At the mountain of Galilee (Mt. 28:16-17)

Greek Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek
21

I’m convinced by mwh. But I thought I would include Athanasius and Chrysostomus in full in case any one reads this thread later. I do note that their alternate wording agrees exactly. Do we have a textual variant?

Τολμῶ γὰρ λέγειν, ὅτι οὐδὲ αὐτοὶ οἱ μακάριοι αὐτοῦ μαθηταὶ τὸ τέλειον περὶ τῆς αὐτοῦ θεότητος εἶχον φρόνημα, ἕως τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον αὐτοῖς τῇ Πεντηκοστῇ ἐπεφοίτησεν. Ἐπεὶ καὶ μετὰ τὴν ἀνάστασιν ἰδόντες αὐτὸν, οἱ μὲν προσεκύνησαν, οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν· ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐκ τούτου κατεκρίθησαν.

ATHANASIUS Theol. Testimonia e scriptura [Sp.] (de communi essentia patris et filii et spiritus sancti) {2035.064} Volume 28 page 76 line 48



Εἶδες πάλιν τῶν μαθητῶν τὸ φιλάληθες; πῶς οὐδὲ τοῦτο αἰσχύνονται λέγοντες, ὅτι τοιοῦτος ἐκράτησε λόγος κατ’ αὐτῶν; Οἱ δὲ ἕνδεκα μαθηταὶ ἀπῆλθον εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν· καὶ οἱ μὲν προσεκύνησαν, οἱ δὲ ἰδόντες αὐτὸν ἐδίστασαν. Αὕτη μοι δοκεῖ ἐσχάτη ὄψις εἶναι ἐν τῇ Γαλιλαίᾳ, ὅτε αὐτοὺς ἐξέπεμπε βαπτίσοντας. Εἰ δὲ ἐδίστασάν τινες, κἀντεῦθεν πάλιν θαύμασον αὐτῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν, πῶς οὐδὲ τὰ μέχρις ἐσχάτης ἡμέρας ἐλαττώματα αὐτῶν ἀποκρύπτονται. Ἀλλ’ ὅμως καὶ οὗτοι διὰ τῆς ὄψεως ἐβεβαιώθησαν.

JOANNES CHRYSOSTOMUS Scr. Eccl. In Matthaeum (homiliae 1-90) {2062.152} Volume 58 page 789 line 31

I found some other examples (I think) of Smyth 2838b in the Anabasis. Neither of them are actually parallel.

Anabasis 7.4.18:

οἱ δὲ Θρᾷκες φεύγουσιν, ὥσπερ δὴ τρόπος ἦν αὐτοῖς, ὄπισθεν περιβαλλόμενοι τὰς πέλτας· καὶ αὐτῶν ὑπεραλλομένων τοὺς σταυροὺς ἐλήφθησάν τινες κρεμασθέντες ἐνεχομένων τῶν πελτῶν τοῖς σταυροῖς· οἱ δὲ καὶ ἀπέθανον ἁμαρτόντες τῶν ἐξόδων· οἱ δὲ Ἕλληνες ἐδίωκον ἔξω τῆς κώμης.

Anabasis 7.1.17

ἄλλοι δὲ ἔθεον ἐπὶ θάλατταν καὶ παρὰ τὴν χηλὴν τοῦ τείχους ὑπερβαίνουσιν εἰς τὴν πόλιν, ἄλλοι δὲ οἳ ἐτύγχανον ἔνδον ὄντες τῶν στρατιωτῶν, ὡς ὁρῶσι τὰ ἐπὶ ταῖς πύλαις πράγματα, διακόπτοντες ταῖς ἀξίναις τὰ κλεῖθρα ἀναπεταννύασι τὰς πύλας, οἱ δ’ εἰσπίπτουσιν.

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Funk’s grammar:

635.1 In narrative and especially in dialogue, δέ is used with the article (without other substantive) to indicate a change in subject or speaker. In (7) such a shift is twice indicated by this device:

Mk 12:15b-17a
(7) [Ἰησοῦς] φέρετέ μοι δηνάριον ἵνα ἴδω.
οἱ δὲ ἤνεγκαν.
καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς, τίνος ἡ εἰκὼν αὕτη καὶ ἡ ἐπιγραφή;
οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ, Καίσαρος.
ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς εἶπεν αὐτοῦς, …
[Jesus:] “Bring me a denarius that I may see.”
They brought [one] And he says to them, “Whose likeness and inscription
is this?”
They said to him, “Caesar’s.” Then Jesus said to them, …

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@jeidsath
Thanks for providing the passages, which show both Athanasius and John Chrysostom trying to dig themselves out of the theological hole created by doubting disciples. I don’t think this points to a variant reading in the gospel text, rather they’re paraphrasing what was evidently their common understanding of the passage, an understanding premised on the mutual incompatibility of proskunesis and doubt. I don’t know enough about the intricacies of the 3rd-4th cent. theology wars to properly contextualize it.

