ἐξέστημεν/σωφρονοῦμεν 2 Corinthians 5.13

[Andrew Chapman]

εἴτε γὰρ ἐξέστημεν, θεῷ· εἴτε σωφρονοῦμεν, ὑμῖν.

Should we understand the aorist to refer to past time, and the present to present time? Alfred Plummer wrote (in the Cambridge Greek Testament):

'For whether we went mad (it was) for God; or whether we are in our right mind, (it is) for you.' The change from aorist to present must be marked..

Almost all the translators use an English present tense for both verbs. Some of the commentators speak of a gnomic aorist, and cite Moulton Prolegomena, p.134, but looking that up, it seems rare at best. I would have thought one would only go for that if it was really forced upon you. In this case, I can't see anything wrong with a sense like either:

for whether we were out of our minds..

or

for whether we have been out of our minds..

Any thoughts would be appreciated,

Andrew

[Stirling Bartholomew]

εἴτε γὰρ ἐξέστημεν, θεῷ· εἴτε σωφρονοῦμεν, ὑμῖν.

Should we understand the aorist to refer to past time, and the present to present time? Alfred Plummer wrote (in the Cambridge Greek Testament):,

Andrew

I am less than convinced that a micro analysis of verb aspect will solve this problem. Never the less I looked it up in Murray J. Harris (2Cor NIGTC p417[1]) who calls ἐξέστημεν either a "constantive aorist" "we were out of our senses" or a "timeless aorist" "we are beside ourselves." Both of which descirbe a state which may or may not be temporary.

screen shots
page 417
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xzd40qg1bkevr ... M.png?dl=0
page 418
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rostfi59ld5m9 ... M.png?dl=0

[Andrew Chapman]

Thanks, Clay, that's helpful. I would not have said that a constative aorist describes a state - I thought that it could be described as viewing an action, or series of actions, summed up as a whole. So here, if he had been ecstatic on occasions, then in English we might use a perfect: 'if I have been ecstatic..'.

If Paul wanted to say, 'Whether I am out of my mind.. whether I am in my right mind', ie viewing them as two present alternatives, is there any reason why he would not have used two presents?

I note from Harris's footnotes, that there is much more support (n.34) for the preterite view. Looking up Burton, he gives this as a (rare) instance of an aorist having the sense of a Greek Perfect. So then we might have 'if I have become mad/ecstatic'.

The argument for this Greek Perfect sense in this verse seems to be based largely on Mark 3.21:

καὶ ἀκούσαντες οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἐξῆλθον κρατῆσαι αὐτόν· ἔλεγον γὰρ ὅτι ἐξέστη.

Moulton says that 'English .. demands the perfect, "he has gone out of his mind." '

But it's only a Greek Perfect, as I understand it, if the focus is on the resulting state: are they really saying that he is now out of his mind, or is the emphasis on his going out of his mind. If the latter then can this not be a fairly normal aorist? And if so, is there any reason not to translate 2 Corinthians 5.13 normally?

For the so-called gnomic aorist, Moulton (Prolog. 135) cites Goodwin, who says that it and the gnomic perfect:

give a more vivid statement of general truths, by employing a distinct case or several distinct cases in the past to represent (as it were) all possible cases, and implying that what has occurred is likely to occur again under similar circumstances.

But that sounds to me like the verb itself has its normal force, and the timeless sense comes from the sentence as a whole. For example:

ἀνέτειλεν γὰρ ὁ ἥλιος σὺν τῷ καύσωνι καὶ ἐξήρανεν τὸν χόρτον, καὶ τὸ ἄνθος αὐτοῦ ἐξέπεσεν καὶ ἡ εὐπρέπεια τοῦ προσώπου αὐτοῦ ἀπώλετο· οὕτως καὶ ὁ πλούσιος ἐν ταῖς πορείαις αὐτοῦ μαρανθήσεται. [James 1.11]

Even in English, if one just says, 'for the sun rose with its burning heat, and the grass withered etc. .. so the rich also shall fade away', this makes perfectly good sense - one pictures it in a way as a single event, but because one knows that it happens all the time, the thought acquires a timeless quality.

Andrew

[Stirling Bartholomew]

But it's only a Greek Perfect, as I understand it, if the focus is on the resulting state

εἴτε γὰρ ἐξέστημεν, θεῷ· εἴτε σωφρονοῦμεν, ὑμῖν.

ἐξέστημεν here is intransitive with no arguments and describes a state. Compare it to ἐξέστην φρενῶν Eur. Or. 1021. The aorist is colorless unmarked aspect.

