John chap 2 24-25 διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας

Greek Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek
1

αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἐπίστευεν αὑτὸν αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας καὶ ὅτι οὐ χρείαν εἶχεν ἵνα τις μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐγίνωσκεν τί ἦν ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ.

Jesus himself did not entrust himself to them because of the person all of them he perceived and that he had no need in order someone should witness concerning the people - he himself perceived what was inside the people.
The bit I have trouble with is διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας. With the help of translations I think the τὸ αὐτὸν is a kind of representative individual a sort of indefinite which is then extended to a more general designation of all men.

Some like “because of one or other of them, indeed all of them”.

2

διὰ τὸ διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας – because he himself knew all of them

articular infinitive; Jesus is antecedent of αὐτὸν.


αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἐπίστευεν αὑτὸν αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας καὶ ὅτι οὐ χρείαν εἶχεν ἵνα τις μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, αὐτὸς γὰρ ἐγίνωσκεν τί ἦν ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ.

but Jesus didn’t entrust himself to them because he knew all of them, and he didn’t need anyone to testify about the human being, for he knew what was in the human being.

3

Is this the same as and indirect statement? I ask because I understood the rule to be that the subject of an infinitive construction is accusative unless it is the same as the introduction and in this case it is. That is to say αὐτὸν represents Jesus (if I have understood correctly) who is the subject of the intro.

4

It’s not an indirect statement, but αὐτὸν is accusative. If subject of the infinitive is the same as the subject of the main verb and isn’t emphatic, it’s generally omitted, and is treated as nominative (i.e., adjectives and other words agreeing with the subject are nominative), but if the subject of the infinitive is the same as the subject of the main verb but expressed (and therefore emphatic), it’s generally accusative, not nominative.

Smyth:

  1. When the subject of the infinitive is the same as that of the governing verb, it is omitted, and a predicate noun stands in the nominative case.
    ““οἶμαι εἰδέναι” I think that I know” P. Pr. 312e, ““Πέρσης ἔφη εἶναι” he said he was a Persian” X. A. 4.4.17, ““ἐγὼ οὐχ ὁμολογήσω ἄκλητος ἥκειν” I shall not admit that I have come uninvited” P. S. 174d, ὁμολογεῖς περὶ ἐμὲ ἄδικος γεγενῆσθαι; do you admit that you have been guilty as regards me? X. A. 1.6.8 (cp. 4.2.27 in 2263).

a. The nominative is used when the infinitive, expressing some action or state of the subject of the main verb, has the article in an oblique case. Thus, τούτων ἀξιωθεὶς διὰ τὸ πατρικὸς αὐτῷ φίλος εί̂ναι justifying these requests on the ground that he was his hereditary friend Aes. 3.52, ““τοῦτο δ᾽ ἐποίει ἐκ τοῦ χαλεπὸς εἶναι” this he effected by reason of his being severe” X. A. 2.6.9, ἐπὶ τῷ ὁμοῖοι τοῖς λειπομένοις εἶναι ἐκπέμπονται (colonists) are sent out to be the equals of those who stay at home T. 1.34.

  1. A pronoun subject of the infinitive, if (wholly or partially) identical with the subject of the main verb, is generally expressed when emphatic, and stands in the accusative (cases of the nominative are rare and suspected)> ; . . .

οἶμαι ἐμὲ πλείω χρήματα εἰργάσθαι ἢ ἄλλους σύνδυο” I think I have made more money than any two others together” P. Hipp. M. 282e, ἡγησάμενος ἐμαυτὸν ἐπιεικέστερον εἶναι (emphatic for ἡγησάμενος ἐπιεικέστερος εἶναι) deeming myself to be too honest P. A. 36b, ““τοὺς δὲ Θηβαίους ἡγεῖτο . . . ἐάσειν ὅπως βούλεται πράττειν ἑαυτόν” he thought the Thebans would let him have his own way” D. 6.9, . . .

Sorry about the duplicated γινώσκειν πάντας. Fixed it.

5

Sadly Smyth is as usual as clear as mud to me (possibly because past experience means that my brain goes into a panic whenever I begin to read his prose). However your explanation is very helpful and Keller and Russel has a good section on the articular infinitive (p259 vol 1) and I will do the linked exercise tomorrow. Thanks for setting me right.

6

David,

Thank you for reminding us that meta-language is a barrier we all struggle with. I was trying to come up with a plain english explanation of how participants and/or agents are encoded with the Greek infinitive. Note the three bits of of text-linguistic terminology: participants, agents, encoded. I looked on-line for a good discussion of participant-reference and came up with the usual suspects: SIL-Understanding Discourse (S. Levinsohn, et al) and some work by S. Runge. All of this was overflowing with technical jargon.