@C. S. Bartholomew
This is extremely common, there are thousands of instances, probably hundreds of thousands. You have two parties, here Jesus and those he’s addressing, and the responses of the latter to what he says (a command and a question) are introduced by οι δε. The situation in the Matthew passage is quite different. To be sure, οι δε marks a subject switch (and accordingly I reject the NAB’s translation endorsed by BeDuhn, my #4), but to whom? Another bunch of people altogether (as in my #1), or a subset of the preceding subject (my #2, which I uphold)?

And how I wish that people would not describe perfectly ordinary Greek usage as a “device”!

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Three options according Stanley E. Porter (Idioms 2nd Ed. 1994). οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν indicates some doubted (partitive) or all of the eleven doubted (reiteration) or others doubted (switched subject). Porter like the majority of other NT scholars prefers the partitive reading and cites a now three decades old review of the topic by P. W. van der Horst, Once More: The Translation of οἱ δὲ in Mt. 28.17, JSNT, 29 (1986) pp. 27-30. Grayston and Hagner[1] prefer the reiteration view.

A very recent discussion which is critical of the Grayston-Hagner reading can be found at

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/17412/should-matthew-2817b-be-understood-in-a-partitive-or-inclusive-sense


See also, Stephanie Black, Sentence Conjunctions in the Gospel of Matthew: kai, de, tote, gar, oun and Asyndeton in Narrative Discourse, 2002 pages, pp. 160-162. Who objects to Grayston’s approach observing that οἱ δὲ signals discontinuity and would be highly unlikely if there were continuity of subject with the previous sentence.

[1] the reiteration view. K. Grayston JSNT 21 (1984)105-106, supported by D. Hagner, (Matt. WBC 1993 v2 p844.

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On that forum Clayton links to, one Grayson mentions Xen, Hel 1:2:14 as establishing a “partitive” use of οἱ δέ (= τινες δε.) But, unless I am missing something, this seems to be a clear example of Smyth 2838 (b), which would again support the interpretation of Athanasius and John Chrysostom that Joel quoted.

Xen, Hel 1:2:14 ἐκεῖθεν δὲ ἅπασα ἡ στρατιὰ διέβη εἰς Λάμψακον. καὶ χειμὼν ἐπῄει, ἐν ᾧ οἱ αἰχμάλωτοι Συρακόσιοι, εἰργμένοι τοῦ Πειραιῶς ἐν λιθοτομίαις, διορύξαντες τὴν πέτραν, ἀποδράντες νυκτὸς ᾤχοντο εἰς Δεκέλειαν, οἱ δ᾽ εἰς Μέγαρα.



Xen, Hel 1:2:14…and from Sestus the entire force crossed over to Lampsacus. And now the winter came on. During the course of it the Syracusan prisoners, who were immured in stone quarries in Piraeus, dug through the rock and made their escape by night, most of them to Decelea and the rest to Megara.

Not knowing the geography/context, it’s not possible, is it, that the the prisoners went en mass to Decelea and then a sub-group subsequently went off to Megara?

I guess a lingering question I have is, how common is the partitive οἱ δέ. Mt. 26:67-68:

Mt. 26:67-68: τότε ἐνέπτυσαν εἰς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐκολάφισαν αὐτόν, οἱ δὲ ἐράπισαν λέγοντες· Προφήτευσον ἡμῖν, χριστέ, τίς ἐστιν ὁ παίσας σε;

which Clayton mentioned above, seems to me to be equally ambiguous, where the οἱ δὲ can be taken in the same four ways.

I thought Mk 9:24, quoted above, speaks directly to that.



ὡς μάλιστα! πάνυ γε! ἀμήν!

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Thanks to C.S.B. for the refs and the link. I wasn’t familiar with any of the predictably vast literature, but have now looked briefly at the webpage link, and am gratified to see that van der Horst (a true scholar and a man worthy of great respect) concludes:

“All this implies that in Mt. 28.17 oi δέ cannot mean all of the disciples, can mean (from a strictly grammatical point of view) other persons than the disciples, but, since no other persons are involved here at all, must be part of the disciples.”

That’s precisely what I’ve been saying. Of course, since NT scholars have to keep themselves in business, not everyone has assented, but it remains the case. Done and dusted.

