What’s the story with διαπαρατριβή vs. παραδιατριβή?
Are they the same word in different forms or different word?
Was it simply a transcription error on Stephanus (1550)'s part?
Was Stephanus a classical scholar, with more freedom to emmend the text, or was he part or a precursor to the modern quest for the original text?
Is there validity in analysing the mechamical morphology as δια “constant, over a long time” added to παρατριβή “friction” and παρα “wrongly” διατριβή “use of time for an activity”?
Readings from the TR are generally ignored in contemporary biblical studies. I found one reference[1] to this in a 2016 dissertation University of Edinburgh. There was no discussion of the variant but it was included in the apparatus. In the second half of the 19th century the TR was a hot topic. Henry Alford has this to say:
incessant quarrels (δια- gives the sense of continuance; παρατριβή, primarily ‘friction,’ is found in later writers in the sense of irritating provocation, or hostile collision: so Polyb. ii. 36. 5, τὰ μὲν οὖν κατὰ Καρχηδονίους καὶ Ῥωμαίους ἀπὸ τούτων ἤδη τῶν καιρῶν ἐν ὑποψίαις ἦν πρὸς ἀλλήλους καὶ παρατριβαῖς:—xxiii. 10. 4, διὰ τὴν πρὸς τὸν Φιλοποίμενα παρατριβήν: see also iv. 21. 5; xxi. 13. 5; xxiv. 3. 4. According to the other reading, παρά would give the sense of useless, vain, perverse, and διατριβή would be disputation, thus giving the sense ‘perverse disputing,’ as E. V. Chrys., Œc., Thdrt., explain our word ἀπὸ μεταφορᾶς τῶν ψωραλέων προβάτων (Œc.): and Chrys. says, καθάπερ τὰ ψωραλέα τῶν προβάτων παρατριβόμενα νόσου καὶ τὰ ὑγιαίνοντα ἐμπίπλησιν, οὕτω καὶ οὗτοι οἱ πονηροὶ ἄνδρες) of men depraved in mind (reff.; and see Ellic. on the psychology and construction) and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is gain (lit., ‘a gainful trade,’ as Conyb.: see reff.:—and therefore do not teach contentment and acquiescence in God’s providence, as in ver. 6: but strive to make men discontented, and persuade them to use religion as a means of worldly bettering themselves).
[1] διαπαρατριβαι rell ] διατριβαι K; παραδιατριβαι 2423
page 466, The Text of the Pauline Epistles and Hebrews in Clement of Alexandria
By Maegan C.M. Gilliland
Thesis Submitted for the degree of PhD at the
University of Edinburgh School of Divinity 2016
Here is Evelyn S. Shuckburgh’s 1889 translation from Perseus:
[I guess that somewhere in the transmission from translator’s intent to the digital presentation of that translation that we now have, the “n” in “suspicions” was inverted.]
The patristic evidence for διαπαρατριβαί is fairly substantial, most of it quoting 1Tim.6:5.
Bauer (Danker 3rd ed.)
that which is characterized by constant argumentativeness and therefore irritating, wrangling pl. frictional wranglings
Lampe
rubbing up against, friction
The evidence from the surrounding context in 1Tim 6 and the patristic sources looks substantial if you compare lexical evidence used for many hapaxlegomona in the Hebrew Bible.
There are about 1,500 of these in the Old Testament; but only 400 are, strictly, “hapax legomena”; i.e., are either absolutely new coinages of roots, or can not be derived in their formation or in their specific meaning from other occurring stems. JewishEncyclopedia.com
That is quite a technical sense that he is using. I wonder if that is the limit of the word’s meaning in all contexts, or whether the authour is using a word with a general meaning in a technical sense in this diatribe?
Yes, it would have to be. Matthäi mentions that he saw it once with this accentuation, and he would prefer it, but it had no other support. (At least that’s what I think he said. His note is in Latin, which I can’t read well. I’ll post it later.). I like διαπαρατριβαί myself.
EDIT:
Christian Friedrich von Matthäi’s Novum Testamentum Graece.
