The Expositor 6th Series vol. IX (1904): 359-68.
The digital form was graciously edited by Christopher Pfohl at Gordon College, 2006.
CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK (Pt. 4).
J. H. Moulton
IV
BEFORE we begin to examine the conditions of Hellenistic
syntax, which must obviously hold the first place for the
student of New Testament exegesis, it will be well to spend
some time upon the forms, which give us the surest evi-
dence as to the position occupied by the sacred writers
between the literary and the illiterate Greek of their time.
The question naturally arises, how far we can be sure that
we possess the exact forms that were used by the writers
themselves. May not our best MSS. have conformed the
orthography to the popular style, just as those of the
“Syrian” text conformed it in some respects to the literary
standards? We cannot give a universal answer to the
question, for, as we have seen already, the rise of an
artificial orthography undoubtedly left the door open for
not a few uncertainties. But there are some suggestive
signs that the great uncials, in this respect as in others,
are not far away from the autographs. A very instructive
phenomenon is the curious substitution of ἐάν for ἄν after
ὅς, ὅπου, etc., which W.H. have faithfully reproduced in
numberless places from the MSS. This was so little recog-
nized as a genuine feature of vernacular Greek that the
editors of the volumes of papyri began by gravely subscrib-
ing “1. ἄν” wherever this abnormal form showed itself.
They were soon compelled to save themselves the trouble.
Deissmann (p. 204) gave a considerable list from the papyri,
which abundantly proved the genuineness of this ἐάν;
and four years later (1901) the material had grown so much
that it was possible to determine the time-limits of the
peculiarity with fair certainty. If my count is right,1 the
1 Class. Rev. xv. 32. I have not brought the count up to date in the two
subsequent articles (xv. 434, xviii. 106), but the results would not be
weakened if this were done.
359
360 CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.
proportion of ἐάν to ἄν is 1:2 in papyri dated B.C. But
the estimate was based on only 12 occurrences. The pro-
portion was soon reversed, being 25:7 in the first century
A.D., 76:9 in the second, 9:3 in the third, 4:8 in the fourth.
e]a<n occurs last in a sixth century papyrus. It will be seen
that the construction itself was specially common in the first
two centuries A.D., when ἐάν greatly predominated, and that
the fashion had almost died away before the great uncials
were written. It seems to follow that in this small point
the uncials faithfully reproduce originals written under
conditions which had passed away in their time.1 This
particular example affords us a very good test, but we may
reinforce it with a variety of cases where the MSS. accu-
rately reproduce the spelling of the first century. I will
follow the order of the material in W.H. App. 141 ff.
(“Notes on Orthography”): it will not be necessary to
give detailed references for the papyrus evidence, which
will be found fully stated in the three Classical Review
papers already cited. We must bear in mind from the first
Hort's caution (p. 141) that “all our MSS. have to a
greater or less extent suffered from the effacement of un-
classical forms of words,” and his statement that the
Western MSS. show the reverse tendency. “The ortho-
graphy of common life, which to a certain extent was used
1 The case of ἄν, if, is separate. In the New Testament it is confined
apparently to the Fourth Gospel, where it occurs six times. In the
papyri it is decidedly a symptom of illiteracy. With this agrees what
Meisterhans3 255 f. says: “Only six times is ἄν found from the 5th to the
3rd cent. B.C. The form ἄν, is entirely foreign to the Attic inscriptions,
though it is often found in the Ionicising literary prose of the 5th cent.
(Thucydides, cf. the tragedians).” Since ἄν is the modern form, we may
perhaps regard it as a dialect variant which ultimately ousted the Attic
ἐάν, but it is hard to say why the Gospel has it and why the Apocalypse
has not. There is some difficulty in determining the dialect to which it
is to be assigned. Against Meisterhans’ suggestion of Ionic stands the
opinion of H. W. Smyth (Ionic Dialect, p. 609) that its occasional appear-
ances in Ionic are due to Atticising! Certainly ἤν is the ordinary Ionic
form, but ἄν may have been Ionic as well, though rarer. (So Mr. P. Giles.)
CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 361
by all the writers of the New Testament, though in unequal
degrees, would naturally be introduced more freely in texts
affected by an instinct of popular adaptation.” He would
be a bold man who would claim that even Hort had said
the last word on the problem of the Western Text; but
with our new knowledge of the essentially popular character
of New Testament Greek as a whole, we shall naturally
pay special attention to documents which desert the
classical spelling for that which we find prevailing in
papyri written by men of education approximately parallel
with that of the apostolic writers.
The case of λήμψομαι, comes first (p. 142). The intrusion
of the m from the present stem of λαμβάνω into various parts
of the verb, and into derivative nouns, is well set after the
Ptolemaic period, in which there is still some lingering of
the older forms. It is therefore unnecessary to show that
the late uncials, in restoring the classical forms, are desert-
ing the unquestioned pronunciation of the first century.
The
“unusual aspirated forms” (p. 143) ε'φ' ἑλπίδι, καθ' ἱδίαν,
ἄφιδε, etc., and οὐχ ὁλίγος are supported by
a large body
of evidence from papyri. It is rather strange that καθ' ἕτος
does not appear in the MSS.; as in the other cases, there
is a struggle between the two types, but the modern ἐφέτο
shows that the aspirate here triumphed. It is of course
impossible to set this phenomenon down to the defunct
digamma: it doubtless originates from analogy processes
within the Κοινή itself (so Thumb), which accounts for the
uncertain tradition. We cannot prove either one or the
other for the New Testament autographs, but we have
already seen good reason for trusting the uncial tradition
in places where we have the means of checking it.
Occasional deaspiration (p. 144) is part of the general
tendency towards psilosis which started from Ionic influ-
ences and became universal, as Modern Greek shows.
The mention of ταμεῖον (p. 146—add πεῖν from p. 170)
362 CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.
brings up a universal sound-change of Hellenistic, the
coalescence of two following i sounds. Ταμεῖον πεῖν and
ὑγεία are overwhelmingly attested by the papyri, where
there are only rare examples of a curious reversion like that
in Matthew xx. 22. In the form ἁλεεῖς (Mark i. 17 al.) we
have dissimilation instead of contraction. Three isolated
spellings on p. 148 are instructive. Ἀβραβών “seems to be
only Western.” In the papyri I counted 11 exx. of this
against 12 of ρρ, a curious modification of the results of
Deissmann (p. 183), which were obtained from the Berlin
and Rainer papyri only. The word will serve as evidence
of the inaccessibility of the autographs’ spelling except
where the papyri are unanimous: cf. Deissmann’s observa-
tions, p. 181. Next comes σφυρίς, which is invariable in
the papyri after the Ptolemaic period. Ζμύρνα is regarded
by W.H. as Western; but though the papyri and inscrip-
tions waver (Deissmann, 185), it surely ought to be trans-
ferred from margin to text on the evidence of the first
century Smyrnaean coins. The next cases of importance
appear on p. 150. Ἐραυνάω is certain for the first century
and after. Hort's account of τέσσαρες and τεσσαράκοντα
gives us our first example of dissonance between the papyri
and the uncials. The forms with e are in the papyri
relatively few, and distinctly illiterate, in the first centuries
A.D. Indeed the evidence for forms of τέσσερες is virtually
nil before the Byzantine age, and there is not the smallest
probability that the Apostles wrote anything but the Attic
form. For τεσσεράκοντα the case is a little better, but it is
hopelessly outnumbered by the -αρ- form in documents which
antedate the uncials; the modern σεράντα, side by side
with σαράντα, shows that the strife continued. No doubt
before the fourth century τέσσερες -α (not τεσσέρων) had
begun to establish themselves in the place they hold to-day.
