I’m having trouble understanding “αὐτῷ τούτῳ τῷ φιλεῖσθαι” in this sentence:
τὸ δέ γε θεοφιλὲς ὅτι φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν, αὐτῷ τούτῳ τῷ φιλεῖσθαι θεοφιλὲς εἶναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὅτι θεοφιλές, διὰ τοῦτο φιλεῖσθαι.
The commentaries that I’ve looked at seem to assume that the meaning needs no clarification.
Roughly I translate the words around it as:
The god-loved, because it is loved by the gods, … is god-loved, but not because it is god-loved is it loved.
I assume that the phrase is parenthetical, restating in different words “φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν”. If “φιλεῖσθαι” were a perfect passive infinitive, then I’d guess that the datives could refer to the agent – although that would present problems. “τῷ” could mean “by someone”, but then “αὐτῷ τούτῳ” would have to be some other sort of datives. Dative of respect? Loved with respect to itself? “τῷ” – in some way (as opposed to by someone)?
Mark
I assume that the phrase is parenthetical, restating in different words “φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν”.
You are basically right.
τῷ φιλεῖσθαι is an articular infinitive, modified with emphasis by αὐτῷ τούτῳ: something like “because of the very fact of being loved”. I guess you could call it instrumental dative or dative of cause. It emphasizes ὅτι φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν . . . θεοφιλὲς εἶναι,
τὸ δέ γε θεοφιλὲς ὅτι φιλεῖται ὑπὸ θεῶν, αὐτῷ τούτῳ τῷ φιλεῖσθαι θεοφιλὲς εἶναι, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὅτι θεοφιλές, διὰ τοῦτο φιλεῖσθαι.
“[And so we agree that] what is god-loved is god-loved because it is loved by the gods, specifically by virtue of that, namely, being loved, and not [that] it is loved because it is god-loved.”
Something like that.
Another comma after αὐτῷ τούτῳ τῷ φιλεῖσθαι might have helped clarify the sentence structure.
The infinitive εἶναι is governed by an understood ὁμολογοῦμεν from the preceding sentence of Socrates:
ὅτι ὁμολογοῦμεν τὸ μὲν ὅσιον διὰ τοῦτο φιλεῖσθαι, ὅτι ὅσιόν ἐστιν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ διότι φιλεῖται ὅσιον εἶναι: ἦ γάρ;
“Because we agree that what is holy is loved because it is holy, and not [that] it is holy because it is loved. Right?”
“Yes.”
Note τὸ δέ γε θεοφιλὲς picking up from τὸ μὲν ὅσιον in Socrates’ previous remark.
Thanks!
A bit earlier in the dialog I discovered that Plato was using ‘τοῦ’ to mean ‘τίνος’. When I saw ‘τῷ’, I thought “ah-ha he means ‘τίνι’”. (I was troubled that ‘αὐτῷ’ and ‘τίνι’ seemed to be odd company.)
The fact that an articular infinitive could be in the dative case didn’t occur to me. Now I understand.
Mark