Trawling through Matthew, in 1:20 I have stumbled over this message from the angel to Joseph, telling him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, “τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου.”
My question is, why does the verb separate ‘πνεύματός’ from ‘ἁγίου’? Is it for emphasis: that, far from being a disgrace to Mary, the unborn child is actually holy? It seems very strange to me that the verb would interrupt the prepositional phrase.
These word order mysteries constantly trip me up. Any light shed would be more than welcome.
Trawling? Stumbled? I like your word choice. I notice no one has deigned to answer, and despite the fact that I sometimes get teased for being the first to respond to NT questions, I thought I would have mercy.
Yes, this word order is not normal. In addition to the fact that it shows the flexibility of an inflected language, whenever word order is this highly unusual the author is usually “doing something,” Here I think you are right. The placement of ἐστιν calls attention to the word, giving it a certain amount of salience or prominence, as if to declare that yes, really he is born of the Holy Spirit.
Many thanks, Barry. I wasn’t sure what to attribute the lack of response to (too dumb a question, or too hard a question …), so I do appreciate your help. It’s nice to know that I was at least right in thinking the order was odd. None of my commentaries remarked on it at all, which puzzled me.
Thanks again.
Out of a spirit that is holy, anyway. (The substantive is indefinite, and it sure looks like a predicate adjective to me.)
Joel, would you mind unpacking that a bit for me? I get the idea of a predicate adjective, but haven’t seen a construction like this. Is ἐστιν the main verb, or somehow creating a relative clause? Or is its position just functioning to separate the two genitive substantives in order to identify the second one as predicate?
The main verb part is easy: ἐστιν is the main verb. Its relation to πνεύματος ἁγίου is only positional.
My understanding is that if there were articles, we could see whether this was something like ἐκ τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος (“out of the holy spirit”, where holy is its attribute) or ἐκ ἁγίου τοῦ πνεύματος (“out of the spirit that is holy” as opposed to the other kind). Word order would likely be different in either case. But since there aren’t any articles, we have to guess. My guess (for whatever it’s worth) is that the positional breakup pushes for the second.
Here’s something from Aeschines with a similar word order, where the opposition really comes out:
Αὕτη μέν ἐστιν, ὦ Τίμαρχε, ἀνδρὸς ἀγαθοῦ καὶ σώφρονος ἀπολογία…ἃ δὲ πείθει σε Δημοσθένης, οὐκ ἀνδρός ἐστιν ἐλευθέρου, ἀλλὰ πόρνου περὶ τῶν τόπων διαφερομένου.
Either (attributive)
…are not of a free man, but of a rent-boy differing concerning places…
or (predicate)
…are not of a man who is free, but of rent-boy who differs concerning places…
The second seems better to me. Maybe ἐλευθέρου is an attributive adjective. But the word order, I think, puts the idea up front that he could be another kind of ἀνήρ.
The lack of the article does not always equate to indefinite, and there is no doubt from context that “the” Holy Spirit is intended. The omission of the article in the oblique cases when the noun is as part of a prepositional phrase is pretty common through the NT, and I think adequately explains it here.
I have a tendency to read such constructions as almost appositional in character, ἀγίου clarifying and making more specific the πνεύματος from which he comes in case it wasn’t obvious enough without it. I hesitate to say added as an afterthought in this case, but it’s almost like the speaker realizes that when he says ἐκ πνεύματος ἐστιν that it might not be obvious to his audience as it is to himself that he means τοῦ πνεύματος τοῦ ἀγιου explicitly.
I’d be interested in any thoughts pro/contra (is pro/contra even correct ? I bet the cases are all off - I have no latin so I probably shouldn’t try that) this.
Thx
D
I’m not sure that it would be an afterthought. But notice that Matthew refers to it in verse 18, saying “εὑρέθη ἐν γαστρὶ ἔχουσα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου”, narrating to his Christian readers. However, he has the angel say aloud to the Jewish, not Christian, Joseph “ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου”. Was Matthew conscious that Joseph would have had never heard of The Holy Spirit before? Maybe?
In the Gospels, the article for holy spirit is omitted elsewhere without a preposition. Matthew 3:16 in the best versions. Luke drops it often. And there are plenty of different types of spirits in the Gospels, ἅγιον, ἀκάθαρτον, ἄλαλον, κωφόν, πονηρόν, ἀσθενείας. If what we’re doing is papering over all this variation of phrasing and first century pneumatological weirdness, and simply importing the later Church’s understanding of The Holy Spirit, and making it Matthew’s understanding by assumption, we might want to be explicit about doing that.
I’m not worried about the article as much about the implications of the placement of the verb.
I agree afterthought as a I said is not quite right here. It could peculiar phrasing to halt the hearer prompting more attention on their part. And perhaps that’s a better way to cast it, as I think Barry did. But I am primarily wondering here about the appositional nature I tend to see here, whether accidental or intentional - it could be used either way by a speaker. Of course for a writer intentional one would hope would be the more likely.
