ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ in Origen

[Andrew Chapman]

αἰσχρὸν γὰρ γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, καὶ διδάϲκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω ἁπλῶς ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρόϲ.

[Origen, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35] For the whole text, with this sentence nearly half way down page 2:

http://womeninthechurch.co.uk/wp-conten ... Kovacs.pdf

Two questions:

1) Does ἁπλῶς belong to the second clause or the third one?
2) Does ἀλλά cause a break from the preceding negative so that one should consider reading οὐδέ adverbially as 'not even'?

'Clearly I do not permit a woman to teach nor yet to exercise authority over a man.'

'I do not permit a woman to teach, nor, clearly, even to exercise authority over a man.'

are a couple of renderings I have considered.

In both cases in the New Testament where ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ follows a negative, it starts a new sentence, at least in the editions I have seen. In the first case, οὐδὲ is always treated as a coordinating conjunction in all the English translations I have seen, in the second case always adverbially:

καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἐνώπιον ὑμῶν ἀνακρίνας οὐθὲν εὗρον ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τούτῳ αἴτιον ὧν κατηγορεῖτε κατ’ αὐτοῦ. ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ Ἡρῴδης, ἀνέπεμψεν γὰρ αὐτὸν πρὸς ἡμᾶς· [Luke 23:14b - 15a]

'No, nor has Herod' [NASB]; 'no, nor yet' [ASV]; 'Neither' [ESV]; 'But neither' [Lexham]; 'no, neither' [NKJV].

γάλα ὑμᾶς ἐπότισα, οὐ βρῶμα, οὔπω γὰρ ἐδύνασθε. ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ ἔτι νῦν δύνασθε, [1 Corinthians 3:2]

Indeed, even now you are not yet able, [NASB]; 'nay, not even' [ASV]; 'and even now you are not' [ESV]; 'But now you are still not' [Lexham]; 'Indeed, you are still not' [NIV].

Likewise, BDAG classes Luke 23 under 'also not, not either, neither' and 1 Cor 3 under 'not even'. On the other hand, Meyer and Starbuck (in Oosterzee) have 'not even Herod', finding reasons why he might be expected to find fault in Jesus more than Pilate would. In 1 Cor 3, 'not even' is easier because 'now' they might be expected to be ready for solid food more than before.

Are both options open grammatically? And does the punctuation make a difference in the Origen text? Finally, what if anything is Origen communicating when he inserts ἁπλῶς ἀλλ’ into his citation of 1 Timothy 2:12?

Andrew

[cwconrad]

αἰσχρὸν γὰρ γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, καὶ διδάϲκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω ἁπλῶς ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρόϲ.

[Origen, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 14:34-35] For the whole text, with this sentence nearly half way down page 2:

http://womeninthechurch.co.uk/wp-conten ... Kovacs.pdf

Two questions:

1) Does ἁπλῶς belong to the second clause or the third one?
2) Does ἀλλά cause a break from the preceding negative so that one should consider reading οὐδέ adverbially as 'not even'?

While I have read through the rest of Andrew's query, which raises far more questions than just these two, I'd like to deal ἁπλῶς with those two questions only; it seems to me that the sequence of meaning in this cited text is not really so complicated.
(1) I take ἁπλῶς as "simply" or "absolutely" or "at all" -- as indicating that there are no exceptions to the stated rule against a woman teaching in the church;
(2) I take the ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ as introducing not a new clause bur rather a second negatively-qualified infinitive complementary to ἐπιτρέπω: "I don't permit a woman to teach in church at all, nor (do I permit a woman) even to pull rank over a man." Perhaps that does mean that the ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ is introducing a new clause, insofar as ἐπιτρέπω is understood as governing αὐθεντεῖν. But in any case, I think that the ἁπλῶς should be understood with διδάϲκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω. (I'm commenting, of course, only on how the text should be understood, not on the question that the text addresses.)

[Andrew Chapman]

Thanks, Carl, I was careless in calling the last phrase a clause, although I reckon I may have been thinking of it that way for the reason you give, that it is governed by ἐπιτρέπω, which is therefore included in it, as in your paranthesis. Thanks very much for your rendering and positioning of ἁπλῶς - that's a great help. Could I ask why you prefer the 'not even' sense of οὐδέ? I find it somewhat more difficult, because it seems to suggest that the second prohibition is going further than the first in some way, and I am not sure why that would be.

Andrew

[cwconrad]

Thanks, Carl, I was careless in calling the last phrase a clause, although I reckon I may have been thinking of it that way for the reason you give, that it is governed by ἐπιτρέπω, which is therefore included in it, as in your paranthesis. Thanks very much for your rendering and positioning of ἁπλῶς - that's a great help. Could I ask why you prefer the 'not even' sense of οὐδέ? I find it somewhat more difficult, because it seems to suggest that the second prohibition is going further than the first in some way, and I am not sure why that would be.

αἰσχρὸν γὰρ γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, καὶ διδάϲκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω ἁπλῶς ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρόϲ.

It seems to me that the author is indicating that αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός is an even more serious impropriety of feminine behavior than teaching in church.

If I may in turn pose what is a quibbling sort of question: is there a rhyme or reason for your using lunate sigmas in διδάϲκειν and ἀνδρόϲ, but not in αἰσχρὸν or ἐκκλησίᾳ or ἁπλῶς?

[Stephen Hughes]

αἰσχρὸν γὰρ γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, καὶ διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω ἁπλῶς ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός.

