John, the Beginning, and A. Greek Nominatives.

Tags

ancient green, bible, koine greek, languages, philology, st john

Today we should do a bit of Greek, and compare with other languages:

ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος (John 1:1)
In the beginning, the word was [in existence].
En el comienzo, la palabra existía [de por sí].
Verbum In principium erat.

Consider in all cases ‘word’ takes a nominative case, meaning it precedes the verb. In this sense, the translation ‘there was the word’ is incorrect. ‘The word existed/was’ is the correct translation here. Also, ‘in the beginning’ is a Greek Dative indicating ‘place in which.’ Meaning that, in the beginning, whenever that was, the Word (it) was in existence. In the Ancient Greek, ‘the word’ is definitely masculine; in the Spanish feminine, the English makes no distinction, and the Latin makes it neuter. What is the problem here?

‘To be’ is a transitive verb, so we want to write something afterwards. What I think John is getting at here is that ‘the word’ existed of its own accord prior to the universe; in other words, it did not need the existence of a universe to be, just like he makes the transitive verb not need the existence of a Direct Object to be in and of itself alive. We can definitely see why this bit of Greek has brought so many discussions on the nature of divinity.

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Publius Syrus on the Dangers of Danger

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danger, dangers, languages, latin, philology, Publius Syrus

Let’s take a look at the Latin of Publilius Syrus, a well-known maker of ‘sententiae’ (sentences) which, apparently, was appreciated in Rome; let us see why:

Numquam perīculum sine perīculo vincēmus.
We will never conquer danger without danger.
Nunca conquistaremos el peligro sin peligro.
Μὴποτε νικάσω τὸν φόβον ἅνευ φόβου.

Notice two things:

1. Publilius cleverly makes use of a definite concept (danger) while comparing it to an indefinite one (dangers – in general) to complement it. In English, we could say: ‘We will never conquer [the] dangers (we face) without [a] danger (of failure).’ The Spanish represents this well because it uses an article to speak of the definite danger we have in mind, while not one at all for the danger we do not know is associated with making our decision. The Ancient Greek does the same thing as the Spanish and adds an article to the accusative form of the noun and not at all for the genitive.

2. ‘Conquer’ in Ancient Greek (and modern, I believe) is ‘Nike’ as in the shoes, the brand taking advantage of the goddess Victory icon.