Thx
D
The sentence ends with ἁγίου, placing more emphasis on an important word, instead of ending with ἐστιν, an unimportant word. Nothing more than that. As an inflected language, Greek lends itself to hyperbata like this, and they’re pretty common – nothing unusual.
Cambridge Grammar of Classical Greek, p. 710: “Greek constituent order . . . is not primarily a syntactic phenomenon. Instead, the ordering of constituents depends on their information status: a constituent’s position in the clause is determined largely by how new an important the information which it adds to the context is (in English, information status is mostly expressed by intonation).”
The sentence builds up to the important point, which is ἁγίου. The ordering ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου is only surprising in that it’s different from what an English-speaker would expect.
Joel (as I understand him) is right, I think, to question whether translating anarthrous ἐκ πνεύματός . . . ἁγίου as “from the Holy Spirit” amounts to “simply importing the later Church’s understanding of The Holy Spirit, and making it Matthew’s understanding by assumption.” The literal meaning of πνεῦμα is “breath” or "breathing, and one out of a range of meanings listed in LSJ (including “flatulence”) is “breath of life.” Perhaps τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου means simply something like “what was engendered in her is from a holy breath/source of life” (using italics to capture the emphasis place on ἁγίου by its placement at the end of the sentence.
In fact, the emphatic placement of ἁγίου seems to me, reading the Greek uninformed by theology, to show that the noun phrase ἐκ πνεύματός . . . ἁγίου – without article – doesn’t refer to a specific entity, “the Holy Spirit,” but rather that the sentence merely informs that the source of the pregnancy is holy, building up as it does to the important word ἁγίου.
I part ways with Joel in not characterizing ἁγίου as a predicate adjective. The predicate is ἐκ πνεύματός . . . ἁγίου. ἁγίου itself is simply an attributive adjective within the noun phrase.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpneu%3Dma
But I’m not a Christian or even a believer of any sort, so take my comment for what it’s worth.
Hylander to the rescue! I think that’s an excellent analysis of the syntax here. With regard to the specificity of “holy spirit” I would suggest that an examination of pneumatology in Matthew would argue that he does have “the Holy Spirit” in mind. This where the understanding by the later church fathers draws much of its source material. Thanks again for a good, common sense response.
It seems to me that if the author were referring to a specific entity, the Holy Spirit, and not simply to the source of the pregnancy as a divine process, he would have used the article and he wouldn’t have broken up πνεύματός and αγιου, which places emphasis on the attribute ἁγίου. “God” is usually not just θεος, but ο θεος.
And Joel makes a good point that the notion of an entity called the “Holy Spirit” would have been utterly foreign to a Judean man in 0 CE, who would hardly have been acquainted with the writings of the subsequent Church Fathers.
My impression is that this arrangement could have the purpose of balancing/distributing the emphasis on the two words; it would be like a kind of “progressive” emphasis. First, that the pregnancy is not caused by a natural human process (πνεύματός) - therefore the previous “do not be afraid…”, and second (ἁγίου), that the spirit involved is indeed the Holy Spirit.
Hylander, thanx for this response. Very helpful but of course, because it’s me, I have questions 
I read this section (Hyperbaton 60:18) in CGCG and Matt 1:20 would appear to be an example of the second case - head preceding the modifier. In such a case CGCG says that there is no emphasis, but rather additional information is provided regarding the head - in this case holiness. Am I reading that correctly ? Of course they have a disclaimer indicating these are not absolute rules. But this would seem contrary to the intent of the passage which is to reassure Joseph that the origin of the pregnancy is ok and thus ἀγίου is far from unimportant - as Joel points out other kinds of spirits exist and would have caused no end of difficulty for Joseph. Though perhaps per CGCG’s “predictable” from “some additional information about the head is given, which is either predictable or not particularly relevant” would apply, given how the message is being delivered.
Regarding :
isn’t the whole phrase ordering different from what an English-speaker would expect ? It’s not just the placement of the verb in between the noun and adjective. In English the verb would be before the prepositional phrase in all likelihood. So isn’t it that the unusual position of the verb is unusual with respect to Greek ? If it is not then wouldn’t the entire premise of this thread would be false at the outset ?
Thx
D
Hi all, I’m a complete beginner when it comes to NT Greek: I saw a reference to a Greek-Latin John on another thread, bought it, received it this week and am enjoying it. Interesting seeing how Jerome e.g. usually translates Greek attributive participles with qui clauses, but circumstantial participles with cum clauses etc. I also just ordered and received something called the Greek NT: A reader’s edition: looks well laid out, will see how fast one can read it through.
I haven’t yet found out what the leading NT syntax is — any suggestions greatly appreciated!
So I’m coming to this thread with Attic eyes. Still, I wanted to throw something out to the NT experts: is it possible that this Matthew 1:20 is simply normal word order?
The position of adjective after noun without article (‘anarthrous’) is, I understand from some quick research, standard in NT. See e.g. here, page 2: https://www.academia.edu/749499/Word_order_and_relative_prominence_in_New_Testament_Greek
That’s the easy part.
