Hi everyone.
Can someone help me with this sentence in Acts 8,19:
δότε κἀμοὶ τὴν ἐξουσίαν ταύτην ἵνα ᾧ ἐὰν ἐπιθῶ τὰς χεῖρας λαμβάνῃ πνεῦμα ἅγιον.
The official translation says: “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.””,
My questions are:
1 Where do the translator get “anyone” from?
2 Is there implicit subject in λαμβάνῃ?
3 Is the subclause “ᾧ ἐὰν ἐπιθῶ τὰς χεῖρας”?
4 Does the singular of ᾧ correspond to the singular of λαμβάνῃ?
Thanks guys!
The important thing here—and hopefully this will solve your problem—is that εαν is just an alternative spelling of αν, and αν with subjunctive (επιθῶ) makes an indefinite clause. ᾧ ἐὰν ἐπιθῶ τὰς χεῖρας is literally “on whomever I put the hands”, i.e. “whoever I put my hands on” or “anyone I put my hands on”, and that functions as the subject of λαμβάνῃ (which in turn is subjunctive because ινα introduces a purpose clause, ἵνα … λαμβάνῃ πνευμα αγιον).
All clear now?
The Septuagint puts ἐάν/ἄν after ὅς (and other relatives) with extreme frequency to mean whoever/whatever/etc. Attic doesn’t do this.
The first example smack at the beginning of Genesis:
καὶ ἤγαγεν αὐτὰ πρὸς τὸν Αδαμ ἰδεῖν, τί καλέσει αὐτά, καὶ πᾶν, ὃ ἐὰν ἐκάλεσεν αὐτὸ Αδαμ ψυχὴν ζῶσαν, τοῦτο ὄνομα αὐτοῦ.
“whatever Adam called it, the living soul, this was its name”
[notice the indicative]
A little later in Genesis:
τὸ δὲ ἔθνος, ᾧ ἐὰν δουλεύσωσιν, κρινῶ ἐγώ
“And whichever race they shall slave for, I will judge”
[subjunctive that time, though it could easily be indicative]
The NT does it too, especially when quoting the Septuagint. In fact, the other three occurrences of ὅς + ἐάν/ἄν in Acts are at 2:21, 7:3, 7:7, all quotes from the Septuagint, with Acts 7:7 being the second verse from Genesis that I quote.
The Gospels especially like this for sayings of Jesus. I wonder if in the first century, it may have been about equivalent to using “thy” and “thou” nowadays to sound Biblical.
thank you both for so clear answers with useful extra info!!
I think my stumbling block was that I read ἐάν as εἰ + ἄν and I thought it was a conditional clause, and not only as ἄν as you suggest mwh.
I see now that my “Classical Greek Grammar” §50.3 describes that ὄς and ὅστις is interchangeable and even when the meaning is indefinite, there might appear a definite relative pronoun.
Yes I figured that that’s what had thrown you, the use of ἐάν for ἄν. It’s actually very common in post-classical texts. If you find ἐάν after a clause-initial relative such as ὅς or ὅστις (or ᾧ in this instance), that’s what it will be, not ἐάν “if.” In either case a subjunctive will normally follow. (The Septuagint’s occasional use of apparent indicative is a different phenomenon.) Textbooks are not very good at mentioning this use of ἐάν=ἄν, but it’s everywhere in the papyri, and there’s nothing exceptional about Acts 8.19; cf. e.g. 1 Cor.16.6 ἵνα ὑμεῖς με προπέμψητε οὗ ἐὰν πορεύωμαι (“… wherever I go”).
The Septuagint’s occasional use of apparent indicative is a different phenomenon.
And apparently here too, as Acts 7:7 turns the Septuagint’s ᾧ ἐὰν δουλεύσωσιν into indicative “δουλεύσουσιν”.
Acts 7:7 has indeed δουλευσουσιν in NA28, but the ECM Acts has δουλευσωσιν (ECM III , 1:1 page 194).
The text of Acts ECM will probably appear in the next na29.
It’s just pulling in Byzantine majority corrections. Getting your textual criticism from CBGM is about as silly as getting it from chat-gpt, imo.
We also have ἐὰν μή τις ὁδηγήσει με in 8:31, again “corrected” in Byzantine majority texts to subjunctive.
But the NT usage of ἐάν is generally pretty clear. It’s not used interchangeably with ἄν, and instead it’s only in this usage after relatives that it shows up where you might not expect it. And this Koine ὃς ἄν means something different from ὃς ἄν in Thucydides. Whatever spelling variants go on in the papyri, that’s not the explanation here.
We mustn’t confuse the issues. There’s the εαν/αν spelling, and there’s the question of the semantics in various syntactic contexts. And there’s the question of textual corruption and “correction.” And the enquiry should not be limited to the NT, with or without the LXX.
It’s not clear what you mean when you say “it’s only in this usage after relatives that it [εαν] shows up where you might not expect it.” Where you might not expect it, perhaps. And it’s hardly surprising if koine use of ὃς ἄν is not quite the same as Thucydides’s.
I think that’s enough from me on this. We’re now miles away from the original question, which I hope I dealt with satisfactorily.