Eur. Or.
Line 1021

{Ηλ.} οἲ 'γώ· πρὸ τύμβου γάρ σ' ὁρῶσ' ἀναστένω,
ἀδελφέ, καὶ πάροιθε νερτέρου πυρᾶς.
οἲ 'γὼ μάλ' αὖθις· ὥς σ' ἰδοῦσ' ἐν ὄμμασιν
πανυστάτην πρόσοψιν ἐξέστην φρενῶν.

Electra
Alas! I weep to see you stand before the tomb,
my brother, face to face with the funeral pyre.
Alas, again! as I take my last look at you, my senses leave me.

— E. P. Coleridge, 1938

[Andrew Chapman]

Thanks again, Clay, that's very helpful. I can see that a present sense fits well, although I still wonder if it might not be something like: 'having taken my last look at you, I have lost my senses'.

'My senses leave me' seems to me to be an action (so to speak) rather than a state.

What do you make of Robert Funk's statement in his Intermediate Hellenistic Grammar:

788. The aorist indicative refers to past time.

And he doesn't seem to qualify that, except to mention the gnomic and epistolary aorists in 7880, with specific uses which I don't think are relevant here.

Andrew

[Stirling Bartholomew]

T

What do you make of Robert

T

What do you make of Robert Funk's statement in his Intermediate Hellenistic Grammar:

788. The aorist indicative refers to past time.

And he doesn't seem to qualify that, except to mention the gnomic and epistolary aorists in 7880, with specific uses which I don't think are relevant here.

The English translations prior two 1990 would probably reflect a traditional grammar approach to verb aspect. So we can rule out the whole Fanning - Porter - Broman - McKay vs Buth … discourse which took place in the late 1980s &1990s. What I mean is the pre-1990 translations reflect more or less traditional thinking on verb aspect. I looked at the most prominent versions of the mid-20th century. They all avoid a past tense rendering ἐξέστημεν.

You need to ask what unstated assumptions are behind Funk's statement. I don’t know.


Are we are talking about narrative? For the mainline/backbone of a narrative (R. Longacre Grammar 1996) the aorist indicative is used as the default aspect for events that are presented (authorial choice) as part of foreground of the story line.

First year greek people are taught that the aorist indicative is past tense. What they are not taught is the long list of conditions that are assumed when this statement is made.

There are thousands of posts on this in the archives.

[Andrew Chapman]

On the 'gnomic aorist', Smyth says:

(γνώμη maxim, proverbThe aorist may express a general truth. The aorist simply states a past occurrence and leaves the reader to draw the inference that what has occurred once is typical of what often occurs:

παθὼν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω a fool learns by experience [Hesiod, Works and Days, 218

As I understand it, Smyth may be saying that a Greek would conceive this as (something like) 'once a fool (or child?) has suffered, he has also learnt'. That makes sense to me. I can't see any reason why they might not be thinking of past occurrences and their consequences - after all, this is how we have learnt things ourselves, through past experiences.

We are used to saying, and I think conceiving, these things in a more timeless way, as the statement of a principle: a fool learns by experience. It seems to me preferable, if possible, to maintain consistency in the sense of the tense. Once one has created a label like 'gnomic aorist', it seems to me, commentators can just say, 'oh, that's a gnomic aorist, it's got a timeless sense here'. Then it seems to me to become so arbitrary, and the tense seems almost to have lost its force and meaning. But I am new to this, and may well be wrong. I am more than happy to change my mind on the basis of evidence - but then it's always so hard to know how another person is conceiving something in their mind. To take a case in point:

ἐὰν μή τις ⸀μένῃ ἐν ἐμοί, ἐβλήθη ἔξω ὡς τὸ κλῆμα καὶ ἐξηράνθη, καὶ συνάγουσιν αὐτὰ καὶ εἰς τὸ πῦρ βάλλουσιν καὶ καίεται. [John 15.6]

Meyer writes:

The ἐβλήθη, κ.τ.λ. appears as a definite result and as a completed act of the past, and that, as the further pictorial description, καὶ συνάγουσιν κ.τ.λ., shows, from the standpoint of the last day

Now that may be a stretch, but I certainly admire the attempt to maintain consistency in the tense. Alford agrees with Meyer here. It looks like they may be following Winer here:

It is only in appearance that the aorist stands for the future .. in John 15.6, ἐὰν μή τις μέινῃ ἐν ἐμοί, ἐβλήθη ἔξω ὡς τὸ κλῆμα: in such a case (supposing this to have occurred) he was cast out, not he becomes cast out; the "not remaining" has this as its instantaneous consequence; he who has severed himself from Christ is like a branch that has been broken off and thrown away..[Winer Moulton, 2nd ed., 345-6]

I have just seen that Winer at least has the aorist μέινῃ rather than μένῃ, which helps his case, so that it is: if anyone did not remain in me, etc.