So leaving all of that behind, here are a few generalities without jargon[1]:

The Hemingway Principle: omit anything that can be assumed

A regular verb only requires a noun subject when it cannot be assumed.

Often a greek infinitive doesn’t require any help from a noun, pronoun.

A greek infinitive may adopt or inherit a noun subject from a regular verb.

A pronoun with an infinitive calls attention to the noun the pronoun refers to.

A noun subject with an infinitive indicates that some new information is required.

The The Hemingway Principle is by no means a language universal. Coptic (Sahdic) clauses are often supplied with what seem to be redundant pronouns.

This was just an exercise in anti-jargon expression of certain regularities in greek syntax. This is not an attempt to rewrite H.W. Smyth or whatever.


[1] terms like noun, verb, subject, pronoun are also metalanguage but we will assume we all know what they mean.

7

With all due respect, what you’ve done is simply to fashion your own “metalanguage”, which is even more obscure and confusing than the “metalanguage” of traditional grammatical analysis. And your metalanguage so far lacks the descriptive and explanatory power of traditional grammatical analysis: in fact, so far, you can’t even address Daivid’s question because you have no terms corresponding to “nominative” and “accusative.” By the same token, you’ve borrowed the term “infinitive” from traditional grammatical analysis.

Ancient (as well as modern) Greek is difficult. In learning and understanding Greek, it’s essential to have some grammatical framework in which to explain the phenomena, and no matter what “metalanguage” you choose, explanations are necessarily going to be complicated and difficult to master. Traditional grammatical analysis is not absolutely perfect, to be sure, and perhaps could stand some tweaking in light of the progress of linguistics over the past century, but it is capable of describing and explaining nearly all the phenomena. So why try to invent an alternative framework that, in the end–when it is fully developed to accommodate the full range of phenomena–is necessarily going to be just as complicated and difficult? Why not just grit your teeth and learn to work within the traditional framework, as many of us have done?

It boils down to one thing: there’s just no easy way to learn ancient Greek–or any other foreign language for that matter. Modern languages, especially modern western European languages, are somewhat easier for English-speakers to learn than ancient Greek because thought patterns are more familiar. But in reading ancient Greek, you’re dealing with literary texts, not simple sentences about everyday life. Reading comparable texts in modern languages requires a high level of language mastery, too–a level of mastery that isn’t attained effortlessly.

8

Re the bolded part of your quote below: is there a name for what KIND of accusative that would be?
Example: in Romans 8:28, proleptic or heroic accusative for God doing the sunergew.

So in this usage, does that use of the accusative have its own generally-accepted name to denote the type of usage? Thank you for your time!

9

It’s an accusative that functions as the subject of an infinitive. I’m not aware of any special term.

10

The problem with metalanguage is not simply that learners often have not fully taken on board the meaning of the metalanguage thought that is part of the reason why Smyth is so hard for me.
Metalanguage allows one to convey a lot of information and while this is a strength if the user knows Greek well and just needs to be reminded it produces a failure to process in learners like me because of the density of information.
Finally Smyth’s examples are real Greek and while they may illustrate the point being made to someone who can read Greek fluently for me they are packed with unknown (to me) words and usually are difficult because of other aspects of grammar which for me are as hard or harder than the grammatical aspect I was looking up.

Keller and Russell’s book is in many ways too hard for me. They do tend to assume the learner fully understands metalanguage but they use examples that are tailored better to illustrate the grammar under discussion and, in composing those examples, confine themselves to a restricted vocabulary of frequently encountered words. They then explain those examples. Hence the density of information is much more manageable than Smyth.

It is true that C. S. Bartholomew did not answer my question. However, it certainly didn’t hurt reading an simple discussion on infinitive constructions and was helpful in reinforcing the basic point that indirect discourse and articular infinitives are not one and the same thing.

11

Daivid, have you ever looked at Kaegi’s Greek Grammar? At my level, I tend to find it much more useful than Smyth.

12

I quite tend to favour starting with concise grammars and lexica and then gradually work my way through to larger and larger ones. Eduard Bornemann’s and Ernst Rix’s Griechische Grammatik is relatively new, from 1970’s, and really recommendable as a smallish grammar for starters. It’s 360 pages long and not expensive at all. After taking that in, you can slowly continue with Kühner—Gerth—Blass (ca. 3000 pages) and Schwyzer (ca. 2000 pages).