Finally might be mentioned one or two notable matters of
pronunciation to which Hort does not refer. The less
CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 363
educated papyrus writers very frequently use ā for au, from
the first century B.C. onwards. Its frequent appearance in
Attic inscriptions after 74 B.C. is noted by Meisterhans
(Gramm. d. Att. Inschr.3 154). In Luke ii. 1 ( Ἀγούστου)
this pronunciation shows itself, according to x C* D; but
we do not seem to find ἀυτός, ἐατόν, etc., in the MSS., as we
should have expected.1
We pass on to the noun flexion (p. 156). Nouns in – ρᾶ
and participles in – υῖα in the papyri regularly form genitive
and dative in –ης -η, except that –υίας –υίᾳ are still found in
the Ptolemaic period. Here again the oldest uncials alone—
and even they are not without lapses—support the unmis-
takable verdict of the contemporary documents of the Κοινή.
It seems best on the whole to regard this as the analogical
assimilation of -ρă nouns (and—somewhat later and less
markedly—υῖα participles) to the other -ă flexions of
the 1st declension, rather than as Ionic survivals.2 It may
be added that as μάχαιρα produced μαχαίρης on the model
of δόξα and δόξης, so Νύμφης as a proper name produced
what is best read as Νύμφă Νύμφăν in nom. and acc. (Col.
iv. 15): it is quite feasible to keep the best reading here with-
out postulating a Doric Νύμφāν, the improbability of which
decides Lightfoot for the alternative. The heteroclite proper
names, which fluctuate between 1st and 3rd decl., are
paralleled by Egyptian place-names in papyri. In contracted
nouns and adjectives we have abundant parallels for forms
like ὀστέων, χρυσέων, and for χρυςᾶν (formed by analogy of
1 In Modern Greek (see Thumb, Grammatik, p. 59) we find αὐτός (pro-
nounced aftós) side by side with ἀτός (obsolete except in Pontos), whence
the short form τό, etc. There was therefore a dialectic difference in the
Κοινή itself.
2 In connexion with this I might mention an Ionic Κοινή feature which
I expected to find more often in New Testament MSS., the spelling
κιθώη, which (like λ'θυιρα and ἐνθαῦτα) occurs not infrequently in papyri.
I can only find in Tischendorf's apparatus χειθῶνας D* (Matt. x. 10) and
Κιτῶνας B* (Mark xiv. 63— “ut alibi א,” says the editor, but not stating
where).
364 CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.
ἀργυρᾶν). The fact that we do not find short forms of
nouns in –ιος -ιον (e.g. κύρις, παιδίν) is a noteworthy test of
the educational standard of the writers, for the papyri show
them even as early as the third century B.C., and always in
company with other indications of comparative illiteracy.
These forms, the origin of which is as dark as ever, despite
the various efforts of Hatzidakis, Brugmann and others to
unravel it, ultimately won a monopoly, as modern Greek
shows everywhere. Passing lightly over the exact corre-
spondence between uncials and papyri in the accusatives of
κλείς and χάρις (p. 157), we may note the case of χεῖραν in
John xx. 25 א*AB. The great frequency of this formation
in uneducated papyri, which adequately foreshadows its
victory in modern Greek,1 naturally produced sporadic
examples in the MSS., but it is not at all likely that the
autographs showed it, unless possibly in the Apocalypse.
Gregory (Tisch.-Gregory, 118 f.) adds notes of forms
like ἀσφαλῆν and ποδήρην, which have also papyrus parallels,
but could be explained more easily from the analogy of 1st
decl. nouns. Μείζων acc. (John v. 36 ABEGMD) is a good
example of the irrational addition of n, which seems to
have been added after long vowels almost as freely as the
equally unpronounced i.2 Before leaving the nouns and
adjectives we must mention the indeclinable πλήρης, which
should be read in Mark iv. 28 (C*, Hort) and Acts vi. 5
(אAC*DEHP al.), and is probably to be recognized in John
i. 14. Cf. 2 John 8 (L), Mark viii. 19 (AFGM al.), Acts vi. 3
(AEHP al.), xix. 28 (AEL 13), which show that in every
New Testament occurrence of an oblique case of this word
we find the indeclinable form recognized in good uncials.