Andrew

[Stirling Bartholomew]

I certainly admire the attempt to maintain consistency in the tense.

Consistency isn't an admirable goal since the aspect tense matrix is not consistent.

Acts 16:18 τοῦτο δὲ ἐποίει ἐπὶ πολλὰς ἡμέρας. διαπονηθεὶς δὲ Παῦλος καὶ ἐπιστρέψας τῷ πνεύματι εἶπεν· παραγγέλλω σοι ἐν ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐξελθεῖν ἀπ᾿ αὐτῆς· καὶ ἐξῆλθεν αὐτῇ τῇ ὥρᾳ.

Here is a present which appears to be perform like an aorist according to Moult. Proleg. 119, ATR 864, BDF §330.

[Iver Larsen]

εἴτε γὰρ ἐξέστημεν, θεῷ· εἴτε σωφρονοῦμεν, ὑμῖν.

Should we understand the aorist to refer to past time, and the present to present time? Alfred Plummer wrote (in the Cambridge Greek Testament):

'For whether we went mad (it was) for God; or whether we are in our right mind, (it is) for you.' The change from aorist to present must be marked..

Almost all the translators use an English present tense for both verbs. Some of the commentators speak of a gnomic aorist, and cite Moulton Prolegomena, p.134, but looking that up, it seems rare at best. I would have thought one would only go for that if it was really forced upon you. In this case, I can't see anything wrong with a sense like either:

for whether we were out of our minds..

or

for whether we have been out of our minds..

Any thoughts would be appreciated,

Andrew

I tend to agree with Plummer that the aorist ought to be reflected in translation or at least be crucial for the exegesis. ἐξίστημι refers to being out of one's normal state of mind. It can have the strong sense of being out of one's right mind, but the weaker sense of being astonished is more common in the NT. As far as I can see the aorist is used when the focus is on entering that state, while the imperfect is often used to describe a situation where the people are in this state for some time and other events may be narrated as happening within that time. With the perfect the focus is on being in the state now, not on when it was entered into.

The challenge is to gauge what Paul is referring to and whether he is talking about himself (using the "we" of an author) or about himself and his companions. My suggestion is that Paul is here referring to the special spiritual revelation he describes in 12:1-7. The two passages have many lexical parallels in terms of boasting, being away from one's normal mind and being wise/unwise.

Looking at verses like 10:17 and 11.17 it is also possible that Paul is referring in more general terms to boasting of spiritual experiences which should only be done (in reference) to God.

The preceding verse says as here quoted in CEV: We are not trying once more to brag about ourselves. But we want you to be proud of us, when you are with those who are not sincere and brag about what others think of them.
Maybe the idea of the following verse is: You see (γάρ - Let me explain), when I (we?) had great spiritual revelations, I was concentrating on God, but when I (we?) am ministering to you, I am using my wisdom.

Iver

[Andrew Chapman]

I certainly admire the attempt to maintain consistency in the tense.

Consistency isn't an admirable goal since the aspect tense matrix is not consistent.

Acts 16:18 τοῦτο δὲ ἐποίει ἐπὶ πολλὰς ἡμέρας. διαπονηθεὶς δὲ Παῦλος καὶ ἐπιστρέψας τῷ πνεύματι εἶπεν· παραγγέλλω σοι ἐν ὀνόματι Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐξελθεῖν ἀπ᾿ αὐτῆς· καὶ ἐξῆλθεν αὐτῇ τῇ ὥρᾳ.

Here is a present which appears to be perform like an aorist according to Moult. Proleg. 119, ATR 864, BDF §330.

The framework that Robert Funk presents in his Intermediate Grammar, (which is what I happen to have been reading) is that the present tense can be either aoristic or durative, whereas the aorist and imperfect are distinguished by aspect. So aoristic presents such as Acts 16.18 are to be expected (this verse is cited at BDF 320, under 'aoristic present').

Under that section 320, Blass/D/F explain:

In those few cases where a punctiliar act taking place at the moment of speaking is to be denoted, the present is usually used since the punctiliar aorist stems form no present..

As I understand it, the point is that whereas the present stem has both an augmented (past tense ie the imperfect) form and an unaugmented form (the present tense); the aorist stem only has the augmented form. It is the augment which signifies past time.

Andrew