13

John 2:24 αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἐπίστευεν αὐτὸν αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας

David,

None of the commentaries I have on Gsp. John address the syntax of διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας. It is cited as an example in hand out for a class at Calvin Theological Seminary:


II. THE ARTICULAR INFINITIVE
A. Without a Preposition
Rom 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another (εἰ μὴ τὸ αλλήλους ἀγαπᾶν)
B. With a Preposition

  1. Cause with διά and the accusative (32x)

John 2:24 Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἐπίστευεν αὐτὸν αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας Jesus was not entrusting himself to them because he know all

Overview of Greek Grammar> , 2010 Dean Deppe p.38 (pdf available).

διὰ τὸ plus the infinitive is a idiom in Attic (Xenophon, Thucydides) and it is common in Luke-Acts but improbable in Gsp. John. For this reason, F. Blass had a problem with διὰ τὸ αὐτὸν γινώσκειν πάντας and omitted it. BDF §401.1 notes this is supported by Nonnus and a Syriac version. A.T. Robertson talks about it, cited below.

The idiom διὰ τὸ, is so frequent in Xenophon and Thucydides that as compared with ὅτι it stands as 2 to 3. In later Greek ( κοινή, and Byzantine) it comes to displace even ἵνα and ὅπως though finally shifting to διὰ νά, in modern Greek (cf. English “for that”). It is not surprising therefore to find it in the N. T. with comparative frequency. διὰ τὸ is frequent in Luke’s writings, and once in Paul’s Epistles, and rare in the other N. T. writers. It is always the cause that is given by διὰ τὸ, as in Mt. 13:5 f., διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν. It is not merely the practical equivalent ὅτι and διότι, but is used side by side with them. Cf. Jas. 4:2f. διὰ τὸ μὴ αἰτεῖσθαι ὑμᾶς, αἰτεῖτε καὶ οὐ λαμβάνετε διότι κακῶς αἰτεῖσθε. It may stand alone, as in Lu. 9: 7; 11:8, or with the accusative of general reference as in indirect discourse, as in Lu. 2:4; 19:11. Note two accs. in Ac. 4:2. The perfect tense occurs seven times, as in Mk. 5:4 (ter); Lu. 6:48; Ac. 8:11; 18:2; 27:9. In Mk. 5:4 it is the evidence, not the reason, that is given.130 Blass (Gr. of N. T. Gk., p. 236) unnecessarily rejects Jo. 2:24.

A. T. Robertson p. 1071.

The pronoun αὐτὸν is absent in Codex Sinaiticus. I would expect John to provide a pronoun. According to Ruben Swanson[1], the correctors of Sinaiticus didn’t fix this which suggests that the absence of αὐτὸν didn’t present a problem for them.

[1] I didn’t check Wieland Wilker’s errata for Swanson.

14

χαῖρε, φίλε ἀποκεφαλιζόμενε. πῶς ἔχεις?

For what it’s worth, the generally-accepted Mounce says that one can understand it as a type of accusative of respect.

ἔρρωσο ἐν Χριστῷ.
Μᾶρκος.

15

To Hylander and Markos, thank you for your replies. I have Mounce, will read.

16

Is αὐτον really absent from the Sinaiticus? It’s not reported in my 4th revised UBS edition, as I’d have expected it would be.

No way is it any type of acc. of respect. :open_mouth: I tried to set Markos straight about this once before, I think, and if it’s what Mounce says he’s badly wrong. It’s just the subject of the infinitive, as Hylander pointed out.

And daivid, the (acc.&)inf. of indirect discourse is the same as the (acc.&)inf. that’s used after τό τοῦ τῷ. The difference is that the article gives the infinitive a case (nom. acc. gen. dat.), so it can fit in the sentence like a regular noun (here accusative of course).

But here the addition of αυτον is a bit odd, and Smyth’s examples of classical usage are not really parallel. Friedrich Blass’s judgment, whatever precisely it was, should be treated with great respect. But I think I’ve come across comparable instances in papyri. I’d view it as post-classical usage and as being under the influence of the normal acc.&inf. with articular infinitives. I read it as the ordinary pronoun (“him”, “on account of the fact that he knew them”), though the use of αυτος above and below (αυτος δε Ιησους and especially αυτος γαρ εγινωσκεν) might give pause. But in the latter case αυτος comes very close to serving as a simple pronoun (“he”), as in Matthew’s Beatitudes (5.4-9) and in modern Greek, rather than being intensifying (“he himself”) as it would be in earlier Greek.

Doesn’t anyone want to argue that it means “on account of the fact that they all knew him”? I hope not, but that would be perfectly good Greek.

