i came across this word and tried to think of a translation, but I’m not entirely sure. The following things I know:
It comes from the word θνησκω wich means ‘to die’ and when it’s in perfectum form you translate it as
‘to be dead’ or ‘to be killed’
I can see that it’s a perfectum participle, and that its middle and accusative singular, but with the sudden ξ in de middle I got a bit confused, so I wanted to ask if someone of you guys could help me out.
Thanks in advance.
This is a strange form, but it does exist. It’s a future middle formed anomalously from the perfect τέθνηκα, “to be dead.” LSJ cites Libanius for the participle.
LSJ θνῄσκω:
from τέθνηκα arose fut. “τεθνήξω” Ar.Ach.325, A.Ag.1279 (censured as archaic by Luc.Sol.7), later “τεθνήξομαι” Diogenian.Epicur.1.28, 3.52, Luc.Pisc. 10, Ael.NA2.46; part. “τεθνηξόμενος” Lib.Ep.438.7.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dqnh%2F|skw
Ah, I didn’t see that one !
So if I’m correct τον τεθνεξομενον should be translated as ‘the one who will be dead’?
So if I’m correct τον τεθνεξομενον should be translated as ‘the one who will be dead’?
You’re correct.
Thanks for tracking this down, Bill. As a stranger I shall give it welcome, as Hamlet might say.
Suppose that someone said:
ἐπαύριον, μετὰ τὸν πόλεμον, Θεοῦ θέλοντος, τὸν τεθνηξόμενον τιμήσω δή.
“Tomorrow, after the battle, God willing, I will honor the X.”
“Should” one render this as “the dead,” “the one who will be dead” or “the one who will have died” or “the one who would have been dead” or with something else. As one asks the question, one realizes that this has almost nothing to do with the Greek. The meaning of the Greek in the sentence is quite clear. When one thinks in terms of translation, one introduces questions of English style and nuance which really divert one from understanding the Greek. This, I think, is one of the reasons Grammar-Translation is not recommended by some.
I think, I may be wrong, but I think, that τὸν τεθνηξόμενον in my sentence means essentially the same thing as τοὺς νεκρούς. The reason I may be wrong is that questions of Greek style and nuance are harder even than those of English.
Ave Caesar, cadavera te salutamus?
a few samples from over 100.
Diogenes Vitae philosophorum
Book 2, section 13, line 9ἐν τῷ δεσμωτηρίῳ τεθνηξόμενος. Περικλῆς δὲ παρελθὼν εἶπεν
εἴ τι ἔχουσιν ἐγκαλεῖν αὑτῷ κατὰ τὸν βίον· οὐδὲν δὲ εἰπόντων,Plutarchus Caesar
Chapter 34, section 7, line 1ὁ δ’ ἀπογνοὺς τὰ καθ’ ἑαυτόν, ᾔτησε τὸν
ἰατρὸν οἰκέτην ὄντα φάρμακον, καὶ λαβὼν τὸ δοθὲν ἔπιεν
ὡς τεθνηξόμενος.
Lucianus Soph., Tyrannicida
Section 18, line 11ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν ἀπόγνωσιν
εὐθὺς ἠπιστάμην τεθνηξόμενον αὐτὸν καὶ λογιού-
μενον ὡς οὐδὲν ἔτι τοῦ ζῆν ὄφελος τῆς ἐκ τοῦ παιδὸς
ἀσφαλείας καθῃρημένης.Flavius Josephus Hist., Antiquitates Judaicae (
Book 2, chapter 151, line 5εἰ καὶ ἡ κακία σε παροξύνει νῦν
ἡ ἡμετέρα, τὸ κατ’ αὐτῆς δίκαιον χάρισαι τῷ πατρὶ καὶ δυνηθήτω
πλέον ὁ πρὸς ἐκεῖνον ἔλεος τῆς ἡμετέρας πονηρίας καὶ γῆρας ἐν
ἐρημίᾳ βιωσόμενον καὶ τεθνηξόμενον ἡμῶν ἀπολομένων αἴδεσαι,
τῷ πατέρων ὀνόματι ταύτην χαριζόμενος τὴν δωρεάν.Flavius Josephus Hist., Antiquitates Judaicae
Book 6, chapter 195, line 6χώραν ἀμείνονα μὲν ἀσφαλεστέραν δὲ ὡς ἐνόμιζεν αὑτῷ· ἐβούλετο
γὰρ εἰς τοὺς πολεμίους αὐτὸν ἐκπέμπειν καὶ τὰς μάχας ὡς ἐν
τοῖς κινδύνοις τεθνηξόμενον.Flavius Josephus Hist., Antiquitates Judaicae
Book 7, chapter 266, line 4σύ τε, εἶπεν, ὦ Σαμούι,
θάρρει καὶ δείσῃς μηδὲν ὡς τεθνηξόμενος.”