1 It seems most probable that the modern levelling of 1st and 3rd decl.
started with this accusative : the ν has vanished again now. See Thumb,
Grammatik, pp. 28, 35.
2 Thus ἅλωι is acc. sing., while ἦν (=ῇ) may be subjunctive. For exx.
see Class. Rev. xviii. 108.
CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 365
My papyrus citations for this1 virtually begin, however, with
the second century, and I should hardly credit the New
Testament autographs with the form. This probably means
that in John i. 14 an original πλήρη was corrupted to the
vulgar πλύρης in an early copy. Weiss and others would
make it depend in sense upon αὐτοῦ, but δόξαν seems more
appropriate, from the whole trend of the sentence: the
“glory” or “self-revelation” of the Saviour is “full of grace
and truth.” One may doubt whether it would have occurred
to any one to make a parenthesis of -καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα. . .
πατρός, had it not been for the supposed necessity of
construing πλήρης with a nominative. In fine, we regard
the Codex Bezae as having either preserved or successfully
restored the true reading.2
I might cite very many more noun forms in which the
MSS. prove to have retained the genuine Hellenistic, as
evidenced by the papyri; but these typical examples will
serve. Verbs naturally produce yet more abundant material,
but we need not cite it here, as our present purpose is only
to show how such a text as Westcott and Hort's, scrupulously
reflecting the best uncials, is in all important features, and
in most of the minutiae, supported as genuinely Hellenistic
by papyrus evidence published long after their text was
made—a conclusion valuable because of the criteria it gives
us for estimating the general grammatical condition of our
texts. Pursuing the order of W.H. app., we pause a
moment on the dropped augments, etc., in pp. 161 f., which
are well illustrated in papyri. The attachment of 1st
1 See also C. Turner in Journ. Theol. Stud., i. 120 fr. and 561 f.;
Rademacher in Rhein. Mus., lvii. 151 ; Reinhold De Graecitate Patrum,
53.
2 Winer, p. 705, compares the “grammatically independent” plh<rhj
clause with the nom. in Phil. iii. 19, and Mark xii. 40. Dr. Moulton
makes no remark there, but in his joint commentary with Dr. Milligan
he accepts the construction of John i. 14 found in the R.V., or permits his
colleague to do so. Of course the case for the indeclinable πλήρης was.
before him only in the LXX. (as Job xxi. 24 BאAC).
366 CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.
aorist endings to 2nd aorists is universal in our Κοινή;
documents, and the MSS. here undeniably reproduce in
general the forms of the autographs. Whether the intrusion
should be allowed in the imperfect (as εἶχαν Mark viii. 7)
is more than doubtful, as the papyri give hardly any war-
rant. The imperfect and aorist 3rd pl. -οσαν receives little
encouragement, and the 2nd sing. perf. -ες still less: they are
both marks of illiteracy. The 3rd pl. perf. -αν makes a much
better show in the papyri, but though already common in
Ptolemaic documents can hardly be regarded as established
for the New Testament autographs: like the perf. -ες, it
might be allowed in the Apocalypse. Passing on to con-
tract verbs, we note how the confusion between -αω) and –έω
forms (p. 166) are supported by our external evidence, and
by Modern Greek. Our first serious revolt from Westcott
and Hort will be in the infinitive in –οῖν (and by analogy
-ᾷν). The evidence for it is “small, but of good quality”
(p. 166—cf. Introd. § 410): it is in fact confined to B*D in
Matthew xiii. 32, B* in Mark iv. 32, א* in 1 Peter ii. 15, BD*
in Hebrews vii. 5 (where see Tischendorf's note), and a lection-
ary in Luke ix. 31. This evidence might pass if the object is
merely to reproduce the spelling of the scribe of B, but there
is absolutely no corroboration that I know of earlier than
the date of B itself, except a second century inscription cited
in Hatzidakis’ Einleitung, p.193.1 Blass, Gram. 48, does not
regard the form as established for the New Testament. I
can quote against it from centuries 1-4 eleven examples
of -οῦν in papyri. That -οῦν and -ᾶν (not -ᾷν) are the correct
Attic forms may be seen from Meisterhans3 175 f., which
Hort's hesitation as to – ᾶν prompts me to quote: for the
reason of the apparent irregularity see Brugmann, Griech.