...
Two questions:

• 1) Does ἁπλῶς belong to the second clause or the third one?
  2) Does ἀλλά cause a break from the preceding negative so that one should consider reading οὐδέ adverbially as 'not even'?

I have referenced where Origen is drawing from the New Testament, and the lunate sigmas which occur in uncial manuscripts, rather than in the miniscule manuscripts where fully written out diacritics are found. To make things more "authentic", I have changed your two lunate sigmas to the regular forms when quoting your quote of Origen.

Let me mark the divisions in the Greek for you. There is no full verb in the first division, and the second division is "balanced" around the word ἐπιτρέπειν, which is used with the construction - ἐπιτρέπειν + τινί c. inf "to allow/ permit smb to do smth":

αἰσχρὸν γὰρ γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ, καὶ διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω ἁπλῶς ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός.

Here, as Carl says, there are 2 infinitives - διδάσκειν and αὐθεντεῖν. αὐθεντεῖν as a verb usually takes a genitive of who is bossed about - in this case "a husband / a man" ἀνδρός.

If the second infinitive of ἐπιτρέπειν (+ τινί c. inf.) was not negative i.e the second thing was something that could be entrusted to a woman (in Origen's view), the construction would be like

Διδάσκειν δὲ γυναικὶ οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός, ἀλλ’ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ.

So in this example, the ἀλλά is still adversitive, but it is changing a negative to a positive (which is common enough), rather than changing a positive to a negative (which is more common).

The "quotation" that Origen is an adaptation from First Timothy, but he adds an extra ἀλλά. I think the effect is to build up the expectation that there will be a positive clause following the ἀλλά, and then follow it by an οὐδέ which is against our expectation, thus making the negation more shocking and abrupt. That would be something like what the "NOT", which young people say at the end of their sentences. "I absolutely don't entrust a woman with the job of teaching, but rather, I allow her to exercise authourity over a man, NOT!!!"

As with most wholes, the sum of the parts here is greater than the parts summed together - to get the full effect, you need to look at more than the meanings of the individual words. Your suggestion to take "οὐδέ adverbially as 'not even'" will give you something approximating the effect of the Greek, but going deeper into the construction - as I have attempted to - will give an even better understanding of what Origen is doing to his Scripture quotations.

[Andrew Chapman]

It seems to me that the author is indicating that αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός is an even more serious impropriety of feminine behavior than teaching in church.

In English, if we say, for example: 'this rehab doesn't allow drugs or alcohol, nor even tobacco', the last item is the least offensive, and it is going further to prohibit tobacco than drugs and alcohol only. So I was thinking that it would be the other way around.

is there a rhyme or reason for your using lunate sigmas in διδάϲκειν and ἀνδρόϲ, but not in αἰσχρὸν or ἐκκλησίᾳ or ἁπλῶς?

If I remember rightly, I copied the text off the TLG a year or two back. I did notice them, but didn't know what they were.

I think the effect is to build up the expectation that there will be a positive clause following the ἀλλά, and then follow it by an οὐδέ which is against our expectation, thus making the negation more shocking and abrupt.

Thanks very much, Stephen, for this thought. I do wonder, though, if the scripture would not be sufficiently familiar to Origen's readers that they would not be led into that expectation.

Andrew

[Stephen Hughes]

I do wonder, though, if the scripture would not be sufficiently familiar to Origen's readers that they would not be led into that expectation.

That is an interesting point. I think that there would be a dynamic interplay between two text types - Scripture and commentary - rather than a simple yes/no led to expectation or not. The amount of knowledge that people would be on a scale rather than a binary choice. Like when you know that your daughter's room is not clean, and she knows that you know, and she says, "I cleaned my room, NOT!!". Culturally, though, compared with Origen's audience, the tension built up by that might have either different of similar effects. That is a too deep a question for me at my limited level of Greek to speculate about.

For those who were familiar there would be a quick resolution of a tension between the scripture which they knew would say what and commentary which would be saying something else then the same as the scripture, probably resulting in reinforcement. For those who were not familiar with the Scriptures mentioned, it would simply be as described.

[Andrew Chapman]

Not that it is central to the discussion, but I just looked up infinitive phrases and clauses and found that there seems to be a difference of opinion about definition. Richard Norquist, for example, seems to call them infinitive clauses: eg 'Jane was firm in her desire to live life on her own terms.' http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/Infinitive-Clause.htm Is this contrary to the normal usage in Greek grammar?

Andrew

[cwconrad]

Not that it is central to the discussion, but I just looked up infinitive phrases and clauses and found that there seems to be a difference of opinion about definition. Richard Norquist, for example, seems to call them infinitive clauses: eg 'Jane was firm in her desire to live life on her own terms.' http://grammar.about.com/od/il/g/Infinitive-Clause.htm Is this contrary to the normal usage in Greek grammar?

Andrew

There's more fodder for my feeling that we understand the sense of texts before we analyze them to our own or others' satisfaction. It is true, of course, that infinitives can function with an accusative (or nominative) subject and a complement, and so can represent a clause. It's also worth noting how Koine Greek infinitive constructions such as ὥστε + inf. and εἰς τὸ + inf. can be reformulated (or vice versa?) with a ἵνα + subjunctive clause. So too Modern Greek can use νά + subjunctive in lieu of an infinitive.

[Andrew Chapman]

Thank you, sir. Could I perhaps further ask you how you take ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ in Luke 23:15? Do you read it as 'not even Herod' (who might be expected to the more), or as 'but neither'/ 'no, neither', which has the problem, it seems to me, that it is a little hard to say what is the contrast or disjunction with what precedes, that αλλά is here conveying?

Andrew