Flavius Josephus Hist., Antiquitates Judaicae
Book 19, chapter 124, line 3καὶ μηδὲν αἰδουμένων αὐτοῦ τὴν ἀξίωσιν ἰσχύι προύχων ἀφαιρεῖ-
ται τὸ ξίφος τῷ πρώτῳ τῶν ἐπιόντων συμπλακεὶς φανερός τε ἦν
οὐκ ἀπραγμόνως τεθνηξόμενος, μέχρι δὴ περισχεθεὶς πολλοῖς τῶν
ἐπιφερομένων ἔπεσεν ὑπὸ πλήθους τραυμάτων.Origenes Contra Celsum
Book 2, section 16, line 53Οὐ μόνον οὖν οὐχ ὁ νεκρὸς ἀθάνατος, ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ὁ πρὸ
τοῦ νεκροῦ Ἰησοῦς ὁ σύνθετος ἀθάνατος ἦν, ὅς γε ἔμελλε
τεθνήξεσθαι. Οὐδεὶς γὰρ τεθνηξόμενος ἀθάνατος ἀλλ’
ἀθάνατος, ὅτε οὐκέτι τεθνήξεται. «Χριστὸς δὲ ἐγερθεὶς
ἐκ νεκρῶν οὐκέτι ἀποθνῄσκει· θάνατος αὐτοῦ οὐκέτι
κυριεύει»· κἂν μὴ βούλωνται οἱ ταῦτα πῶς εἴρηται
νοῆσαι μὴ χωρήσαντες.Origenes Philocalia
Chapter 23, section 16, line 11περιέχειν γὰρ οἴονται τὴν ἑκάστου γένεσιν ἀδελφὸν ὑπὸ
λῃστῶν τεθνηξόμενον, ὁμοίως καὶ τὴν τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ τὴν
τῆς μητρὸς καὶ τὴν τῆς γαμετῆς καὶ τῶν υἱῶν αὐτοῦ καὶ
τῶν οἰκετῶν καὶ τῶν φιλτάτων, τάχα δὲ καὶ αὐτῶν τῶν
ἀναιρούντων.
As best I can tell from the passages quoted by CSB, it seems that τεθνηξόμενος was used as a future active/middle participle of [ἀπο]θνῄσκω equivalent to [ἀπο]θανοῦμενος, though I can’t say I’ve encountered this form in my reading.
I don’t see what’s gained by substituting νεκρός. In none of the quoted passages can νεκρός be substituted for τεθνηξόμενος without changing the meaning or producing nonsense. And I don’t see how analyzing τεθνηξόμενος as a future participle or translating it as such vitiates the so-called “grammar-translation” method of learning Greek, by which I assume is meant the traditional approach of learning grammar–memorizing forms and learning the essential rules of syntax.
The traditional learning approach doesn’t mean you translate everything you read into English. The idea is to learn the grammar, then internalize it by reading and paying close attention to grammatical structure. As you internalize the grammar, you move away from translating everything word for word–sooner or later, as you accumulate vocabulary by reading, you’re reading Greek as you would English or a modern language, with occasional recourse to the dictionary and even sometimes to a grammar book. That’s the way I learned ancient Greek, and I daresay virtually all of the outstanding scholars of Greek, from Lorenzo Valla to M.L. West learned it that way, too. It’s not necessarily an easy process, and it takes time, but failing to pay attention to grammar in the initial stages of learning will ultimately make it twice as hard, if not impossible, to extract meaning from Greek texts.
And even after you’ve started reading Greek fluently, translation is sometimes helpful as a test of comprehension, especially where there’s doubt as to the meaning of a passage (even though translation can never manage to capture all of the meaning of the original). There are many passages in almost every ancient author–especially those writing in a highly formal or a colloquial register–where the meaning is not clear or is subject to diverse interpretations. Translation helps to clarify the issues in these passages.
Up until fairly recently Koine pedagogy[1] was focused on grammar-translation. Now days you have second language proponents like Randall Buth.
[1] a.k.a. “seminary greek”
I recommend Whitesell on Learning to Read a Foreign Language
Mechanical inefficiency is the real enemy, not grammar study. If your “grammar-translation” method is mechanically inefficient, and makes you a passive transferrer of information from book to notebook, you can invest a great deal of effort without learning much.
”The writer recently had to fail a graduate student in an examination for a reading knowledge of German required for the doctoral degree. The student was amazed at his total inability to read German, and showed me a folder containing some two hundred neatly typed pages of translation from the very book used for the examination. It was not a difficult book, but everything the student had done was on paper and only on paper. The words had simply transferred themselves from book to dictionary to paper, and the the student had done nothing that a good sorting machine or a docile moron could not do. An extreme case, yes, but an illustrative one that shows clearly what is not so clear in other similar cases.”