17

18

Vaticanus (a) (m-03) has auton. Click here to see a pic of it from Bibleworks9’s Mss tab. (I should be allowed to display it because it’s clearly part of Bibleworks 9, so no copyright violation would exist. If I find out otherwise, I’ll take the jpg down.)

My ms facsimile for Sinaiticus (a) shows the same as above by jeidsath.

19

Well, lets look at a few of these to see how often διὰ τὸ + infinitive has either a pronoun or noun/substantive as a “subject.” Subjects are bolded without comment after the first few examples. I noted that the parable of sower was a good place to start.

Matt. 13:3 Καὶ ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς πολλὰ ἐν παραβολαῖς λέγων· ἰδοὺ ἐξῆλθεν ὁ σπείρων τοῦ σπείρειν. 4 καὶ ἐν τῷ σπείρειν αὐτὸν ἃ μὲν ἔπεσεν παρὰ τὴν ὁδόν, καὶ ἐλθόντα τὰ πετεινὰ κατέφαγεν αὐτά. 5 ἄλλα δὲ ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ τὰ πετρώδη ὅπου οὐκ εἶχεν γῆν πολλήν, καὶ εὐθέως ἐξανέτειλεν > διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν βάθος γῆς· > 6 ἡλίου δὲ ἀνατείλαντος ἐκαυματίσθη καὶ > διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν ῥίζαν ἐξηράνθη> .

Mark 4:5 καὶ ἄλλο ἔπεσεν ἐπὶ τὸ πετρῶδες ὅπου οὐκ εἶχεν γῆν πολλήν, καὶ εὐθὺς ἐξανέτειλεν > διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν βάθος γῆς· > 6 καὶ ὅτε ἀνέτειλεν ὁ ἥλιος ἐκαυματίσθη καὶ > διὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν ῥίζαν > ἐξηράνθ

Luke 8:6 καὶ ἕτερον κατέπεσεν ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν, καὶ φυὲν ἐξηράνθη δ> ιὰ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν ἰκμάδα> .

βάθος and ῥίζαν are objects of ἔχειν. There is no subject. The subject ἄλλα is inherited from the main verb ἔπεσεν. This pattern repeats itself in Mark and Luke.

Matt. 24:12 καὶ διὰ τὸ πληθυνθῆναι > τὴν ἀνομίαν > ψυγήσεται ἡ ἀγάπη τῶν πολλῶν.

Here we have an explicit subject τὴν ἀνομίαν.

Mark 5:4 διὰ > τὸ αὐτὸν > πολλάκις πέδαις καὶ ἁλύσεσιν δεδέσθαι καὶ διεσπάσθαι ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ τὰς ἁλύσεις καὶ τὰς πέδας συντετρῖφθαι, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἴσχυεν αὐτὸν δαμάσαι·



Luke 2:4 Ἀνέβη δὲ καὶ Ἰωσὴφ ἀπὸ τῆς Γαλιλαίας ἐκ πόλεως Ναζαρὲθ εἰς τὴν Ἰουδαίαν εἰς πόλιν Δαυὶδ ἥτις καλεῖται Βηθλέεμ, διὰ τὸ εἶναι > αὐτὸν > ἐξ οἴκου καὶ πατριᾶς Δαυίδ



Luke 6:48 ὅμοιός ἐστιν ἀνθρώπῳ οἰκοδομοῦντι οἰκίαν ὃς ἔσκαψεν καὶ ἐβάθυνεν καὶ ἔθηκεν θεμέλιον ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν· πλημμύρης δὲ γενομένης προσέρηξεν ὁ ποταμὸς τῇ οἰκίᾳ ἐκείνῃ, καὶ οὐκ ἴσχυσεν σαλεῦσαι αὐτὴν διὰ τὸ καλῶς οἰκοδομῆσθαι > αὐτήν> .



Luke 9:7 Ἤκουσεν δὲ Ἡρῴδης ὁ τετραάρχης τὰ γινόμενα πάντα καὶ διηπόρει διὰ τὸ λέγεσθαι > ὑπό τινων > ὅτι Ἰωάννης ἠγέρθη ἐκ νεκρῶν

Here we have agency marked by ὑπό τινων with the passive λέγεσθαι.

Luke 11:8 λέγω ὑμῖν, εἰ καὶ οὐ δώσει αὐτῷ ἀναστὰς διὰ τὸ εἶναι φίλον αὐτοῦ, διά γε τὴν ἀναίδειαν αὐτοῦ ἐγερθεὶς δώσει αὐτῷ ὅσων χρῄζει.

Here the subject of εἶναι is the referent of the preceding αὐτῷ.