The question then is why the copula is where it is. A few background points from Attic:
- The copula is usually a postpositive in the Greek that I’m used to (Dover 1960 p. 13).
- This means that it is frequently found in the second position (for non-connective particles) identified in Wackernagel’s law.
Second position is e.g. the position of the non-connective postpositive με (not the fronted position of postpositives γάρ τοι before the first mobile) in:
ὁ γάρ τοι παῖς με ὁ Σάτυρος ἀπέδρα (Protagoras 310c).
I started flicking through Matthew and it looked like he followed the same pattern (non-connective postpositives in second position, connectives in fronted position before the first mobile), e.g.
3:11 ὁ δὲ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος
So I did a quick search of every use of the copula in the first five chapters of Matthew, and they seem to fit Wackernagel’s law completely (I’ve inserted a bar | for the start of new word groups, following e.g. Dover 1960 p. 17 and Cambridge grammar of classical Greek secs 60.7–8.
Check it out:
1. Wackernagel law (second) position:
3:11 ὁ δὲ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος | ἰσχυρότερός μου ἐστίν,
3:15 Ἄφες ἄρτι, | οὕτω γὰρ πρέπον ἐστὶν ἡμῖν πληρῶσαι πᾶσαν δικαιοσύνην.
5:3 μακάριοι οἱ πτωχοὶ τῷ πνεύματι, | ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.
5:10 μακάριοι οἱ δεδιωγμένοι ἕνεκεν δικαιοσύνης, | ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστὶν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν.
5:34 μήτε ἐν “τῷ οὐρανῷ,” | ὅτι “θρόνος ἐστὶν τοῦ θεοῦ·”
5:35 μήτε ἐν “τῇ γῇ,” | ὅτι “ὑποπόδιόν ἐστιν τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ·” | μήτε εἰς Ἰεροσόλυμα, | ὅτι “πόλις” ἐστὶν “τοῦ μεγάλου βασιλέως·”
5:37 τὸ δὲ περισσὸν τούτων | ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ ἐστίν.
5:48 Ἔσεσθε” οὖν ὑμεῖς “τέλειοι” | ὡς ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν ὁ οὐράνιος | τέλειός ἐστιν.
2. Fronted position (under the influence of a relative/interrogative/demonstrative pronoun):
1:23 ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον “Μεθ᾽ ἡμῶν ὁ θεός”.
2:2 Ποῦ ἐστὶν ὁ τεχθεὶς βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων;
3:3 Οὗτος γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ῥηθεὶς διὰ Ἠσαίου τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος
3:17 Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱός μου ὁ ἀγαπητός, ἐν ᾧ εὐδόκησα.
That’s all the copulas in the first five chapters, other than the one in question. I’ll insert a bar again, after the subject word-group:
1:20 τὸ γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ γεννηθὲν | ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου·
The copula here is in second position as per Wackernagel’s law. (ἐκ + πνεύματός together make up first position, since ἐκ is a prepositive: see e.g. Cambridge grammar of classical Greek sec. 60.10.) Anywhere else would put it out of position.
Compare e.g. 5:37 τὸ δὲ περισσὸν τούτων | ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ ἐστίν from the list above: the copula is also in second position there (ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ together make up first position, i.e. two prepositives and a mobile).
Could this therefore be default word order, without any particular emphasis intended?
As I said above, I’m intervening in this thread as the opposite of an expert: my engagement with the NT so far dates back to about Thursday. I’ve love to hear and learn from the experts on this board, thanks!
Cheers, Chad
Hi Chad,
I am going in the other direction - trying to get into Attic having started in the NT. I’m no expert in Greek of any sort so I’ll let others make responses to your question but I think it’s really interesting. Thanx also for the references.
But a question regarding Dover 1960. What exactly is this ? I would like to look it up.
Thx
D
Dover 1960 = Dover, K. 1960. Greek Word Order. Cambridge.
See Sansone’s review of Dik 1995, also on Greek word order, for a brief evaluation: https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/1995/1995.11.08/.
Thanx. Hilariously, I already own this, but have not actually read much of it yet. Time to finish that I guess.
Thx
D
Chad, that’s very interesting and suggestive. I think you may be right.
In the examples you cited, there are some instances of a noun head separated from a genitive modifier by the clitic copula ἐστι (it’s only the clitic forms that would be subject to Wackernagel’s law, if I’m not mistaken):
5:34 μήτε ἐν “τῷ οὐρανῷ,” | ὅτι “θρόνος ἐστὶν τοῦ θεοῦ·”
5:35 μήτε ἐν “τῇ γῇ,” | ὅτι “ὑποπόδιόν ἐστιν τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ·” | μήτε εἰς Ἰεροσόλυμα, | ὅτι “πόλις” ἐστὶν “τοῦ μεγάλου βασιλέως·”
But no instances of a noun head separated by the copula from an attributive adjective modifier within the noun phrase, as in ἐκ πνεύματός ἐστιν ἁγίου·. I think that would be a test case for your suggestion that this is an instance of W’s law with no special emphasis on the adjective.