If you avoid such inefficiency with grammar-translation I’m sure that it’s just as Qimmik says. With my added proviso that the people who seem to learn Greek in an academic setting tend to start both rich and young.
For me, grammar study is only exciting once I’ve learned enough for it to illustrate things what I already mostly or partly understand. However, the only (study rather than exposure) polyglot that I know personally uses grammar study to create a good working foundation for writing/speaking, which he in turn uses to crack open the door to massive input learning.
Another amen to Qimmik. I agree with Markos (and Qimmik) that we should be aiming at reading without translating—the only point of translation is to communicate, however imperfectly, one’s understanding of the meaning of the original—but grammar must be learned, and rather than continually saying that X means “essentially” the same as Y it’s better to set about apprehending the difference between them—as Qimmik’s delightful “cadavera te salutamus” illustrates.
Second-language methodologies would be fine if there were native speakers of koine greek, or of NT greek (an absurd term), or if ancient greek were a living language. But there aren’t, and it isn’t. All we have is the written texts.
As to form, it looks as if the regularly formed θνήξομαι is secondary to the old reduplicated form which gained or regained a hold thanks to classicizing writers. Or did it arise independently, by simple analogical leveling (cf. e.g. διδάξω)? I suspect the latter.
Up until fairly recently Koine pedagogy[1] was focused on grammar-translation. Now days you have second language proponents like Randall Buth.
[1] a.k.a. “seminary greek”
It’s probably not impossible to teach “New Testament” Greek in seminaries by less grammar-oriented methods because most seminarians already have a good idea what the Greek texts mean and they don’t need to go much beyond that particular collection of texts. But I question how well that approach would work with Plato or Demosthenes or Thucydides, or drama or Pindar.
This is very helpful. Some of these citations, for example
Flavius Josephus Hist., Antiquitates Judaicae
Book 7, chapter 266, line 4
σύ τε, εἶπεν, ὦ Σαμούι,
θάρρει καὶ δείσῃς μηδὲν ὡς τεθνηξόμενος.”
are so simple and easy to understand, even for beginners, that they do provide an alternate (non-Grammar-Translation) way to answer starren’s original question.
This is another alternate (non-Grammar-Translation) way to answer starren’s original question, i.e. target language paraphrase.
Ave Caesar, cadavera te salutamus?
In a sense, yes, because in the long run we are all dead.
Maybe, sort of, partially, in form (but note the accent) but I don’t see any such force in the citations given by Clayton.
Qimmik wrote:…τεθνηξόμενος was…equivalent to [ἀπο]θανοῦμενος…
This is another alternate (non-Grammar-Translation) way to answer starren’s original question, i.e. target language paraphrase.
No, it’s grammatical analysis, not a paraphrase. τεθνηξόμενος is an alternative form of the future participle of θνῄσκω. It occupies a specific slot in the paradigm of this verb, and the meaning of this word can only be understood in the framework of Greek verbal morphology. Many Greek verbs have alternative forms like this.
The translation should be “who will die” or “who is about to die” (like moriturus), and, to correct what I wrote earlier, not necessarily “who will be dead.”
Markos, Are you suggesting that there’s no essential difference between morituri and cadavera in this context (or indeed in any context)? That is quite indefensible. Surely you can see that?
No, I’m not suggesting that. I don’t know, though, how, in the real world, this would be said in English. “We are the dead, Mr. President. We salute you.” I read recently that playing in the NFL reduces your life expectancy by about 30 years.
…or indeed in any context?
Maybe Orwell:
We are the dead.
Then I shall quit while I am ahead. 
A lot of the techniques for teaching modern languages do not especially rely on native speakers. When I was doing a Teaching English as a Foreign Language the most important technique was paired listening between non-native speakers.
And we don’t just have the written texts.
The recordings in Rico’s Polis are not of native speakers but they as lively as if they were and by engaging an extra sense they are more memorable.
And trying to work out what is being said by listening means that you have to be more intuitive (this applies to recordings of real ancient Greek texts as much as of the Polis recordings.
Which isn’t to say I would feel comfortable junking the traditional methods entirely (or am displaying a failure to decide between the two approaches? 
)
Is this the elusive future perfect? :3
Smyth analyzes this as a future perfect, although in the examples above it seems more like a pure future:
LSJ seems to view this as a pure future.
The rare and elusive future perfect is usually formed by adding -σομαι to the perfect middle stem, but θνῄσκω doesn’t normally have a perfect middle stem.
To be sure, the semantic difference between future and future perfect for this verb would seem to be very slight–“to be about to die” vs. “to be about to be dead,” but the examples cited above seem to call for a future, rather than a future perfect, interpretation: “about to undergo the act/process of dying.”
As someone pointed out, wouldn’t future perfect be accented τεθνηξομένος and future τεθνηξόμενος?