Peter Kirby

For Roger and anyone else who has a TLG cd-rom, I recommend the free Diogenes program.

best,
Peter Kirby

Chris Weimer

They are at a loss...

Mathetes

Romans starts like this:

παῦλος δοῦλος ΧÏ?ιστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, κλητὸς ἀπόστολος...

Translated something like: "Paul, slave of Jesus Christ, called apostle"... Now, it's not clear whether "called" applies to "slave" or to "apostle". This is what the text is commenting.

You guys tell me what you think of this (very non-literal translation):

"Some people are confused in vain [trying to understand] whether 'called' is to be applied to the first part, so that it is 'the called slave', or to the following, like 'the called apostle', because for neither the idea is dissonant (inharmonious), because all (apostles?) have been called and they have been called into faith and this grace, and have been led through an election (have been selected) into the apostolic order. On the one or the other side, then, 'called' can be as a slave or as an apostle."

Not quite sure about the last sentence, though.

Roger Pearse

Thank you -- very interesting indeed.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Roger Pearse

Thanks, Mathetes! I didn't expect the lot in one go.

Perhaps people would like to translation litterally the words of the last sentence, and see how it goes?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Diogenes the Cynic

I believe that the kai hos....kai hos construction can be used to say that "______ is just as (the same as) ____________"

Here's what I get for the last sentence:

"On the other hand, called [as] an apostle is neverthess the same as [being] called [as] a slave."

Mathetes

It's that καθ΄ ἕτεÏ?ον I'm not sure about.

This is what Perseus says (definition IV.2.b). This entry points to an example by Thukydides, that seems to mean "either one" (last paragraph).

Something like "one way or another" or "either way"? Then Diogenes would be pretty close.

Diogenes the Cynic

Yeah, that kath heteron gave me a fit too. It seems difficult to make it fit grammatically but maybe that's our problem. This was a marginal note, was it not? Maybe it was just a sloppy bit of notation...something like "Either way...(or one way or the other)...being called as an apostle is the same as being being called as a slave."

It's kind of the eqivalent of "whatever," I think.

You might be able to paraphrase it as, "whatever...if you're an apostle you're a slave anyway."

Mathetes

"Whatever" is a good way of putting it.

This is how I see it, in a nutshell:

"Some people are losing their time discussing whether 'called' should modify 'slave' of 'apostle'. But it doesn't matter, because it can be used for both."

spin

I'm not sure about how "called" (klhtos) can really be ambiguous in its syntactic use here. klhtos carries the idea of "invite" or "call on to be/do". It is not "called" in the sense of "Simon called Peter". klhsis is often translated as "vocation", though "calling" will suffice.

1 Cor 1:1 closely ties the notion of calling to "apostle".

Paulos klhtos apostolos ihsou xristou...

"Paul, called (as) an apostle of Jesus Christ..."

While there is a good precedent for klhtos apostolos being the intended phrase in the text, apostleship can be seen as a calling, while being a slave I don't think can. At the same time for one to hazard the syntactic link between klhtos and doulos, "slave", one would need at least a precedent in Pauline writings.


spin