Luke 19:11 Ἀκουόντων δὲ αὐτῶν ταῦτα προσθεὶς εἶπεν παραβολὴν διὰ τὸ ἐγγὺς εἶναι Ἰερουσαλὴμ > αὐτὸν > καὶ δοκεῖν αὐτοὺς ὅτι παραχρῆμα μέλλει ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ ἀναφαίνεσθαι.



Luke 23:8 Ὁ δὲ > Ἡρῴδης > ἰδὼν τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἐχάρη λίαν, ἦν γὰρ ἐξ ἱκανῶν χρόνων θέλων ἰδεῖν αὐτὸν διὰ τὸ ἀκούειν περὶ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἤλπιζέν τι σημεῖον ἰδεῖν ὑπ᾿ αὐτοῦ γινόμενον.

Typical pattern of reduced encoding for participant reference. Full noun phrase Ὁ Ἡρῴδης drops immediately to zero anaphora and stays there. “zero anaphora” = verb only, no subject pronoun or noun. Luke-Acts is less likely than Gsp. John to provide help with participant reference.

John 2:24 αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς οὐκ ἐπίστευεν αὐτὸν αὐτοῖς διὰ τὸ > αὐτὸν > γινώσκειν πάντας



Acts 4:2 διαπονούμενοι διὰ τὸ διδάσκειν > αὐτοὺς > τὸν λαὸν καὶ καταγγέλλειν ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ τὴν ἀνάστασιν τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν,



Acts 8:11 προσεῖχον δὲ αὐτῷ διὰ τὸ ἱκανῷ χρόνῳ ταῖς μαγείαις ἐξεστακέναι αὐτούς.

No subject, nearest previous reference αὐτῷ.

Acts 12:20 Ἦν δὲ θυμομαχῶν Τυρίοις καὶ Σιδωνίοις· ὁμοθυμαδὸν δὲ παρῆσαν πρὸς αὐτὸν καὶ πείσαντες Βλάστον, τὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ κοιτῶνος τοῦ βασιλέως, ᾐτοῦντο εἰρήνην διὰ τὸ τρέφεσθαι αὐτῶν > τὴν χώραν > ἀπὸ τῆς βασιλικῆς.



Acts 18:2 καὶ εὑρών τινα Ἰουδαῖον ὀνόματι Ἀκύλαν, Ποντικὸν τῷ γένει προσφάτως ἐληλυθότα ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰταλίας καὶ Πρίσκιλλαν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, διὰ τὸ διατεταχέναι > Κλαύδιον > χωρίζεσθαι πάντας τοὺς Ἰουδαίους ἀπὸ τῆς Ῥώμης, προσῆλθεν αὐτοῖς 3 καὶ διὰ τὸ ὁμότεχνον εἶναι ἔμενεν παρ᾿ αὐτοῖς, καὶ ἠργάζετο· ἦσαν γὰρ σκηνοποιοὶ τῇ τέχνῃ.

Κλαύδιον subject. No subject for διὰ τὸ ὁμότεχνον εἶναι

Acts 27:4 κἀκεῖθεν ἀναχθέντες ὑπεπλεύσαμεν τὴν Κύπρον διὰ τὸ > τοὺς ἀνέμους > εἶναι ἐναντίους,



Acts 27:9 Ἱκανοῦ δὲ χρόνου διαγενομένου καὶ ὄντος ἤδη ἐπισφαλοῦς τοῦ πλοὸς διὰ τὸ καὶ > τὴν νηστείαν > ἤδη παρεληλυθέναι παρῄνει ὁ Παῦλος



Acts 28:18 οἵτινες ἀνακρίναντές με ἐβούλοντο ἀπολῦσαι διὰ τὸ μηδεμίαν > αἰτίαν > θανάτου ὑπάρχειν ἐν ἐμοί.

20

Two of these passages match Jn.2.24 (unlike the parable of the sower passages and others) in having αυτον as subject of the infinitive even though the subject of the sentence is the same: Lk.2.4 and 19.11. In both cases I think we can see that while grammatically dispensable the αυτον is not entirely redundant, though it’s not at all strong.

In the John passage αυτον could be serving to prevent παντας being taken as the subject of the infinitive. But I don’t understand why the Sinaiticus’ reading (without αυτον, i.e. “zero anaphora” in Sterling’s metalanguage) should be altogether ignored. It’s not obviously wrong. (And it’s in accordance with Sterling’s Hemingway Principle, for what that’s worth, and exemplifies what he calls the “typical pattern of reduced encoding for participant [better “agent”?] reference.”)