Gramm.3 61, or Winer-Schmiedel 42. Next may be named
for -αω verbs the 2nd sing. pres. mid. in -ᾶσαι (καυχᾶσαι, ὀδυν-
1 So Winer-Schmiedel, p. 116 (note). There are two other inscriptions
cited by Hatzidakis, but without dates.
CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK. 367
ᾶσαι), which has been formed afresh in the Κοινή with the
help of the -σαι that answers to 3rd sing. -tai in the perfect.1
It is well paralleled by the early Ptolemaic future χαριεῖσαι.
I have, unfortunately, no examples of the subjunctive of –όω
verbs, with which to attack the parsing of ἱνα ζηλοῦτε and
the like (p. 167). Blass (Kühner3 i. 2. 587, and New Testa-
ment Gram. 48) accepts Hort's view that the subjunctive of
these verbs became identical with the indicative, just as it
always was in the –άω verbs. But he, rightly I think, rejects
the supposition that εὐοδῶται, (1 Cor. xvi. 2) is anything but
a pres. subj. To read εὐόδωται, as perf. indic., is possible,
though the editors do not seem by their printing to have
favoured that alternative. That it is a perfect subjunc-
tive is extremely unlikely. The parallels on which Hort
(p. 172) relies—set forth with important additions in Blass's
Kühner, i. 2. 100 f.—do nothing to make it likely that the
Κοινή had any perf. subj. apart from the ordinary peri-
phrastic form.2 It is hard, moreover, to see why the present
subjunctive is not satisfactory here: see Dr. Findlay's note
in loc.
The verbs in -μι, were naturally in Hellenistic pursuing
the process of painless extinction which began even in
Homeric Greek, and in modern Greek has eliminated every-
thing outside the verb “be.” The papyri agree with the
New Testament uncials in showing forms like δύνομαι, and
-έδετο (as well as –έδοτο), and various derivatives from con-
tract verb types. New verbs like ἱστάνω are formed, and
new tenses like ἕστăκα, and the doubly augmented form
1 To suppose this (or φάγεσαι, similarly formed from φάγεται) genuine
survivals of the pre-Greek -esai, is a characteristic feat of the antediluvian
philology which still frequently does duty in this country.
2 To argue this would demand a very technical discussion. It is
enough to say that the Attic κεκτῶμαι and μεμνῶμαι are not derivative
verbs, and that the three derivative verbs which can be quoted, from
Doric, Cretan, and Ionic respectively, are very small encouragement for a
supposed Κοινή parallel.
368 CHARACTERISTICS OF NEW TESTAMENT GREEK.
ἀπεκατεστάθην is well attested. What is more important
the subjunctives διδοῖ, and δοῖ, are set on a completely satis-
factory basis, so that the idea that they are irregular
optatives (as they may possibly be in late documents) need
trouble us no more. From οἶδα we have as in New Testa-
ment the flexion as an ordinary perfect, but there are rarely
found survivals of the old forms. Finally there is εἰμί which
shows middle forms ἤμην, etc., and ἤτω parallel with ἔστω,
just as in the New Testament.
With this we may leave spelling and inflexions and push
on to the syntax, which will compensate the New Testa-
ment student, I hope, for the dry bones he has had to be
satisfied with in this chapter of our subject. But though
the minutiae of accidence may be dull to those who are not
professed philologists, it will be allowed that forms must be
settled before we can start discussing their uses; and it is
also very clear that they give us our surest criteria for local-
izing texts and for testing the detailed accuracy of our
documents. With this plea I hope to be forgiven on promise
of an effort to be more interesting next time.
James Hope Moulton.
Digitally prepared by Ted Hildebrandt for biblicalearning.org