initial thinking that the Golden Mouth had fumbled onto a strengthened pronominal form and used it clumsily, but over the course of our discussion, I have come to appreciate that he holds both the reflexive (self-interested) and pronominal features of the reflexive pronoun.

I probably need to get back to my original point of concern, which is the above quotation from Wayne Grudem in his 2002 book 'Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth' (p.559), where he seems to have missed the fact that Chrysostom has turned to address the men for a few moments.

Πάντα δὲ τὰ ἐλαττώματα τῶν γυναικῶν φέρειν τοὺς ἄνδρας προσέταξεν ὁ Θεός.

Now, with all the failings of women God hath charged men to bear:

To get back to your original question, yes, I have expressed all my thoughts on σαυτοῦ. I see that the tranlator you have quoted has taken this in a general sense "women" and "men". But this turn in the sermon seems to be using the relationship between a husband and wife as an example for behaviour for the relationship between a woman and her maid-servant. To paraphrase that, "Don't think that your dealing with a (fellow) woman would be much different under God than a man dealing with a woman (I think it means a husband with a wife)".

[Andrew Chapman]

Thanks, Stephen, for all your help with this, and interesting discussion. I am sorry that I haven't been able to engage with your more advanced points, which I am not competent to do. It did occur to me that you might be using 'criticise' in the more technical sense, but I wasn't sure. Yes, I am sure Chrysostom's initial purpose in his digression to men and their wives was to exhort the women to the forbearance which God requires of Christian husbands.

Andrew

[Wes Wood]

Thank you both for the discussion! I couldn't add anything to it, but I grew from the ride.

[Andrew Chapman]

As a postscript, I think I should retract my suggestion that the genitive is the primary form of σεαυτοῦ/σαυτοῦ. Since it is formed from σέ, the accusative form of the second person personal pronoun, it makes more sense to me now to think of the accusative as primary. Wenham lists it in that form: σεαυτόν.

Andrew

[Stephen Hughes]

I think I should retract my suggestion that the genitive is the primary form of σεαυτοῦ/σαυτοῦ. Since it is formed from σέ, the accusative form of the second person personal pronoun, it makes more sense to me now to think of the accusative as primary. Wenham lists it in that form: σεαυτόν.

Andrew, I would agree with your judgement about the accusative here. Who is Wenham? One of the B-Greekers?

In another thread Re: I want to convert unicode to monotonic and ascii (7th reply) I said:

Another issue (out of place in the context of this thread but relevent to what I am doing) is first person present indicative active or infinitive? Most of my learning was with the later, but the more I teach and the more I think about it, the infinitive is really the basic (almost atomic) unit of the language (and possibly the accusative not the nominative). Do any courses teach from the infinitive up for verbal conjugational structures (or from the accusative out for nominal decensions)?

What I mean is that I personally learn (and teach) verbs in the infinitive as the most "ungrammatical" from, and nouns etc. in the accusative as the form from which all other forms decline with the least mean difference/distance. I begin thinking about verbs in their aspect - mood - tense differentiated forms in the 3rd person singular (and later) plural, and for nouns etc. after the accusative I move to the accuasative plural then on to the Genitive or Dative in both singular and plural. The nominative is the conceptually most difficult form to think about. The second person forms come after the third, then the first - for the reasons that I ennumerated earlier in this thread (Re: σαυτοῦ (14th reply)). I don't teach (or think by) tables and columns starting at the nominative, I work with individualities in the language whose interconectedness starts at the accusative singular and works out, and I use as my starting point the infinitive ("present" infinitive for 1st aorist verbs and "aorist" infinitive for 2nd aorist verbs) then work out from there. I don't use, refer to or think about any grammatical words when I read or teach - grammar is for discussions by people who know the language - not for beginners and not for personal use - but rather think in terms of the interrelatedness of the parts of the sentence and the expectations for what comes after a word or what a word comes after - so called "collocations", but not only in the sense that the Polish linguists originally conceived them, but also what for example what case a verb takes.

In short, I agree with your assessment of case in the case of this word, and would like to tell you that I think it is true for all other declined forms, and to suggest to you that conjugated words start at their most basic (least ellaborated) form of infinitive.

I wasn't going to worry about it till you mentioned yours, but form my own retraction of a detail in postscript, I would like to say that the sequence of "intensity" in pronouns that I suggested and later called "supposed" Re: σαυτοῦ (10th reply), perhaps should not have been called "sequence of intensity" but perhaps rather "options for pronouns", it perhaps took me took me too long to "come out" and say that I think a reflexive pronoun has reflexive pronoun still has a self-ish / self-interested undercurrent - which in simplistic terms could be seen I suppose as "intensive".

Λοιπόν, ἀρκετά· τὴν ματαίαν ὀμφαλοσκοπίαν αὐτήν τελέσωμεν ! Νῦν ἧλθον ἡ ἀκρατίσματος ὡρα ἐν ᾗ χρὴ ὑπάγειν εἰς τὰς χρυσᾶς ἁψῖδας τοῦ χορτασθῆναι ἀπὸ ἄρτους μετὰ δύο διπλοτυρωτῶν κεκαυμένων τοῦ κρέατος μερίδων.