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If we say ‘they worshipped, but some doubted’, does this mean that they all worshipped, but some of these also doubted; or does it mean that as a group (ie the majority), they worshipped, but that there some who didn’t worship but rather doubted? This latter possibility is proposed by Meyer:

οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν] It was previously said in a general way that the eleven fell prostrate before Him, though all did not do so: some doubted whether He, whom they saw before them, could really be Jesus. This particular is added by means of οἱ δέ, which, however, is not preceded by a corresponding οἱ μέν before προσεκύνησαν, because this latter applied to the majority, whereas the doubters, who did not prostrate themselves, were only the exception. Had Matthew’s words been: οἱ μὲν προσεκύνησαν, οἱ δὲ ἐδίστασαν, he would thus have represented the eleven as divided into two co-ordinate parts, into as nearly as possible two halves, and so have stated something different from what was intended. This is a case precisely similar to that of the οἱ δὲ ἐῤῥάπισαν of Mat 26:67, where, in like manner, the preceding ἐκολάφισαν αὐτόν (without οἱ μέν) represents what was done by the majority. “Quibus in locis primum universa res ponitur, deinde partitio nascitur, quae ostendit, priora quoque verba non de universa causa jam accipi posse,” Klotz, ad Devar. p. 358. Comp. Xen. Hell. i. 2. 14 : ᾤχοντο ἐς Δεκέλειαν, οἱ δʼ ἐς Μέγαρα; Cyrop. iv. 5. 46: ὁρᾶτε ἵππους, ὅσοι ἡμῖν πάρεισιν, οἱ δὲ προσάγονται, and the passages in Pflugk, ad Eur. Hec. 1160; Kühner, II. 2, p. 808.

Here is the first passage from Xenophon:

Xenophon, Hellenica 1.2.14

καὶ χειμὼν ἐπῄει, ἐν ᾧ οἱ αἰχμάλωτοι Συρακόσιοι, εἰργμένοι τοῦ Πειραιῶς ἐν λιθοτομίαις, διορύξαντες τὴν πέτραν, ἀποδράντες νυκτὸς ᾤχοντο εἰς Δεκέλειαν, οἱ δ᾽ εἰς Μέγαρα.

And now the winter came on. During the course of it the Syracusan prisoners, who were immured in stone quarries in Piraeus, dug through the rock and made their escape by night, most of them to Decelea and the rest to Megara. [Loeb, Brownson]

I don’t know the geography, but I guess that those that went to Megara did not go to Decelea. But it is not that the grammar splits them into two groups. They went to Decelea (most of them) - but there were some who went to Megara - perhaps this was added almost as an afterthought(?).

Henry Alford cites another passage from Xenophon:

Xenophon, Anabasis 1.5.13

ὁ δὲ καταφεύγει εἰς τὸ ἑαυτοῦ στράτευμα, καὶ εὐθὺς παραγγέλλει εἰς τὰ ὅπλα: καὶ τοὺς μὲν ὁπλίτας αὐτοῦ ἐκέλευσε μεῖναι τὰς ἀσπίδας πρὸς τὰ γόνατα θέντας, αὐτὸς δὲ λαβὼν τοὺς Θρᾷκας καὶ τοὺς ἱππέας οἳ ἦσαν αὐτῷ ἐν τῷ στρατεύματι πλείους ἢ τετταράκοντα, τούτων δὲ οἱ πλεῖστοι Θρᾷκες, ἤλαυνεν ἐπὶ τοὺς Μένωνος, ὥστ᾽ ἐκείνους ἐκπεπλῆχθαι καὶ αὐτὸν Μένωνα, καὶ τρέχειν ἐπὶ τὰ ὅπλα: οἱ δὲ καὶ ἕστασαν ἀποροῦντες τῷ πράγματι.

Clearchus escaped to his own army and at once called his troops to arms; he ordered his hoplites to remain where they were, resting their shields against their knees, while he himself with the Thracians and the horsemen, of which he had in his army more than forty, most of them Thracians, advanced upon Menon’s troops; the result was that these and Menon himself were thoroughly frightened and ran to their arms, though there were some who stood stock-still, nonplussed by the situation.

Clearly, the ones who stood still did not run to their arms. But one can still say that the troops (conceived as a group) ran to their arms.

Andrew

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Andrew, This is not a question that admits of an answer.
Michael

29

In verse 16, the twelve ἐπορεύθησαν and Matthew has some of them ἐδίστασαν so that Jesus can προσελθὼν.

This makes perfect sense as narrative. They’re on their way to see Jesus, and Matthew needs them to halt their forward momentum so that Jesus can be the one to come to them. It’s a great illustration of Creative Writing 101, if someone closes a door, you can’t just make him leave the room without letting the reader know that the door has been opened again.

The juxtaposition of προσεκύνησαν and ἐδίστασαν is not so strange to me. Recall that this is a God to φοβεῖσθαι and λατεύειν and ἀγαπᾶν (Deut. 10:12, and repeated in many places).

The doubt and hesitation is obviously not important beyond this, because Matthew doesn’t refer back to it. Jesus doesn’t pick out the doubters and reassure them, zap them, etc.